Stormblood ending was thoroughly disappointing

[Remedi]

Tbh in Heavensward we killed nidhogg exepct we didn't there too. I found Zenos in the ending in line with his psycology, while the archbishop was eeeeehhhhh, it wasn't a good villain I knew it was a bad guy only because past religious figure in FF were and frankly nidhogg was the real villain all along for much of the expansion, then there was this sudden shift to the archbishop thing that imho was a bit downplayed we don't even have interactions with half of the heavensward to the point they had to address it in a stream.
While I think that overall HW was good and I do have a bias with loving dragon stories, I do think that villains beside nidhogg were quite weak (not that we had much screentime with him either before 3.1-3.3)

[Iscah]

nidhogg was the real villain all along for much of the expansion, then there was this sudden shift to the archbishop thing that imho was a bit downplayed we don't even have interactions with half of the heavensward to the point they had to address it in a stream.

I think Thordan was built up enough from the start, but there was so much left unresolved by the point of the end credits that it didn't really feel like a satisfying ending. The Dragonsong arc was much more the proper ending to Heavensward's story, and covered all the points that were missing - particularly resolving Estinien's story, and that lovely moment of seeing Haurchefant and Ysayle once more (which I had *really* expected to happen at 'the end' of Heavensward, so it felt like it had been missed when the credits rolled).

On the other hand, I'd say Azys Lla itself was a very jarring "sudden shift" from this beautiful fantasy world to a weird alien high-tech wasteland. The sky makes it look like we're not even on the same planet any more.

[Sinh119]

I enjoyed them about the same, but Heavensward and Stormblood are very different types of stories. Heavensward is a far more personal storyline that focuses on a few specific characters. It's more introspective. Stormblood instead meditates on much broader themes, like freedom and hope. If we are talking about 3.0 vs 4.0, I would say I enjoyed 4.0 better. Frankly, Heavensward's main storyline never truly finished until 3.3 and The Final Steps of Faith. Stormblood's storyline was fully wrapped up, at least as far as we knew, by the end of the MSQ. In addition, I enjoyed Stormblood's portrayal of revolution and occupation.

[Lium]

It might be due to the fact that ARR and HW put your character more in the spotlight basically saying "you are the MC and things happen around you" while SB was more felt more like "You are the MC but also not really the MC those other guys are and you are just along for the ride". That's just personally how I saw it.

That's exactly the way I felt. Hence, why I said I felt mostly like a spectator. Just a useful tool for the resistance. In HW, the WoL was way more involved. It was just as much our story as it was everyone else's. Even Alphinaud had a personal stake in what was going on and everything tied together.

In SB it just felt more like we were there. And yes, I did want the satisfaction of killing Zenos because he was insane and extremely powerful. He was an irredeemable character. Even his father called him a monster.

[Brightamethyst]

My biggest issues with SB is that I never felt like I belonged. The fight isn't personal to me, and it's not a WoL job either. Ishgard also wasn't personal at first, but it didn't seem out of place because stopping ascian plots and crazy dragons is part of the job (and I at least liked most of the characters.) In SB it's only personal for Lyse. Not that Garlean oppression is a good thing, but leading revolutions and overthrowing governments is not what I signed up for when I joined the Scions. It feels like an incredible abuse of power from a supposedly neutral organization. The fact that the Scions seem to have gone from being neutral primal slayers to being a mercenary group should honestly terrify everyone.

[Vidu]

The fact that the Scions seem to have gone from being neutral primal slayers to being a mercenary group should honestly terrify everyone.

The Scions as we knew and joined them are basically no more - everyone more or less agreed on that and in a sense we disolved the Scions since no one wanted to take over the vacant leader position.
In turn that allows every member to serve their primary case of protecting Eorzea as they best see fit - may that be research, diplomacy, mercenary work or freeing your homeland.

And to be honest: It doesnt terrify me more that we're acting as sellswords for Lord Hien than slaying a primal like Titan for Merlwyb, that was summoned because of the actions Limsa was taking against the cobolds. I prefer liberating Doma over supporting the misstreatment of beasttribes that drives them to summon their primals. We're very much not neutral when slaying them - and in a sense we're not the hero there either. Except, of course, for the fact that history is written by the winner...

[ObsidianFire]

From a practical standpoint, the Scions will never be able to focus totally on the Ascian Threat until the Garlean Threat is settled. It's kinda hard to focus on the big metaphysical conflict when the place you are doing that from is constantly under threat of attack by "mundane" enemies.

From a larger standpoint, by fighting (or at least, curbing) the Garleans the Scions are fighting the Ascians. It has been heavily implied that the Garlean Empire as we know it is the result of the Ascians' influence in Ilsabard. Depending on why the Garleans can't use aether when nearly everything else alive can, the Ascians influence on the Garleans as a race might go back even further. As far as I can tell, the Ascians are using the Garleans to cause more conflict which leads to more primal summonings which directly helps Zodiark. No matter how that happens, that needs to be stopped. Given how large the Garlean Empire is though, it's going to take us a while to even get there.

Fortunately, at least some people in Garlemald don't want their nation to be going the way it is. It's just a matter of finding them and giving them enough support to actually win the civil war they lost the first time. But who knows when that story will get told.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Honestly SB was all over the place. When we first met Zenos we, somehow, lost to him hands down. Why exactly? Nothing changed from the time we met him in Reach to the time we faced off in the Lochs, we didn't go through any sort of rigorous training or power up.
The story just literally required us to lose simply to make him look like a threat.

At this point, the WoL is a Mary Sue. They really need to dial things back a bit if they expect us to believe we're having trouble with Zenos while facing off with the likes of Shinryu on the side without much trouble.

[Canadane]

Stormblood isn't over yet, the story is still ongoing...

[Brightamethyst]

The Scions as we knew and joined them are basically no more - everyone more or less agreed on that and in a sense we disolved the Scions since no one wanted to take over the vacant leader position.

Technically, yeah, but it's not like we disbanded and all went our separate ways at the end of HW. Minfila may be gone, but we're still the Scions.