A look back at one of the most controversial Final Fantasy 14 expansion, Endwalker and how it actually stood as it’s own game
0:00 Intro
1:10 MSQ (Major Spoilers!)
7:20 Dungeons (Minor Spoilers)
9:22 Savage Raids
28:00 Ultimate Raids
39:02 Variant & Criterion
42:18 Alliance Raids
46:51 Job Design
49:08 Island Sanctuary
50:25 Eureka Orthos
51:48 Crystaline Conflict
53:02 Manderville Relics
53:38 Adventurer Plates
54:23 Outro
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I beg everyone saying "The patch content is wholesale copied from FFIV" to actually play FFIV. Its like Tezuka's Star System, actors are the same but the roles, story, etc are vastly different ((Shoot, you don't even face Scarmiglione at Mount Ordeals)).
Honestly, this is mostly how I feel about Endwalker. There were a LOT of things I didn't like about EW, and it's honestly probably the only expansion of FF14 I actually disliked (I'm a Stormblood enjoyer). That being said, it accomplished it's goal of ending the story. It wasn't the ending I wanted, and the content was kinda meh, but it did what it set out to do so in that regard it was success. I'm going into Dawntrail with a bit more dread to be sure, especially after seeing the state of classes at the media tour, but we'll see how it goes.
We already knew how the elitists felt about EW so you weren't hard to figure out either.
However, for people with jobs that are bound to PF if we want to clear something, there was too much high-end content. We don't want to be stuck for weeks trying to finish a single fight. It's too boring, too frustating, too dependant upon other players and ultimately, it's just not worth the little time that we have. Instead, they should have focused on a much better story line and instances for the relic quests: from Eureka and Bozja, these relics were a serious disappointment.
this was a great video! I really love watching your videos I can tell you put a lot of passion into your vids! Keep up the awesome work! we are all cheering you on!
Great video, enjoy Elden Ring mate
Good video very long but good 🙂
I'm glad you started making content as well. Looking forward to more in future.
Just like I did in Shadowbringers, in Endwalker I beat the story, leveled my crafters, then peaced the hell out. It Dawntrail I really want to play all the new content at release instead of two years later lol.
I had a great time in endwalker. I just wish I did the 2 ultimates and criterion.
To me the sacrifice of the sions as you ventured ultima thule was never seen by me as an attempt to jerk tears with deaths or so but instead each and every scion committing their fullest faith to you as you journeyed on showing that they knew you'd push through to the end and so they gave their all to build the path for you to your goal and I personally really liked that. The only part of endwalker I hated was the stupid zenos shit with the body swap and all that just completely out of character and weird.
I agree a bunch when it comes to Abyssos Savage being so backloaded. These fights just felt so long and it became so easy to mess up towards the end with fatigue over a long night.
Really good review of Endwalker! In my point of view it was a nice expnasion, but I hope DT can build up on it's foundation and be even better
3:20 oh, you’re not the only one who didn’t shed tears during that moment. The possibility of Scions’ revival was too heavily hinted at, and so I was like, “yeah yeah, it’s all very sad, but I know we’re going to revive them soon enough”.
What went wrong here, you finished way too early for Elden Ring to be released already
FFIV was my first final fantasy. There is so much more to it than what made it into Endwalker. Do yourself a favor and give it a go, it has such a fantastic story.
Dynamis and Hermes I think were the worst parts of Endwalker. Hermes's was a such a contradiction of disagreement with the norms of his people, while being seemingly ignorant of the true nature of what he disagreed with (death).
Dynamis, which I wrap Meteion and all of Ultima Thule into, was also… just unrelatable. It came out of nowhere as this overbearing force of nature that is not understood, is overwhelming, and is a semi-tangible mechanism for the literal power of friendship. I agree that the Scions "dying" in Ultima Thule, didn't effect me at all – once I understood what actually happened to Thancred after Meteion explained it, it was just a big Ohhh ok, so he's not dead. Thancred's "death" after the fight with Ran'jit was far, far better and more convincing… even if it was fake. Then Estinien just solidified the assumption its going to happen to everyone. Its like ok, this is a nothing burger cuz they're not gone. The belief in that, and the rush of the whole concept of Dynamis and its consequences with Meteion, made the walk feel kinda forced. I know what they were trying to do, and it was a good way to do it, but the whole setting just didn't reinforce the impact for me.
Garlemald was the best EW had to offer, by far. The human element and the psychological/emotional consequences of pride and war were expertly told. Very good stuff.
I am blown away by how many people seem to think the Scions' "deaths" in the 6.0 finale were supposed to be fakeout deaths. They weren't. The Scions knew the WoL could and would bring them back. Y'shtola and Urianger even say as much. The game makes no effort to hide this from the player. The Scions did what they did to clear the way because they trusted the WoL to finish the job.
On the topic of dungeons:
I don't think that changing up the grouping scheme would make players feel different. I do think that introducing harder mechanics can wake people up in dungeons. I think if they introduce harder dungeons they should offer rewards that scale linearly, but are achieveable and not entirely meant to be spammable (I.E you wanna run it a few times for say, a specific gear piece or set). They could even let us toggle debuffs/buffs to place on the dungeon to let us scale rewards ourselves.
Didn't cried during "the walk" either for the same reasons. Really this expansions storytelling made me feel nothing. Only emotional part to me was when Thancred asks us if we regret joining the Scions. Brought very nice memories back. But that made me emotional for previous expansions merit, not Endwalker. Also I lost a lot of friends to Endwalker because it bored them and quit the game. Most have no desire of coming back for DT. But if this underwhelming expansion was the price to pay for the next one(s) to be good, then it good.
18:20 ? 18:56 !
an ongoing thing i presume? :p unfortunately the healer definitely has more power in this fight xD (17:20 yet an other attempt on their life? xD)
I think I would have had more of an issue with this expac if I had been playing for longer but the nice part of EW was that it gave me tooooons of time to complete the backlog of content from previous expansions despite having only started playing in 2021
I actually don't think p10s is "difficult" perse. as in all the mechs are quite easy to solve with the hardest one being the guns i think. it's just the pace and combination of the mechs that make it difficult. but it was one of the fastest fights i learned. with the caveat that i still make mistakes sometimes because those combinations really get you (especially the ball lazers after the group/pair/spread mech)
P1S was why I actually did Savage. If it had been harder, I just wouldn't have done Savage. I still don't do much, as I have no static and only want to do so much in PF, but thanks to P1S NOT being more difficult, I also did P2S and P5S. I've never done an at level Savage before this expansion, so imo, it was GOOD design, not bad design.
I feel like one of my biggest critiques of the Endwalker story was the fact there were no major Scion deaths. I feel like the writers are too scared to kill off the scions permanently, which I feel like they should have at least killed like one or two of them in Endwalker (it is a finale after all). As gruesome as it is, I hope at some point soon we see some of these older characters exiting the story, otherwise they'll just be taking the spotlight away from the new cast that should be getting it instead.
Story's still good, I am not gonna quit the game for them not killing Thancred or whatever, but it feels disingenuous at this point whenever expecially Y'shtola "dies" because I am just going to expect her to pull her ass out of the grave for the fourth time. If I know none of my favorite characters are in any danger, then the stakes are affected.
I love essay videos btw
As someone who's color blind, P3S made it impossible for me to beat. It sucked too because the PC version has a color blind setting but is missing in the console version of FFXIV " the version I play on" during the time before I got a steam deck. I hated that fight so much and I gave up during that raid tier
You and I are in the exact same boat. Ultima Thule was crap and unimpactful you see thru the veil of the story so easy in alot of parts off Endwalker