SureAI's new project: Enderal - The Shards of Order (Mostly about Enderal SE now)

[cretin]

By the way, if anyone is looking to make the combat less "skyrim" in feel, I'd recommend the engarde mod.

I tried EGO after some suggestions in this thread, but I found it didn't really change gameplay, just changed the balancing and nerfed the hell out of magic. Engarde on the other hand actually changed the combat system in ways i could appreciate and made it feel less slappy, as well as some needed functionality w/r/t dodging and making weapon types feel meaningfully different. Also having power attacks be a separate key is just such a QoL improvement holy shit.

There is an EGO premade patch for engarde anyway if you like that mod's changes, I didn't care for it.

 

[Haplo]

I'm liking the atmosphere, exploration, dialogues, even voice acting (!)
Though playing Skyrim combat again is painful.
Think gonna focus on Sinistrope + stealth. Maybe Arcane Archer with bows?
Will see.
Just got to Ark and visited the Temple of Heavens or what's it called. Kinda dissapointed only the quest NPC will talk to me there.



Btw. Endreal seems cool so far, but Nehrim sucks balls. Avoid like plague.

 

[Haplo]

So basically i am gotta do bunch of non combat quests to level up before actively participating in combat like gothic?

The trek to riverville was basically running away because i don't have enough healing provisions. I can take 1 bandit or 2 but more easily killed me.

Eh, I guess going for Sinistrope and using Ghostly Wolf early helped me a lot...

 

[volklore]

Enderal is classless too, so in the early game you have to use a bit of everything archery/magic/melee to get through stuff before specializing. At least my sword and board guy used archery a lot and even dumped his magicka regularly in the early game alongside melee combat. At midgame I was pretty much only sword and boarding and very rarely got a bow out.

 

[pakoito]

Btw. Endreal seems cool so far, but Nehrim sucks balls. Avoid like plague.

'splain

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Wow thanks for a word about special edition, it works and looks much better.

 

[Haplo]

Btw. Endreal seems cool so far, but Nehrim sucks balls. Avoid like plague.

'splain

It's the most in-your-face implementation of level gating I have ever experienced in a game. Not even MMORPGS have such neat, fenced areas with signposts telling level 5 players this way, level 10 players that way, if you're level 15 you're allowed to go here...
Plus its very railroaded AFAIR. And character development was very limited. I could never understand people praising it.

 

[moleman]

Btw. Endreal seems cool so far, but Nehrim sucks balls. Avoid like plague.

'splain

It's the most in-your-face implementation of level gating I have ever experienced in a game. Not even MMORPGS have such neat, fenced areas with signposts telling level 5 players this way, level 10 players that way, if you're level 15 you're allowed to go here...
Plus its very railroaded AFAIR. And character development was very limited. I could never understand people praising it.

I completed Nehrim and as far as I remember there were only recommended levels for areas shown on the map. Yould could go anywhere right from the start.

I agree on the character development limitations.
The thing that bothered me more was that some areas were almost empty with nothing to find and the general lack of side quests.
It had some intense FPS drops in some areas too.

Overall I would recommend playing it but Enderal is superior in every way.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

More spoilers:

Spoiler

Gots me dreamflower. Interesting to pull it from another reality, and interesting that Yuslan was so convinced that DON'T DO THIS IT MAKES MUSTARD GAS. If that was the case, then why is there a (Seemingly historical) reputation of people who take the elixir living out the rest of their lives supercharged? If the people who drink the elixir conk out into comas then it wouldn't have the reputation that it does. That was a little bit iffy. I didn't take him up on the offer (Notably it seems I can't trust Yuslan given the visions while holding the crystal. He passes it off as "Don't worry bro that just means in another reality I had a hard life" but given how he handled our little jaunt he wasn't being on the level with me. Not sure if he's the one that bumped off Lishari in conjunction with her ex, given she was in one of the visions too I kinda doubt it, but I'm a bit dubious about him.
Technically I got that information from a book (Or notes?) from the guy who killed the apprentices, and as of yet I still don't know his connection to and interest in the dreamflower elixir and what connection (If any) it has to the red madness. I still don't know what the red madness is. Moral of the story is I told Yuslan to fuck off and immediately teleported to the Rhalata cave since I noticed that could make the elixir and I drank that shit in a heartbeat. Since I'm not currently naked and fucking a big tiddy elf on the back of a myrad while we're flying through the sky I'm going to take that as an indication that Yuslan was wrong about the potion putting me into a coma where I'll have perfect dreams.

