Our passive characters and why the 2.55 story fails (BIG SPOILERS) (rant warning)

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Originally Posted by Elmeron

What? No. The Crystal Braves and Ul'dah don't even make up enough guards to take on both Gridania and Limsa Lominsa. I don't know if you somehow think that the Crystal Braves and Ul'dah guards are now everywhere in Eorzea, just ready to slay random civilians (which would be really obvious...), but they aren't. Or did you fail to see the stream of soldiers coming out of Ul'dah? That is where they are residing in since they aren't even allowed in Gridania or Limsa Lominsa (you learn this by talking to NPCs in both of those cities).

You also cannot explain away the utter abandonment of Raubahn by both Kan-E-Senna and Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn, just by saying "politics." They'd been working with Raubahn for years, he was someone they had experienced traumatic events with, and someone that they were friends with (probably Raubahn won't want anything to do with either of them if he is ever freed... I know I wouldn't, but knowing FFXIV's writing it'll all just somehow be glazed over). What they did was turn their backs on someone who obviously needed them. I can't even look at them with any respect now, and it's sad because I liked both of them before.

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Here's the thing, Merlwyb and Kan-E-Senna were not at their home nations, and the Crystal Braves have just been shown to be compromised. They're not at home, so it's possible all it could easily take is 1 Linkshell call and the highest authorities outside of them in their city-states could be killed by people they aren't aware of could be assassins.

The best thing to do in this situation is to bow out and make it seem like you're not getting involved, else Limsa and Gridania could be lost in a matter of hours, long before the two leaders get back to them. They saw the cards dealt, and folded rather than continue into a losing situation. They made the right call, as much as it hurts me to say it.

But know that because they saw the Syndicate's hand and bowed out, they can now make countermeasures against the Crystal Braves without losing the City-States immediately, and thus start planning ahead to helping free Raubahn and prove the innocence of the Scions. Mark my words, sometime in Heavensward and its patches, they will help us prove our innocence and help us reclaim Ul'dah from the Syndicate.

*sighs* you really believe our character alone can face a whole army? seriously?

even in the dragon and primal fight we was never alone! the scion by themself are not as strong as us. indeed they have some flashy movement... but nothing much. other point, our goal is the peace and protection of eorzea.... going around killing eorzean in uldah... is maybe not the best move. without forget, we don't know if all the soldier are part of the plot, some npc talk seems to say the inverse. since they wasn't able to arrest us, they are in a tight spot.... they can't openly arrest us and say: "they have killed Nanamo a few day ago".

seriously the situation as it stand have become a total mess even for the traitor. i'm sure if they had them way we will have been executed swiftly after everybody was arrested. but now that we did flee and alive, they can't really act without create a situation extreme.

you give them too much credit. Neither Merlwyb nor Kanne-E-Senna have done anything to actually help you up to this point. It was Merlwyb's second in command who came up with, and executed, the Leviathan plan. All she did was complain about how she didn't know what to do. there isn't a single useful female character in any position of power. They're all figureheads.

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Originally Posted by Elmeron

That is where they are residing in since they aren't even allowed in Gridania or Limsa Lominsa (you learn this by talking to NPCs in both of those cities).

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This only happened after the whole event. Before it even started, you could find quite a number of crystal brave NPCs around the other city-states.

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Originally Posted by Elmeron

You also cannot explain away the utter abandonment of Raubahn by both Kan-E-Senna and Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn, just by saying "politics."

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They've just been told that the Sultana is dead. From that point on, the Syndicate is the one that calls the shots - not Raubahn. If you payed attention to the cutscene, Merlwyb looked as if she was eager to help, but is unable to which is signified by her cursing after being told to leave. They made a good choice. Otherwise they'll only be adding fuel to the fire.

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Originally Posted by Cailae

Alright, allow me to re-phrase: Why am I still SUCCESSFULLY solving theirs and now Ishgards problems?


And you're ignoring that immediately after that, we killed an ascian.

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And how did we kill that ascian? please do explain because you'll see that it wasn't by any means through the warrior of light we helped but that was all Moenbryda.

Well hmm. Think about something: the theme (at least that I read) of Heavensward is "Betrayal". And yeah, our characters were betrayed.

Kan-E and Merl just left you to die. Political reasons aside, they still abandoned you. The Syndicate forced them to abandon you (ingenious little buggers).
Brass Blades betray you for obvious reasons.
The Crystal Braves betray you.
You could say the Scions even betray you. I woulda gotten everyone out. It wasn't the place to play hero.

For Ul'dahn characters, this is especially painful. The beloved leader is killed ( I say beloved because I think we can all agree we all liked her). We're exiled from our home and forced to gain asylum from the one place we'd least expect it. The only thing that makes the sting less painful, and only just, is that if you are a Flamer/Ul'dahn, Raubahn actually defended you and set you free.


So SE wanted us to feel betrayal, and they did. I certainly feel betrayed. Could the story be better? Sure, but the point was made.

"Vengeance is a powerful motivator."

The whole thing makes no sense for the fact that the scions are politically untouchable. After the sheer number of primals that we've killed, no one would dare turn on you, especially grunt-level soldiers who would only need a gentle reminder that the next time ifrit shows up, it'll be them who have to fight and most definitely die. It'd be pretty straightforward for any one of the scions to make that threat and it'd be a chance to make some of the more useless ones like Minfilia do something useful for once. Given that we aren't held captive in the end, the first plan to come to mind to overthrow the monetarists is simply wait for the next summoning of ifrit and use it to force them to kneel. "Oh, what a shame that ifrit was summoned, sure wish I could help but the monetarists have made up charges of treason against me, I can't go back to Thanalan even if I wanted." You'd better believe there would be blood if the smallfolk were conveniently notified that they were being needlessly sacrificed.

