Awfully weak story... or is it? [WARNING:SPOILERS]

[Akujin]

Hello folks,

After taking some time to digest the story of FFXIV:ARR and confirming its weaknesses until the very end of the credits, I came to a conclusion. Something is not right.

I have a friend, who was a player from FFXIV, from beginning to the end. Every time we have an argument about the story, he inevitably ends up stating something from FFXIV that is not present in FFXIV:ARR.

I did my share of researches. I also own the collector edition of this game, so I have access to the blu-ray with detailed information on Eorzea and the meaning behind the cinematic opening. Even with that, something is not right.

For instance [WARNING:SPOILERS]:
Gaius van Baelsar is awesome.
-He is noble, proud, compassionate, honest and honourable.
-He is a strong warrior and a conqueror.
-Not only does he plan to conquer Eorzea, but before even engaging the battle, he thinks forward to the Primal threat for the people and how to stop them efficiently.
-He knows how a lot of people are suffering and wants to bring peace and order.
-When he acquired a power strong enough to crush the Primals, instead of just attacking Eorzea with a superior force, utterly destroying Eorzea's armies and imposing a reign of fear, he actually gave a chance for a peaceful surrendering with terms that were so tempting that all 3 grand company leaders were about to accept until a kid shown up with a childish speech (and most likely charming magic) to turn them against the Empire.
-He helps loyal supporter of the Emprie even though they are not pure-blooded Garlean.
-When he wanted to destroy the Scions of the 7th Dawn, he organized a very quick and precise strike. Only the Scions were killed/captured, leaving the city they were in alone and doing absolutely no harm to anyone except their enemies. Kill the opponents, leave the innocents alone, the mark of a true villain.

How am I suppose to hate that guy!

Grand Company leaders are generic, useless and immoral.
-You have the scared veteran soldier, the compassionate healer woman and the cold-hearted trigger-happy woman captain. Note: all of this is suppositions based on a few dialogs and rumours in the game. We were never shown anything in the main story that remotely looked like that. You get to know more of Merlwyb in the lvl50 armourer quest than all of main story.
-None of the grand company are able to deal with the Primals. You have to do it yourself because there is NO ONE ELSE in the entire Eorzea that could help you fight. Also, only three Primals shows up in the story, one for each grand company. There are more Primals out there and three is already too much. Also, Maelstrom is directly responsible for the summoning of Titan.
-None of the grand company are doing much to protect Eorzea as they are very prompt to use adventurers to do that useless job.
-The three grand company leaders are somehow able to decide the fate of Eorzea, risk the lives of everyone, decide for all-out wars, but they are not the ones actually ruling their city-state.
-The world of Eorzea is full of problems, authorities are all shorts in man-power and yet, the grand companies don't help.
-They decided to strike against the Empire using a sneak attack manoeuvre, attacking without responding to the Empire who gave decision time for their offer of surrendering without unnecessary deaths. The mark of civilized and honourable folks.
-When the Empire is defeated, all of a sudden, life is good, problems that were never actually solved are ignored and it's time to go into a peaceful and prosperous age, as if the Empire was the one behind every issues. In reality, the Empire had nothing to do with the bad state of Eorzea. Eorzea is in such a bad state that they mostly just settled themselves, took their distances and observed. Anybody else assumed a lot of soldiers died fighting the Empire? Wouldn't that just throw Eorzea in a worst state than before and now the authorities AND the grand company are understaffed? I assume they know soldiers are not produced like machines. Do they?

And I'm suppose to side with these folks?!? Where do I sign up for the Empire?


Sure, you also have the evil being (Ascian) which is trying to manipulate the Empire into doing it's own business. Yet, Gaius was preparing for being betrayed (he just didn't know when it would happen). It's not really manipulation when the one you are trying to manipulate is working on counter-manipulating you because your manipulation attempts are too obvious.

Next goes the Scions of the 7th dawn. It would be more accurate to say that they work for you than you working for them. They only do easy tasks or small investigations and you handle the rest (which is more or less everything). Also, for people that openly goes against the dark forces of the world, they are rather defenceless against frontal assaults and endangering the innocents that live around them.


This is from FFXIV:ARR, and only from FFXIV:ARR. On the other hand, FFXIV apparently got build up for all these characters mentioned above. This means all the observations I made could have been significantly wrong. It feels like I'm playing a sequel, but it's not suppose to be a sequel.

If FFXIV:ARR just builds on the top of FFXIV and assume every new players knows Gaius, the Grand Company leaders, the Ascians, all the core Scions members... Wait a minute, this is pure stupidity. There isn't a professional story teller that would build awesome characters just to end up and not saying/showing a thing about them and expect everyone to know them.

This can mean only one thing. Game development decided to cut/exclude important cut-scenes, leaving only the skeleton of a good story to save some money. This concept is so crazy, it's like a Micheal Bay film without explosions and sexy girls. A Final Fantasy title that decided to save money by cutting on story elements?

All would-be conquerors are good in their own eyes. Hitler, for instance, felt he was doing the right thing by his own people by creating a world cleansed of anything but blond hair, blue eye whites.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder.

[Enkidoh]

Actually, the Botany questline makes it clear that Gridania and the Ixal had peaceful relations for many, many years. Their current state of hostility is not explained, but Fufucha says nothing to indicate that it was Gridania that initiated those hostilities (which, given the fact that she is a fervent critic of the current conflict, would seem to indicate that Gridania didn't start that war). Additionally, Gridania very much wants peaceful relations with the Sylphs, who they have a treaty with and who are also a beast tribe.

