What happened to SB (story)?

[CosmicKirby]

Personally, I'm a fan of the more simple explanations. Not everything needs to be explained with a 200 page thesis, and considering how popular characters like the Hulk(Literally a guy who's power is "very very angry") are, I'm hesitant to simply discount such a simple explanation. One of the goals in writing many a story is balancing simplicity with complexity after all. Except mystery stories, then you don't want simplicity.

You don't have to 'say'. You have to 'explain'.

Gosetsu is alive, and it doesn't feel 'cheap' to me. Because of COURSE he'd survive that. He's Gosetsu.
Gandalf didn't die to the Balrog because of COURSE he didn't, he's Gandalf.

Nidhogg is super strong because... ?

Show, don't tell. It's a cardinal rule of writing.

We are shown WHY it's believable that Gosetsu or Gandalf could survive. The things we're shown about Nidhogg, is how hard he died to Estinien, and some flashback about how angry he is. We're only 'told' he's strong. He's not even really angry. We're not shown some epic speech where he says exactly how angry he is, we're not shown the depravity he'll go to, he doesn't even seem very insane, we're only told by other dragons how angry he is.

[TankHunter678]

Cosmic Kirby, there was a quest where we tried to prevent the kobolds from summoning Titan again. We were even warned by a kobold child that they were getting the crystals and materials ready for it.

During the entire process that child came face to face with its dead parents and in an explosion of grief summoned Titan using the aether of the nearby gathered crystals by pure accident.

Accidental summoning has been a thing since ARR/HW.

[NinjaTaru72]

First off l'll say, I loved stormblood. Yes, a few parts seemed a bit rushed, and our allies could have consisted of more. (it did sometimes feel to me that we were basically like... All of 20 people fighting hundreds. lol.) But I absolutely loved it more than heavensward.

Second. We have much more story to explore with the garleans and ascions. Between the emperor, his army, the ascions plans, and a few other things.

While I personally dont see a while "I'm changing sides" thing happening, I could see us at some point... "coming to terms" with the garleans to fight the ascions. Either with the emperor himself deciding we need to, or after defeating him and someone else reasonable coming into power wanting to stop their plans.

[NinjaTaru72]

With that happening I could absolutely see us getting some story into their lands, many some sort of civil unrest? Perhaps some coming to our areas(like the samurai and rdm came To ulda) for new jobs.

We could make quite a good transition, moving from a group the empire wanted to take over and enslave to a group that sees the beginnings of a civil war of the garleans, the group that wants to continue trying to enslave everyone, and a group that sees how we are doing things, and wants our help to finally change things.

That would also make a good bridge into my prior mention of us and garleans teaming up to defeat the ascions.

But of course this is just my fun idea in my head.

Im sure SE has ideas already of its own for what it wants to do.

[Dualgunner]

If you read what I wrote, my statement was that Midgardsormr was born of Hydaelyn, not Bahamut.
Upon re-reading my lore book, this is incorrect. Midgardsormr is a dragon that's powerful enough to survive in the aetheric vacuum of space and just showed up one day, from space. So this should be quite the narrative indicator of strength. How is mad-thoughts snake dragon equal to the power of his reborn and deified son that was fueled by two 'live' eyes, and not two recently dead and SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN DRAINED eyes?

I apologize for misreading your statement; it was an oddly worded one and I read over the seeming redundancy (the son of the spawn of), however it doesn't change that Bahamut and Nidhogg are, as it were, the same tier of being (son of Midgardsormr). It's also possible the ascians gave the eyes another refill once the Warriors of Darkness delivered them.

We also don't know how spent they were--they were dangerous enough still that keeping possession of them was dangerous and could get us possessed. Dangerous enough that we had to use all our power to rip them from Estinien still. Dangerous enough the Ascians and Warriors of Darkness considered them worthy to be enough to summon a dread primal with power akin to Bahamut, which later turned out to be Shinryu.

The only time we see the eyes completely drained is when Estinien declares the balls inert and stabs them. But even in their drained form, they were a threat, maybe because they still gather and generate aether over time. I mean, one of his eyes has been in the possession of the Azure Dragoons for a millennium.

Nidhogg is super strong because... ?

In addition to his insane age, being one of the First Brood, Nidhogg is also one of Midgardsormr's direct sons (clearly). As a show of his power he turned an entire species to his cause and waged a 1000 year war on his rage alone. Rage that overtook him and became a completely different beast, easily capable of defeating Hraesvelgr (another of the First Brood) in single combat.

EDIT: Edited to highlight an explanation that might be satisfactory.

[Galgarion]

In addition to his insane age, being one of the First Brood, Nidhogg is also one of Midgardsormr's direct sons (clearly). As a show of his power he turned an entire species to his cause and waged a 1000 year war on his rage alone. Rage that overtook him and became a completely different beast, easily capable of defeating Hraesvelgr (another of the First Brood) in single combat.

That was actually just old fashioned fighting experience giving Nidhogg the edge. Like he told Hraesvelgr, while they might have been equals in power, Nidhogg had been leading the charge against Isgard for a thousand years, kicking ass and taking (Dragoon) names, while H was brooding in his sad boy den, being a sad boy. Who's going to win, the brother who goes off to war, or the brother who sulks in his room? Nidhogg knows the answer.

