Stormblood ending was thoroughly disappointing

[Makeda]

Hmmm...

I feel somewhat differently.

The Stormblood cast resonated more with me. I liked the role the WoL plays.

Lyse was my least favorite character - she was stupid and childishly arrogant for most of the story and it took her way too long to her head straight for me.

I really liked Hein. I liked Magnai - total jerk that he is. Cirina had a small but for me memorable part. Sadu was great - all the steppe characters in fact.

I really enjoyed the interplay between Zenos and the WoL. And how Zenos goes out at the end of 4.0.

Yugiri not as much of a character. But after what happened to her first HW voice actress... I actually kind of would have preferred the character be retired somehow. The new actress was good - but her role was my least interesting one.

I really liked Meffrid and Minago and Fordola.

For HW... The only character I was really fond of was Haurchefant... There was good interplay for many characters though. The story grabbed me, but Stormblood's grabbed me more.

I felt that in HW, most of the characters got interesting only as they were wrapping up - their last few quests would grab me. In Stormblood, other than Lyse they were interesting to me early on... Lyse I wanted to knock right out of the plot until near the end when she 'got better'...

[Makeda]

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.

There actually is some real world precedent for this sort of thing...

Not on a scale of weeks, but there are multi-generational wars that an outside group, in one case even a very small outside group, have waltzed in and ended.

Marshal Plan at the end of WWII has effectively brought peace between the Western European powers that had been in constant war since the fall of the Roman Empire... and before the Romans since the stone age (that set of facts implies that the day the EU breaks up, they'll be at war again).
The same conflict ended war between Japan and Korea that had been on/off for the last 1000 years.

Cortez ended a two-century long brutal occupation in Meseoamerica in the span of about a year when he helped the Toltecs overthrow the Aztecs. He was almost a literal 'Warrior of Light' style figure - a singular strange outsider from an unknown land showing up and rallying defeated locals who were abused on a scale that made the Garlean occupation of Doma look 'friendly'. Those who replaced Cortez after he was 'removed' by Spain turned this is a much less amiable situation... but Cortez himself sort of 'forms the mold' for this archetype of the outsider intervention.

France and England bringing their conflict to the region that is now Vermont / Quebec ended an 800 year long war between the Mohawk and Iroquois.

- Note how in the real world... the end of these conflicts at the hands of outsiders often leads to 'mixed results'. Not all of these were ideal resolutions. But... the idea of an outsider waltzing in and ending somebody else's war is not just 'made up fiction'.

[ObsidianFire]

The biggest mistake SB made was trying to cram so much story into one expansion. There's way more development of the plot and characters in SB compared to HW so everything feels very... rushed. If it was only Ala Mhigo or only Doma being freed, then we could have spent a lot longer seeing characters develop instead of being told how they develop which is one of the most frequent complaints I see about SB's story.

As for Zenos... I've seen his character archetype often enough in anime/manga that his character arc was incredibly predictable (has a one-sided rivalry with someone, when he's eventually defeated, doesn't know what to do with himself). I was just glad he wasn't alive by the end. He isn't the most original character FFXIV has had, but given that both the main Garlean villains in both ARR and HW were both sane individuals who were more morally grey then totally black and white, I'm okay with that.

[Lium]

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?

I thought he was powering himself by binding the primal to him, somehow. At least that's what was implied during the cutscene before we face Shinryu. He asks you what you would do with the primal if he, Zenos, would step out of the way. You are given two options to respond: Kill it or bind it. Obviously I chose kill it. To which Zenos replies that that's a simple answer but expected from the eikon-slayer.

[Remedi]

No i meant when exactly he got the resonance. From his dialogue he must've found it after he became viceroy of ala mhigo

[TaiyoShikasu]

snip

Eh, I see what you mean and the initial part was definitely suffering from having too much going on at once which it seems like they're rectifying with having following patches focus only on one aspect. I believe it was said 4.3 would be the end of the Doma storyline, so in theory that would leave 4.35-4.x to be focused on presumably Ala Mhigo in the build up to 5.0.

[Sinh119]

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.