Jespar having a breakdown was well done. Little goofy for the ROGUE WITH A HEART OF GOLD angle but s'ok. Feeling guilty about his major fuckups in life was good. Revised thoughts about him are that I can probably trust him. Initially was thinking he'd sell me out but I'm fairly confident that he wouldn't now.

Still don't really trust Calia since she's powered by a demon stone.

Swinging back to the red madness a bit, trying to find lesbian elf's lover leading to the cult seemed to detail a little bit about what's going on. Veiled woman is essentially the real god of the setting (Or the universe itself, or the multiverse, but god's easy enough to say) and if the cult is to be believed, the cycle exists because creation was initially perfect and eternal and death and things going to shit give live meaning. Sounds straightforward enough, but it still didn't exactly explain the cycle itself (As opposed to just having creation without perfection) or the high ones. The high ones may be the initial eternal beings from that first instance of reality, I don't recall the details (Been a few days since I did that) clear enough to remember if they were destroyed when the new reality was made or not.

Finally, found all 10 Butcher of Ark books. Haven't sat down to read them all yet, really should since it's sounding like the game may be on the fast track toward the end. I possibly should've read them before drinking the elixir but I was too wrapped up with doubts about Yuslan and being happy to find dreamflower that I wanted to do it.

Non-spoilers: I saw a mudcrab the other day. Filthy creatures, I avoid them whenever I can.

 

[Sharpedge]

More spoilers:

Spoiler

Gots me dreamflower. Interesting to pull it from another reality, and interesting that Yuslan was so convinced that DON'T DO THIS IT MAKES MUSTARD GAS. If that was the case, then why is there a (Seemingly historical) reputation of people who take the elixir living out the rest of their lives supercharged? If the people who drink the elixir conk out into comas then it wouldn't have the reputation that it does. That was a little bit iffy. I didn't take him up on the offer (Notably it seems I can't trust Yuslan given the visions while holding the crystal. He passes it off as "Don't worry bro that just means in another reality I had a hard life" but given how he handled our little jaunt he wasn't being on the level with me. Not sure if he's the one that bumped off Lishari in conjunction with her ex, given she was in one of the visions too I kinda doubt it, but I'm a bit dubious about him.
Technically I got that information from a book (Or notes?) from the guy who killed the apprentices, and as of yet I still don't know his connection to and interest in the dreamflower elixir and what connection (If any) it has to the red madness. I still don't know what the red madness is. Moral of the story is I told Yuslan to fuck off and immediately teleported to the Rhalata cave since I noticed that could make the elixir and I drank that shit in a heartbeat. Since I'm not currently naked and fucking a big tiddy elf on the back of a myrad while we're flying through the sky I'm going to take that as an indication that Yuslan was wrong about the potion putting me into a coma where I'll have perfect dreams.

Jespar having a breakdown was well done. Little goofy for the ROGUE WITH A HEART OF GOLD angle but s'ok. Feeling guilty about his major fuckups in life was good. Revised thoughts about him are that I can probably trust him. Initially was thinking he'd sell me out but I'm fairly confident that he wouldn't now.

Still don't really trust Calia since she's powered by a demon stone.

Swinging back to the red madness a bit, trying to find lesbian elf's lover leading to the cult seemed to detail a little bit about what's going on. Veiled woman is essentially the real god of the setting (Or the universe itself, or the multiverse, but god's easy enough to say) and if the cult is to be believed, the cycle exists because creation was initially perfect and eternal and death and things going to shit give live meaning. Sounds straightforward enough, but it still didn't exactly explain the cycle itself (As opposed to just having creation without perfection) or the high ones. The high ones may be the initial eternal beings from that first instance of reality, I don't recall the details (Been a few days since I did that) clear enough to remember if they were destroyed when the new reality was made or not.

