[SPOILERS] Heavensward vs Stormblood MSQ Story

[EdwinLi]

I like both HW and SB for certain reason but HW had a better story because of the position the WoL was in being backed into a corner with very few friends with only "mutual interest" allies that later developed themselves into actual friends.

HW Story...

Likes

1) better story because of the setting and position the WoL was in because it set up new characters not as friends right off the bat but as "Mutual interest" allies that would later develop as friends. This allowed a better story telling because we do not know the real intent of certain characters nor what they would do when their faith and beliefs were put into question.

2) Ending was far better because it actually properly set up the events for 3.X era despiite some issues with how some of that ended.

3) the story actually felt like a real journey this time compared to 2.0 giving that Adventurer feeling that the WoL is still at his or her core.

4) the story was not a black and white scenario but a all color type of scenario.

Dislikes

1) Certain issues were resolved way too easily such as the Ul'dah incident.

2) WoL was still too much of a head shaking person still.

SB Storyline

1) Actual choice on dialogue that affects the dialogue of the cutscenes. This has been in demand for a long time by players because there was a feeling the WoL lacked personality when he or she interacted with other characters in the storyline which now the WoL has.

2) Steppe location was great introduction to Xaela culture and how they operate. It did not shy away from how different their culture is compared to other cultures and used a lot of to tribal culture life. Some people may have issues with how certain Xaela treated their people from their gender to their tribe beliefs but it was a necessary belief withing Tribal life to have the females to focus on gathering and males on Hunting big game and tribal wars since the Females of the Tribes are the ones that have the give birth to children to keep the Tribe alive thus keeping them alive by having them focus on less dangerous life threatening task was more valued above the Males despite causing certain mentality that males should be strong and skilled in combat and females should focus on cooking and gathering.

dislike

1) The story focus too much on a Black and White Scenario. SE and Yoshi-p intended 4.0 MSQ to be more pure Good versus Evil storyline this time around because they were showing too much of the Good Garleans too soon. I know SE wants to start introducing the Good Garleans from within the Garlean Empire later in the storyline but just having pure Muhahaha Evil Garleans for the majority of this storyline limited the story's ability to expand on understanding the Garlean Empire's society and character development for the Garleans.

2) hardly any character development due to the story focus more on WoL always being surrounded by friend they know and easily becoming friends right in the beginning when they first meet.

[Remedi]

Both stories were good, personally however I prefer HW a bit more.
I like stories involving dragons so that was a bit more involving for me, not to mention me favoring snowy places more, not saying the new places are worse, I think azim steppe and generally all the new settings are a step above what we got in HW.
But what I think really lacks in SB is an antagonistic group like the Heaven's ward.
WHile we got to learn next to nothing of them all, I think that each interaction we had with them was spot on to make you feel the gravitas and opppression that the theocracy was imposing to ishgard.
That said I think that our interactions with zenos and it's resolution were spot on

[Avatre]

I liked both stories, but it felt like what we have for SB was rushed. Royal Menagerie should have been closer to 4.2 I think for pacing. It doesn't really leave the rest of this expansion with much to work with imo(except for that scene at the end after credits).

[SendohJin]

The way that Ysayle, Estenion and Alphanaud travel with you mirrors a traditional FF better than how things went in SB,

SB party is very much in the FF4 and FF6 style where your travelling companions change due to outside circumstances. you also progress the story to discover new characters and reunite with old ones.

[Vhailor]

Let's compare the story of 3.0 and 4.0

I'll tell you straight up that I like Heavensward story better than Stormblood. Here are the reasons why :

1. SB had such a huge cast of side characters and maybe this is the reason why they feel under-developed. Listing some characters which are introduced in stormblood; The resistance commander (forgot his name), M'naago and the other liutenant, Gousetsu, Yugiri, Hien, Magnai, the black female aura (geez i'm so bad at remembering names), Zenos, Fordola, The evil lady, etc, and most importantly Lys. I would argue that only Lys that had a significant character development here.

I'm not sure I agree here. I think Gosetsu and Yugiri had sufficient development (with more to come based on the ending); Yotsuyu (the evil lady you mention) is still alive and therefore likely getting more development; and aside from Zenos and Fordola, the remaining characters you list are relative bit parts.

