The Reason Zenos.

[Bright-Flower]

I WISH Zenos actually hunted us.

He didn't know we were in Doma, and in Ala Mhigo, his 'hunt' was....sitting in his throne room and waiting for us to come to him?

Aside from his dull depthless personality, he could have at least been intimidating or imposing or menacing. But he wasn't really. He shoots a couple defenseless subordinates which just makes him seem dumb.

He attacks Rhalgr's Reach, but what really happens here? We lose but nothing bad happens to us. Y'sthola is injured but that just means's she's 'put on a bus' for a while, nothing lasting happens to her it feels more like an excuse to put her offscreem for a bit. Some minor C tier character dies, but it's not even Zenos that kills him it's Fordola. And then...Zenos leaves and the resistance DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO ABANDON THE BASE. It's really a shame, having the resistance having to fall back from here and then retaking it when we return from Doma could have been a fun moment. They try to have the NPCs talk like this was a crushing defeat but when they're able to stay in RR despite the empire knowing that's their base, it doesn't really feel like one. Not to mention we go to Doma to open up a second front against the XIIth legion but whoops,we actually just liberated doma instead allowing Zenos to focus entirely on Ala Mhigo and yet somehow the resistance not only didn't lose any ground while we were gone/because of our defeat here but also we're now ready continue advancing despite the fact that there's no second battle in Doma anymore.

We lose to him in Doma when we foolishly decide to attack him and expose our presence there. Yugiri doesn't die, the village isn't burned, we just get spanked and then left to recover. The only bad thing that happens is Grynwaht gets sent after us into the Steppe but this works out IN OUR FAVOR even by helping to rally the Xaela against the empire when they attack chasing after us. Once again, no consequences for our loss.

On top of that, the way these two fights are implemented into the game just falls flat. I know the fights aren't 'actually' that long, but because Zenos has such an overinflated health bar, it makes the fight FEEL tedious to chip away at his hp. And the fights themselves aren't even actuall hard, they don't keep you on your toes, don't challenge you at least not more than typical instance fights. So when Zenos gets bored and unleashes his 1 hit kill attack at the end of these it feels cheap, rather than like we're being overwhelmed by the sheer force of his power.

[Gula]

I WISH Zenos actually hunted us.

WoL-chaaaan

[Gemina]

I WISH Zenos actually hunted us.

He didn't know we were in Doma, and in Ala Mhigo, his 'hunt' was....sitting in his throne room and waiting for us to come to him?

Aside from his dull depthless personality, he could have at least been intimidating or imposing or menacing. But he wasn't really. He shoots a couple defenseless subordinates which just makes him seem dumb.

Well, I guess I would have to ask what makes a villain imposing and menacing? I have to ask because you said he "shoots" a couple of defenseless subordinates. It's made pretty clear what kind of weapon Zenos prefers to use. While I suppose that could be an honest mistake, it deflates your argument a good deal as it shows you don't understand the character as much you portray. This also goes into why Zenos cuts down his subordinates in the first place. It isn't to show how bad, evil, or menacing he is. The display is used to exhibit he has no love for the empire. It is foreshadowing the events that ultimately lead to him committing patricide.

He attacks Rhalgr's Reach, but what really happens here? We lose but nothing bad happens to us. Y'sthola is injured but that just means's she's 'put on a bus' for a while, nothing lasting happens to her it feels more like an excuse to put her offscreem for a bit.

Actually, prior to Zenos decimating the Reach, the resistance was planning a full scale assault on Castellum Velodyna. As an enemy stronghold at the time, it would have been a crushing blow to the empire and their hold over Ala Mhigo. Zenos' preemptive attack turned that scheme right back on the resistance; reinforcing their influence over Gyr Abania. Y'stola might have lived, but so many others died that day. Even though most are not of any significance and off-screen, what matters is their efforts and plans to get a firm hold on Gyr Abania was thwarted, and effortlessly. It is established early on that Zenos is some serious muscle the empire wields.

Some minor C tier character dies, but it's not even Zenos that kills him it's Fordola. And then...Zenos leaves and the resistance DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO ABANDON THE BASE.

Zenos doesn't care about any of it. The only reason why he showed up in the first place was because he knew the WoL would be present, and he wanted to see what he/she is all about. Disappointed and bored, he simply leaves. However, you do make a point, and even Raubahn found it very odd that Zenos and co left survivors. This is elaborated on later when even though Zenos was disappointed with the encounter with the WoL, he still saw enough in him/her to let them live in hopes that his new prey will get stronger as a result of his/her resolve. Later on he is absolutely exhilarated when it turns out his hunch about the WoL turned out to be correct.

