When does Stormblood get good?[Spoilers?]

[MuseTraveller]

I still don't get why Lyse was the face of the liberation when Raubahn's been fighting to liberate Ala Mhigo since 1.0 ... It is his home land while Lyse hardly lived there.
Ilberd would have made such an amazing anti-hero during SB and maybe faced Raubahn again. It didn't make sense to have these already established characters with so much background and depth only to get them shafted aside so we get Lyse spoon fed to us through the whole of SB.

I don't hate Lyse per say, but I really felt her role was forced. They could have very well just made a whole new character there without the identity reveal.

Just my two cents. :x

[Siete]

I still don't get why Lyse was the face of the liberation when Raubahn's been fighting to liberate Ala Mhigo since 1.0 ... It is his home land while Lyse hardly lived there.
Ilberd would have made such an amazing anti-hero during SB and maybe faced Raubahn again. It didn't make sense to have these already established characters with so much background and depth only to get them shafted aside so we get Lyse spoon fed to us through the whole of SB.

I don't hate Lyse per say, but I really felt her role was forced. They could have very well just made a whole new character there without the identity reveal.

Just my two cents. :x

Preeetty much.
I'm at level 69 on the MSQ right now and I can say, the most emotion I got was seeing Estinien with Nidhogg.

[Noitems]

It's funny but for me, that was my least favorite part of it all... but maybe that's because by that point I was so sick of being in the Far East.

For me, Stormblood going into it was going to be the tale of the liberation of Ala Mhigo, and I felt the story gave me total whiplash when at level 61 it whisked me off to Othard and left me there until near the end of the expansion. The fact that Ala Mhigo was so glossed over in favor of everything happening in Doma and Kugane made me not much enjoy the expansion as a whole. Compound that with the fact that I started in Ul'Dah and the issue with the Ala Mhigans is something that had been presented to me since level 2 of the main story, so there was an added feeling of dissatisfaction with how they handled that story.

So to that end, my answer would be the expansion gets good when you get to start playing Shadowbringers.

When the story is basically forcing me to focus on the Far East I'll be sure to pick out the Steppes since that area was so different compared to the Ruby Sea or Yanxia. I think at least to me the Steppes channeled the essence of what an Gyr Abania side story could be if done right and that's what really rubs me for it.

If they had advertised the story as freeing the Domans only no one would have these issues, however the lead in from HW and the Griffin was just absolutely fantastic and pretty much had the setup to liberating Ala Mhigo good to go.

It's no secret that during the story process the team got more focused on Doma so much so they HAD to be reminded to put things in Gyr Abania so bring people back. I remember when the devs were talking about primals they said they originally wanted to use Amaterasu as the second story primal, but realized if they did that there would be no reason to visit Gyr Abania until lvl 69, so instead they used Lakshmi.

The beginning of 4.1 had promise with more topics brewing in GA but then 4.2 happened and oof. Really hoping a future msq lets us revisit GA areas or use it as the setup for the next expac akin to how Ghimlyt Dark set up for Shadowbringers.

[dinnertime]

I still don't get why Lyse was the face of the liberation when Raubahn's been fighting to liberate Ala Mhigo since 1.0 ... It is his home land while Lyse hardly lived there.
Ilberd would have made such an amazing anti-hero during SB and maybe faced Raubahn again. It didn't make sense to have these already established characters with so much background and depth only to get them shafted aside so we get Lyse spoon fed to us through the whole of SB.

I don't hate Lyse per say, but I really felt her role was forced. They could have very well just made a whole new character there without the identity reveal.

Just my two cents. :x

Oh Lyse was definitely forced. Most don't know anything about her or her 'unique' Ala Mhigan heritage until the very end of Heavensward. It's either they wanted a main character Scion or someone conventionally appealing in appearance as the face of the expansion, because I guess a rugged, grizzled war veteran with one arm wouldn't sell.

Not that I hate Lyse though. I just think she's a bucket full of wasted potential.

[Lium]

I'm up to level 62 and I feel like never talking to Lyse ever again, I'm done so done with her attitude.
I miss Heavensward.

Not sure if if it's been mentioned, but the story does pick up a little bit when you got to the Azim Steppe and start doing all the Au Ra quests, and getting ready for the Naadam. But the interesting parts are towards the end of the expansion when the emperor gets involved. Overall, it wasn't nearly as good as HW. But as others have said Shadowbringers is well worth the wait.

