What happened to SB (story)?

[ElHeggunte]

Why are we comparing the first chapter of SB to the entire story of ARR and HW? Comparing a story that's only just started a few months ago to two story lines that spanned two years each is silly.

[Jandor]

Why are we comparing the first chapter of SB to the entire story of ARR and HW? Comparing a story that's only just started a few months ago to two story lines that spanned two years each is silly.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm really not doing that. I'm comparing HW in 3.0 to SB in 4.0, IMHO HW had a better story at release than SB does.

Honestly though, it would be a pretty fair comparison anyway. The Dragonsong war wasn't over until 3.3, the liberation of Ala Mhigo and Doma is done by the end of 4.0.

[Kallera]

I wasn't a fan of Alisaie either. They are really trying too hard to push the "Alphinaud is a Alpha nerd" angle, when he pretty much saved HW's story in my eyes.

[Alleo]

I also find myself rather resenting Lyse and Alisaie for their parts in the story. Lyse I could live with even though her backstory is pretty stupid, but (as my FC mates have heard a dozen times by now) just about everything Alisaie does makes me hate her just a bit more. I LIKE diplomacy, thank you, and while I could have respected her for wanting to take a different approach, I feel like she spends a lot of her screen-time putting down her brother, usually when he's not even around, in a pathetically transparent attempt by the writers to both pump her up as a character and curry favor with the small but loud section of the playerbase who dislike Alphinaud and found all the politics in Heavensward frustrating.

Alisaie is one of my favorite characters but I agree that the way they portrayed her in SB really got on my nerves later. I have a sister myself so I know that there is a certain amount of teasing and stuff like that between siblings..but I also got the feeling that she was trying to get in a higher "position" than her brother with us..Its fine to tease him when he is there an can react, but its kinda a bit tactless to tease and put your own brother down when he is not even there..also sorry Alisaie but I went through a lot of stuff with Alphinaud and you doing some things better than him does not make it a better friendship with you. Also why did she not truly get called out for being completely reckless against the Ananta primal? If it was not for Alphinaud saving her and us having a sudden echo shield they would have all been tempered. Strange how she can sit back and watch how someone innocent shoot someone else, yet she needs to run straight at a primal? I still like her but I was also a bit happy to have her take a back seat in the last fight.

I also agree about Yugiri. For someone that is a ninja and was always quite calm, she surely acted out of character (imo) in the fight against Zenos. I can understand her reasoning especially after she saw whats happening to the villagers..but if it wasnt for plot armor she would have been death and maybe the villagers too. At the same time I dont really understand, why someone reckless like Lyse did not go with us, or why nobody else truly helped us until after we were defeated. I mean we are the WoL, but already lost against him once. If we die there, the Ascians will probably win, so why are you standing back and let us fight on our own?

@Kallera: Not only HWs story (and I love his character development) but he was also the one that came up with the plan to free Doma. (And Hien only made that small correction with flooding the castle) In that way he was way more important to the plot than someone as Lyse. (IMO)

[Remus]

I prefer the HW story compared to SB. I don't like how so many issues was just solved so easily in SB. You save 2 nations with hardly any problems. At least with HW there was some hiccups when it came to ending the war and you didn't even beat Nidhogg until 3.3 was it? HW just feels so much more impactful compared to SB where almost the only thing that went wrong was the resistance camp getting invaded and that's it. Everything else most of the time was just sunshine and rainbows and stopping 2 wars.

The only good part of the story was the Azim steppe but besides that the rest was pretty mediocre compared to HW 3.0. By the end of HW you win but you recognize the loss you had through out your journey getting there and beating Thordan. You could see from just looking at the Ishgard the type of atmosphere it portrays and what impact it has on the expansion.

Sadly, I can't even remember the people that died in SB because they are just that unmemorable in the journey for saving Doma/Ala Mhigo. While HW made you build up relationships with these characters so when they died they had a lasting effect on you because you remember them clearly and you learnt more about this character but they were taken away.

ARR made us feel like the main character. HW made us feel like the main character. SB? Just felt like I was there for the ride and that's it. Yoshi-p even said in a interview the WoL is still the MC of the story in SB but honestly didn't feel like it.

I really hope we go back to dealing with Ascians and learning more about Zodiark. There is so much we don't know that I would love to learn more about it. I hate how they handled the WoD I was hoping the WoD would stick around but SE basically killed them off in a patch while introducing them at the end of the expansion like some huge thing.

