The finale of the Arcadion is an absolute disapointment.

you gotta remember, FF14 is a shounen.

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

Now, to the main part, the story.

What is it with the writers in Dawntrail that outright refuse to write actually evil characters???

The president was "AKSHUALLY" the good guy all along?
Are you serious?

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Hot take. This shouldn't be a surprise at all. The guy was always shown as competent, yet recruited an outsider from the Source--a place that views souls as sacred. It was pretty well known that you planned to release them if you won, but you were allowed and encouraged in anyway. The Pres was aware of the soul deterioration from the use of Feral Souls. Put two and two together.

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

...and avoid to actually kill off characters for once?

...the story had the audacity, to just bring back Brute Bomber.

Just like that.

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Okay here on the other hand I absolutely agree. And this problem isn't limited to FF14. Even something like Dispatch that's largely praised for its characters and stories chickens out with killing off one of its notable minor characters. WoW backpedaled on Ysera. The Star Wars sequels does this multiple times. EW did this with the Scions.

I don't hold that against the Arcadion writers per se, but I hold that against whatever writing philosophy is in vogue in general right now. It's bad. I liked Brute Bomber but his story was better with him dying. With there being a victory but with a bittersweet moment. Maybe you even learned that Brute Bomber knew about the role he was to play, and gets his "faceturn" by giving up his own life to help bring about the change in Arcadion in the only way he knew.

I don't know. Anyway, I thought the whole kayfabe gambit to bring about the cure was fitting for a wrestling coded storyline.

But my God, character death needs to be treated with more respect. I wholeheartedly agree there.

Last boss looked like he was animated for one of the original DOOM games.
Also, the "actually the bad guy was good along" propaganda never works on me. It just never does. They were evil, that was that. No amount of forcing the little sad music will suddenly make me sympathize. There is no redemption-and if you write it in, I will simply headcanon it out.

I like me an alls-well-that-ends-well story tbh
I loved it a lot!
The misunderstood villain trope has always been a core concept in FF games and you shouldn't exclude 14.

We did have Athena last expansion though? She was evil just for the lols. I loved that too.

I'm never a fan of the "villain was a good guy all along" trope that's been going about in media lately. We need more villains who are just evil in stories

While people here comment about feral soul etc, I just want to point out why this ending truly sucks and the only saving grace left is savage fights.

We are fighting wwe fighters only from the beginning but for this tier we get vampire lady, beach boys, tall guy and for some reason useless creature that was shoehorned into plot 10 seconds before.

People like/remember wwe fights for fighters and matches. So instead of getting something like Hell in a Cell moment with Brute Undertaker going suplex on wol from 100 meters above with "this is my show" OR having intentionally weak fighter with lalafell going all out "arcadeon belongs to me", we get a WYVERN FROM FIRST DAWNTRAIL TRIAL.

I am mad, so much potential was wasted, because the person who wrote plot has aphantasia.

Can we just have a mix of first two raid fights again? I don't like this tier.

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Originally Posted by Stasya

While people here comment about feral soul etc, I just want to point out why this ending truly sucks and the only saving grace left is savage fights.

We are fighting wwe fighters only from the beginning but for this tier we get vampire lady, beach boys, tall guy and for some reason useless creature that was shoehorned into plot 10 seconds before.

People like/remember wwe fights for fighters and matches. So instead of getting something like Hell in a Cell moment with Brute Undertaker going suplex on wol from 100 meters above with "this is my show" OR having intentionally weak fighter with lalafell going all out "arcadeon belongs to me", we get a WYVERN FROM FIRST DAWNTRAIL TRIAL.

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To be fair, the first and second tier was against like, horse cat lady (why is it always the bottom half that get horseified lol), woman with bee abdomen where an abdomen should not be, dancing frog rabbit, Gundam but not Gundam because copyright. So it’s not like ‘bizarre Pokemon fusion but with FFXIV content’ wasn’t always the theme lol. That said, it does make the final boss all the more disappointing. You go through fighting all these weird unique mash-ups of creatures and humanoid races…then it’s capped off with a generic ass dragon?

That said I do agree that it doesn’t feel like it captures what it meant to. In my opinion it didn’t go far enough, frankly. I don’t care about some manufactured drama or some psychonekrocallifragillistic macguffin disease. I want to see Chocobos deliver elbow drops (wing drops?) from the top rope, and sassy Moogles calling each other out in the ring. I mean, we got a bit of that with bee lady and dancing frog, but then it’s straight back to ‘OK everyone serious faces we are a dramatic and impassioned set of writers and we’re going to make you weep with our edge-of-your-seat tale of deceit, manipulation and impending death (but it’s ok because it was all fake I guess?)’.

