SHB story is my least favorite

Well it's better then arr story, but reason why it's my least favorite is not cause it was written bad because it was written very good, reason is I didn't care about the plot as much as I did hw and sb and yes it's a personal opinion thread but it is what it is.

I personally enjoy the dravainians vs ishgardians aspect to hw, mostly because I am a religious man irl and I love dragons so both together was great and doma/ala mhigo we been hearing about them and interacting with people from there since 1.0 and 2.0, most people hated the split story but I liked it, just wish ala mhigo got a little more attention.

I wished we'd got to explore more of the source before heading to a diff shard, I still wanna see shrlayan lands, the new world and mericydia and most of all I wanna see my fav story arch get an expansion to it, the garlean empire, I liked norvrandt but I wished it would have waited till we explored more of the source 1st.

I doubt we would have gotten a wait until we explore all of the Source first plot anyways.

The story seem to reaching the finale to end the Zodiark vs Hydaelyn Arc and to conclude this we first need to know the origins of this war which did lead to SHB story to be more focus about how this entire war started so we can finally reach the ending.

I expect the Garlean Empire to be the stage where we reach that Finale and after that then we go to places beyond in a Season 2 storyline since with the threat of Garlean EMpire and Zodiark gone, we can finally return to a storyline that starts us as normal Adventurers once again to explore areas of the Source that is now free from Garlean Empire or have never been explored before because the war against the garlean empire and Zodiark prevented the Adventurer Guild to fund a large scale expedition into the Unknown regions of the Source.

Personally? I think you're looking at this a bit too small. The Shadowbringers story informs all of the content we've had up until now in so many ways, just because it offers us an entirely new perspective. Let's take, for instance, the idea of 'beast tribes'. On the Source, we've been taught that Beast Tribes are typically dangerous, somewhat savage groups of intelligent creatures with the capacity to speak and understand language, but whose ways are so fundamentally different and opposed to those of the 'spoken races' that we simply cannot get along with them, and so conflict between us is inevitable. Obviously, there are the friendlier beast tribes, but most primals come from the conflicts that have been set between the 'beasts' and the 'spoken'. Now, we know that the Ascians have been meddling in these conflicts for a good long while, and that they have been responsible for teaching 'beast tribes' the methods of summoning magicks, but overall the conflict has been portrayed as 'civilization' vs. 'savages' who are summoning monsters that could wipe out the entire world.

We get to the First, a world where primals simply haven't been a factor, and what do we find? The Mord, the First's Kobolds, have a trading hub where they live alongside Humes and other races and are treated as equals. Zun, the Amal'jaa of the First, live and work in the Crystarium and are valued for their knowledge of Amaro taming. The Ondo, Sahagin of the First, trade with Eulmore and hunt and fish freely in the oceans. They are not summoning Primals, coming into conflict with the 'spoken', or even truly distinguished from the other races. They simply exist. They're part of society. They're not separated, they're not treated as lesser, they're not at war, hell, if the game was based on the First, there wouldn't really be a reason for them not to be playable characters. This helps us to see that the 'war on primals' that we've been fighting on the Source? All of it has been an Ascian machination to cause chaos and conflict, nothing more than a shell game to make us hate each other rather than work together to build a brighter future. They don't want us to. They want us to hate. They want us to fight.

The first is a refutation of the idea that we have to be at war with the 'beast tribes' or that that is even a meaningful category at all. That's just one example I can think of; those are the types of things that I think it gives us. It's a useful mirror to Eorzea and the Source. Not to mention all of the metaphysical knowledge we now have, and knowledge of our enemies' motivations. I can now go back to the Source with a true understanding of why I am fighting, rather than simply reacting to what the Ascians' latest plots are.

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Originally Posted by VictorTheed

I liked it.

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Care to elaborate?

I kind of felt the same when it was first announced. I was looking forward to seeing Thavanir and the Empire, where the Viera come from..etc. But once the story started in SBH and without spoiling much..when I saw we FINALLY got answers of stuff I've been wondering from 1.0 days back in 2010, it quickly became my favorite expansion.

I dunno how much longer SE plans to work on XIV but now it seems like it has a loooot more story coming, so I am thinking we will get to explore the source among other things later on.