The Warrior of Light is obviously superior to regular people, but in regards to eikons (as in the Allagan definition), it isn't our own skill or abilities that allows us to go toe to toe with eikons, it's the blessing of light. Without it, even if we had the Echo, things like Ultimate End, Protostar, and Ultima would annihilate us. Zenos, a person who has received years of cybernetic enhancements and possesses an incredibly potent version of the Echo himself, is definitely capable of giving us a run for our money, especially since the blessing of light doesn't protect us against non-Eikons. Now why the blessing of light doesn't grant us protection for things that aren't eikons and how the blessing of light even precisely works outside of shielding us from fatal attacks isn't known, but that seems to be intentional.

[Sinh119]

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?

Well we know that the blessing of light shields us based on Thordan's boss fight. The Crystals of Light we collected throughout ARR empowered the blessing of light, but the blessing itself has always been there. Hydaelyn directly empowered it so we could survive Ultima back in Praetorium. Revitalizing the Crystals after Midgardsormr weakened them further empowered the blessing, and we can see it physically manifest and protect us in Thordan's boss fight. Further, Niabrales in the MSQ of ARR says that the blessing of light acts like a shield, and in the Aerochimerical Research Facility, Lahabreah reinforces this by exclaiming in incredulity how powerful our blessing has become, comparing it to a wall. Mind you there's nothing that explicitly states that the blessing of light is protecting us in all primal encounters, but it was a reasonable inference on my part based on the evidence provided.

[EDIT]: To address how we fought primals in Heavensward with a weakened or absent blessing of light, Bismarck was defeated in a very specific way using Dragonkillers, but Ravana is a little bit more up in the air. For Ravana it really depends on how you interpret the events that occured. Ysayle specifically says that you should go get help, thus it's not implausible that we gathered up people and canonically took him down with numbers, but Ravana's whole thing was single combat oriented. If the blessing of light was present, albeit weakened, that would explain it (this is also my personal belief), but some think the blessing was removed entirely based on Midgardsormr's dialogue, only returning at the end of Heavensward. It also depends how much damage Shiva actually caused to Ravana. Personally I think Ravana was simply a lesser primal who we defeated with a severely weakened blessing of light, but it's far more up to interpretation than most other fights (Although ARR primals are up in the air too in terms of canon)

The Echo saves us from Primals in that it prevents us from being tempered. Even with the blessing, tempering would still occur if the Echo was not present, thus it's our combination of the Echo and the blessing that allows us to survive. This is the primary reason the Warrior of Light is unique in their ability to slay primals single-handedly; many have the echo, few have the blessing.

We didn't truly beat down Zenos. We can see in the cutscene after the boss battle that we did little, if any, damage to him. Once he was satisfied with our ability he quite literally nonchalantly walked to the Royal Menagerie and released Shinryu. My interpretation of events was that he tested us using his 3 strongest and most prized blades, after which he was content enough to conclude we were truly worthy opponents, unlike in Doma and Rhalgr's Reach. As for the training, nearly single-handedly liberating two entire nations gave us a lot of experience, and after being beaten by Zenos, our resolve to grow strong enough to stop him was increased. Us gaining levels to catch up to his level 70 was a literal representation of us approaching him in skill and power.

[Alleo]

Hmm did not see us surviving that Thordan attack as the blessing but it could be. Still it seems to only act as a shield and we were still able to defeat primals without it (it was completely sealed in HW) so I am not sure if we can say that it would boost us (as in raising our attack power). Seeing how Hydaelyn was weakened from just Ultima and how she needed Minfilia to even talk to us, I have a problem to see how we were constantly helped by the blessing. So maybe we got some shields but those only help us survive some big attacks. We would still need to be quite powerful to defeat the primal itsef. I also cant see how we would get help with Ravana. We did travel there with only our NPC friends and I am quite sure that the enemies would not just let us leave (and us leaving Ysayle behind too). So we had to fight him alone.