Like, can’t we just have fun for once? Would a ‘comical’ raid be so bad? Alexander was weird as hell but it was super memorable, like driving around in those dodgem things pulling bombs around lol, or turning into gorillas for barely any reason

The raid was pretty awful cause it didn't end with me marrying Yaana in the end

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

The raid was pretty awful cause it didn't end with me marrying Yaana in the end

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*permanently unlocking npc features to every miqote

**will be sold later in mogstation

I’m surprised anyone expected the story to be serious at all lol. It was stupid I love it. They obviously did it for funsy nothing deep here. I find it refreshing that we don’t really have a villain.

For the Tyrant design, I thought it was too simple at first too, but after several wipes now I understand why. A lot of the mechanics required reading the boss actions while everything is super flashy and busy. Simpler model is better for readability, is my opinion. Could be cooler tho.

Since this talk about not just the raid but wrestling. Here is a story about Andre the Giant, Andre did not like Macho Man on a professional or personal level. Well during one event where Macho man and Andre had to get in the ring, they were back stage. Andre was in the cafeteria eating when Macho man wonder in like scared puppy. Begging Andre to be easy on him as Andre like too be extra hard on Macho man. Andre did not answer his request instead told Macho man to get the Hell out cause he did not like Macho man having his body covered in baby oil. Lol

I doubt anyone can pretend Vince is/was a good person unless they directly worked for him. But for as much of a piece of s*** he is, you gotta admit he was one hell of a promoter. Not unlike the president.

But the president actually being good subverted my expectations which was nice. Everyone expected him to be a total villain

For me the story ultimately didn’t land, and I wanted to articulate why as someone who is usually very invested in XIV's narrative strengths. Some tropes that “could have been repeated” would honestly have felt fresh to me again, simply because it’s been so long since I last experienced them in XIV.

I understand that some of Arcadion’s themes have been explored elsewhere in the game and can still be sought there.

I’m personally much more drawn to tragic yet heartfelt endings. I don’t think character death is a bad thing, nor do I think it undermines a happy ending by default. In fact, XIV has often shown that an ending can be hopeful because characters die, not in spite of it. Because of that, I found myself wishing Arcadion had lingered more on consequences. I would have loved to see how the deaths of Eutrope etc. affected Retsarra, Yaana, Neyuni, and the others afterward, especially Yaana. Even small sidequests focused on grief and rebuilding could have added a lot of value, particularly if the other fighters were cured and the WoL could help those grieving.

Related to that, I was also hoping the M9–12 group wouldn’t necessarily like us by the end, even if we did the right thing. XIV has portrayed this trope nicely before (Garlemald in Endwalker comes to mind), and I think it would have fit here too.

Another factor is that I have no real background for show wrestling. I’ve never watched it, I’m not especially interested in it, and exaggerated personas (IRL) for spectacle have personally grown tiring for me over time. Because of that, wrestling as the core didn’t appeal to me, and I needed the emotional arc to do more of the work than it ultimately did.

That said, I do believe a light-hearted wrestling story could still have contained something tragic or bittersweet beneath the surface and still arrived at a wholesome or even funny ending if given more room. Similar attempts in Dawntrail didn’t quite land for me emotionally, and Arcadion’s final turn felt similar. I also don’t think I had enough time to truly care about the President, despite liking the idea behind him.

I do want to be clear that there were things I enjoyed. The music and aesthetics were great, the mechanics were fun, the glamours are enjoyable, and the characters themselves are charming, at least until the P12 twist, where the story begins to unravel for me narratively. (Personally, the WoL’s reaction didn’t quite fit either for my WoL.)

In the end, P1–P11 set up a certain tone, and the way it resolved felt like the tension was defused rather than transformed. That lessened the emotional impact for me. All of this is said with respect for the team, I don’t think the story is “bad” or shouldn’t exist, but it didn’t align with what I personally look for in XIV’s storytelling, especially given how powerfully the game has handled grief and consequence in the past.

Glad other people liked it though! ;)

Best raid series so far, best story, and best conclusion. Ended way better than every other imho.

itt: op failed the reading comprehension exam

I'm convinced the forums hate everything. This tier is fire in visuals and music. The story at the end was fine except for the fact brute bomber did his fire combo on us instead of blowing lindwyrms head off with a flaming steel chair.

I'd say I'm feeling disappointed by the emotions (or lack thereof) given to me by this Patch's Raid Tier, compared to the AAC Cruiserweight one. However, I'm only speaking in terms of plot/story/finale (even though it is not the priority of people running these) and fights (not as memorable as with AAC Cruiserweight M3 and M4).