If I can add a small detail to that Liadan - during the early Gridanian storyline, a gate guard in Hyrstmill clearly mentions that the Ixal originally tried settling in the Black Shroud (before the five races arrived in Eorzea), as they regarded the forest as a holy place, which they named 'Tequloia', only to be driven out by the elementals, forcing the Ixal to settle in what is now Natalan in Coerthas on the outskirts of Xephlatol.

When they saw the ancient Gelmorrans strike a pact with the elementals and were given the right to settle in the forest (the founding of Gridania), this enraged the Ixal who felt only they were the rightful settlers of the forest. Hence, a lot of the Ixal's animosity towards Gridania is just pure and out jealously over their treatment by the elementals and Gridania accomplishing what they couldn't. A lot of their rage is also a direct result of their summoning of Garuda - this was made quite clear in 1.0 when it was first mentioned that some of the beast tribes were becoming noticeably more hostile (ala, the Ixal and the amalj'aa), due to the summoning of the Primals corrupting them.

The already souring relationship between Gridania and the Ixal isn't helped also by the later's blithe disregard for environmental protection, cutting down trees to build the blimps they fly in, a enormous heresy of the worst kind in the eyes of the Gridanians, who treat every tree and bush in the forest with respect, due to the very real danger of enraging the elementals, even if the elementals' power is on the wane.

[Kiayin]

If I can add a small detail to that Liadan - during the early Gridanian storyline, a gate guard in Hyrstmill clearly mentions that the Ixal originally tried settling in the Black Shroud (before the five races arrived in Eorzea), as they regarded the forest as a holy place, which they named 'Tequloia', only to be driven out by the elementals, forcing the Ixal to settle in what is now Natalan in Coerthas on the outskirts of Xephlatol.

When they saw the ancient Gelmorrans strike a pact with the elementals and were given the right to settle in the forest (the founding of Gridania), this enraged the Ixal who felt only they were the rightful settlers of the forest. Hence, a lot of the Ixal's animosity towards Gridania is just pure and out jealously over their treatment by the elementals and Gridania accomplishing what they couldn't. A lot of their rage is also a direct result of their summoning of Garuda - this was made quite clear in 1.0 when it was first mentioned that some of the beast tribes were becoming noticeably more hostile (ala, the Ixal and the amalj'aa), due to the summoning of the Primals corrupting them.

The already souring relationship between Gridania and the Ixal isn't helped also by the later's blithe disregard for environmental protection, cutting down trees to build the blimps they fly in, a enormous heresy of the worst kind in the eyes of the Gridanians, who treat every tree and bush in the forest with respect, due to the very real danger of enraging the elementals, even if the elementals' power is on the wane.

Now that's something I was really conflicted about since 95% of the quests in Gridania ask you to go chop something off, kill a wild animal or 20 since the forest is "overrun" by them.. no matter what every npc was saying at the end of the day I felt like I was doing the exact opposite. If Gridanians hadn't been building new outposts, villages and farms every 20 meters, those poor critters would have probably still had enough space to live in peace.

[Enkidoh]

Yes, but whatever the Gridanians do, they run by the elementals first (through the Hearers of the CNJ's Guild) - the first CNJ's class quest E-Sumi Yan actually states this that through no fault of their own the animals he orders you to terminate have been driven to desperation and are upsetting the balance of the forest, hence the elementals deemed it necessary to eliminate them. Time and again whenever a Gridanian npc orders the slaying of some wild animal they explicitly state that they do so with no relish or enjoyment, but simply because it's necessary for the forest's sake. The whole 'nature is cruel' idea taken to extremes.

[diulalasing]

The thing is, this is only very very little part of the story, because the story will go on, as we get more expansions, patches etc.

So maybe something else will happen and those dead will come back alive etc. I guess we can't tell

[Masenken]

I'm of the impression all this is, is an origin story of sorts... for all the time put into just making this game playable, they opted for a prologue that sets the tone for the rest of the game... and so what we're seeing now is but the top of the iceberg before they unleash all kinds of craziness with all the deep engrossing storytelling that befits the FF brand

[hamsteak]

i think a lot of you in this thread are too concerned with white and black, good and evil

what you have to take into consideration is that both sides have done good and bad things, no one is inherently "good" or evil", we're all just different shades of gray

i feel that the story thus far was only an introduction of what's to come, and should be treated as such (you also can't really judge the story based on filler quests since those are just there to help you level)

[Acaelus]

no one is inherently "good" or evil", we're all just different shades of gray

Whether you're referring to fiction or reality, this statement couldn't be further from the truth. In fact we are now dumber for having to read that. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

[Alberel]

Whether you're referring to fiction or reality, this statement couldn't be further from the truth. In fact we are now dumber for having to read that. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

Eh? Hamsteak is right. A truly good story doesn't portray black and white characters but rather many characters with their own personal ideals and flaws. That is how things are in reality and that is what makes a character believable. There are very few people in reality that do 'evil' thinking to themselves 'I'm evil'. Hell the entire concept of 'evil' is subjective in the first place depending on which side of the fence you're on.

FFXIV is giving us forces of light and shadow in the forms of Hydaelyn and Zodiark but the mortal characters are far from falling into such polarities. The Garleans have noble goals but are ruthless in achieving them, they're also being manipulated/corrupted by the Ascians in a desperate bid for power. I don't see that as inherently evil; foolish perhaps but not evil.

[MikefriedSpes]

I'm pretty happy with the story and the direction it's taking. After completing coil, I kinda realized there are multiple stories going on that may intertwine at one point. I can't see it as se needing you to complete coil to see more story and I think the 2 stories (scions story and coil story) don't really complement each other just yet other than maybe some fan fiction. I'm not sure if se even intends to mix them up in some form but I think the coil story is far more interesting.