This game lacks a good villain

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Originally Posted by Powe

" Summons Bahamut" Don't mess with the Au Ra, Master race

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Sorry we already kick Bahamut ass lol

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Originally Posted by Pence

What we really need is a daring villain to rain hell from the sky, releasing an Elder Primal to destroy everything.

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http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120607065922

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrZUUmiPtXo

I feel the problem is more lack of screen time vs the villains not being compelling or interesting. They all have a lot of potential, but we rarely get that extra scene or two to see what they're up to and make them more threatening.

Everyone is overlooking Yoshida!!
He won't give us more free retainers and keeps bringing new items. He's the ultimate villain for endgame glamor.

Also, Warrior of Light does not need to be defeated by Warrior of Darkness. That's dumb, because it's not like we've accomplished anything. It's already proven that killing primals over and over solves nothing, yet we keep doing it. All we've done is keep people alive short term at the expense of long term. We're bailing water out of a sinking boat, not winning.

There's a plethora of memorable villains in this game, in fact one of the longest threads on these forums is sort of dedicated to them.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...y.-Let-s-vent.

We have plenty of great villains!

- Ice mages in DF
- Relic grinds
- Weekly lockouts
- Party Finder


In seriousness though, we've had some decent villains, and we are just getting our next villain set up. The Warrior(s) of Darkness. I feel they are going to get a lot more interesting in the next patch or 2.

Previously, I felt the villains we've faced to be interesting enough, but could have been better.
- Thordan
- Teledeji (I felt this was underwhelming, but could have been great and I was interested in it at the time)
- Gaius / Garlean Empire

A few things needed to make a good villain.

-They do need a simple name. Something easy to roll off the tongue. Not Flerdade'busi'ne'sin. This was more of an issue in FFXI than FFXIV. Right now through the series we had Darnus, Gaius, and Thordan. Names easy enough to remember. Ascian names are questionable at times but Lahabrea and Elidibus are not too bad either.

-Characters need simple traits and not over the top complex motives so they are easier to relate to and understand. They need to be three-dimensional and easy to understand.

-Villain needs more screen time. Something in FFXIV I noticed is a lot of times, we don't get to see the villains too often and when we do, it is to come in, do something bad that sets the party back, then leaves. We get very few scenes expanding on the villain and their motives. They do to an extent, but not as much as they should.

-Design. Design is such a heavy part in this. This is something FFXIV severely lacks right now. The most significant looking designed villains are Darnus and Gaius. Even then, we never see Gaius with his helmet off. We do for Darnus, but not in 1.0 when he/she was more significant. The ascians are the worst abusers of this. All in the same type of cloak and the only thing differentiating them is their name. Elidibus only being different by wearing a white cloak instead of black. I get we are going for a Organization XIII type thing here, but at least they took their hoods off to show a unique design. For the ascians, it is the same mask never taken off and just throw in a different voice actor. We never even saw what Lahabrea looked like without using a vessel like Thancred. If you want memorable villains, you have to give them memorable yet simple designs.

You do have to remember also that this is a evolving game. So a lot of stories and villains are going to be contained within the areas of the expansion. I can only see real high stakes and world shattering events happening when we have enough expansions that eventually join together similar to how Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia worked into the Apocalypse Nigh quest line in FFXI. Not the same story structure, but how we work into bigger stakes is the point I am getting at.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

The ascians are the worst abusers of this. All in the same type of cloak and the only thing differentiating them is their name. Elidibus only being different by wearing a white cloak instead of black. I get we are going for a Organization XIII type thing here, but at least they took their hoods off to show a unique design. For the ascians, it is the same mask never taken off and just throw in a different voice actor. We never even saw what Lahabrea looked like without using a vessel like Thancred. If you want memorable villains, you have to give them memorable yet simple designs.

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THe Ascians has no face, no body. They posses the body of other people, so they have the appearance of the people they possess. As Lahabreah had the appearance of Thancred. So, for the Ascians, the Design itself is less relevant, because they have no body, they are simply a soul, a spirit.

We do currently have a major villain but it's a very gradual build up. Zodiark is the true villain of the story (as far as we know) so far and it seems likely that he's going to be the overarching villain of a multi-expansion story arc, likely stretching at least as far as 5.0.

As others have said already it's difficult to do recurring villains well in an MMO due to how long the story is. Any villain that we were to regularly encounter that rivaled us throughout the entire story would get boring or even annoying pretty quickly. Gaius served well as a villain in 2.0. Lahabrea and the other Ascians have served well up until the end of 3.0. I would say that between 3.0 and 3.1 we were lacking a serious villain but I think most would agree that after the events of 3.2 Nidhogg has proven to be quite a threat that we've failed to truly take seriously thus far.

