Same here, I feel like SHB and EW was just too much with how high the stakes were and now it's gonna get boring. Also kinda meh for me that WoL is already so powerful and literally just stopped a world ending event, but there are still challenges back in Eorzia? Doesn't exactly reel right, the power scaling, but it is a mmo as you said, it has to continue somehow.

[–] Katana314 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Same, it's hard to build expectations, but I also felt a little bit of that with Endwalker's impending release. "Oh, so we go to the moon now?" when the moon was barely before the halfway point.

One thing that can help is if they can invent methods of moving beyond power scaling. The Endsinger's potential was mostly dictated by "despair for the future", which is such a vague concept they could likely invent new such challenges without explicitly saying "This thing is stronger than the last thing you fought". It's already hard to claim that the cattle at the far edge of Thavnair are stronger than Hades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, or somehow nerf the WoL to not be so powerful and make them regain their strength or something. But the way EW played out and how the story was presented, it just feels to me like nothing back on Eorzia, even unexplored lands, could pose a serious threat to us anymore. Yeah, some things were vague enough to kinda work it out from there, but still, being a sundered spirit of an ancient and getting stronger every time, it's kinda becoming meh, at least to me. The pacing of it all is just way too fast imo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That feeling ia not at all uncommon. There's a reason many mmos and even long TV series tend to pull the "now there is an even bigger big bad!". Just look at WoW, there's no shortage of people that didn't enjoy dragonflight due to the lower stakes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Agreed, I just think that we went too quick and sudden from more "grounded" matters like Ishgard and Far East to then travelling to a entirely different world (well, not entirely different since it's one of the shards, but you get what I mean) that has almost been consumed and now we have a threat that looms above our heads, that this could happen to Eorzia as well. And then we go to an EVEN BIGGER threat, people turning into monstrosities, anomalies everywhere, literal hellfire pouring down from the sky from invisible source, pretty much a galactic threat to all life and nobody knows why and how it is happening. And we had to time-travel (something that I really, really hate in any media, but it was cool seeing Emet-Selch and other ancients in the past) to even know what the hell is happening and how we can stop it.

To me the last 2 expansions felt more like the endgame, like a final arc of sorts, that was introduced waaaay to quickly. Having the "bigger big bad" each new expansion is inevitable, but they could've paced it a lot better imo, let us explore more of Eorzia first or maybe other shards, slowly introducing the ancients lore and stuff like that, before going full apocalypse scenario.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah, agree. That's why I think just having a fun time expansion could be good. Although harder to make players care if the stakes are low I guess?

I personally won't be playing this expansion for a while anyway. Maybe next year when I have more free time so I'll get to see the general consensus before going in. Hope it's good.

[–] GlitchZero 1 points 10 months ago

Not really Eorzea, as it’s known currently. I guess Torval wasn’t affected by the End of Days? Or maybe they have some kind of stuff powerful enough to deal with it better than Thavnair did, which would explain them needing the WoL to come help with whatever.

Or it’s just a Way-West vacay, like Stormblood was far East. Who knows.