It pains me to say this about a game I love so much but this is a very underwhelming story.

The argument that "It's a new story arc after we've ended a ten year long one" is not a good excuse. That isn't going to keep the average player invested, coming back, or subscribed. Those are important things in an MMORPG.

The game needed to keep or maintain the momentum it had built in Endwalker. While this would be hard to do it is far from impossible.

Giving up momentum is a very bad decision.