Warrior of Darkness: Deceptive Marketing?

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Originally Posted by Raldo

Once the story got going, I didn't expect us to be the villains, but I did keep expecting the story to "get dark" (i.e. bad stuff happening to us), and that seemed in quite short supply. I was disappointed that no one important died. I was disappointed that we never had to "harness the darkness" (whatever that could mean). I was disappointed that the light sickness amounted to little more than a couple of sneezes. I was disappointed that the light sickness was cured without us actually intending to fix it, and the excuse was that Arbert kissed your boo-boos better. Bleh.

That ending was so sickly sweet with its "everything's fine and dandy" that it really ended on a sour note for me.

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Cool story. But I thought this thread was about the trailer, and not personal opinion on the story.

I still think the "misleading marketing" complaints are overblown. No matter how many people bring up the "master matoya" thing or other minor details. It's a trailer, temper your expectations next time a trailer comes out people. This isn't nearly as bad a misleading trailer as say a trailer that brings up entire details that are never followed up on. At least everything here does get an answer no matter how minor, and I'm fairly certain the biggest moments from the SHB story aren't hinted at at all which gives them more of a surprise when they happen, imo. (although that one trailer after the cinematic one came out did hint at a major spoiler).

Being the Warrior of Darkness is a lot like being the tooth fairy. It doesn't mean you have to be literally a fairy made out of teeth. You get the title by doing what the tooth fairy does, and so it is for WoD. You brought back the night as expected, thus you are the WoD. Not deceptive.

I think it was a little deceptive.

I was not expecting us to be evil. I was expecting dark to be seen as the real good; which we did get on the First.

But then there was all the dialogue of NOCs calling you sinner without context for it. It’s actually a great greeting if context is given. I could see something like members if a Christian-like faith calling each other that as a reminder of imperfection.

But on the First it was just a random word and they could have used “Fred” and had equal impact... as in none.

And why were sin-eaters called that? It isn’t what they do in how the lore sees them...

We had the trappings of an Inquisition world with Lord Vauthry as the chief inquisitor but only in the labels. In the actual story it was just straight normal monsters who overspent on white dye on the mog station...

And not only that... but the final villain is a lord of Darkness and we use light to defeat him... which is basically backwards of the advertising. I expected us to team up with the Ascians to defeat Hydalyn after the media tour reveal that she is a primal. I got more of us being tempered by Hydalyn, with the slight twist that we’re actually a light-side Ascian reborn... to defeat the darkness...

It was a good story minus the flaws with depth behind “sin eaters” noted above... but it was not what it held itself out to be and less than it could have been.

Emit-Selk, as unredeemably evil as I found him to be, was the actual Warrior of Darkness.

Heavensward was the actual expansion where we were the Warrior of Darkness fighting the Light - as a metaphor for heretic vs church.

I never expected us to turn evil since that's not how SE writes WOLs ever. I don't see how anyone would think that since this game doesn't give you any freedom in plot ever. Noone will go off script in FFXIV, so other then a title change I never expected or thought we'll be killing innocent people or taking candy from babies. The trailer was just to hype you up, nothing more.

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Originally Posted by Genz

Just the usual FFXIV, so-called best plot, of nothing really happening. We could see the childish not-really-dark thing coming since we're used to the circus of fake-deaths and other tepid non-events.

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If you hate the story so much why do you play a STORY-BASED MMO?

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warriors of darkness are not necessarily 'bad guys

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They're generally not. It has, until now, just meant they were given their powers by the dark crystals instead of the light crystals.


As for the trailer, most of us knew it was nonsense and wouldnt be reflected in game that way.

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If you hate the story so much why do you play a STORY-BASED MMO?

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Because roughly 99.9% of time spent in an MMO has nothing to do with story, and in 14 it's down to maybe 99.7%

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Originally Posted by Makeda

But then there was all the dialogue of NOCs calling you sinner without context for it. It’s actually a great greeting if context is given. I could see something like members if a Christian-like faith calling each other that as a reminder of imperfection.

But on the First it was just a random word and they could have used “Fred” and had equal impact... as in none.

And why were sin-eaters called that? It isn’t what they do in how the lore sees them.

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Not every little bit of the background NEEDS to be spelled out or have huge plot meaning. I thought it was just a neat flavor thing that people in a world where everything light-aspected is killing them call each other “sinner”. This also makes sense in the context that their past religion was light-based and now the light is destroying everything.

