The Rising made me realize something.

[Ritsugamesh]

It's a difficult topic to reflect on, but I think the general consensus here is right. I am another 1.0 bittervet that's been through the whole story. I remember the old cutscenes that had Ascians before the were even Ascians and I remember the dream sequences of the White Raven murdering all our friends. Dalamud fell and Bahamut claimed the land.

Throughout all of 2.0 right up to Endwalker, we had a multi-pronged attack from the Ascians and their machinations, the primals and beast tribe engagement, and the Garlean's continued push to domination. Some elements were moved to the frontline for parts of the story, others took a backseat, but we had a good mix of unique threats and intrigue to explore.

Endwalker took every single one and laid them to rest. We've got literally nothing left, like, the world is basically peachy. Any future threat just feels so singular and contrived - sure we had the threat of Alexandria in Dawntrail but... We're the WoL, slayer of deities, the partially restored remnant of a bygone superrace - I'm really not scared of a threat like that.

I think they've ran out of road narratively and I don't see where we go from here but down. It's sad to say but I do think we're on the twilight of FFXIV's life at this point. The fact that they're not even willing to take gameplay risks if the story quality is going to diminish only cements this feeling further.

[Hypnotic13371337]

The only mystery I can think of here at 3 am doom scrolling in bed is meracidia.... But we know a decent chunk about the place already as it was referenced over the years.

We know bahamut was a result of meracidia. They had a war with the allagans. The warring triad originated from there. Emet selch wanted us to go there so we will probably after DT.

So unless the writers pull something out of their ass, we know that they will probably not like us when we get there, there's gonna be a big bad thing for us to fight as a lvl 93 trial boss, lots of allagan resentment, probably get to meet dragons that know tiamat and stuff like that and learn about dragons we already know.

[AnimaAnimus]

I really feel like we should be looking at correcting the problems on the other 13 shards, or trying to find anyway to maybe finish what the Ascians started since the original threat of The Endsinger is gone, there really is not real reason not to do the rejoining.

Well 6, the rest were already absorbed into the source. 1st 4th 8th 9th 11th and 13th are all that are left iirc