We might get stronger but the problem is that there is not much of a huge time skip between the battles. If we only fought against him once before the final fight I could have believed it a bit more. (Like someone said: Let the second fight be our first and us being able to at least touch him) But we did fought him with like 2 or 3 level difference in Doma and still did not really stand a chance. We also did mostly fight against fodder and humans after that fight so I cant see how we suddenly got a better skill. (Thordan and Nidhogg did not raise our levels for example, the same with the fight against the WoD)

[Iscah]

How is using glamour to trick the enemy who outnumbers you into a retreat cheap? I guess I'm one of the few who was fine with how we got the Xaela to help. We run across a tribe that says to us their gods say they'll win the ruler fight yet they know they're a weak tribe. Their rules said anyone who proved themselves as a warrior could participate in their next ruler fight. [...] To me I feel like us getting them to help in the freeing Doma was just putting a bigger challenge in front of people who haven't had to fight anyone else but themselves. Which makes two of the toughest tribes drool at the chance at showing who's better and maybe learn some new tricks.

Fair point on the glamoured flag strategy. That was clever. But there seemed to be too many towns where we just walked in and the Garleans had already withdrawn.

And I think... things like labouring the point that the Garleans and their local enforcers are awful people who will take vengeance on uninvolved townsfolk if anyone tries to fight back, only to have us do that regardless - it sets up this awful ominous feeling about what you're trying to do, then basically ignores it while you sweep to victory anyway.

The thing with the Xaela is - if they're so eager to fight, why not just go straight to Magnai and say "hey, we have this awesome plan and you can help us out by taking on a fleet of Garlean airships with nothing but your axe, wouldn't that be a great challenge?" and maybe he'd agree anyway. Even if we still had to run all the minor quests to earn the tribes' trust before they'd agree, it's a very different vibe to walking in, being the 'mighty foreigner who's better than everyone', getting crowned leader of the Steppe even though you're not staying around to actually fulfil that responsibility, and ordering them to fight for you. It would be an alliance, as equals instead of essentially a conscripted (if willing) army, and the outcome would be the same.

(If nothing else, it should have been Hien that claimed the title of khagan. I don't want it. He did, it was his plan to get the Xaela to fight his fight, and he's at least nearby in Doma instead of off adventuring halfway around the world.)

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.

Trying to work out where the difference is and why I didn't feel the same... The biggest difference between the stories is that in Heavensward you're trying to stop a war and in Stormblood you're leading one! But additionally in Heavensward, you're not "taking a side" but trying to be the wedge that will prevent the two sides (neither of which is truly 'the bad side') from fighting, while discovering and resolving the root of the conflict. You're in a unique position to do so because you're an outsider, not caught up in Ishgard's perception of the dragons as an unholy enemy, and with the rare circumstance of Ysayle being on good terms with the dragons (and you probably being the only person who would think of getting 'that heretic' to help you on your quest).

Stormblood on the other hand... it's a war, not against gods or spirits but against other people, and we're fighting it. For the most part, it's not something we alone are able to do, and we're just another soldier following battle plans.

It's also just a huge contrast in the setting of the two games - one is a fantasy quest in a world of knights and dragons and the other is a gritty desert war between a militia in modern-ish clothing and a human army with guns and mechanical tanks. (Even the new clothes that Tataru gifts to everyone have a more 'modern casual' look to them than the other gear in the game.) It's very jarring.

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.

[...]

...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.

Personal taste again, but I was quite happy to be left out of the singing... but also I feel like they really overused that musical theme (and the main Stormblood one) and I was just sick of that music. I think it was a bad choice to use those melodies as the background music for the main cities - they're quite short and repetitive and I was at the point of muting the game while in towns rather than having to listen to it repeat for the umpteenth time.


And I think you're mis-blaming Lyse for that incident with the Anantas. I double-checked the script. Pipin says that all the beast tribes had been invited (not specifying who invited them, but probably not Lyse's personal decision) and it was expected that the Qalyana would simply refuse - but they didn't, thus the awkward political situation that they couldn't prevent them from attending. (They couldn't just leave them out, and it's better to be on good terms with the tribe.) So they let the Qalyana attend as long as they didn't bring any crystals that would allow them to perform a summoning - a reasonable compromise if trickery hadn't been involved.

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

I'm a little confused by what you're meaning. You say he "wasn't set up well" but then talk about the things they did to set him up from the start as someone who would be an antagonist later on? What are you thinking they should have done instead?

We might not have seen a lot of the archbishop directly, but enough to establish him - and overall there's enough talk of the church, of their attitude towards the dragons and the heretics, that it was inevitable that we were going to have to confront them at some point.