6.0 Predictions: Will it be Garlemald, Sharlayan, or Meracydia?

[GrumbleBeard]

Our character isn't a god though. We are just a normal person who's just very good at the whole fighting thing. And we don't really have WoL powers. Closest thing would be the blessing of light which doesn't really give us any real powers.

It obviously does something since we're the only thing stopping the weekly world ending threat and it makes the other characters feel weak when they inevitably have to run to character to accomplish anything. Toning down our characters power would allow for greater variety in story too since every threat wouldn't have to have some excuse to be so powerful that only we could defeat it.

Why would any enemy that knows who we are willingly fight us at this point? Even the latest story quest has to have our character dump aether into Alisae so there is an excuse as to why you don't effortlessly slaughter everything there, and it's getting a bit boring.

[Cilia]

The PC is not a literal god. S/he is the fragmented reincarnation of a precursor famed for their strength and generosity upon whom some gods were based, but even Azem was not a literal god (in fact current signs suggest there is no such thing as a true god in the XIV universe, despite the known Ancient true names all being Olympian deities). The PC has simply inherited Azem's strength and generosity, and uses it to help others across the world(s) as his/her ancient incarnation did.

Reducing the power level is not an easy thing to do. Once you're effecting things on a given level it's difficult to narratively regress from that scope. WoW tried to do it with Battle for Azeroth, but among the many problems plaguing the expansion was how you went from fighting the literal legions of Hell to dealing with relatively low-key problems and kicking around the other faction. A hero whose strength was lent to ending the threat of the Burning Legion forever is way too powerful to call on for dealing with a witch coven in the woods, yet lo and behold that's exactly what ended up happening. (The whole faction war was only a thing because the writers were willfully ignorant of the Alliance gaining command of a starship!)

As for this game... we've been agents of the Scions since ~Lv15, our actions saving many lives since and effecting the fate of nations at Lv50 (2.0's ending). Regressing to being just a good-hearted mercenary would be a very difficult thing to do, particularly after Shadowbringers. If our allies are able to overcome the threats at hand without calling on us, what would be the point of us being there?

[Veloran]

The only right way to "regress" WoL's power is simply to send him somewhere new where people don't know him. The very nature of the game ensures that WoL will ultimately defeat any problems regardless, so just writing in a depowerment serves no real purpose.

[YianKutku]

As for this game... we've been agents of the Scions since ~Lv15, our actions saving many lives since and effecting the fate of nations at Lv50 (2.0's ending). Regressing to being just a good-hearted mercenary would be a very difficult thing to do, particularly after Shadowbringers. If our allies are able to overcome the threats at hand without calling on us, what would be the point of us being there?

To be fair, the current Starlight event seems to emphasise that we are still a good-hearted mercenary who often doesn't even bother with the "mercenary" part. Most of the letters we received went along the lines of "you may be doing all these world-changing things, but thank you for still continuing to do the little things that make at least one other person smile".

[Rymi64]

It obviously does something since we're the only thing stopping the weekly world ending threat and it makes the other characters feel weak when they inevitably have to run to character to accomplish anything. Toning down our characters power would allow for greater variety in story too since every threat wouldn't have to have some excuse to be so powerful that only we could defeat it.

Why would any enemy that knows who we are willingly fight us at this point? Even the latest story quest has to have our character dump aether into Alisae so there is an excuse as to why you don't effortlessly slaughter everything there, and it's getting a bit boring.

To be fair majority of the things people run to us for is related to primals. Which we are probably the most obvious person that can fight primals without being tempered because echo so of course they would call us since it's kinda our job as a scion. And the scions accomplish things on their own. ShB is a perfect show of they can do things without you being there. Hell we now have the other echo blessed scions (plus fordola) as a primal slaying force which we have no part of. We've also been beat or at a equal measure of strength a bunch of times in the story already.

Majority of the people in that instance poured their aether into alisaie since our main goal was to fix the patriarch we were just the last one to do so. If we killed them we would be failing our main goal of not killing them.

[RyuDragnier]

The only right way to "regress" WoL's power is simply to send him somewhere new where people don't know him. The very nature of the game ensures that WoL will ultimately defeat any problems regardless, so just writing in a depowerment serves no real purpose.

Have us given a new recurring foe or main antagonist that's a tactician type, who is constantly planning for and around our personality and power on a global stage. The kind that plays us often, and is the master of the Xanatos Gambit. A foe who our power does nothing against simply because we're playing into their hands constantly. In other words, we need a charismatic pragmatic villain who is a skilled manipulator...and depending on what they do with the 4th Legion in Bozja, we MIGHT just get that.

