I don't get why people like the Arcadion's story (Spoilers)

[Tehmon]

"You're not showing any symptoms yet but if you use your feral soul you will get sick"
*goes super saiyan to defend the character from someone we've already beat*
"you're sick now"

10/10 writing guys keep it up, at least the msq was okay this patch.

To be fair we didn't beat her 1v1. It was 1v8. But it was a pretty dumb move either way.

[BelegErkhten]

Brute Bomber lived in Residential District 9-11
His arena is called "Demolition Zone"
All of this was planned out by "The President"

What exactly did Square Enix mean by this?

[Destati]

I went in having very tempered expectations because I can't say that any of the other raid questlines have really blown me away. That isn't to say they're bad or I don't like them, but I tend to forget the finer details with their storylines over time (Alexander, Pandaemonium, Eden), or at worst it's been difficult for me to find them engaging (Crystal Tower, Omega).

Arcadion took me by surprise with its simplicity. It's something I can easily explain to others without needing to look something up. Wrestling tournament where people use the souls of animals to transform themselves and fight. Also they're killing themselves because transformation puts strain on their own souls.
I like the dystopian edge it has, something I was looking for in Solution Nine. When the contestants "retire", they've actually died from the psychonekrosis. It's all very grim stuff masked under glorious entertainment.
It also lends itself well to RP I feel. Something you can easily stick your OCs in if you want. /shrug.

I have more thoughts but it's hard for me to articulate all of them so I'll just leave it at that for now.

[ZXN]

I enjoyed the story at first because it was just a simple goofy WWE wrestling B-plot thing, where you just go around fighting people and work your way up to a championship match and then you win it and then you go to the more prestigious belt with wacky characters and music and etc etc.

However, like someone said earlier-

...Now, in WWE, Vince McMan play(ed)(s) the "villain" a lot because literally everything was scripted, even how he ran the business and everything outside "the ring." It even resulted in him taking the ring or having these acts play out where he was "thwarted" or even how he "won" sometimes. It was all in this big airtight bubble for the "narrative." And it spanned literal decades. But as it turns out irl Vince was a piece of shit unironically and a lot of people were exploited, preyed upon, and some even died or were discarded with permanent disabilities. The reality was very unpleasant. How did this happen? Well think about how everything was scripted. It gets to a point as an "actor" where you either can't tell fiction from reality anymore, you believe everything "Vince" or management says, or you literally have no where else to go from this and just keep going hoping for a good end. And that's the real life those actors (wrestlers) have lived in WWE, and that's the story we're getting now (as a parallel tbh. A lot of 1-1 is missing obv)...

What was originally presented as just a goofy wrestling parody story is now taking a tone where you see the "dark side of the ring" aspect of sorts about the business. Now it's not just "People using feral souls to fight for Alexandria's entertainment", it's "People using feral souls to fight for Alexandria's entertainment which results in many of the fighters dying, or "retiring" since that is what they tell the public, extremely young as a result." You also have to remember that they said that most fighters "retire" young, with those who reach the age of 20 being immortalized. This means that, pretty much, everyone you fight is around the ages of 15-19 mostly. This means that the President has essentially been bringing in teenagers and using them as disposable entertainment for Alexandrians that he then brings to a facility after sometime, removes their regulators so people remember them, and then lets them die in solitude and completely alone, most likely from psychonekrosis, for years. Plus we find out the president not only knows there is a cure for psychonekrosis, he even knows where to get said cure and said he'll gladly give it up as long as we keep fighting. If the President seems to not really give a fuck that we want to cure psychonekrosis, but won't cure it himself, along with him not caring if all the souls are released either, then some kind of curveball is coming in 7.4 involving it all.

While I can certainly understand if it's not everyone's cup of tea story wise, I enjoy it myself personally.

[Iscah]

Brute Bomber lived in Residential District 9-11
His arena is called "Demolition Zone"
All of this was planned out by "The President"

What exactly did Square Enix mean by this?

It's just an intersection of the city being named after FFIX and the two accessible buildings being 11 and 14.

[tsuchii]

I don't like the 1v8 format tbh although it has been explained in the lore. It still feels incredibly awkward.
I wish Arcadion was a new content for 1v1 trials similar to the Carnivale but for normal jobs and then we get something different for the raid series.

[Mawlzy]

I don't like the 1v8 format tbh although it has been explained in the lore. It still feels incredibly awkward.
I wish Arcadion was a new content for 1v1 trials similar to the Carnivale but for normal jobs and then we get something different for the raid series.

It's extremely clunky. Equally, the fact we have to repeatedly summon seven helpers using an orange candy does at least suggest we're not completely invulnerable.

[DiaDeem]

It's a straightforward story with medium stakes and fun characters.

Sometimes A Knight's Tale and Princess Bride are fine. It doesn't always have to be Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.

[CNitsah]

Probabably because compared to the abysmal msq we got in 7.0, Arcadion was a breath of fresh air. Taken in context, it felt like league above what we got. Overall, it's kinda meh. But honestly, most of the raids stories are just meh. Bahamut and Eden have really good story wise because they're tied to the msq. From the others, Alexander is slightly above, but other are just ok tier. Omega has good set up and very nice fights (which to me are the proof you can do Easy enough normal while being fun), but the story development isn't that good. Pandemonium is just a (failed, in my opinion) tentative to do an Emmet-Selch with Lahabrea and Elidibus, and arcadion is a succession of plot device to explain why you continue to fight the matches. In all those stories, some characters are nice, but FFXIV raids (and alliance raids) are the strongest when they somehow tie with the general story.

[Loggos]

I like the dystopian edge it has, something I was looking for in Solution Nine. When the contestants "retire", they've actually died from the psychonekrosis. It's all very grim stuff masked under glorious entertainment.

Yeah I agree, what really drew me to Arcadion in 7.0 was that it filled that void for a more critical look at the whole soul system (even if it's still relatively surface level) that was left by the MSQ, where things were bad but also treated with a "we can't really criticise it" mantra. Arcadion felt a lot more like a story that is actually from a place like Solution 9 unlike much of the (7.0) MSQ stuff.