Theory for becoming a Warrior of Darkness

[Iscah]

I need to get back on that alt I created a while ago so I can see these things again. A nice refresher course.

...or wait for NG+, either or.

If you have alts, and unless the NG+ rewards are specifically going to benefit your main, it makes more sense to level an alt if you're going to replay the story.

[guardin]

To be honest i really hope our char just "snapped" and goes wod in super saiyan style storywise, considering all the buildup we've seen so far kind of goes that way...
- our friend "lost" one by one
- people rely our wol waaay too much now (i know we meant well but stil storywise the wol is just your char right? So technicaly one person. Cant imagine all the stress and preasure building inside all this time)
- we are not exactly super op now, latest fight with "zenos" seems to show that way, and sadu dotharl fight... she literally just laugh on our wol

I doubt it going that way but i love to see the "enter the darkness" scene done in goku first ssj style, i would grin like an idiot if every npc just went "wtf" when it happen lol

this please thus. all classes gets a super form where we slaughter innocence for at least one instance. At least give us a really cool purple and black (flames) aura that make us actually look like darkness

[ObsidianFire]

I need to get back on that alt I created a while ago so I can see these things again. A nice refresher course.

You can view those particular scenes in the Unending Journey in an inn. It's in the Seventh Astral Era Main Scenario Quests section. I think the quest it's in is "Levin an Impression"...

[Ceridwenae]

I don't know this SMT thing, but your chaos/law good/evil thing is a lot like D&D alignments (thought note I'm fussing with 3.5 edition rules, my last known set from DMing; I actually have no experience with later rulesets at this point; I believe later alignment rules may have been simplified, but that's about all I know).

Back when I was a younger person, I was naturally inclined toward chaotic good, with occasional hiccupping forays into true nuetral, chaotic neutral or lawful neutral, for my characters, but that CG is a lot like who I am anyway. I have also been called "Nice Evil", but that's not a thing and I'm not evil per se. Anyhoo, chaos isn't necessarily a bad thing (it's a LADDAH), it really is what you do with it that counts. Same with lawful stuff. You can have someone so lawful, playing it so by the book - we used to call these sort of paladin types "awful good" or "lawful boring" - but their rigid adherance to written law may not be fairly applicable to some circumstances (their reading of law may not necessarily be "just", if you will), and they can really hurt people even if it's still technically "the law". You can skirt lawful behaviour and doctrine and still bring about good things for others, because you know life isn't black and white (or all dark and light), but you can still keep the peace, and have things relatively nice and balanced... just not so fussed with the fine print of a contract, say. Or you can skirt lawful behaviour and doctrine, be an arse and ruin everyone's day whilst being absolutely evil about it because you're not doing it for the betterment of everyone and you're possibly a bit dumb if you think it's a sustainable way of life.

This may or may not be relevant to this particular game in this particular way however; I'm just wanting to add those D&D alignments to the pool for extra stuff to chew on when debating the differences between this particular game's own alignments.

[Daralii]

I don't know this SMT thing, but your chaos/law good/evil thing is a lot like D&D alignments (thought note I'm fussing with 3.5 edition rules, my last known set from DMing; I actually have no experience with later rulesets at this point; I believe later alignment rules may have been simplified, but that's about all I know).

SMT is short for Shin Megami Tensei, a JRPG series famous for brutal difficulty, having God as a final boss, and unironically featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series. Persona started off as a spinoff of it.

[Dualblade]

You can view those particular scenes in the Unending Journey in an inn. It's in the Seventh Astral Era Main Scenario Quests section. I think the quest it's in is "Levin an Impression"...

True enough for that scene but the stuff inbetween whats in the Journey I would need to do on an alt to see.

For Ceridwenae, I just find using Shin Megami Tensei gets the point across more here since enough people seem to atleast know its Law/Chaos/that one third path type. Though I actually did start playing DnD about a month and a half ago. More so since up until recently XIV has had Light simply be Lawful Good and Darkness Chaotic Evil when it comes to the grand scheme and is only visibly changing that stance to show both can go beyond those two alignments.

[Cilia]

Long story short, we're transitioning from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good.

The First's problems are very different to those of the Source, and Lawful Good just ain't gonna cut it over there!

[Tanker4444]

I dont think its about good or evil. Its about aligned aether imbalance. I could be mistaken but the first was always closely aligned to light just as the thirteenth was always closely aligned with darkness. Hence why one fell already and the other is teetering on the edge. Its all about Aether, not so much about good or evil. There may even be a shard closely aligned with fire and someday we may need to go there and put out the fire. We´ll be called the Warrior of Water then. Or maybe the Warrior of Wetness. Or maybe even the Warrior of Moistness.