[Kesey]

I'm frankly kind of tired of the way the story is progressing at this point. It's hard to feel emotion at each new world ending event when our character is a literal god. I don't know what the future holds, but I would like to see something like this: We clear up the Garleans, Ascians, and Zodiark problem. In defeating Zodiark we sacrifice our own warrior of light powers and spend the remaining expansions exploring new lands as a regular (albeit powerful) adventurer solving more grounded problems.

But they already did this in Heavensward. Middy stripped the WOL of the Blessing of Light and they had to work to regain it back.

And there is also an undertone that each expansion makes us stronger too, like Stormblood's first encounters with Zenos were too difficult for us only to save Doma and most of Ala Mhigo makes us better warriors for the final confrontation with Zenos, then Shadowbringer's whole merged with Ardbert thing also a ranking up of our power and soul.

I'd expect this trend to continue, even when we get to "season 2 of WOL" that the enemy will be a power unlike anything we dealt with before and need to reach that power to save the world blah blah blah etc. You see where I'm going with this.

[GrumbleBeard]

The PC is not a literal god. S/he is the fragmented reincarnation of a precursor famed for their strength and generosity upon whom some gods were based, but even Azem was not a literal god (in fact current signs suggest there is no such thing as a true god in the XIV universe, despite the known Ancient true names all being Olympian deities). The PC has simply inherited Azem's strength and generosity, and uses it to help others across the world(s) as his/her ancient incarnation did.

Reducing the power level is not an easy thing to do. Once you're effecting things on a given level it's difficult to narratively regress from that scope. WoW tried to do it with Battle for Azeroth, but among the many problems plaguing the expansion was how you went from fighting the literal legions of Hell to dealing with relatively low-key problems and kicking around the other faction. A hero whose strength was lent to ending the threat of the Burning Legion forever is way too powerful to call on for dealing with a witch coven in the woods, yet lo and behold that's exactly what ended up happening. (The whole faction war was only a thing because the writers were willfully ignorant of the Alliance gaining command of a starship!)

Yes, we're a fragment of hero from a race with arguably godlike powers compared to normal people. A fragment that is also much closer to being whole than the fragmented people we interact with. A fragment of a person who's memory lives on as a god to the Au Ra and a god of the Twelve and who knows what else, so I think it's fair to consider our character on a level beyond everything we interact with.
As for toning down power, I already gave a solution. In cleaning up the Ascian problem and Zodiark once and for all we could sacrifice whatever power it is that makes us the best at everything. As someone mentioned above, people could already accept us being relatively more normal during Heavensward. The only thing making it worse is continuing the DragonBallZ-esque villain structure we've been using.
Regardless, if you like it how it is, that's fine. These are my own complaints and I'm not saying they're any more valid than your own. Just that there are options available if they wanted to travel that path and that I would personally prefer it.

[GrumbleBeard]

And there is also an undertone that each expansion makes us stronger too, like Stormblood's first encounters with Zenos were too difficult for us only to save Doma and most of Ala Mhigo makes us better warriors for the final confrontation with Zenos, then Shadowbringer's whole merged with Ardbert thing also a ranking up of our power and soul.

I didn't hate these parts since they made our character feel more grounded. Ironically, I remember quite a lot of complaining in the places I frequent regarding "jobbing" to Zenos and later Ranjit. I can partly agree in a sense. Zenos makes sense to me why he could be near our level, but Ranjit doesn't stand out to me as someone who would stand toe to toe against us. I get he's been fighting sin eaters for ages, but I don't buy it. It would have made more sense if our character was closer in power to Thancred.

[RyuDragnier]

I didn't hate these parts since they made our character feel more grounded. Ironically, I remember quite a lot of complaining in the places I frequent regarding "jobbing" to Zenos and later Ranjit. I can partly agree in a sense. Zenos makes sense to me why he could be near our level, but Ranjit doesn't stand out to me as someone who would stand toe to toe against us. I get he's been fighting sin eaters for ages, but I don't buy it. It would have made more sense if our character was closer in power to Thancred.

My personal headcanon with Ranjit is that he caught us off guard, we realized how the move works and were ready to counter it (explaining why it was a joke later), and then we got outnumbered to where Thancred and the Exarch helped us make a hasty retreat.