Finally, found all 10 Butcher of Ark books. Haven't sat down to read them all yet, really should since it's sounding like the game may be on the fast track toward the end. I possibly should've read them before drinking the elixir but I was too wrapped up with doubts about Yuslan and being happy to find dreamflower that I wanted to do it.

Non-spoilers: I saw a mudcrab the other day. Filthy creatures, I avoid them whenever I can.

Without providing any details, the dreamflower does change a certain part of the main plot significantly.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Every time, when I want to make a second playthrough of this mod, I remember endings and how devs acted annoyed about people asking about ending and proudy/edgy (can't quite describe feeling) about their unwillingness to make at least bitter sweet ending, not only doom and gloom. Perhaps something is wrong with me, but I understand appeal of making a game with only bad endings, like there isn't enough sadness and grief in our real life.

Want that sweet feeling of imminent doom coming on your ass?
Think about billions of IRL asteroids that can't be shot down or even detected by modern equipment before hitting the Earth. Or even better - a singularity or neutron star approaching our system and humanity can only host a handful people on shitty space station (with almost non existent protection from space radiation), let alone building a functional Ark ship to save anyone.

Want something more grounded?
Dictators with nukes can suffice your desire for negative emotions in life in no time.

Honestly, my investment in plot was crumbled after I realized that "one essential npc who catched my arrow by accident week prior" turned out to be the bastard who would ruin everything in scripted cutscene. After this shit happened - I stopped to take this mod seriously and care about characters at all. If I wanted to find myself in situation that none of my actions can change a general outcome in story/world - I wouldn't play an RPG. Some time after I played Nehrim and cannot look at Enderal as result of devs thinking: "we have mod series with developed setting and mechanics, but we are have a desire to make our own game on normal engine and we cannot design world that reached age of industrial revolution as side project, so fuck it - let's end series at any cost". Lack of side quests also support this theory, I think.
All my theory crafting aside, linearity seriously hurts of replayability of the mod even though I liked some of mechanics.

 

[Urthor]

Unfamiliar with the whole Skyrim thing, but you definitely can't use a 32 bit save with the new version of the mod right?

Really really don't want to have to start a third playthrough I'll half finish.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

snip

If you ask someone to put under spoiler something, can you temporarily (only to delete later) quote what exactly you need to be hidden. Or shall I put spoiler on whole post, just because some people haven't played 5 year old mod? You can pm me, what should be hidden, if you shy in public.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I cried after a song in the silence quest. Damn.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I hope you saved before drinking the elixir, because as Sharpedge already mentioned, it will change a certain part of the main plot significantly.

I did. Not sure I'll reload it later to see what it changed, depends on how long it takes to reach the point where I'd notice that, but I've got the save just in case. I did a similar save when

Spoiler

Ark was sieged. I collected all 3 black stones at once before turning them in, and when I turned them in and things started going to shit I noticed I had a "Go find and talk to Jespar" quest presumably which shows up after turning in the black stone related to his family. Reloaded an autosave before I turned the stones in, made a hard save, then reloaded back to after I'd turned them in just in case I wouldn't be able to find him and talk to him during/after the attack on Ark. Fortunately it wasn't an issue and I was able to track him down after that sequence but I wanted a save to hop back to in case that was immediately going to dive me into the endgame.

 

[Siveon]

Btw. Endreal seems cool so far, but Nehrim sucks balls. Avoid like plague.

'splain

It's the most in-your-face implementation of level gating I have ever experienced in a game. Not even MMORPGS have such neat, fenced areas with signposts telling level 5 players this way, level 10 players that way, if you're level 15 you're allowed to go here...
Plus its very railroaded AFAIR. And character development was very limited. I could never understand people praising it.

I remember being level 7 in level 14 areas very easily. Granted I only played on easy-normal since it's the Oblivion engine and I enjoy not spending forever against HP bloated enemies.

You are not allowed to go certain places (most famously is the magical wall), but I found more often than not as previously stated there isn't much reason to explore aside from dungeons. Dungeons which are oddly self contained from any quest and have good loot in. Really good, sometimes game breakingly so (the giant tower for example).