As far as where “sin-eater” comes from, everyone calls each other “sinner”. Sin-eaters eat people. So something that eats people you call “sinners” are “sin-eaters”. Not sure if that’s the same train of thought the writers are on but it makes sense.

I’ll agree the marketing with a bit deceptive... but it helped keep me guessing till the end so I appreciate it =)

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Originally Posted by Barraind

Because roughly 99.9% of time spent in an MMO has nothing to do with story, and in 14 it's down to maybe 99.7%

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Except everything we do in game everything,
we run can somehow be tied back to the story.

I remember running Xelphtol in a 50/60 roulette and someone was all why is the boss summoning Garuda? ... a question which the story answers it’s stuff that that which really makes me appreciate how interconnected the story in this game is to everything else’s

I never presumed it'd go down a "You're Evil Now" route, but I was thinking it would be a more literal change from Warrior of Light > Darkness, like receiving a comparable blessing from Zodiark on the First (And maybe some more Fray-esque interactions, or a situation where trust wasn't inherently granted to your character). More, I just figured the story behind it would lay down a framework for saying that Hydaelyn isn't 100% Good and Zodiark isn't 100% Bad, and that the good in them was achieving an elemental balance with each other that was out of whack in the First with the Light situation, and that the WoL would ally with Darkness in a more literal sense to restore that balance to the First, even if it made Hydaelyn a technical opponent for a bit. (That was kinda the rough direction I was kinda thinking they'd end up going with the whole "Warrior of Darkness" bit)

Like, I sorta thought it'd go into a more "Balance" direction between the two primordial primals, where they're both necessary lest one's aspect gets out of hand and kills everything. Even at the cost of the WoL's personal reputation.

I'm not upset with the story we got, but it never really felt like I was the Warrior of Darkness. It felt more like The Warrior of Light Who Absorbs Too Much Light to Make it Dark Outside. And then explodes.

I kinda feel the Warrior of Darkness bit was played up to much for what it actually was in the story, and the surrounding interest I had in the whole WoD thing is the one area that made me feel disappointed -- which wouldn't have really happened if it was just framed as "Warrior of Light Restores the Night".

Did we, or did we not, bring darkness back to a world flooded in light, fulfilling the legend of the heroes of folklore (ie The warriors of darkness) on the First (since the WoLs are villains in their collective consciousness)? Anybody who thought we'd be "switching sides" or batting for Zodiark for a lark is an idiot. "Um actually Hydaelyn is the true villain despite everything in the game showing and saying otherwise" is a pretty poor take. Genocide is wrong. I don't care how thirsty you are for Foxy Grandpa Emet.

The entire point of a trailer is to create intrigue and make you ask questions (eg "Why is Y'shtola going by the name Matoya? Is she doing the folklore/fae thing of hiding her true name? Did she get possessed by grandma? Is Matoya a title like the names of the Ascians we know?" "Why is the Crystal Tower surrounded by a bustling settlement?" "Why is Minfilia a kid?" etc). Red herrings being sprinkled in is not uncommon. Frankly I'm more disappointed when there aren't any.

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I remember running Xelphtol in a 50/60 roulette and someone was all why is the boss summoning Garuda? ... a question which the story answers it’s stuff that that which really makes me appreciate how interconnected the story in this game is to everything else’s

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You will interact with that story once (or hopefully only once). You will run that trial in a roulette many, many times afterwards. When people say 14 is story-driven, they usually mean "You have to do the cut scene barrage to unlock stuff so its OBVIOUSLY A STORY DRIVEN GAME".

Theres lore behind every boss in every MMO, most of those require the player to go hunting that info down, it doesnt go "HERES A CUTSCENE PLEASE WATCH" before and after. You read books and npc chatter, read quest test, do turnin quests and listen to the npc's tell you things.

Theres MMO's with multiple discoverable languages in them that nobody tells you exist, its on you to go hunt them out. They dont say "Heres what the big bad is up to and why" in a series of cutscenes, you have to talk to people, do side quests, do dungeons, do raids, and interact with the world to figure them out.

I was not expecting us to become evil. What I was expecting was that we were going to work with Zodiark and get the blessing of darkness so we would end up with both the blessing of light and the blessing of darkness. Sort of like a yin and yang thing making us "complete" in a sense. Neither good nor evil. We would just bring balance wherever we went. The whole fight the light with the light was a little odd to me, but I still enjoyed what they did with the story so whatever I guess. Looking forward to see what happens next.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

You will interact with that story once (or hopefully only once). You will run that trial in a roulette many, many times afterwards. When people say 14 is story-driven, they usually mean "You have to do the cut scene barrage to unlock stuff so its OBVIOUSLY A STORY DRIVEN GAME".

