Tired of Zenos (spoilers)

[Bright-Flower]

It's not. It's everything else we did in the story that made it so we could even get to him in the first place. And we had to whoop Shinryu right after. Zenos is hard to kill and even harder to corner. All the while he's being a cocky snake about it and goading us into losing our cool and going full Doom Slayer on him. I honestly hope he kills some characters that have been around since literally 1.0. If this is going to be a match worth building up, it needs to be personal, hard as that is to do for an mmo. I guess I like Zenos because he has potential to be Metal Face but with none of the flaws. And he has a most punchable face.

That's all it was though.

What changed between him whooping us in Doma and us us fighting him in Ala Mhigo?

We leveled up 7 more times. Doing the exact same sort of adventuring we've been doing since ARR. That's it. Nothing about that time was pushing us to our limits more than prior experiences, or doing anything outside of the norm. Zenos basically beat us because his power level was higher, and then in the third fight we win because we got our power levle higher by just grinding through more adventures. There was no actual effort to conciously grow stronger, learn to counter his abilities, nothing interesting. Just more of us doing the same stuff we've been doing and our numbers got higher so then we could beat him.

My propblem with fighting Shinryu isn't that we fought shinryu. It's that we were able to just stroll up to Shinryu and kill it, after 3.55 made such a big deal out of it. Not even a quick plot token thrown in or anything to explain it. People come up with fan theories to suggest Shinryu was weakened but nothing in the game actually says that.

In 3.55 Popolymo sacrifices his life to stall Shinryu and we risk unleashing Omega rather than fight it directly. In 4.0, we just walk up to Shinryu and kill it. What changed? Our power level went up, and that's boring.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

That's all it was though.

What changed between him whooping us in Doma and us us fighting him in Ala Mhigo?

We leveled up 7 more times. Doing the exact same sort of adventuring we've been doing since ARR. That's it. Nothing about that time was pushing us to our limits more than prior experiences, or doing anything outside of the norm. Zenos basically beat us because his power level was higher, and then in the third fight we win because we got our power levle higher by just grinding through more adventures. There was no actual effort to conciously grow stronger, learn to counter his abilities, nothing interesting. Just more of us doing the same stuff we've been doing and our numbers got higher so then we could beat him.

My propblem with fighting Shinryu isn't that we fought shinryu. It's that we were able to just stroll up to Shinryu and kill it, after 3.55 made such a big deal out of it. Not even a quick plot token thrown in or anything to explain it. People come up with fan theories to suggest Shinryu was weakened but nothing in the game actually says that.

In 3.55 Popolymo sacrifices his life to stall Shinryu and we risk unleashing Omega rather than fight it directly. In 4.0, we just walk up to Shinryu and kill it. What changed? Our power level went up, and that's boring.

We didn't have the help of any god item. Just us and our skills. That's what was interesting to me. And we still won. Because otherwise the game is over.

[Bright-Flower]

We didn't have the help of any god item. Just us and our skills. That's what was interesting to me. And we still won. Because otherwise the game is over.

The game would not have been over if they had actually addressed the issue.

I don't find 'oh no this enemy is far too powerful to fight' going to 'okay now we can just fight and kill it normally' to be satisfying when the only explanation from point A to B is 'your numbers went up.'

If you find the idea appealing we'll just have to agree to disagree on that then.

[Edax]

We didn't have the help of any god item. Just us and our skills. That's what was interesting to me. And we still won. Because otherwise the game is over.

Was it very interesting to you when you were finally were able to kill a level 23 poacher NPC in the Shroud? It was just you and your skills.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Was it very interesting to you when you were finally were able to kill a level 23 poacher NPC in the Shroud? It was just you and your skills.

The same woman who wrote ShB which made the Ascians interesting to insane degrees is also writing EW. She turned some of SE's most generic villains into one of their most tragic. Imagine what she could do for Zenos and Fandaniel.

[Bright-Flower]

The same woman who wrote ShB which made the Ascians interesting to insane degrees is also writing EW. She turned one of SE's most generic villains into one of their most tragic. Imagine what she could do for Zenos and Fandaniel.

And if/when that happens it'll be great.

Doesn't change any of the criticisms about 4.0 though.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Who was a generic villain? Emet? Also Ishikawa’s whole shtick seems to just be sob stories and no consequences for the protagonists which...gets boring fast. I really hope she changes her storytelling a bit for 6.0.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Who was a generic villain? Emet? Also Ishikawa’s whole shtick seems to just be sob stories and no consequences for the protagonists which...gets boring fast. I really hope she changes her storytelling a bit for 6.0.

Never heard of her until now, so ShB is new to me. Also I worded that poorly, I meant to say some, not one. She gave the other Ascians some depth as well.

[MarsAstro]

Also Ishikawa’s whole shtick seems to just be sob stories and no consequences for the protagonists which...gets boring fast. I really hope she changes her storytelling a bit for 6.0.

I wouldn't say that's her shtick, it's just been a thing in Shadowbringers, since the focus has been on making the Ascians more sympathetic. She also didn't single-handedly write Shadowbringers, and she's previously written other stories for the game that are entirely different.

Idk, they had depth before. If anything she kind of ruined Elidibus in 5.3. Emet was fine but she tried to repeat the same sob story gimmick with elidibus and it just fell flat and felt incredibly rushed (probably because it was).

