Power Reset? [Spoilery]

So, we've reached this point.

That which Louisoux and the Twelve have done is like a light exercise to us. We bench press the problems of entire continents, bring fallen empires back from the brink, and carry with us the hopes and dreams of the denizens of three entire worlds. And the moon.

The Warrior of Light has run out of gods to kill, and so travels to the edge of the universe to challenge nihilism so strong that it has sterilized the entire universe. The Warrior of Light beats up nihilism, and still has enough strength left to beat up an old rival and share a 'heartfelt' moment with him.

It seems almost inevitable that there will be a power reset, because unless one of the shards is hiding Super Mega Death Zenos, it wouldn't really make sense for anything to pose a threat to the Warrior of Light anymore, save for maybe more shenanigans in the Unsundered Star.

Maybe, in Hydaelyn's absense, the Blessing of Light will diminish, or maybe the time-skip between now and the continuation of the MSQ will be larger than we may think now, turning us back into little more than a well-trained, well-travelled adventurer. We will still be paragons of the star, but not so much that we'll be able to face tank the end-of-the-universe twice like we did in The Final Day.

What are your thoughts on a power reset? Is it a good idea?

I'm predicting that now that Meteion is gone something is going to come out of that dead sun of hers, and it won't be friendly.

Each final boss of an expact has come with a big asterisk attached to it.

Ultima Weapon: Saved by the Blessing of Light.

HW starts by stripping us of the blessing, then we get it back by the time we face Thordan and Nidhogg.

Stormblood pitted us against a Resonant super human who then turned into a mega-primal, and we canonically defeated him as part of a team rather than solo.

Hades was defeated not only by summoning the WoLs from all the other shards, but also with the infused aether of all the lightwardens. While Elidibus was as similar hero summoning gambit and a little trickery with the crystal tower.

Finally, Endsinger is effectively defeated in an entirely different realm of existence, Dynamis instead of Aether, and we defeat them by willing ourselves to be strong enough through the power of #loveandfriendship.

Each of those come with an inbuilt escape claus. We either don't get the blessing of light, or we don't canonically fight with a full party, or we don't get a magic macguffin or the power of love doesn't have an effect because we're not fighting a being made of nothing but sadness.

Does there have to be a lore reason why we're struggling fighting normal things after defeating world-ending enemies? Pretty sure those butterflies on Elpis are far more dangerous than anything you faced at level 50 if we look strictly at stats.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Espon

Does there have to be a lore reason why we're struggling fighting normal things after defeating world-ending enemies? Pretty sure those butterflies on Elpis are far more dangerous than anything you faced at level 50 if we look strictly at stats.

---

Those butterflies are also pretty and cool aaand also just kinda minding their own business.

Sure, I can kill them all, but think of the toll! /Lh

Anyway yeah I don't think we necessarily need a power reset, and if we do lose any power it's kinda built in if you assume we Hydaelyn's blessing isn't a perma buff aaaand if it is I'm not actually sure how much stronger it even makes us? Like, putting aside the shield against aetheric manipulation, I'm pretty sure we're pretty darn buff just on our own at this point

In gameplay terms, they can't level us down.

At most they can throw less world-ending stakes at us and hope we don't think too hard about the difference in what kind of things we're fighting, but I think an explicit "you have been powered down" (when really we've still got all our attacks as they were) would just seem a bit odd.

I wouldn't mind seeing the attack visual effects get reduced with "power down" as an excuse why it's been changed, but I can't see it happening. Things are just going to keep getting flashier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Espon

Does there have to be a lore reason why we're struggling fighting normal things after defeating world-ending enemies? Pretty sure those butterflies on Elpis are far more dangerous than anything you faced at level 50 if we look strictly at stats.

---

To be fair, those were Unsundered Star butterflies, probably with a lot more aether packed in to them... recall how when we showed up there, we were just tiny little wispy things compared to how jam-packed with aether everything around us was.

I interpreted the fight with Zenos as the power reset for this part of the story, what with us literally burning through our life and nearly dying in the process in order to win.