[LineageRazor]

I don't know this SMT thing, but your chaos/law good/evil thing is a lot like D&D alignments (thought note I'm fussing with 3.5 edition rules, my last known set from DMing; I actually have no experience with later rulesets at this point; I believe later alignment rules may have been simplified, but that's about all I know).

They simplified the Alignment chart somewhat in 4.0 (Lawful Good - Good - Neutral - Evil - Chaotic Evil, treating the categories at either end more like "super good" and "super evil" than the nuanced definitions old-school D&D-ers were accustomed to), but like many things about that edition it was not very popular. While I haven't played much of it, I know that 5.0 returned to the nine-alignment model.

Regardless, for discussions regarding Light and Darkness, the two-axis model of the D&D alignment system doesn't really make sense, except possibly for providing one of the two axes. So are Light and Darkness Good and Evil? Or are they Chaos and Law? Given that the storyline seems to suggest that the Warrior of Light is Good, and we're soon to transition from Light to Darkness, and being Evilgood doesn't make much sense, the latter seems to be suggested. Either that, or Dark/Light doesn't correspond to EITHER axis, and is something completely independent.

In your discussion about lawful characters taking it too far and causing harm by their actions, it's important to note that if a Lawful Good player is playing that way, it is not proper representation of their alignment. That kind of behavior is FAR more in line for a Lawful Neutral character - for them, the Law is everything, whether it causes harm or not. That's where the Neutral part comes into play; they are equally on board with evil laws as good laws. The hallmark of an excellent Lawful Good player is that running into instances where obeying the law causes evil things to happen is a CONFLICT for them. They might resolve the conflict by siding with Good, or with Law, but it's not an easy decision to make either way. It should also go without saying that a DM who insists that his Lawful Good players toe the line for blatantly evil laws, like those that might be established by a wicked sorcerer king, is just being a jerkass. A Lawful Good character is completely justified in crusading against unjust laws, but tends to work within the system to do so whenever possible. A Lawful Neutral character wouldn't even bother trying to overturn unjust laws. And a Lawful Evil character? They're the ones who wrote them in the first place!

I dont think its about good or evil. Its about aligned aether imbalance. I could be mistaken but the first was always closely aligned to light just as the thirteenth was always closely aligned with darkness. Hence why one fell already and the other is teetering on the edge. Its all about Aether, not so much about good or evil. There may even be a shard closely aligned with fire and someday we may need to go there and put out the fire. We´ll be called the Warrior of Water then. Or maybe the Warrior of Wetness. Or maybe even the Warrior of Moistness.

Not to be pedantic, but Light and Darkness are not elements in this Final Fantasy game. All the elements we do have (Fire, Ice, Water, Thunder, Earth, Wind) have both Light (Astral) and Dark (Umbral) aspects to them. You can have Umbral Thunder, Astral Wind, and so on and so forth. While the Shards may have varying levels of overall Darkness or Light, chances are good that the mix of elements they have are pretty similar to what is found on the Source.

[Ceridwenae]

They...

It was more because earlier in this thread, it was commented that light in FFXIV was presented thus far as good and darkness was chaos and evil, and I'm just bouncing off that as D&D alignments immediately came to mind, particularly as the other potential analogy brought up was unknown to me. I thought to bring something extra by showing chaos doesn't necessarily mean evil using the D&D rules (which extends to lawful not necessarily being good and vice versa). It's how you behave, what things you do, that dictates who you are - but what that means as far as FFXIV is concerned? Following the analogy: that by going with darkness doesn't have to mean you are doing horrible things - like being chaotic doesn't mean you're automatically evil, even if that's all we've been shown in the game so far. D&D rules won't be exactly the same, no, but it's analogy not a carbon copy.

But yes, you're quite right, my examples sucked! - I even initially had a sentence saying this much and that some others of you would come up with much better examples, but removed it for word count and it didn't feel necessary to include! - but I wrote that post at 1 in the morning and should've been sleeping instead. My excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Though in D&D, regardless of alignment, anyone can have "off-days" for better or worse, where they don't hold 100% true to character, and even if they don't, there's a lot of room to move even in those rigid-seeming alignments, as the guide I linked to (which is from the 3.5 edition rulebook) points out, so I've always gone with allowing players to have more grey areas than not. Learning experiences, and whatnot. And no-o, I've never tried to get LGs to have those selfsame learning experiences for my own amusement... Okay, there were a few times. Such fun times! Anyhoo. My dice are back in their box these days, and it's really for the best.

I now look forward to being Batman in this upcoming expansion.