Edit: Also one thing I forgot to mention was that my biggest problem with SB was that the WoL felt like a background character who was simply along for the ride. By contrast, both HW and ShB do an excellent job making you feel like the main character, and the hero of the story. It made me more emotionally invested in what was going on, and it also made me care more about the characters around me, and the quests I was doing.

[wereotter]

When the story is basically forcing me to focus on the Far East I'll be sure to pick out the Steppes since that area was so different compared to the Ruby Sea or Yanxia. I think at least to me the Steppes channeled the essence of what an Gyr Abania side story could be if done right and that's what really rubs me for it.

If they had advertised the story as freeing the Domans only no one would have these issues, however the lead in from HW and the Griffin was just absolutely fantastic and pretty much had the setup to liberating Ala Mhigo good to go.

It's no secret that during the story process the team got more focused on Doma so much so they HAD to be reminded to put things in Gyr Abania so bring people back. I remember when the devs were talking about primals they said they originally wanted to use Amaterasu as the second story primal, but realized if they did that there would be no reason to visit Gyr Abania until lvl 69, so instead they used Lakshmi.

The beginning of 4.1 had promise with more topics brewing in GA but then 4.2 happened and oof. Really hoping a future msq lets us revisit GA areas or use it as the setup for the next expac akin to how Ghimlyt Dark set up for Shadowbringers.

n
Yeah, that's also more of my complaints with Ghyr Abania in general too. The zones, in my opinion, are beautiful and the setting is very interesting... but we were only there for like two minutes at the start of the expansion, and again at the very end, then they tied up the whole thing in 4.1. Side notes, The Fringes is now the only expansion zone without a dungeon in it... which to me shows just how little attention they they put into it.

I just hope that they put more story later into those zones, even if it's just side story for rebuilding Ala Mhigo.

[Brandedblade]

n
Yeah, that's also more of my complaints with Ghyr Abania in general too. The zones, in my opinion, are beautiful and the setting is very interesting... but we were only there for like two minutes at the start of the expansion, and again at the very end, then they tied up the whole thing in 4.1. Side notes, The Fringes is now the only expansion zone without a dungeon in it... which to me shows just how little attention they they put into it.

I just hope that they put more story later into those zones, even if it's just side story for rebuilding Ala Mhigo.

Oooo..... Ala Mhigo reconstruction for 6.0 crafter endgame mb? That would be awesome.

But to parrot what has been said, Azim steepes is when it gets a bit better.

[wereotter]

Oooo..... Ala Mhigo reconstruction for 6.0 crafter endgame mb? That would be awesome.

But to parrot what has been said, Azim steepes is when it gets a bit better.

Doesn't even have to be crafter/gatherer thing for me to be content. Even something like the Doman Enclave reconstruction would be enough to satisfy me. Though I really would want it to be a fully explorable city at some point.

[Alleo]

IMO stormblood is probably the weakest of the stories and for me it never really got good.

One problem was with the villians. Fordola was fine but I really did not like Yotsuyu or Zenos and having one enemy coming out of nowhere that can somehow beat us without breaking a sweat is just not great story telling imo.
Then using Lyse as main character for this expansion was not a good idea either. First I dont understand the "I am my sister" change because suddenly we have a new character that we have not a single connection with instead of using the old one and developing her further. She just felt blank and forced. Conrad then later giving her the job instead of M`Nago was bad too, especially since the other woman was at least fighting all the time for Ala Mhigo and was the one that made him continue the fight..

The split between two countries and the liberation of both also made it feel way too quick and made it bad for both countries. (But Ala Mhigo got it the worst) Its probably not that great either that we just had a fantasy expansion with war as theme..and here we are again in another war...a war that on the first view has nothing to do with the Ascians..so why are we forced into this? Why are we used again for that instead of doing our job and trying to find out more about the Ascians? Heck my character choose the option that this was not her fight to fight yet she was still forced into that. Of course I am fine with helping the common people out..its what our character does. But I would have found it better if we would had contributed to the story like that while the war was happening at the same time. They could have even explored the feelings of some of the city states and some of the scions who are disappointed in us not outright helping while later understanding that we are still a person and not a weapon..

In the end it was just another war story that did not feel like a war story..and on top of that one country was put down to focus more on the other..and somehow in a small time period we just free countries that has been conquered over 20 years ago..and that with a character like Lyse on our side that felt like she even overshadowed our character quite a bit..even though we were the one making it even possible..

[Nora_of_Mira]

I was expecting war, not funny slice of life anime jokes over and over.

really? are we playing the same game?