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

[Kallera]

Both the player and the character feel helpless. That's the opposite of disconnect. You are feeling, as a player, what the character is likely feeling.

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.

[Fyce]

We still went to Ishgard by ourselves, killing bunches of dragons on our own that groups of sellswords were entirely unable to defeat, with ease. Then we go and accomplish a feat the whole army of Ishgard wouldn't have been able to do without us. Our combat strength through all this - which happens way after we lose "the blessing of light, which is the only thing that let us do all those awesome things". So no. The blessing of light is not the source of our strength, or they couldn't have put those story fights and the duty in after the story.

... Helped by 7 other Elite Adventurers, an army of NPCs, canons, and Dragonkiller devices.

You didn't take that big dragon and lesser dragons yourself with only your sword. Very far from it.

[Dyne_Fellpool]

We still went to Ishgard by ourselves, killing bunches of dragons on our own that groups of sellswords were entirely unable to defeat, with ease. Then we go and accomplish a feat the whole army of Ishgard wouldn't have been able to do without us. Our combat strength through all this - which happens way after we lose "the blessing of light, which is the only thing that let us do all those awesome things". So no. The blessing of light is not the source of our strength, or they couldn't have put those story fights and the duty in after the story.

Notice at the Steps of Faith you need cannons, giant dragon-slayer harpoons, and exloding barrels. Plus a ton of Ishgardian backup. Things intentionally feel a lot different than a Primal battle.
You need all this extra stuff because you don't have the Blessing of Light to allow you to just go in and murder the dragon directly anymore.

[luciferbelmont]

I like how people are forgetting that our PCs are powerless in this point of the story. All i have to say is midgardsormr or have you guys forgotten what happened in the first part of the patch?

[Riepah]

... Helped by 7 other Elite Adventurers, an army of NPCs, canons, and Dragonkiller devices.

You didn't take that big dragon and lesser dragons yourself with only your sword. Very far from it.

Helped by 7 other Adventures as we were in every single primal and coil fight, you mean? And we were helpless without devices in the past as well, Leviathan for example. The NPCs did nothing but die senseless deaths, that much is obvious and only cements how much of a difference there is between us and the average soldier. Yes, we have Cannons and Dragonkillers. So what? Can those devices alone defeat the Dragon, no matter how well-manned they are and no shot ever misses? And can that device TANK the army of dragons for you, or do we have Warriors of Light standing there, tanking a ton of dragons as if it were nothing, hmm? If you go by the 8 player game mechanic, there is no reason for anybody to single us out as the Warrior of Light in the first place, because on our own, we accomplish nothing. The 8 player thing doesn't even make sense story-wise - if I am the Warrior of Light, immune to tempering thanks to Echo, what's with those other 7 people over there? Why are they not being tempered? Is the Echo given out like candy in Eorzea?

[Cailae]

ITT: so many people don't understand (or don't want to understand) that Midgarsormr took away the blessing of light, which is the only thing that let us do all those awesome things like fight Primals, and are mad because the WoL doesn't make the same foolish knee-jerk reactions "they would have done" which would have either gotten them killed or played right into the enemies' hands.

The Warrior of Light is not the badass you think he is. He has, as Nabriales observed, "lost his fangs". Yes, you might have a crazy-strong Relic weapon but you are still just one man. Your skill as a fighter is probably quite good, but not "I can single-handedly defeat dozens of skilled swordsman" good.

This REALLY doesn't hold up as shortly after that we mop the floor with him, and then he dies. I'm still strong enough canonically take out an ascian, in their own pocket dimension. I'm also still fighting primals on a pretty regular basis, while also conquering the world of darkness (which was added in the same patch, it would follow that I do not have Hydaelyns blessing during that). Didn't we also just fight a mega-dragon? that was murdering the heck out of dozens of trained, battle hardened Ishgardians? It seems to be that my strength hasn't really been altered much by losing Hydaelyns blessing.

A whole lot just happened, and its a lot to take in. It seems clear that Teledji Adeledji is an enemy, but who else is? The entire syndicate? All the Monetarists? Every brass blade? Just a few? Who is truly a foe and who is an unwitting pawn? It would be foolhardy to just start killing people without taking time to examine the situation and try to mitigate innocent deaths. Even if you could cut a swath through the whole city of Ul'dah, which you couldn't, you would be very likely to be killing a lot of innocents and making an enemy of the city for life. You really don't want to end up with the people of Ul'dah remembering you as a butcher.

How about I be allowed to start with the ones that were extremely conveniently at the door, waiting for the Sultana to die to try to arrest me on trumped up charges, that are obviously corrupt and in Teledji's pocket? The ones whom i am QUITE certain wont be giving me any sort of fair trial. Or how about the ones actively attacking the scions? The scions had no qualms with fighting these guys, why would I? If I'm ALREADY on the hook for regicide, why would I even worry about my standing in the city? You can see above why I'm pretty sure I can still cut a swathe through some mook city guards.

