What happened to SB (story)?

[Verdan]

So uhh, the reason why Xenos could kick our butts at the start is because he's a genetic supersolider monstrosity that is being enhanced by an artificial version of the same echo that makes US the main character.

Yeah, but we don't do anything to overcome it, aside from level up; while we use a magic artifact to beat Stockholm Lady. It's confusing.

Another thing that's confusing: the hell are the Garleans doing here? We hear that they've enslaved the populations and we see them get shipped off to be served as not-slaves-but-we-all-know-what's-goin'-on-here, but why did they bother conquering these lands at all? Sure, megalomania and sure, actually having access to captive populations is a vital part of a supremacist civilization, but the empire builds these shockingly massive structures using materials from... where? Wouldn't it have been cooler to see scars where mountains were and giant, industrial pits? Shouldn't there be scars on the land, not just outposts for occupation but a reminder of the industrial consumption of the empire? There's all these fortifications to protect the soldiers, but what are the soldiers protecting? What do the Garleans get out of Doma and Ala Mhigo?

[Daralii]

Yeah, but we don't do anything to overcome it, aside from level up; while we use a magic artifact to beat Stockholm Lady. It's confusing.

Another thing that's confusing: the hell are the Garleans doing here? We hear that they've enslaved the populations and we see them get shipped off to be served as not-slaves-but-we-all-know-what's-goin'-on-here, but why did they bother conquering these lands at all? Sure, megalomania and sure, actually having access to captive populations is a vital part of a supremacist civilization, but the empire builds these shockingly massive structures using materials from... where? Wouldn't it have been cooler to see scars where mountains were and giant, industrial pits? Shouldn't there be scars on the land, not just outposts for occupation but a reminder of the industrial consumption of the empire? There's all these fortifications to protect the soldiers, but what are the soldiers protecting? What do the Garleans get out of Doma and Ala Mhigo?

The purpose of the Empire, as decreed by Solus zos Galvus, is to save mankind from the threat of eikons by any means necessary. This includes, but is not limited to, the extermination of any resident beast tribes and local customs that could possibly lead to the religious fervor necessary for the spoken races to summon an eikon of their own.

[SaitoHikari]

I actually liked SB's story over HW, although I admit there are major pacing issues with SB's story.

HW pros/cons:
+ Real element of desperation in the plot, what with the whole political refugee thing.
+ One former villain got redeemed and then subsequently torn down to great effect. Her presence actually advanced the character development of the rest of the group during the journey as well, one of the best ways to pull this off. Too bad she had to die.
+ The writers actually went through the effort of showing that Ishgard didn't just suddenly convert to perfect democratic fantasy land after all the revelations in the plot. It actually went through a process.
? Villains had zero presence up until towards the end, but then again, this was more of a political story, which is always more of a grey thing.
- The Heavens' Ward didn't really get any character development AT ALL. People that have only played the game and not looked at any supplementary material would struggle to even know the names of each member of the Heavens' Ward, much less why they joined or why they're even so loyal to Archbishop Thordan in the first place.
- Azys Lla. It's amazing the first time you see it, but subsequent visits are annoying as hell more than anything else. Huge parts of the map are entirely unused, aside from details put in place for the lore.
- The Nanamo resolution. Like seriously, what?

SB pros/cons:
+ Lyse/Alisae got some actual development, and the MC got lots of dialogue options. If anything, this expansion made things very personal for the MC.
+ Really major lore bombshells, particularly the artificial echo thing which is undoubtedly going to have massive implications for the rest of the game. (HW in comparison doesn't have anything that actually matters in the long run, since it was all focused about righting the wrongs of the past. And lo and behold, that dragon buddy that watched you throughout the main story in HW just disappears without really explaining much about himself, only to reappear during SB's Omega story!)
+ Lots of solo duties which make the player have an active role in the plot, which are always fun. Unfortunately, they aren't repeatable.
+ Au Ra lore in the Steppes was pulled off in a way that there's still room for expanding it later on. Compare this to the Moogles... *shudder*
+ A positive to come out of the bad pacing is that we can't even predict what's going to happen for the rest of the expansion's story, whereas we had a rough idea of exactly what was going to happen throughout HW.
? The plot was far too black and white, but then again, given the opponent and the subject matter, I can't exactly fault the devs for that.
- Really bad pacing. I feel as if this should have been split into two expansions rather than one. Doma side especially feels simultaneously shoehorned into the story AND completely overshadowing the Ala Mhigo side at the same time.
- The above has the side effect of amplifying the 'how seriously do the villains actually take us' concerns even further.
- Barely any buildup that makes the MC suddenly able to take down Zenos after being completely curbstomped by him twice any believable.
- Lyse's development is largely unbelievable, or also a victim of the poor pacing. She doesn't really do anything that you couldn't achieve yourself and yet takes credit for everything, compared to Alisae backing up her words with actions. It also doesn't help that she's dangerously close to falling into the whole 'white maiden becomes a savior of the black people' trope, although admittedly this is only because of 1.0 limitations carrying over (she and Minfilla are actually Highlanders, but Highlander character models didn't exist back then).

