What happened to SB (story)?

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

And now we will be the genocidal conquerors if we push further to kill them. I wonder why no one is thinking of that point? Is it different because you have the Garleans demonised in your brains?

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If you automatically equate invasion with genocide then the Garleans are genocidal monsters that need to be put to the sword because of their invasion, subjugation, and enslavement of the nations surrounding their homeland and did not even stop there, working to seize the entire continent they are on and when the going got tough because of the primal threat their response was to drop a moon on it knowing full well it would result in the complete annihilation of all life in eorzea. With the only people against it wanting to conquer Eorzea so they could ship its inhabitants across the sea in every direction to be used as frontline fodder in further invasions across the globe on any undiscovered landmasses in their goal of taking over the entire world for just pureblood garleans to live in.

Us doing a retaliatory invasion of them is just standard politics. If you stretch it a little you can find some parallels to World War 2 in the current state of the story. Not to mention that Garleans who are peaceful are generally accepted by Eorzeans. So us going in and being all genocidal is purely locked up in your head because you want an excuse to ditch the people who have only been fighting defensively to reclaim their own land and the land of their allies.

As for the matter of demonizing Garleans, there's a rather friendly lore nerd over on tumblr who compiled NPC dialogue pertaining to Garlemald and Ala Mhigo that was present /before/ SB was released - and it just further hammers home the point that the Empire isn't as pure as some are trying to make it to be. Especially given the implications with Arenvald and others like him, given that it's heavily implied his situation is rather common and pitiable.
http://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/pos...til-stormblood

There is a consensus in my FC that Doma and Ala migo should have been patches onto themselves with zones and story development to match. I agree that the zones felt tiny and the story barely had a chance to breathe. There was also a ton of "tell not show" happening that crippled key story moments and mostly affected the expansion's box-art character. We were told Lys did a bunch of leadership/rebellion stuff but we honestly never saw her do any of it. It made the ending seem so hollow to me. Hien should have been in her spot, we got to see him rise up, we got to see his cunning and his strength. I feel like if they wanted a pretty "mockingjay" female protagonist to prop up it should have been Alisaie, not Lys. She has way more of a dramatic character arc in this and would be a believable poster child.

I hear enough political nonsense and hand wringing ad nauseum. in real life.

I'm just sick of them as antagonists. They are not good antagonists, and their downfall is seen a mile away with how easy it regularly is to kill them. Zenos himself looked good, but all Zenos served was to show them as even more incompetent and flat. I would like better, they can't just be "racist toad with no sense of manners" and "actually kinda decent deserter".

And the idea of sparing relative jerks simply to look good while still making the connotations that they are an unforgivable lot is just senseless.

Kill them or make peace with them.

My biggest gripe is how easily zenos defeated you with little effort even after all the godly beings you've fought against. How is your character who most of the time single handedly fought and defeated such foes get totally punked by some generic evil guy? I'm guessing that armor that zenos wears must be the physical form of his plot armor

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

Really what bothered me is how SE basically jokes around about how you supposedly cannot defeat primals alone, while according to the ARR and HW story you do all the time without any help.

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Going and getting your adventurer buds to help with whatever fight you're about to take on is done multiple times in both ARR and HW, including for primals. I don't remember every word of dialogue over the course of the MSQ, but I think if I recall correctly it's actually soloing primals that's never really explicitly mentioned, although granted having your friends along with you doesn't make much sense for a couple of primal fights (story Ifrit and story Ravana being the most obvious.)

At the end of the day, the story team tend to leave the dialogue and circumstances open ended enough that you can justify it either way. Although the constant over the top references to your friends in SB makes me think they personally lean towards the 'you're generally not alone' line of thinking.

SB feels very rushed, unfocused and easy compared to HW. The only major set back our faction suffers is the defeat at Rhalgrs Reach, to which the Scion response is to travel to the other side of the world to stir up rebellion in an unimportant part of the Empire with seemingly no strategic value.

After defeating the Doma garrison of it seems about 20 soldiers, 1 cyborg and a bitter dominatrix it's back to Eorzea where in our absence absolutely nothing at all has happened. So we lead a merry jaunt over to Ala Mhigo, once we get there the Garleans suddenly remember they have loads of weapons that can fly, nearly ruins the whole advance, but thankfully 3 or 4 guys on giant birds flew over from our previous liberation of 'pretty much as far away as possible land' and sort that whole nasty air superiority problem out for us.

Air superiority... you know oddly enough I think that's one of my main issues with the whole war against Garlemald, where the hell are the Empires airships? It's like they couldn't figure out a way for the Alliance to beat them, so they just never had them show up.
Where is the awesome duty where that giant airship Ishgard has tries to hold the wall against Imperial airships while we fly between them fighting the crews and sabotaging them from within? Man, that would have been awesome.

I saw a perfect summation on reddit. 'The Empire lost two conquered territories because the guy they put in charge of them was bored'.
I hope the patch content gives the Empire its teeth back, makes us really fight to hold Ala Mhigo and Doma now we have them.

Edit: Just want to say, I did enjoy parts of the SB story. Some excellent moments. Just don't think it fits together as a whole very well.

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Originally Posted by Furiea

Source that's the FF14 1.0 Release.
the guy should have kept his stock... it's worth about twice as much now.

long story short... as i mentioned in another thread... I would like to see the story moving more towards gods and mystical realm. As strong as the empire is, nation vs nation war shouldn't concern the warrior of light. that's why I kinda like HW's story better... but hey.. my friend loves SB story over HW.

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The story is moving in that direction though. The various wars that the WoL is getting involved with are ultimately all the result of the Ascians who appear to have very direct influence in Garlemald. If we wish to stop the Ascians and Zodiark we need to stop Garelemald first, and to stop Garlemald we needed to liberate Ala Mhigo and Doma. Yoshi has already told us that the current story arc has two expansions remaining in it, which makes it easy to see that 5.0 is the war against Garlemald and 6.0 is the battle against Zodiark.

This isn't the sort of MMO where the devs just pick a random theme for an expansion. The story, its associated geographical locations and its villains are all pre-planned years ahead. The 4.X patch cycle has a lot of potential for new mystical elements as well due to the reveal of what the Echo is truly capable of. The WoL is going to be trying to learn how to command primals now...

Yeah.... Pacing and Scale are the two biggest gripes I have.

The complete destruction of Rhalgr's Reach followed by "Let's send 4 guys to Doma to fix things there! That'll help!" really felt off.
If it were legitimately a split focus tactic, maybe it could do something, but little seems to have been done in Gyr Abania while we were gone, and it's still a questionable tactic to begin with.
But that said, if we sent over a group of our best commanders and the DLF had enough bodies to actually be believable, I could still possibly accept it. Yet the closest to a commander we sent was Alphinaud, and the force consisted of like 5 guys... :-/
That's not even mentioning how the timing of this (and the logistics of the plan in general) would likely come off to the Domans. It ends up feeling more like "We're having trouble over there, so could you guys please rise up and be a distraction?" which would pretty much kill any good will they may have bought considering the attitude in Doma at the time.

