The final part of ARR story doesn't make enough sense.

[Alise]

Despite I really like how you can see a long running cut-scene deserved to be an ending of the game. The scene was kind of forced with intention "just want to have a bad ending, to motivate players to solve problem in next chapter" feeling into it.

First of all, it doesn't make sense at all. We, warrior of light, is the strongest person out there acting nothing in front of those events. We destroyed Allagan emperior, Cloud of darkness, Ascians, Empire best man, primals, and all. None of brass-blade or any crystal brave solder will ever win any of those no matter how many people they gang up upon. And we simply become a helpless person out there suddenly, doing nothing, and let all the NPC show their turn. We just love to being captured, and uncaptured by them somehow?

What about Echo power?
Do we forget how we always solve all the detective problem using Echo before? (If you have played 1.0, or play through many story quests, then you know how good a detective our character always have been!) This story can be unwinded so easily by simple capture those enemies head right on the spot there and then use echo on them!

Solution to this?
Well, we have all the important/strong NPC over there right on the spot. We have Raubian on our side also! Combine the strength if Warrior of Light is willing to do anything, we simply have enough resourced to capture everybody on the spot and use echo on them. Our name will be cleaned very quickly. I cannot see how we can't win the fight despite being out numbers. I believe that in the next fight, we will have to fight through a lot more solder in order to reach the head of the enemy as a boss of a dungeon anyway, and we will be able to manage that. But the situation now which is easier, we just run away helplessly....

All in all, I understand how they want to force an event where we need to go to Ishgard, and that they think it is better to have a bad ending, so that players would have more motivation to play again. However, the story itself doesn't really justify enough for me. If they want us to really lose so much like that, they should have a few empire captain equal strength to White Raven or Black Wolf on the spot to kick us out..

[Tinibou]

Except that we don't have the power of Echo anymore since it has been removed by the dragon Midgarsomr at the end of the Keeper of the Lake quest / instance...

[RobinRethiel]

Yes, it is a big problem and could have been done with the same result, wiht just some differences, so it makes more sense.

1. Let Kan and Merl be outside. Chaos starts and they could go to their city states without looking like ****, who just let their main ally being mutilated by a mercenary in front of their eyes.
2. Let Raubahn be alone with the Lalas (and their guards) -> also no witnesses, there were far too many on the banquet, when the assassination of the Sultana was announced, no way to hide this.
3. Just blame the assassination on the Scions - including the WoL - in total. The Sultana was poisoned. It's absolutely dumb to blame this on the person inside the room, no stranger to the house would poison someone like that. It would have made much more sense, if they had put the poison vial into the luggage of one of the Scions and find it there after the assassination. This would have raised much more eyebrows. The whole vial scene made not much sense. We could have talked to soo many people about it on the way home, in Uldah, could have asked Alchemists and so on, so many people who then could later attest, that we didn't have a vial with poison, but this empty one and asked a lot of questions about it, something an assassin wouldn't do.
4. Give the Scions a real reason for their sacrifice. It's okay, that we do not slaughter half of the Brass Blades (even though it seems quite possible, since two alone can fight dozens of them, so what would the whole group be able to do, including powerful heals from the WoL and Ysh? But they chatted far too long, wasting time and I really don't see any reason, why those Brass Blades and Crystal Braves must be delayed. I don't see how they could be faster than us.

The outcome could be exactly the same, there are just some little points, which make it feel so odd and that's quite sad.

Would also maybe be better, if we just get a disguise spell, when we enter the cities. That everyone loves us (because well, they can't just kick the players out of the cities or Uldah, this would really hurt the gameplay) does not make much sense. This would mean, that the coup totally failed and that we really got no reason to flee.

And yes:
Personally I would just have helped Raubahn (Scions were there, all got their weapons and if we really did not have ours when with the Sultana, I'm sure that one of them would have it, who else?) to kill the traitors and Lolo. Who would know? We were alone in there, would just blame the assassination on them (which is the truth anyway, hell, we even HEARED the confession) and well, they resisted and tried to kill Raubahn, Kan and Merl, too, so it was just self defense. Don't think, that the three leaders or Scions would have had so much probs with that...
Don't think, that Mr. Traitor and Lolo - no matter what they got on their side - would have much of a chance against the Flame's general, the WoL and the Scions (even if Merl and Kan would not help or be elsewhere).

Now everything is far more f**** up.

Except that we don't have the power of Echo anymore since it has been removed by the dragon Midgarsomr at the end of the Keeper of the Lake quest / instance...

We don't have the blessing of light, but we still got the echo. But it is not needed for this case. We got the confession of the assassin. And well, who would the people believe? Mr. Oligarch (if we let him live) or the Flame's general and the Scions, who are known to have saved the life of the citizens of all three city states more than one time?

EDIT:
@ Poison Vial
If there are really such strict rules about weapons, when you meet the Sultana, the guards would have searched us - and would have seen the empty vial. Since it was all for the Sultana's safety, they would for sure not allow people to get in there with some odd liquids in their pocket.

[FJerome]

Except that we don't have the power of Echo anymore since it has been removed by the dragon Midgarsomr at the end of the Keeper of the Lake quest / instance...

We got the Blessing removed, the one that protects us from the Ascians. The Echo still seems to be in-play (which brings up the question of if that comes from Hydaelyn at all but that's a topic for another thread).

While I'm willing to buy that we didn't fight back because we are cool-headed thinkers who consider long-term implications to rash actions (which fits my character, at least) in future I would like the bad-guys to show up with our retainers held hostage or somesuch, just to give all characters a better set of motivations.

