Would you enjoy an arc where the WoL/WoD goes rogue (5.0 spoiler within)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

We are not an Ascian! Ascians are only those 13 that got tempered by Zodiark. (Yoshida explained that in an interview) We have the soul of a reborn Ancient (which more people probably have) which is a huge difference. Most people in this world dont even know about the existance of the Ascians. That might change with Garlemald, but its also likely that they will never tell the people about them.

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Could it be more a distinction without a difference, given our skill with the echo, and given what Zenos and Makoto have demonstrated with the echo as well? What I’m saying is that we are still supermen gifted with a power that we have seen to transcend language, fortell events, hijack bodies and primals, snoop on memories, and conquer death itself, the applications of this can be pretty dire, especially in the eyes of those less endowed.

You can especially play with this theme in Ilsabard an Garlemald, where; let’s face it, the WoL has made a lot of orphans and widow(er)s over the years. Perhaps the people there don’t warm up to our protagonist; or their presence, while needed by the plot, becomes a point of division and controversy instead of the “Great Uniter of Peoples” we’ve been throughout.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

All of this is pretty funny to me. You're saying it's okay for me to not enjoy the idea, but in the same post complaining that I criticized it. You accuse me of being bitter about the story, but in the same post complain that the story is "unrealistic" because we haven't "been at odds" with the Scions—which apparently means trying to kill them if your opening post is anything to go by. You also complain that the characters have become "uninteresting", but again, apparently I'm the one bitter about the story.

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I'm glad you're amused. But who's complaining? I just said you sound bitter. If you're that easily offended, it would make sense why the air you give off is belligerent. You can go on about and unraveling my threads of contradictions all day, but you're seriously missing the point. This thread was to entertain the idea of the WoL going rogue. And as I said before, it's perfectly fine to not be on board with it as many others here have also clearly expressed. However, an infuriating debate with a hotheaded poster about if the idea is "stupid" or not isn't what I put on the table.

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Here's the thing: Good stories come to an end, and right now FF14's current story is doing just that. We've got 1-2 expansions left in it, depending on whether or not they make dealing with Garlemald and Zodiark a 2-for-1 deal. And after that, it's done. Wherever the next expansion after that goes, it will surely be a new start rather than another continuation of the plot started in A Realm Reborn. And if that means the Scions' stories also come to an end, that's fine. We don't need to drag them along wherever we go next.

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Everything comes to an end, but we are not talking about the end. We are talking about how this story continues after the conclusion of the current conflict. Your thoughts on the Scions not even needing to come along during this transition, thus far that has been your biggest contribution to this thread.

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But to entertain the idea that it would somehow be "interesting" for the Warrior of Light to suddenly go rogue, here's a thought:

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Well all of this is just stupid...

just so you know, I don't really think that. But that's what your own rejection sounds like.

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Now here's the thing: I don't necessarily believe any of the above is a good idea. In fact, I think it's full of some pretty bad ideas—having Minfilia come back after they finally got "Minfilia dies" right just to kill her off a fourth time being one of them.

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And here's another thing: I never came out all enthusiastically saying, "OMG guys, I have the best idea ever on how to continue the story!" It was just an idea that popped in my head. That's it. I am well open to constructive criticism whenever I post an idea. However, what you've chosen to do is go after the poster as well as the post. Now for whatever reason this is, I don't know, nor care. This is not a suggestion thread you've seen countless times about some change to the status quo of the game. I figured it would be something refreshing to talk about while we all wait for August. But I do still acknowledge that you were able to finally present your own ideas to the topic while keeping it on the rails, some of which I thought was really good. Not sure what took you so long to hop on board, but better late than never.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

The WoL could be a bit faceless if we would go to a place where we are not known without any of our friends. There we could for a time be the normal adventurer that helps others. But that would also change along the way. The more you help the more you are known and the more you are loved. Thus we would become a "face "again.

I am fine if we had an expansion like that because always just dealing with big wars or world ending threats gets boring too. But I am not sure why people would want to be a nobody..I always find it a bit strange to have cutscenes with important NPCs but your character is never in it while still doing all the heavy stuff. I already felt in ARR and HW like a simple weapon for the scions and not a person. Having even less impact in cutscenes while still doing most of it? Yeah that sounds horrible to me.