The visuals (both of bosses and arenas) and especially the musics are peak and incredibly delivered, as (almost) always. But that wasn't enough to counterbalance the feeling of emptyness and rush I got from this last part of the Arcadion's plot (especially when compared to previous expansions).

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Originally Posted by tsuchii

We did have Athena last expansion though? She was evil just for the lols. I loved that too.

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they attempted to say she was corrupted by the heart but that was a poor excuse as she was a loon prior to finding that XD

I thought it was an okay story overall. It gave me pleasant memories of watching wrestling with my dad when I was a kid. My only real complaint was Brute Bomber popping back up out of nowhere. If they really didn't want to kill him off, he could've been among the Immortalized in the stasis tubes and revived at the end like Eutrope. Or maybe turned up in the Brute Abombinator form, and giving all of the power of his feral souls to help strike down the Lindwurm could've reverted him to normal. Just having him pop up like that felt anticlimactic.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Or maybe turned up in the Brute Abombinator form, and giving all of the power of his feral souls to help strike down the Lindwurm could've reverted him to normal. Just having him pop up like that felt anticlimactic.

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I get what you are saying, but I also feel it is a point that they explicitly avoid anyone using Feral Souls in the final sequence, it would've been easy to have everyone bar WoL power up, even the ones that were suffering from soul cancer since they'd get cured shortly anyway, but they want to make the point that the use of Feral Souls is a huge negative and that the Arcadion can carry on without them, having the ultimate Feral Soul transformation be defeated by non-Feral Soul users feels like a deliberate point.

I agree that they could've foreshadowed his return a little better, but that's a constant issue to raid series, this was by far the raid series with the most moving parts, character count alone has every other raid tier beat, so maybe they felt that it would add too much delay between fights, or something along those lines, I dunno.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

Best raid series so far, best story, and best conclusion. Ended way better than every other imho.

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I know you wanna glaze FFXIV no matter what, but could you make the lies not as blatant?
Eden's right over there. And Arcadion can not hold a candle to that story.

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Originally Posted by ViinaS

I know you wanna glaze FFXIV no matter what, but could you make the lies not as blatant?
Eden's right over there. And Arcadion can not hold a candle to that story.

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Oh my gosh! Imagine the possibility that someone could have a different opinion than you! *Gasp!* Personally, I also enjoyed both Eden and Arcadion, but have to say I think I like the Arcadion series a bit more.

Its not how I would have done it, but I still liked it. I feel like there should have more hints towards the president's motivations. I was actually expecting a happy ending but have it end up being that the whole thing was staged for show business and the WoL was just not informed so the viewers could see the most legitimate reactions.

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Originally Posted by ViinaS

I know you wanna glaze FFXIV no matter what, but could you make the lies not as blatant?
Eden's right over there. And Arcadion can not hold a candle to that story.

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You know people have different opinions, right? To me, Eden was the worst storyline ever.

Arcadion in comparison is much better, although the last boss fight is pretty underwhelming.

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Originally Posted by ViinaS

I know you wanna glaze FFXIV no matter what, but could you make the lies not as blatant?
Eden's right over there. And Arcadion can not hold a candle to that story.

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No lying. I enjoyed this ending. Sorry, it's not what you want to hear, but it doesn't make me a glazer because we disagree. I much prefer this over Eden.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

the last boss fight is pretty underwhelming.

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I agree here.

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Originally Posted by ViinaS

I know you wanna glaze FFXIV no matter what, but could you make the lies not as blatant?
Eden's right over there. And Arcadion can not hold a candle to that story.

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Eden's not perfect. Neither is Pandemonium (some people say that one's the best). Neither is Arcadion.

Personally I enjoyed having a story that was low stakes like this and just a glorified tournament. My only complaint was how they handled the President at the end but otherwise well done.

I still like Alexander the best. But I'm biased for giant robots.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

You know people have different opinions, right? To me, Eden was the worst storyline ever.

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Eden fights were fun, but I didn't enjoy teenage angst FFVIII the first time around, no reason I'd like it any better the second.

Eden's story left no impact on me other than the potential of an ascian ally and the fact that it's so pro-sapphic, which is a refreshing thing to see. FFVIII was very important to me as a teenager, so I was always very hype for those little details. but the series was more about remixing classic primal fights of FFXIV and didn't really go as hard of FFVIII as they should've.