Then we have the "OK, we're done here. Back to Ala Mhigo!" part. Honestly, if we were going to split focus, I would not have gone back to Gyr Abania in the initial release. Let it be wholly and summarily crushed following Rhalgr's Reach and have the empire use it as a staging ground for a campaign against the Allied states, then in 4.1+ we could be forced to return abruptly to try and head this off before pushing back to take Ala Mhigo again.

That said, like I said though, scale is one of the biggest problems as well. Doma being only one zone feels more like a county than a country, and an imperial force that has left them oppressed for decades and thwarted a much-better-planned rebellion just a year or so back should not be taken down by essentially a dozen angry villagers, 4 guys on birds, and a couple of friends. In the end, the whole thing felt... inconsequential. Likewise the idea that because they did fight off this force, they're 'free' and we can walk away is ludicrous. The second it was revealed the rebellion was actually making progress, a half-dozen other legions should have shown up and been like 'LOL No.' As it stands the empire looks like a joke...

Except Zenos... Which is another complaint I have. When he summarily trounced us the first time, I was annoyed, but reading online people kept saying "It's cool. They explain it".
But they didn't. Him being a resonant? I could buy that taking everyone else out, but not us. We have a proper Echo and should not have had the same issues as everyone else, certainly not to the extent of being pretty much ragdolls in front of him. But when did he become a resonant? They mention the facility was there to allow Garleans to use magicks, but it seems like he needed Krile before the whole 'Resonance' project thing could come to fruition (unless those other chambers were full of Echo users too, in which case, we just abandoned them it seems). If that's the case, then the first encounter still makes no sense. I'm hoping the line at the end about him being a 'monster' and an 'experiment' ends up leading to the revelation that prior to his own experimentation, he was some kind of super-soldier test-subject. Otherwise it just feels like a poor attempt to make the Empire seem powerful. Which is especially a shame since it's failing to make them look powerful in the way they should be (Overwhelming technical superiority and numbers that can just sweep over a nation).

The Zenos duties bothered me just from a mechanical standpoint.

I leveled through the MSQ as a healer, the Zenos presented to us in those duties with the abilities he had couldn't have defeated me on a long enough time line.

It feels hokey when I'm being decreed as having being routinely trounced when I literally stood in front of him for most of the fight not taking any damage and absent mindedly spamming my one damage spell to gradually whittle his bloated, artificial hp bar down until he decided "lulz I win" and hit me with a move I could still have easily recovered from.

Would it have killed them to make him halfway intelligent? "Restorative magics? Interesting, let's see how you handle this" *starts draining mp with auto attacks* or have him break all your armour pacify you, or something... Anything.

Him "holding back" for storyline purposes didn't fix the disconnect for me.

At this point I'm kinda hoping that Eldibus's goal really is making the last calamity occur on Garlean soil and leaving the WoL and their allies with the check in a brutal twist of "we couldn't have done this without you". Because the devs seem determined to keep the Garleans losing battles in the most ridiculous manner. The scientist's description of what the Garleans found when they first fled there makes it a good setup, and it offers the whammy of killing the reputation of the WoL and anyone blessed with the echo for causing the end of days.

SB story was perfect in my opinion , much better than HW which was good too

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Originally Posted by itti18

SB story was perfect in my opinion , much better than HW which was good too

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I enjoyed it tremendously too and even more than Heavensward. Interestingly enough people in my FC and friends circles seemed to enjoy the story more thinking it was more heroic than HW. One thing is for sure is you can't make everyone happy.

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Originally Posted by Gun-Cat

While I don't agree with all your points, I thought the SB story to be very lackluster as well. Granted I am not objective about this because Y'shtola is my waifu and I am utterly disgusted by the continued Shtola ryona the developers keep up, but trying to view it in an objective manner:

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Lyse is bae

Honestly, I think the fact they wanted to do a big reveal of the far east to build hype is a part of why the stories feel a bit disconnected.

If patch 3.4/3.5 had built up heading to the Far East and then after we'd gone Ilberd and Shinryu caused everything to kick off in Ala Mhigo early in the 4.0 story it would have felt more natural.
We'd have already gotten our-self wrapped up in Doma's cause, the Ala Mhigans fighting on the wall could have been portrayed as justifiably annoyed that the Scions are liberating eastern provinces while their Eorzean city stays under Garlean rule. There'd be tension, we can't just leave the Doman rebellion after helping kick it off but we also can't leave the Alliance and our homeland to fight without us.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

There'd be believable tension, we can't just leave the Doman rebellion after helping kick it off but we also can't leave the Alliance and our homeland to fight without us.

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There's also the bit that we actually went to Ala Mhigo simply because we were certain that after the whole wall incident, Garlemald was going to prioritize reprisal against us... And... they didn't.
Which makes the whole "We'll liberate Ala Mhigo!" notion even more forced.

Rhalgr's Reach really should have been a prelude to the Empire Striking Back or something.

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

There's also the bit that we actually went to Ala Mhigo simply because we were certain that after the whole wall incident, Garlemald was going to prioritize reprisal against us... And... they didn't.
Which makes the whole "We'll liberate Ala Mhigo!" notion even more forced.

Rhalgr's Reach really should have been a prelude to the Empire Striking Back or something.

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Let's not forget, now that these area are now firmly out of imperial hands any introduction of force in 4.x is going to be resolved within the patch and not come across as an area being in danger of being retaken, because it was ALREADY messed up with imperial wreckage.

They were always going to hit a wall with how overpowered our characters are from a lore/storyline point. It definitely doesn't make sense that we lose to half the NPCs we lose to in order to move a narrative along. If FFXIV were a God of War game, every expansion would start with us falling down into the River Styx in Hades to lose all our progression.

Even looking past that, the overall storyline was all over the place in scale and direction. I also wondered why the Ascians took such a back seat. The build up from the NIN questline, and even before that, led me to believe that Doma would be this huge place overrun by the empire. It was just a small section of rubble? Okay...why are we making this side trip for like 15 farmers again?

The lack of underwater battles made the underwater portions confusing to me. It just meant additional areas to "fly" in with nothing really new to do other than a handful of clickable destinations. I was also expecting way more underwater life. Instead we get a couple mostly empty underwater zones with a few bubbles to swim into for MSQ and then never return to. I almost feel sorry for the people that had to work on these areas.

I'm trying to think hard about what I liked about the new expansion. Well, both new jobs are fun, especially for AoE spam. Kugane is pretty. The handful solo MSQ fights were all pretty fun.

Completely disagree. Stormbloods story and it's narrative is pretty strong. I think it's premature to judge the story that is spread throughout the entire expansion just from what we have so far. I'm enjoying it far more than HW's story.

