Warrior of Darkness: Deceptive Marketing?

[Gaethan_Tessula]

The only important ways I felt it was misleading is the the solution to the primordial light was the blessing of light and "become what you must."

I did NOT expect a side change or an evil Hydaelyn. I did expect a better rationale for the Ascians than what we got, which essentially boiled down to "runaway chasing of sunk costs" and buyers' remorse for saving the world (hey, Zodiark? Ya know how we sacrificed 3/4ths of our population to make you and restore life to the planet? Can we get take-backsies on that?).

I would have liked needing to use some fragment of a dark power to overcome the primordial light. I would have liked it if Vauthry's regime wasn't Lahabrea levels of obviously evil.

The resulting story was one of the best in FF14, maybe post PS1 FF in general. It had clear themes and knew where it was going, unlike Stormblood. But it wasn't what was advertised before ads with major story details dropped (and we were told that the Blessing of Light was key).

"Become what you must" especially puzzles me as a tagline, because not once do we make a choice our avatar seems uncomfortable with. I also agree that the Master Matoya bit seems a deliberate red herring.

[AnimaAnimus]

So taking the story completely out of it, as I pointed out in that other thread, because the way the story was handled was really good. I think it is the best story we had so far. But again let's disregard that and look at the marketing.

We have our character, the WoL walking forlornly across the land being told how his time is at an end, then gets attacked by a giant light aspected creature in a land that is so bright we can see beams of light coming from the sky. We switch between every job our WoL has used thus far in the name of the Light and of Hydaelyn and are struck down each and every time by this agent of the light. Then finally we embrace the darkness, in the form of dark knight of course, and slay the light aspected creature while banishing the light from the land and the sky around the Crystal Tower going dark. While being told history must be rewritten and we need to embrace the darkness and become the WoD, which we know from past patches, are agents of the ascians and of zodiarc.

So, many of us were speculating that there would be a major shift because the trailer and the marketing all leaned incredibly hard on the WoD motif and the rewriting of history. When in actually we did nothing different, nothing changed, we were the same person, doing the same thing, fighting the same bad guys who's objective was exactly the same as it has always been. The WoD was simply a difference in name and was, at best, a footnote in the story. It was merely what we were called because of the land being light aspected and us bringing the night back. We could just have easily been called the Warrior of Wind if the land were earth aspected or the Warrior of Lightning if the land were Water aspected.

So, while it is true, on the first we are indeed the WoD, that was only mentioned a handful of times and completely contradicts the meaning of the WoD we have come to know so far. The change was purely semantic.

Hence, deceptive marketing.

There was so so many other things they could have used for marketing this expac, but the one they used in an incredibly heavy handed way was one that could have been deleted from the story and made no difference. We could have just as easily maintained the title of WoL and it would have changed absolutely nothing.

[Liam_Harper]

Deceived, no. I really enjoyed the story and feel the devs outdid themselves this expansion. I have no complaints about the story.

That said, as a nitpick I agree. It wasn't anything like I expected. I think it's a weak storytelling to hype your audience with vague hints that you know they'll take one way, then deliver something else entirely. The whole "Warrior of Darkness" and "Matoya" thing felt forced into the story rather than being part of it. We aren't Warrior's of Darkness. We have nothing to do with Dark. We're Warrior's of Light who bring night time back.

But that's a nitpick. Again, brilliant expansion and enjoyed every minute of 70-80.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

No, it was not deceptive marketing, but I do think the way it was presented was perhaps accidentally misleading. The Warrior of Light is empowered by the Blessing of Light, and the trailer suggests that we must become the Warrior of Darkness in order to save the First and prevent Calamity. To that end, it would be assumed that we would receive some kind of Blessing of Darkness in order to use darkness to balance out the overabundance of light. I personally was wondering if every job would wind up getting dark-themed abilities as a result of this, though I was confused as to how that'd work for something like, say, White Mage.

Instead, it's more like people just start calling you the Warrior of Darkness because of their local folklore. I can't be fully disappointed at that, though, since the Warriors of Light/Darkness were functionally identical in purpose ever since Final Fantasy III. While it does feel more like Light vs. Light than Darkness heroically opposing the oppressive Light, it evokes enough of what I wanted for me to the be satisfied at the end of the day.

[Rhus]

Become what you must sorta implied a change of character. In the end we just carried on doing what we do, killing monsters and saving people. We didn’t have to become anything we weren’t already to save the day. So a little hyperbole.
I thought we might have to work with the Ascians to an extent and tho we weren’t doing bad things we did kinda...maybe work with an Ascians? Kinda for a bit.
Master Matoya was just bait left for us to go mad over leading up to release about alternate realities or clones or some stuff. Big flop that.

