Launch Trailer Hype Thread

[Mysteltain]

I tend to not believe that we did a whole hell of a lot solo. After all, one of the big themes of the game is "strength through unity," so for us to slay Primals and the like on our own goes completely against that. Plus, there are more than a few times that NPCs will outright tell us to gather up some friends before we take on threat-X, Y, or Z (Void Ark and Alexander series comes to mind), and as infrequent and inconsistant as that is, it still makes more sense that we teamed up to take on most major threats.

[Alleo]

I tend to not believe that we did a whole hell of a lot solo. After all, one of the big themes of the game is "strength through unity," so for us to slay Primals and the like on our own goes completely against that. Plus, there are more than a few times that NPCs will outright tell us to gather up some friends before we take on threat-X, Y, or Z (Void Ark and Alexander series comes to mind), and as infrequent and inconsistant as that is, it still makes more sense that we teamed up to take on most major threats.

Yes some adventures might have been done with other people but its even stated in the Encyclopedia Eorzea that we fought through the Aetherochemical Research Facility and against Thordan completely alone. So we canonically defeated Regula, two Ascians and Thordan and his 12 highly trained knights alone! The same is written about Ravana.This should have been more than enough to show that we are kinda like mortal gods on our own. And Thordan was even kinda a special case in all those primals fights since he was empowered by dragon eyes, the prayers of many many years and the Warring Triad too. Heck even in the Encyclopedia its written that nobody knows how the WoL managed to do such a feast.

Nidhogg at the end should have been a solo feast too. We landed there directly on the back of his brother and Sohr kai was a solo trial for us (Aymeric and Alphinaud went throught theirs solo too) so we had no time to gather adventurers that are even willing to go against such an enemy. We had the help of a dragons eye but it must have been still quite a feast to kill him. He even commented on this when he was flying into the air as a ghost.

Also its interesting that if we did Alexander with other people this would have meant that they should have been at least near our level too, yet the only reason that Alexander went away was the WoL again. I know that this is a debate for eternity since the game itself sometimes tells about gathering other people but at least in quite some cases being alone is the only thing that makes sense. The scene after Bismark does not make sense if we have others with us, we definitely were going to Azys Lla only with scions so there could have been nobody else there.

I do not say that we are always alone but the really big bads of HW were done solo thus we should not really loose against one mortal like that. At least in the trailer it looks like we stand no chance against him since he does not even want to kill someone helpless like us. It just feels like an insult to the WoL after all that he/she did..so like I said, I really hope that there is a reason for it.

[EdwinLi]

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Well as I said in a past post "There will always be someone stronger than you in the world even if you never meet that person"

The WoL is strong but the WoL is only able to perform certain feats because the WoL is protected from "corrupting" influences such as the Primal mindcontrols and ability to ignore magical protections on certain "enemies" that normally could not be pierced without such Protection the WoL has with the Blessing of Light.

The Blessing of Light does not make the WoL stronger in anyway but only protects and allows the WoL to resist and ignore outside influenced controls that the Boss normally use to give them absolute victory. When the WoL battles Primals, certain powerful Enemies, and etc it is out of the WoL pure strength, skill, and talent alone.

Blessing of Light is basically a "Anti-cheating" protection for the WoL so he or she can fight that certain enemy using their natural powers without that certain "Boss" cheating their way to victory.

Zenos on the other had is probably naturally stronger than WoL and if he had a type of blessing of Light protection he probably would be able to do the same thing as WoL, if not better, due to his strength.

The WoL view of the world has always been limited to Eorzea thus the WoL has never known anyone that may be stronger than him or her from outside of Eorzea.

[CatStarPrime]

Well as I said in a past post "There will always be someone stronger than you in the world even if you never meet that person"

In the spirit of good fellowship, I have to remark, that, while this is an approved, careworn and often-used saying (especially by martial arts instructors) - it is untrue.

At any given moment in time, and by any measure of strength, there will be, always, "That One Person" who is the strongest of their kind.

Out at plus-three standard deviations, there will be 3.4 "strongest" per million (using the Motorola Shift).

And any given hour of the timeline, one of those 3.4 people, will have just had an awesome carb-loaded meal, and are at peak rest, and they'll be That One Person.

So the WoL, in logical construct, can be "That One Person" here on our Shard, without objection.


THEN we can talk about Equipment/Technical advantages


"God made Men; Colonel Colt made them equal."

Which is also inaccurate, because people aren't all equally-handy with pistols. Oh, and the part about a God, too, but hey.