WRT rhalgr's Reach, I was under the impression that they'd actually known for ages, but that the rebellion was too pathetic to bother sending an entire force to put down. As soon as they got some friends the Garleans went "hmm, this could be awkward" so Fordola's suggestion to utterly crush the resistance there was sensible.


I dislike the way Fordola is treated by the story. Her choices make sense. She was BORN in a garlean-conquered Ala Mhigo. To make a legitimate living, she had to serve. In order to win respect in the army, she had to be Good, and that translates to bloodthirstiness. Everything she did was far more sensible and forward-thinking - from the point of view of anyone that wasn't pointlessly patriotic for the good ol' days - and that everyone treats her like treacherous scum bothers me almost as much as the suggestion that we would've hit Emmannellain in 3.2

Either way, the vast majority of my issues with the story come from the way the Empire is handled. Given SE were constantly promising us "shades of grey", the way the Empire treats its conquered territories is utterly unsustainable. Rome didn't build a huge empire by trashing everywhere it conquered and laughing at the corpses. Zenos was a bloodthirsty hound, yes, but your average Garlean shouldn't be. They'd be more likely to PRETEND to be in the presence of Zenos, whom everyone is scared sh*tless of, but starving and beating the populace doesn't make for a prosperous or sustainable Empire. Cmon, SE. It's overly villainising of a people who, from all we've been presented with thus far, should know better.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Because the devs seem determined to keep the Garleans losing battles in the most ridiculous manner.

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Part of me suspects come 4.1 we'll see a new character from Garlemald show up in Eorzea as an emissary of the Empire with a message like...

"On behalf of Emperor Varis and the Garlean Empire, we wish to extend our thanks to the Eorzean Alliance, Ala Mhigan Resistance, and Doman Liberation Front. I can see from your expressions you are confused. For some time now the regions of Ala Mhigo and Doma have been a resource drain on the Empire, worth less than the cost of maintaining. We left Doma understaffed on purpose, with the idea that eventually someone would take it off our hands. As for Ala Mhigo, we knew what Zenos was like to do with that territory when he was appointed the Viceroy, and knew that his actions and nature would hopefully lead to someone disposing of him for us.

"Ah, I see your shock. Tell me, do you think the Emperor would want a man like Zenos to have succeeded him as the ruler of the Garlean Empire? That was far from our interests. Far better that he should die on the field of battle and a more competent heir be groomed to succeed Emperor Varis. That said, while by necessity there must needs be retribution for the death of the heir to the imperial throne, for now we shall be observing a state of mourning for his loss. When this has concluded, the Empire shall be looking into more worthwhile lands for expansion, a Campaign in honor of Zenos' memory, only proper. Your Scions of the Seventh Dawn have proven quite capable. Perhaps Sharlayan will be a fine target. Their vaunted magical wards are not like to hold up against the Resonant. However, for now, rest upon your laurels and rejoice in your victory."

That's a lot of text. People have different tastes. I enjoyed the ARR story, I loved the 2.55 finale, I enjoyed HW but it left me feeling very devastated and not... happy at all. SB, I loved to bits. Everything in it. Every character, music and moment. I feel like the build up to 4.0 was poorly done however. The 3.x patches felt like they dragged too long wrapping up HW and left little room to build up the setting to SB.

So much to address... I'm going to bring this down to some main points you brought up since I can't possibly addresses it all, starting with...

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Originally Posted by Quite

The first thing to rage about was being asked by Alphinaud what you thought on the Ala Mhigan rebellion. I was given three VAGUE options. I picked the one I thought was most in character with how I had answered questions in HW and ARR. And guess what? I get a 'sorry you feel that way' response. Not only did the response not fit any of the answers, I had now chosen a response that felt like I was playing Fallout 4. I didn't mean to say anything that implied what that response implied I said. The other times you choose words to say would mostly follow in that Fallout 4 'But I didn't want to say that!' feeling.

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This is unfortunately true, as the WoL the things we get to say in reaction are terribly limited and don't often convey what we really want to say. However, you do have to remember that XIV's story is little more than an interactive book, while there is some flexability in things ultimately the story will play out in exactly the way SE wants to tell it which means they can't really give us "impactful" choices. On top of that, they have to code all of this in and they only have limited resources to do that, so they give us the best they can while still adhering to the previous limitation.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Then facing Xenos for the first time. He takes you down without effort and one of the characters states how useless everything you went through before is. Your esteemed allies and practiced soldiers just lose to everyone, even the foot soldiers of Garlemald. Seriously, what's the deal? You're trying to reset the novice feel? Why? Why on earth would ANYONE do that in that way, after building us up that much, now we're nothing but helpless to ONE PERSON who is HUMAN and equipped in armor that isn't that different form people we've already defeated? That was the moment where I felt further from this game than I ever have. And quite frankly, it broke my suspension of disbelief. Everything that happened afterward failed to connect with me because I was constantly thinking, "The devs want it this way, it's gonna happen this way."

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You're right, the Devs wanted it that way, they wanted a couple things actually:
1. They wanted us to look at Zenos and wonder what the heck he actually is.
2. They wanted to show that there is a LOT of things about the world and about the Echo (which is what makes us the WoL) that our characters, the Scions and ourselves don't know.
3. They wanted us to HATE Zenos, more than we've ever hated anyone before.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Rhalgar's Reach, after 20 years of not being spotted, magically gets attacked. There is no reason for this. None. There was specific interest in quelling these rebels yet none of Xenos' men had located it despite trying. So tell me, how did they know? And don't give me that 'Fordola knew where it was' excuse. If she was blind enough to support the empire then she would have outed them years ago with the zeal she has. This is a plot hole, and it's the ONLY REASON we decide to head for Doma.

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This is actually due to how Zenos is as a person. Simply put, he didn't view the resistance as a threat so he had no reason to worry about putting them down. Actually letting them carry on served his purpose because Zenos wanted one thing above all others: A worthy opponent that could make him feel -anything-. Zenos only was able to experience emotion when he was in the thick of battle, kill or be killed. He was a true psychopath and the WoL was the ideal person who could stand against him as a worthy opponent. Had there been no resistance in Ala Mhigo then it's entirely possible we would not have had a reason nor the ability to invade Ala Mhigo, and Zenos was not going to invade the rest of Eorzea as he was under orders from the Emperor not to do so. The only way for him to get the fight he wanted was to have us come to him, and the resistance served that purpose perfectly.

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Originally Posted by Quite

The next disappointment is the Ruby Sea. Look, the underwater parts were amazing, but it felt smaller in scope than Sastasha. To be specific, the location of the entrance to the Ruby Toll was so close to Doma that an entire sea was shrunk down to the size of a river. It felt like a river. Not a sea, a river. I just don't understand. Why did the map have to include the shore to the mainland? It would have felt so much bigger if the Ruby Sea was treated like the various maps in the Sea of Clouds: One section of many others. A new second map wasn't needed, just the illusion that the part where map was was only a small section of a larger archipelago in the middle of the sea. Have an ocean view instead of the Doma shore.

