Stormblood ending was thoroughly disappointing

[Lium]

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...

There were a couple things going on with Limsa. First, it was politics. The Scions would always support one of the Alliance members because it was in Eorzea's - and the Scions' - best interests. Second, a primal is a clear and present danger to everyone, and it has to be neutralized. Even the empire agrees on that.

One of the things I liked about ARR and HW was how it showed that all sides were flawed. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong at the same time. It made the story more realistic.

[Lium]

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.

I thought about this the entire time I was fighting Zenos in Ala Mhigo. Again, it's just subpar writing. In HW, we were able to defeat Nidhogg because we received a portion of Hraesvelgr's powers. That made sense. To defeat a dragon lord we needed the power of another dragon lord.

In SB, it's never explained or shown how we go from losing to Zenos twice, to suddenly defeating him without much trouble (canonically). Hell, even if they gave us some sort of artifact to use, it would have made much more sense.

[Sinh119]

I thought about this the entire time I was fighting Zenos in Ala Mhigo. Again, it's just subpar writing. In HW, we were able to defeat Nidhogg because we received a portion of Hraesvelgr's powers. That made sense. To defeat a dragon lord we needed the power of another dragon lord.

In SB, it's never explained or shown how we go from losing to Zenos twice, to suddenly defeating him without much trouble (canonically). Hell, even if they gave us some sort of artifact to use, it would have made much more sense.

My understanding is that the level differential between us and Zenos was, quite literally, the canonical difference between ours and his abilities. While obviously levels mean very little in terms of canon, it’s pretty clear that their intention with making him start at 70 and us having to work towards that was to show the power differential, and the ways in which we were working to overcome it. Further, we never really defeated Zenos in the first place. We beat him in the Ala Mhigo dungeon, but even then it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t legitimately trying to defeat us, rather testing us to see if we were worthy of fighting his Shinryu form. This is why after the dungeon ends he has no visible or noticeable injuries of any kind.

Now, the reason why we are able to beat Shinryu is the same as the reason why we could beat any primal; the blessing of light. Thordan is most likely stronger than Zenos is in Canon, but the reason why we canonically soloed Thordan and his knights twelve is because the Blessing of Light rendered us immune to his most devastating attacks (such as Ultimate End). Similarly, the Blessing of Light is the reason we survived Protostar and his other ultimate attacks such as Judgement Bolt and Earthen Fury. The Warrior of Light is essentially an anti-Primal superweapon. Remember, the only real reason Zenos lost at all was because he was a complete lunatic. He could have played it safe, lured us into a trap and abused his Echo akin to Fordola, but that’s contrary to his character. He wanted to be defeated on a grandiose arena by a worthy opponent, hence why he took his own life. I really don’t think we could have beaten Zenos under normal circumstances.

[LineageRazor]

The other (yet another) thing that troubled me with Stormblood was how easy it was to basically walk in and liberate two countries that have suffered for years, and we didn't even do that much. It feels a bit cheap, really.

I thought this aspect was WAY more pronounced in Heavensward. You waltz in and, in a matter of weeks, bring peace between dragons and humans that have been at war for more than a thousand years, and have that war deeply entrenched in their culture. Liberating Doma and Abania, Garlean occupied for decades rather than millennia, seemed a LOT more reasonable compared to that.

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.

I felt like Zenos was poorly handled, as well. They definitely needed to make the final encounter with him more challenging, to match up to the expectations the Main Scenario laid down in building him up as some kind of amazing badass. He should not have been a faceroll dungeon boss - or, at the very least, should have had an optional "EX" version to serve as the TRUE Zenos encounter. (The dungeon boss? Just propaganda we shared with the common folk to downplay the Garleans' reputation for being unstoppable. The true fight, we shared with only the Wandering Minstrel who, for once, had no need to embellish...)

I also felt like the first encounter with Xenos made no sense. We couldn't touch him at all - he had NO reason at that point to suspect that we were his destined foe, and he should have ended us right there. The outcome of the second encounter, where we chipped his mask? THAT should have been the first encounter. THAT should have been the seed that started his obsession with us, that began his irrational leadership decisions designed to pave us a path to him once we were ready. The second counter should have been closer still, convincing him that he made the right choice in sparing us the first time.

There seemed to be no good reason why he left us alive the first time, as we utterly failed to impress him.

[Alleo]

I am also more of a fan of the HW story (and cant see how the rest of SB can get better than that) because I bonded with the characters more (even if I still hate what they have done to some of them..). I did like Thordan as an enemy and even the ascians had some important scenes in this.

For SB I just dont really care much for Lyse or her fight. I choose the "its not my fight" sentence at the beginning (I mean we just fought a war before that..can we get a break?) but was still forced in this. I would have loved to help the common people more instead of being at the front and one of the most important fighters again. (Honestly its annoying how we are again one of the major reasons why they even stood a chance) At the same time the singing at the end pissed me off. We fought against most of the harder enemies, we defeat Zenos and Shinryu..and yet its Lyse standing alone in the first row..why could we not stand next to her? I really felt like I was sidelined here even though they would not have defeated Zenos without us.

I also disliked the forced defeat against Zenos and only the Steppe part really got to me, since I loved to get more information about the Auri. (And I do like the Doman characters more) I already felt like the war against the dragon ended too fast but this was even worse in SB with two liberated countries. It never truly felt like war. And I am not a friend of all these redemptions arcs that are going on (still hope that at least one will end badly) or Lyse being so naive that she even invited tempered Anantas..as a scion she should have known that you cant be reasonable with them and it was way too naive. Without Arenvald, Fordola and the WoL they all would have been tempered.