I much prefer the First. I have disliked the ascian plot up to this point where just dealing with Emet didn't feel like a pointless endeavor. He actually had a motive instead of generic evil bad guy wanting to end the world because plot device.
Ishgard felt disjointed to me and the zones were out of place past coerthas, one of the temple knights in ala mhigo even eludes to the eastern highlands so its not like they forgot about the rest of the areas.
The whole Doma/Ala Mhigo arc felt extremely rushed to me, a consequence of trying to tell two full length stories by jumping between them arbitrarily I'm sure. I actually quit in stormblood from sheer disinterest in everything going on.

Currently my only real complaint on the shadowbringer arc is the lack of class quests. I wasn't too miffed by crafters losing their specific ones but DoM/W feel awkward just inventing automatons and summoning demi primals out of the blue. The role quests were nice and provided some great side stories, but they were not replacements.
Most of the zone stories feel whole without obvious gaps and none of them felt like you were being pulled through it because they had to force the story there like sea of clouds.
I do wish there were more opportunities to interact with characters along the way. Feo Ul, for example, gets introduced as a retainer stand in, and then shes bullying fearies while getting upset you didnt summon her earlier, and then shes queen of the fae. While a bunch of mandatory fluff steps in the middle wouldn't be idea, maybe she could of interacted with us in many of the side quests in the area. I'm more attached to the Anima faery at this point.

I felt that it was a nice breather from the scope of Stormblood, kind of like Heavensward was after ARR. Both ARR and SB were wide reaching stories that set up a lot of the world and the politics while HW and ShB both felt more personal and introspective with the focus being solely on Ishgard and then with our journey on the First. The development team (in my opinion), did a great job making the different areas feel uncomfortable and alien under the unending light while clearly being reflections of familiar spots on the Source. to me it was successful in showing how isolated the WoL could be as well as the power we could carry and it did a great job at laying out bare the real source of conflict between us and the Ascians as well as giving us an excellent antagonist in Emet-Selch.

As a general fan of origin stories that lead up to the journey, this has been a personal favorite. My complaints are as of now - there leaves a lot of contradictions in how events are told starting from ARR I'd like to see addressed.

However, I'm INSANELY curious about the conflict we're going to get from 5.5 on.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...w_with_yoship/

After half way through 5.x, the story will unfold like a turmoil up to the end.

It's been an odd case for me.

I was hype to get into HW because I loved Coerthas and the story related to Ishgard in late ARR. I loved HW.

I was hyped to get into SB because I was interested in ala mhigo. I didn't much care for Doma. I was disapointed in the end. The region split made both stories suffer and I loathed the Yotsuyu arc in 4.2/4.3. And I felt there was so much more they could have done with ala mhigo without spending half of 4.0 on a side quest to Doma. Including fleshing out different factions of the Resistance and having Lyse actually progress up the chain of command and EARN her place as resistance leader. This is already going on long so I'll just say with the exception of 4.1 I found SB pretty disapointing.

SHB I was going into warily. Going to a different planet I had no investment in? This could be Warlords of Daenor all over again. However, it far surpassed my expectations. The first 'act' of the story (intro, Alisae/Alph quests, and first dungeon) really set the stage and got me invested in this world. It dragged a little i the middle where the plot became 'go to zone, Ran'jit tries to stop you, avoid him, kill light warden' three times. But I still enjoyed it overall. Then everything that happens after Innocence was just great. I really loved it.

So it's odd. HW I expected to love, loved it. SB I expected to love, felt it was MEH story wise. SHB I was wary of, but loved it.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

My complaints are as of now - there leaves a lot of contradictions in how events are told starting from ARR I'd like to see addressed.

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Any contradictions in particular? (They have said that they are super careful to go over all existing lore and make sure new revelations are consistent.)

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

However, I'm INSANELY curious about the conflict we're going to get from 5.5 on.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...w_with_yoship/

After half way through 5.x, the story will unfold like a turmoil up to the end.

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Nice find! :eek: Using Google Translate on the original Japanese, what Yoshida said was something like, "From the middle to the final stage of 'Shadowbringers', I think that it will be a raging development." Assuming 5.0 puts us about halfway, maybe two thirds there, that means 5.1+ will be really exciting. Since he also said that Zodiark/Hydaelyn is 80% done with 5.0, maybe things will even be wrapped up before 6.0.

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Originally Posted by FaerieAura

The first is a refutation of the idea that we have to be at war with the 'beast tribes' or that that is even a meaningful category at all.