We lose to him in Doma when we foolishly decide to attack him and expose our presence there. Yugiri doesn't die, the village isn't burned, we just get spanked and then left to recover. The only bad thing that happens is Grynwaht gets sent after us into the Steppe but this works out IN OUR FAVOR even by helping to rally the Xaela against the empire when they attack chasing after us. Once again, no consequences for our loss.

They didn't expose themselves. Zenos did, and they decided to take that opportunity to try and assassinate him, which failed. Even though the objective was huge, the overall risk was low because they were not mounting a full scale attack on Zenos where who knows how many could die. It was just a small group of peeps trying to seize a perfect opportunity to take down the Crown Prince, and with him out of the way, the Empire loses a large part of their arsenal. Ultimately, Zenos leaves the east to Yotsuyu, which is her duty anyway. The empire sees the Xaela of the Steppe as a very small threat. What are they going to do against a fleet of airships?

On top of that, the way these two fights are implemented into the game just falls flat. I know the fights aren't 'actually' that long, but because Zenos has such an overinflated health bar, it makes the fight FEEL tedious to chip away at his hp. And the fights themselves aren't even actuall hard, they don't keep you on your toes, don't challenge you at least not more than typical instance fights. So when Zenos gets bored and unleashes his 1 hit kill attack at the end of these it feels cheap, rather than like we're being overwhelmed by the sheer force of his power.

Those are scripted fights that you cannot win no matter what you do. That is the only way the game can actually put a tack in the loss column for the WoL. Otherwise, it is reset and rezz until you win. Whatever challenge is there is surviving the AoEs until the script calls for Zenos to end the fight. You're not going to find an overly challenging fight with the MSQ instances. If Zenos was to be made mechanically difficult to defeat, they would have to throw him in an 8-man. Myself and I'm sure many others feel this cheapens the encounter as it should be mano y mano.

The Elidizenos fight had a somewhat tight DPS check, and it was really the only way to lose that fight. You would almost have to deliberately stand in all the AoEs for him to win through submission. I am quite sure that whenever we face him again in a solo instance, even if it is really easy for you, there are still going to be some posts on reddit and perhaps here from some players who are having trouble with it.

[Bright-Flower]

In Doma it's specifically mentioned that the Empire doesn't know the WOL is there. By going along with Yugir's plan to try and assassinate him, we alert Zenos and Yotsuyu that we're there and give Yotsuyu more time to prepare and get Grynwaht sent after us, yet this never really proves much of an obstacle. Exposing our presence in Doma 'should' have been a bad move strategically and yet it only works out in our favor, which is my issue with it.

And as for the Zenos fights, no this isn't the only way they could do it. You just have an actual unwinnable boss fight. A fight that progresses the story when you actually 'lose', not one where you chip the boss down to 90% hp and then lose. Show off the boss' actual power. Make Zenos a legit threat you're not intended to defeat there. Where even if you're playing perfectly you just can't keep up against his onslaught and are brought down.

As for Zenos' boredom, that's a lot of my problem with him. It just robs a lot of the tension and triumph from the story when it's one where you only have a chance because the villain doesn't actually care about the plot. Because if Zenos gave 1/8th of a crap about anything the resistance would be done, and explaining it all with antagonist apathy doesn't make for a compelling story. Maybe it could have worked if Zenos' personal motivation aside from his imperial duty was compelling. But I didn't find that side of him interesting either. He just wants to fight someone strong and that for me is such a boring trope. So the antagonist has no motivation or investment in the war story and his personal motivation is paper thin and boring for me, so I just had nothing to latch onto. The only antagonist I did latch onto in Stormwblood was Fordola. And Grynwaht but only for his doma castle boss fight.

I'm not talking about the Elidizenos fight, and it's really not even relevent in regards to Zenos himself, we're fighting Elidibus there, and it wasn't the same sort of 'you lose' situation. Elidibus didn't overpower us the same way, his hope of winning over us was through attrition because he couldn't be killed and his job was made easy because of a poorly timed visiion from you know who, so I don't have the same issue with that fight.

Note: If other people like Zenos that's fine, I'm not saying my opinion is fact and anyone that likes him is dumb or anything. For me though he just really fell flat as a character and as a meaningful obstacle in the story, and I was disappointed again in that what I felt would have been an actually interesting arc for him in SHB was wrapped up all too quickly and easily. But for those that liked him, more power to him, and as much as I don't like him, for the initial premise of this thread I do think he makes the most sense to add to Dissidia because the only other long running villain we really have left is Elidibus who doesn't seem to be a combatant exept when possessing Zenos' body anyway.

[Nezerius]

Well, I guess I would have to ask what makes a villain imposing and menacing? I have to ask because you said he "shoots" a couple of defenseless subordinates. It's made pretty clear what kind of weapon Zenos prefers to use. While I suppose that could be an honest mistake, it deflates your argument a good deal as it shows you don't understand the character as much you portray. This also goes into why Zenos cuts down his subordinates in the first place. It isn't to show how bad, evil, or menacing he is. The display is used to exhibit he has no love for the empire. It is foreshadowing the events that ultimately lead to him committing patricide.