 

[Haplo]

Not much reason to explore (apart from dungeons) would be another negative in my book...
Also self-contained kinda sounds like a missed opportunity.

 

[Siveon]

Not much reason to explore (apart from dungeons) would be another negative in my book...
Also self-contained kinda sounds like a missed opportunity.

Well, not much reason given to explore I should say. There's plenty to find, the EXP collectible, potions and plants that increase luck and encumbrance. Valuable and unique loot just sitting around in bandit keeps or dungeons. There's plenty to see however you won't find many quests attached to them. Most are self-contained save for the tower quest I mentioned earlier, but that is also a linear path to complete. Heck, there's an entire optional line of loot purely for summoning.

I actually found the character options fun, it breaks wide open like an Elder Scrolls game (you'll be some measure of a spellsword) but I like the variety of stuff.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Game over:

Spoiler

Interesting. I'm a little curious if that end sequence plays out the same way if you drink the dreamflower elixir EXCEPT for the final "Happily ever after" in Qyra. Yuslan being a fucker was confirmed, and Arantheal being a fucker was semi-confirmed (His heart was in the right place, but you know). I picked sacrificing myself to go blow up the beacon, since "Hey bro all these hundreds of civilizations call me a demon but dude trust me" was bent on me sitting in the starling city and trying again with the next cycle, but that sounds like a terrible idea given that the cycle has an initial lump of religion all the time anyway. At best, assuming my character makes it that far, I figure he'd be the lightborn equivalent for that cycle and then get whacked by someone and that'd be it. Blowing up the beacon and sending Jespar to run as fast as he can in the hopes he won't burst into flame when Enderal gets blown up sounds the most plausible. Obviously the happily ever after with Jespar in Qyra IS the dreamflower elixir, but given my earlier reasoning for why I chugged the potion (Wouldn't have the reputation it does if it just dropped people into comas) and given how shit everything was up TO that point I'd say the super-luck potion worked up until the point where I died at the beacon, and then I was just getting the happily-ever-afterlife dream in my final seconds. It is interesting that the high ones are never fully explained. Not sure if they're made up of previous civilizations or simply created by the food surplus made by the previous civilizations or what. Obviously they seem parasitic so I assume it's less a case of being made up of the dead civilization, but since the voice of the dead worked on 'em it's up in the air a bit. Speaking of which, not sure if Yuslan's anti-dreamflower feelings were from the high ones or not. Not sure how long he'd been "Possessed" by them and how long he'd simply been working against Arantheal, both would be plausible for why he tries to talk the PC out of drinking the elixir.

Non-spoilery game over thoughts: Good game. Complaints-wise there's the simple "It feels like Skyrim" which can be lessened by mods but it always has a bit of that funk to it. The game's also arguably too long for the pace of character advancement. Probably depends on builds but it felt like there was a long stretch where I was done with levels/equipment/everything and was capped out on strength. That can be slightly player-controlled though since while I didn't do absolutely every side quest and explore every nook and cranny I did a good stack of them, and maybe the pacing would've been better for that without the merchants and rhalata which were apparently added in the Steam release. Those are good questlines but they might be fucking up the character advancement with fat sacks of XP. Overall one of the better TES-like RPGs I've played, even with the flaws.

 

[HoboForEternity]

exploration stopped being fun after you collected the best full armor set for your build, but by that point you only got few locations left so I ended up visiting every locale i found. just the last few main quest left and I will finish this absolute chungus unit of a game

 

[Tarkleigh]

A couple of weeks back my brother finally talked me into giving Enderal a try which was no easy feat as I hated Skyrim (Morrowind was good but the UI of Skyrim was so horrible it made me drop the game immediately). I finished the game this weekend and I am really glad he convinced me. While the game would profit a lot from another base (in technology and in game mechanics) it is a huge improvement over Skyrim and a very impressive achievement for a small modding team. Kudos to Sure AI

What was great:

• Story despite it being a bit too artistic / vague at time
• The visual design was great, one area
  Spoiler

