Quote Originally Posted by MikkoAkure View Post
Primals and eikons are different words for the same thing. Allagans, Garleans, and people conquered by Garleans use the word "eikon". Ascians and Eorzeans including beast tribes use the term "primal". Both require faith and aether. Why would there even be a need for there to be a difference for Ancient and modern summons if they both do exactly the same thing?
We have been told there's a difference though, the terminology is simply inconsistent and confusing because it hasn't been fully elaborated upon. You say there's a power differential, but really the story makes it out as the original Primals being at least as dangerous, capable of summoning tidalwaves, earthquakes, and firestorms that can ruin entire regions, and we have merely been lucky in stopping them before they strike out. That, and because many incarnations of the primals have been enervated though weak summonings with pitiful amounts of aether.

Why would she lock up a bunch of summoning concepts when any desperate group of people can summon beings that are MUCH stronger like the Warring Triad and Bahamut, all of which can destroy the world on their own?
It took thousands of years of worship and aether for Bahamut and the Triad to get as powerful as they were in the modern day. Moreover I'm not saying Hydaelyn sealed the primals and not eikons because of a qualitative difference between them, but because she was capable of doing so to the Ancient concepts at the time and not the modern ones, because her power was spent over time.

Also keep in mind that many modern animals were actually spawned from Ancient concepts, the griffon and (I think) manticore for example. A lot of the more monstrous creatures plaguing the world. It may be Hydaelyn simply sealed away the most dangerous concepts so they didn't infinitely replicate into the future like those ones did. Would you want millions of Ifrits running across the world?

As far as Hingashi, it doesn't make any sense for them to suddenly decide to invade when there's been no foreshadowing for that at all. Like Edo-period Japan, they're an isolationist nation uninterested in the goings on of the wider world. And if they had the knowledge that Doma, Dalmasca, and Nagxia were freed and the Garlean Empire is in decline, they would also have the knowledge that Doma has joined in a military alliance with the Nagxian, Bozjan, and Dalmascan resistance forces, as well as the entire region of Eorzea. I wouldn't understand why a lonely island nation more concerned with keeping its own citizens in line would suddenly have eyes for the rest of Othard.
By that logic there's no reason why the real life lonely island nation Hingashi is based on would have decided to become an expansionistic imperial power invading it's mainland neighbors. Japan had it's reasons and it's opportunity, Hingashi can have it's own.

On top of that, such a story would require the completion of the Bozja storyline, and I don't think it's realistic to make that a requirement for a future expansion. And considering how it ended, I think the story for that region is done for the foreseeable future.
I don't think the Bozja storyline would be required though. In the main story Garlemald's empire is basically already done for, Bozja was simply about the specific downfall of the 4th Legion and liberation of Bozja. All the elements for that are already in the MSQ - If we were to visit any of the Ilsabardian nations after Endwalker, there's already a good chance the legions overseeing them had fallen due to the events of Endwalker. Like Matsuno said, the real story of Dalmasca is what comes after it's liberation, not how it's liberated. So in what way would the Bozja storyline be relevant to that to the point of being required, other than introducing a few characters and a prelude to some of the ideas that might be in that storyline? Is there really any reason any of the characters should innately treat WoL differently just based on having done Bozja before? A few alternate lines upon some character's introductions are all it would take.

We've already done primals, war (multiple times), liberation, shards, and time travel. I want something new. Let us get de-powered in 6.0
In effect, another Stormblood-esque expansion would be downtime. You can't have an entire expansion's main story have no tension, stakes, or drama, that would just be incongruent with everything else in the game. And you don't need to suddenly depower WoL to just being a good adventurer in order to have stakes. Simply reducing the scale of the story to a continental conflict is already drastically lowering them already, you can't just boot primals, grand heroism, or war out of the plot and think that people will remain invested in some little island-hopping adventure with squabbling lalafells. There's lowering the drama and then there's taking a boot to it.

And if you don't want Allagans, Meracydia is the last place you should want to go.