Would you be ok with a good rival figure for 7.0+?(6.0 spoilers)

[Lyth]

I think that the discussion was on 'people who have had fights against Azem where they weren't killed off in that encounter'. It's not like fighting ability is a static thing, and the player is story-bound to defeat every antagonist that they encounter eventually.

The difficulty with antagonists is that no matter how long you spend building them up, they'll eventually lose their fangs once you beat them once, and you can't really reuse them after that. It's a bit like creating a character for the express purpose of killing them off. I suspect that this is why so many of FFXIV's better written villains get rehabilitated rather than outright discarding their story potential.

[Absimiliard]

and Raubahn (if you count sparring), and Elidibus in Zenos' body, and Lyon, and Sartauvoir, and Elidibus in Ardbert's body, and Menenius, and Lyon again, and Venat...

There's actually been a good few people that 1v1'd us and walked away, it's just that not all of them went in for multiple rounds.

Raubahn was pretty clearly outmatched the entire time, Elidibus had access to his full power even while wearing Zenos, Lyon, Sartauvoir, and Menenius all end up getting theirs, Elidibus was (as with Zenos before) still able to utilize his full power in Ardbert's body, and Venat was an Ancient.

Zenos and Ran'jit, however, were pure mortals that managed not only fight back but make it very clear they could have killed the WoL at various points up until they screwed around for so long they lost their advantage. The former allowed the WoL to grow stronger, while the latter simply lost the advantage of having an unfamiliar fighting style.

[Cleretic]

Yeah, as Lyth noted, the point of that list isn't 'people who beat the WoL', it's 'people who could go toe-to-toe with them in a fair fight'. The fact that we do win is less important than the fact they could have. (And with the Bozja duels, there is no way in hell you won that without a few tries, so they're clearly winning that race overall.)

I think that the discussion was on 'people who have had fights against Azem where they weren't killed off in that encounter'. It's not like fighting ability is a static thing, and the player is story-bound to defeat every antagonist that they encounter eventually.

The difficulty with antagonists is that no matter how long you spend building them up, they'll eventually lose their fangs once you beat them once, and you can't really reuse them after that. It's a bit like creating a character for the express purpose of killing them off. I suspect that this is why so many of FFXIV's better written villains get rehabilitated rather than outright discarding their story potential.

But this is a bit of a rough one with recurring enemies in... honestly, any video game; if you make it so that they just lose every time then they never feel like a solid threat, and if they win the first few times then you have to find a way to sell that in a way that isn't either a cop-out or unfun. It's why so many recurring boss fights are intentionally comedic, like Gilgamesh, Ultros, or the Turks; that way you can just lean into the fact the script keeps making them lose.

One of the few counterexamples I can think of are, weirdly, the rivals in the first two Pokemon generations. Blue and Silver manage to retain being compelling opponents despite losing, partly through... well, being smug assholes, but also through being genuinely difficult fights that the game clearly expects you to lose a couple of times, so even if according to the story Red beat Blue seven to nine times in their journey (depending on game version and if you did the optional fight), we respect that Blue's a tough cookie because we know we didn't actually beat him seven to nine times in a row.

That's something that the Bozja duels have, but plot-losses like we get from Zenos and Ran'jit tend not to. We know Lyon can give us a run for our money because it took you four tries until you beat him, making it pretty believable if the game says 'hey Lyon's as tough as you'. But that's harder to swallow with Zenos and Ran'jit, because while the story is saying that they beat us, the gameplay is saying 'you were playing until you hit the arbitrary auto-lose point', which doesn't really play as well in terms of genuinely building up and selling their threat.

[Veloran]

Yeah, as Lyth noted, the point of that list isn't 'people who beat the WoL', it's 'people who could go toe-to-toe with them in a fair fight'. The fact that we do win is less important than the fact they could have. (And with the Bozja duels, there is no way in hell you won that without a few tries, so they're clearly winning that race overall.)

But as Absimiliard notes, and what you were quoting in response to before, the point is "people who can beat WoL". Raubahn, Elidibus, any of the Bozja duels, none of them could beat WoL. Saying "oh but you'll probably lose the duels" isn't a legitimate point, because chances are the player loses to tons of bosses the first time as well, but WoL in the story doesn't. The player could also eat every AoE against Zenos and get easily KO'd there as well, but that isn't what happens. What makes him narratively a rival to WoL isn't that Zenos is threatening from a gameplay standpoint, but because in the plot he completely overpowers WoL and could have actually killed them if he had wanted to. The same can't be said for those you listed, whose greatest accomplishments are "being capable of running away after losing to WoL".

