I'd like to talk about the powerscaling of Zenos vs WoL

[Bright-Flower]

It bothered me too. Especially with Shinryu, the ending of HW made such a big deal of Shinryu, having Popolymo sacrifice himself to stall it and us resorting to unleashing Omega rather than fighting it. Then we just fight it like any other primal.

You can try and say 'it was weakened' but the story doesn't really confirm that.

There really is no explanation beyond 'we leveled up.' Now if this was say ARR, maybe it wouldn't bug me. We start off as a new adventurer and work our way up to a grand hero standing against godlike monsters.

But by the start of SB we've been doing this a while, and nothing we go through in SB is really out of the ordinary for what we did in ARR and HW. It's not like we were being pushed to new extremes to become more powerful. We just keep doing what we normally do and arbitrarily get 'stronger' in that vague shoenen sense. Compared to say Fordola who we beat, then she gets empowered and beats us, and then we capture her by using a device to use her artifical echo against her and weaken her. With Zenos we just kind of stroll up and fight him.

And there aren't even any real stakes to losing to him either. A couple npcs get wounded I guess. One unnamed npc dies at RR but if I recall it was Fordola that killed him anyway. The resistance doesn't have to abandon its headquarters, and in Doma there are no negative consequences for our failed assassination attempt. In fact, it plays into our hands because Grynwhat's attack on the Steppe coming after us helps to rally the Xaela against them after we win the thing.

Zenos has the potential to become interesting for me in 5.0 with his current path of reclaiming 'what's his' in the empire but for now I find him unengaging both as a character and as a menacing foe to face due to the lack of consequence when he wins.

[Yshnal]

It bothered me too. Especially with Shinryu, the ending of HW made such a big deal of Shinryu, having Popolymo sacrifice himself to stall it and us resorting to unleashing Omega rather than fighting it. Then we just fight it like any other primal.

You can try and say 'it was weakened' but the story doesn't really confirm that.

There really is no explanation beyond 'we leveled up.' Now if this was say ARR, maybe it wouldn't bug me. We start off as a new adventurer and work our way up to a grand hero standing against godlike monsters.

But by the start of SB we've been doing this a while, and nothing we go through in SB is really out of the ordinary for what we did in ARR and HW. It's not like we were being pushed to new extremes to become more powerful. We just keep doing what we normally do and arbitrarily get 'stronger' in that vague shoenen sense. Compared to say Fordola who we beat, then she gets empowered and beats us, and then we capture her by using a device to use her artifical echo against her and weaken her. With Zenos we just kind of stroll up and fight him.

And there aren't even any real stakes to losing to him either. A couple npcs get wounded I guess. One unnamed npc dies at RR but if I recall it was Fordola that killed him anyway. The resistance doesn't have to abandon its headquarters, and in Doma there are no negative consequences for our failed assassination attempt. In fact, it plays into our hands because Grynwhat's attack on the Steppe coming after us helps to rally the Xaela against them after we win the thing.

Zenos has the potential to become interesting for me in 5.0 with his current path of reclaiming 'what's his' in the empire but for now I find him unengaging both as a character and as a menacing foe to face due to the lack of consequence when he wins.

Keep in mind that we got strong enough to also fight and win against Omega, which in turn was more powerful than Shinryu. So, it makes sense that at that point we could defeat the primal. If you think about it, Omega itself kinda "tells" us (well, he doesn't, as that's the part that it can't understand) why we can keep getting stronger and stronger, which in turn makes sense after everything that happens during SB. For instance, being the first time that we get our ass handed back to us would certainly sparkle something inside the WoL to go beyond their current limits (why does this remind me of that Cloud VS Sephiroth talk during Advent Children in regards to strength?). A bit of inner reflection and self-discovery goes a long way in order to make people learn and improve, especially someone with such a huge potential like the WoL. We never truly had to do that before, despite several people/dragons telling us to do it. And as Kalise said, we weren't sitting on our hands during all that time, either. The most important parts being our additional training with our job's master, or fighting with and alongside a true warrior race like the Xaela. If you add everything up, it truly makes more sense.

I agree on the lack of consequence part, tho. Yes, some minor characters died when we lost, but that's all. I mean, for our characters maybe even losing these people was a significant hit, but it's hard for us as players to actually feel anything like when a certain someone with pointy ears died (and then it felt so rewarding to beat Thordan and company).

[LineageRazor]

I wasn't particularly pleased with the way that they showed our development as Zenos's One True Rival. There are two aspects to it that really get my goat.

First off, in our initial encounter, we don't even show as a blip on Zenos's radar. We. Do. Not. Impress. Him. At. All. There are others who've fought Zenos and failed to impress him, and they all have one thing in common: they are dead. Why did he spare us? There's no good reason for it, and there was nothing stopping him from dealing the killing blow. In my mind, THIS encounter is where we should have damaged Zenos's mask - NOT the second encounter. Zenos should have seen potential in us from the start, because otherwise leaving us alive makes no sense.

Secondly, the second encounter. It was just as much a curbstomp as the first. This was halfway to our final confrontation, and it did not appear as though we'd progressed AT ALL. Our attacks were just as ineffectual as in the first battle. While it's fine for it to be another unwinnable fight, it should have allowed us to seem like we're actually doing better than we were the first time. Like, cue Zenos's "I win" move at around 50% health, and allow our attacks to bring him that low in a reasonable amount of time.

