What happened to SB (story)?

[Quoyan]

This is a link to the ffxiv world map:
http://imgur.com/qYMg2XF

The Ruby sea area is much, much bigger than the sea you have referenced.

That's exactly my point?

[Cenerae]

The only two quibbles I have with the SB story are:

1) Zenos. We go from getting our asses kicked up and down Rhalgr's reach to casually marching in to his throne room and kicking his ass up and down it. At no point in the story do we look into any particular kind of training or devise a plan to deal with a man that's clearly far beyond our scope in power, and I don't buy the level gap as a reasonable excuse. Most of our campaigning involved kicking around Garlean mooks, that's hardly going to enable us to suddenly match someone who is presented as overwhelmingly powerful.

2) Shinryu. Pretty much the same as with Zenos...we are told that we can't possibly stand up to Shinryu and it's too powerful. We need to have Papalymo kill himself to buy time, and then sic Omega on it in the hopes that Omega will win. And yet we casually give this supposedly mighty monster the beatdown without a second thought, the moment it re-enters the story. So Papalymo's sacrifice was pointless, because obviously we were strong enough to fight the thing in the first place. And there was no need to risk everything on Omega behaving.

Again, there was no special preparations or tactics in play here. All we did was level from 60 to 70 without really pushing the WoL's limits at any point in the story save when Zenos gave us the beatdown twice. With no clever strategy or advantage in play, yet we suddenly just run these supposed bad asses over with a truck really breaks my immersion in the story.

I've already gotten over it, mind you, but hey.

[Vexander]

So Papalymo's sacrifice was pointless, because obviously we were strong enough to fight the thing in the first place. And there was no need to risk everything on Omega behaving.

I think the implication of the narrative was that as we progressed through the story, as we encountered new people, new problems, we grew stronger for it. So when Papalymo sacrificed himself, we were too weak. By the time we marched into the Royal Menagerie, we had a chance.

Also for conspiracy theorists, this adds up with the, 'The Warrior of Light brands all he meets and gains power from them.' We ran out of people to brand in Eorzea, so we found new strength in the Far East.

[Avatre]

1) Zenos. We go from getting our asses kicked up and down Rhalgr's reach to casually marching in to his throne room and kicking his ass up and down it. At no point in the story do we look into any particular kind of training or devise a plan to deal with a man that's clearly far beyond our scope in power, and I don't buy the level gap as a reasonable excuse. Most of our campaigning involved kicking around Garlean mooks, that's hardly going to enable us to suddenly match someone who is presented as overwhelmingly powerful.

This is basically why I feel that the story was rushed. Zenos should have been end of 4.1 or 4.2 boss. Everything just seemed...lacking. Was the story good, if otherwise rushed? Yes. Should it have been more flushed out with other concerns/situations? Definitely. Do I think I know why they did it? Probably because of all the people who non-stop complained about the mass amount of filler quests(yes, there were tons, but it could always have been worse...those quests helped build the story...if in a slightly annoying manner).

[Malzian]

2) Shinryu. Pretty much the same as with Zenos...we are told that we can't possibly stand up to Shinryu and it's too powerful. We need to have Papalymo kill himself to buy time, and then sic Omega on it in the hopes that Omega will win. And yet we casually give this supposedly mighty monster the beatdown without a second thought, the moment it re-enters the story. So Papalymo's sacrifice was pointless, because obviously we were strong enough to fight the thing in the first place. And there was no need to risk everything on Omega behaving.

For the fight with Zenos, all I can say is that we learned his secret when we fought Fordola, but I can't say how we exploited it. However, for Shinryu we can say 2 things for certain: 1) Omega did significant damage to Shinryu prior to us fighting him, therefore he was already somewhat weakened. 2) After Shinryu is beaten, Estinian specifically says that the eyes are almost completely empty, which means Shinryu was almost to the point of disappearing -anyway-, so therefore we just shoved him over the edge.

[Cenerae]

For the fight with Zenos, all I can say is that we learned his secret when we fought Fordola, but I can't say how we exploited it. However, for Shinryu we can say 2 things for certain: 1) Omega did significant damage to Shinryu prior to us fighting him, therefore he was already somewhat weakened. 2) After Shinryu is beaten, Estinian specifically says that the eyes are almost completely empty, which means Shinryu was almost to the point of disappearing -anyway-, so therefore we just shoved him over the edge.

After beating Fordola, we knew that Zenos had the same source of power. But we also needed a special device to weaken Fordola so we could best her in combat. We employed no special tactics against Zenos, we just beat him down like anyone else. Which implies that Fordola is far stronger than Zenos (which is not how the story presents it).