That said, Zenos and Fordola definitely could have been strengthened. I had problems with Zenos' motivation, particularly. He needed more development to justify the outright cultivation of a worthy opponent. Respecting a worthy opponent and fighting with honor are two easily-accepted character traits; toying with someone and letting them off the hook repeatedly, notsomuch. It makes me wonder why he was even put in charge there.

2. SB character are so 1 dimensional. Character is only good or bad, there is no moral complexity in it, well excepts for fordola and the xaela. The rest is just so simple and almost boring (Lys included). Well maybe the Domans war fatique was also intriguing.

I disagree here as well. Yotsuyu was a tale of revenge, possibly justified (to be determined); Fordola felt like she was sacrificing for the greater good; Zenos was... well, Zenos. The "good" characters were composed of Scions (who have almost always been fairly one-dimensional) and people who generally came off as reluctant heroes at best, torn between resistance and wanting to spare their communities the inevitable reprisals. To be sure, it didn't have the political flair of Heavensward or the natural story twist wherein the good guys were really the bad guys, but it was competent in this regard.

3. SB build up to the end fight is basically, "Hey, here's a dungeon where you beat the main villain of the story. Oh wait, he has a pet dragon that he merges with and now you have to kill that too". Honestly, Shinryu was the last thing I expected when I was going to the final trial. Let me clarify that I loved the Shinryu sudden reveal moment. But, the way it is presented, with Shinryu completely detached from the rest of the story, it is just shocking and nothing else. I seriously tought that if fordola was the last boss of Ala Mhigo dungeon and then we fight Zenos with him becoming some primal (well, I guess shinryu would also be fine in this case), it would be much better.

I agree wholeheartedly here. It wasn't a sensible story twist, and felt like SE was forcing something in (Shinryu and Omega felt forced at the end of 3.x, too, for that matter).

4. SB felt so rushed. I was getting invested with M'naago, Pipin and The resistance commander, nope we are going to Doma. Reason : to split the empire force thin. If you are going to do that, well, I don't know, create a bit of ruckus in Doma to lure some empire troops to Doma and attack the castle in Ala Mhigo and Doma at a relatively same time? But noooooooooo, the empire troop in Doma is already thin anyway and they were not planning to send reinforcement there. We came back to Ala Mhigo and we still have to take the Broken Castrum (do i still have to explain myself?) for them, the Castrum Abania for them, the pratoreat that got destroyed anyways and eventually the Ala Mhigo Castle itself. To the Alliance's credit, they did take Ala Giri on their own. (Sorry that it turned to be a bit of a rant). Anyway, SB story that also felt rushed :
- Xaelas (Azim Steppe)
- Ananta (The Peaks)

Maybe this is because we have two objectives in SB:To Free Doma and Ala Mhigo. In HW we only had one:To end the war in Ishgard. You really get to know how the war started, how each dragon siblings react to it and what caused them to react like that. You get to know the Ascian's goal (well, you basically should already know it in ARR), and how it seemed that Thordan was swayed but in actuality, he had an idea to how achieve peace. You get to know Aymeric's struggle as Thordan's son? And most importantly, you get to know estenien and ysayle through your journey in finding that peace. HW took the time to get you understand the character's backstories and personality.

I'd disagree here as well, mostly anyway. I did feel that the abrupt shift to the East felt somewhat quick; a sort of "now that you're in the swing of things, pause for a few maps" type of scenario. That said, from there, the storyline proceeded very smoothly and, in my estimation, spent plenty of time on each stage.

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The odd part is that I agree with you regarding Heavensward being the better storyline; I just disagree with most of your reasons. From my perspective, I'll just say that it's difficult to pin down exactly why I like Heavensward more than Stormblood. It's a lot of small things, and it felt greater than the sum of its parts, whereas Stormblood felt, to me, more like just the sum of its parts. That said, I'm also aware that I can't judge Stormblood properly until the storyline is well and truly finished; it has time to improve.

[Rosenoire]

Well I was not expecting much all types of color story for 4.0 because SE and Yoshi-p said they wanted 4.0 Storyline to focus more on Garleans being the pure evil of the story. Of course they did this because they did not want people to feel sympathy and see Good in the Garlean Empire as a whole. We see garleans defect and act good but those are the few lower rank members of their society or atleast are people in position to defect from the Garlean Empire such as Cid having his own personal airsip to get over garlean territory Borders and Lucia who was already outside of Garlean Territory.