Theres lore behind every boss in every MMO, most of those require the player to go hunting that info down, it doesnt go "HERES A CUTSCENE PLEASE WATCH" before and after. You read books and npc chatter, read quest test, do turnin quests and listen to the npc's tell you things.

Theres MMO's with multiple discoverable languages in them that nobody tells you exist, its on you to go hunt them out. They dont say "Heres what the big bad is up to and why" in a series of cutscenes, you have to talk to people, do side quests, do dungeons, do raids, and interact with the world to figure them out.

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That’s cool, why don’t you go play those then and let us enjoy what we enjoy?

Upon rewatch of the trailer, I think most of the stuff involving the derplander is from the Exarch's timeline (showing how the WoL died, then merging into his hopes for the new timeline), which would explain why we never had to experience anything like it. When put into that context, the stuff the gremlin says makes a lot more sense (though it also makes it a rather ineffective representation of the content, since that "history was rewritten").

Apologies if that revelation was an obvious one. I'm not good at reading between the lines.

I am not sure why people automatically assume dark is evil and light is good. This is Asian game and Japanese is deeply impact by Chinese that thinking. Teaching, the ying and yang

I feel like the main problem is most people don't understand that the title "Warrior of Light" has absolutely nothing to do with Hydaelyn's blessing as far as FFXIV is concerned.

Yes, we technically have Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title is based on our actions, not the fact that we're Hydaelyn's chosen. I mean, 1.0 characters didn't necessarily have Hydaelyn's blessing at all, but receive the title of Warrior of Light because of how they are remembered following the Battle of Carteneau (after which they do receive Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title technically predates the blessing).

The Warriors of Light from the first caused the flood of light, so someone that undoes that would rightfully be called the Warrior of Darkness.

On the flip side, we referred to the invading Warriors of Light from the first as the Warriors of Darkness in the source because they were fighting to undo the actions of the Warrior of Light. They don't actually possess Zodiark's blessing, as far as I am aware, they're just allied with the Ascians in opposition to the Warrior of Light.

End of the day, it's just a title. It doesn't have a thing to do with whose blessing we have. The idea of being the Warrior of Darkness is more in line with us upsetting the nature of that world, and being a villain in the eyes of some of the world.

It was "become the Warrior of Darkness" ... it wasn't: "Become the Warrior of Evil" or "Become a Ascian".

People should understand that Darkness and Evil aren't the same thing at all. And i loved all the Warrior of Darkness concept in ShB about bring darkness to a caotic light world, by far the best FFXIV Expansion, not only that, the best MMO Expansion ever.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Being the Warrior of Darkness is a lot like being the tooth fairy. It doesn't mean you have to be literally a fairy made out of teeth. You get the title by doing what the tooth fairy does, and so it is for WoD. You brought back the night as expected, thus you are the WoD. Not deceptive.

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I wasn't expecting to have nightmares tonight but here we are.

Looking at the trailer now, the "become what you must" felt more like a bit to get people to go through the story as DRKs for themeing. If the MSQ was anything to go by, you'd think it'd apply to becoming a Lightwarden(because it was something happening to us that we couldn't help). Said tagline is also more applicable to the DRK story especially 45-50.

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I feel like the main problem is most people don't understand that the title "Warrior of Light" has absolutely nothing to do with Hydaelyn's blessing as far as FFXIV is concerned.

Yes, we technically have Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title is based on our actions, not the fact that we're Hydaelyn's chosen. I mean, 1.0 characters didn't necessarily have Hydaelyn's blessing at all, but receive the title of Warrior of Light because of how they are remembered following the Battle of Carteneau (after which they do receive Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title technically predates the blessing).

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I don't want to get too spoilerrific about it either, but for anyone who's done the four role quest lines and unlocked the "ties it all together" final quest after that, that quest actually goes quite a bit into detail about this very subject (that is, what exactly "makes" a Warrior of Light).