As for Omega damaging Shinryu heavily, I want to point out that a relatively long time went by in game time between Omega and Shinryu fighting, and us getting to fight Shinryu. It certainly didn't look very hurt when we went to battle it, and I doubt that it being imprisoned by the Garleans had done more than make it really angry.

I'll take your point about the eyes, though. Though I suspect that Shinryu would have tried to raid somewhere with a lot of crystals, were it running out of aether to stay corporeal.

[Malzian]

After beating Fordola, we knew that Zenos had the same source of power. But we also needed a special device to weaken Fordola so we could best her in combat. We employed no special tactics against Zenos, we just beat him down like anyone else. Which implies that Fordola is far stronger than Zenos (which is not how the story presents it).

As for Omega damaging Shinryu heavily, I want to point out that a relatively long time went by in game time between Omega and Shinryu fighting, and us getting to fight Shinryu. It certainly didn't look very hurt when we went to battle it, and I doubt that it being imprisoned by the Garleans had done more than make it really angry.

I'll take your point about the eyes, though. Though I suspect that Shinryu would have tried to raid somewhere with a lot of crystals, were it running out of aether to stay corporeal.

Actually, it was imprisoned by Omega, not the Garleans, and we don't know all the effects that field had on Shinryu. On top of that, all other Primals need worshipers to maintain themselves in addition to crystals, hence why Primals 'temper' people. Shinryu's initial "worshipers" all died before he was manifest and he didn't have time to put anyone under his sway.

For Zenos, I did say that I can't speak to how we exploited his weakness to overcome him, but we had already shown signs during the second encounter that we were starting to rise up to his level. Once more, there's a LOT we don't know about the Echo and how it actually works at this point and that really becomes our "plot armor" in the end.

[anzamoni]

After beating Fordola, we knew that Zenos had the same source of power. But we also needed a special device to weaken Fordola so we could best her in combat. We employed no special tactics against Zenos, we just beat him down like anyone else. Which implies that Fordola is far stronger than Zenos (which is not how the story presents it).

As for Omega damaging Shinryu heavily, I want to point out that a relatively long time went by in game time between Omega and Shinryu fighting, and us getting to fight Shinryu. It certainly didn't look very hurt when we went to battle it, and I doubt that it being imprisoned by the Garleans had done more than make it really angry.

I'll take your point about the eyes, though. Though I suspect that Shinryu would have tried to raid somewhere with a lot of crystals, were it running out of aether to stay corporeal.

Zenos vs Fordola, I don't think it implies that she is stronger than Zenos. Like we have seen powers the Echo can give varies wildly from the pedestrian understanding all language to flat out being able to become/control a primal. Where Fordola could see/feel disturbances in Aether to know what attack we were about to do without a trick it would've been a stalemate since our Echo gives us the same power essentially. Zenos' echo has yet to have been explained, it could be an entirely new form of the echo we are dealing with. Or it could be as simple as he is a battle hardened BA, and our journey to Level 70 along with our 3 'adventurer' companions were finally strong enough to over power him to the point where he needed to use his Echo.

Don't Primals also require fervent belief in them to maintain themselves as well? That is most likely why we defeated Shinryu, with everyone at the wall who 'believed' in the liberation of Ala Mihgo being mostly dead there are no faithful followers for him to feed on. Add into it that we don't exactly know how primals 'heal' perse. We saw that Bahamut needed the Coils not only to contain him but to restore himself, I don't recall reading anything about a primals ability to naturally heal itself like a physical being living being. I would assume it would need to absorb more aether which would require followers/crystals.

[Aylis]

This game lost sight of the original plot and tacked on a conversation with one ascian at the end. What happened to all the primals they were summoning to make things hard for us

I do agree, the story started out good and became just convoluted over time as it progressed. I fear it will only become more as time goes on. Just cause once Yoshida took out the Final Fantasy play book and drew most of his inspiration from it and past Final Fantasy games and tried to fit them all together in one game, all to work together in one story. Just my thoughts but I feel he's more focused on taking these elements and putting them in first and bending the story around them instead of leaving the past in the past and just doing his own thing. The primals and Ascions maybe back someday. Once they can fit whatever old FF reference he has planned for them after were done with whatever old big FF reference he's working on for SB.

