Hey, is this where we talk about the story ending?
So I just got back into the game and caught up with the 5.3 MSQ.
I loved the 5.0 ending, but I I don't think the 5.3 ending hit nearly as hard. It felt like the writers were trying to do a repeat performance of 5.0's ending and make us sympathize with Elidibus the way we did with Emet-Selch, but the whole thing feels a little forced and doesn't have as much impact. Emet-Selch's development was a bunch of huge revelations that turned around a lot of the things you felt about the Ascians, but Elidibus doesn't really tell you anything besides "you're a hero to the people on your side, but a villain to the people you fight", which is not a new idea to you.
Moreover, he has no reason to tell you any of that because in his introduction, he makes it very clear that unlike Emet-Selch, he doesn't see you as someone worth talking to anyway... and then the game spends the next few hours making him show you just how bad you are in his eyes.
I think the part leading up to the finale was fun, but didn't make much sense to me because Elidibus had no reason to raise an army and attack you so directly when Ascians were known to be immortal, patient schemers. The only explanation was that he had become desperate to save his people, but that seems like a fairly weak explanation for his actions when it's ultimately fairly stupid and reckless to attack the WoL so directly.
Unless you're Zenos, I guess.
I'm disappointed and wary about how they're clearly setting up the next expansion to be about Zenos and his new Ascian jester guy (I know it's not the same guy, but that guy with the sketchy haircut was one of my least liked villains in Stormblood). They're elevating the two most boring living villains in the game into the main antagonists of an entire expansion, so I hope they know what they're doing with that. Shadowbringers is good because they took comic book villains like the Ascians and turned them into good villains with believable and relatable motivations. Moving straight back to a pair of blatant comic book villains is going to be really rough. I understand if they're trying to go for contrast, since it would be equally bad if they tried to go for a third run of Emet-Selch's story beats, but damn, Zenos is such a boring villain through and through. I hope they have something good in store for his story.