FF XIV : A Realm Retired
New Fates : Taking your daily medicine!
New Crafting : Knitting a Shawl!
New Instance : The Doctor's Office!

Look forward to it!

We have literally discovered space travel. Do you not think it feasible that there MAY just be a few thousand worlds out there we haven't ran into yet that Meteion didn't encounter because she went a little coocoo for coco puffs?

Item/quest nomenclature usually hints toward some aspect of future content. What could feasibly be untouched yet so powerful that it poses a threat to us?

The "Void" Shard
Literally ANY Unexplored Space Area
Multiverse/Parallel Universe threats

Also take into account that where Zodiark is "gone", his sundered pieces likely aren't. He still exists on other shards. Additionally, with Hydaelyn gone, who's to say that her blessing hasn't been protecting us from something that couldn't find us/approach us before but can now? With the shards still unjoined, what threat would it cause to have more calamities in a time without Hydaelyn or Zodiark, for that matter?

Narrative-wise, there's plenty of unexplored possibility that could necessitate our power as it is now. BUT, I still think it's possible to do content with a power reset. Just think of a world where we're no longer able to depend on aether, or a world where we're forced to exist as an alternate version of ourselves that isn't as powerful.

Additionally, the entire Underworld in this game was literally exposed and is chock full of aetheric energy/power. Somebody down there will take advantage of that.

Just gonna comment on one point regarding Hydaelyn.

As a reminder, she never gave us special powers or w/e, just her ward against aetheric corruption (tempering), which the game flat out mentions is all the Blessing of Light ever was. She also shielded us once which was during the encounter with Gaius and Lahabanana... and that's it. Everything else was us, including the Echo, which is just an inborn gift the ancients had to begin with, so nothing is going to "fade" since there was nothing there to begin with. If we never encounter another primal again, her ward is effectively useless, and even if that fades, we now have protection in the form of those talismans Nidhana and co. created anyway. Hydaelyns' entire gambit lay in whether or not people could stand on their own without some external force/power watching over them. She never gave her "blessed" anything beyond what they already had, her ward and the ability to occasionally communicate with her.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirhd

Just gonna comment on one point regarding Hydaelyn.

As a reminder, she never gave us special powers or w/e, just her ward against aetheric corruption (tempering), which the game flat out mentions is all the Blessing of Light ever was. She also shielded us once which was during the encounter with Gaius and Lahabanana... and that's it. Everything else was us, including the Echo, which is just an inborn gift the ancients had to begin with, so nothing is going to "fade" since there was nothing there to begin with. If we never encounter another primal again, her ward is effectively useless, and even if that fades, we now have protection in the form of those talismans Nidhana and co. created anyway. Hydaelyns' entire gambit lay in whether or not people could stand on their own without some external force/power watching over them. She never gave her "blessed" anything beyond what they already had, her ward and the ability to occasionally communicate with her.

---

I actually giggled a little when she mentioned it was just a traveler's ward... it had been so hyped.. and then she was like, oh it's just magic bug spray, no biggie.

I think there's plenty of possibilities out there for something to challenge us. Also, we didn't beat all those enemies on our own. Canonically we call upon the strength of others. Since we have Azem's crystal still, I'm sure that trend will continue no matter if we go to other stars or Shards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avidria

Those butterflies are also pretty and cool aaand also just kinda minding their own business.

Sure, I can kill them all, but think of the toll! /Lh

---

I admit, I thought "Oh, god. We're in the past, and killing butterflies. I'm pretty sure Ray Bradbury wrote a story about exactly this scenario..."

(That's probably not the toll you had in mind there, though!)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

In gameplay terms, they can't level us down.

---

Eureka's XP loss mechanic and (admittedly, kind of hilarious if also painful) sad womp-womp music and "LEVEL DOWN" text would beg to differ. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

I actually giggled a little when she mentioned it was just a traveler's ward... it had been so hyped.. and then she was like, oh it's just magic bug spray, no biggie.

