Revelations from Patch 7.4: Into the Mist

[Iscah]

A few weeks into Arcadion, and I have to say that I just don't enjoy any of this tier's fights at all - or the plot resolution. (No comment on Savage as I don't do that.)

M9: I do like it mechanics-wise but I am so not the target audience for Ms Sexy Vampire (or people who want to inform the party about their thoughts on her).

M10: Still feels like the rhythm is off, and the "partners" don't really fight together so much as just do their own thing in the same arena. Plus they get introduced too much as unpleasant thugs to enjoy it as a fun fight.

M11: Somehow it feels like the grand champion is barely present in his own fight - many of the tells require you to be looking elsewhere. Plus the first phase has too many rounds of "dodge these three attacks" where by dodging one you're probably already safe from the other two.

M12: Ugly boss design, repeats the same few attacks over and over, drops gross piles of mutant flesh on the arena, has multiple skills that amount to "stop attacking and face the required direction until you're allowed to go again". And I don't like the music.

Overall the last couple of fights feel super cautious in their early phases particularly - compare M7 and how chaotic it was straight off the bat. The whole thing feels like a sad contrast to Cruiser tier where I enjoyed three out of the four fights for both mechanics and vibe.


Also, the plot - all the "oh, the President was really a good man who just wanted to make things right in the most showmannish way" is just whitewashing everything we saw the other characters go through up to that point. All the drama wasn't being performed as an exciting storyline for the uninvolved Arcadion-watching public of Solution Nine - most of what happened was kept secret from them, and they think the whole thing is fun and games while behind the scenes the fighters (not their stage personas) are going through massive emotional turmoil: Yaana fears for her kidnapped sisters' safety; Retsarra thinks his best friend is dead; past fighters, one after another, have been locked away from everything they ever knew and will awaken to find that time has slipped past them. There's nothing benign about it from start to finish.

The whole thing seemed more interesting when it might get into exploring Alexandria's attitudes to something.

[Rosenstrauch]

Are we still talking about the Arcadion? It's been a solid month since I touched the final arc, and I had wondered if my feelings on the writing would soften over time. But I don't think they have.
I think I'll just quote myself from Bsky, because everything I said then is still how I feel now.

I think the Arcadion story might be one of the worst raid questlines they've ever done.

Don't even know where to begin with how badly they botched it, but I'll start with what I feel is the least contentious flaw: The fighters' ages.

At the very start, the idea that fighters retire at 20—implicitly declaring everyone we fight is 19 at most—was roundly mocked as ridiculous. Because it is.

But between Dancing Green, Deep Blue, Vamp Fatale, and the Tyrant? It's a total farce.

Shetona and Eldite are both known for their long prepubescence. It breaks this contrivance's credibility to insist that all four of these obvious adults are actually late teens.

This is especially true for the Tyrant, who was allegedly a veteran hunter prior to joining.

There's more to say about this, but moving on for now.

The way the final arc of this story goes out of its way to redeem the President is not only extremely cheesy, it exasperates the age nonsense and retroactively undermines the previous arcs.

You see, the President was a public figure until three years ago, when he discovered the existence of psychonekrosis.

The research in Origenics, previously implied to predate the Arcadion's feral soul use, is really HIS research. Including the existence of the second cure.

This causes all manner of problems. There's no way any of the current fighters could meet him—indeed most didn't—without having been prepubescent when they joined the Arcadion.

Dancing Green is low key implied to have been 14-15 AT MOST when he caught the president's eye.

But this also means soulshifting can't have been around for more than 7 years at most. Any longer than that, and the discovery of psychonekrosis being three years old would be absurd.

Despite all the "cultural cornerstone" hype, soulshifting was really just a passing fad.

And the immortalized fighters? You can count them on two, maybe three hands—including Eutrope.

Speaking of, she went into hiding after discovering the president's files, but had no idea about the 2nd cure at all... despite the president being the source of her information.

What point was there in redacting that information in case somebody found out? Why leave the part where she needs to murder someone for their soul? It's as if the president's goal was to drive her into desperation—flying in the face of the president's supposed benevolence.

Worse, Tyrant states that the Heavyweight fighters knew "a long while" about the President's plans. Even the guy whose gimmick is that he's too dumb to keep a secret was in on it. The "they want to kill you for your soul!" thing was kayfabe.

Eutrope wasn't in on it. Why?

Why was traumatizing Eutrope and driving her to murder part of the plan? Why was exploiting Hector's loyalty without letting him know the truth part of the plan? Why was endangering any of these teens for three years instead of, idk, SACRIFICING HIMSELF part of the plan?