[Atmaweapon510]

With how the discussions on this thread have gotten I now officially despise Zenos and the effect he has had on the story with all my heart. Look at how the narrative has been warped concerning power levels. Meanwhile, we still have stuff like the Bardam's mettle dungeon text which implies that you're cheating while your npc allies aren't.

A rival can be something more than just a recurring antagonist you have to duel over and over again, but apparently the next worthy opponent is what most people are thinking of. I guess Zenos was more appropriate than I thought.

[Cleretic]

With how the discussions on this thread have gotten I now officially despise Zenos and the effect he has had on the story with all my heart. Look at how the narrative has been warped concerning power levels. Meanwhile, we still have stuff like the Bardam's mettle dungeon text which implies that you're cheating while your npc allies aren't.

A rival can be something more than just a recurring antagonist you have to duel over and over again, but apparently the next worthy opponent is what most people are thinking of. I guess Zenos was more appropriate than I thought.

I think what might be a good starter for this conversation is an example of the kind of character you're actually thinking of. The reason we're all jumping to Zenos is because he's the most ready example of a 'rival figure', so unless you give us a different one to chew on, that's our starting point.

[Lyth]

If you are told that someone is capable of 'standing up to the WoL's full might head on', you can't directly infer from that statement alone that they are 'capable of beating the WoL'. It just means that you're capable of surviving as a sparring partner. One is a subset of the other. I do agree that you have to set aside any ludonarrative dissonance that players individually encounter in the form of in-game wipes, or else this sort of a discussion becomes a lot more complicated.

...

I think that if you want a villain to be genuinely menacing, then they have to be both unfamiliar and unpredictable. I think that the problem with recurrent boss fights against a rival is that it gives player a gauge of their opponent's abilities, and develops a sense of familiarity over the repeated encounters. An interesting counterpoint to this is Kefka, although it's worth noting that you really only have one proper fight against him, early on in Narshe. I think the critical step with Kefka is the General Leo fight, in that they give you control of this exciting new character with a powerful moveset, let you 'defeat' Kefka with him, and then brutally yank the rug from under you. After that, you're denied any further encounters with Kefka until the final fight, and you don't even get to directly see him for most of the second half.

I also think that it's a mistake to flag someone as 'the main villain' early on. I think this was part of the problem with Zenos in Stormblood (hey, check out our new expansion, here's a collectible statue of our new major villain!) In contrast, his father's introduction to the story was much more effective. The Garleans are having a succession war? There's a new emperor? What's he like? There's a gradual trickle of information that builds up into the character. It also helps if they're not outright antagonistic to you from the outset. A lot of RPGs like to try to copy the Sephiroth dynamic, but forget that Sephiroth himself spends a large portion of Disc 1 in the original game ignoring you. Likewise, Emet in Shadowbringers, as well as FFXV's main villain (whom Shadowbringers Emet is very much modelled after) have some outright warm and friendly interactions with you, up until the surprise shanking.

I think that the question shouldn't be 'who is the villain for the story arc?', but rather, 'who should be the villain for the final expansion of the story arc?' They don't need to be in your face, and you don't even need to fight them. You just need to slowly build up the player's motive for wanting to fight them. It's a long term investment.

[Veloran]

If you are told that someone is capable of 'standing up to the WoL's full might head on', you can't directly infer from that statement alone that they are 'capable of beating the WoL'.

The specific mentions of Zenos and Ran'jit to begin with should really have been all that was needed to infer intent, even without the elaboration Absimiliard gave afterwards.

[TaleraRistain]

Unukalhai may have had the Echo, but I don't think that either Unukalhai or Cylva were officially designated as being Azem's counterpart on the Thirteenth. The impression that I had was that they were simply two heroes who survived the Flood of Darkness.

Unukalhai is heavily implied to be Nyelbert's 13th equivalent in the quest with Taynor. The quest doesn't really indicate Cylva was Ardbert's but also didn't rule her out as the equivalent of one of the others.

[kaynide]

Thought about this a bit, and honestly, I would like to see a rival that is actually legit better for the situation than we are.

As in, Alphinaud and our WoL come to save the day, with an offer to help but it turns out the other guy has a better solution and means to implement it.

Something like trying to resettle the Garlean people, but a legion leader with his people’s interests at heart with equipment and soldiers ready to go to lay groundwork TODAY, while the Eorzean Alliance has to debate things or something.

I’d like to be in a situation where our character does everything we can to help, but rather than be the savior, we are just in the way… ultimately deciding it is better to support the rival.