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

[Borfin]

it's a decent story line, normally Sakaguchi makes the best story lines ever..

Fixed that for you.

[BlueMage]

At least Toriyama wasn't in charge. >_>

[Borfin]

Hey, FFX wasn't bad. The story was quite touching actually, if convoluted.

I'd speak to 13, but I hate 13.

[Enkidoh]

Gaius stopped genocide. He doesn't want the people of Eorzea killed. He just wants people to be free from dictator-nobles and religious zealots. What a villain.

The resistance was trying to steal and airship to bomb and/or crash into a Garlean city. Are you saying you support people who steal flying vehicles and crash them into buildings?

Gaius' record is looking a lot cleaner than the bloodthirsty tyrants who rule the City States...

Stopped genocide? Rubbish! Tell that to the people of Ala Mhigo he continues to stomp under his jackboot. >< And the Resistance were trying to free their homeland - from HIS oppression!

It's stated time and again just how oppressive the Empire truly are. Eorzea might not be perfect, but it's close enough compared to life under the Empire.

[Borfin]

Even the worst villains have the best intentions at heart.

No evil conqueror is conquering for the sake of conquest. They do it because they have a vision, something they have reasoning and justification to believe is better than whatever they're conquering.

But conquest is still conquest and that doesn't mean all of his ideals are carried out righteously. Look at the people he employed - his right-hand men were ruthless murderers. He put them in a position of power because he believed they were the best for the job. Guess how they handled it?

Moral ambiguity is something we don't see often in video games. It's here, and I LIKE that it's here. Remember, ultimately Gaius awakened Ultima Weapon and was prepared to crush any opposition in order to reach his goals.

[Alberel]

Most of these points were actually explained or made obvious enough that you could work it out.

-the ascians: first, they didn't tecnically betrayed the empire. Ultima was their triumph card, but Gaius never wanted bring such devastation. He wanted to rule over a reign, not pulverizing. However, the reasons why the ascians deal with the empire it's still unknown, and for now even contraddictory: they stated they need the power of the primals, but they helped the empire which goal is their annihilation.Why, it's still unknown

The Ascians were manipulating the Garleans into feeding the Heart of Sabik (Ultima's core and power source) primal aether. Primal aether is what it uses to cast Ultima. Ultima is seen to be so powerful that Hydaelyn cannot defend against more than a single blast from it therefore it's fairly safe to say that Lahabrea wanted to use Ultima to decimate Eorzea and weaken/harm/destroy Hydaelyn in the process.

We still don't know what the Heart of Sabik actually is but Lahabrea implies that it is an ancient Ascian device of some kind that they tricked the Allagans into using when they first constructed Ultima Weapon.

-also, they stated the balance will be ruined forever if Hydaelyn would be allowed to live. What balance and why ?

The balance between light and shadow. The Ascians have a link to the void and I'm pretty sure it's actually the 'shadow world' where the dark crystals (and warriors of shadow, assuming the game follows the motif established in FFIII) reside. The THM quest line explains that powerful voidsent cannot move from the void into Eorzea easily and instead must send their aether through to possess a host. I'm pretty sure the Ascians are doing the exact same, and are in fact simply VERY powerful voidsent. (Chances of the void being a future expansion focus are pretty damn high I think.)

Lahabrea suggested earlier in the story that Hydaelyn had previously done something to transform the world from it's natural state so the Ascians seem to be retaliating against something she did. We still don't know what but it seems she isn't as 'good' as we're led to believe.

-In the cutscene after the credits, we see more of the soon-to--be-released ascians overlord. In their world, they again say they need the primal for awaken the only true god: zodiark

They're still somewhere in Eorzea, Lahabrea has just taken on a new host. It's also worth noting there are twelve of them. We also have twelve gods and Dalamud was held together by twelve swords. The number twelve is clearly important.

-In praetorim, Gaius hit the mark: the Twelve we worship don't lay an hand in our help, unless we enpower them with aether, just like the primals, and like we did in 1.0 to prevent the descent of Dalamud (failing). Is it possible we are doing it wrong and worship an evil ?

There are lost of theories in the lore forum about this one. We don't know for certain but there are many many hints in the game that the twelve are not truly gods. Even the FSH questline makes a subtle hint that The Twelve are little more than exaggerated folk stories in their level 50 quest. Considering all magic in Eorzea is simply aether given form it's not too hard to imagine a very large amount of aether could take on more... permanent forms.

-Always on Hydaelyn, in the cutscene before credits we see with the Echo a purple Hydaelyn. A second mothercrystal? A corrupted Hydaelyn ? In the next story missions, we'll know for sure.