Could you explain how you feel Ascians had depth before? Before Shadowbringers I never really saw any motivation for their actions beyond "we like chaos and want to bring our evil god back", which didn't seem too deep to me.
I'm not really sure how you feel Elidibus was a repeat of Emet-Selch either, they felt like fundamentally different characters with different motivations to me. Sure, they both had sad stories, but otherwise they were completely different. Emet-Selch was motivated by his memories of happier days, Elidibus couldn't remember who he was or why he was doing what he was doing. They couldn't have been much more different in their motivations and story arcs as far as I'm concerned.

I'd love for you to elaborate, if you're up for it, I want to understand where you're coming from.

[Lauront]

I wouldn't say that's her shtick, it's just been a thing in Shadowbringers, since the focus has been on making the Ascians more sympathetic. She also didn't single-handedly write Shadowbringers, and she's previously written other stories for the game that are entirely different.



Could you explain how you feel Ascians had depth before? Before Shadowbringers I never really saw any motivation for their actions beyond "we like chaos and want to bring our evil god back", which didn't seem too deep to me.
I'm not really sure how you feel Elidibus was a repeat of Emet-Selch either, they felt like fundamentally different characters with different motivations to me. Sure, they both had sad stories, but otherwise they were completely different. Emet-Selch was motivated by his memories of happier days, Elidibus couldn't remember who he was or why he was doing what he was doing. They couldn't have been much more different in their motivations and story arcs as far as I'm concerned.

I'd love for you to elaborate, if you're up for it, I want to understand where you're coming from.

He's getting at the many points that made Elidibus intriguing in contrast to the rest, e.g. his more peaceful approach; his focus on the balance between light and dark; Nabriales restraining himself from harming Minfilia because it would displease Elidibus. The fact that he would sometimes work at odds with the other Ascians to achieve their goals, and course-correct them when he felt they went astray. And this all on top of the fact that he was Zodiark's Emissary. There were plenty of points that suggested more depth to the Ascians before we got SHB, because the mere fact that Zodiark's Emissary distinguished himself thus from the other Ascians suggested there was a bigger picture unfolding which we weren't privy to. He flatlined a bit towards the later half of SB and obviously there were plenty of ways they could've resolved these points, particularly regarding the balance between light and dark. I also found Lahabrea's Praetorium speech intriguing, FWIW, and I had hoped they'd tie in the way in which he considered Hydaelyn to be a parasite to Elidibus's "balance" schtick. I'm keen to see how they handle him, if he actually appears in the raid - he deserves a proper encounter and fulfillment of his story.

So he's basically referring to the Elidibus before 5.3. His more amicable approach and suggestion of deeper knowledge led many - myself included - to think he would be the one to play Emet's role. Emet's introduction and the way they handled the latter half of SB sort of limited their options, I suppose.

Also he could recall who he was but it's the why's and wherefore's that fell away as time went on. It was a deliberate choice, because he didn't want painful memories to deter him from such an important duty. Nonetheless, it's a 5.3 artefact. I don't think the way they dealt with it in 5.3 was bad, per se (for example I was concerned they'd turn him into some cackling villain), but I'm not also thrilled by the execution, and not particularly convinced by the memory loss approach; up to 5.2 I was still enjoying the show. The story they went with in the Amaurot gauntlet was an importation in some ways of the messaging of the DRK quests into the MSQ - not a bad thing, but I think they would've been better served by utilising the approach they took in Emet's short story to explain their perspective on the sundered life forms and the pain seeing their people reduced to such forms caused them, since Elidibus shared this perspective. I also found the whole way they finally dealt with the balance theme a bit weak, and they could've done more, e.g. explain how the presence of one or the other of the "eldest" of Primals in the Aetherial Sea affects it, how the sundered state of the world impacts it, and so on, and taken it in that direction.

Granted, if they give Fandaniel a compelling backstory, don't let Zenos hog the spotlight and "surprise" me with how they deal with Zodiark and Hydaelyn regarding the Zenodiark thing everyone expects, I'll be pleased. I thought that at least the moonshot of the derplander emulating Elidibus's form - presumably picking up on the theme of salvation which he embodied - showed promise.

Ishikawa is a good writer, but adopting the same approach to sympathy building across more antagonists will get old quickly for me. I am a person who is more interested in setting lore than feelz, and I want Fandaniel at the least to deliver on the former, if nothing else. Applying such an approach to Zenos would disappoint me even more, particularly after Yoshi has said they don't do half-measures when it comes to sympathetic vs unsympathetic characters, and he specifically names Zenos as an example of the latter. So I am not taking a blind faith approach in her writing ability to "improve" him.

JeuxOnline: In a previous interview, you said it was quite challenging to create realistic villains from one expansion to another. Ran’jit & Solus are great in that way: they look very strong, fearsome & crazy. How do you manage to keep getting inspired and make charismatic bad guys for the story not to be redundant?

Naoki Yoshida: That is a very difficult question to answer. So when making the villain characters, what the dev team tries to keep in mind is that they have to stand out, either by being really hateful and the players really hate them or still kinda loveable in a way. So for example Zenos is some sort of entity of ultimate Evil. [spoiler]But for Emet-Selch, he just wants to restore his world, that he believes is the best world.[spoiler]. So each time we create a new villain, we try to put them on either end of the scale, either complete evil or with having their own belief, their own goal. Having someone in-between is quite half-baked and is something the dev team wants to avoid.