A game for 4 year olds

[Eisi]

I want to go to the New World so badly, and at the same time my mix of trepidation and excitement for how a Japanese game will fumble on a setting inspired by the Americas is potent… We’ve already had the conflicts and evils of colonialism addressed in the MSQ and general game worldbuilding, everything about Garlemald but also Limsa in particular and Ul’dah, so I know they aren’t going to hit only sour notes. The war bonnet still makes me a little uncomfortable and doesn’t give me a starting place of confidence, but how Rak’tika and Thavnair were handled soothed some of it. A part of me wonders how much the New World inhabitants, if/when we meet them fully, will be modeled on the Ainu instead, as a more familiar and immediate example. But my limited knowledge of the Aztec and Incan Empires is why I’m so curious for the New World, because I’m interested to see if when that setting is fleshed out if either empire is used as a starting point for the replacement antagonist for the Garleans and what would be done to differentiate them from the aggressively expansionist imperial magitek version we’ve known for a decade now (and what would also make them distinct from Eulmore and Golbez). I know I don’t want “defend Limsan colonial outposts funded by the East Aldenard Trading Company” to be the opening arc to an expansion even if I’ve resigned myself to being exactly the setup building in the background. But even if that’s the thread to have to WoL land on the shores of the New World, the open possibility of the hypothetical central plot excites me.

(The very local history precludes me to heavily side-eye claims of cannibalistic natives, so I’m hoping that particular pulp adventure trope doesn’t crop up again. The dangling plot thread of the ziggurat Qiqirn and their counterparts bug me, especially as between the Namazu and the Qitari they will never be touched again outside of lore books.)

I didn't read this comment but I just wanna say, your Femroe is amazing, I love what you did with face 1, the rarest one probably in the game, you transformed it into something truly beautiful that I have never seen in the game and that deserves a shoutout! ♥ Amazing character

[Denishia]

I didn't read this comment but I just wanna say, your Femroe is amazing, I love what you did with face 1, the rarest one probably in the game, you transformed it into something truly beautiful that I have never seen in the game and that deserves a shoutout! ♥ Amazing character

The best part about playing a Face One FemRoe is that you feel like the main character because you'll never run across your NPC twin.

[rainichan]

I do hope that with rank 8 we will get something with the Ra-La worshipers as they are a miss them if you aren't looking types if they so far have only been seen around during the rank ups since we got formally introduced to them. It would be odd to have the story tell them to go mingle with the other inhabitants in hopes doing so would help them stop being so nihilistic as they are and basically say ahh yes everyone else got it right life does suck and good for for you for developing a hivemind. If our Omnicron business partner can deliver a line that says they don't believe the Ea's theory about how the heat death of the universe being a thing should make everyone hopeless you'd think we'd get just one more scene with those who had such a lovely planet to look at.

If not the rank 8, then at least an allied quest after the third tribe stuff. So far them just in the background doing nothing but being super nihilistic seems weird to keep unresolved.

[Iscah]

If not the rank 8, then at least an allied quest after the third tribe stuff. So far them just in the background doing nothing but being super nihilistic seems weird to keep unresolved.

Yeah, they're far too conspicuous to not be building up to some kind of resolution.

[Kozh]

I can't see the advantage for a now freed state to allow the Garleans to exert the same level of control as before.... It is no longer the story of the Warrior of Light at that point. It will be hidden off screen, as was Ala Mhigo for the most part.

First, I never said that I want them to have the same level of control as before, in fact I said that the provinces are free to have their condition for joining the Empire.

Second, why would you want things to happen off-screen? I certainly hate how ala mhigo development was off-screen, I don't want that to happen to Garlemald too.

Also, I should point out: a lot of the people who tend to be fairly pro-imperialism or the like are usually picturing themselves as the empire in the equation, rather than the conquered.

I don't know about others, but personally for me, I actually pictures it from the provinces side. Also, wanting imperialism in game =/= wanting the same thing to happen in real life.