I thought about this the entire time I was fighting Zenos in Ala Mhigo. Again, it's just subpar writing. In HW, we were able to defeat Nidhogg because we received a portion of Hraesvelgr's powers. That made sense. To defeat a dragon lord we needed the power of another dragon lord.

In SB, it's never explained or shown how we go from losing to Zenos twice, to suddenly defeating him without much trouble (canonically). Hell, even if they gave us some sort of artifact to use, it would have made much more sense.

Especially since not much time has gone by between the second fight against him and his defeat (and we even won with him being part of Shinryu) so I cant just see the "we train so hard" as an argument. But thats the problem in a story which should be going on for some years..if you already defeat Thordan and his knights solo (this was written in the lore book) who was powered up by Nidhoggs eyes, Lahabrea and thousand years of prayers...it makes even less sense to lose against one person..an army might be a problem but one person? What sudden next powerhouse will we meet in 5.0?

Now, the reason why we are able to beat Shinryu is the same as the reason why we could beat any primal; the blessing of light. Thordan is most likely stronger than Zenos is in Canon, but the reason why we canonically soloed Thordan and his knights twelve is because the Blessing of Light rendered us immune to his most devastating attacks (such as Ultimate End). Similarly, the Blessing of Light is the reason we survived Protostar and his other ultimate attacks such as Judgement Bolt and Earthen Fury. The Warrior of Light is essentially an anti-Primal superweapon. Remember, the only real reason Zenos lost at all was because he was a complete lunatic. He could have played it safe, lured us into a trap and abused his Echo akin to Fordola, but that’s contrary to his character. He wanted to be defeated on a grandiose arena by a worthy opponent, hence why he took his own life. I really don’t think we could have beaten Zenos under normal circumstances.

Its the echo that saves us from primals (but that only makes us able to fight them without being tempered and does not make us stronger). It is not really that clear if the blessing gives us really much off a power up. Hydaelyn had to help us against Ultima by shielding us directly. This and saving Krile decreased her power a lot. So we would not be able to constantly use that blessing because we would suck our crystals dry and with that her. (Or am I missing some clear ingame signs that we are constantly using our blessing?) At the same time we were able to defeat some primals and other foes without our blessing in HW.

We also beat Zenos down before he got into Shinryu so we seemed quite powerful enough. But ingame not that much time has gone by..when did we have the time to train so hard?

[Remedi]

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.

Tbh I don't think they really set up thordan that well, the first time they have shown him, they also put elidubus and lahabrea on his sides, they could've just left a giant sign with bad guy written on it, not like that him beign a religious figure was already a sign, I mean they could've aired Sean Bean to be his VA since they were there.
Beside that we had really few times with him and while we had even less with nidghogg we could see his effect around us, as in the effect of the dravanian horde, the heretics and so on, Zenos on the other hand had plenty of screentime which made him more of a characters than a simple figurehead (because both Thordan and Nidhogg are essentially figureheads), we also had a glimpse of his psyche and his ways, which made us understand what he was doing and what were his aspirations.
Which brings me to Thordan, what was his goal in going to Azys Lla exactly? The war at that time was effectively over, yet he said he wanted to excise the evil of the dravanian horde which by then was completely quelled because nidhogg was dead, I mean It feels like they had to fit the allagans in the story somehow to me and what's worse they didn't do anything with the zone

[Sinh119]

Which brings me to Thordan, what was his goal in going to Azys Lla exactly? The war at that time was effectively over, yet he said he wanted to excise the evil of the dravanian horde which by then was completely quelled because nidhogg was dead, I mean It feels like they had to fit the allagans in the story somehow to me and what's worse they didn't do anything with the zone

Just going to answer this question because I have far too much time on my hands. The reason why Thordan went to Asyz Lla was to absorb the primal essences of the Warring Triad. When a member of the Warring Triad is first awakened, they are in an incredibly weakened, almost dreamlike state. Thordan would have had the Heaven's Ward disable the Allagan restraints and defense mechanisms, then absorbed them into Ascalon to add onto his already monumental power while the primals were weak. If he succeeded, he would have been unstoppable. His overarching goal was not only to end the Dragonsong War, but to act as the judge, jury and executioner for all of mankind, serving as a literal god to the peoples of not only Eorzea, but the entire world.

Unfortunately, the base story of Heavensward didn't convey the stakes properly. We find all of this out in the Warring Triad questline, which occured after the main story, so Asyz Lla seems out of place when we first encounter it.

[Remedi]

Yes, i remember that part, but he also said that he was going to purge the evil that plagued ishgard for centuries, which I suppose was talking about the dravanian horde, by the time he made his move nidhogg was gone, the war ended and the heretic essentially gave up. I think they added the judge part at the end to rise the stake, but as said it felt tacked on to me at least

[TaiyoShikasu]

snip

Except the Warrior of Light is a literal godslayer while Zenos is...I don't know, something like Captain America. Only reason he appears to be strong is because of getting an Echo-like thing in him and plot.

Unless future patches explain how someone who is essentially just a man can thwart someone who can't go a week without felling literal gods or going toe to toe with Midgardsormr who may as well be on a whole 'nother level, it absolutely comes off as some Creator's Pet type shenanigans.

[Remedi]

Well many game tackle the fact that humans have infinite possibility and the perfect godslayers by making the impossible possible, it's also what Omega is searching about us. Besides do we know exactly when Zenos fused himself with the echo in.game?