Ended sb, someone forgot his key? (spoil)

[Bright-Flower]

I'm not quite convinced that Hydalyn is evil/malicious, she is supposedly helping via Minfilia to help abate the flood of light afterall, but I do expect us to be fighting some sort of light based antagonist, probably one that WANTS to flood the realm with light.

Though it would kind of cool if the msq finale of this story arc was similar to the end of Smash Bros Ultimate's story mode but with Hydalyn and Zodiark. Part of me was kind of hoping we'd get something like that at the end of the Omega story before SB released and we killed Shinryu independant of Omega.

[Brill_]

I'm replaying HW right now on my alt and it really seems to fizzle after the vault.

[Ameela]

My main problem with SB is that it just doesn't live up to its own hype lol

Like Ala Mhigo and Doma have both been under Empire rule for twenty years and throughout that time various rebel groups have tried to fight the Garleans and reclaim their homeland to no avail, yet somehow the moment the Warrior of Light shows up they manage to liberate both while barely breaking a sweat?
There's various scenes where they try to play up the Garleans as this huge threat but that kind of loses its effectiveness when we've been killing random Garlean troops since level 20 or so and they were just as much fodder then as they are now.

Also none of the characters aside from the WoL have any agency, if you're not there they literally don't get to do anything meaningful (as proven by the fact that when the party returns from Doma to Gyr Abania the place and the people there are pretty much the same as when we left lol)

[NeocronNV]

I'm not quite convinced that Hydalyn is evil/malicious, she is supposedly helping via Minfilia to help abate the flood of light afterall, but I do expect us to be fighting some sort of light based antagonist, probably one that WANTS to flood the realm with light.

I fully expect to discover that Hydalyn/Light and Zodiark/Dark aren't the good vs evil duo that we've been lead to believe thus far. I expect Yoshi-P will do something very similar to what Blizzard has done with The Light and The Void at the tail-end of Legion and a part of Battle for Azeroth, which suggests that there is no absolute good/evil... only absolute fanaticism that leads to actions that can be perceived as good or evil. In Legion, a Naaru (a physical embodiment of The Light basically) tried to force her will on a character against his will under the pretense that said character had no free will and only by embracing The Light can he be made whole. In Battle for Azeroth, followers of The Light have taken their worship of The Light to such an extreme that they became rigid and intolerant of anyone and anything that didn't embrace The Light and basically waged a Holy War against anyone who didn't bend the knee, as it were.

Now obviously that's Blizzard and we all know Blizzard's writing isn't exactly in the same league as Square-Enix. But I can easily easy see Yoshi-P taking some thematic inspiration from what they've done and expanding upon it.

[SannaR]

We haven't heard from Hydalyn because she's still fairly week and she sent her mouth piece to another shard to try and stop the flood of light there. Each rejoining weakens her as it takes a lot of aether to repair after a calamity. She also used up a lot to protect us during our fight against the Ultima Weapon and the use of the spell.

Between the 5.0 trailer and what we have left there's a lot of questions and I do think we'll be left with just as many after the second half drops. They're changing things up in where back when Alphinaud was all hey I'm goin to Garamald everyone was on that boat, but now it's all wait what. To the point where there isn't a clear leap of how we'll become a WoD or if things like shard hopping or time travel will be involved.

[Mansion]

It's difficult to judge objectively but if it comes to pure writing, I think Stormblood has one major flaw and that's the weird "what if we go to Doma?" part that crashes the beginning of 4.0. By the end of Doma Castle, Ala Mhigo seems so far away than going back there just like that is pretty awkward. Needless to point that the inbalance in favour of Doma feels weird in regard to the "We're going to Ala Mhigo" build up we had from the end of Heavensward.

Heavensward in comparison is more focused from beginning to end, and I think that's why most people preferred it. Its build-ups, character developments, striking scenes; it all flows naturally in the course of the story.
In comparison, Stormblood is a bit disjointed, which is another form of narrative and that's fine, but I guess it is harder to handle. I'm not surprised some players could end up wondering why they are fighting a bunch of bullies in the Azim Steppe and how it relates to the bigger picture.

But I think Stormblood did better with its patches MSQ (the Yotsuyu part was formidable, yet once again it's all for Doma and not much for Ala Mhigo).