I am disappointed, I thought we would explore more relative moralism. In life all wars are fought with no real moral ethical choice. Sometimes you have to bomb and entire city to hit one factory, murder thousands of people and children to stop one tank factory to the people getting bombed you are the devil to the people back hom watching you drop the bomb? Hero! that's the stuff I thought we where going to explore, doing some super messed up stuff like genociding a bunch of innocents to save the shards, the ends justify the means angle.Then we would realize relative moralism in our story line and give some depth to the team.

I am disappointed that didn't get a crystal of darkness in shadow bringers. Some point there going to have to give us another crystal since seems like hydaelyn is the bad guy.

I mean you don’t even need to have played FF3 to get it, the actual warriors of darkness in FFXIV had their story arc before Shadowbringers whereby we learn of their motives and SE continued a thread from there. And “dark” and “light” has never really stood for “good” and “evil” in this game, but seemingly play on the idea of balance. As in too much light can be bad, too much dark can be bad. We kinda see that with the war of the magi, where both the mhachi and Amdapori take it too far. And we know from the Black Mage quests that dark doesn’t always mean evil.

But in the perspective of “light” in that world we were evil. Hence Vauthry thought he was righteous and holy. And I like concepts where holy is not necessarily good and darkness is not necessarily evil. I mean, all one has to do is read the Old Testament. And I feel the themes of Shadowbringers are very Old Testament. Then add Satanism, as one who has read the satanic bible, it plays more to the nature of humanity and accepting it rather than shaming it, rather than evil for the sake of evil or the idea of going out to do bad things. Then take Asian culture, which is a lot more focused on the idea of balance being good.

So I don’t feel misled.

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Originally Posted by IttyBitty

Did we, or did we not, bring darkness back to a world flooded in light, fulfilling the legend of the heroes of folklore (ie The warriors of darkness) on the First (since the WoLs are villains in their collective consciousness)?

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Technically no. "Darkness" already existed in the First, those in The Rak'tika Greatwood already used the darkness in their religious ceremonies. Even with the night sky, the world is still flooded with light-aspected creatures with the darkness aspected creatures still being completely absent. It would have been more apt to refer to player as the Warrior of Night since there's almost no relation to actual "darkness".

I think many people are oversimplifying this into an argument of good and evil, light and dark. It's not about who is bad or who is good.

It is already established that the WoD were agents of the ascians and the ascians can be good or evil depending on perspective. I myself would have jumped ship given the opportunity and started helping Emet Selch. This is why becoming a WoD in the previews led to us not becoming bad guys per se, but switching sides and either working with or for the ascians or perhaps even taking on some aspect of darkness to achieve a certain task, do to some new revelations about, mostly likely, hydaelyn.

So we can have arguments about good and evil all day long but already established lore tells us the WoD are agents of Zodiarc not evil just as the WoL are agents of Hydaelyn not goodness. This is why when the leaned so hard on us becoming a WoD it was natural to assume that we would start working with the ascians on some level, even if we did not completely flip sides, but perhaps had to embrace the dark and Zodiarc to complete whatever task needed to be completed. Perhaps even the defeat of the ascians.

But as I said ad nauseum already. The change was purely semantic and misleading. It wouldn't be a big deal if they hadn't leaned and pushed so hard for something that was irrelevant in the story, just because they knew it would get peoples attn. There was plenty of other things they could have done that didn't feel so deceptive.

The whole "Warrior of Darkness" thing was the only thing that really disappointed me in ShB. I started playing FFXIV because the ShB trailers hyped up the whole "become what you must" WoD thing and I thought it would be something different from everything else I've seen about the game. Then it turns out that, nah, it's just a title change because no one likes Light on the First since it, y'know, almost flooded the world. Thankfully the rest of the story/game as a whole were great but that part always felt weird and pointless. Warrior of Darkness title could have never been brought up and nothing would've changed. (At least it sounds cooler? >.>) I don't feel deceived or anything, though. I get they wanted the marketing to seem cool and hyped things up, it clearly worked on me at least, lol

All these "disappointed" posts sound to me like overhyping yourself and then blaming the game.

A C+ on a test you thought you studied well for, that's disappointing. Not an A instead of an A+.

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Originally Posted by Gula

All these "disappointed" posts sound to me like overhyping yourself and then blaming the game.

A C+ on a test you thought you studied well for, that's disappointing. Not an A instead of an A+.

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If the marketing is objectively established to be misleading, then it's a fact that there's a problem. It sounds like your overhyping yourself by telling players they can't feel disappointed. Who gave you that power?

I guess I just don't see what the problem is.