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To some degree we do this every expansion. Only difference is that we bring the Scions with us. The Scions are a narrative device to balance out the WoLs silence. We have to have them around as our proxies, otherwise we become even more of a passive bystander, incapable of communicating anything but the most basic of thoughts via nods.

If we want to change this and still tell a fleshed out cohesive story (and still be a part of it), then the WoL would have to become his/her own proper character and communicate on her own. The former is already more or less true. The WoL does show signs of a personality and initiative every so often. But DRK quest aside, its always cut short, quickly looping back to a quest NPC. As for the WoL properly communicating, I highly doubt it will ever be a thing. It would be a different experience and writing style altogether, one that would also strip players of the illusion that they are playing a blank self-insert character.

tldr; as long as the WoL is a mute, we will always be attached to one character or another as our voice for the sake of complex story telling.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

You can especially play with this theme in Ilsabard an Garlemald, where; let’s face it, the WoL has made a lot of orphans and widow(er)s over the years. Perhaps the people there don’t warm up to our protagonist; or their presence, while needed by the plot, becomes a point of division and controversy instead of the “Great Uniter of Peoples” we’ve been throughout.

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But one country not liking us would honestly not change much. You will always have people that hate you, no matter what you do and a lot of the people in Eorzea love us. So I cant see how us being superhuman changes any of that. And since we are also not the only one with the echo and we kinda did not face much pressure because of that in the story itself I cant see a reason on why that would make us go rogue or change our alliance with the scions.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

tldr; as long as the WoL is a mute, we will always be attached to one character or another as our voice for the sake of complex story telling.

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True but we dont really need the scions for that. We could travel to a new country alone and just maybe help a group of people, which will later be our voices. But since they might not know us we are less the WOL and more just an adventurer that is helpful.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

But one country not liking us would honestly not change much. You will always have people that hate you, no matter what you do and a lot of the people in Eorzea love us. So I cant see how us being superhuman changes any of that. And since we are also not the only one with the echo and we kinda did not face much pressure because of that in the story itself I cant see a reason on why that would make us go rogue or change our alliance with the scions.




True but we dont really need the scions for that. We could travel to a new country alone and just maybe help a group of people, which will later be our voices. But since they might not know us we are less the WOL and more just an adventurer that is helpful.

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That suggestion sounds really underwhelming, I much prefer the wilder ones in this thread as they at least sound new. How would that imply “going rogue”? That is a very important part. You need something more severe than that to imply “going rogue.” You need conflict within the factions that we are dealing with. within either the scions, the eorzean alliance, or this new faction, something which cannot be settled inside of a chat over tea and a fetch quest.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

You can especially play with this theme in Ilsabard an Garlemald, where; let’s face it, the WoL has made a lot of orphans and widow(er)s over the years. Perhaps the people there don’t warm up to our protagonist; or their presence, while needed by the plot, becomes a point of division and controversy instead of the “Great Uniter of Peoples” we’ve been throughout.

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That would be an interesting angle. The seeds could be planted with the Weylt storyline, which already includes Orphans that hate the WoL (thought for different reasons)

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Originally Posted by Kallera

That suggestion sounds really underwhelming, I much prefer the wilder ones in this thread as they at least sound new. How would that imply “going rogue”? That is a very important part. You need something more severe than that to imply “going rogue.” You need conflict within the factions that we are dealing with. within either the scions, the eorzean alliance, or this new faction, something which cannot be settled inside of a chat over tea and a fetch quest.

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My example was never meant to imply going rogue. I dont want us to go rogue (and the OPs question was if we would enjoy that). Honestly I want a good written story that makes sense (including how the characters act). I dont need shock and tragedy for the sake of it. Thus I would not enjoy if suddenly we would just turn our back on everyone..I see no good reason in this existing story to do that.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

No I would not want that.

I mean what kind of story would this tell? How would you do your quests? Realistically not a single NPC would do anything with you anymore if you just betray them all.

I would have been fine for a very short moment where we got turned and then still trying to hang onto our sanity we fight against the scions, trying our best not to hurt them and with rejoining with Ardbert we would then get full control back and fight against the enemy and turn back after that. Or maybe just a big part of the expansion being on our own in a new country. That does not include going rogue.