The dark mothercrystal is Zodiark. Somehow the echo that lets us commune with Hydaelyn also allowed Zodiark to briefly make contact with us. Interestingly it happened as Bahamut awoke, which implies Bahamut's power is somehow disrupting whatever force is sealing Zodiark away. You can see now why the Ascians wanted to release him...

Anyway back on topic I thin this post makes it pretty clear that ARR's story is far from weak. The storytelling itself is average to good but the lore, history, setting and subtleties are actually very very complex. The thing is here that the main quest only gives you a vague overview of the story. A great deal of hints and clues as to what's really going on lie in some of the class and job quest lines.

[Gumiho]

I think Gaius is dead now, but Nero left the area alive

TBH I want Gaius alive, he is not evil at all

PD: Nero looks handsome

[BlueMage]

Stopped genocide? Rubbish! Tell that to the people of Ala Mhigo he continues to stomp under his jackboot. ><

And the Resistance were trying to free their homeland - from HIS oppression!

Ala Mhigo was known as a belligerent military power who conquered their neighbors. The last time the Grand Companies were formed was to stop Ala Mhigo because they were trying to stomp Gridania under their jackboot. The "rightful government" of Ala Mhigo wiped out an entire religious order and made worshiping Rhalgr illegal and making the worship of The Spinner the state religion. Ala Mhigo was no better than Garlemald - they're just sore losers that someone bigger finally came along and did to them what they did to others. And even if Garlemald left, who would rule Ala Mhigo? The Ala Mhigans were slaughtering each other in the streets with their civil war before the Garleans arrived. And if you have a problem with killing Ala Mhigans, then you should hate your character, because all non-armored Garleans are Ala Mhigans. Gaius took over Ala Mhigo about 20 years ago. All those young soldiers are Ala Mhigans who were born and raised as Garleans.

You don't seem to have a problem either with the atrocities committed by Ishgard to it's own people (a brutal religious dictatorship that regularly executes people in brutal ways under false pretenses), or Ul'dah (where the soldiers regularly brutalize and extort their own people, a cartel rules the city, and their past of wiping out the nation of Sil'dah and seizing its land and wealth), or Limsa Lominsa (Admiral turned it into a police state and they've attempted genocide on the peaceful Kobolds to steal their land).

The Garleans aren't innocent or perfect, but they aren't any more evil than the people the players are fighting for.

[BlueMage]

I think Gaius is dead now, but Nero left the area alive

TBH I want Gaius alive, he is not evil at all

PD: Nero looks handsome

Everybody knows that in fiction, if you don't see a corpse - you can pretty safely bet the next plot twist will be that they survived.

I imagine the HM Ultima and new main story quests involving it will have to do with Nero. Nero helped work on restoring Ultima before.

[Enkidoh]

Ala Mhigo was known as a belligerent military power who conquered their neighbors. The last time the Grand Companies were formed was to stop Ala Mhigo because they were trying to stomp Gridania under their jackboot. The "rightful government" of Ala Mhigo wiped out an entire religious order and made worshiping Rhalgr illegal and making the worship of The Spinner the state religion. Ala Mhigo was no better than Garlemald - they're just sore losers that someone bigger finally came along and did to them what they did to others. And even if Garlemald left, who would rule Ala Mhigo? The Ala Mhigans were slaughtering each other in the streets with their civil war before the Garleans arrived. And if you have a problem with killing Ala Mhigans, then you should hate your character, because all non-armored Garleans are Ala Mhigans. Gaius took over Ala Mhigo about 20 years ago. All those young soldiers are Ala Mhigans who were born and raised as Garleans.

You don't seem to have a problem either with the atrocities committed by Ishgard to it's own people (a brutal religious dictatorship that regularly executes people in brutal ways under false pretenses), or Ul'dah (where the soldiers regularly brutalize and extort their own people, a cartel rules the city, and their past of wiping out the nation of Sil'dah and seizing its land and wealth), or Limsa Lominsa (Admiral turned it into a police state and they've attempted genocide on the peaceful Kobolds to steal their land).

The Garleans aren't innocent or perfect, but they aren't any more evil than the people the players are fighting for.

Pfft, no more evil? Hello - just look at Nael and Dalamud. Summoning a moon (to say nothing of the sleeping dragon Primal inside it) to crash into Eorzea? I don't think you can get any more evil than that. And who instituted Project Meteor? Surprise surprise, the Garlean Empire!

Sorry, but you are coming across as more and more in denial of just how malevolent Garlemald is made out to be. SE has made great pains to paint the Garleans as the antagonists in FFXIV - no matter how much you try and trivialize it.