In my opinion though, while SB expansion as an entire whole could be basically split into three arcs (Thordan, post-Thordan/Nidhogg, then pre-SB), the scope of the SB story feels like it's going to be much, much larger - and also wildly unpredictable. As such, it's probably way too early to be making judgments about the overall quality of the SB story, because there are a few unresolved plot threads (whereas the ONLY unresolved plot thread after Thordan's defeat in HW was Nidhogg).

Unresolved plot threads in SB:
- The two people we thought were dead are actually still alive. How do they get reintroduced back into the plot?
- Elidibus and Emperor Varis.
- Exactly how did Zenos find out about Rhalgar's Reach in the first place? He made mention of a spy in the cutscene before the expansion. This spy hasn't been found yet.
- (probably not a plot thread but still something worth noting) Hydaleyn has been strangely absent throughout all of SB. Why is that? It can't just be because Minfilla got sent off to the world of the First.

[Dark-Saviour]

So uhh, the reason why Xenos could kick our butts at the start is because he's a genetic supersolider monstrosity that is being enhanced by an artificial version of the same echo that makes US the main character.

Where was this said though?
The end has them refer to him as an experiment and a monster, but we don't know if that's only with respect to the modifications he had done to himself or if there's more to it. It feels like there's more to it, but they never elaborated.

And as for the resonance thing:
1) That shouldn't put him above us. Lyse et al? Sure.
2) Did he even have that ability at the start? It was specifically stated that he wanted Krile alive and the first we explicitly see of the whole resonance thing is after she has been hooked into the machine. It could be possible he already had echo-users in the other chambers, but it was never mentioned. If he did, then I don't know why the capture of Krile was so critical. And we also apparently abandoned them after freeing her?

[Daralii]

Where was this said though?
The end has them refer to him as an experiment and a monster, but we don't know if that's only with respect to the modifications he had done to himself or if there's more to it. It feels like there's more to it, but they never elaborated.

And as for the resonance thing:
1) That shouldn't put him above us. Lyse et al? Sure.
2) Did he even have that ability at the start? It was specifically stated that he wanted Krile alive and the first we explicitly see of the whole resonance thing is after she has been hooked into the machine. It could be possible he already had echo-users in the other chambers, but it was never mentioned. If he did, then I don't know why the capture of Krile was so critical. And we also apparently abandoned them after freeing her?

Zenos was able to control a primal rivaling Bahamut by tempering it. We don't know when he got his artificial Echo, but he has a far better mastery of it than the WoL.

[Dark-Saviour]

Zenos was able to control a primal rivaling Bahamut by tempering it. We don't know when he got his artificial Echo, but he has a far better mastery of it than the WoL.

To be fair, we've never tried to do that. As far as the precog stuff goes (which would actually be relevant to fighting us), apparently we have mastered that since that's apparently what creates our AoE markers (as I understand it).
And if he didn't get the Resonance until after our first encounter, it wouldn't explain how we were so handily trounced.

[Felis]

What do the Garleans get out of Doma and Ala Mhigo?

Ala Mhigo was conquered because it is the entrace door of Eorzea. Only the lost fight above the silver tear lake keeped the garleans more or less out.

[eschaton]

I liked the SB story... yeah in a different way than ARR & HW, still think it's good variety! If I'd really really really had to pick I'd say ARR is my favorite.

Remarks on SB? Well I can think of one thing! The underwater mounts are soooo undervalued, underrated and basically underused... there was more potential there!
And flying my birds underwater? Well... let's just say I think that could have been handled differently.

[Naunet]

But every character is Square's OC. They make the game.