The WoL could be a bit faceless if we would go to a place where we are not known without any of our friends. There we could for a time be the normal adventurer that helps others. But that would also change along the way. The more you help the more you are known and the more you are loved. Thus we would become a "face "again.

I am fine if we had an expansion like that because always just dealing with big wars or world ending threats gets boring too. But I am not sure why people would want to be a nobody..I always find it a bit strange to have cutscenes with important NPCs but your character is never in it while still doing all the heavy stuff. I already felt in ARR and HW like a simple weapon for the scions and not a person. Having even less impact in cutscenes while still doing most of it? Yeah that sounds horrible to me.



We are not an Ascian! Ascians are only those 13 that got tempered by Zodiark. (Yoshida explained that in an interview) We have the soul of a reborn Ancient (which more people probably have) which is a huge difference. Most people in this world dont even know about the existance of the Ascians. That might change with Garlemald, but its also likely that they will never tell the people about them.

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Yoshida can give red herrings to make us believe whatever he wants.

Though I wouldn't like the idea of being an ascian, besides I think Miss Hyddy wouldn't give us her OP blessing if we were ascians, or even baring the soul of one. There's something to think about there.

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Originally Posted by Quintessa

Yoshida can give red herrings to make us believe whatever he wants.

Though I wouldn't like the idea of being an ascian, besides I think Miss Hyddy wouldn't give us her OP blessing if we were ascians, or even baring the soul of one. There's something to think about there.

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It's not a red herring, it's a matter of terminology.

The Ascians (ie. Zodiark's now-tempered summoners) were all Ancients, but not all Ancients were Ascians.

If our character was an Ascian, we'd be working with them.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

My example was never meant to imply going rogue. I dont want us to go rogue (and the OPs question was if we would enjoy that). Honestly I want a good written story that makes sense (including how the characters act). I dont need shock and tragedy for the sake of it. Thus I would not enjoy if suddenly we would just turn our back on everyone..I see no good reason in this existing story to do that.

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Well, I would like a story where we “go rogue”. And I think Ilsabard and the Garlean country would be a great place to explore how we look from a less reputable perspective, we don’t need stereotypical Garlean racism to give a people reason to see the WoL, in not the same light as Eorzeans do.

Perhaps “going rogue” would be the way that we attempt to circumvent this, only for the reveal to complicate matters further as the WoL is rejected.

Or we end up “going rogue” in response to the rejection, throwing the reputation as “Eorzea’s champion” to the wind to get across the idea that, “there are bigger things at stake”, and, even if they are facing rejection, is in their choice to do the right thing.

So I guess agree to disagree, because I see worth in that sort of story. Unlike in Ishgard, where we were treated like a nobody until we were not, here it would be a reputation we have already garnered before our arrival(in my previous example, the people we killed, bad things people did inspired by us, etc.) that proves our hurdle.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Urianger setting up another scheme and lying to the Warrior of Darkness about his intentions. Much like he has done in the past, only this time it doesn't work out and results in someone the WoD cares about being killed. A rift forms between the Scions and WoD as a result. It wouldn't be terribly difficult for the writers to come up with a plausible scenario for a deep rift to form between the Scions and WoD.

It'd be a refreshing change of pace compared to everything conveniently working out in their favour, since a story risks becoming stale when there's no meaningful consequences for the shadier actions of the so called 'heroes'.

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IMO that would still feel pretty contrived and it would be more feasible that Urianger ends up being the one estranged from the Scions rather than the WoL. He already nearly killed the Warrior of Light once doing that in Shadowbringers and the only reason it worked out was sheer luck. If it did end with the Scions circling the wagons around Urianger then I imagine it would get dunked on for not making a ton of sense.

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Originally Posted by Quintessa

Yoshida can give red herrings to make us believe whatever he wants.

Though I wouldn't like the idea of being an ascian, besides I think Miss Hyddy wouldn't give us her OP blessing if we were ascians, or even baring the soul of one. There's something to think about there.

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Its not a red herring. He simply made it clear that the term Ascians is used only for those tempered by Zodiark. We are probably an old soul (and ancient one) but we are not an Ascian.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Warrior of Darkness embrace his heritage as an Ancient, especially now that Hydaelyn is becoming increasingly irrelevant and has done little but lie about the circumstances of her nature and the original state of the world. It'd be pretty cool if the next expansion trailer opened up with the WoD showing off an Ascian style glyph in front of his face when casting a spell or some such. Maybe he can be shown as a Black Mage!

