Originally Posted by
Supersnow845
I really don’t think the “WOL is too strong to make stakes meaningful” argument holds any water
The WOL has very defined weaknesses and they aren’t invincible
-at the end of the day they are human, they have great combat abilities but they really aren’t “transcendent”
-their friends can be exploited against them or have them attack the WOL through people they know
-they are at risk from group hostility such as a aggressive foreign nation
-they are rather weak at politics and the “game” as many high fantasy settings call it
-they aren’t immune to stealth attacks
The game just does really poor job of actually attempting to use these weaknesses against the WOL (the garlemald sequence in EW and the bloody banquet in ARR are the notable exceptions) with any time they need the WOL present but can’t have them just resolve the situation with their power they resort to cutscene paralysis, instead every enemy uses the braindead “attack from the front” strategy which forces them to scale the enemy to a power that actually rivals the WOL’s direct combat prowess which is their greatest strength
We don’t need multiverse “modern ancients” or “evil WOL from another timeline” we just need them to actually engage with the WOL’s weaknesses in a way that is meaningful and believable. It’s hilarious they actually parodied every villains suicidal desire to fight the WOL head on with the asura Hildebrand story THEN THEY PROCEEDED TO DO IT UNIRONICALLY WITH SPHENE ANYWAY