---

XD. There's an imagine. :P Still, it was more ignorance on our part since we knew so little about it in general. Considering the ancients were effectively walking gods and seeing how difficult (and how long it took! the Allagans couldn't figure it out either) it was for people to discover a means to cure the tempered, there's probably a bit more to it than that, but yeah... To someone like Venat... "lel just a ward bro."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I think there's plenty of possibilities out there for something to challenge us. Also, we didn't beat all those enemies on our own. Canonically we call upon the strength of others. Since we have Azem's crystal still, I'm sure that trend will continue no matter if we go to other stars or Shards.

---

Pre-Azem crystal, not all of them, no, but plenty of fights in the game make zero sense to conveniently have an entire group of adventurers no one ever notices somehow there with you (despite the shoehorned claim the journal sometimes makes) and immediately gone the next micro second. It's more a case of story and gameplay segregation, and the Ifrit fight is a good example. That was a situation you couldn't have planned for, and I seriously doubt there were a bunch of blessed that had also been kidnapped by the Amaljaa. While people with the blessing aren't extremely rare, they aren't the norm, and everyone always seems surprised to encounter another one.

We're tiny and insignificant compared to those capable of wielding creation magicks like it's nothing. Meracydia is full of Allagan things, which are Ascian in nature. We're specs compared to them and only the power of friendship is what makes us really strong. Who knows what we'll find in Meracydia?

Why do people want to get nerf? All we need is a change of the plot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirhd

Pre-Azem crystal, not all of them, no, but plenty of fights in the game make zero sense to conveniently have an entire group of adventurers no one ever notices somehow there with you (despite the shoehorned claim the journal sometimes makes) and immediately gone the next micro second.

---

Haha, yes, what was that time they got meta about that? Stormblood was it, where they were like "Hey if any of your friends are fishing nearby" *winkwink*

But canonically we don't fight alone, cheesy as the game explanation may be.

If anything, they could start to play up that we are only a singular individual. Despite being as powerful as we are and all the friends, technology, and resources that we have access to, we can only ever be in one spot; only responding to one threat at a time and hoping others can hold on long enough until we're able to get there. This is something I think could have been taken more advantage of in EW, and might still be in post patch content, but it is a possibility. One that could even bring up a weaker foe but who executes gambits and strategies that make up for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

In gameplay terms, they can't level us down.

---

Tell that to summoners.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Esper56

We have literally discovered space travel. Do you not think it feasible that there MAY just be a few thousand worlds out there we haven't ran into yet that Meteion didn't encounter because she went a little coocoo for coco puffs?

---

Her experiences were only with the worlds she encountered, so I sincerely doubt she discovered every single world. She found a ton I'm sure, but not all of them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Her experiences were only with the worlds she encountered, so I sincerely doubt she discovered every single world. She found a ton I'm sure, but not all of them.

---

Plus she just released hope into the universe. New threats could pop up from that, too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Plus she just released hope into the universe. New threats could pop up from that, too.

---

I kind of feel like hope was already there... I mean here we are fighting the badness....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Haha, yes, what was that time they got meta about that? Stormblood was it, where they were like "Hey if any of your friends are fishing nearby" *winkwink*

But canonically we don't fight alone, cheesy as the game explanation may be.

---

(Prefacing this to make it clear I have no issue with you, just that this is a point of annoyance for me with the game)

I'm sorry, but this still rings incredibly hollow for quite a few fights in the game, and Innocence is a particularly glaring example. For nearly every major fight in ShB your fellow Scions are with you (also Lyna and Graha in Holminster), and this makes narrative sense. They even climb Mount Gulg with you, but when you reach the top, they very clearly tell you to go on while they hold off Vauthrys' minions. Do people really suggest you just happened to have a bunch of people following in your (and your fellow Scions) wake, that only then, at the very end, actually do anything? Ludicrous. It can't even be explained away with the NPCs from the role quests, because they're never featured or even implied to be there at any point... nevermind the whole "corrupting light" thing.