A lot of people seem to be basically complaining that they felt helpless during all this -- good. I think we're supposed to. We were not ready for this level of betrayal. We're the victim of an expertly crafted trap which has been sprung on us all of a sudden and it goes way deeper than we feared to think. Sh*t just hit the fan in a major way and its probably fairly realistic to feel a bit helpless as friends betray us, allies are murdered, a city turns on us, and the entire socio-political climate changes in a blink of an eye. WoL or not, you're probably gonna feel pretty helpless and confused as all this happens around you. Needing to get away, to have time to take it all in and assess what is really going on and who is truly friend/foe, is pretty understandable and probably even quite necessary.

Hardly masterfully crafted. Even taking away scenes shown to me, the player, my character still has a plethora of clues that things have a chance to go down.my character is told directly that there are disloyal potentially traitorous crystal braves. I am fairly certain the moment people burst in the door to the Sultanas chambers throwing accusations about my character, with someone I know to be traitorous at their head, some of them wearing braves uniforms, my character would have put it together rather quickly. As a ninja it would have been pretty trivial to AT A MINIMUM evade capture by obviously corrupt guards. Thancred pulls this off with aplomb. Even if they took my weapons. The problem isn't being helpless. The problem is being helpless because our characters are given the idiot ball, written around instead of for. As I said in my previous post, give me a reason to BE helpless that makes sense and a lot of my frustration goes away. In this instance it's flimsy writing. It's an inconsiderate casting aside of my character and what she's been through, experienced, and done. I can take out city-threatening dragons, but not get away from a few mooks.

We still went to Ishgard by ourselves, killing bunches of dragons on our own that groups of sellswords were entirely unable to defeat, with ease. Then we go and accomplish a feat the whole army of Ishgard wouldn't have been able to do without us. Our combat strength through all this - which happens way after we lose "the blessing of light, which is the only thing that let us do all those awesome things". So no. The blessing of light is not the source of our strength, or they couldn't have put those story fights and the duty in after the story.

Also this.

[Felis]

We still went to Ishgard by ourselves, killing bunches of dragons on our own that groups of sellswords were entirely unable to defeat, with ease.

Do the english location have another story?
In the german location, we didn't fight against the dragons ourselves. We asked other adventurers in Revenant's Toll and members of Free Companies to help us. This is the opposite of doing it on our own.

Or have you skipped the quest text with Tataru?

This REALLY doesn't hold up as shortly after that we mop the floor with him, and then he dies. I'm still strong enough canonically take out an ascian, in their own pocket dimension.

You couldn't kill him without help. Your power was not strong enough.
And ex primals and CT are optional content, not part of the MSQ.

[Moqi]

I like how people are forgetting that our PCs are powerless in this point of the story.

They aren't, comparing a primal to a bunch of brass baldes is stupid, you fight much better equipped and trained soldiers all the time whenever you enter a Castrum with no problems, not to mention Odin and Cloud of Darkness.

You were powerless because it was the convenient and lazy way out and that's it, it wasn't justified by anything in the game. That all of a sudden you can't take on a dozen human soldiers is absurd, you routinely fight much worse whenever you walk around in beastmen territories.

[Cailae]

I like how people are forgetting that our PCs are powerless in this point of the story. All i have to say is midgardsormr or have you guys forgotten what happened in the first part of the patch?

If we're powerless why are the Scions and the Crystal Braves still leaning on us to take care of all of their problems?

You couldn't kill him without help. Your power was not strong enough.
And ex primals and CT are optional content, not part of the MSQ.

Help or not, that scene completely debunks any real credibility to the notion I don't have the power to take on these few guards. Losing the blessing has done little to slow my character down storywise. Optional or not my character has still accomplished it, if you want to have lore and a story it needs to be taken into consideration. Writing is hard.

[luciferbelmont]

They aren't, comparing a primal to a bunch of brass baldes is stupid, you fight much better equipped and trained soldiers all the time whenever you enter a Castrum with no problems, not to mention Odin and Cloud of Darkness.

You were powerless because it was the convenient and lazy way out and that's it, it wasn't justified by anything in the game. That all of a sudden you can't take on a dozen human soldiers is absurd, you routinely fight much worse whenever you walk around in beastmen territories.

Here's the problem with your theory. We had are arms tied and not everyone's monk or a ninja. And we were powerless because midgardsormr stripped us of our crystals. Also you are listing content that happens before midgardsormr strips you of your powers. Next time pay attention to the story instead of rambling on as if nothing happened with midgardsormr.