[Cilia]

While it's true that from a gameplay standpoint we have the power to fell Primals and such, the main thing that lets us do this so easily is the Echo - because we're immune to tempering, we're able to take them on with far less danger than is normally associated. There's nothing saying other people don't have the martial prowess to match us, though. In fact the Company of Heroes felled both Titan and Leviathan in the past, albeit with heavy losses.

As for detective work and proving your innocence, it'd be a pretty trivial thing to do if you had a fair trial. Emphasis on fair. The Ul'dahn government is so corrupt now that reality has become a commodity. Lolorito wants you out of the picture, so even if you were afforded a trial there's no way you'd be declared innocent.

[Velhart]

I know it is kind of a stretch, but all the impossible feats we accomplished like taking on primals, the empire, and other major feats were done with a party, not just you alone. Even in cutscenes, the NPC's mention you need to gather your companions and go in and fight.

Look at previous Final Fantasy's. FFX for example, you have taken down major sinspawns and other major enemies, but you are still running from Seymour's guards to escape. I know it seems ridiculous that our character seems like he is against normal soldiers, but in a story perspective, being surrounded by a bunch of swords to your neck and going guns blazing instead of being handcuffed would make you look more guilty.

Not saying this was the most well written thing ever, but sometimes this is just a thing. This logic has been done so many times in various games.

[Yoohre_WildRiver]

fighting back would only serve t o prove we killed sultana. also there seems to be bigger players behind the monetarists, if you watch the cs after the credits ( very important cutscenes btw !!) you could see lolorito was not very happy when the maiden reported to him ... as in he had no choice but to be part of the whole mess.

[Nialle]

The issue is, up til this point we've been fighting 'enemies of the state': primals, beastmen, etc. Enemy combatants, in other words. There is a difference between doing that, and attacking the leaders of a country after they've publicly accused us of assassination. For the same reason the leaders of the other nations left once things at the banquet started going off the rails -- the situation is on the razor's edge of civil war and resorting to violence to take the 'easy' way out of eliminating our enemies in Uldah and the Crystal Braves would come across as us behaving as the lawless criminals they're accusing us of being.

As much as it's frustrating, this situation can't be fixed by us just running around Uldah killing the people against us. At least not at this point, yet.
We have Pipin on our side and other sympathizers in Ul'dah who will help us straighten things out eventually.

[Belhi]

1) We can be as strong as we damn well like but it wouldn't do squat for us in that situation. Beating the snot out of the Brass Blades, the Crystal Braves and the current lawful leaders of Ul'dah as well as quite possibly corrupt Sultansworn wouldn't have proved our innocence. Infact it would make us look more guilty. This wasn't a fight we could win with strength of arms without dire ramifications. Killing Ul'dah's law enforcers and leaders in mass while we are under accusation of assassination would not only make us look guilty but quite likely turn public sentiment against Raubahn, who is both our friend and ally, a foreigner and someone known to have been close to a high ranked Garlean spy. We would look as guilty as hell.

2) The Echo would be pretty useless. We know we are innocent. We know they are guilty. The Echo isn't going to prove that to anyone except ourselves which we don't need to do. More over, we don't control the Echo. It gives us visions at random. It's not like we can just turn it on at a whim.

3) The Grand Company Leaders had no choice but to leave. There was nothing they could do in that situation which wouldn't make the situation worse. Lets be clear here. We were accused of regicide by our own military unit. They had done nothing at that point unlawful under Ul'dah law to us. Sure they were part of a conspiracy but we had no way to prove that and neither did anyone else in that room on our side. Raubahn killed Teledji unlawfully, without proof of any crime and without any form of trial. It was an assassination. If the Grand Company Leaders had stepped they would have been aiding a person accused of assassinating the sultana and a person guilty of assassinating a syndicate member. The political ramifications would be dire. Even us aiding Raubahn would have done less damage than too foreign leaders assisting directly in a coup.

We ran because until we can get proof that shows we are innocent there is nothing we can do. Slaughter would have just made it worse. Further we cant be sure all the members of the Monetarists were there. They would have a field day undermining our credibility and spreading doubt and suspicion. Worse, if Lolorito got out of that room and I wouldn't rule such a possibility out, it would be an outright civil war. The Eorzean Alliance would be crippled and while Ishgard was ravaged by dragons Garlemald would have a field day taking territory from a weakened Ul'dah. If the Immortal Flames were battling the Brass Blades, the Crystal Braves and a decent portion of the Sultansworn who are in Lolorito's pocket, who would be defending the frontlines?

Actually the fact we retreated is one of the reasons we can still walk the streets of Ul'dah. Most of the commonfolk have doubts about our guilt. If we slaughtered Ul'dah's police force and leaders that would likely change.

[Dererk]

Ok to clear a few things up we still have the echo its the blessing of light that was sealed by Midy the echo is our deffence against tempering from a primal and lets us comun with different races and understand other languages ie beast men.

For why the Merlyweb and Kan E did nothing this is a political reason if they just jumped right in it cause problems Garmald has a new younger stronger emperor now who is gathering his forces for another invasion of eorzea they step into the crap going on in Ul dah right now it rip it apart and give Garmald a perfect spot to start their invasion right in the middle of Eorzea.

Al mahigo was invaded very easy because of this very reason they had the strongest standing army in Eorzea but internal problems fave them an opening to be invaded Rhaban being an Al mahigan refuge probly knew the same thing would happen to Ul dah if an all out civil war started so opted to tell the others to run away so they could find the real conspirators. And thats why it went down this way if Ul dah was in a civil war its outing a giant HEY ATTACK HERE WE GOT PROBLEMS HERE MUCH EASYER TO INVADE HERE.