[CosmicKirby]

I apologize for misreading your statement; it was an oddly worded one and I read over the seeming redundancy (the son of the spawn of), however it doesn't change that Bahamut and Nidhogg are, as it were, the same tier of being (son of Midgardsormr). It's also possible the ascians gave the eyes another refill once the Warriors of Darkness delivered them.

This is an extraordinary assumption that requires explanation. Coming up with answers, for the authors, is not your job, it's 'theirs'. There's not even a hint that the Ascians are capable of this, and if anything it's implied that it was purely Nidhogg's doing on his own. That he, for some ungodly reason, could remain alive through his eyes alone.

We also don't know how spent they were--they were dangerous enough still that keeping possession of them was dangerous and could get us possessed. Dangerous enough that we had to use all our power to rip them from Estinien still. Dangerous enough the Ascians and Warriors of Darkness considered them worthy to be enough to summon a dread primal with power akin to Bahamut, which later turned out to be Shinryu.

The only time we see the eyes completely drained is when Estinien declares the balls inert and stabs them. But even in their drained form, they were a threat, maybe because they still gather and generate aether over time. I mean, one of his eyes has been in the possession of the Azure Dragoons for a millennium.

The fact that they can be drained 'at all' as stated by Estinien calls into question how such a mechanism works. One in which is never really answered. One would SUPPOSE that powering 13 beings into primal status simultaneously, absorbing an ascian whole sale, and reconstituting the entire body of a being not of this planet would amount to some sort of strain on them. But apparently, not. Simply summoning a primal from a man's imagination though? Somehow too much. There's no attempt to state what the eyes are capable of or how they work beyond being magical until AFTER the plot is done with them.

In addition to his insane age, being one of the First Brood, Nidhogg is also one of Midgardsormr's direct sons (clearly). As a show of his power he turned an entire species to his cause and waged a 1000 year war on his rage alone. Rage that overtook him and became a completely different beast, easily capable of defeating Hraesvelgr (another of the First Brood) in single combat.

EDIT: Edited to highlight an explanation that might be satisfactory.

Clearly Nidhogg is so powerful, that'd he never lose his eyes to mere mortals. Or lose against the Warrior of Light, twice. Or let the Azure Dragoon pierce his skull with a spear. At least Zenos was demonstrably capable. Nidhogg certainly wasn't, and yet his eyeballs turn into an overused recurring plot device. (Much less, 'his' eyes in particular. As no mention of Bahamut's eyes, Ratatoskr when slain couldn't reconstitute and her eyes were so weak they could just be eaten, etc.)

Cosmic Kirby, there was a quest where we tried to prevent the kobolds from summoning Titan again. We were even warned by a kobold child that they were getting the crystals and materials ready for it.

During the entire process that child came face to face with its dead parents and in an explosion of grief summoned Titan using the aether of the nearby gathered crystals by pure accident.

Accidental summoning has been a thing since ARR/HW.

Assume that I have actually played the game please. My primary point remains that it's a wonder how the humanoid races of Eorzea have (Up until Shinryu, and to an extent Shiva) yet to summon primals.
(And Ga Bu wasn't even entirely an 'accident' The ritual and all the trappings were in place. We THOUGHT we stopped it, only for Ga Bu to complete the ritual himself. Therein was the accident.)
(Further, I am struggling to recall any 'accidental' summoning in 2.0-2.5 Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Levithan, Ramuh, and Shiva were all intentional and underwent ritual and religion of some sort to summon. At least, the FIRST time if you want to ignore when they just resummoned to fight Ultima weapon in an instant.)

[Jandor]

Cosmic Kirby, there was a quest where we tried to prevent the kobolds from summoning Titan again. We were even warned by a kobold child that they were getting the crystals and materials ready for it.

During the entire process that child came face to face with its dead parents and in an explosion of grief summoned Titan using the aether of the nearby gathered crystals by pure accident.

Accidental summoning has been a thing since ARR/HW.

My assumption at the time was that the summoning had already begun by the time we got there. Kobolds were there, crystals were present, sacrifices had been killed. The kobold child seemed to hijack an incomplete but at least underway summoning.

Still as others have said the fact that is does seem to keep getting easier to summon primals does appear to be at least vaguely acknowledged sometimes in the plot, maybe they are going somewhere with it.

E: My main issue with StormBlood is always going to be abandoning the resistance to go sailing around the world to the far east after their defeat at the reach. I feel like the story would have flowed so much better with Doma first and Ilberd/Shinryu coming up and splitting our attention once we had already embroiled ourselves in the easts rebellion.

[LalaRu]

OP's tl;dr version:

a) someone decided (years ago, ndr) to sell his SE stock because <insert any reason here>;
b) wall of text by OP to say s/he doesn't like the story so far.

[Daralii]

At least, the FIRST time if you want to ignore when they just resummoned to fight Ultima weapon in an instant.)

Ultima didn't resummon them, it had them contained in the Heart of Sabik just like Bahamut was contained in Dalamud. The Heart's a big mystery, as Lahabrea(I think) said it was pre-Allag and only a fraction of its power was unlocked, but it's never been mentioned after it was used as a plot device.