"The Discourse is Dumb and Endwalker is FINE" - Wesk Alber

[Nebelheim]

The video is basically "Oh heavansward is just as bad or worse then what people say about endwalkers therefore endwalkers is really actually great and a masterpiece everybody". And of course the op playing victim and how everyone is attacking him because of a horrible bait video saying heavansward is just as bad or worse then endwalkers so somehow it makes all endwalkers flaws and horrible story is somehow better or justified for how bad this expansion was in terms of story and content longevity.

[Volgia]

I saw that video and I'm still like, is it "fine" though? There's a huge disatisfaction with this expansion (post patch at least) that I didn't see in SB or ShB, I know there's a lot of boring doomsayers at the end of each expansion but never have I felt the community give a collective "Meh" like in post-patch Endwalker.

[Nebelheim]

I saw that video and I'm still like, is it "fine" though? There's a huge disatisfaction with this expansion (post patch at least) that I didn't see in SB or ShB, I know there's a lot of boring doomsayers at the end of each expansion but never have I felt the community give a collective "Meh" like in post-patch Endwalker.

The video just seems like someone crapping on heavansward saying it's worse then endwalkers then trying to justify that endwalkers is fine despite a big population being dissatisfied. Because now we need videos of counteracting the videoes that are deemed "too negative and doomposty" with positivity videos. All the video seems to be is "see heavansward is just as bad as endwalkers so endwalkers is fine as it is". Trying to say one expansion is as crap or worse then the current one to try to divert criticism away from the current expansion isn't very helpful for the current expansion.

[Mayhemmer]

I watched Wesk's video yesterday and it's... okay. It's more of a "Heavensward was already the worst expansion and I can prove it" thing but he does make some good arguments on why EW isn't the mess some others say it is.

I was going to watch it, but decided against it. I find most videos of this kind tend to just boil down to misdirects or have the whole "It's fine if you don't think about it much" message. I had a whole big thing written out here that I deleted because who cares. Point is, I think a lot of the harshness of the critique around EW stems from the concern players have that Dawntrail and beyond will just be a repeat of the same structure and formula. Not to say EW doesn't have it's issues. The longevity and fun-factor of a lot of it's additions are very underwhelming. I don't want a repeat of EW's structure, I want new ideas, and for them to take the best ideas they've had and build upon them in ways that grab me like I'm playing something for the first time again.

[iVolke]

I'm just saying, if Zepla never made her video the sentiment toward the game wouldn't be this bad right now. It is not the most exciting endgame for an expansion, I agree, but she threw the stone that shattered the glass ceiling. Now it's just trendy to make videos echoing that opinion, as someone cleverly said, "rent is due, time to make an endwalker bad video".

Stop giving Zepla the entire credit for criticism some of the playerbase has been talking about for months.

You can literally scroll through this very forum and see the exact points she makes in various threads.

You think she caused this sentiment? No, quite the opposite. She is a symptom of it. You know things are bad when the overly positive newbie youtuber is making a video criticizing the expansion.

[Nebelheim]

I was going to watch it, but decided against it. I find most videos of this kind tend to just boil down to misdirects or have the whole "It's fine if you don't think about it much" message. I had a whole big thing written out here that I deleted because who cares. Point is, I think a lot of the harshness of the critique around EW stems from the concern players have that Dawntrail and beyond will just be a repeat of the same structure and formula. Not to say EW doesn't have it's issues. The longevity and fun-factor of a lot of it's additions are very underwhelming. I don't want a repeat of EW's structure, I want new ideas, and for them to take the best ideas they've had and build upon them in ways that grab me like I'm playing something for the first time again.

I felt the video was a waste of time also all it did was misdirect endwalkers criticism and dissatisfaction towards another expansion while also being like "see endwalkers is actually an ok expansion'.

[Bonoki]

Stop giving Zepla the entire credit for criticism some of the playerbase has been talking about for months.

You can literally scroll through this very forum and see the exact points she makes in various threads.

You think she caused this sentiment? No, quite the opposite. She is a symptom of it. You know things are bad when the overly positive newbie youtuber is making a video criticizing the expansion.

She didn't cause the sentiment but she will be credited by the community for it for spreading awareness on the sentiment. This is usually how social status works. Even most suggestions and ideas that Xeno promotes, he wasn't the first to say, but he'll be credited for being loud enough to spread the word. Basically it becomes the streamers message or idea when they choose to promote it because they have the influence backing them to see the concepts spread and grow into reality.

Real life works this way too.
Fledgling associate comes up with idea and presents it to Management. Management escalates to higher ups. Higher ups reward management for *thier* idea. The associate left forgotten about. Now apply this to the community, streamers, and the company.

[Turtledeluxe]

All this video does is prove the point about minmaxers in FFXIV.

[Connor]

I feel like every expansions’ issues are ones that are intrinsically linked to those that came before. I.E 2-min meta being a direct response to Stormblood / ShB issues with buff timing in raids.

Most of the (gameplay) issues with Endwalker have happened in response to previous issues. Realistically it doesn’t make sense to say ‘X expansion sucked and Y expansion was amazing’, because it’s only due to the issues of X that we have the issues of Y (if that makes sense lol).

I just think it makes more sense to look at ffxiv holistically than trying to judge patches individually, because they’re not so divorced from each other that there’s no common threads between these issues.

Story-wise, I mean, personally I didn’t mind it. It was easily predictable and relied way, way, way too heavily on ‘fake-out deaths’ (the entire final zone felt like a in-house joke about how ffxiv characters literally never die outside of the plot device specified as “The Character Who Died in Heavensward”). It was pretty much identical in cadence and general pacing than every other storyline the game has ever had, so I feel like it’s difficult to really say ‘Endwalker story’ sucked without saying ‘All ffxiv stories suck’. Which, is definitely a valid criticism. I just think there’s too many ‘universal’ aspects of the storylines they use that end up giving every story the same beats

[Volgia]

The video just seems like someone crapping on heavansward saying it's worse then endwalkers then trying to justify that endwalkers is fine despite a big population being dissatisfied. Because now we need videos of counteracting the videoes that are deemed "too negative and doomposty" with positivity videos. All the video seems to be is "see heavansward is just as bad as endwalkers so endwalkers is fine as it is". Trying to say one expansion is as crap or worse then the current one to try to divert criticism away from the current expansion isn't very helpful for the current expansion.

The thing that kind of annoys me of this video is that he makes an argument that nobody is arguing against. Like "See how HW was janky and EW is not janky?", like no one is arguing that past expansions had QoL fixes, we're complaining about the gutting of content, the lobotomization of dungeons and 24 man raids, the fact that encounters even in savage and ultimate have become so streamlined there can only be one way of doing them, etcera. The thing that pisses me off when people go all positive for Endwalker is how comformist they seem. We miss HW and SB and a bit of SHB because we had to figure shit out and use our brains, we don't miss the fact that cooldown weren't reset when wiping or things like that.