I honestly HOPE they go deeper into the Resonant and actually talk about and learn how the Echo actually works (when did we know how to make some kind of echo barrier? Never seen this done). This thing has been there since 1.0 but they have never had a patch where we learn about it because so far so many villains or allies keep giving different descriptions on it.

[SendohJin]

Why are we comparing the first chapter of SB to the entire story of ARR and HW? Comparing a story that's only just started a few months ago to two story lines that spanned two years each is silly.

I'm only comparing the journey with Alphinaud, Estinien and Ysayle, from stepping into Ishgard to getting through Azys Lla and taking down Thordan with the hodgepodge mix of SB characters.

SB is very FF4/6 where part of the journey is recruiting new characters, HW is more FF1/3 where you pretty much start with your group.

[NolLacnala]

...it feels weird to get involved in what is essentially a political thing. Especially when you take into account that the Scions are supposed to be independent. Most of the times the WOL has clashed with the Garleans, it's been because of Allagan technology they were seeking out.

You mean like the allagan weapon that shot down a dragon and landed in garlean controlled territory, requiring us to remove garlean forces to even get to it in the first place?

[Felis]

I honestly struggle to even recall them or their names. Apparently one of them was the FFXIV equivalent of Danganronpa's TeruTeru, who I sorely wished to take a knife to because he was both sorely annoying and excessively creepy, but who's the other one? The elf ruler bloke? I'm pretty sure he's still alive cause I vaguely remember running into someone that at least looked like him in SB, but who else could it be? HW was sorely lacking in memorable characters at all. IMHO, YMMV, etc etc.

Estinien? The big white dragon thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy0MnX1m7ww

[Lukha]

Alisaie's been around for four years as well. I take it you never did any endgame content back in 2.X did you? Alisaie was the star of that show, and it was mysteriously better despite Alphinaud being just a hanger on.

Wrong. I've been playing since beta and did Coil as it was released, however that handful of quests doesn't come close to comparing to the time we've spent with Alphinaud, both before and after. Alisiae disappeared from level 15 to level 50, showed up for a single level 50 quest chain and then disappeared again until it was time to swoop in right before the finale of Heavensward and steal everyone's thunder. We barely know her because we've barely interacted with her up until that point, and she hasn't changed a bit from the brat who stormed off on her own at level 15 because all the political talk frustrated her.

On the other hand. her brother was there with us almost the entire way from level 1 to level 60, and actually spent that time growing and changing as a character. Like him or not, he is objectively a different person than he was way back at level 15, which by most metrics makes him the better character.

I will be the first to admit that I disliked him immensely all through ARR, right up until the climax of 2.55. As far as I was concerned, he needed a good spanking and I prayed that when the time came I'd get to be the one to administer it. I even had an absurd pet theory that he was going to turn out to be evil, based on the sketchy vibes I was picking up from the whole Crystal Braves build up! And then 2.55 happened and he got the spanking of a lifetime, just in time for him (along with the PC and Tataru) to start Heavensward at just about rock bottom, which gave him a solid foundation to rebuild himself into a more mature, confident character whose confidence was actually based in reality rather than the foolish assumptions that things would work out that led to the Crystal Brave debacle.


Ultimately, you're free to prefer whoever you want, but you really can't claim Alisaie is a better or better written character when she's got zero presence in the story outside of a single side story arc and 10-15ish MSQ quests out of the hundreds that it took to get from the start of 2.0 to the finale of 3.5.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Ultimately, you're free to prefer whoever you want, but you really can't claim Alisaie is a better or better written character when she's got zero presence in the story outside of a single side story arc and 10-15ish MSQ quests out of the hundreds that it took to get from the start of 2.0 to the finale of 3.5.

She is. Unlike Alphinaud, who's still the same twerp he's always been, Alisaie is in every way a more interesting and compelling character than the twit that stayed behind in Kugane, precisely because he's a completely useless and worthless character in the grand scheme of things. He hasn't done anything to grow or change. His presence on screen only serves to highlight how worthless he's been since ARR when literally everything we've done could've been done much faster if Alphinaud wasn't constantly going "B-But we mustn't, we must wait! We mustn't do anything just wait around!" Alphinaud has not changed. He's still the same worthless brat we ran into in ARR, and he will forever be the exact same brat we ran into constantly whining, whinging, and moaning. You're free to not like Alisaie, but you can't tell me that a character that isn't constantly wetting himself in fright is worse written then the biggest coward in the series.