At its core the Arcadion was a story about the exploitation of the native people of Yyasulani by the uncaring institutions of colonialism, and about young people on the fringes of society being taken by an industry that pretends to care for them while bleeding them dry.

The decision to rebrand the president a venerable, fatherly figure to the kids he was gathering for his explicitly lethal bloodsport completely turns this message on its head, painting their exploitation as not only well-intentioned, but ultimately for their own good.

Likewise, the president's antagonistic actions towards the Tritails sisters and the WoL are transformed from malevolent to paternalistic—like being punished by your father because you stole a candy bar.

Aside from the racism, there's a throughline of sexism there as well.

Aside from Hector, who was goaded into an irreversible transformation (WHICH IT STILL IS—check the cutscenes!), every single person targeted by the president for stepping out of line was a teenage girl—Yaana via forced knockout, Neyuni and Eutrope via kidnapping.

And when everything is settled, what's next?

Everyone goes back to fighting in the lethal bloodsport. But now because soul usage has been removed, they don't have any safety nets.

They're probably not going to kill each other. And soul usage went beyond "unnatural"...

... but would it have killed them to take a second out of glazing the president to come up with anything here?

Even Dancing Green is back! His arc was about quitting because his persona and training was figuratively killing him! It wasn't the soul usage that bothered him!

None of this is to say I didn't enjoy parts of this story. Even in the 3rd arc, I was wholeheartedly enjoying the fights, the music, and the characters (aside from the president).

But aside from being good at nailing emotional highs, this finale completely shat the bed.

Like, I hate being negative about something that I loved so much in the first act, but I don't think they could've done a worse job at finishing this storyline if they tried.

[Cleretic]

I'm genuinely impressed how much the Arcadion pulled out a strong ending for me, given how dour I was on the end of the second tier. I hated how much it looked like it was banking on Eutrope and Howling Blade's relationship, given how much of a character Howling Blade... well, wasn't.

Meanwhile, the Heavyweight tier largely stuck the landing on everything it was trying to do, and while I certainly have complaints, I can't just say it failed; it delivered most of the story it wanted to do. My initial takes are off on the first page, and mostly haven't changed, but the things I've baked on a little longer...

I'm still very thankful the Heavyweight tier sides with me in ALSO forgetting Howling Blade is a character!

I do think the balance of the bosses is... a little weird given what the overall flavor of the final tier is, and the problem is mostly Deep Blue and Red Hot: we were told the Heavyweights outright have no life outside of the Arcadion to fall back on, and therefore have nothing to lose going all-out against us... and then here are these two beach bros with a Tony Hawk Pro Skater theme as practically a joke boss in between the dominatrix and Triple H-style company man. Leaving aside that I don't even think they feel right to be difficult bosses (I'll leave that to the Savage raiders), they feel like a tonal break at the time when the story didn't actually need that. ...but I like The Mirror too much to actually be mad.

I still think the Lindwurm was a misstep, because it doesn't fit at all with the very consistent theme that the raids had up to that point; everything else goes Full Pro Wrestling, and then here comes a boss that could've fit in literally anywhere else. If you're gonna go 'the President was actually a good guy playing a bad guy' then sure, but c'mon, we know what a wrestling president playing the hell should look like, and this isn't that! Just let us fight Vince MacMahon!

Arcadion words, specifically:

And when everything is settled, what's next?

Everyone goes back to fighting in the lethal bloodsport. But now because soul usage has been removed, they don't have any safety nets.

This, though, is I think getting too deep into this story specifically and forgetting the context of the entire game around it.

We're not seeing a 'bloodsport in civilized modern society' thing, we're not exactly talking a metaphor for injuries in wrestling. Because... well, remember that outside of the Everkeep, there's a lot of people fighting a lot of monsters with much less of a safety net. We are one of them. Hell, the Tyrant at least was mentioned to be a hunter (I think Howling Blade too), this is a reality that the Arcadion story itself lets into its fights. This also isn't even the only bloodsport we've seen; the Bloodsands exist, Raubahn's whole story is rooted in it. It's not even the only bloodsport we have taken part in, as Blue Mage not only exists, it also adds context that Ishgard and Hingashi also have these.

As far as criticism of bloodsport, Fourteen's hands are sorta tied even if they want to do that; this is ultimately a game about how fun it is to fight cool enemies, not only do they want battle arenas in their inventory, they're also not the type to shame the draw of the game itself. So, the Arcadion picks a fight that doesn't have those problems: a disorder that exists in this specific arena, because of the nature of its fights. Less of a metaphor for sports injuries, and more a metaphor for steroid abuse.