The finale of the Arcadion is an absolute disapointment.

[NanaWiloh]

Since this talk about not just the raid but wrestling. Here is a story about Andre the Giant, Andre did not like Macho Man on a professional or personal level. Well during one event where Macho man and Andre had to get in the ring, they were back stage. Andre was in the cafeteria eating when Macho man wonder in like scared puppy. Begging Andre to be easy on him as Andre like too be extra hard on Macho man. Andre did not answer his request instead told Macho man to get the Hell out cause he did not like Macho man having his body covered in baby oil. Lol

[HiroesX81]

I doubt anyone can pretend Vince is/was a good person unless they directly worked for him. But for as much of a piece of s*** he is, you gotta admit he was one hell of a promoter. Not unlike the president.

But the president actually being good subverted my expectations which was nice. Everyone expected him to be a total villain

[Foxfires]

For me the story ultimately didn’t land, and I wanted to articulate why as someone who is usually very invested in XIV's narrative strengths. Some tropes that “could have been repeated” would honestly have felt fresh to me again, simply because it’s been so long since I last experienced them in XIV.

I understand that some of Arcadion’s themes have been explored elsewhere in the game and can still be sought there.

I’m personally much more drawn to tragic yet heartfelt endings. I don’t think character death is a bad thing, nor do I think it undermines a happy ending by default. In fact, XIV has often shown that an ending can be hopeful because characters die, not in spite of it. Because of that, I found myself wishing Arcadion had lingered more on consequences. I would have loved to see how the deaths of Eutrope etc. affected Retsarra, Yaana, Neyuni, and the others afterward, especially Yaana. Even small sidequests focused on grief and rebuilding could have added a lot of value, particularly if the other fighters were cured and the WoL could help those grieving.

Related to that, I was also hoping the M9–12 group wouldn’t necessarily like us by the end, even if we did the right thing. XIV has portrayed this trope nicely before (Garlemald in Endwalker comes to mind), and I think it would have fit here too.

Another factor is that I have no real background for show wrestling. I’ve never watched it, I’m not especially interested in it, and exaggerated personas (IRL) for spectacle have personally grown tiring for me over time. Because of that, wrestling as the core didn’t appeal to me, and I needed the emotional arc to do more of the work than it ultimately did.

That said, I do believe a light-hearted wrestling story could still have contained something tragic or bittersweet beneath the surface and still arrived at a wholesome or even funny ending if given more room. Similar attempts in Dawntrail didn’t quite land for me emotionally, and Arcadion’s final turn felt similar. I also don’t think I had enough time to truly care about the President, despite liking the idea behind him.

I do want to be clear that there were things I enjoyed. The music and aesthetics were great, the mechanics were fun, the glamours are enjoyable, and the characters themselves are charming, at least until the P12 twist, where the story begins to unravel for me narratively. (Personally, the WoL’s reaction didn’t quite fit either for my WoL.)

In the end, P1–P11 set up a certain tone, and the way it resolved felt like the tension was defused rather than transformed. That lessened the emotional impact for me. All of this is said with respect for the team, I don’t think the story is “bad” or shouldn’t exist, but it didn’t align with what I personally look for in XIV’s storytelling, especially given how powerfully the game has handled grief and consequence in the past.

Glad other people liked it though!

[Bonoki]

Best raid series so far, best story, and best conclusion. Ended way better than every other imho.

[0blivion]

itt: op failed the reading comprehension exam

[Reginald_Cain]

I'm convinced the forums hate everything. This tier is fire in visuals and music. The story at the end was fine except for the fact brute bomber did his fire combo on us instead of blowing lindwyrms head off with a flaming steel chair.

[aereniil]

I'd say I'm feeling disappointed by the emotions (or lack thereof) given to me by this Patch's Raid Tier, compared to the AAC Cruiserweight one. However, I'm only speaking in terms of plot/story/finale (even though it is not the priority of people running these) and fights (not as memorable as with AAC Cruiserweight M3 and M4).


The visuals (both of bosses and arenas) and especially the musics are peak and incredibly delivered, as (almost) always. But that wasn't enough to counterbalance the feeling of emptyness and rush I got from this last part of the Arcadion's plot (especially when compared to previous expansions).

[lievaordiea]

We did have Athena last expansion though? She was evil just for the lols. I loved that too.

they attempted to say she was corrupted by the heart but that was a poor excuse as she was a loon prior to finding that XD

[TheMightyMollusk]

I thought it was an okay story overall. It gave me pleasant memories of watching wrestling with my dad when I was a kid. My only real complaint was Brute Bomber popping back up out of nowhere. If they really didn't want to kill him off, he could've been among the Immortalized in the stasis tubes and revived at the end like Eutrope. Or maybe turned up in the Brute Abombinator form, and giving all of the power of his feral souls to help strike down the Lindwurm could've reverted him to normal. Just having him pop up like that felt anticlimactic.

[VeyaAkemi]

Or maybe turned up in the Brute Abombinator form, and giving all of the power of his feral souls to help strike down the Lindwurm could've reverted him to normal. Just having him pop up like that felt anticlimactic.

I get what you are saying, but I also feel it is a point that they explicitly avoid anyone using Feral Souls in the final sequence, it would've been easy to have everyone bar WoL power up, even the ones that were suffering from soul cancer since they'd get cured shortly anyway, but they want to make the point that the use of Feral Souls is a huge negative and that the Arcadion can carry on without them, having the ultimate Feral Soul transformation be defeated by non-Feral Soul users feels like a deliberate point.

I agree that they could've foreshadowed his return a little better, but that's a constant issue to raid series, this was by far the raid series with the most moving parts, character count alone has every other raid tier beat, so maybe they felt that it would add too much delay between fights, or something along those lines, I dunno.