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I agree that this zone was technically smaller than it should have been, but I decided that this archipelago was the Westernmost portion of the sea and that entrance was just a boat ride between Kugane and the Ruby Toll.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Now, until this point, a lot of my complaints could be a result of the development process not being completely in sync. However, Yotsuyu is completely on the writers. She had a legitimate reason to betray Doma, it's how she - an abused and tossed away girl - could make money and scrape out a living that was more dignified than that of a whore. She also developed a sadistic side. But no, the entire focus of her story was how all Domans deserved death and she spoke to her subordinates like she knew we were listening. That's meta (acting upon knowledge the character shouldn't have) and a poor excuse for giving her an air of mystery. I actually thought that she was born in Garlemald for how distant she seemed from "her people".

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I think there's more to Yotsuyo's story that we don't know yet and will get in later story as we progress through the patches.

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Originally Posted by Quite

And what about Yugiri tossing all her patience to move the plot forward? She has never been that excited about anything, not even finding her master. But suddenly throws all caution to the wind for the sake of plot when it comes to attacking Xenos. I can't help but feel that 'standing up to Xenos' scene could have been accomplished more effectively (and believably) by chasing that young kid in the orange attire after hearing that he is attempting an assassination of his own.

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This was because Yugiri lost her patience with their people of Doma and she was dedicated to saving her master's life, even if it meant throwing away her own life. She doesn't want Hien to die, and she doesn't want him to die because the people don't have the courage to fight. Also, remember, that up until this point Yugiri hasn't had any real "skin in the game", as it were. She wasn't in her homeland before, but she is now so everything is much, much more personal here.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Then we free the nation of Doma... but it really doesn't feel like it. The map is still just as quiet as when we got there. Anyway, back to Eorzea.

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No arguments here.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Where I genuinely don't care for the story anymore and just want to get it over with. My suspension of disbelief is gone, I'm expecting a disappointing conclusion, and just want to get to the EX trials.

The conclusion was actually fantastic, except everything that led up to it was less than the outcome. I wasn't fighting Xenos in the end, I was fighting a primal. So all that build up and hype, and now the final villain needs a boost to keep up with us? When did we get so strong? I can't tell because we didn't actually fight a ton of big monsters beforehand. We fought enemies that everyone knew we were better than and only pushed our capabilities twice before that. 2+2 suddenly equaled 103 and I missed how we got there. When did we add 99 to that?

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We always turn the dial up to 11 like this... Nothing new here.

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Originally Posted by Quite

And now it goes back to my initial issue. Remember that dialogue choice I talked about? I gave the vague answer that most sounded like: "What about the ascians? I'll fight in this war while nothing else comes up but we really should be putting effort into finding them. This may be a good cause, but we ultimately have bigger issues." This game lost sight of the original plot and tacked on a conversation with one ascian at the end. What happened to all the primals they were summoning to make things hard for us all throughout ARR and HW? Why is the entire base story of an official expansion I paid extra for nothing more than a sub-plot? The ascians literally did NOTHING but wait for the Emperor's scheme to take place in a success via failure conclusion.

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Yoshida was very clear that this Expac is NOT about the Ascians (even though everything eventually comes down to Ascians... I'm not saying it was Ascians... But it was Ascians), but more about Garlemald and dismantling more of their influence.

That's about all I have here, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the story, I found it quite enjoyable, but you really needed to understand the subtext and the character motivations in order to know WHY things happened the way they did. I hope you find things more enjoyable in the patches to come.

The only two quibbles I have with the SB story are:

1) Zenos. We go from getting our asses kicked up and down Rhalgr's reach to casually marching in to his throne room and kicking his ass up and down it. At no point in the story do we look into any particular kind of training or devise a plan to deal with a man that's clearly far beyond our scope in power, and I don't buy the level gap as a reasonable excuse. Most of our campaigning involved kicking around Garlean mooks, that's hardly going to enable us to suddenly match someone who is presented as overwhelmingly powerful.

2) Shinryu. Pretty much the same as with Zenos...we are told that we can't possibly stand up to Shinryu and it's too powerful. We need to have Papalymo kill himself to buy time, and then sic Omega on it in the hopes that Omega will win. And yet we casually give this supposedly mighty monster the beatdown without a second thought, the moment it re-enters the story. So Papalymo's sacrifice was pointless, because obviously we were strong enough to fight the thing in the first place. And there was no need to risk everything on Omega behaving.

Again, there was no special preparations or tactics in play here. All we did was level from 60 to 70 without really pushing the WoL's limits at any point in the story save when Zenos gave us the beatdown twice. With no clever strategy or advantage in play, yet we suddenly just run these supposed bad asses over with a truck really breaks my immersion in the story.

I've already gotten over it, mind you, but hey.

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Originally Posted by Cenerae

So Papalymo's sacrifice was pointless, because obviously we were strong enough to fight the thing in the first place. And there was no need to risk everything on Omega behaving.

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I think the implication of the narrative was that as we progressed through the story, as we encountered new people, new problems, we grew stronger for it. So when Papalymo sacrificed himself, we were too weak. By the time we marched into the Royal Menagerie, we had a chance.

Also for conspiracy theorists, this adds up with the, 'The Warrior of Light brands all he meets and gains power from them.' We ran out of people to brand in Eorzea, so we found new strength in the Far East.

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Originally Posted by Cenerae

1) Zenos. We go from getting our asses kicked up and down Rhalgr's reach to casually marching in to his throne room and kicking his ass up and down it. At no point in the story do we look into any particular kind of training or devise a plan to deal with a man that's clearly far beyond our scope in power, and I don't buy the level gap as a reasonable excuse. Most of our campaigning involved kicking around Garlean mooks, that's hardly going to enable us to suddenly match someone who is presented as overwhelmingly powerful.

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This is basically why I feel that the story was rushed. Zenos should have been end of 4.1 or 4.2 boss. Everything just seemed...lacking. Was the story good, if otherwise rushed? Yes. Should it have been more flushed out with other concerns/situations? Definitely. Do I think I know why they did it? Probably because of all the people who non-stop complained about the mass amount of filler quests(yes, there were tons, but it could always have been worse...those quests helped build the story...if in a slightly annoying manner).

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Originally Posted by Cenerae

2) Shinryu. Pretty much the same as with Zenos...we are told that we can't possibly stand up to Shinryu and it's too powerful. We need to have Papalymo kill himself to buy time, and then sic Omega on it in the hopes that Omega will win. And yet we casually give this supposedly mighty monster the beatdown without a second thought, the moment it re-enters the story. So Papalymo's sacrifice was pointless, because obviously we were strong enough to fight the thing in the first place. And there was no need to risk everything on Omega behaving.

