Launch Trailer Hype Thread

[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.

[DarthSanguine]

Stuff

Feat, not feast.

[EdwinLi]

Feat, not feast.

Well it is certainly a feast of blood considering how many WoL killed.

[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]

---

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)

[Cilia]

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.

Anyway, since I did something like this before Heavensward, here's some fun.

Warrior of Light: A-TEN HUT!

Alphinaud: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Alphinaud Leveilleur, and I'm puttin' together a special team, and I need me eight Scions. Eight Doman and Eorzean Scions. Now y'all mighta heard rumors about the Assault happenin' soon. Well, we'll be leavin' a little early. We're gonna be dropped into Othard, dressed as civilians, and once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thang and one thang only: killin' Imperials. Now I don't know 'bout 'chall, but I sure as Hells din't come outta Sharlayan, cross three thousand malms o' water, fight my way through half a' Gyr Abania, and jump outta a [kupo!] aeroship to teach the Imperials lessons in humanity. Imperial ain't got no humanity. They're the footsoldiers of a beastman hatin', mass-murderin' maniac and they need to be deestroyed. That's why any and every sumbitch we find wearin' an Imperial uniform... they're gon' die. Now I am the grandson of Louisoix Leveilleur. That means I'm from Sharlayan. But our battle plan will be the opposite of a Sharlayan resistance! We will be cruel to the Garleans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their kin we leave behind us. And the Garlean won't be able to help themselves but imagine the cruelty their kin endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Garlean will be sickened by us, and the Garlean will talk about us, and the Garlean will fear us.

*Warrior of Light grins*

Alphinaud: And when the Garlean closes their eyes at night, and they are tortured by their subconscious for all the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. ... SOUND GOOD?!

Scions: YES SIR!

Alphinaud: That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warnin' for all you would-be liberators. When you join my command you take on a debit. A debit you owe me, personally. Each and every Scion under my command owes me one hundred Imperial eyes! And I want my eyes! And all y'all will get me one hundred Imperial eyes, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Imperials! Or you will die tryin'!

Yes, I am aware the Inglorious Basterds are not exactly heroic; that's half the point of the film.

[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.

[CatStarPrime]

I will still fall back on, Midgardsormr's words to us, when he remarked, of all our kind, none were stronger than us.

Now, there are many aspects to strength, as we know. Strong as we are, we still fell victim to an ordinary citizen drugging us to sleep, just as one example.

The only way Zenos beats us in a straight-up fight, is under extenuating circumstances of wounds, weakness, fatigue, surprise - or circumstances of character; put most succinctly by someone who said "No. You are not evil. There are some things you just won't do, no matter what. For you the end does not justify the means. (Baddie X) doesn't have that problem."

[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.

[Balipu]

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.