The Lessons Not Learned.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Thordan was fairly interesting (even if "the church is evil" is one of the most obvious plot twists ever for anyone who's ever played a JPRG before), but most of the Heavens' Ward were set dressing. Only three of them even do anything outside of the Vault and the Singularity Reactor. They get a little more story in Encyclopedia Eorzea, but that doesn't really help in the game.

I think the main reason Heavensward and Shadowbringers get higher marks, at least for me, is that they're clearly telling one story, rather than two. Stormblood has a very uneven split between the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs, and Endwalker is pretty blatant about being two expansions crammed together, with both suffering for it, especially in pacing.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Thordan was fairly interesting (even if "the church is evil" is one of the most obvious plot twists ever for anyone who's ever played a JPRG before), but most of the Heavens' Ward were set dressing. Only three of them even do anything outside of the Vault and the Singularity Reactor. They get a little more story in Encyclopedia Eorzea, but that doesn't really help in the game.

I think the main reason Heavensward and Shadowbringers get higher marks, at least for me, is that they're clearly telling one story, rather than two. Stormblood has a very uneven split between the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs, and Endwalker is pretty blatant about being two expansions crammed together, with both suffering for it, especially in pacing.

To me Thordan is a villian written to just "show up and be a villian" there was no nuance to it besides the usual "lust for power" and wanted to keep control oh his own people despite the ignorance in history. For characters like that, I would've at least preferred if he was entertaining or had unique odd quirks to make him stand out and memorable like Vauthry....actually yeah...LIKE VAUTHRY. He was in the same position and goals as Thordan yet he did a lot more in his villany and had a good personality and quirk to boot. But he wasnt and how I would've loved if they gave each Heavensward knight at least some screentime to show us their reasons and motivations for what they were doing. Didnnt need to be much but SOMETHING at least in-game and like you said, we only got 3 out of them doing just that and even then it was lackluster.

Yeah it told one story for sure and it worked for me but honestly it was kinda "boring"? I suppose this is why I enjoyed ARR, SB and EW a bit better because I enjoy stories that have us travel and see more of the world, despite the pacing issues. If its just one story, I just get reminded of how other games tackled this story much better as Ive said with Final Fantasy Tactics or Tales of Symphonia. Its not the game's fault, due to it being an MMO and no matter what, the story pacing in a quest based MMO will always be inferior to the more better presented single player experiences in other games.

[RukoBoshi]

Thordan was fairly interesting (even if "the church is evil" is one of the most obvious plot twists ever for anyone who's ever played a JPRG before), but most of the Heavens' Ward were set dressing. Only three of them even do anything outside of the Vault and the Singularity Reactor. They get a little more story in Encyclopedia Eorzea, but that doesn't really help in the game.

I think the main reason Heavensward and Shadowbringers get higher marks, at least for me, is that they're clearly telling one story, rather than two. Stormblood has a very uneven split between the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs, and Endwalker is pretty blatant about being two expansions crammed together, with both suffering for it, especially in pacing.

That's also why i prefer HW and SHB, the fact that they are both self contained story allow them to focus on a new unique plot (i consider the ascians backstory to be completely new).

Stormblood and Endwalker are both plagued by having to follow up multiple stories (Ala Mhigo or Garlemald) while introducing new plots and areas at the same time.

It's a weird patchwork of unrelated places that each have their individual story.
Endwalker having to introduce Radz-at-han, Sharlayan or Elpis while dealing with Garlemald or the moon, makes the plot too spread out and unfocused.

Cramming two expansions worth of areas and stories, while having to finish the current storyline is a hard task. Especially when your a follow up to Shadowbringers.
Despite the expansion story feeling a bit rushed, I think the devs manage to arrive at a satisfying results even if it isn't on par with the previous expansion imo.