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For the fight with Zenos, all I can say is that we learned his secret when we fought Fordola, but I can't say how we exploited it. However, for Shinryu we can say 2 things for certain: 1) Omega did significant damage to Shinryu prior to us fighting him, therefore he was already somewhat weakened. 2) After Shinryu is beaten, Estinian specifically says that the eyes are almost completely empty, which means Shinryu was almost to the point of disappearing -anyway-, so therefore we just shoved him over the edge.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

For the fight with Zenos, all I can say is that we learned his secret when we fought Fordola, but I can't say how we exploited it. However, for Shinryu we can say 2 things for certain: 1) Omega did significant damage to Shinryu prior to us fighting him, therefore he was already somewhat weakened. 2) After Shinryu is beaten, Estinian specifically says that the eyes are almost completely empty, which means Shinryu was almost to the point of disappearing -anyway-, so therefore we just shoved him over the edge.

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After beating Fordola, we knew that Zenos had the same source of power. But we also needed a special device to weaken Fordola so we could best her in combat. We employed no special tactics against Zenos, we just beat him down like anyone else. Which implies that Fordola is far stronger than Zenos (which is not how the story presents it).

As for Omega damaging Shinryu heavily, I want to point out that a relatively long time went by in game time between Omega and Shinryu fighting, and us getting to fight Shinryu. It certainly didn't look very hurt when we went to battle it, and I doubt that it being imprisoned by the Garleans had done more than make it really angry.

I'll take your point about the eyes, though. Though I suspect that Shinryu would have tried to raid somewhere with a lot of crystals, were it running out of aether to stay corporeal.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Going and getting your adventurer buds to help with whatever fight you're about to take on is done multiple times in both ARR and HW, including for primals. I don't remember every word of dialogue over the course of the MSQ, but I think if I recall correctly it's actually soloing primals that's never really explicitly mentioned, although granted having your friends along with you doesn't make much sense for a couple of primal fights (story Ifrit and story Ravana being the most obvious.)

At the end of the day, the story team tend to leave the dialogue and circumstances open ended enough that you can justify it either way. Although the constant over the top references to your friends in SB makes me think they personally lean towards the 'you're generally not alone' line of thinking.

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The story would often not make sense if we have other adventurers with us. Also the lore book states us at going against any primal alone and only the fights in the Garlean base (lvl50) is fought with a group. Also the enemies often talk about us like we are alone. So yes them going back in SB with their hints of having others with us (even in the trial where we should prove that we are a warrior for the Mol) is completely annoying, especially since Doma is quite far away from Eorzea and we only traveled with the scions there.

To OP: I agree with a lot of your points and HW > SB for me. I never felt like we went to war and everything went way to smoothly. I also did not feel that positive about Lyse so that might be one big point for me too. (Why was she chosen as a leader when she is still reckless at the end?)

I also cant believe how Zenos just stomped us twice and suddenly we are not even able to defeat him..no we defeat him combined with Shinryu. I am a bit shocked that they already used the dragon here and not later. As the WoL we fought lots of difficult enemies in HW (after getting to level 60), even the WoDs and the Warring Triad. Yet we somehow did not get stronger with that. But somehow two out of nowhere primals and some Garlean soldiers are enough to make us stronger? Even strong enough to defeat Shinryu? (Also we defeat Zenos in the dungeon with four people, that are nowhere to be seen in the cutscene after that, then we go to fight him right after that with 8 adventurers that come out of nowhere again and are gone again after that..so yes I would believe that it makes more sense that we did those fights alone)

I also kinda question why nobody ask how the settlement of the rebellion was found? I mean shouldnt that mean that there was a traitor? Yet it seemed like nobody cared about this. (And somehow they decided to just stay there..)

I did like the freeing of Doma castle but I was a bit annoyed that we got no party after that. Its just like "well one part done, lets go back". Would have been nice to see a cutscene where everyone parties a bit (Xaela too) and maybe raise their glassed to all the fallen ones. I mean its not everyday that we free a country of their oppressors and one day more would have not changed much. Yet we did not even get that. And somehow even though Tataru (who decided to stay behind, even though she is part of the scions too) only booked for four people, Yugiri can just leave with us (making it five). I am still not sure why Yugiri even went with us, since she was nowhere to be seen anyway, until the last battle, where she and Hien (how did he get there that fast?) fought on our side.

In the end its kind of funny how we go into human made war, even after we learn about all the things from the WoD..Yes there is a big chance that the Ascians have their hands behind it too and yes its our task to stop primals. But its not our fight to help with wars, especially since the scions should know that losing us, would mean losing the battle against the Ascians thus losing all the worlds too..I always feel a bit off when you have world threating enemies exist yet the heroes always just take care of the smaller stuff first.

Unlike HW I am also not looking forward towards the rest of the expansion story. We do not even know what might come and I am a bit sick of war and political situations. I just hope that we suddenly dont have another big bad threat that comes out of nowhere and that is somehow stronger than the WoL..(Echo is really the deus ex machina in this game..it can just be used for anything..)

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Originally Posted by Quite

This game lost sight of the original plot and tacked on a conversation with one ascian at the end. What happened to all the primals they were summoning to make things hard for us

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I do agree, the story started out good and became just convoluted over time as it progressed. I fear it will only become more as time goes on. Just cause once Yoshida took out the Final Fantasy play book and drew most of his inspiration from it and past Final Fantasy games and tried to fit them all together in one game, all to work together in one story. Just my thoughts but I feel he's more focused on taking these elements and putting them in first and bending the story around them instead of leaving the past in the past and just doing his own thing. The primals and Ascions maybe back someday. Once they can fit whatever old FF reference he has planned for them after were done with whatever old big FF reference he's working on for SB.

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Originally Posted by Cenerae

After beating Fordola, we knew that Zenos had the same source of power. But we also needed a special device to weaken Fordola so we could best her in combat. We employed no special tactics against Zenos, we just beat him down like anyone else. Which implies that Fordola is far stronger than Zenos (which is not how the story presents it).

As for Omega damaging Shinryu heavily, I want to point out that a relatively long time went by in game time between Omega and Shinryu fighting, and us getting to fight Shinryu. It certainly didn't look very hurt when we went to battle it, and I doubt that it being imprisoned by the Garleans had done more than make it really angry.

I'll take your point about the eyes, though. Though I suspect that Shinryu would have tried to raid somewhere with a lot of crystals, were it running out of aether to stay corporeal.

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Actually, it was imprisoned by Omega, not the Garleans, and we don't know all the effects that field had on Shinryu. On top of that, all other Primals need worshipers to maintain themselves in addition to crystals, hence why Primals 'temper' people. Shinryu's initial "worshipers" all died before he was manifest and he didn't have time to put anyone under his sway.