[Alleo]

Well as I said in a past post "There will always be someone stronger than you in the world even if you never meet that person"

IMO this is not true. Realistically there has to be a point at a time where there is no stronger opponent left and there always has to be someone at the very top. And just because you only know one continent does not suddenly mean that there are stronger ones in the other parts of the world. I mean it could go the way of DBZ or even Naruto where the main cast is so strong and defeated the strongest person alive only to suddenly have an even stronger opponent appear out of nowhere but IMO that is not good story telling. This is why I like mangas like D.Gray-man. You will learn about the big bads quite early in the story and also about the evolving of the akumas so those points wont come out of nowhere and instead of having the strongest akuma being there since the beginning you will get them later when the cast gets stronger and stronger themselves. (And there is even a good reason for them existing and not being involved before) Yet seeing a lvl 4 for the first time does not mean instant success. Heck even the main bads are still there and not easy to defeat. Yet here we are, already killing Ascians and other godlike beings in our first expansion. Instead of struggling through the expansion thanks to the loss of our blessing we are just killing things left and right. Heavensward would have been a good point where we will see that we are still to weak and needs more training but at the end of the expansion one could not really believe that there is something even stronger than us out there.

If Zenos is even stronger than our character, why did Eorzea hear nothing about him before that expansion? Why not have him and some soldiers take over all of Eorzea? I mean we would be talking about someone that can defeat a person that can take on the strongest primal and his 12 knights alone. Thats 12 highly trained knights and one old guy that turned godlike against one person! You said that the blessing and the echo does not make us really that stronger so its the WoLs own strength that helped in the defeat of this foe. So he should have that strength against a mortal person too, especially in a 1vs1. (Look at the warring triad and how fast Zurvan killed off Regula and how fast we deal with Zurvan himself)

I just find it bad story telling if we are suddenly kicked around without any good reasons. Especially since there is a high chance that we will defeat him at the end of this expansion..and after that we will suddenly have another even stronger enemy appear?

I have no problem if they had the WoD as our rivals. They are five people and the WoLs of their world so they need to be really strong too. Yet with the help of the Scions we were able to defeat them. (And they already cleaned up their world beforehand so they are no pushovers) I can see Ascians overpowering us or other godlike beings but a mere mortal? IMO its kinda SE fault since they let us defeat a being like Thordan in the first expansion. I mean I can understand that this would make it boring to some but its kinda the way if you make your character too powerful too soon. Putting that character down again and again at each new expansion to give reasons to get better will just feel like a bad solution to me since the WoL did defeat quite the enemies already.

Anyway I will hold my last bit of hope till I see the cutscene ingame. Maybe there will be a very good reason why we are looking so defeated. But if there is none..well the "facepalm" emote will be a good way to show my thoughts. x) (And after getting scenes like after the Vault where we have the reaction of a sloth, even after surviving a whole dungeon of them..well I still remain skeptic)

*puts Alphinaud and Alisea in plot armor* So..now I am ready to face stuff. May my last favorite characters still be alive after this one.

(And sorry about the "feast" thing. I am no native English speaker and I kinda just remember the sound of the word so I thought it would be the right way to write it. Still would be nice to bring more to the discussion than one sentence about grammar.)

[EdwinLi]

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You have to remember Zenos is a warmonger. He has no interest in short victories and desire only to act if there is something worth a challenge. Claiming victory for the Garlean Empire now means losing the things he cares about. War and Violence in the world.

Also little amount of information about Garlemald is known outside of Garlemald as no one has been able to ever breach Garlemald's defenses or reach past the borders of Garlemald's defenses.

We also never heard much about Zenos because he does not go out of his way to perform the feats the WoL does. Zenos is only known in Garlemald for his strength, talent, and position of power thus people would treat him as any other Garleans since he does not go performing any noticable feats outside what Garleans have been known for.

Not to mention not everyone is pressured to do what the WoL does even if they are equal or stronger than WoL. The WoD only acted to save their world because everyone around them pressured them to do those things and even they said they never wanted to be Warriors of Light and only wanted a normal life of a Adventurer.

WoL does what he or she does because of obligations put on the WoL by other people because of their expectations.

If there are others equal or stronger than WoL then most likely we never heard of them is because they don't have interests in boasting about themselves or they never bother to perform feats that the WoL is constantly being pushed to do by others. Thus choosing a life less bound by expectations from others.

The WoL strength is measured by the feats he or she has achieved but not all with such strength would seek a life that the WoL has even if it is a life of Fame. (I would say fortune but we all know how lowly paid the WoL is)

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

If Zenos is even stronger than our character, why did Eorzea hear nothing about him before that expansion? Why not have him and some soldiers take over all of Eorzea? I mean we would be talking about someone that can defeat a person that can take on the strongest primal and his 12 knights alone.

