A game for 4 year olds

[Cleretic]

This is why I was hoping that after EW was dealt with, the WoL would be depowered.

It would solve 2 problems: The problem of being too strong for more mundane threats. And the problem of new players coming into the game. While it was necessary to power up the WoL at first because the Garlean Empire and the Ascians were WAAAAY too strong for Eorzea, if they depowered the WoL after it was all over then not only could existing players who have already completed the story start fresh, but new players could use this as a new launch pad into the game without needing to complete all of the story that happened from say HW-onwards.

See, I think this is an attempted solution to something that's not actually a problem, and just makes more in the attempted fix. We're not actually so strong as to completely invalidate all non-apocalyptic comers; we're exceptionally capable in a fight, no doubt about it, but we've been laid out flat plenty of times and don't actually do a lot of those tremendous victories alone; Shadowbringers and Endwalker did well by making that abundantly clear in the text itself, and giving us a way to bring in a group even when that's difficult through the Azem crystal, but it's always been there. We might be the among top of our respective fields, but that peak is by no means above the concept of there being believable competition or us needing help to throw down with a big beastie.

The story doesn't need to de-power us to make future content a challenge; they can just make that content a challenge and have us accept that we'll sometimes get our asses handed to us no matter how big our biceps are. No part of the game's text or mechanics says that's not completely possible; hell, Bozja told us that a guy with an axe and no shirt was our combative equal, and I don't see anyone arguing with that.

...plus, the notion of de-powering the character faces an insane amount of issues both with reflecting it mechanically and story-wise. We have dozens of different possible power sources, from the high-concept Summoner to the 'just angry and beefy' Warrior, how are you going to sell an in-universe de-powering that hits every single one of them? Even when superhero stories do that they don't try to make it one-size-fits all, because when they do it it's not to knock The Flash or Thor down to size, it's usually a story arc just set up around the concept of 'oh yeah Batman and Hawkeye aren't affected by this, we'll tell a story about that'. Metroid can de-power Samus no problems, because Samus is one person with a very specific power source; to depower the WoL, you need a concept that wipes out twenty different possible power sources and combat techniques in one. And you can't actually miss a single one, otherwise Monks or whoever you miss are gonna complain they should be the exception and should be the Batman in a 'depowered Justice League' story.

And it's a beat that's not going to feel like it means anything at all if it's not mechanically reflected, but reflecting it mechanically would kinda just mess up the rest of the game. If you've decided after Ultima Thule that we should be depowered to a degree where we can no longer compete in Ultima Thule... well, if you don't change things mechanically nobody will think we've been de-powered anyway and it'll feel like nothing, but if you make it so that we can't you've messed up all content in that zone.

[Lyth]

Power is relative. You really just need a sufficiently menacing villain. The problem is if that confrontation occurs too early, then they lose their impact. It's easy to fall into the trap of introducing a character and then immediately wanting to bring about a showdown. But then it quickly turns into monster of the week. This is the best time to start investing in an arc villain, for a payoff several expansions down the line.

I like the idea of removing players' sense of 'safety', but that's difficult to do in an MMO. Traditionally the way to do this is a point of no return. One of the best parts of the transition between ARR and Heavensward was the lonely journey to Ishgard, as a wanted fugitive on the run. But you also can't take away the player's ability to teleport back to Ul'dah and carry on there as normal. In comparison, imagine the impact of Cecil being stranded on Mysidia, only to be able to teleport back to safety to visit earlier shops at will.

I think the difficulty right now is that most places on the three great continents are going to welcome us as heroes and cheer us on. It's very different being stranded in a hostile environment as the underdog and trying to win people over. But I think it's tough to convey that in an MMO.

It would be fun to see some of the Ivalice related regions in southern Ilsabard, and I'm hoping that one of the 'other names' for Locus Amoenus turns out to be Archadia. But I'm in no particular rush to get there.