Obviously I meant that to imply negative connotations and evoke images of a shallow character with ridiculous powers and lacking any meaningful motivation. My husband put it best once:

"His name is Zenos he is very POWERFUL and very COOL and VERY SEXY and everyone is afraid of him. He’s so strong he can beat up the Warrior of Light and he beat all of Doma on his own. He likes SWORDS and he collects swords and his sheath has THREE SWORDS in it and when he draws his swords you know he is about to win the fight immediately. He loves to FIGHT and all he wants to do is fight the STRONGEST people but he’s too strong and always wins too easy. HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT FIGHTING. NOTHING. He never shows ANY emotions and is always bored because he can’t find anyone strong enough to fight. He’s so mean he kills his lieutenants and they’re all afraid of him. He also had experiments done on him to give him dragon powers and he can possess dragons. He is the emperor’s son but he doesn’t care about the emperor all he wants to do is fight strong opponents. HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT FIGHTING."

Wouldn't it have been cooler to see scars where mountains were and giant, industrial pits? Shouldn't there be scars on the land, not just outposts for occupation but a reminder of the industrial consumption of the empire? There's all these fortifications to protect the soldiers, but what are the soldiers protecting? What do the Garleans get out of Doma and Ala Mhigo?

I like this thought. Yes. I want it!

[CosmicKirby]

Yeah, but we don't do anything to overcome it, aside from level up; while we use a magic artifact to beat Stockholm Lady. It's confusing.
Another thing that's confusing: the hell are the Garleans doing here? We hear that they've enslaved the populations and we see them get shipped off to be served as not-slaves-but-we-all-know-what's-goin'-on-here, but why did they bother conquering these lands at all? Sure, megalomania and sure, actually having access to captive populations is a vital part of a supremacist civilization, but the empire builds these shockingly massive structures using materials from... where? Wouldn't it have been cooler to see scars where mountains were and giant, industrial pits? Shouldn't there be scars on the land, not just outposts for occupation but a reminder of the industrial consumption of the empire? There's all these fortifications to protect the soldiers, but what are the soldiers protecting? What do the Garleans get out of Doma and Ala Mhigo?

I feel the more looming bugbear in the plot is how easily Garlemald lost two of their assets in decisive military losses,have at least 10 more Legions of soldiers, each with their own commanding officer as strong as Gaius or Zenos was, and yet they proceed to NOT confront the root cause of their losses, or even the opposing force in general in anything except a single file manner of one at a time.

Nor, when faced with a looming apocalypse that they KNEW was going to happen and were DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR through their own negligence, they simply allowed their already doomed and defunct legion led by a mad woman into a conflict against soldiers of no importance, while doing nothing to address the most powerful eikon known to mankind at the time.

Nor, did they, upon seeing the successful results of a single man and his group of hippie friends bind the primal and save the world, consider helping, thanking, learning from, or stealing their methodology of countering the Eikonic threat, their stated prime directive and reasoning for committing what at least SOME OF THEM must find to be questionable actions of enslaving and conquering nations that want nothing to do with them and hold no real advantage of conquering. ( IE Doma)

The Garlean's motivations make NO SENSE at all if you look at them beyond anything other than THE BIG BAD GUYS. And the hand waive for 'any' of these gaping holes in their motivations is "bureaucracy", political infighting and debate draws them in contradictory directions because their emperor that brought them to such power was dying or recently dead.

(Their only actions that SEEMED to make sense was anything regarding Gaius' plans as a whole. And even then, this might be brought into a whole SLEW of questions, because there's a (SPOILERS) Distinct possibility that Gaius is Elidibus.)

PS, forgive me if my bit regarding 1.0 events and Nael is a BIT off, my knowledge of the battle of Carteneau is rusty.))

The purpose of the Empire, as decreed by Solus zos Galvus, is to save mankind from the threat of eikons by any means necessary. This includes, but is not limited to, the extermination of any resident beast tribes and local customs that could possibly lead to the religious fervor necessary for the spoken races to summon an eikon of their own.

And it's worth noting this 'requirement' was partially undermined when Illberd summons an entirely fabricated primal without any real religious zeal, just a very angry speech and a bunch of blood 'sacrifices'. There wasn't really a ritual either, he just got really angry and used a bunch of aether in some dragon eyes (Which somehow weren't spent YET, but will be AFTER...) to summon what is apparently a primal strong enough to rival Bahamut. (Which was probably summoned by a whole SLEW of dragons, with a lot more eyes than just two, and should be far more powerful....)

The eyes were a mistake. Illberd's ending arc was a mistake. Many of the end-of-xpac cliffhangers have been written poorly, lest we forget the BACKPEDALS from 2.5 -> 3.0