It's not as simple as that. For one, we've never faced Zenos before; if Zenos has never faced us before, then Garlemald has no reason to assume him any more capable than any of the others who have failed to conquer Eorzea. Remember that Garlemald isn't attacking Eorzea at all because of the Primals; the implication is that once they have a way to permanently handle the threat, they'll commit to a takeover again, but because Primal summonings made the conquest of Othard so costly, they're holding back until the problem can be solved before it's a problem. No matter how personally skilled Zenos is with the blade, no matter what abilities or trickery or technology he has on-hand, his superiors aren't going to change tactics without him proving that he's somehow more likely to get the job done than Nael or Gaius. Where would he have had the chance to prove that?

Meanwhile, there are plenty of reasons why we may have never heard of Zenos (although we have; the False Griffin mentions him offhand in his speech), the most obvious being that his assignment was quite far from Eorzea until very recently. Then there's the fact that we don't seem to have infiltrated Garlemald to much degree at all - in fact, if I recall correctly, the most information that has ever been delivered to us on them was the result of the war of succession, after it had concluded. We don't exactly have access to the names and abilities of all Garlemald's top commanders at our fingertips. He's never come up because, until now, he's never been especially relevant.

EDIT:

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that, even if you want to discount the Blessing of Light granting us power on some occasions, the number and variety of enemies we've faced should allow us to match Zenos blow for blow thanks to sheer skill - yet what I've seen suggests he's going to curbstomp us early in 4.0. This could only be explained logically by him having some kind of power booster... that's my best guess, at least.

Well, let's also not forget that canonically, Regula took on four adventurers himself, including the WoL. There is some precedent for a Garlean Legatus giving us trouble when fought head-on.

[Cilia]

Well, let's also not forget that canonically, Regula took on four adventurers himself, including the WoL. There is some precedent for a Garlean Legatus giving us trouble when fought head-on.

As I recall (since I don't have one myself), the Lore Book states that the Warrior of Light went through the Aetherochemical Research Facility and took on the Knights of the Round alone. That means every foe during 3.0's climax - van Hydrus, the sphinx, Lahabrea, Igeyorhm, their merged Ascian Prime form, and the Knights of the Round - were all, in story canon, defeated by the Warrior of Light alone. Even if you want to attribute those victories to the Blessing of Light or the help of companions, the third fight with Regula is single combat even in gameplay - and we canonically won that as well.

We also defeated Nabriales without the Blessing of Light, and Hraesvelgr attributes our victory over Nidhogg not to the power he lent us but our own strength (i.e. skill and fortitude). Many of the high-intensity fights we've come out on top of often do not allow time to go recruit a party (Chrysalis, Aetherochemical Research Facility, Knights of the Round, Sohr Khai, Final Steps of Faith, etc.) in terms of story canon. (I felt really bad leaving Moenbryda bleeding out on the floor while grinding gear since I wanted to do the Chrysalis as a NIN but my gear wasn't up to snuff yet.)

Story and gameplay are often separate things, but this goes both ways - just as we can't claim to have utterly destroyed every opponent we've gone against thanks to our stats (personally I curbstomped van Hydrus in our duel, but I know this is unlikely to be the case in terms of story canon), a villain can't just show up and trash us with no explanation as to how when in-story we've fought a massive array of powerful and skilled foes. While power can be a factor, our skill alone should allow us to match Zenos. We fought a two-story tall bug man wielding four katana simultaneously - how is it we can't take on a Garelan legatus wielding one?

I'm just looking for an explanation to that, though I suppose overthinking it like this isn't going to help, and all I can really do is hope it's more complex than "he's just naturally that much more powerful / skilled!" Well that and get the Zenos cup from Hardee's while it's still available so I can drink synthesized Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero from it while playing Stormblood, but that has nothing to do with anything.

Anyway... in-story we don't even know Zenos' name yet, only that he's the new Viceroy of Ala Mhigo and, according to the [False] Griffin, far crueler a ruler than Gaius ever was. His few lines of dialogue in the ending of "The Far Edge of Fate" identify Zenos only as "Viceroy;" other than that and the [False] Griffin's mentioning, Zenos has not even been brought up in-story.

Inside information on Garlemald is hard if not impossible to acquire (we don't even have a full map of Islabard, their home turf), so that we have not heard about him is not unreasonable. I'd say it is because he's the crown prince, but Varis only recently assumed the throne, so it's understandable.

[Alleo]

Well, let's also not forget that canonically, Regula took on four adventurers himself, including the WoL. There is some precedent for a Garlean Legatus giving us trouble when fought head-on.

