Shadowbringers Feature Lists 9 New Dungeons... I count Eight?

... Am I crazy? Did I miss one? Or was there a mistranslation somewhere? I remember it being advertised that there would be nine new dungeons.

No conspiracy theories or attacking the devs, just wondering if i'm nuts or something.

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/w...ngers#Features

Hmm...you're right...

I think the 9th dungeon was the Treasure Map thing.

They also said I would become a Warrior of Darkness. They did a lot of creative marketing with this expansion.

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They also said I would become a Warrior of Darkness. They did a lot of creative marketing with this expansion.

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The player is working to bring darkness back to a world oversaturated in light; hence, Warrior of Darkness. What exactly did you think this would entail?

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

The player is working to bring darkness back to a world oversaturated in light; hence, Warrior of Darkness. What exactly did you think this would entail?

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To become a Warrior of Darkness, maybe flip the script. Not just change our title because of semantics. We are still the same person fighting the same fight against the same big bads who are doing the same thing they always do. I was hoping they would shake things up a bit especially has hard as they leaned on that WoD thing. It was a trivial part of the story at best and they made it sound like a huge plot twist.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

The player is working to bring darkness back to a world oversaturated in light; hence, Warrior of Darkness. What exactly did you think this would entail?

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They were definitely selling it as something a lot more "embracing the power of Darkness" and turning away from being the Warrior of Light with our powers linked to Light and Hydaelyn's blessing... only for it to turn out that all we're actually doing is using our normal Warrior-of-Light-ish abilities to contain the Light and bring back the natural balance of darkness (not Darkness) without having any powers relating to that side of things.

Personally I'm happy it turned out this way - I couldn't see how it was thematically going to work otherwise - but it was definitely advertised to us as something other than what we got.

Not gonna lie, I loved this expansion, but I was really hoping to be Zodiark's new chosen for a bit and learn both sides of this story ourselves.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

The player is working to bring darkness back to a world oversaturated in light; hence, Warrior of Darkness. What exactly did you think this would entail?

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Maybe by not using our specific powers of light to resolve the situation? I kind of feel like my character is a fraud for being called a Warrior of Darkness.

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

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Originally Posted by Valic

Not gonna lie, I loved this expansion, but I was really hoping to be Zodiark's new chosen for a bit and learn both sides of this story ourselves.

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Okay now that you mention it that might have been awesome. Especially since this expansion made me sympathize with the Ascians/Zodiark a lot more. Would have loved to get some interaction with him.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

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I wasn't expecting a "characterisation shakeup" exactly - which is why I was incredibly puzzled by the direction the advertising was taking.

- emphasis on "Warrior of Darkness"
- If our powers as the "Warrior of Light" are given to us by Hydaelyn, what does it mean to become the "Warrior of Darkness"? Logically that means aligning with the opposite of our Light-power-giver, ie. Zodiark.
- Japanese sub-title "Jet-Black Villains" - if we're the Shadowbringer(s), are we also the "villain"?
- all prior examples of Darkness in the story being aspected to Ascians/Zodiark/chaos and the opposite of our heroic efforts
- trailer scene with taunting gremlin implying we were all alone in a desolate Light-soaked wasteland (didn't happen)
- pre-existing implications from the Warriors of Darkness arc that Ardbert's group caused the Calamity by being too good at being Warriors of Light and defeating the Ascians on their world, triggering the Flood.
- combining those two points, the implication that we triggered a similar flood because we defeated Zenos/Elidibus.
- a following conclusion (now known to be based on incomplete information) that Hydaelyn's command for us to fight the Darkness and spread Light might be anything from 'a bad idea' to deliberately evil, causing us to turn against Her.
- the ominous command to "become what you must", ie. something you maybe don't want to do, but have to. I think this was from the first trailer, long before we knew the identity of the mysterious voice and had reason to trust him.
- Dark Knight, the story that puts a darker-and-edgier spin on your characterisation, as the "poster job" for the expansion.


I didn't want it to happen - if you browse back through the Lore forum at that point you'll probably find a lot of me saying "but we can't go that direction! It doesn't work with the rest of the story!" - but it sure looked like it was the direction they were going, and I was expecting to be dragged unwillingly down that path and hoping there'd be a good explanation at the end.

As it turns out, the explanation seems to be "we wanted the trailer to look impressive".


(See also: the "just there to send us into theory meltdown" scene of Y'shtola being addressed as Master Matoya. The actual explanation for that felt so weak that I would not be surprised if they invented the entire plot point just for trailer shock value.)

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

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I think it's more like... they talk about us being the warrior of darkness, they show WoL shrouded and covered in darkness, becoming a dark knight, and every trailer teased the idea of us embracing the darkness or changing from being a warrior of light to a warrior of darkness. "Become what you must".. well I didn't become anything, I just kept taking light and then using it to open the sky's darkness again. Not to mention the american commercial they played as if it was to imply we're ya know... gonna relate to DARKNESS.