Going forwards I'm expecting the Warriors of Darkness to serve as a recurring nemesis that we'll likely fight on multiple occasions. I have a feeling they'll end up being allies though.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

THe Ascians has no face, no body. They posses the body of other people, so they have the appearance of the people they possess. As Lahabreah had the appearance of Thancred. So, for the Ascians, the Design itself is less relevant, because they have no body, they are simply a soul, a spirit.

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I am aware of the reasons they look like that. It doesn't change the fact they have no unique design among them. You can at least put a different color or different looking cloak on them. The masks between them only look slightly different, nothing you can tell apart unless you look closer at them. I should know who is who from a distance. You line them all up and you will only know who is who when they speak and the bubble says their name. I can only tell who is who by their name, gender, and Elidibus because he wears a different color cloak.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Going forwards I'm expecting the Warriors of Darkness to serve as a recurring nemesis that we'll likely fight on multiple occasions. I have a feeling they'll end up being allies though.

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I think we are going to learn more about both Hydaelyn and Zodiark going into 4.0 and 4.0 expansion itself. I think between the two there is a gray area on both sides. I don't think Elidibus is wrong when he says there is no balance and it is too strongly in favor of the light. Having both light and darkness to balance the world. Perhaps both us and the Warriors of Darkness see this imbalance and work on defeating the extremes on both sides so order and balance put back into place. I am just throwing theories out of no where though, so anything could happen. Maybe it is just straight forward one side is very evil and needs to be stopped and the light is the only real way to go.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

I think we are going to learn more about both Hydaelyn and Zodiark going into 4.0 and 4.0 expansion itself. I think between the two there is a gray area on both sides. I don't think Elidibus is wrong when he says there is no balance and it is too strongly in favor of the light. Having both light and darkness to balance the world. Perhaps both us and the Warriors of Darkness see this imbalance and work on defeating the extremes on both sides so order and balance put back into place. I am just throwing theories out of no where though, so anything could happen. Maybe it is just straight forward one side is very evil and needs to be stopped and the light is the only real way to go.

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I'm personally hoping that we'll end up destroying both Zodiark and Hydaelyn, which should allow Light and Dark to return to their balanced state prior to Zodiark's excision. We still don't really know why Hydaelyn banished her other half and until we have that answer I'll remain skeptical of her motives.

I really don't want this story to be an outright good vs evil scenario at the end. Such climaxes are extremely boring and predictable.

Thou must needs to go forth a spread thine light to all creation and banish Darkness on the world

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/...20160212102138[/img]

Spoilers below:

Am I the only one who's noticed that, as Warriors of Light, we've had our asses destroyed on multiple occasions? Somebody mentioned, for instance, in 3.2 spoilers that:

The guy who shot the arrow should have been us.

Well, it couldn't have been. Because in all of our stress of running around, we exhibit the most human trait of sitting down and accepting some tea from somebody. We were then poisoned and unconscious for a while; I expected more out of it but despite everything we as the Warrior have learned, we neglected to not let our guard down all the way.

One could argue that several events of 3.2 should have had far more consequence: Vidofnir lived through Nidhogg's attack, the Fortemps kid did not face worse consequences for his actions than "Go fight a mock war, boy!" and a right hook from Thancred (which, I mean, I guess would hurt like a bitch since he later uppercutted a cyclops, but I digress). The WoD had little to no influence in this patch besides stalking us.

However, we have been defeated at least three times that I can count off the top of my head, and probably more: When we first fought Ifrit, we were captured by Amal'jaa and sort of forced into the fight. We were captured because we were outmaneuvered and betrayed.

We were defeated by the Ul'Dah Syndicate (a defeat that kind of still lasts today) when we were politically outmaneuvered, forced to watch all of our friends die, get maimed, flee, or leave them behind as we ran away powerless. That's probably the most humiliating defeat we could have had because, as martially powerful as our Warrior is, it showed that we are not the brightest when it comes to the political spectrum, and when pushed even we have to retreat from the army hunting us.

Other, smaller defeats:

We couldn't save Moenbryda; we couldn't kill Ascians without Moenbryda; we couldn't save Iceheart from her death by cannonfire; we couldn't prevent the Triad from waking up; we couldn't save Estinien from becoming Nidhogg.

Finally, the defeat I listed above compounded with being forced to watch as Nidhogg/Estinien nearly killed Vidofnir. We're really darn strong when it comes to just kicking ass but all this "plot armor" really devolves to "we're good at not getting killed by the stuff we fail at doing".

You mean to tell me you don't find nonsense-talking goblins to be memorable or interesting villains? GASP