Eden is my favorite raid series by such a wide margin I'd rank it above every other raid series combined, and if it came to that, I would gladly, if somewhat painfully, sacrifice all of Arcadion, hell all of Solution Nine, for Ryne and Gaia(not that I want to sacrifice anyone, just to highlight how much they mean to me), and this is while taking in account I like Arcadion quite a bit.

I yearn for the day they stop with the Side Content Jail stupidity.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Eden's story left no impact on me other than the potential of an ascian ally and the fact that it's so pro-sapphic, which is a refreshing thing to see. FFVIII was very important to me as a teenager, so I was always very hype for those little details. but the series was more about remixing classic primal fights of FFXIV and didn't really go as hard of FFVIII as they should've.

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Recontextualized references, most of which you won't know are references if you aren't familiar with the source material, are significantly better than overtly trying as hard as possible to remind you of another game.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Recontextualized references, most of which you won't know are references if you aren't familiar with the source material, are significantly better than overtly trying as hard as possible to remind you of another game.

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Yeah. Dawntrail's recontextualized FFX references work much better than the painfully obvious FFIX ones because of that. What they recontextualized from FFIX without making it obvious also works much better.

Just awful all around, especially the music goddamn.

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Originally Posted by Astronis

Yeah. Dawntrail's recontextualized FFX references work much better than the painfully obvious FFIX ones because of that. What they recontextualized from FFIX without making it obvious also works much better.

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I liked that characters based on ff9 characters had their own original name. R
The ff9 references were way less on the nose than the ff4 references in endwalker omg.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

I liked that characters based on ff9 characters had their own original name. R
The ff9 references were way less on the nose than the ff4 references in endwalker omg.

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Yeah, the Garnet substitute was really improved by being named after a different gemstone.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

I liked that characters based on ff9 characters had their own original name. R
The ff9 references were way less on the nose than the ff4 references in endwalker omg.

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I enjoy the little nods to other games but I do not like the slaps in the face and overuse of the nostalgia music in EW. So far, DT has done a better job at that and not been annoying.

TY this is exactly how I felt about it. My thoughts exactly

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Originally Posted by Foxfires

For me the story ultimately didn’t land

I’m personally much more drawn to tragic yet heartfelt endings. I don’t think character death is a bad thing, nor do I think it undermines a happy ending by default. In fact, XIV has often shown that an ending can be hopeful because characters die, not in spite of it. Because of that, I found myself wishing Arcadion had lingered more on consequences. I would have loved to see how the deaths of Eutrope etc. affected Retsarra, Yaana, Neyuni, and the others afterward, especially Yaana. Even small sidequests focused on grief and rebuilding could have added a lot of value, particularly if the other fighters were cured and the WoL could help those grieving.

Related to that, I was also hoping the M9–12 group wouldn’t necessarily like us by the end, even if we did the right thing. XIV has portrayed this trope nicely before (Garlemald in Endwalker comes to mind), and I think it would have fit here too.

Another factor is that I have no real background for show wrestling. I’ve never watched it, I’m not especially interested in it, and exaggerated personas (IRL) for spectacle have personally grown tiring for me over time. Because of that, wrestling as the core didn’t appeal to me, and I needed the emotional arc to do more of the work than it ultimately did.

That said, I do believe a light-hearted wrestling story could still have contained something tragic or bittersweet beneath the surface and still arrived at a wholesome or even funny ending if given more room. Similar attempts in Dawntrail didn’t quite land for me emotionally, and Arcadion’s final turn felt similar. I also don’t think I had enough time to truly care about the President, despite liking the idea behind him.

I do want to be clear that there were things I enjoyed. The music and aesthetics were great, the mechanics were fun, the glamours are enjoyable, and the characters themselves are charming, at least until the P12 twist, where the story begins to unravel for me narratively. (Personally, the WoL’s reaction didn’t quite fit either for my WoL.)

In the end, P1–P11 set up a certain tone, and the way it resolved felt like the tension was defused rather than transformed. That lessened the emotional impact for me. All of this is said with respect for the team, I don’t think the story is “bad” or shouldn’t exist, but it didn’t align with what I personally look for in XIV’s storytelling, especially given how powerfully the game has handled grief and consequence in the past.

Glad other people liked it though! ;)

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Dunno why my last post didn't reply with the quote ;w;
but this is exactly how I felt about the Arcadion. Thank you for articulating it so well (and so positively, because truly I am glad that people like it)

You can't please everyone. End of the day.

For me, Arcadion was the best part of Dawntrail alongside what we've seen of Hildy. And I have *never* watched a professional wrestling match in my life.

We share the same sentiment. The story is a disaster and doesn’t make any sense at all.
Pandæmonium Raids were more interesting than this slop SE cooked.