What makes for a good villain?

[Mr_Gyactus]

Or if there is a new grand antagonist of the story, show us that places we hold dear are being torn apart. That alone gives the player a reason and drive to try and fix things. Or curiosity about what something is when things look different.

uh, no.
I remember cataclysm, a lot of old MMO players remember cataclysm. Cataclysm is not good. Truly.
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That said are you asking for a DC comics super villain? You know, someone with immense power that we cannot defeat.



btw Emet-Selch and his merry brigade destroyed 8 times our world (13th included) and every reflection had... billions? thus define him "an angry old man" it's very limiting. I think he is the villain who has claimed the most victims in videogames, surpassed only by Zen-oh sama from super dragonball.

[Daralii]

uh, no.
I remember cataclysm, a lot of old MMO players remember cataclysm. Cataclysm is not good. Truly.
-----------------

That said are you asking for a DC comics super villain? You know, someone with immense power that we cannot defeat.



btw Emet-Selch and his merry brigade destroyed 8 times our world (13th included) and every reflection had... billions? thus define him "an angry old man" it's very limiting. I think he is the villain who has claimed the most victims in videogames, surpassed only by Zen-oh sama from super dragonball.

Meteion surely has the higher body count, given that she killed every planet but one.

[Mr_Gyactus]

Meteion surely has the higher body count, given that she killed every planet but one.

Good reply, but I'm not that sure.
From what Alphinaud and Alisaie deduced, Meteia were responsible (and felt guilt) of the dragon, Ea and Omicron race demise. For this reason, they forced their souls in Ultima Thule. The other planets destroyed themselves with their own hands.

[RedLolly]

Good reply, but I'm not that sure.
From what Alphinaud and Alisaie deduced, Meteia were responsible (and felt guilt) of the dragon, Ea and Omicron race demise. For this reason, they forced their souls in Ultima Thule. The other planets destroyed themselves with their own hands.

Yeah, the end goal was to prevent new life from being born because every world visited was either an already dead planet, a dying planet, or her arrival set off a chain of events that killed the planet.

We survived because we are both were built different via Venat's machinations by making people accustomed enough to suffering that everyone had the grit and empathy to handle it together, but also that we knew what Meteion was and how she worked as an entelechy when we faced her. Our deck was stacked in our favor in a way no one else did.

The amount of 4D chess the writers had to do to not only make the idea of Meteion exist within the logic and established story, but actually pulled off making her work as an 11th hour villain/monster reveal and have emotional impact with a huge chunk of the player base is a level of insanity I don't expect FFXIV to pull off again.


Regarding Endwalker, the arguments from players that put Venat in the role of FFXIV's actual main villain can be fascinating to dive into. It's actually quite easy to look at her from a slightly different angle and cast her as every bit as grimey, manipulative, and self-righteous as the actual antagonists, much like how it's so easy to look at Emet-Selch's actions and empathizing so completely that I think quite a few WoLs WOULD switch to his side if we had that kind of control.


I miss those kinds of discussions the most from the Dawntrail cycle. We don't have anyone in DT that has any intrigue or questionable actions and morals that made me think about things like we had in every expac story since at least HW where it successfully had us empathizing with dragons that had been waging bloody revenge for centuries and yeah, it was totally the Elezen the later founded Ishgard's fault, but generations later? And then what about Fordola? Yotsuyu? G'raha? Emet-Selch? Elidibus? Hermes? Meteion? Venat?

This is what I mean by Zoraal Ja being such a miss. Had so many pieces to work with and the devs never gave them to us players.

[Kirutsuki]

uh, no.
I remember cataclysm, Cataclysm is not good. Truly.

I don't really understand why everything must be compared to something in WoW that was made literally 15years ago. Surely in todays age and technology you can make something similar, but better executed. Now I don't know anything about Cata except they did some world changes and let me hazard a guess, those changes were permanent?
And even people who did not yet do Cataclysm storywise saw those world changes? But even then, are people really that afraid of changes in their videogame world which supposed to be ever changing. To me as someone who's very into the lore, alot of the areas in ARR no longer make much sense.

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That said are you asking for a DC comics super villain?

No not really, for me I always look at someone who has actual political leverage or power to sway the hearts of the people as a strong antagonist. Someone who has an army behind them, has alot of supporters and are able to show that force through action, but not by relying on "magical gadget #7261", but by sheer volume of people.
This is why I really enjoyed Garlemald as one of the antagonists in ARR because their forces are occupying zones in ARR and that shows that these people need to be dealt with. Where as in comparison you have Zoraal Ja, who might have a big support behind him, but we barely see any of that, nor what kind of army he has if he has any and even then he decides to rely on that "magical gadget #8271" to get what he needs.

btw Emet-Selch

Was kinda my point, my question was, would Emet-Selch be a good villain without having a backstory that is so damning? If you JUST look at the present day in ShB and what he brings, would he also be someone as shallow as Zoraal Ja. Now sure Emet's story goes into the ancients and their lot at the end, so his story is bound to be more captivating than Zoraal Ja's on that merit alone, but let's say that Emet's last ditch effort was to find the ancient city and use that city's ghost people as an army to destroy the world, would people still feel as compelled to say Emet is a great villain to the story?

Alot of that comes to good writing, but also from those connections. Emet is connected to so much in the games history that the very short time he has on screen feels meaningful and deserved. And the only way to have a villain like that again is either you pull something from ARR, like another Ascian, or you go the other route and you introduce someone who is going to effect the history of the game. Even if it's someone like Calyx, if Calyx doesn't show his willingess to actually destroy shit we love, I will probably never see him as a real villain.