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This is certainly the way most people seem to be reading the relationship between "beast" and "spoken" as its played out on the first. My take? Once you remove the lalas from society, everyone else gets along just fine. Those soulless little monsters clearly cause conflict on about an equal level with the ascians.

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Originally Posted by FaerieAura

On the Source, we've been taught that Beast Tribes are typically dangerous, somewhat savage groups of intelligent creatures with the capacity to speak and understand language, but whose ways are so fundamentally different and opposed to those of the 'spoken races' that we simply cannot get along with them, and so conflict between us is inevitable.

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Worth noting that this is a narrative created and enforced by the Syndicate of Ul'dah because they wanted an excuse to seize the goods that the "beastmen" had.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

This is certainly the way most people seem to be reading the relationship between "beast" and "spoken" as its played out on the first. My take? Once you remove the lalas from society, everyone else gets along just fine. Those soulless little monsters clearly cause conflict on about an equal level with the ascians.

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Hey, now, no need to drag the Plainsfolk into this. They're mostly alright. :)

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Originally Posted by Kokomi

Any contradictions in particular? (They have said that they are super careful to go over all existing lore and make sure new revelations are consistent.)

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Mainly with Hydaelyn's account of the world and Elidibus statements.

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Originally Posted by Annana

Worth noting that this is a narrative created and enforced by the Syndicate of Ul'dah because they wanted an excuse to seize the goods that the "beastmen" had.

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So which one of the Syndicate members is now a secret Ascian?

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

So which one of the Syndicate members is now a secret Ascian?

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Isn't it obvious? There's only one we've seen completely defy the laws of physics on a regular basis, whose wealth and power are unexplained and make no sense and only can be explained by creation magicks.

We're coming for you, Manderville.

I skipped every cutscene in SB because of how absolutely terrible it was. I disliked the story, and I didn't care at all for the characters. It felt pushed too hard to be Far Eastern and I feel it didn't mesh well with the lore of the game.

Honestly, if they just removed SB from the game, nothing of value would be lost.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Mainly with Hydaelyn's account of the world and Elidibus statements.

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One thing you have to remember is that Hydaelyn was literally born then went to fight Zodiark. Also everyone who summoned her died in the process, So they weren't there to educate her on what was going on. All she had was the will of those that summoned her. To "Defeat Zodiark" and "Protect Lesser Life". Her memory of the events are probably a little skewed.

Elidibus, like Emet Selch, is known for lying by omission. He's never going to tell you the whole story. Always an "Ascian Biased" version of events.

I don't need to remember, as I am well aware and had discussions about it prior.

The fact that she says its the truth of the world, is bothersome. There was a world that existed before she existed which means she was aware of it prior to sundering Zodiark. Unless sundering split her primal brain too :P

https://youtu.be/7wu8j5_pzzU

The game narratively went from the balance of light and dark to something else given the statements before the reveal in Shadowbringers.

For me it's quite easily my favourite thus far, but depending on how they treat Zenos it can quite as easily go downhill for me personally. I don't like the idea of him pulling a Shinryu on one of the elder primals both of which required significant sacrifice of people with an enormous amount of power to summon/manifest.

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Originally Posted by FaerieAura

Isn't it obvious? There's only one we've seen completely defy the laws of physics on a regular basis, whose wealth and power are unexplained and make no sense and only can be explained by creation magicks.

We're coming for you, Manderville.

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Godbert is the unsundered 14th. /sarcasm

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Originally Posted by FaerieAura

Personally? I think you're looking at this a bit too small. The Shadowbringers story informs all of the content we've had up until now in so many ways, just because it offers us an entirely new perspective. Let's take, for instance, the idea of 'beast tribes'. On the Source, we've been taught that Beast Tribes are typically dangerous, somewhat savage groups of intelligent creatures with the capacity to speak and understand language, but whose ways are so fundamentally different and opposed to those of the 'spoken races' that we simply cannot get along with them, and so conflict between us is inevitable. Obviously, there are the friendlier beast tribes, but most primals come from the conflicts that have been set between the 'beasts' and the 'spoken'. Now, we know that the Ascians have been meddling in these conflicts for a good long while, and that they have been responsible for teaching 'beast tribes' the methods of summoning magicks, but overall the conflict has been portrayed as 'civilization' vs. 'savages' who are summoning monsters that could wipe out the entire world.