FIGHT 1: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: Bored now. Leaving. Also not killing you for no particular reason.
FIGHT 2: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: You chipped my mask! Best Frenemies Forever!!!
FIGHT 3: *We curbstomp Zenos* Zenos: I knew you could do it! Now, I will turn into a snake, and we will fight again!

But by the start of SB we've been doing this a while, and nothing we go through in SB is really out of the ordinary for what we did in ARR and HW. It's not like we were being pushed to new extremes to become more powerful. We just keep doing what we normally do and arbitrarily get 'stronger' in that vague shoenen sense. Compared to say Fordola who we beat, then she gets empowered and beats us, and then we capture her by using a device to use her artifical echo against her and weaken her. With Zenos we just kind of stroll up and fight him.

In the case of the Echo, it's known that the Echo affects different people in different ways. Not everyone with the Echo expresses it in the same way; for instance, Krile is able to use her Echo to trace aetheric signatures, something which no other Echo user has been shown capable of doing. It is possible that the Resonance also manifests differently in different individuals. It may be the case that Fordola got super battle intuition, and Zenos did not (he, instead, gained the ability to tame, control, and eventually to merge with Primals). So, we did not need a device to defeat Zenos, in spite of the fact that he, too, possesses the Resonance (a double helping, apparently). Of course, being Zenos, he likely doesn't NEED super battle intuition - against most opponents, at any rate.

Shinryu? Ah, well, the Warrior of Light specializes in killing eikons... so that was not the smartest move. (They also had seven people backing them up, so...)

Another villain laid low by ignoring rule 34 of the Evil Overlord's List:
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

[Bright-Flower]

I wasn't particularly pleased with the way that they showed our development as Zenos's One True Rival. There are two aspects to it that really get my goat.

First off, in our initial encounter, we don't even show as a blip on Zenos's radar. We. Do. Not. Impress. Him. At. All. There are others who've fought Zenos and failed to impress him, and they all have one thing in common: they are dead. Why did he spare us? There's no good reason for it, and there was nothing stopping him from dealing the killing blow. In my mind, THIS encounter is where we should have damaged Zenos's mask - NOT the second encounter. Zenos should have seen potential in us from the start, because otherwise leaving us alive makes no sense.

Secondly, the second encounter. It was just as much a curbstomp as the first. This was halfway to our final confrontation, and it did not appear as though we'd progressed AT ALL. Our attacks were just as ineffectual as in the first battle. While it's fine for it to be another unwinnable fight, it should have allowed us to seem like we're actually doing better than we were the first time. Like, cue Zenos's "I win" move at around 50% health, and allow our attacks to bring him that low in a reasonable amount of time.

FIGHT 1: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: Bored now. Leaving. Also not killing you for no particular reason.
FIGHT 2: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: You chipped my mask! Best Frenemies Forever!!!
FIGHT 3: *We curbstomp Zenos* Zenos: I knew you could do it! Now, I will turn into a snake, and we will fight again!


In the case of the Echo, it's known that the Echo affects different people in different ways. Not everyone with the Echo expresses it in the same way; for instance, Krile is able to use her Echo to trace aetheric signatures, something which no other Echo user has been shown capable of doing. It is possible that the Resonance also manifests differently in different individuals. It may be the case that Fordola got super battle intuition, and Zenos did not (he, instead, gained the ability to tame, control, and eventually to merge with Primals). So, we did not need a device to defeat Zenos, in spite of the fact that he, too, possesses the Resonance (a double helping, apparently). Of course, being Zenos, he likely doesn't NEED super battle intuition - against most opponents, at any rate.


Another villain laid low by ignoring rule 34 of the Evil Overlord's List:
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

Yeah I know the echo can be different between people. My point was more that I felt the handled how we beat Fordola better. I'm not saying we necessarily should have had some sort of device to use against Zenos and doing the exact same thing, but the confrontation with Zenos just felt a bit lazy. Like the only reason we're ready to fight him NOW is because we're at the end of 4.0 and the story needs to wrap up.

[Daralii]

I wasn't particularly pleased with the way that they showed our development as Zenos's One True Rival. There are two aspects to it that really get my goat.

First off, in our initial encounter, we don't even show as a blip on Zenos's radar. We. Do. Not. Impress. Him. At. All. There are others who've fought Zenos and failed to impress him, and they all have one thing in common: they are dead. Why did he spare us? There's no good reason for it, and there was nothing stopping him from dealing the killing blow. In my mind, THIS encounter is where we should have damaged Zenos's mask - NOT the second encounter. Zenos should have seen potential in us from the start, because otherwise leaving us alive makes no sense.

Secondly, the second encounter. It was just as much a curbstomp as the first. This was halfway to our final confrontation, and it did not appear as though we'd progressed AT ALL. Our attacks were just as ineffectual as in the first battle. While it's fine for it to be another unwinnable fight, it should have allowed us to seem like we're actually doing better than we were the first time. Like, cue Zenos's "I win" move at around 50% health, and allow our attacks to bring him that low in a reasonable amount of time.

FIGHT 1: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: Bored now. Leaving. Also not killing you for no particular reason.
FIGHT 2: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: You chipped my mask! Best Frenemies Forever!!!
FIGHT 3: *We curbstomp Zenos* Zenos: I knew you could do it! Now, I will turn into a snake, and we will fight again!

He effortlessly killed or incapacitated everyone that encountered him at Rhalgr's Reach using a generic katana, and while the WoL lost, they still managed to break it. His desperate search for an emotional response revolved around cultivating something that could be a challenge for him, and the WoL did more in that regard than anyone he'd encountered previously.