No canoncially we did everything on Azys Lla alone. So we took down Regula, two ascians plus their combined form and Thordan and his knights alone. (We were only traveling to the flying isle with our scion buddies and they split away from us before the dungeon. We simply cant have other people with us at that time since we are the first to arrive there thus nobody could even just teleport to us. And the lore book confirms it too.) Regula is later than also killed by Zurvan while we kill Zurvan too.

i honestly wouldn't mind if he really were that much stronger. It's only the second expansion. It's a bit early to be demigods. Who will be a credible threat in 9.0?

But really we have no idea how he beats us. Even the "I'm gonna let you live cause you are not strong enough" part is just speculation. And I sure hope it will end up being wrong.

Thats exactly the problem I have. SE already introduced so many godlike impossible looking enemies which we defeated (heck even if we had adventurers on our side in the new 24 man raid..defeating this version of Diabolos is one hell of a feat [I learned ]) so I just cant believe that there will be suddenly even stronger opponents especially if they are still mortal. I mean Thordan was the strongest primal till now and was fueled by the eyes (+Lahabrea), lots of prayers and even the Warring Triad and we defeated him alone. What kind of being will there be at 5.0? I wished that they had started the first expansion a bit slower. Instead of having such enemies they could have gone more about man versus dragon. Let us be saved by Hydaelyn against the Ascians instead of killing them off so easily. Let us defeat Nidhogg but only with the help of lots of people and dragons.

With that solution I would have understood that we are powerful but just still a normal mortal. Then with 4.x they could have given us enemies like Zenos that thrashes us. Overcoming him seems way more natural that way. Then with 5.0 we might destroy the first few Ascians on our own and maybe have some enemies like Diablos. And later we could have enemies like Thordan. This would have made the whole journey more realistically and still way more enjoyable and logical to me. Because you are 100% right, who are we going to defeat later? What power do they have to own to even make sense that we will not just mop the ground with them? Because right now after everything that we killed it just doesnt make sense that there is a mortal single person alive that will trash us. (Because this does not look like a stalemate)

Short version: They have made us too powerful too fast in the recent expansion thus any future expansion needs quite the enemies or strange reasons for us to loose against mortal people.

[Still good to read that there are others that find this point a little strange]

Now, what I noticed in the trailer is right at the very end, where is shows Zenos about to strike down Derplander in the rain (the scene where Urianger? recites the most recent New Year's poem), behind Zenos can be seen not what would be assumed to be Ala Mhigan structures as seen at Rhalgr's Reach.... but that weird magitek gate that protects Doma Castle.

Therefore, what if the story gives the player a choice of which path to take, which ultimately lead to the same conclusion? What if, early on in the expansion, the player is asked to either proceed to Rhalgr's Reach and assist the Resistance in retaking Ala Mhigo, or head eastwards across the ocean to Othard with Goesetsu and Yugiri? And that at some point during both scenarios, the insurrection against the Garleans fails horribly when Zenos shows up and makes sport of the player (for whatever reason), and then they proceed to the 'other' region to regroup and gain support?

I would find it nice to have a choice but I cant truly believe that we can either choose one or the other. From the view of the WoL why would we travel for months on a ship to go to Doma first when Ala Mhigo is right there in Eorzea? Also Eorzea is going to war with them so going to Doma first would mean that we leave them all behind from the very beginning. Also how would they do the story dungeons? I mean which level would it be, since it would be different depending on where you went first. Also why would Lyse go with us to Doma if she wants to free Ala Mhigo? No I think in the end this is one straight story line again. (I hope that this wont mean that we loose to Zenos twice >_>)

[LineageRazor]

No canoncially we did everything on Azys Lla alone. So we took down Regula, two ascians plus their combined form and Thordan and his knights alone. (We were only traveling to the flying isle with our scion buddies and they split away from us before the dungeon. We simply cant have other people with us at that time since we are the first to arrive there thus nobody could even just teleport to us. And the lore book confirms it too.) Regula is later than also killed by Zurvan while we kill Zurvan too.

Even assuming that we DID do all that without assistance from other champions - what makes you so certain that Zenos wouldn't be capable of the same? It's entirely possible that, had it been him in the Singularity Reactor instead of us (and assuming he had protection from tempering) he could well have laid Thordan low with a single blow rather than the drawn-out fight we had to go through.

Additionally, just because he's Regula's peer is not reason enough to assume that the two are equal in power. Even if they were, well, we don't actually know what Regula's power was like. Never have we fought the guy to the death - he always tactically retreated. Additionally, the only reason he died to Zurvan is that he took a blow for one of his allies that he never would have taken otherwise. Essentially, we don't KNOW what Regula's potential was, because we've never had a chance to see it.

While there ARE some pretty tired tropes being handed around here, SE still has lots of room to provide us with challenges in the future, both human and otherwise. It's still too soon to say, "One on one, we should be able to beat anyone, anytime!"