Given the remarkable frequency of primal summonings since 2.0 it would be insane for any city state to not give you their full backing in all circumstances, unless if they like risking an Achilles in his tent the next time one shows up. At this point, I wish I could help a beast tribe summon one and use it as blackmail. God help them if the scions/WoL run interference with their defensive efforts.

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Originally Posted by Exodus-E

...Except in Mass Effect 3's case, it was meant to end the series (or at least, Shepard's story), thus, tying all the loose ends.
And it was a disaster, even from behind the scenes ("artistic integrity" as they say...yeah, right).

At least here the story's not supposed to be the end of the entire saga (and carries on into its "sequel", Heavensward).

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Well... we really shouldn't draw comparisons with other games, especially single-player ones. If anyone wants to pipe in and spoil some other MMORPG's go right ahead, I'll spoil the ones I've played through more than one update.

Mabinogi - Korean Freemium game. Each "chapter" kinda throws away everything that happened in the previous one. This is because of the nature of Korean businesses that basically reward feature-creep, not quality. Seriously, the first 3 generations, and then they introduce new races... and completely fail to connect it to the games lore at all until Generation 8. Then they retcon these several generations later (G16). Like, as much as I enjoyed the first 3 generations, each subsequent storyline seems very forced. For example G9-12 goes back to the actual lore in G1-3, and then in G13 they try really hard to force Shakespere into it all... uh okay. I think the overall story was okay but it seems like the producer's at Nexon just stopped caring at G13 and the fanbase revolted from the attempt to turn it into yet-another-WoW. Every patch changes the land and glued-to-the-ground NPC's.

I played Wizardy Online and PSO2 but in hindesight, these hub-dungeon games have little actual overall storyline.

So in terms of if FFXIV:ARR's mainstream ending is any good, it's probably on par with other MMORPG's needing reasons for you to come back, but if FFXIV wants to be better than any other MMORPG, Yoshi-P needs to have the next three expansions in the writing stage already so we don't see retcons and backpeddling like what happened in V1.0, and what happens in freemium MMORPGS. Yoshi-P had to "solve" the problems with V1.0 first, a game that was essentially broken and aimless copypasta. With V3.0 if the companions never re-appear, I'll probably be disappointed, but I do want some closure. The game has already made a point of going "nobody is ever permanently dead", just look at Hildebrand.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Ah, no. A lot of us would have chosen how differently. Walking in with the evidence wasn't the only way to get into the banquet. Abandoning folks without even a multiple choice bit wasn't the only way out of it.

There were other ways to have played out the cut scene and its effects.

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The Brass Blades are not above planting evidence. They do it for Ul'dah's opening, and I don't recall them actually pulling the bottle off of you. He pulls it out of his own pocket to show everyone. It would have never mattered if we picked the bottle up or not. They probably had a spare one on them.

*deep breath*

1) Hydealyn's Blessing =/= our innate combat prowess. Middy taking or sealing the Blessing doesn't change the fact that we're very seasoned in combat at this point in the story. A handful of Brass Blades and/or Crystal Braves should pose zero threat with or without the Blessing.

2) Even if we're unarmed we should be far from helpless, especially monks. Lorewise you don't really need a weapon to use any of your abilities, including spells (it's difficult to control magic without a focus, not impossible). Monk's lore is all about training your body into a living weapon and channeling Chakra to do the impossible. Metal armor wouldn't be much of a deterrent for a barehanded monk (the Brass Blades wear chainmail anyway, not plate armor). Gameplay mechanics are the only reason you can't do any of this normally.

3) Fighting through even a medium-sized force of Brass Blades and Crystal Braves wouldn't have been an impossible feat for the Warrior of Light. So far as the lore and the story is concerned, the Warrior of Light even on their own is worth a small army in terms of ability. Fighting Primals, Garleans, Ascians, and even Dragons (not to mention all of the other horrible things we've had to fight) and emerging relatively unscathed each time helps to illustrate how strong we are. Even in instances where we had "help", we're still clearly many times stronger than the majority of the other characters, especially in comparison to normal soldiers. We might could get overwhelmed by a large enough force, but the paltry number of aggressors shown in the cutscenes probably wouldn't have even counted as a warm-up when compared to everything else we've fought up to this point.

4) Self-defense isn't the same thing as going on a murderous rampage with wanton abandon. You're being accused of doing something that's an obvious set-up. Teledji clearly intends to take you and your friends by force. You're screwed. A rational person who's familiar with Teledji's nature and sees that they're being framed wouldn't immediately roll over or cooperate in the slightest, they would defend themselves and evade capture until they could figure out what was going on (you know, like Thancred did). Fighting back doesn't even mean Teledji would have to be harmed or killed. You could have one-hit-quit the Brass Blades accompanying him and there's not a damn thing he could have done about it. They're trying to frame you anyway so in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if you make a mess on your way out.

Bonus: Even accounting for mechanics, it's not unusual that we can still face and defeat the Primals just fine. Midgardsomr took Hydealyn's Blessing, not The Echo. The Echo is what makes you immune to being tempered.

*gasps for air*