  - the Starling city -
  was simply beautiful despite the aged graphics
• The "Schlächter von Ark" / "Slayer of Arc" quest / book series
• It was a really neat idea to have just two companions / romance options that accompany you to a lot of quests, it feels much more organic than the systems in other games
• Jespar is an amazing character both in writing and in character design
• At least in German, the game also has surprisingly good quest titles like "Jeder Tag wie der letzte" ("Every day like the last") which are featured prominently when you get a quest

What wasn't great

• The combat is janky and not very rewarding, I played a mage and just spammed Shock Nova 90% of the time
• The progression system is uneven and there is little reward for quests in the later half of the game
• Lots of spelling and punctuation errors despite the usually great writing
• Some bugs and crashes
• UI still isn't great but it is much better than in Skyrim

Overall a great experience. I am really glad I gave it a try and I am curious would SureAI does next.

 

[TF]

I was completely glued to this game from beginning to end, and just didn't want it to finish. The most immersive game experience I've ever had. Beautiful writing, amazingly detailed world, outstanding music. But with a 'something more' about it, a real soul.

And it was released for free.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Few more thoughts on the ending after sleeping on it and chewing on it off and on throughout the day:

Spoiler

I quite like that the high ones are never given a trustworthy explanation. The black guardian obviously can't be trusted (Demon reputation or no, the fact that he tries to jack your body shows he's content to lie to you) and he doesn't even have a full explanation of the high ones. Plus the black guardian says the high ones never directly intervened or acted on anything which is obviously untrue since not only do they outright possess people, they (Apparently) are causing the red madness and more than that, are apparently the ones that made your ghostly ass if the black guardian is to be believed. Even that might not be worth believing though, since the veiled woman is the one that set you on your course and her connection to and interactions with the high ones are a little up in the air. Trying to think back on the game as a whole it's possible that the veiled woman is working on behalf of the high ones, I don't remember her specifically working against them (You get the impression she is, but that's before you know what's going on) and if she's with them then that would be another tic against what the black guardian tells you at the end of the game. That wouldn't explain why she revives you near the black guardian though, since presumably the cleansing is already happening at that point.

Another reason the beacon smashing ending sounds like potentially the best, when you do one of your earliest visions and you see the cleansing from the perspective of another prophet you learn that he tried to run. Went back to his family and was trying to get them away before shit went down. Going to the starling city would be your character's version of running away, so sacrificing yourself blowing up the beacon seems like it might be off-script. Another reason why that might be off-script is the implication (Again, from the black guardian so no idea how much is true) that fleshless are driven by some aspect of their previous lives, and for the PC that seems to be going from a nobody escaped slave to Big Damn Hero the famous prophet. Sacrificing yourself to blow up the beacon may sound like the more heroic option, but you'll be largely unknown. The only person who might know is Jespar (Or presumably Calia? I figure the companions probably change based on your rep with them) and the only way he might tell anyone is IF he manages to get on a myrad and haul ass before you nuke Enderal, otherwise you're dying and will be completely unknown. However if you follow the black guardian's plan (And it succeeds) you'll be space Jesus to the next crop of humans that come up. Even ignoring the likely connection with the cycle in general and how you'd probably just take the place of the lightborn for their cycle.

There's also the question of that whole cult that sacrificed themselves for the veiled woman, and what was going on there. I STILL (Since who has time for game books FUCK THE POLICE) haven't read the Butcher of Ark so I am likely missing some other clues, and it could be the cult didn't have any grains of truth to it. They managed a satisfying ending while also leaving it open enough that I'm still enjoying thinking about it which isn't all that common for RPGs and games in general. The premise is similar to Mass Effect from my understanding (Having only played 1 and 2 without the DLC) even down to the big bad causing the cycle juicing everyone to make a new big bad, but the execution's quite a lot better even though Mass Effect half-assed was attempting more C&C. Which as much as I over value C&C and I grumbled about the lack of it in Enderal a little bit, the story was better not having it.

