SPOILER WARNING - Sorry SE, you've lost me with the latest story

[Ametrine]

What gets me is the whole time we've been in Ishgard the Garleans are just sitting on their hands leaving the world alone?

I remember seeing a few cut scenes introducing the menacing Emperor with the casket of Van Baelsar but haven't heard a peep from that front in a while.

Well, after our fight at the end of 2.0, Galean had a massive Civil War over who would replace the suddenly died of old age ruler. This is explained, albeit rather quickly, during the King Moggle Mog arc.

Fast foward to 3.0, we meet the new emperor, Varis. He showboats a bit in front of Eorzea's hero, then bamfs out to leave his men to do the work in his city sized airship. We're essentially led to believe he's been more or less cleaning house in the empire upon gaining control. So, he's been pretty dang busy while we're trying to get elves and dragons to chill.

[EdwinLi]

What gets me is the whole time we've been in Ishgard the Garleans are just sitting on their hands leaving the world alone?

I remember seeing a few cut scenes introducing the menacing Emperor with the casket of Van Baelsar but haven't heard a peep from that front in a while.

From what I've seen in the story the Garleans are still rebuilding their new Invasion Force but since we crippled their new Flagship that is designed to lead their new Invasion Force, leaving it stuck in Azys Ila, they can not do much until the Gration is back and operation again. One thing about the Garlean Invasions is that their victory has always been due to their Flagship leading the Invasion charge and the strategy was greatly effective. When they lost the Agrius was destroyed the garleans invasion slowed down great to the point that they spent years struggling to take Eorzea.

Also they are still fixing up the Empire after the Civil War they recently ended. It may have spent the entie 2.0 to 2.X arc to end but it still cost them time to recover and prepare.

[ADVSS]

idk i feel like stuff gets resolved WAY too fast, the wod i was just getting to know i thought wed have a lasting tiff with them and or at the least be allowed to go help them, i mean shoot they couldve just talked to us about their plight, instead they just fight and poof. Dragonsong war 1000 years war, and forming a republic overnight, ok, whatever. oh the sultana wasnt dead it was a sleeping potion, youre cool with the syndicate again after breaking and entering halitali and saving the real rauhban.
Honestly after the final confrontation with the wod i kinda have to say i liked them, only to see them fade away forever with minfilia. Was sad we wont get more of seeing them, but alright. I guess the griffin will be eliminated by 4.55, and yay probably have a hydrus/lahabrea 2 headed ascian prime or something. Cause apparently the only lasting villian is always gonna be lahabrea, who im kinda getting sick of really. I dont believe hes gone, the eyes came back only 2 patches later. And if not him itll just be nidhogg again, possessing the griffin, maybe well toss them in the jade sea this time.

From what I've seen in the story the Garleans are still rebuilding their new Invasion Force but since we crippled their new Flagship that is designed to lead their new Invasion Force, leaving it stuck in Azys Ila, they can not do much until the Gration is back and operation again.
.

This too, that thing made 2 appearance, and the second time shiva knocked it out of commission. The only twist is theyre on the allagan mac daddy of research and development which can only mean itll be getting some big and bad upgrades, still didnt last very long, initially.

[Remedi]

to be honest garleans are occupied plundering everything they can from azys lla in addition to fixing the dreadnought

[Lone-wolfe-02]

I was annoyed by the fact that surprise! Nidhoggs eyes are back in the story, i saw it coming yes but urgh SE please just stop.

[silentwindfr]

i feel ADVSS you miss a lot of detail, do the flagship can whistand the direct attack of shiva and the dragon? well from my view point, it's more passing the barrier that did damage them more than shiva. and it seems for me that the have some mission important to do in Azys ila for really leave this place now... it's a huge mass of allag technology, they can't let it fall into our hand or some beastman, resultat? leaving the flagship here. apoint very important, even while the carthaneau battle, we never did seen the main fleet of the empire.... yes they have a flagship....but where is the rest of the fleet? do you really believe the emperor will come alone into eorzea with only one legion?