I don't think we wanted to become a villain, I think we just wanted to see us not be more "oh glorious warrior of light" and use light every dang instance. We did get the type of feel we needed this expansion with light wardens and sin eaters being creations of beings that were once people, which set the right tone of us being the warrior of darkness putting down souls who didn't have a choice in their fate since it was changed.... But as far as the darkness aspect, I can't say I saw much "darkness" going for us in any of it other than us changing the sky back to night.

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Originally Posted by Destati

Okay now that you mention it that might have been awesome. Especially since this expansion made me sympathize with the Ascians/Zodiark a lot more. Would have loved to get some interaction with him.

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For all we know, it still may go in that direction. We still don't truly know the story from Zodiark himself and we still haven't really dealt with the idea that our "mother" is a primal and we're possibly tempered ourselves. There's a lot still to be dealt with and honestly, I could see them having us delve more into the other half of things now that we have some more to the whole story.

...did people really think us becoming the WoD would mean setting puppies on fire and other edgy stuff?
As we learned after rejoining with Urianger, light actually stands for order and stability in its positive aspects, while darkness stands for change. So as the WoL we were fighting to preserve order on the source, while as the WoD we kickstarted change on the first shard.

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Originally Posted by Valic

Not gonna lie, I loved this expansion, but I was really hoping to be Zodiark's new chosen for a bit and learn both sides of this story ourselves.

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This is also what I was expecting. Not necessarily becoming the bad guy, but attuning to darkness for a bit to combat a world overflowing with Light. Instead it was more like Light vs. Brighter Light.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

This is also what I was expecting. Not necessarily becoming the bad guy, but attuning to darkness for a bit to combat a world overflowing with Light. Instead it was more like Light vs. Brighter Light.

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This, I expected a mix if both..but ugh just more anime hero infallible goody goody.

I'm not sure how to even reply to these responses, and I don't have time to give any torough explanations, since I have to head out. But the short of it is, people are either looking too deeply into things or not deep enough.

On one quick note though, the title, Shadowbringers/Jet-Black Villians, while it can refer to us, it's also an allusion to the Ascians. Think about it, we are returning darkness to a realm of perpetual light; you cant cast a shadow in the dark. But, also remember a Villian is usually determined by the victors, the hero of one tale could be the villian of another. That was the goal, for us to realize that the Ascians weren't as "evil" as we might have first perceived.

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Originally Posted by Valic

Not gonna lie, I loved this expansion, but I was really hoping to be Zodiark's new chosen for a bit and learn both sides of this story ourselves.

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But we did. Or did what happen between us and Emet-Selch not count as aligning ourselves with those we perceive as Villian aligned to the darkness.

We also don't know if there's more to it.
It's just the first patch lol but I do find it funny
how we basically are light, fighting light with light
just to make the light into night. :eek:

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

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"No guys really, you're clearly not paying attention, to truly understand this expansion's marketing you should've gone and played through a thirty-year-old FF title that released before most of you were born. You can only truly understand the advertising if you play through the advertising's source material."

Light Is Not Good has been an aspect of several FF titles by now; 3 was just the first to really throw it into the spotlight and make it a plot point. If you don't keep up with the series, don't be surprised when stuff about one of its latest entries throws you for a loop.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

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Meanwhile the trailer is all like "If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten. Become what you must, become the Warrior of Darkness"

While we see the WoL beating down a light aspected creature and embracing the darkness while the sky around the crystal tower goes dark.

Even though it make sense now, back then it really spoke of a plot shift away from being the chosen of the light. Like I said, it was creative marketing because it made us believe that there was going to be that huge shift but the WoD thing turned out to be merely a sidenote.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss.

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Have you played FFXIV because in FFXIV, you know the game we are actually playing, the WoD did in fact oppose us.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

They were definitely selling it as something a lot more "embracing the power of Darkness" and turning away from being the Warrior of Light with our powers linked to Light and Hydaelyn's blessing... only for it to turn out that all we're actually doing is using our normal Warrior-of-Light-ish abilities to contain the Light and bring back the natural balance of darkness (not Darkness) without having any powers relating to that side of things.

Personally I'm happy it turned out this way - I couldn't see how it was thematically going to work otherwise - but it was definitely advertised to us as something other than what we got.

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There's plenty of ways it could have worked thematically. The concept of 'Light' and 'Dark' not inherently being good or evil had already been introduced. As such, it wouldn't have been a stretch for the Warrior of Light to have to make use of Darkness in order to defeat the Sin Eaters. That was the implication of the marketing and for it not to play out in a similar manner proved both deceptive and disappointing to me...and many others, based on what I've read on various FFXIV related sites.

I was expecting more fat cats.

I think this thread is starting to move past its main premise, or maybe it's right on point, i dunno, that's how confusing it is.

Us being the Warrior of Darkness makes sense in numerous ways, but the easiest way to show it is to tell people to look at how Urianger described Darkness. Darkness on the first was active, ever changing, and full of life, Light on the other hand was stale, stagnant, and devoid of existence. People can say the marketing was a bit "over the top" but it didnt our right lie, it's just a different interpretation than the one we expected.