For Zenos, I did say that I can't speak to how we exploited his weakness to overcome him, but we had already shown signs during the second encounter that we were starting to rise up to his level. Once more, there's a LOT we don't know about the Echo and how it actually works at this point and that really becomes our "plot armor" in the end.

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Originally Posted by Quite

My annoyances can best be summed up like this: ARR was an amazing hero origin story with plenty of that "I came here to adventure" feel. The writing was stellar and you genuinely felt like you were this regular person who got caught up in things and discovered you were more than that. Working hard to do the right thing and exploring the continent as you went from place to place. The feeling was that and more, and it felt genuine. HW had you interact with a nation engaged in a massive war going on for over a thousand years and that war felt just as massive as it was told in the story. Everything felt huge and you felt like an experienced adventurer who just started to get a hang of the weight behind their fame and capabilities. You worked hard and made a big difference; and it felt like you made the difference as only a hero could. The epic war felt epic.

Then comes SB... and a large-scale war spanning the world being fought on two fronts somehow feels tiny. By the end of it I felt like I helped two small tribes and interacted with a third small tribe that was divided. What happened?

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Eh,as other people have stated, everyone's preferences differ. To be honest, I enjoyed the - as you put it, "hero origin story" of ARR. I thought Heavensward felt epic, sure. But, didn't really care for the story or presentation that much, outside of a few key moments, all of which revolve around the characters, and not the epic, overarching war story, really. See, opinions differ. It sounds like you're going a bit overboard with your "I dislike the story so I'm quitting" melodrama.

I thought SB was the strongest out of all three stories, but it still isn't without its issues.

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Originally Posted by Quite

The first thing to rage about was being asked by Alphinaud what you thought on the Ala Mhigan rebellion. I was given three VAGUE options.

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That being said, it isn't like I don't agree with you on some points, including this one. But, at the same time, this game isn't Mass Effect or Skyrim, you can't expect the pitiful choices in dialog they give you to have any effect whatsoever. The best you can hope for is possibly a changed line of dialog. And even games that are affected by your choices still have responses that don't quite fit the bill to the meaning that you meant to give your selection. This isn't a problem with this game in particular, it's a problem with games in general.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Then facing Xenos for the first time. He takes you down without effort and one of the characters states how useless everything you went through before is. Your esteemed allies and practiced soldiers just lose to everyone, even the foot soldiers of Garlemald. Seriously, what's the deal?

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I do understand where you're coming from, however, I viewed that event in Rhalgar's Reach (and, consequently, the follow-up event when you face Zenos again in Yanxia) as something that sorely needed to happen. I've been feeling for a while that the WOL needs to get their tail end handed to them a time or two. It was getting tiresome basically looking at the strongest baddies in all Eorzea and have them fall over dead. We NEEDED to feel like we can't immediately beat everything or solve every problem.

That being said, Zenos, as we all know now, isn't entirely just "human" (well, he's Garlean, but we know what you meant).

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Originally Posted by Quite

The next disappointment is the Ruby Sea.

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Agreed. I still enjoyed the zone though.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Then we free the nation of Doma... but it really doesn't feel like it. The map is still just as quiet as when we got there. Anyway, back to Eorzea.

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The Doma part of the story I thought was way stronger and more enjoyable than the Ala Mhigo parts at the beginning and end. I especially enjoyed the Azim Steppe portion, as I felt it was the best portion of main story in the entire expansion, possibly the entire game. Just the look, feel, music, characters, quests, were all outstanding and I hope they do more with that zone in the future.

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Originally Posted by Quite

The conclusion was actually fantastic, except everything that led up to it was less than the outcome. I wasn't fighting Xenos in the end, I was fighting a primal. So all that build up and hype, and now the final villain needs a boost to keep up with us? When did we get so strong? I can't tell because we didn't actually fight a ton of big monsters beforehand. We fought enemies that everyone knew we were better than and only pushed our capabilities twice before that. 2+2 suddenly equaled 103 and I missed how we got there. When did we add 99 to that?

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I wholeheartedly agree that it was a bit odd that we legitimately steamrolled over anything in our way in the last portion of the main story, although from storming Ala Mhigo (the dungeon) to the final fight was all pretty epic. It's just...a bit odd that, again, the Garleans basically died when we looked in their general direction the entire last portion of the story.

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Originally Posted by Quite

Anyway, between lag and a story that felt so poorly executed and written, I just don't really care that much anymore. Once my 6 months runs out I won't stretch my income to make the next payment, so this is my "x weeks notice" in a sense. [Congratulations!] I no longer feel any connection to what was my favorite game of all time.

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Let's be honest, this is a bit overly dramatic. C'mon. If it is indeed your "Favorite game of all time", then you should be a little forgiving if you disliked one small portion of it, a portion of which really isn't even concluded yet, because we have half a dozen patches of story content yet to come in the future, where, frankly, many of your issues could be explained.

To wrap things up, I enjoyed SB more than HW - comparing expansions - possibly because SB focuses way more on the PEOPLE, and less on the "OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING IN A HUGE FIREBALL IF WE SCREW UP" feeling. I like people stories, stories with heart. The portions of the HW story that I enjoyed the most were the parts focusing on the PEOPLE, not the epicness of ending the war and defeating a huge baddie. SB brought focus on the people and their plight, and what we could do to help, more to the forefront, while still retaining some of the epic feeling, but not solely focusing on it, which is what I enjoyed.

But, like I said at the outset, different people enjoy different things.

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Originally Posted by Chadness

I do understand where you're coming from, however, I viewed that event in Rhalgar's Reach (and, consequently, the follow-up event when you face Zenos again in Yanxia) as something that sorely needed to happen. I've been feeling for a while that the WOL needs to get their tail end handed to them a time or two. It was getting tiresome basically looking at the strongest baddies in all Eorzea and have them fall over dead. We NEEDED to feel like we can't immediately beat everything or solve every problem.

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We already had something like that in the wings. Two things, actually; Shinryu and Omega.



We should be threatened by things that actually are worthy of a legend. Someone described as a one-(wo)man-army shouldn't be getting tossed around so handily by one enemy soldier even if he (potentially) had a bootleg version of our ability.

You want to make Garlemald feel dangerous? Have Zenos fight us, then, as we win, tell us to look around as war machines and droves of soldiers slaughter everyone nearby. Garlemald should never be the Apollo Creed to our Rocky; it's strength lies in its population, technological superiority, and reach. It should be threatening, not because any individual in the army can take us on, but because no matter how strong we are, we can't take down even a fraction of their entire army alone, and certainly not before they murder everyone else in their way.

