Quote Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk View Post
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.