Revelations from Patch 3.56

[Etwo]

Well, that's just an unfortunate combination of game-play and story segregation combined with the major characters involved in the story being shrouded in a ridiculous amount of plot armour. Garleans, as a society, are very focused on discipline and efficiency so seeing them reduced to comic relief is getting very tiresome. Especially when the nuanced, complex Garleans such as Gaius and Regula are killed off in favour of keeping the treacherous defectors like Cid, Lucia and Nero around.

And that is the problem. I didnt see any discipline or efficiency in their attacks. Their generals look more like artifact driven fanatics than great tacticians or leaders

[Theodric]

And that is the problem. I didnt see any discipline or efficiency in their attacks. Their generals look more like artifact driven fanatics than great tacticians or leaders

Mm. Let's hope they do a good job in Stormblood and don't paint the antagonists as predictable, cackling villains who end up coming across as incompetent. They also need to highlight that the Eorzeans are not necessarily good or justified for taking the fight to Garlemald - they're going to get a lot of people killed on every side and realistically stir up a lot of needless instability. My favourite Final Fantasy games are those set in Ivalice - namely Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII. Vagrant Story gets a special mention too due to sharing the same setting and style. Those games embraced the moral complexities of war and the nature of man incredibly well. I was hoping for more of that from this game.

I already wiped my hands of WoW due to similar issues plaguing that game's story. I don't want to have to do the same thing here as well. I can't express how bitter I am that we finally got a nuanced Garlean in the form of Regula Van Hydrus only for him to be killed off in a side quest and not even given a mention in the latest batch of MSQ's despite how relevant his willingness to work alongside the Scions despite his loyalties to the Emperor and his homeland. However temporary that may have been it surely must count for something.

[Belhi]

And that is the problem. I didnt see any discipline or efficiency in their attacks. Their generals look more like artifact driven fanatics than great tacticians or leaders

Lets not kid ourselves. The WoL is one of the greatest warriors in Eorzea and most of the Garleans we have fought are grunts, most often conscripts from conquered territories. Eorzea has almost fallen twice to the Garleans and in both cases fighting no more than 2 legions at the most. Even with all the fighting we did at Azys Lla we lacked the strength to dislodge their presence there and the Garleans have almost certainly come away with resources.

As for Garleans surviving verse getting killed off, even if Regula and Gaius survived they would still be our enemy as long as Garlemald remained an antagonist. Even if they didn't outright start the latest war they have continued to maintain hostile military bases in Eorzea, leading to incursions into Eorzean territory and stirring up trouble. The Sylphs, for example, would probably cause a lot less trouble if it wasn't for Garlean incursions into their territory.

As a general rule none of the villains we have faced in FF14 fall into the clear 'predictable, cackling villains so I am not to worried. However don't expect the player character to lose.

I find it odd how the grand companies have jumped to being the aggressors. I mean the only change is that they can take the wall now, and while I get that a lot of ala mhigo was damaged from the fight between omega and shinriyu even if the alliance could take ala mhigo there isn't really anything that could stop them taking it back if we are going by 2 expansions and 1.x of "Eorzea is no match for the empire in a direct fight".

I guess we'll be seeing more deus ex machinas from here on out. It all seems a bit abrupt.

I took it as the leaders coming to the conclusion that war was inevitable at this point. After the events on the wall and the fight between Omega and Shinryu, a response from the empire was inevitable so it made more sense to go on the offensive. After all, in the Alliance's eyes, conflict with Garlemald is inevitable one way or another and frankly having Garlemald lose Ala Mhigo would substantially limit their access to the rest of Eorzea. Without that land access their only means of moving into Eorzea would be via Airship or sea.