Kozh is basically just doing the thing Varis did in that one roundtable scene, of attacking the Alliance for the sole purpose of shallow point-scoring and trying to pull attention away from the fact he wants something worse.

Funny because from my pov you’re the one who’s doing this shallow point-scoring by creating strawman out of my discussion with Mikko. And please tell me where I said I want something “worse”? Because I clearly said that the provinces are free to join the Empire or not.

I'm curious what he thinks about Bozja, though, which is the closest thing the game will ever get to what he wants: an admission that life under Gabranth (it should be noted not the Empire itself, just Gabranth who took a more egalitarian approach) was better for some citizens and they should probably borrow those policies, while still striving to be a self-governing independent nation.

Actually I like Bozja story! Sure it ended in cliffhanger, and too short, but I suppose that’s the consequences of being relic story. Bajsaljen is probably one of my favorite character, and he’s a good/competent leader. Our nation is still fairly young compared to other countries, hence why story of our struggle for independence used to make me sentimental back when I’m young. Especially when I listen it from my grandparents who lived through that. Perhaps that’s also why even though many trashed Stormblood (which is actually fair since its writing isn’t as good), personally it’s nearly on par with ShB to me. Because I understand what Ala mhigan and Doman went through.

HOWEVER, I also relate *a lot* with the misija, more than I did with ala mhigan/doman/bozjan. After all, it wasn’t our colonizer who oppress us, but our fellow countrymen. Who denied us our culture, forbade us to speak our language, we couldn’t even use our name and had to change it to be more ““native””; simply because we’re minority. It happened for decades, with one of the worst period happen during my childhood. So yeah, you could say that it left lasting impression.

Is this the reason why I want some provinces to re-join the Empire? Perhaps, perhaps not, I’m not too sure tbh. Maybe it influence me a bit, but mostly I just want to see something more interesting than what we got.

[Kozh]

Again, it's not the same and you're making a false equivalency. Garlemald was destroying lives and cultures on a global scale for no reason. Before now, Eorzea was a backwater fighting regional conflicts between multiple people groups with swords and arrows for 1500 years. Garlemald has been bombing cities from the sky for 60 years to get revenge for something that happened 600 years ago and then expanded beyond that to destroy countries that had nothing to do with them at all.

How is that false equivalency when the core reason of both garlemald conquest and eorzea conquest are the same? Which is expanding their territory. One of the differences is that garlemald conquest was fuelled by survival (and revenge for corvos), while Eorzean city states conquest was fuelled by each thinking their deity is the “right one”, and perhaps for resources too. The Alliance is very recently formed because of Autumn War and later because of the Empire. As for why they didn’t go global scale, it’s not hard to imagine that they’re pretty equal in term of strength hence. Only garlean who was too weak and therefore being pushed back to northern ilsabard.
Do you truly believe that if it was one of the city states who was gifted the power of magitek (or other power equivalent in strength to it), they won’t use it to launch their conquest in global scale?
I very much doubt they use “swords and arrows” only. Even ignoring the use of magic, I’m sure Sil’dih will disagree with you. Also I’m not sure why “swords and arrows” supposed to make it better? War is war.

Going to need a source on this last bit because I don't remember that. In any case, the recent Saints' Wake event had a Gridanian Elezen married to a Moon Keeper Miqo'te. In a world where inter-racial marriages are frowned upon, let alone one between a Wildwood and a Moon Keeper, that's a big deal. But the likely case is that the writers don't care about that plot thread anymore and we won't see racial tensions as much going forward anyway.

It’s from sidequests. Just because they won’t touch it again, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

It would be extremely cheap to the majority of the playerbase who have been around since the very beginning, are deeply engaged with the story, and aren't edgy imperial fans to have Garlemald just say "oops, sorry", put another Galvus on the throne, and keep the empire around.