We get to the First, a world where primals simply haven't been a factor, and what do we find? The Mord, the First's Kobolds, have a trading hub where they live alongside Humes and other races and are treated as equals. Zun, the Amal'jaa of the First, live and work in the Crystarium and are valued for their knowledge of Amaro taming. The Ondo, Sahagin of the First, trade with Eulmore and hunt and fish freely in the oceans. They are not summoning Primals, coming into conflict with the 'spoken', or even truly distinguished from the other races. They simply exist. They're part of society. They're not separated, they're not treated as lesser, they're not at war, hell, if the game was based on the First, there wouldn't really be a reason for them not to be playable characters. This helps us to see that the 'war on primals' that we've been fighting on the Source? All of it has been an Ascian machination to cause chaos and conflict, nothing more than a shell game to make us hate each other rather than work together to build a brighter future. They don't want us to. They want us to hate. They want us to fight.

The first is a refutation of the idea that we have to be at war with the 'beast tribes' or that that is even a meaningful category at all. That's just one example I can think of; those are the types of things that I think it gives us. It's a useful mirror to Eorzea and the Source. Not to mention all of the metaphysical knowledge we now have, and knowledge of our enemies' motivations. I can now go back to the Source with a true understanding of why I am fighting, rather than simply reacting to what the Ascians' latest plots are.

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To add to this, Dwarves/Lalafells are considered a beast tribe on the First. NPCs in Kholusia(I wanna say Amity, but maybe it was Wright?) refer to them as such. So the divide between Beast Tribe and Spoken really is just a matter of social convention and language barriers.

Imo Shadowbringers has one of the best story ever made in any Final Fantasy game, Emet Selch is my favorite villain in any Final Fantasy game. Shadowbringers > Heavensward > Stormblood > A Realm Reborn. My only complain is that i have to wait until 5.1 for more

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

I don't need to remember, as I am well aware and had discussions about it prior.

The fact that she says its the truth of the world, is bothersome.

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She can say what she likes. Doesn't make it the whole truth. The only people who knows what happened are brainwashed into worshipping her opposite.

Heck, we only get a clearer picture of what happened from a Shade who gained sapience by accident. So I say just take what she says with a pinch of salt.

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Originally Posted by Razard

She can say what she likes. Doesn't make it the whole truth. The only people who knows what happened are brainwashed into worshipping her opposite.

Heck, we only get a clearer picture of what happened from a Shade who gained sapience by accident. So I say just take what she says with a pinch of salt.

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Okay, the whole point of this was to answer a question as to what I found conflicting, I answered it. I found the writing and events rather conflicting and ...Slaaahpeh. I mean at least the MSQ with Lahabrea the events make sense after all the revelations from this patch. That said, we STILL aren't done with this Xpac so there may be a reason that's stated instead of guessed about why events were told that way. So no, I don't think we should have taken things with a grain of salt, I think we should be looking for more o/~ Answers o/~

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Originally Posted by DenzelVilliers

Imo Shadowbringers has one of the best story ever made in any Final Fantasy game, Emet Selch is my favorite villain in any Final Fantasy game. Shadowbringers > Heavensward > Stormblood > A Realm Reborn. My only complain is that i have to wait until 5.1 for more

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this!
I appreciated getting Eden as story 1 month through considering its tied to the MSQ but i need the 5.1 stuff!
I replayed the story once on main and once on alt and i still cant get enough of it.
Here hoping Zenos is worth liking tho,so far hes just the cliche overpowered anime villain~ D:

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Originally Posted by VictorTheed

Well it's better then arr story, but reason why it's my least favorite is not cause it was written bad because it was written very good, reason is I didn't care about the plot as much as I did hw and sb and yes it's a personal opinion thread but it is what it is.

I personally enjoy the dravainians vs ishgardians aspect to hw, mostly because I am a religious man irl and I love dragons so both together was great and doma/ala mhigo we been hearing about them and interacting with people from there since 1.0 and 2.0, most people hated the split story but I liked it, just wish ala mhigo got a little more attention.

I wished we'd got to explore more of the source before heading to a diff shard, I still wanna see shrlayan lands, the new world and mericydia and most of all I wanna see my fav story arch get an expansion to it, the garlean empire, I liked norvrandt but I wished it would have waited till we explored more of the source 1st.

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For what it's worth, I'm REALLY sure this part of the story needed to be told so that we get even more in-depth with things on the Source. So many links that have been scattered over world joining again because of the knowledge we have now and will have coming from The First, where history is better preserved then on the Source (because of Calamities)