[HyoMinPark]

Not rlly on written stand point its a fact

Personal opinion. Not fact. Please learn to differentiate between the two.

I much prefer HW to SB. I think the story was well written, the characters engaging (especially the leads), and there are moments in that story that have stuck with me since I did it the first time (Patch 3.3 really comes to mind here). It's an expansion I don't mind doing repeatedly on alts. SB falls short in all those regards for me, though there are a few memorable moments; but they didn't hit me as hard as the ones in HW did.

But again, what I've written here an opinion, not a statement of fact. Just like you're of an opinion that SB's writing better better than HW, I'm of one that HW was better than SB. ARR is kind of meh until about Garuda, and only pieces of 2.x are decent, imo. Most is pointless filler that can be skipped to no detriment of the main storyline.

[Jandor]

My main problem with SB is that it just doesn't live up to its own hype lol

Like Ala Mhigo and Doma have both been under Empire rule for twenty years and throughout that time various rebel groups have tried to fight the Garleans and reclaim their homeland to no avail, yet somehow the moment the Warrior of Light shows up they manage to liberate both while barely breaking a sweat?
There's various scenes where they try to play up the Garleans as this huge threat but that kind of loses its effectiveness when we've been killing random Garlean troops since level 20 or so and they were just as much fodder then as they are now.

Liberating Doma felt somewhat plausible.

It was conquered, it rebelled, it was flattened, the infrastructure is destroyed and most of the population is dead or has left. It borders an almost religiously neutral nation and is essentially worthless to the Empire, as such they leave just a token garrison and pad it out with some mercenary beastmen.

The WoL and friends sneaking in and gathering allies, fomenting rebellion and quickly winning it with an all out strike against the regions Garlean representative makes sense.

Ala Mhigo though... it's the foothold in to Eorzea for the Empire. It's fully garrisoned. It has all the latest in Magitek toys. They found the rebels hideout, crushed them and then.. nothing, everyone sits and waits for us to finish our holiday in the Far East.
When we do get back it's pretty much an uninterrupted series of victories as we march on an Empire that was kind enough to sit and wait for us to get ready.

I find it all very implausible, to the point where it heavily detracts from the story for me.

It's difficult to judge objectively but if it comes to pure writing, I think Stormblood has one major flaw and that's the weird "what if we go to Doma?" part that crashes the beginning of 4.0. By the end of Doma Castle, Ala Mhigo seems so far away than going back there just like that is pretty awkward. Needless to point that the inbalance in favour of Doma feels weird in regard to the "We're going to Ala Mhigo" build up we had from the end of Heavensward.

It would have flowed much better as two pretty much totally separate arcs to be honest, with Doma coming first.

With everything wrapped up after HW, Yugiri decides to go back to Doma, and we decide to go along with her.
The WoL, Yugiri and Alisaie do the whole Doma thing pretty much as it was in game but just as you're planning your attack on the castle you get word that Ilberd assaulted Baelsar's wall & summoned a primal, the Alliance panicked and loosed Omega on it, and just in general things are really going south fast in Eorzea.

Bit of a moral dilemma, want to go back home to help, got to finish what you started in Doma though. Wrap up Doma arc and head back to Eorzea.

Ala Mhigo arc then plays out pretty much as it did, but when you get to the 'lets go to doma lol' bit of the story it just carries on in Gyr Abania instead.

[SannaR]

The whole reason Ala Mhigo was so easy and nothing happened is because Zenos found worthy prey in the Wol. He told everyone there to not do anything unless it involved us. The bad thing is anyone not Garlean didn't know this so the locals were probably as reluctant as before if not a little more than last time. That and the Alliance/resistance needed time to recoup and see where their numbers were at. Zenos is so fixated with the Wol that I'm kind of surprised he didn't write to Varis and go yo why didn't you tell me about the Wol sooner?

It will be interesting to see what role he plays in the second part as we do see Elzeno come onto the battlefield in the trailer. Along with what happens with him.

[MorbolvampireQueen6]

I don't think you know how opinions work.

Theres opinion

Then there id fact of the structure and flow of it.

Fact is sb is better structurer with the time line and flows more smoothly.

Hw time line is completely screwy story wise and reborn tbh was rushed over and had many things added in that were pointless for the story.