This most likely may change once we start entering Garlean Society zones though.

IIRC, Yoshi-P did not say that they wanted the Garleans to be the pure evil of the story. He said that they wanted Zenos to be unambiguously evil.

All of the Garleans we encounted in the game--Cid and Lucia included--are part of the military. In Stormblood, they're specifically members of an occupying army. There are plenty of real-life examples to show that soldiers in occupying armies often commit atrocities, especially when your nation has a founding narrative that you're superior to the rest of the world and the "lesser races" and "savages". Even with that, the Garlean military aren't portrayed as a monolithic evil. There's the officer who protects the people in Ala Ghiri, to the point where they're ready to fight the Resistance and Alliance forces on his behalf. There's the wounded Imperial soldier you can help in the Peaks who pretty much just wants to go home. And the Centurion who gives the order to fire the cannon is clearly appalled by the order--he's just not going to defy Zenos. I honestly don't see anything in the game that suggests that Garleans as a people are intended to be portrayed as unamiguously evil.

[EdwinLi]

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They want the leadership of the Garlean Empire to be seen as Evil.

A bunch of low rank members of garlean society have little influence on the Garlean Empire as a whole nor prevent such Crimes the Garlean Empire have earned a bad reputation for from happening. The people in power are the focus for the Garlean Empire's "evil" actions and influencing the lower position Garleans to act the way they are when they call others "Savages" and treat non-Garleans badly until they are put into a position where they open their eyes about how wrong the Leaders of Garlean Empire are.

[Rosenoire]

They want the leadership of the Garlean Empire to be seen as Evil.

That's a bit different from what you said above, though:

SE and Yoshi-p said they wanted 4.0 Storyline to focus more on Garleans being the pure evil of the story. Garleans being the pure evil of the story. Of course they did this because they did not want people to feel sympathy and see Good in the Garlean Empire as a whole.

The Imperial leaders are expansionist, aggressive, and genocidal and they are leading the Empire into a confrontation with the rest of the known world despite what their people might want. The devs and writers make a point of distinguishing between the people running the Empire and "the Garlean Empire as a whole."

[EdwinLi]

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But is it really?

Corruption and cruelty among the Garlean leadership is unquestionable but the lower position people we meet are still cruel by choice even though it happens majority of the time off screen and not shown in cutscenes but only thought small mentions in dialogue due to their beliefs until they are put into a certain position to question their beliefs.

The Ala Ghiri is a issue to take notice about but we also have to remember the Garlean Officier is not Garlean himself but joined the Garlean Army only to obtain Garlean citizenship after 20 years of service.

However, perhaps we are just confusing each other at this point because of our different views about what we are talking about because I do not consider Lucia and Cid part of the Garlean Empire anymore because they chosen willing to leave the Garlean Empire. The Way I see things SE is just settin up the view that the Garlean Empire itself is just Evil to everything both to the people not Garlean and to their own people.

It is not the question of the Citizens of the Empire but the Civilization itself and what it stands for in the views of certain people. To the garlean leaders it is their throne of power and conquest, to the Eorzean Alliance it is a symbol of global threat and evil, to the Garlean Citizens it is their home, and etc.

However, as the story goes in 4.0, the view we have for the Garlean Empire is on the Eorzean Alliance side of things being they view the Garlean Empire as evil and this view is stated quite a lot through the 4.0 MSQ.

[Rosenoire]

Yeah, I think we have some disconnect here, because I can't think of anything in game that suggests the Alliance views the Empire as a whole as evil. Agressive and expansionist, and a threat to the global order? Absolutely. Individual Garleans evil? Yup, looking at you Crown Prince Crazypants. But even if you don't count the defectors, Gaius was the epitome of the Reasonable Authority Figure trope, and Regulus gets killed defending Unulkhai (sp) because he believes it's for the long-term good of Hydaelyn. Even Varis is shown as being not entirely unreasonable. The problem the Alliance has with the Empire is their policy of invading and occupying other countries, not that they're inherently evil.