And do you not think it was extremely cheap that the main Empire, whom we have been fighting against since the beginning, was destroyed of-screen and without our action? Is it not cheap to solve the political problem of ffxiv mainly by having all the opponents died to chaotic forces such as Zenos and Fandaniel? How is the game going “oh look, now the baddies are all gone and their nation wiped. You’re now free to go on new adventures and not think too hard about those guys, congrats ” isn’t cheap? Frankly it’s the same with the Ascian too. This game tends to use the easy way and have our opponents killed instead of living alongside them and having to navigate the conflicts and problems that arise due to that.
I know I’m not the only who think that way, because even Reddit of all places, was baffled as to why the game decided to finish Garlemald that way (back when 5.4 was released).

The empire is gone. Provinces are in open rebellion and the military can't do anything about it. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 10th legions have surrendered in EW and the 10th was supposed to be the last hope for Garlemald so who knows what the state of the others is like. The threat of the military was the only thing that kept the whole engine running and now that's gone and the capital has been destroyed, it's only a matter of time before the rest collapses like dominoes... snip

Yes it does sound bleaks, hence why I was actually discussing garlemald’s rewrite rather than “write garlemald’s future with scraps given by the game”. But anyway, we still have other legions that the game could easily retconned into “well they’re struggling, but still there to protect the capital if needed”. Some people said that there’s no logical way to justify the Empire revival, but imo it’s not impossible. One reason I think that way is because of Final Days and blasphemies. Both happen to everyone, not only to Garlean. They could say that the provinces on Ilsabard was hit hard by blasphemies and so does the rebel army. Now free, those small nations lack military power to properly defend themselves in the case of conflicts. Can also justify it by making those small unnamed nations to be one of the earliest conquered nation of Garlemald, nations with weak military power and facing the same problem as garlemald, which was harsh environment. Therefore they’re also dependent to Garlemald’s economy and technology (magitek and ceruleum)

[Iscah]

One of the differences is that garlemald conquest was fuelled by survival (and revenge for corvos), while Eorzean city states conquest was fuelled by each thinking their deity is the “right one”, and perhaps for resources too.

The actions of the city-states have never been portrayed as a religious war, especially against each other. All of them believe in all of the Twelve; they just hold one in high regard as their own patron.

Even against the beast tribes with their different gods, it's not about "our gods are the right ones" but "their gods are living monsters and a threat to us".

And do you not think it was extremely cheap that the main Empire, whom we have been fighting against since the beginning, was destroyed off-screen and without our action?

Yes, it was cheap and awkwardly done, and seems to have been done that way because they didn't know what to do with Garlemald as a powerful empire so they imploded it.

So, having done that to remove it from play, why would the writers want to put it back as it was? What was the point of all the destruction?

If they wanted to go the path of a now-turned-benevolent empire, they could have done that far more simply by taking Varis in a different direction. There was a point where he hovered on the edge of being portrayed as sympathetic, between "Solus" bullying him around and his actions at the parley possibly being readable as a stealthy way of warning us about the Ascians meddling in his country and implicitly asking for our aid, unable to talk freely.

[Lyth]

Garlemald's broader issue, like many empires introduced in the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole, was that it merely ended up being a front for something bigger. The instant that the latter part of Stormblood revealed that Varis was no more than a puppet dictator under Emet's thumb with no meaningful power of his own, Garlemald itself was devitalized of its story potential. What's the significance of going head to head against the Emperor in a climactic battle when we've already crushed the Ascians? He couldn't even be considered as a Mid-boss. Where is the mystique in exploring the modern city of Garlemald when Amaurot is even more modern in appearance?

There was no opportunity to make Garlemald more interesting without wrapping up the Amaurotines' involvement in the story, preferably for good.

[Kozh]

The actions of the city-states have never been portrayed as a religious war, especially against each other. All of them believe in all of the Twelve; they just hold one in high regard as their own patron.

Even against the beast tribes with their different gods, it's not about "our gods are the right ones" but "their gods are living monsters and a threat to us".