Stormblood's story was great...for the most part. It did feel a little rushed in places though and the decision to disallow the protagonists to try and seek peace with Garlemald feels like a major case of executive meddling given that Yoshi-P is on record as saying that he is 'surprised' that people sympathise with the likes of Gaius. Which unnerves me as I do not want another dull tale about how a ragtag band manage to take down a mighty Empire. I want Garlemald to be handled the same way as Archades in FFXII so that we eventually make peace and do not seek to destroy it.

Lyse was the weakest link of the expansion for me. Her shifting from 'Yda' to 'Lyse' felt too forced and distracting. Zenos not caring about Garlemald at all and sabotaging his own side's efforts is also too convenient too - because the protagonists should have caught on that if they reached out and tried to be diplomatic then they could probably have found people who did not agree with Zenos' actions. They already know from Regula that there are high ranking honourable Garleans but he was killed off and forgotten about which is a bit disgusting unless it plays into the plot later on.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

The story would often not make sense if we have other adventurers with us. Also the lore book states us at going against any primal alone and only the fights in the Garlean base (lvl50) is fought with a group. Also the enemies often talk about us like we are alone.

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The lore book directly contradicts the game in that case, all the following are taken from the in-game journal entries.

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Originally Posted by Shiva HM:

Given the likelihood that Iceheart is now aware of your plans and making haste to complete the summoning ritual, Alphinaud advises you to assemble a party of battle-hardened adventurers capable of felling Shiva if necessary.

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Originally Posted by Ramuh EX:

You have attuned yourself to the Sylphlands aetheryte. Gather your companions, and challenge the Lord of Levin beneath the boughs of the Striking Tree!

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Originally Posted by Bismarck HM:

You inform Wedge that you are ready to hunt the white whale. Board the Enterprise with your companions and rid the Sea of Clouds of Bismarck's ravenous presence.

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Originally Posted by Sophia HM:

Time is of the essence. Summon your faithful comrades to your side and cast down the dread Goddess lest all be judged upon her scales!

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Originally Posted by Zurvan HM:

Regula's sacrifice has afforded you the chance to strike at a weakened Zurvan. With their tasks assigned, your companions depart to secure the controls to the eikon's shackles. It falls to you and your handpicked company of warriors to bring oblivion to the Demon himself.

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There are plenty of entries where companions are not mentioned, but I haven't found any (so far) that explicitly state you beat the primal solo. The dialogue leaves things rather open-ended, but digging deeper it really seems the canon is that you have help doing the things you do, at least if we go by what the game says rather than the book.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

So yes them going back in SB with their hints of having others with us (even in the trial where we should prove that we are a warrior for the Mol) is completely annoying, especially since Doma is quite far away from Eorzea and we only traveled with the scions there.

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We didn't only travel with the Scions though, we took at least three people with us, remember when the boat crashed and we all went off to investigate together? ;)

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The lore book directly contradicts the game in that case, all the following are taken from the in-game journal entries.

-Range of quotes-

There are plenty of entries where companions are not mentioned, but I haven't found any (so far) that explicitly state you beat the primal solo. The dialogue leaves things rather open-ended, but digging deeper it really seems the canon is that you have help doing the things you do, at least if we go by what the game says rather than the book.

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This boils down to being an inevitable artifact of having a multiplayer game while still trying to present to every single player that they, singularly are the hero, the one and only WoL. What you get is a disconnect in that the story presents to you that you're the sole protagonist and everyine else in the game, every other player you partner with, it's just a normal adventurer that is helping you. It's an illusion and its really hard to maintain since we all know that literally -everyone else- is seeing the same thing we are, just with the perspective shifted so that THEY are the heroic, sole and singular WoL. There's no real good way to balance this, unfortunately, and as-such you will always run into this paradox unless you, as a player, just decide to think only about the singular perspective you are being presented with.

This is a thread on personal bias. Having said this, I personally enjoyed Stormblood just as much, if not more, than Heavensward, which I enjoyed far more than A Realm Reborn (AKA A Realm of Fetch-quests). Also, will be voicing thoughts on other posts, so not quoting any.

The war is huge, but you ultimately get things done by mobilizing guerilla warfare against the Garleans to help both Doma and Ala Mhigo. I don't remember the exact things Alphinaud asked, but I remember picking the last option and him being in concurrence. I don't recall them being vague either (I want to say one was this isn't my fight, but I'll help; another being along the lines of I'm a Scion and Shinryu is out there somewhere or something and the last being if there are those in need, then there is more I can do). One is selfish, one is honor-bound, one is selfless; they were all pretty cut-and-dry to me.

Zenos's power gets revealed at the end of 4.0's story. He just never executed the whole thing because no one he ever fought was worthy in his eyes. Also, with Rhalgr's Reach, I suppose the leap of logic they want to apply here is that there was simply no need to attack it according to Zenos. Again, everyone is beneath him and before you arrived, it was very apparent that the Resistance was close to breaking. There was simply no need; time would have obliterated it ere the warrior of light came.

Can't comment on the size of a sea as we don't even know the scale of Eorzea. We have a means of measuring it, but I, for one, don't wish to go into The Game Theorist calculations to accomplish this.

Unsure what you're talking about to Yotsuyu. The only time she talks about the abuse is when she plans to take you all with her with a pre-determined rigging of Doma Castle. Up until that point, all you heard her monologue (this is a thing in writing, especially in plays and is not meta; it's meant for the viewer). There was also a point in time she was talking with Gotetsu.

Yugiri's motive is simple: she doesn't think she can move the people of Doma to fight for themselves, but does not want to give up fighting for the freedom her people deserve. To her, even if she dies, going to fight for freedom is 'worth it' because it's better than accepting subjugation. If she can't convince the people, can cannot convince Hien.

That is one thing I wish had more of an impact in the world, but this was also felt in Heavensward. Then again, the Dragonsong War didn't end at the end of 3.0, either. Ala Mhiga sits right on Garlemald's borders (or close to it). This is where I wish the FATE system was used more and mobilized more Garlean skirmishes to at least make it feel like the Garlean factions may still be lurking. Most of the FATEs are just local monsters. A missed opportunity.

That's the thing with the warrior of light. Your strength waxes and wanes to fit the narrative. In 2.x, this was at least supplemented with Hydaelyn spending her strength to protect you and is left weakened. Midgardsormr strips you of her strength (perhaps to help Hydaelyn recupperate while you continue the various denizen's fights). However, Zenos made the grave error of possessing a primal; you know, you the 'Eikon-slayer.' The person who has slain every primal without fail, but I doubt a Garlean actually keeps up with details.