I feel like the Trust system was introduced (and later, the Azem crystal), at least in part, to deal with the silly "you totally had a cadre of able fighters with you, lololol" nonsense, because many instances in the game absolutely could not have worked otherwise prior to that. The fights with the Triad in HW? Sure, that works, since you weren't on a time crunch and could (at least somewhat conceivably) scrape together a party to deal with them. Ravana? Yeah, no, it was just you and Ysyale, and she gets taken out by Ravana at the start.

No thanks I don't want a power down, the Warrior of Light has earned their status and power a "reset" would feel too cheap to strip us of what we have to be "normal" so no thanks I would not want that

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Her experiences were only with the worlds she encountered, so I sincerely doubt she discovered every single world. She found a ton I'm sure, but not all of them.

---

Exactly my thought.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirhd

...

---

I agree. The "are they or aren't they there" business with players in trials is more confusing to claim they're there than to say the canon version is a solo fight as it logically should have been.

Even Azem's crystal doesn't explain it when we only received it in 5.3.

A few years ago they talked about this in an interview, specifically for the Thordan fight. They said while some fights you do have adventurers around to help, that one was a solo fight in canon. The group fight was just for gameplay purposes.

I imagine the same thought process holds true for many trials later.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Espon

Does there have to be a lore reason why we're struggling fighting normal things after defeating world-ending enemies? Pretty sure those butterflies on Elpis are far more dangerous than anything you faced at level 50 if we look strictly at stats.

---

Funny thing is, there really is kind of a lore reason. Remember Omega? He analysed us, and the heroes of stories in general, as being typically too weak to even care about, yet time and time again, heroes, like us, always seem to do the impossible and defeat the clearly superior villains. He analysed it as some kind of hidden trait that seems to empower the heroes under situations of extreme stress, which is why he lures us into the eScape in the first place, to try to determine the existence of this unknown trait and learn how to utilize it.

In the end, it was something about the hope and determination to surmount overwhelming odds and save the day that empowers us, and the greater the threat, the greater the empowerment. Sound familiar? Yep, Dynamis was being teased even in Stormblood. Like it or hate it, dynamis has been the reason why we defeat godly beings one minute, and struggle to kill a few wild beasts at once the next.

Hm, I've had this thought since finishing the EW MSQ, but after reading this thread maybe it's not as obvious as I thought and maybe I'm wrong. But I felt like the fight with Zenos WAS us getting depowered. We "burned through the candle of our lives" during that fight, which I took to be a quite literal expenditure of power we won't get back. But I guess the fact that we're still strong enough to fight unsundered raid bosses in Pandaemonium shoots a nice hole in that theory anyway. Oh well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Garruss

No thanks I don't want a power down, the Warrior of Light has earned their status and power a "reset" would feel too cheap to strip us of what we have to be "normal" so no thanks I would not want that

---

So what's next then? The WoL fights a multiversal time warp (yes, a time warp. Just give it a face to punch and it's all good) that can pull some envy energy from all possible and impossible creatures from the past, present and the future directed at how overpowered the WoL has become, and the WoL will kick its teeth in too?

It's not much of a game without gameplay and there is no gameplay without combat, so the only way to go is to get pulled down to more manageable level, or to get ever increasingly ludicrous threats. Except we've kind of reached the peak already.

Unless of course you want to resign from saving the multiverse to become a crafter. I'm sure the WoL would conquer the market board too, since they are so disgustingly "gifted".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Misplaced_Marbles

So what's next then? The WoL fights a multiversal time warp (yes, a time warp. Just give it a face to punch and it's all good) that can pull some envy energy from all possible and impossible creatures from the past, present and the future directed at how overpowered the WoL has become, and the WoL will kick its teeth in too?

It's not much of a game without gameplay and there is no gameplay without combat, so the only way to go is to get pulled down to more manageable level, or to get ever increasingly ludicrous threats. Except we've kind of reached the peak already.

Unless of course you want to resign from saving the multiverse to become a crafter. I'm sure the WoL would conquer the market board too, since they are so disgustingly "gifted".

---

Taking away "Power" is one of the most clichee things a video game can do and a lot of them do that so lets not do that here please. There are better ways around it then just "stripping of power"