 

[Sharpedge]

Few more thoughts on the ending after sleeping on it and chewing on it off and on throughout the day:

Spoiler

I quite like that the high ones are never given a trustworthy explanation. The black guardian obviously can't be trusted (Demon reputation or no, the fact that he tries to jack your body shows he's content to lie to you) and he doesn't even have a full explanation of the high ones. Plus the black guardian says the high ones never directly intervened or acted on anything which is obviously untrue since not only do they outright possess people, they (Apparently) are causing the red madness and more than that, are apparently the ones that made your ghostly ass if the black guardian is to be believed. Even that might not be worth believing though, since the veiled woman is the one that set you on your course and her connection to and interactions with the high ones are a little up in the air. Trying to think back on the game as a whole it's possible that the veiled woman is working on behalf of the high ones, I don't remember her specifically working against them (You get the impression she is, but that's before you know what's going on) and if she's with them then that would be another tic against what the black guardian tells you at the end of the game. That wouldn't explain why she revives you near the black guardian though, since presumably the cleansing is already happening at that point.

Another reason the beacon smashing ending sounds like potentially the best, when you do one of your earliest visions and you see the cleansing from the perspective of another prophet you learn that he tried to run. Went back to his family and was trying to get them away before shit went down. Going to the starling city would be your character's version of running away, so sacrificing yourself blowing up the beacon seems like it might be off-script. Another reason why that might be off-script is the implication (Again, from the black guardian so no idea how much is true) that fleshless are driven by some aspect of their previous lives, and for the PC that seems to be going from a nobody escaped slave to Big Damn Hero the famous prophet. Sacrificing yourself to blow up the beacon may sound like the more heroic option, but you'll be largely unknown. The only person who might know is Jespar (Or presumably Calia? I figure the companions probably change based on your rep with them) and the only way he might tell anyone is IF he manages to get on a myrad and haul ass before you nuke Enderal, otherwise you're dying and will be completely unknown. However if you follow the black guardian's plan (And it succeeds) you'll be space Jesus to the next crop of humans that come up. Even ignoring the likely connection with the cycle in general and how you'd probably just take the place of the lightborn for their cycle.

There's also the question of that whole cult that sacrificed themselves for the veiled woman, and what was going on there. I STILL (Since who has time for game books FUCK THE POLICE) haven't read the Butcher of Ark so I am likely missing some other clues, and it could be the cult didn't have any grains of truth to it. They managed a satisfying ending while also leaving it open enough that I'm still enjoying thinking about it which isn't all that common for RPGs and games in general. The premise is similar to Mass Effect from my understanding (Having only played 1 and 2 without the DLC) even down to the big bad causing the cycle juicing everyone to make a new big bad, but the execution's quite a lot better even though Mass Effect half-assed was attempting more C&C. Which as much as I over value C&C and I grumbled about the lack of it in Enderal a little bit, the story was better not having it.

Spoiler

There is a significant amount of evidence supporting the idea that the Aged Man is a prophet from a previous cycle, who attempted something similar to fleeing to the starling city. For starters, its known that hes been alive virtually forever, similar to how the prophet could live on forever if they aren't killed since they are undead. Furthermore, there are books inside his house which provide evidence to support this point of view and you can have a brief dialogue with his wife who is stored in a life support unit. Taking this into account its highly likely that fleeing to the starling city is not a potentially successful ending, because if the aged man tried to do something like that and was unable to change the course of humanity, then why would you do any better.

There is also evidence to suggest that the dreamflower ending is in fact a dream and that Yuslan was right about it. There is a certain picture within the game titled "Expulsion from paradise" which is only found within the different vision scenes where you talk to the high ones. If you go back to those exact same locations when you are not in a vision, there will be a painting there, but it is not the same painting. Here is the painting for reference.

If you drink the dreamflower potion, then in the final scene when you are in Qyra, this picture will be hanging on 1 of the walls, which is suggestive of the idea that this ending is in fact a dream. Whilst there is no evidence to support the idea that the default sacrifice ending will lead to a win against the high ones, it does seem to be the ending with the most promise. Either way I really liked how the ending was left open to interpretation. There clearly is room to have another game post Enderal if they so wished to, although they would need to make 1 of the endings canonical in order to be able to do that.