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Warrior of Darkness embrace his heritage as an Ancient, especially now that Hydaelyn is becoming increasingly irrelevant and has done little but lie about the circumstances of her nature and the original state of the world. It'd be pretty cool if the next expansion trailer opened up with the WoD showing off an Ascian style glyph in front of his face when casting a spell or some such. Maybe he can be shown as a Black Mage!

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Indeed, why not!

As ever, some useful visual aids have already been put together:

https://i.redd.it/kz0wp8iraqm41.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Ask50tR.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cALAr8x.jpg

I find this notion highly unlikely. Not only because it would make no sense, but it is likely that we ourselves are tempered by Hydaelyn.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Warrior of Darkness embrace his heritage as an Ancient, especially now that Hydaelyn is becoming increasingly irrelevant and has done little but lie about the circumstances of her nature and the original state of the world. It'd be pretty cool if the next expansion trailer opened up with the WoD showing off an Ascian style glyph in front of his face when casting a spell or some such. Maybe he can be shown as a Black Mage!

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I sorta doubt it. Given that we've been pushing the message of "out with the old, in with the new", I imagine it would play out something like Ryne did with Minfilia (or Ardbert now that I think about it). We may take the power entailed with being an ancient, but I doubt we'd adopt the iconography. At the very least not until the Ascian ark is closed. I can see it happening afterwards, if we later happen to bump into the theoretical world ending entity that caused the Terminus though.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

My example was never meant to imply going rogue. I dont want us to go rogue (and the OPs question was if we would enjoy that). Honestly I want a good written story that makes sense (including how the characters act). I dont need shock and tragedy for the sake of it. Thus I would not enjoy if suddenly we would just turn our back on everyone..I see no good reason in this existing story to do that.

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I definitely understand not wanting to turn our backs on our friends just for the sake of the shock factor. I agree that these kind of methods in story telling can feel forced if they are indeed used just for the sake of shock, and when it doesn't really make sense. There's an 'if' in there though, and I don't feel any of these apply here.

I think there are more than plenty of viable reasons for the WoL to go rogue. However, betraying the scions doesn't have to be one of them. There is also the factor that a strong part of the WoL's identity is that along with their divine strength, they also have an unconditional, and unrelenting love for mankind, Eorzea, life, and his/her friends. And as tough as things have been for the WoL, they've been extremely fortunate in not having any of those core values come into contrast with one another.

I like the challenge this presents to the writers because this direction would be much easier to do outside an mmo. Because the WoL's affinity with the Scions is so strong, I don't see much middle ground between leaving them (even if this is just temporary), or they go where the WoL goes. In the case of the latter, it doesn't really change anything. The stakes would remain the same, and the WoL and the Scions simply work together towards a common goal as they always have.

I think the forced shock factor, might come by way of having the WoL for some reason incapacitate the Scions. It's a very anime approach to the story, and I can see why the response/reaction to this could be very negative. It definitely doesn't have to be the de facto way that the WoL goes rogue. You can't really move the goal posts beyond 'win or life as we know it ceases to exist', so the stakes have to change. If the they can't be bigger as far as a threat level goes, then it has to be as impacting on an emotional level.

It might be more enjoyable and believable if the rift was gradual instead of sudden to eliminate the shock factor. The conflict of ideals could happen within the Scion's themselves and forcing the WoL into the middle, which ultimately has them go rogue.

As difficult as it might be to make it happen, it actually isn't uncharted territory for this team. The end of 2.x made things very awkward to visit city states, and incapacitating members of the Scions or otherwise making interactions with them impossible is something these writers break their fast on. It's the 'key NPCs' that have to be present or absent at any given time within a city state/sanctuary to give the story its realism within the game. Besides, so long as you're talking trade, Rowena and the like couldn't care less ;p

No, because it would limit access to duty finder and body swapping, severely mess up the story, or force players into making an alt that would be used as a temporary body

One might as well posit the ending of Star Wars as Luke Skywalker accepting the Emperor's offer and "turning to the dark side".

Might make for an interesting following film, but would entirely kill the franchise. Look how well it went for Anakin.