they did crush doma revolt and now know that them enemy are gathering in eorzea, they know that some allag tech is laying there unchecked, they know that the beastman summon primal....do you really think the biggest empire of our world, the most advanced in terms of magiteck will leave this uncheck? instead to rush in, they plan carefully them assault. this time no dragon, no bahamut for stop them i'm kinda scared to see what they will unleash on us.

same i'm the only one a bit worried about nero that did go where is omega arma? believe me the empire is far more dangerous than the dragon, they don't have only 2 legion and them continent is far bigger than eorzea and united, where our is not! yes, we do have the alliance, but each country are still divided!

honestly do we stand a chance if the empire unleash them whole power against us? i'm not that sure, the first invasion was repelled by pure luck, the second only because a crazy one did sabotage the attack with dalamud. honestly if this this they have no exterior disturbance.... it will be a gruesome fight.

[EdwinLi]

Honestly Eorzea has not even faced the Main Fleet of the Garlean Empire yet.

The invasion of a continent usually starts with the Flagship leading the charge, being the Gration now, and then once the Flagship cleared out a area to settle a base of operations they send in the main fleet to regroup with the Flagship.

We were only lucky that the flagship was destroyed on the first attempt which prevented the Garleans from establishing a base of operation beyond Ala Mhigo.

From what we been hearing the Garleans have been building Ala Mhigo into a fortress with the land now covered with bases and outposts. For all we know they may as well be sending a invasion force into Ala Mhigo already.

[Vespar]

Eh, I had no problem sympathising with their cause. My issue is just how quickly they were written out of the plot after being teased for so long combined with the fact that the 'main cast' never seem to suffer any real, lasting consequences. I feel like Nidhogg's arc and the Warrior of Darkness arc were both rushed but that's just me.

This. I also felt their arrival and departure was rushed without any real "emotion" or sense of why I should care....

[ColorOfSakura]

Eh, I had no problem sympathising with their cause. My issue is just how quickly they were written out of the plot after being teased for so long combined with the fact that the 'main cast' never seem to suffer any real, lasting consequences. I feel like Nidhogg's arc and the Warrior of Darkness arc were both rushed but that's just me.

This is the struggle of having a large amount of story to tell in a limited amount of space/time.

The storylines about the Warriors of Darkness and Nidhogg were both very ambitious LARGE plotlines. But because people complain about a lot of plots being left on the "back burner" for too long (The Omega storyline, for example) - the story team seems to try to be juggling multiple storylines together. I don't think the problem here is how quickly these two plots were resolved, but moreso how little feature the Warriors of Darkness received in the other patches. I feel like they should have dedicated at least 1/4th of each patch to their story as well. At least that way their departure here would have made more sense.

Its sadly a constraint of the medium they're working with. The Warriors of Darkness plotline could have never been a mainline plot - it doesn't really have a "FIT" anywhere in the political power struggle that our character seems to find themselves involved in. They could have kept them around until 4.0, but at that point, I feel players would have the same complaint, that the plot was too "Drawn out" without any lasting resolution or action.

[Seig345]

I'm not sure I agree with the suggestion that the Warriors of Darkness are the characters in the 1.0 opening movie... Those same characters are shown in the End of an Era/first half of the 2.0 opening movie, and again in Heavensward's opening movie, all shown going through the specific story lines we've been put through, and there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest that this other world and its warriors lead identical adventures (especially at the point where the Warriors of Darkness were introduced -during- the Nidhogg story).

The adventurers in the cinematic movies are representations of us the players, Warriors of Light working together. The Warriors of Darkness are simply the "alternate/split world" equivalent of us. That's why they look identical to the characters in the opening movies with the exception of their gear color scheme.

That aside, I can't say I haven't enjoyed the story beats thus far. I can understand having wanted the Warriors of Darkness line to have stretched out longer because the idea was intriguing, but it seems clear that the over-arching plot is still focused on the Ascians, and that the whole Ishard/Nidhogg and Warrior of Darkness beats were merely orchestrations in whatever their grand design might be. I know we separate the game out into 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x versions and story arcs, but it seems clear that there's one over-arching story (at least from 1.2x onwards) that we've yet to actually conclude, and may in fact not conclude until the game is brought to a "close" in a manner similar to FFXI.