But then again, there have been countless times in the past where a game trailer or whatever has me form an image in my head of what the game will be like, and then the actual game is nothing like that. I guess I just learned to treat upcoming content as a black box, and view the trailers as nothing more than announcements of "it's being released soon."

The Ascians are aspected to the Dark yet flooded the world with light. made Vauthry into a Lightwarden. They also consider the void a world flooded and destroyed with dark to be a complete and utter failure. and you never see Ascians summon Voidsent.


from what I've gathered. killing the Dark brings Light, and killing the Light brings Dark. which you did by killing and absorbing all the Lightwardens (preventing them from returning). bringing back the balance.

Keep in mind the Shadowkeeper a WoD from the Void wanted to die, to destroy the first with light.

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Originally Posted by Gula

All these "disappointed" posts sound to me like overhyping yourself and then blaming the game.

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What?

You can't blame your audience for having opinions or perceiving your writing the "wrong way". Most of the posts are simply saying "good story but this bit could have been written better". If your viewer or reader doesn't like something, they don't like it and you take that feedback on board.

If the majority of your viewers perceived your writing as something else entirely, it's poor writing.

I definitely think it's deceptive marketing, but I also don't care much at this point, though I was a little let down initially when I realized. It's a game about the Warrior of Light, called such because they fight in the service of a light-based being, and even includes characters called the Warriors of Darkness who were allied with the ascians, who are servants of a dark-based being. It's obvious why anyone would look at that marketing and think "wow, why are we fighting for the dark side like the other WoDs?", especially with the big pre-expac trailer reveal from emet selch. It feels very much like the setup of a "hey the good religion is actually bad" trope (which xiv's even done before in HW), so when it turns out that it's actually just a title given because you're making the night sky come back, it feels pretty cheap.

We kill light beings in the expac, sure, which is kind of a dark thing, but we also explicitly manage to do it because of the blessing we have as the warrior of light allowing us to contain enormous amounts of light aether without exploding. But don't worry, you're the warrior of darkness, really!

The only part I felt was misleading was showing the WoL suffer and get his butt kicked by a Kuribu sin eater. And then suddenly the tide completely changes when he switches Dark Knight, implying the power of darkness specifically was the only option?

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

The only part I felt was misleading was showing the WoL suffer and get his butt kicked by a Kuribu sin eater. And then suddenly the tide completely changes when he switches Dark Knight, implying the power of darkness specifically was the only option?

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Yeah that was the part I kept waiting to have happen, and wondering what the heck was going on when it didn't. Otherwise I wasn't disappointed in the slightest.

each expansion was theme dark knight is the theme of this expansion. heavenward was paladin and dragoon. stormblood was samuri and monk and ninja.

It's obviously the cinematic trailer was about dark Knight becoming a warrior of darkness after get inner release and not for what we did on the MQ, the story calling us the WoD was to don't make it obvious they are making DRK a edgy WAR clone.

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Originally Posted by Savagelf

each expansion was theme dark knight is the theme of this expansion. heavenward was paladin and dragoon. stormblood was samuri and monk and ninja.

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it was just Drg for heavensward not pld and Stormblood was Samurai and Monk no ninja

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Originally Posted by shao32

It's obviously the cinematic trailer was about dark Knight becoming a warrior of darkness after get inner release and not for what we did on the MQ, the story calling us the WoD was to don't make it obvious they are making DRK a edgy WAR clone.

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lets not forget

Bravura saved the day aka a warrior weapon

Marketing gimmick and it worked. Kudo's to SE. They "call you the warrior of Darkness, but you have never really changed form the light.

Probably because of FFIII being little known to most and in the west darkness is evil (murder, rape, genocide, sadism, death, gore, horror, despair, et cetera). But, the ascians are literally trying to commit an act of genocide using light so everything about the western vision is totally flipped from the beginning, and being evil is so not FF, so... Everyone who thought ShB would go in that direction totes just jumped the shark

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Originally Posted by MPNZ

Probably because of FFIII being little known to most and in the west darkness is evil (murder, rape, genocide, sadism, death, gore, horror, despair, et cetera). But, the ascians are literally trying to commit an act of genocide using light so everything about the western vision is totally flipped from the beginning, and being evil is so not FF, so... Everyone who thought ShB would go in that direction totes just jumped the shark

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And what about the players who took cues from "dark is not evil" that has been leading up to Shadowbringers, only to see the "Warrior of Darkness" use nothing but the Light?