Why heavensward story is considered a better one then stormblood ?

[Kaurhz]

I do not like frozen peaks of ishgard or fighting dragons(i have enough of dragons because of world of warcraft expansions) etc. I much prefer stormblood since it has the eastern vibe, which I love. Plus it doesn't have mary sue Alphinaud, I wish they would kill him already.

I enjoyed it, personally. It definitely had some low downs, particularly with Alphinaud, but I don't think even the dreaded Alphinaud can compete with an expansion of Lyse. I liked the eastern aesthetic, and I would have liked it more if not for the troubling launch or the poor development it had. Being an expansion that was essentially split around 2 regions, it made it hard to really get anything of substance there.



Yes, Lyse, what were you doing there...?

[IdowhatIwant]

I enjoyed it, personally. It definitely had some low downs, particularly with Alphinaud, but I don't think even the dreaded Alphinaud can compete with an expansion of Lyse. I liked the eastern aesthetic, and I would have liked it more if not for the troubling launch or the poor development it had. Being an expansion that was essentially split around 2 regions, it made it hard to really get anything of substance there.

Nah I loved the launch and all the people lining up, that was great.
But yeah it lacked substances cause it was trying to cover way to much. I personally have the same feeling about EW, it was better than SB but not by much IMO. I think ShB and HW work better cause it's centralized and can go in more depth. These expansions also felt more like an adventure vs the others as well.

SB also normalized the fist clinching seen in every expansion after to express anger.

[ForteNightshade]

I do not like frozen peaks of ishgard or fighting dragons(i have enough of dragons because of world of warcraft expansions) etc. I much prefer stormblood since it has the eastern vibe, which I love. Plus it doesn't have mary sue Alphinaud, I wish they would kill him already.

You kind of just answered your own question here. You have a bias against dragons, and towards Eastern themes. Naturally, the expansion which focuses heavily on political machinations and dragons won't appeal to you compared to one whose second half is entirely dedicated towards Eastern inspiration.

As for the general census towards each expansion. Lyse simply isn't a well written character nor is the majority of Ala Mhigo's side of Stormblood well executed. In fact, it's all but forgotten once we set foot in Kugane and never refocuses. Alphinaud is also far from a Mary Sue even if you happen to dislike him. He undergoes a pretty significant character growth; something Lyse does not. She is the exact same character from start to finish. The narrative even frames around how right her idealism is instead of simply acknowledging it. Her perspective is never once challenged and by the end, she... puts on a dress and is suddenly taking up the leadership mantle of Ala Mhigo when, realistically, Raubahn is FAR more qualified.

It's primarily how poorly written Lyse was and the lack of focus towards Ala Mhigo which causes many to rank Stormblood lower. It's still a good expansion, especially the Doma side. Just simply weaker than Heavensward for most players.

[Seraphor]

What a gross exaggeration. You werent jumping around back and forth between the two conflicts. Want me to outline this for you?

Start - Try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It failed
Middle - Divide Imperial forces by liberating Doma. It succeeded
End- Resistance Redemption where we try to liberate Ala Mhigo again. It succeeded.

So yeah, Im not seeing where this "constant back and forth repeatedly" issue people seem to have lies exactly in SB. I heard the same complaints from a friend who told me this exact thing and here I was expecting oh we would be awkwardly traveling between the two nations solving their issues and its an unfocused mess, but no, the entirety of the Far East section is a one and done deal in the main msq. Now what I do have issues is that the story itself was very ambitious and I wouldve personally preferred they dedicated an expansion for Gyr Abania and another for the Far East so we could get some more world lore like how we got with Coerthas and Ishgard in Heavensward.

You somehow miss the point and hit the nail on the head in the same post.
It's not a "constant" back and forth, but it is split between two different (albeit complementing) stories. Neither Othard nor Gyr Abania get enough development in comparison to Coerthas, and in fact Gyr Abania is mostly one dimensional. None of the Gyr Abania zones or locales are at all memorable, and we miss out on the city proper.

The story is also very repetitive because of this "lets see the same thing happen in two (actually more than two) places" idea.
WoL, Alisae and Lyse arrive in [insert oppressed nation/city/village].
"We hAvE cOmE tO lIbErAtE yOu"
"Go away we don't need liberating"
WoL accomplishes [insert impressive task]
"NoW cAn We LiBeRaTe YoU?"
"Yeah ok."

That happens at least three times, five if you count the individual Gyr Abanian villages. (and come to think of it, there's the Kojin too)

To be fair, Shadowbringers was equally as repetitive, slaying the Lightwarden for each zone, but this was purely in comparison to Ishgard at the time when Stormblood was the contemporary, which had one fully fleshed out plot line that gave the main characters all the screen time needed to give them a full character development arc.
And besides, Shadowbringers does a better job at diversifying the repeated steps and the different locales, with a separate overarching narrative with Emet progressing alongside, which compared to Zenos is virtually classical prose.

[RayneBoemir]

Because dragons

[RayneBoemir]

Serious answer though story wise bridging the dragon and human race felt more personal than freeing a nation. It doesn’t help that for what it is trying to paint with Stormblood it fails in presenting it with scope.

[Illmaeran]

For me, having made an Elezen Dragoon whose patron is Halone as my main in ARR; the whole milieu of Ishgard and and Coerthas had a massive impact on me. It really felt as though I belonged there and made true brothers and sisters of the characters. On the whole, HW was more cohesive than SB with the main story staying in a single region and building the history to explain the conflict. The world building part of the story built sympathy for all the characters, antagonist and protagonist alike.

The small bits of history and lore of Ala Mhigo we got through ARR and some of HW, plus what we got in early SB wasn't enough to build the kind of connection that the storytelling of HW did. The pacing and stretching the story out over multiple cultural regions made the overarching story feel disjointed and the interruptions broke any investment just as it was starting to build. That being said, I thought Formula and Yotsuyu were well done and early Zenos was compelling. If they had both died, it would have done a lot to tie up the story and increase my overall satisfaction with the arc. In the end, I think Stormblood tried to do too much with too little and it got stretched out to almost The Hobbit-like lengths. They could have made some very compelling story if they'd taken more time and gave each their own expansion. If they'd done that, I could see one of the two rivaling Heavensward.

[Caurcas]

SB is of about the same quality as HW narrative wise, and far better than ShB and EW. However, most take issue with it being are far more political narrative over the fantasy elements present in the other xpac.

[kpxmanifesto]

I also remember from another thread a while ago that several player's reasons for disliking the SB story was the character, Lyse. Some felt that her demeanor or her qualifications made her unfit to be one of the leaders of the resistance which was enough of a reason for them to dislike the story. I personally liked SB and I rate it above EW.

[KariTheFox]

What a gross exaggeration. You werent jumping around back and forth between the two conflicts. Want me to outline this for you?

Start - Try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It failed
Middle - Divide Imperial forces by liberating Doma. It succeeded
End- Resistance Redemption where we try to liberate Ala Mhigo again. It succeeded.

Agreed, SB did seem to follow a pretty conventional 3 act structure there. Honestly, as much as I like HW I think it suffers much more from the "going back and forth and pointlessly meandering" complaint that people lob at SB - first you're in Ishgard, then you leave to take care of the aftermath of the bloody banquet and rescue Raubahn, then you're dealing with a bug primal, then moonless? Then the sky whale - then the Vault happens and the entire expansion feels tightly focused right up until the end of the Dragonsong War arc and Nidhogg's death.

Maybe that's why HW is better remembered, even though it meanders a lot more imo in its first half, by the end it's so tightly focused that it's hard to remember the messy start.