Uh yeah, it's not super religious war or something like that. But I mean it's still war to expand their territory etc. They're just unsuccessful of going global.

Yes, it was cheap and awkwardly done, and seems to have been done that way because they didn't know what to do with Garlemald as a powerful empire so they imploded it.

So, having done that to remove it from play, why would the writers want to put it back as it was? What was the point of all the destruction?

No point. As for why would they want to put it back, maybe they feel bad for being incompetent? Who knows /shrug

Again, this mostly why some of us want a rewrite of garlemald, and yes, there's basically zero chance it happens. Or for what I want to happen, happen. I know that. Bet Aveyond and other know that too. This is simply a what-if.

And perhaps if maehiro is back from 16 maybe he can do something...? *inhale copium*

[Cleretic]

Funny because from my pov you’re the one who’s doing this shallow point-scoring by creating strawman out of my discussion with Mikko. And please tell me where I said I want something “worse”? Because I clearly said that the provinces are free to join the Empire or not.

Literally in the post Mikko was quoting above the one you quoted, where you crack out entirely non-sequitir attacks against Gridania for no purpose other than to go 'see they're bad too, this is why we should get my extremely specific ideal imperialism'.

And speaking personally? I actually liked that we only turned up to Garlemald after it got wrecked. There's nothing that visiting a still-strong Garlemald would've brought to the table that the game is especially well-equipped to handle; going to the enemy city would open up great angles for subterfuge and stealth, but we actually know the game's not good at that because of Garlemald itself; the Thancred quest, In from the Cold, and the tailing quests were probably the worst-received parts of Endwalker as a whole (although personally, I thought In from the Cold was quite good). And the nature of zones means that there can't be a drastic change across a whole zone, so if we did get that hypothetical Stealth Mission Garlemald then either it'd remain a stealth zone in the entire game, or that the intact streets of Garlemald would need evergreen enemy spawns. And if you don't lean in that direction and just stuck to what the game's already known to be good at? Well, then a focus on a still-standing Garlemald is just Cold Stormblood. And we've already got both Stormblood and winter zones, combining them isn't new or interesting, I would just be bored; even Bozja was already repeating a lot of the notes of Stormblood, and even if I think Bozja did it better that 'I've heard this song before' factor was a negative.

But blowing the capital to smithereens before we get there, filling the streets not just with rubble, but with rogue magitek and tempered soldiers? Not only does that fix the zone continuity issue, it provides new and interesting areas we'd never seen before (I remember damn near the first thing about Endwalker I saw and actually liked was noticing that Garlemald seemed to be based on pictures of the Battle of Stalingrad). And that newness also spread to the Garleans themselves, because for once, we see them on the back foot. This provides a vulnerability we'd never seen, how they handle when they're not the ones with the gun to someone's head. And just as interesting as what changes in that scenario--them genuinely fearing the retribution they assume we're bringing--is what doesn't change, but comes in a whole new angle--their strong sense of national identity has gone from fueling a racially-supremacist imperialism to instead a death-grip on their independence far beyond what's reasonable or helpful.

I was in no way interested in going to Garlemald until I learned that Garlemald got blasted.

Garlemald's broader issue, like many empires introduced in the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole, was that it merely ended up being a front for something bigger. The instant that the latter part of Stormblood revealed that Varis was no more than a puppet dictator under Emet's thumb with no meaningful power of his own, Garlemald itself was devitalized of its story potential. What's the significance of going head to head against the Emperor in a climactic battle when we've already crushed the Ascians? He couldn't even be considered as a Mid-boss. Where is the mystique in exploring the modern city of Garlemald when Amaurot is even more modern in appearance?

There was no opportunity to make Garlemald more interesting without wrapping up the Amaurotines' involvement in the story, preferably for good.

And yeah, this is also genuinely a thing. Emet-Selch robbed the Garlean Empire of any agency, human depth or even stake in their own story, so any interest I may have once had in marching on their capital was completely sucked dry by that revelation in Stormblood's patches.