I just dont understand whats going on with the 24 man storyline

[Cilia]

Wiping City, er, Weeping City also uses a heavily altered version of IX's regular battle theme for background music (well, a mashup of IX's battle theme and XIV 2.0's Mor Dhona theme), as a reference to Ozma's origins as a random encounter superboss in IX.

Ozma wasn't a random encounter! You had to go far, far out of your way to fight him and are given a warning before the fight! It's not like I's Warmechs!

I'm afraid I disagree, the whole CT arc isn't just very similar, it's essentially the final 3 dungeons of FFIII ported to XIV, slapped some allagans shenanigans on it and called it a day. It's down to the very entrance to the tower.
Ivalice on the other hand can be actually considered a remaking of the whole ivalice alliance since it reworks most of the historical events to create what can be considered a new continuity to that setting only tied to the XIV setting and frankly it is miles better adapted than the CT storyline. Luckily we are getting new material to CT to actually rectifying those mistakes which were made simply because the game was new

If you look only at the locations sure. Yeah, they put the final dungeon(s) from III in the game... but despite sharing locations and character names the story is a bit different. (Did you know that in III Amon isn't a brilliant aetherochemist responsible for cloning / reviving Xande from the dead? He's just a palette swap of Hein, the final opponent faced at the end of the game's Floating Continent arc who used dark magic to animate the Elder Tree and use it as a mobile fortress, christening it "Castle Hein." Hein's gimmick was switching his elemental weakness; Amon is just a random encounter in the Crystal Tower.)

Using broad strokes like that there's nothing original in Return to Ivalice... they swapped Tactics and XII's places in Ivalice's timelines, replaced the Archadian Empire with Garlemald, and gave us some companions to deliver infodumps before and after the raids. (New monster designs though! Some of them, anyway.)

They made some adaptations (such as making B'gamnan a Dalmascan fusilier instead of a sky pirate, giving the Garleans ancestral ties to Goug, and apparently giving Delita more overt nobility), but leaving out locations and monsters the story feels a bit more cut and paste to me than the Crystal Tower's did. (Might just be my distaste for Ivalice talking though.)

[Remedi]

If you look only at the locations sure. Yeah, they put the final dungeon(s) from III in the game... but despite sharing locations and character names the story is a bit different. (Did you know that in III Amon isn't a brilliant aetherochemist responsible for cloning / reviving Xande from the dead? He's just a palette swap of Hein, the final opponent faced at the end of the game's Floating Continent arc who used dark magic to animate the Elder Tree and use it as a mobile fortress, christening it "Castle Hein." Hein's gimmick was switching his elemental weakness; Amon is just a random encounter in the Crystal Tower.)

Using broad strokes like that there's nothing original in Return to Ivalice... they swapped Tactics and XII's places in Ivalice's timelines, replaced the Archadian Empire with Garlemald, and gave us some companions to deliver infodumps before and after the raids. (New monster designs though! Some of them, anyway.)

They made some adaptations (such as making B'gamnan a Dalmascan fusilier instead of a sky pirate, giving the Garleans ancestral ties to Goug, and apparently giving Delita more overt nobility), but leaving out locations and monsters the story feels a bit more cut and paste to me than the Crystal Tower's did. (Might just be my distaste for Ivalice talking though.)

I played III, I know about the story and enemies, I know that Amon was an eureka boss guardian to one of the sealed weapons and palette swap of Hien, just like I know that Syrcus tower had only 1 boss which was Xande but they simply took the bosses of Eureka and placed them there so inpractice they changed nothing,
You can't really say that they really went out of their way to place the III version into XIV since as I repeat they choose some characters and slapped some allagans shenanigans on them it's not a reimagining of it and I do think that you smply dislike the setting as you said and realistically this game has been a cut and paste of many FF moments that saying XII crossed the lines is wrong.

[Fenral]

Ozma wasn't a random encounter! You had to go far, far out of your way to fight him and are given a warning before the fight! It's not like I's Warmechs!

Ah, I was confusing him with the fairies. And probably Warmech. Come to think of it, IX's regular battle theme isn't actually involved in that questline at all, but it's definitely used in Wiping City because of Ozma...

[Daralii]

Ah, I was confusing him with the fairies. And probably Warmech. Come to think of it, IX's regular battle theme isn't actually involved in that questline at all, but it's definitely used in Wiping City because of Ozma...

IX isn't used much in general, which is unfortunate. I think it's just Ozma, the Prima Vista, and the Tantalus set.