[SPOILERS] Heavensward vs Stormblood MSQ Story

[Yuella]

Fordola and Yotsuyu are like Nidhogg. Both are antagonized but you can understand why they're like that due to their past.

[Alleo]

After reading some posts in here I do believe that most of my criticism for SB are there thanks to two issues: Pacing and scale.

Pacing: It felt way better in HW. Yes you still defeated Thordan and his knights in the first part of the expansion but since its mostly only about Ishgard itself, the pacing feels slower. You get to know the people and their reasons, see the different sides and at the end you still know that the big bad (Nidhogg) is still alive. The bad things in HW were the solution to the Uldah situation and the WoD. Otherwise it still took us a whole expansion and lots of adventures to make peace between dragons and humanity.

In SB we just defeated Zenos and Shinyru at the first part of the expansion and there was no hint that anyone of them could get back somewhere down the line. So we did not just defeat the strong Zenos and on top of that the really strong primal, no we single handedly (or with a bunch of other adventurers) took back Ala Mhigo. So at the very beginning of the expansion we already took back two states from Garlemald..which leaves me with the question of what will happen in the rest of the expansion. After feeling that it was too easy to get them back, it would still be bad if we would suddenly lose them again. And I am not sure if some mere human conflict in these states would be enough to tell for a whole expansion..Also what enemy will we have to face (that suddenly comes out of nowhere) after we already faced those two monsters?

Scale: This was always a bit of a problem for FF14. In the HW CGI trailer you see the sky full with a big army of dragons that are flying to Ishgard. You truly get the sense of danger..in the actual ingame scene you see a bunch of dragons on a bridge thus you dont get the scale of the battle. Its gotten way worse in SB. I never got the feeling that we are having a war. There were never enough people there to make it feel like it. We have Azim that should be full of Xaela, yet barely any tribe have many members shown. The villages in Doma also barely have any people in cutscenes. When Yotsuyu arrived in that fisher village you have very few people in the cutscene, yet later you will see way more NPCs around. Where were they? The same in the fight against Doma castle. You have like five Au Ra in the air, a couple of badly armed villagers against a handful of Garlean soldiers and Hien and his friends in the castle itself. And somehow we won. I know that Doma is not that big but still it felt not grand. Also at Hiens speech there are barely any people there. Are these all of Doma?

At least with Doma you could say that its tiny but Ala Mhigo was a own city state yet if felt not quite bigger. Why did Varis not sent more soldiers there, he should know that his son does not care for it. In the end you take Ala Mhigo back with a handful of people. Yes I know that theoretically its more thanks to all the city states but it was never shown that way. When we fought our way through Ala Mhigo you see some people fighting..like around five people on each side..I never truly felt that this was war and that we fought an empire that is way more advanced than us..why did the rebellion never went that far? Zenos was not always the head of this so I really got the feeling that this just shows the rebellions as completely incompetent.

And on top of that we never had much time to truly celebrate. We had a cutscene with Lyse on the front and signing but why not have a ending where we have a big party and at the end of it they will sing the song. It felt more like we just had done a side quest and not just the liberation of two states..

If we ever go to a big war against the core empire...they really have to increase their scale in battles..otherwise it will never feel that interesting at all. (For me) In movies like Lord of the rings you will truly get the feeling of war thanks to the massive amount of people on both sides..I know that the might not be able to show so many NPCs ingame but why not make a very grand cutscene? But even in cutscenes I never felt like we had much people there.

[Nezia]

Fordola and Yotsuyu are like Nidhogg. Both are antagonized but you can understand why they're like that due to their past.

Uh... not really? Fordola wanted to save the Ala Mhigas and in order to do so she recruits a few Ala Mhigans to the imperals so they can decimate the other Ala Mhigans better. Yotsuyu had problems with her family and she sunddely wanted to burn every single Doman alive. Nidhogg had her sister killed and her eyes ripped from her head right before him and then had his own eyes ripped from his head while he was still alive, and all this from the people they had helped build a great kingdom and for the sole sake of having more power.

Yeah... I have a feeling that I can understand Nidhogg better.

[Nezia]

Why did Varis not sent more soldiers there, he should know that his son does not care for it. In the end you take Ala Mhigo back with a handful of people. Yes I know that theoretically its more thanks to all the city states but it was never shown that way.

I've seen some people questioning this and the reason is fairly simple, they simply could not. That is why we go to Doma in the first place, so the Empire can not focus it's full attention on Ala Mhigo, after the victory in Doma, Hien states that he sent the shinobi to spread word of their victory around the world, so that the empire would have their hands full dealing with insurgents or insurgent threats.

