My perspective as a new player who started in 2018

[Edax]

While I like Heavensward more,I still enjoyed Stormblood a lot.

I do agree that it feels somewhat disjointed since they decided to resolve both the plots of Doma and Ala Mhigo all in one expansion compared to how HW centered around Ishgard,but at the same time in my opinion,it kinda gave a better scope regarding the reign of the empire and how much of the world their ironfist is reaching rather than have them be just in Eorzea.

That,and while I love HW like I said before,Zenos is just a much better villain than Thordan could ever hope to be(Honestly Nidhogg for me is the true villain of Heavensward)

What did you like about Zenos?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

What did you like about Zenos?

First,how he was set up as a villain.

Before that when we saw the main villains of ARR(Love Gaius too) and HW,they do give them sometime sure but you by the time they meet you in combat they never seemed to pose a challenge to the Warrior of Light storywise....that's more apparent with Thordan whom despite all the interesting history and build up behind him and the Knights of the Round gets a pretty easy and disappointing boss trial.

Zenos establishes himself right from the moment you meet with him in Rhalgar's Reach,yes it's a solo fight you meant to lose but it happens very early on and he's the only solo duty enemy to be 10 levels higher than you by default and your attacks do nothing against the terrifying Resonance power he wields.That right there sets up the mood for Zenos as this intimidating powerful figure whom you're gonna be working your character's butt off throughout the game for your eventual confrontation with him at the end.And it concludes gameplay wise with pretty fun battles in Ala Mhigo's palace and is crowned by his battle as Shinryu which,in comparison to Thordan and Gaius/Ultima Weapon,is a decently challenging fight that does teach you some mechanics you'd encounter in later story patches rather than (Go throw yourself at the boss repeatedly until he dies)

Second,his presence and performance.Sure he might lack some of the intrigue Gaius had from 1.0 up to ARR,but for me he makes up for it with his presence.Right after the battle in Rhalgar's Reach you start to see how Zenos's rule has affected both Ala Mhigo and Doma in different ways from his control over Fordola and her skull unit,how he crushed the resistence in Doma during his time as a viceroy there before he appointed Yotsuyu....not to mention the fact that you do encounter him again in Doma so he's not just waiting at the end game for his imminent defeat but he does get involved himself.Sure his endgoal is self-centered compared to the previous two villains since all he cared about is finding someone strong enough to give him a thrilling battle,but he does so well as a villain for me to be dissapointed with him.

And his performance is so hammy and over the top he almost owns every scene he appeared in thanks to his voice actor Luke Allen-Gale in the English version.

Maybe it's just me but when it comes to ranking villains from XIV,,Nidhogg would be first,Gaius and Zenos would be tied(each for different reasons),followed by Nael Van Darnus in third and finally Thordan in last

[Edax]

First,how he was set up as a villain.


Zenos establishes himself right from the moment you meet with him in Rhalgar's Reach,yes it's a solo fight you meant to lose but it happens very early on and he's the only solo duty enemy to be 10 levels higher than you by default and your attacks do nothing against the terrifying Resonance power he wields.That right there sets up the mood for Zenos as this intimidating powerful figure whom you're gonna be working your character's butt off throughout the game for your eventual confrontation with him at the end.And it concludes gameplay wise with pretty fun battles in Ala Mhigo's palace and is crowned by his battle as Shinryu which,in comparison to Thordan and Gaius/Ultima Weapon,is a decently challenging fight that does teach you some mechanics you'd encounter in later story patches rather than (Go throw yourself at the boss repeatedly until he dies)

Second,his presence and performance.Sure he might lack some of the intrigue Gaius had from 1.0 up to ARR,but for me he makes up for it with his presence.Right after the battle in Rhalgar's Reach you start to see how Zenos's rule has affected both Ala Mhigo and Doma in different ways from his control over Fordola and her skull unit,how he crushed the resistence in Doma during his time as a viceroy there before he appointed Yotsuyu....not to mention the fact that you do encounter him again in Doma so he's not just waiting at the end game for his imminent defeat but he does get involved himself.Sure his endgoal is self-centered compared to the previous two villains since all he cared about is finding someone strong enough to give him a thrilling battle,but he does so well as a villain for me to be dissapointed with him.

And his performance is so hammy and over the top he almost owns every scene he appeared in thanks to his voice actor Luke Allen-Gale in the English version.

Maybe it's just me but when it comes to ranking villains from XIV,,Nidhogg would be first,Gaius and Zenos would be tied(each for different reasons),followed by Nael Van Darnus in third and finally Thordan in last

Ehh, I thought the setup solo fight with Zenos was lame. You'd probably get killed by any boss quicker if you tried to solo them, especially Thordan. Heck, you could have made ol' Captain Madison from Sastasha your nemesis, since this game isn't really set up for the WOL to fight bosses one on one. We've been conditioned from day one of the game to get at least 3 others to help out in a big fight.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Ehh, I thought the setup solo fight with Zenos was lame. You'd probably get killed by any boss quicker if you tried to solo them, especially Thordan. Heck, you could have made ol' Captain Madison from Sastasha your nemesis, since this game isn't really set up for the WOL to fight bosses one on one. We've been conditioned from day one of the game to get at least 3 others to help out in a big fight.

Lol.It's just my personal opinion.

You do get solo boss-esque battles in HW and Stormblood,some of which you don't even have NPCs with you like Estinien's boss battle in the dragoon questline so no I kinda disagree here xD

Again I'm relatively new so maybe that's why I don't have much hatred towards Stormblood.....maybe that'll change in the future but right now I did like most what I got from it except Eureka which was bleh

[Edax]

Lol.It's just my personal opinion.

You do get solo boss-esque battles in HW and Stormblood,some of which you don't even have NPCs with you like Estinien's boss battle in the dragoon questline so no I kinda disagree here xD

Again I'm relatively new so maybe that's why I don't have much hatred towards Stormblood.....maybe that'll change in the future but right now I did like most what I got from it except Eureka which was bleh

Well, I only finished HW at the end of patch 4.0 because I wanted a chance at getting a Shirogane house (boy was that a let down), so I ended up blowing through Heavensward and Stormblood's story at lightning speed back to back. Granted, Stormblood's story isn't over with, but I could really feel the difference in the quality of storytelling since I experienced both expansions within weeks of each other.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Well, I only finished HW at the end of patch 4.0 because I wanted a chance at getting a Shirogane house (boy was that a let down), so I ended up blowing through Heavensward and Stormblood's story at lightning speed back to back. Granted, Stormblood's story isn't over with, but I could really feel the difference in the quality of storytelling since I experienced both expansions within weeks of each other.

I took my time with it honestly.I started in June with ARR but didn't get to Stormblood until September.I took my time doing things like sidequests,job quests,side storylines....etc

Yes Heavensward is better than Stormblood but I still think Stormblood is excellent so far as I observe it with all the background and lore I gathered from ARR and HW and seeing things unfold as I keep playing.It ain't perfect by any means,but personally I'd preserve my judgement till the final SB patch rolls out

And even then,both HW and SB in their own way fix a lot of major issues I had with A Realm Reborn as both are better than ARR in almost every way.

ARR might be the revival of XIV but you can see the remnants of 1.0 lingering in more ways than one.Especially the excessive amount of padding especially in Coerthas and the fact that 90% of the scions barely did much with the exceptions of Yshtola,Thancred and maybe Papalymo and Lyse.Minfillia in particular was very infuriating for me as a lot of the tasks she gave you in ARR felt like busy work which added to the excessive padding I mentioned earlier storywise.Something that both HW and SB fixes as those two don't have anywhere near as many stretches of nothing happening like ARR did