I’m late to this discussion, but I’ve been watching a few videos about this from content creators and I find this argument impossible to defend.
Taking ARR out (it’s not really an expansion), you can’t actually think EW is worse than HW. HW had much worse and less content and while the story, including the patches, was better, that era didn’t have what people are complaining about now. Maybe less job homogenization, but also absolute dumpster tier jobs that people didn’t play.
So yeah, things are a bit rough (specially now that a lot of new players are caught up), but the worst one? I can’t agree with that.
I felt like the main villain came out of nowhere, and completely dumpstered everything I was looking forward to story-wise.
I was excited that we could finally take the fight to Garlemand, only to find out that it’s been wiped out already.
I was excited to kick Zodiark’s ass, only to find out that it’s actually the last thing that was keeping the actual super secret bad guy in check this whole time.
I wanted to finally deal with the Ascians once and for all, not learn about a little bird girl in the penultimate chapter of the third act that flies off into space and throws a tantrum.
I was expecting Zodiark to be the final boss. It would have been AWESOME if Hydaelyn was. Instead we had to learn about some character that’s never been referenced before, that we spend 1 zone learning about her entire back story before having to go fly off and slap her around. There wasn’t enough time to even care about this character, let alone feel bad about putting it down like we were supposed to.
At that point, the main story was over, and the patches were starting a lead up into whatever new story arc is happening next, so I’ve been on a break ever since.
On the flip side, excluding Garlemald because I think that genuinely was a missed opportunity,
I think it’s really cool how they structured the expansion.
All the teasers and such hyping up the stuff with zodi, only for that to be the level 83 trial, felt like it built a lot of hype mid story. We (my group) went into that feeling a lot of mixed emotions, like what would happen next? We all expected that to be the finale, but things were just getting started.
I think it’s cool what they did with Elpis. Like a more complete version of the Amaurot idea. At this point on the source, everything was going to complete shit with the Final Days (again, just like Amaurot) and everything was just feeling hectic and out of control. So stepping into Elpis was just…magical. Literal breath of fresh air. Seeing everything unfold and having the ancients further humanized was good.
I can see what you’re saying with the character Meteion not being fleshed out really, but she also wasn’t precisely a character. She was in essence a grotesque experiment, like an Elpis Flower given a mind. I think in the end, that’s what broke Hermes so much. He believed so badly that he was different from his peers, that he was unique in understanding the suffering of their creations. But in his ignorance he subjected Meteion to an even more acute suffering, the kind reserved only for sentient beings. Despair.
And in confronting this atrocity forged of his own hand, we see the man snap, and set into motion the foundational events of game’s entire lore. While Meteion the character was new, I really think of her as just being the mechanism through which the Final Days occurs, and Hermes is the real centerpiece of the story. In fighting her we are really just cleaning up his mess.
That being said, your experience is valid, just offering one other perspective. The story definitely had some sloppy points throughout and some pacing and clarity issues as well, but I enjoyed it overall.
I had actually never made the connection that Hermes was the weirdo Ascian that hung out in Garlemald with Zenos in the Shadoebringers cutscenes, and that now makes more sense to me.
I really liked Elpis as a zone, but I think the game explicitly saying that Hermes wasn’t Fandaniel yet during that zone made me mostly disregard it as a possibility for the future, so I was mostly just following around a guy and a bird lady I’d never met before. I honestly couldn’t even tell you if he took the job after we kicked his teeth in, I was so done with that guy.
I appreciate you mentioning this, though, and I wish that I could see the zone for the first time again with that understanding. =/
I have the same issues. But I also found that they had ascians bloviate more.
Just random sentences of philosophical nonsense. Mostly this was in Hermes.
For example, what he wants to say “I went against the conclave to figure out things”
What he says, " DOES THE BUTTERFLY YEARN TO FLY KNOWING ITS LIFE IS SHORT. WILL THERE BE A COMING DAY, WHERE THOUST DREAM WITH ME. WHO CAN WALK WHO HATH NOT CRAWLED THROUGH THE DARKEST NIGHTS. WHEN A CREATION DREAMS OF AETHYRIC SHEEP ARE THEY NOT REAL"
Not literally what he said but… it felt like long sentences of hyperphilosophic filler. I could be wrong, but it’s what I remember.
Ultimately, I wish they spent longer building up Meteion. Also, I really didn’t care for or enjoy the old final fantasy story rehash. Though I do get its important.
I agree that Meteion being built up more would have helped. Maybe even just having had references in a previous expansion.
Hell, we could have found out stuff in the First during Shadowbringers, since Meteion’s song is what lead to the split happening in the first place.