Endwalker vs shadowbringers story, which did you enjoy more and why? (spoilers)

[Kyohei]

There are still potential loose threads in the catastrophic aftermath of not only the Final Days but whatever the dissipation of Zodiark and Hydaelyn has done to the Lifestream.
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They do touch a bit on this already during crafters/gatherers' quests in Sharlayan, would be nice if it continued indeed.

Also, I preferred Shadowbringers since Endwalker failed to deliver the quality that could've followed ShB. Sadly I'll keep seeing this last base story expansion as a wasted potential and nothing will change it as it is the finale.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Shadowbringer wins for me.

Endwalker has a similar ‘too much issue too little time’-syndrome that Stormblood similarly suffers from. There are also some sore points in the story where grave matters are handled in all-too-familiar ’with the power of friendship’-solution; or overall just seemed to happen without stakes on hand.

Final Days descends upon Thavnair? It’s alright. It won’t spread elsewhere.
Possessed by your nemesis? Oh don’t worry, everybody’s favorite scions have plot armor that are too thick to pierce; not even WoL can pierce that!
WoL fought to their last bits of energy & knocking on the death’s door? Don’t worry, a cast of Cure I & Diagnosis is enough to get them alive and kicking again!

[Gemina]

My disappointment with Endwalker stems from Elpis. I predicted our journey to the World Unsundered was going to be an expansion in itself. The First being just a reflection got this treatment, yet the entirety of all 14 and no void to speak of back then; and we get one zone? Talk about squandering away one hella huge opportunity for the sake of bringing the current story to a close.

ShB also has to include our clash with Elidibus, which happens post MSQ; while EW only gets the initial release to tell its story in which they cram the two most powerful known gods, and sprinkle on an Endsinger who we get less than a patch to attach to all the while our beloved final boss from the previous expansion gets to narrate the whole thing to make everyone not even think about the major setbacks I just mentioned. That's like getting Tom Hanks to tell us about an economic recession.

So yeah, I have a LOT of problems with EW, and ShB wins this, handedly. I don't hate EW though. Some things it did really well. I want to say up to the moon is absolutely flawless, then it starts falling apart from there.

[Rulakir]

I rank both ShB and HW above EW, which is around SB.

Thematically, EW was a huge miss for me. The messaging was full of platitudes. I think Fandaniel is the worst antagonist we've ever had, he was annoying and his motivations weren't compelling. The Final Days was a lot of nothing, so was Zodiark. As much as I loved Elpis, I loathed the time loop which ruined it. I recoiled at the celebration of Venat, which is a whole other rant in itself. I also thought the post-Endsinger scene was dumb, we could've just held hands with her in Elpis and avoided everything. :P Garlemald, one of the better aspects of the expansion, was way too short.

There wasn't much I disliked about ShB. Mostly the trolley and the talos.

[Gemina]

The thing about Fandaniel is he plays his part in the story very well. He is flawed, incompetent, emotionally driven, and will always find a way to screw up as a result. I'm even willing to bet that losing a shard to the void was very likely mostly his eff up. Nobody was more suited to bring back their lord only to lose him immediately; then go on to think his grand scheme was fulfilled, only to lose completely in the end.

They even chose the most rotten, hateful, rat-arse piece of scum to house his essence. Trust me, everything you feel about Fandaniel is intended.

[Duskane]

personally i think ShB was a miss for me
they really kicked sin eaters to the side to push Ascians back into the narrative really a concept that should have stuck around longer and post shb msq is horrendously mediocre till elidibus.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I'm even willing to bet that losing a shard to the void was very likely mostly his eff up.

According to Encyclopedia Eorzea, that was Igeyorhm's fault.

[KageTokage]

personally i think ShB was a miss for me
they really kicked sin eaters to the side to push Ascians back into the narrative really a concept that should have stuck around longer and post shb msq is horrendously mediocre till elidibus.

I'm kind of hoping they don't go the same route with the blasphemies and we spend at least some part of the 6.x cycle or even future expansions dealing with a lingering threat posed by them; moreso when the turning incidents realistically would've been happening the world over.

I'd especially want to see them as A/S rank hunt marks in some future zones.

[Rannie]

According to Encyclopedia Eorzea, that was Igeyorhm's fault.

Also according to Emet-Selch as well =)

[Jojoya]

I enjoyed Shadowbringers more.

I think Endwalker had two problems.

First is pacing. They squeezed 2 expansion's worth of story into a single expansion. It would have made more sense if 6.0 was dealing with the towers and Garlemald, 6-1 to 6.3 Fandaniel and Zodiark, 6.4-6.5 meet the Loporrits and see the start of the Final Days, then 7.0 discovering the cause of the Final Days and ending the threat. They did a pretty good job of consolidating that much story into a single expansion main MSQ but it was still less than it might have been.

Second is the new escort/follow mechanics introduced. Because they were new, they ended up distracting from the story.

The escort quests are plain annoying. Having large glowing circles appear on the ground is very immersion breaking. I think back to Stormblood and Hancock escorting us through Kugane on our arrival, and preferred that much more. If I needed to break away from the quest for a few minutes to help a friend, I could then return to where I left off. Now? Can't move away to help a friend. Can't use an aethernet or mount up. If you do not run every step of the way with your NPCs in tow, you're forced to start over from scratch or retrace your steps to try to figure out where the NPC was left behind. That's bad quest design.

The follow quests are a bit better but they didn't always make sense. Why on earth did we have to play hide and seek with Urianger when he wanted us to follow him so we could talk?

It would have been better for SE to introduce the escort/follow quests in the post-main MSQ patches so we would be used to them, same as they did when introducing the RP duties in Stormblood. That way we would have been used to them and they would have been less distracting to the story.