While this seems more about semantics between shooting and cutting, I'd be surprised if Zenos hasn't shot a few subordinates with the gunblade that he used, prior to finding out his love for the katana. As for the display, it's more that he simply doesn't care about anything other than "The Hunt", so anything that doesn't involve that single interest of his gets pushed aside/shot/cut down.

Actually, prior to Zenos decimating the Reach, the resistance was planning a full scale assault on Castellum Velodyna. As an enemy stronghold at the time, it would have been a crushing blow to the empire and their hold over Ala Mhigo. Zenos' preemptive attack turned that scheme right back on the resistance; reinforcing their influence over Gyr Abania. Y'stola might have lived, but so many others died that day. Even though most are not of any significance and off-screen, what matters is their efforts and plans to get a firm hold on Gyr Abania was thwarted, and effortlessly. It is established early on that Zenos is some serious muscle the empire wields.

An event that would have had some impact on the player if it didn't happen before even hitting lvl 62, if that part of the story hadn't been rushed. The story went from entering Gyr Abania to shipping off to Kugane at such a high pace that it was hard to really be invested in the characters that were killed in the attack on Rhalgr's Reach, or the entire effort and planning they had been doing on attacking Castellum Velodyna.
The only two things that came to mind after that event were 1. "So this is the intro of the bad guy that I'll have to level up to beat", and 2. "Oh no, is Y'shtola dead? Nevermind, she's only injured".
Does it show that Zenos is strong? Sure, but he also uses plot armor to make that happen.

They didn't expose themselves. Zenos did, and they decided to take that opportunity to try and assassinate him, which failed. Even though the objective was huge, the overall risk was low because they were not mounting a full scale attack on Zenos where who knows how many could die. It was just a small group of peeps trying to seize a perfect opportunity to take down the Crown Prince, and with him out of the way, the Empire loses a large part of their arsenal. Ultimately, Zenos leaves the east to Yotsuyu, which is her duty anyway. The empire sees the Xaela of the Steppe as a very small threat. What are they going to do against a fleet of airships?

Maybe I'm just remembering that part of the MSQ differently, but it felt more like Yugiri being reckless, running off, and throwing any plans out of the window by abruptly attacking Zenos, because she apparently couldn't listen to the WoL telling them that he's pretty strong. Again plot armor for him to get through the fight against the WoL (who has to step in after Yugiri's actions), but you've already covered this in the next part of your post.

Also the Garleans stationed in Yanxia didn't have any airships (outside of maybe some transportation airships?). If they had, I'd be surprised if Grynewaht hadn't brought those along.

I still don't think these plot armor fights make Zenos all that interesting, since it felt more like the game telling me that I'm not high enough level to take him on. They had the opportunity to give him some character progression with the whole soul-jumping journey to Garlemald, but they completely wasted that opportunity. With that in mind, I'd rather they just kill him off in 5.3 and move on to something new.

[Bright-Flower]

I still don't think these plot armor fights make Zenos all that interesting, since it felt more like the game telling me that I'm not high enough level to take him on.

Sadly this is how it sort of comes across.

What changes between our first two fights and the one where we can actually fight him at 70? We leveled up.

This sort of thing might work in a RPG where the villain beats up the freshly minted hero at the start but by the end, the hero has grown strong enough to contend with them through the whole game. If say, we first fought Zenos at level 15. But the WOL has been through all of ARR and HW by the time SB comes around, so for me the idea that 'we just got stronger during our travels' in the shorter time of SB's msq just isn't enough to sell that idea to me. Especially when the same thing happens with Shinryu once Zenos possessse Shinryu. Massive threat our friend has to give his life to stall and we risk unleashign Omega to stop it rather than fight it ourselves? Ends up as just another primal boss fight. Even Fordola got a plot explanation for us foiling her new echo powers with that trinket from Uriangr. NOthing here. If you want to be charitable you can make up explanations like 'Shinryu was in a heavily weakened state' but the game doesn't actually say that.

Then they repeat the whole thing with Ran'jit. First time you fight him, he's out of your league. Second time seems evenly matched but then you're interrupted and he gets stunned. Third time, you're able to just kill him. What changes? Nothing, except you leveled up to get bigger numbers.

I don't mind that Zenos defeats us. I don't mind that there are npcs, even just regular humanoids, more powerful than the Warrior of Light in single combat. But if you're going to introduce them like that, maybe actually work 'how' we overcome them into the story, or some sort of training at the very least, into the msq. Not just sending us off for a few more levels of adventuring, which we have dozens of now, and then rely on that to fill the gap.