It's also very likely that Zenos was reporting that everything was under control and the reinforcement was not required, only so that you would have a easier time making your way to fight him.

[Kallera]

They wasted Shinryu to be honest. It could have been something with political and literal fallout to deal with over the next few patches, but nope! Stuffed in a box for Zenos to waste.

[SendohJin]

Uh... not really? Fordola wanted to save the Ala Mhigas and in order to do so she recruits a few Ala Mhigans to the imperals so they can decimate the other Ala Mhigans better. Yotsuyu had problems with her family and she sunddely wanted to burn every single Doman alive. Nidhogg had her sister killed and her eyes ripped from her head right before him and then had his own eyes ripped from his head while he was still alive, and all this from the people they had helped build a great kingdom and for the sole sake of having more power.

Yeah... I have a feeling that I can understand Nidhogg better.

Nidhogg experienced sudden trauma. the other two lived under prolonged brainwashing, indoctrination, torture and abuse. it's easier for us to imagine sudden trauma.

[Alleo]

I've seen some people questioning this and the reason is fairly simple, they simply could not. That is why we go to Doma in the first place, so the Empire can not focus it's full attention on Ala Mhigo, after the victory in Doma, Hien states that he sent the shinobi to spread word of their victory around the world, so that the empire would have their hands full dealing with insurgents or insurgent threats.

It's also very likely that Zenos was reporting that everything was under control and the reinforcement was not required, only so that you would have a easier time making your way to fight him.

But we are still talking about an empire that wants to conquer the whole world. And I do hope that their leader Varis is not stupid so he should have seen that the main target is Ala Mhigo. After Doma fell we went back to Ala Mhigo with a ship, which takes months to travel between the countries. More than enough time to send more people to Ala Mhigo. Also isnt it strange how he does not even punish his own son after the fall of Doma? I mean he already says that is son is simply a monster yet he trusts him that much? If they do not have enough people to stop some rebellions in smaller states and to sent more to Ala Mhigo (and they are technological advanced, they just needed to sent more killing machines) then they are not that great to begin with.

[sciencebot]

We have Azim that should be full of Xaela, yet barely any tribe have many members shown.

I think it's important to note here just how big the Steppe is: we only see a little bit of it! If you look off across the desert, it goes on for a while. If you look out to the east, it continues on to the horizon. The Azim Steppe is huge, we only visit part of it -- we don't see the Dalamiq's river (which is supposed to be a full two malms wide in places), we don't see the Yanxia Bay to the east, etc. So it makes sense that we didn't see very many Bayaqud, for example, because the Steppes are so big that their village is way far away from where we're tromping around; a bunch of tribes live in the Nhaama Desert, too, and we only barely touch on that.



On the map it looks to be bigger than the entirety of Vylbrand-- to really do it justice they'd have to devote like four zones to it, minimum, which they definitely weren't going to do*. As it is, I think it's impressive they represented as many tribes as they did. It fits with the idea of the Dawn Throne and Reunion being kind of a central meeting place without requiring every tribe to camp out on the lawn, you know?

*although if they do, sign me up, give me a full xaela expansion, i'm down

[Yshnal]

Good stuff about the scale of battles in FFXIV

Well, Dragon Age: Origins was able to show great cutscenes with plenty of enemies, using the in-game engine, and that was like years ago (https://youtu.be/3m6U_f2mS6c). I don't know what's preventing SE to at least show similar cutscenes. There's also ways to show a lot of stuff happening around during normal gameplay without it being taxing on the system (like using lower res/detail models with simple animations for things happening afar). I'm sure that they can use these tricks to implement some sense of scale to battles. Not to mention that even the benchmarks show more people than the actual story battles, so the engine can handle it (I'm talking about NPCs here, not players, as that comes with other issues).

[Grayve]

I felt the same way regarding scale. I tend to just role with it in game, because I can understand engine limitations and so forth. But that does take me out of the game. I mean, the last battle for Ala Mhigo. No armies, no legion, the entire airforce of the XII is taken out by four people on birds. For me, all they would have had to do was show.. or even tell.. a little more. Like, Oh.. a unit of griffin Calvary (lore wise the traditional ala mhigon unit, I think) is skirmishing here, keeping them distracted. It could still let Hien show up and save us from the reserves or whatever. I had a blast, but it didn't feel as fleshed out as HW did.