Also it appears that the opening FMV is meant to show our experiences through our own minds, similar to how when we got transported we saw our past experiences.

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Have you played FFXIV because in FFXIV, you know the game we are actually playing, the WoD did in fact oppose us.

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Have YOU actually played it? Because the story made it pretty clear they were misled by the actual villains and now they're quite firmly on our side.

Seems like it took four posts for this thread to derail so hard that the train flew off the tracks and into outer space.

Trying to re-rail it: So i'm not nuts? They said nine dungeons and we got eight? Is there a consensus that dungeon nine was the Lost Canals upgrade?

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Is there a consensus that dungeon nine was the Lost Canals upgrade?

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Well, there isn't really anything else it could possibly be, so that's probably what they meant, regardless of whether we think of it as a legitimate "dungeon" or not.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Have YOU actually played it? Because the story made it pretty clear they were misled by the actual villains and now they're quite firmly on our side.

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Doesn't mean they were not against us, even up to the final scene they tried to kill Minfilia and it took a promise to get what they wanted, that they were skeptical of, for them to even consider going back to the first with their task on the source incomplete. So they are still WoD because if Min would have failed or have had been lying, of course they would have killed her on the spot when they returned and came back to destroy the WoL, likely with more vigor and determination. A momentary truce does not mean anything.

And it doesn't change the fact that they leaned very heavily on the WoD thing because it made for a better marketing plan and it turned out to be a footnote at best. I am not mad about how they handled the story, I am just saying they were very shady in their marketing for it.

But cant fight a white knight on even the most trivial of things, so you do you dude.

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Doesn't mean they were not against us,

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I never said they weren't ever against us, I was just talking about FF3.

The point is, WoLs and WoDs were never meant to be these drastically opposed forces, just two sides of the same coin working toward the same goal (restoring elemental balance of the world when things get skewed too far in one direction). This is not some sort of secretive plot backpedaling they made up just for SB2, this is literally how it's always been in the FF series. It's not the fault of "the marketing" that you didn't get that memo.

Let's not forget we are still early into the ShB story here, and the opening cinematic depicts us fighting Zenos, after defeating what appears to be a Sin Eater.
That implies that this is a scene which has not come to pass, and possibly could take place in The First, which might mean Zenos finds a way to follow us there. (Or we have simply returned to The Source)
So in regards to us becoming proper Warriors of Darkness, this might be something that is still to occur for reasons not yet revealed to us.

I think the 9th dungeon is the one for crafting maps which technically is a dungeon.

Smart advertising.

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Originally Posted by Hitomi_Kitanoko

Let's not forget we are still early into the ShB story here, and the opening cinematic depicts us fighting Zenos, after defeating what appears to be a Sin Eater.
That implies that this is a scene which has not come to pass, and possibly could take place in The First, which might mean Zenos finds a way to follow us there. (Or we have simply returned to The Source)
So in regards to us becoming proper Warriors of Darkness, this might be something that is still to occur for reasons not yet revealed to us.

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The opening cinematic depicts the fight that happens at the end of the 4.5 MSQ, even has the whole damaged mask thing on Zenos.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

There's plenty of ways it could have worked thematically. The concept of 'Light' and 'Dark' not inherently being good or evil had already been introduced. As such, it wouldn't have been a stretch for the Warrior of Light to have to make use of Darkness in order to defeat the Sin Eaters. That was the implication of the marketing and for it not to play out in a similar manner proved both deceptive and disappointing to me...and many others, based on what I've read on various FFXIV related sites.

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Yeah. I loved SHB all in all but one of my disappointments was that being the 'warrior of darkness' didn't involve using the darkness to restore balance....instead we just suck up all the light juice into ourselves. I didn't want or expect us to side with the Ascians or turn evil, but actually using the darkness, and not our blessing of light, to fight against the overabundant light and restore balance would have been more interesting.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Personally I'm happy it turned out this way - I couldn't see how it was thematically going to work otherwise - but it was definitely advertised to us as something other than what we got.

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I agree with you I’m very happy with the way things turned out when I was worried it was going to go the other way, I like being the Warrior or Light and glad I still am =)

And just a quick little aside: The expansion is not over... there's still time for things to change. *wiggles eyebrows:

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

The opening cinematic depicts the fight that happens at the end of the 4.5 MSQ, even has the whole damaged mask thing on Zenos.

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I had to re-watch the cinematic, as it apparently was a little vague in my memory, but i'd still say it's too early in the story to draw any conclusions that we won't become a warrior of darkness just yet.

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Originally Posted by Hitomi_Kitanoko

I had to re-watch the cinematic, as it apparently was a little vague in my memory, but i'd still say it's too early in the story to draw any conclusions that we won't become a warrior of darkness just yet.

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I don’t think it is at all, after the 5.0 MSQ it’s very clear we will never side with the ascians and the Zodiark and truly join with darkness.

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Originally Posted by MeeDeggiThePunisher

I was expecting more fat cats.

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Yeah, only thing I was disappointed about was not enough fat cats or honestly just having 2. Dulia Chai and her clone with the mask who walks around Eulmore. We needed more fat cats.