However, it’s a matter of perspective I guess. To us we done nothing to warrant being the warrior of darkness. To Emet Selch we stopped him bringing back the people he loved and cared for. We let him down and failed to live up to our hype. And to Vauthry we killed his pets and prevented him doing what he was born and raised to do, he knew no better. He was innocent in it all. Blame the parents.

[MomomiMomi]

Yes. From start to finish, pretty much the entirety of the marketing was deceptive.

Here is one of the most obvious examples I can grab from the trailer.

https://youtu.be/4tyuIh12_HU?t=344

Notice how the WoL, who has now "become what they must," splits the sky with darkness? Yeah... that doesn't happen. Here's the real scene in the game:

https://youtu.be/ne345icSbO8?list=PL...6HqfQB2k&t=803

Plays out the same exact way, except... that isn't darkness. That's light.

The entire marketing is littered with stuff like this. And don't get me started on Master Matoya.

[LauraAdalena]

I don't see how it is at all.

I see it as people reading way too deep into surface-level marketing. The marketing of the trailer with all the points with Thancred, Y'shtola, and the WoL/WoD not really being what people thought they were not as deceptive but as people overthinking it.

When people said that the whole "Master Matoya" thing was alternate realities or something like Matoya's in her body I knew people were over-thinking it. It obviously had no hints to it but people wanted there to be because reasons.

SPOILERS:

The whole "become what you must" is not deceptive, neither is the "become the warrior of darkness" since the WoL/WoD are just titles for Hydalyn's chosen. It's based off of the actions they do and not what their powers are. The "become what you must" line goes straight into several themes of the expansion, which is whether a given duty is a burden you must bear or a burden you must choose to bear. This is highlighted with Ryne and her struggle to separate herself from Minfilia and whether she wants to do what has been thrust upon her or if she just wants to be someone else.

As for the WoL's "become what you must" the story conflicts you as to whether the WoL should align themselves with the light or dark given how horribly the first has fallen, and all the horrendous things that happen involving the lightwardens, the sin eaters, and how the light has destroyed most of the world as well as the revelation Emet-Selch gives you into the origins of Zodiark and Hydalyn. In the end you were supposed to get that it doesn't matter which you are, you must take the stance of whatever stops these calamities to stop the rejoinings and the mass loss of life at the Ascian's hands as much as possible. In a way, the best way to summarize it is the song Shadowbringers. There's a lot about it that ties into the themes and narrative of the expansion, but two major lines specifically must be mentioned. The repeated "One brings shadow, one brings the light" and the lines that immediately come after them. It's the line that blurs the line of who they are talking about, they could be talking about both the WoL and Arburt in that both did that on The Source and The First. But then, the last time the line is said it's "I am shadow I am the light" confirming that they are one in the WoL.

They may have exaggerated, but any "deception" is on the player's part in the overhyping of small moments in the trailer that's used to be a prelude to the events in the game.

[LauraAdalena]

Yes. From start to finish, pretty much the entirety of the marketing was deceptive.

Here is one of the most obvious examples I can grab from the trailer.

https://youtu.be/4tyuIh12_HU?t=344

Notice how the WoL, who has now "become what they must," splits the sky with darkness? Yeah... that doesn't happen. Here's the real scene in the game:

https://youtu.be/ne345icSbO8?list=PL...6HqfQB2k&t=803

Plays out the same exact way, except... that isn't darkness. That's light.

The entire marketing is littered with stuff like this. And don't get me started on Master Matoya.

Because it's not a gameplay trailer. And it's more of a cinematic "let's have fun with it" while also being a little prelude to the SHB story. The WoL stuff is predominantly a visualization of an internal struggle.

[Fynlar]

The master Matoya thing was kinda weird.

I can agree with this one. This definitely felt shoehorned in for attempted shock value (I say attempted because it was already rather obvious in the very trailer attempting to do the shocking as to what her actual identity was) and I couldn't help but have an "ugh, really?" reaction when the MSQ tried to explain it away.

[Edax]

When people said that the whole "Master Matoya" thing was alternate realities or something like Matoya's in her body I knew people were over-thinking it. It obviously had no hints to it but people wanted there to be because reasons.

If the next trailer had the Warrior of Light referred to as "Elidibus", the viewers would rightly speculate at the implications. Y'stohla being called somebody else's name ends up being completely pointless to the story, so the fact that they put that red herring in the marketing makes it misleading. You say there's no hints, but it is abnormal to use someone else's name for a well known character in a trailer, the "wrongness" naturally draws attention to itself. If it's wrong of the players to speculate at the implications, then why even put it in the trailer?