[Kirutsuki]

The question this makes me think of is, ‘is it the villain that’s good or the writing?’

Like, look at the more famous FF villains like Kefka and Sephiroth. Their character and backstory could easily become more comical than interesting (magic clown and magic alien man with katana lol) in the wrong hands. But I think, the way they’re written and how the characters are situated within those contexts ‘make it work’ basically. We see things throughout the plot that gives the characters some depth beyond ‘just an evil guy’ like the reason for Kefka’s madness or the truth behind Sephiroth’s identity/origins.

I guess what I’m saying is that I think it’s less about having a ‘good’ villain and more having ‘good writing/worldbuilding/context/etc’. Even a villain that draws heavily on well-known tropes can be executed properly if written well (and the situation/plot calls for such an adversary)

Yup, good writing is key. Now I can't say for certain if the writing was bad in Dawntrail, simply because Zoraal Ja was never "our villain" to deal with anyway. Wuk was definitely still a bit green behind the ears at the end of Endwalker and was probably overhyping Zoraal Ja's influence too much,
when all Zoraal Ja was, was a villain to Wuk. But as a player it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of Wuk Lamat and see if that is a good villain story. Simply because there's so much that Wuk has experienced with her brothers through her life that we the players are not privy to.
Where as when you introduce someone like a new Ascian, well, now we the players have SO much information and backstory that the character practically writes itself.

[Mr_Gyactus]

I don't really understand why everything must be compared to something in WoW that was made literally 15years ago. Surely in todays age and technology you can make something similar, but better executed.

A failure is a failure, no matter if we are in 2010, 2026 or 1850 or building pyramids.

They did exactly what you asked, permanent changes (caused by an ancient black dragon).
it's not a matter of "technology" (Blizzard was and is top-notch in information technology). Blizzard had a decent phasing technology since 2007 but they decided to make the changes of regions and story permanent. Why?
Yesterday I did quests in Tempest. Tempest is supposed to return under the sea, BUT if you remove the bubble of air you cannot do the quests anymore or the quests text are incongruents. The players cannot do fates, hunts, gather materials, or join a party if the players are at a different time of the story.
FFXIV solved this with duties: when "something important happens" we play an instance.
THE FIRMAMENT is a good example of what FFXIV can do: permanent changes in a instanced area.
I have seen other mmorpg where 2-3 versions of the same region co-exist, but to have Gondor under siege, Gondor after the fall of Sauron and Gondor with the king Aragorn married is lore breaking. We aren't supposed to travel in the time.

That said, something may be changed here and there but don't expect anything complex in the source in a mmorpg themepark like ff14.

who has actual political leverage or power to sway the hearts of the people as a strong antagonist.

hmm ok. There is hope for this, the twins are cooking something.

Was kinda my point, my question was, would Emet-Selch be a good villain without having a backstory that is so damning? If you JUST look at the present day in ShB and what he brings, would he also be someone as shallow as Zoraal Ja

I don't see Zoraal ja as the main villain of the expansion. For me he has the same importance/impact as a minor antagonist like Grynewaht pyr Arvina (Yotsuyu's underling, remember? probably not, no one remember his name), and I think it's ok, because in dawntrail we had a marginal role. Things only get personal when the aether-fueled database arrives (thus the main villain is... Calyx? Nope, it's the oblivion, someone more erudite than me calls it "thanatophobia").
To put it simply, we veterans knew that Dawntrail was a "pause" expansion that served as a substrate for the next expansions, so we couldn't expect who knows what twists.

[Daralii]

I don't see Zoraal ja as the main villain of the expansion. For me he has the same importance/impact as a minor antagonist like Grynewaht pyr Arvina (Yotsuyu's underling, remember? probably not, no one remember his name), and I think it's ok, because in dawntrail we had a marginal role. Things only get personal when the aether-fueled database arrives (thus the main villain is... Calyx? Nope, it's the oblivion, someone more erudite than me calls it "thanatophobia").
To put it simply, we veterans knew that Dawntrail was a "pause" expansion that served as a substrate for the next expansions, so we couldn't expect who knows what twists.

The story structure regarding antagonists is another thing they've been repeating since ShB got popular. Vauthry/Innocence, Hermes/Fandaniel (and his soul), and Zoraal were the apparent antagonists of their respective expansions until their deaths, and the real antagonist (and/or a way to reach them) was revealed at X9.

[LeCorbeaux]

No not really, for me I always look at someone who has actual political leverage or power to sway the hearts of the people as a strong antagonist. Someone who has an army behind them, has alot of supporters and are able to show that force through action, but not by relying on "magical gadget #7261", but by sheer volume of people.

I wholeheartedly agree. And this is why I think that some of the most impactful antagonists we could have for 8.0, besides Y'shtola, would be Nanamo Ul Namo, Kan-E-Senna, Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn (aren't we long overdue for another Trident anyway?), Aymeric de Borel, or Lyse Hext.

[Daralii]

I wholeheartedly agree. And this is why I think that some of the most impactful antagonists we could have for 8.0, besides Y'shtola, would be Nanamo Ul Namo, Kan-E-Senna, Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn (aren't we long overdue for another Trident anyway?), Aymeric de Borel, or Lyse Hext.

People would probably be happy to beat Lyse up, while Aymeric and Y'shtola are immortal because of their popularity.