I don't know, maybe I just chalked the fight up to being you went in wholly unprepared the first couple of times against him? The first time Zenos really put you in your place, but you were alone. The second you held your own with Yugiri, but were still forced to flee. The final time, you hold your ground completely and make him do something drastic with a band of adventurers. See the pattern? Alone and beaten, with a companion and you do better, bring the crew and it's time for boss butt-kicking. *Plays FF9's Not Alone track and scene.*

The thing is, the Scion always was a side-ploy. A plot device as to why you will always be on the front lines against primals and other major issues. Any Final Fantasy game will ultimately tell you that you are the hero that goes above and beyond what most people in any given world are able to accomplish, no matter how menial, or impossible, the tasks are. That choice, the honor-bound one, shows you have no real interests in what happens to the denizens of the world. You're willing to save them, but it reads like you don't care about the world. If you pay attention to the Heavensward plot, it makes you question Hydaelyn's own motives. That, or you're working toward what the Warriors of Darkness were trying to prevent, 'cause the Ascians are just the other side of the same coin you share. It also makes your character look like they didn't heed what their story meant.

As for the pacing, I could see people's points. However, I will also state mine: just because we freed Doma and Ala Mhigo does not mean the war is actually over. Take the Dragonsong War for example. After killing Nidhogg, people still revolted and lost their way due to their indoctrined faiths shattered. There was already a hint of this in 4.0's story: the youths are the one most likely to turn you in and rebel, as they never experienced pre-Garlean rule. I completely expect to be a lot of conflict on both sides. I wonder just what Yotsuyu will do; she's not like to turn a new leaf so easily.

We also can't just retaliate against the army of Garlemald. It's been pointed out before that they take people from lands they have conquered and force them into service. You'd be slaying many people that are only there because they'd probably die otherwise, though by Garlean influence, not yours. I actually pity the Garleans quite a bit; according to the lore book, they'd been pushed back and raided so many times by other nations that once they found technological advancement through the Allagans, they went mad with power and are basically exacting revenge. Pity they never heard the phrase 'an eye for an eye and the world goes blind.'

My only real complaints are that I wish Zenos lasted longer. I liked his character; he was a genuinely selfish and amoral villian. Then again, I like Yujiro Hanma and he definitely felt like a Garlean Yujiro (but sadly nowhere near as strong). The pacing seemed rushed, but for what we did in Heavensward, that was also rushed. However, if that's what we're left with for not having filler fetch quests, I'd rather keep the rushed feeling.

Ok.
/10char

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The lore book directly contradicts the game in that case, all the following are taken from the in-game journal entries.

We didn't only travel with the Scions though, we took at least three people with us, remember when the boat crashed and we all went off to investigate together? ;)

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I would dare to say that a lore book is probably way more cannon than ingame writings, especially since they heavily depend on the language. For example in the german version of Susanno there is no sentence about our other adventurers. Also the part with the ship shows exactly how bad this is. We go to Doma only with the scions, all the cutscenes before and after that show it. We are also completely alone again when Alphinaud runs towards us after the boss fight. Why are the other adventurers always leaving us alone? Its the same in Doma castle. Where are the others that should have fought with you in the last cutscene? Why are there no birds for them in the sky, because there is only one bird left without someone on it. Why would the adventurers leave us behind in the most crucial scenes? Why would we always get full credit if we always have others with us?

Also in HW you have dungeons like Sohr Khai that are trials so we should do them alone, yet ingame mechanics have us with others that are again gone afterwards. We go with Cid and Co. toward Azys Lla, there is no other adventurer with us, so we did beat the dungeon (and Regula) and Thordan and his 12 knights canonically alone.

And about the rest of primals. Many situations itself do not make sense with other people there. Ifrit captures you and the other soldiers, yet they would leave you without bindings and there is truly a lake there where you can just go and gather other people (that you randomly met in the desert since you cant get far away or they will notice that you are gone?). How big is the chance that you do all of that without them noticing it, and with gathering three other people that have echo too. Also again in the cutscene Ifrit only mentions you and its also only the WoL there. Afterwards Thancred also only worries about you. Bismark is another case of jerks as other adventurers if they were there with you. Because after the fight you are ganged up by Thordan and one Ascian. Where are the others? Why did they not help?

Ramuh wants to fight against the WoL (which only got there with the scions) to test our strength and talks only about us again. If we should show him our strength wouldnt it be cheating to go with others against him? The same in SB where Lyse, Gosetsu and Hien all take the path solo..yet the text says that we should gather other people. WoL = cheater confirmed? Yet again, when we are finished and Lyse is already there, we are alone again. I just cant believe that we have that many adventurer friends that are especially where we need them all the time, are on the same power level as we are, disappear in nearly every cutscene after the dungeon/trial and are not known in the world too.

I am not sure why they went out of their way to write it down again, especially after it was Koji that had a big hand in the lore book thus used it to confirm that most of the stuff is done alone. Maybe its some type of humor?

Sorry for the bit of off topic.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

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I would guess the game is more canon than the lore book, especially when the point of contention that started this conversation is them mentioning your adventurer friends a lot in Stormblood, which came out after the lore book. It just doesn't make sense for the extra out of game source to take priority over the latest update to the game itself.

As for never seeing other adventurers in cutscenes, there are two parts to that. The first is that you do see them, I think in basically every multi player event you participate in the victory scene at the end shows your adventurer friends celebrate with you. The second is that they are not shown in story cutscenes for gameplay reasons, your adventurer friends are obviously actual random people put together from whatever the duty finder can assemble, the cutscenes before and after the duty proper have no idea who will be with you or who you were just with. In the lore whoever you're running it with is a close friend, in reality they're some random people you'll probably never see again. Gameplay and story segregation at work.

Your adventurer friends are basically like your chocobo companion, you're meant to just assume that they're always close enough that circumstances will allow you to go get them.

For Sohr Khai, the journal states: "Hraesvelgr commends you and your companions for your unwavering determination, and pledges to aid you in the coming battle with Nidhogg. Inquire of Alphinaud how he fared in his own trial."
For whatever reason Hraesvelgr was pretty chill with the idea of you bringing help to your trial.

Ifrit story mode is, as I already acknowledged, by far the most likely to have been solo'd. "Having failed to make you his minion, Ifrit attempts to exterminate you, but against all odds you succeed in overcoming the god-like being."
It never mentions any help and while it doesn't explicitly state solo in the same way as it repeatedly states you have help, that would be the default reading of it.

After Bismarck, your journal explains that you're still exhausted from fighting when Thordan and the Ascian take the key from you. "still weak from your struggles against Bismarck and Igeyhorm, can only watch, powerless to stop them."
You're adventurer friends are good, but your character is still the strongest one, they're your team, you lead them. If you're too exhausted to fight they must be on the verge of collapsing.

Essentially as far as I can tell in game, it either doesn't explicitly say either way, or it says you have help. They rarely make a point of shoving it in your face that you had help, but some of the dialogue and a lot of journal entries show that you have it. I personally think the point of not shoving it in your face is to allow players the freedom to for the most part explain it how they like.

If that's not the end of it then lets agree to disagree, not the end of the world. How you choose to interpret your characters story has no bearing on me and how I look at mine none on you. :)