The Rising made me realize something.

[Vyrerus]

Sadly, this is what happens when your writers get tired/steer the narrative away from your vision. Shadowbringers moved the narrative in a direction Yoshi-P wasn't really ready for, hence all of the tomfoolery and chicanery around Venat/Hydaelyn (Yeah I'm still willing to beat that horse).

This is also a big part of the reason why they pitched Endwalker as a conclusion. Its actual purpose was to conclude this direction that Yoshi-P doesn't like.

Of course, they'd brought enough Chekhov's Guns to the table that they really have to commit to getting rid of them/they didn't really setup the narrative to have its major antagonists rug pulled. They rug pulled the Garleans in 5.0, turning towards the long awaited truth of the Ascians. All the narrative drives towards them in an all consuming way, and they had the audacity to end their arc by 6.0 base conclusion.

Now there's just the guns and no table. All that's left is to integrate/explain away the guns one by one while trying to setup something new.

Where we've hit is a point where we were deeply, grossly invested but they took away everything we were invested in. It's now even happening to the good guy cast with the Scion cardboard cut outs. They really expect us to eat our food off the floor in this restaurant.

Kinda makes me want them to kill them all off so they stop debasing them.

[ZXN]

With Dawntrail it really does feel like the devs/writers have "written themselves into a corner" of sorts and don't know how to get out of it. Shadowbringers really pushed and hyped up the "Final Days" that mostly annihilated the ancient and ultimately lead to the summoning of Zodiark, and in Endwalker it was reduced to...a minor inconvenience that we solved in no time at all.

"But we learned what caused the final days, so of course we'd go solve it as fast as we can!"

Sure, we did, and that, to me personally, is the problem: nothing was given anytime to actually build up to anything. We learn what caused the final days at the end of Zone 5, and nip the problem in the bud immediately at the end of Zone 6. Not only that, the writers/devs only gave us Zones 5 and 6, or about maybe 2-6 hours of story depending on the player, to try and GENUINELY convince us that Meteion, a character brought from out of nowhere, is worth being "The Penultimate Threat" of their 10-year story. Nothing in Endwalker was given much time to build, because the devs HAD to move to the next plot point as fast as possible. I hated Endwalker for the sole purpose that there was so much story that COULD'VE been there, but wasn't because they ultimately decided "quantity of stuff in story over quality of stuff in story", and now Dawntrail falls into the same category, but somehow they did even worse. The "Rite of succession was constantly pushed to be this massive thing during the Fanfest and Keynotes.....and it's completely finished in 3 zones. The story suddenly goes from "Help Wuk Win The Rite of Succession" to "Help Wuk Stop A AI Robot From Genociding Everyone!"...and that entire story completely resolves perfectly in 3 zones as well.

With Dawntrail they had a completely blank slate for a new story, and unfortunately Endwalker's ending was written so "perfectly" with solving most of the worlds' big issues that they just kind of have to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks going forward. Endwalker was world ending threat that was ultimately beaten by the power of friendship, Endwalker post-patch was world ending threat that was beaten by the power of friendship again, and now Dawntrail is...another world ending threat that is, once again, beaten by the power of friendship. What is post-patch going to be: yet ANOTHER world ending threat that is beaten by the power of friendship? Is this going to continue into 8.0, but this time we go to yet another shard, or maybe ANOTHER TIMELINE, and beat THEIR world ending threat with the power of friendship? Hard to take any "stakes" seriously when it's solved the exact same way again, and again, and again in as short a time as possible.

I don't have much faith in the devs/writers in their "world-building", or ability to give us actually "stakes" going forward, if it's going to be at the same quality as their current writing, and I am just hoping they can prove me wrong.