Upon replaying the game, its actually impressive how much foreshadowing there is of some of the broader plot ideas. For example, ff you run into people with the red madness on the road, they will refer to you as being fleshless. Or when you do the quest Qalian's Last Smile, he is confused that you and Tharaêl don't understand how he could change bodies, since he can see that both of you are dead. The side quest Apotheosis even provides some foreshadowing to the black guardian, where you had someone trying to turn themselves into a machine to avoid the cleansing.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Spoiler

There is a significant amount of evidence supporting the idea that the Aged Man is a prophet from a previous cycle, who attempted something similar to fleeing to the starling city. For starters, its known that hes been alive virtually forever, similar to how the prophet could live on forever if they aren't killed since they are undead. Furthermore, there are books inside his house which provide evidence to support this point of view and you can have a brief dialogue with his wife who is stored in a life support unit. Taking this into account its highly likely that fleeing to the starling city is not a potentially successful ending, because if the aged man tried to do something like that and was unable to change the course of humanity, then why would you do any better.

There is also evidence to suggest that the dreamflower ending is in fact a dream and that Yuslan was right about it. There is a certain picture within the game titled "Expulsion from paradise" which is only found within the different vision scenes where you talk to the high ones. If you go back to those exact same locations when you are not in a vision, there will be a painting there, but it is not the same painting. Here is the painting for reference.

If you drink the dreamflower potion, then in the final scene when you are in Qyra, this picture will be hanging on 1 of the walls, which is suggestive of the idea that this ending is in fact a dream. Whilst there is no evidence to support the idea that the default sacrifice ending will lead to a win against the high ones, it does seem to be the ending with the most promise. Either way I really liked how the ending was left open to interpretation. There clearly is room to have another game post Enderal if they so wished to, although they would need to make 1 of the endings canonical in order to be able to do that.

Upon replaying the game, its actually impressive how much foreshadowing there is of some of the broader plot ideas. For example, ff you run into people with the red madness on the road, they will refer to you as being fleshless. Or when you do the quest Qalian's Last Smile, he is confused that you and Tharaêl don't understand how he could change bodies, since he can see that both of you are dead. The side quest Apotheosis even provides some foreshadowing to the black guardian, where you had someone trying to turn themselves into a machine to avoid the cleansing.

Spoiler

That's a good point, I had forgotten about the Aged Man for this. Him being "Fleshless" sounds fairly likely since he even kind of implies you'll learn about immortality yourself soon enough. That might also explain why he fucks off since he wants to get to whatever his hidey hole is before the cleansing happens. I did have the brief talk with his wife but I forget what she had to say.

I do agree completely that the "Waking up in Qyra" part is a dream, but where I disagree with Yuslan is everything up to the point where the PC dies blowing up the beacon. When you come back through the planeswalker Yuslan tells you if you drink the dreamflower elixir you'll drop into a coma and have a fantasy perfect dream life in it. Since things go to shit for you I'd say it's fairly clear he was wrong about that part, but waking up in Qyra is a pretty obvious dream. You also hear the thrum of the beacon the entire time during the Qyra sequence which seems like another indication that it's just your character in a la-la land coma in the final seconds he's being blown up. The thrum might mean you don't succeed in destroying the beacon (Falling into a coma just before you destroy it) but IIRC the beacon was thrumming even before it was activated and I believe even before you put the crystals into it, so I wouldn't put much stock in the ending being functionally different if you drink the elixir or not. The painting's a good catch though, didn't notice that at all.

Qalian's Last Smile is also a particularly good catch. That also could lend credence to the black guardian's statement about fleshless being driven by some aspect they dislike about themselves/a particular desire, since if he's fleshless himself (What with the corpse) that could explain why he's the way he is. The question in his case would be how did he end up fleshless (Since the black guardian says it's the high ones that do it) and why. I'd initially been thinking their group had worked for the lightborn, I think he (Or someone) mentioned that the reason they would kill children was to try to bump off emissaries which I reasoned was the lightborn trying to save their asses. Now I suppose it could've been the high ones behind it to start setting the stage for the cleansing. Qalian mentioned that "The targets were always right" (Not the exact term but I'm going on memory from some week(s) ago) but what that actually means is anyone's guess, and again could be high one fuckery.