[Chadness]

My annoyances can best be summed up like this: ARR was an amazing hero origin story with plenty of that "I came here to adventure" feel. The writing was stellar and you genuinely felt like you were this regular person who got caught up in things and discovered you were more than that. Working hard to do the right thing and exploring the continent as you went from place to place. The feeling was that and more, and it felt genuine. HW had you interact with a nation engaged in a massive war going on for over a thousand years and that war felt just as massive as it was told in the story. Everything felt huge and you felt like an experienced adventurer who just started to get a hang of the weight behind their fame and capabilities. You worked hard and made a big difference; and it felt like you made the difference as only a hero could. The epic war felt epic.

Then comes SB... and a large-scale war spanning the world being fought on two fronts somehow feels tiny. By the end of it I felt like I helped two small tribes and interacted with a third small tribe that was divided. What happened?

Eh,as other people have stated, everyone's preferences differ. To be honest, I enjoyed the - as you put it, "hero origin story" of ARR. I thought Heavensward felt epic, sure. But, didn't really care for the story or presentation that much, outside of a few key moments, all of which revolve around the characters, and not the epic, overarching war story, really. See, opinions differ. It sounds like you're going a bit overboard with your "I dislike the story so I'm quitting" melodrama.

I thought SB was the strongest out of all three stories, but it still isn't without its issues.

The first thing to rage about was being asked by Alphinaud what you thought on the Ala Mhigan rebellion. I was given three VAGUE options.

That being said, it isn't like I don't agree with you on some points, including this one. But, at the same time, this game isn't Mass Effect or Skyrim, you can't expect the pitiful choices in dialog they give you to have any effect whatsoever. The best you can hope for is possibly a changed line of dialog. And even games that are affected by your choices still have responses that don't quite fit the bill to the meaning that you meant to give your selection. This isn't a problem with this game in particular, it's a problem with games in general.

Then facing Xenos for the first time. He takes you down without effort and one of the characters states how useless everything you went through before is. Your esteemed allies and practiced soldiers just lose to everyone, even the foot soldiers of Garlemald. Seriously, what's the deal?

I do understand where you're coming from, however, I viewed that event in Rhalgar's Reach (and, consequently, the follow-up event when you face Zenos again in Yanxia) as something that sorely needed to happen. I've been feeling for a while that the WOL needs to get their tail end handed to them a time or two. It was getting tiresome basically looking at the strongest baddies in all Eorzea and have them fall over dead. We NEEDED to feel like we can't immediately beat everything or solve every problem.

That being said, Zenos, as we all know now, isn't entirely just "human" (well, he's Garlean, but we know what you meant).

The next disappointment is the Ruby Sea.

Agreed. I still enjoyed the zone though.

Then we free the nation of Doma... but it really doesn't feel like it. The map is still just as quiet as when we got there. Anyway, back to Eorzea.

The Doma part of the story I thought was way stronger and more enjoyable than the Ala Mhigo parts at the beginning and end. I especially enjoyed the Azim Steppe portion, as I felt it was the best portion of main story in the entire expansion, possibly the entire game. Just the look, feel, music, characters, quests, were all outstanding and I hope they do more with that zone in the future.

The conclusion was actually fantastic, except everything that led up to it was less than the outcome. I wasn't fighting Xenos in the end, I was fighting a primal. So all that build up and hype, and now the final villain needs a boost to keep up with us? When did we get so strong? I can't tell because we didn't actually fight a ton of big monsters beforehand. We fought enemies that everyone knew we were better than and only pushed our capabilities twice before that. 2+2 suddenly equaled 103 and I missed how we got there. When did we add 99 to that?

I wholeheartedly agree that it was a bit odd that we legitimately steamrolled over anything in our way in the last portion of the main story, although from storming Ala Mhigo (the dungeon) to the final fight was all pretty epic. It's just...a bit odd that, again, the Garleans basically died when we looked in their general direction the entire last portion of the story.

Anyway, between lag and a story that felt so poorly executed and written, I just don't really care that much anymore. Once my 6 months runs out I won't stretch my income to make the next payment, so this is my "x weeks notice" in a sense. [Congratulations!] I no longer feel any connection to what was my favorite game of all time.

Let's be honest, this is a bit overly dramatic. C'mon. If it is indeed your "Favorite game of all time", then you should be a little forgiving if you disliked one small portion of it, a portion of which really isn't even concluded yet, because we have half a dozen patches of story content yet to come in the future, where, frankly, many of your issues could be explained.

To wrap things up, I enjoyed SB more than HW - comparing expansions - possibly because SB focuses way more on the PEOPLE, and less on the "OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING IN A HUGE FIREBALL IF WE SCREW UP" feeling. I like people stories, stories with heart. The portions of the HW story that I enjoyed the most were the parts focusing on the PEOPLE, not the epicness of ending the war and defeating a huge baddie. SB brought focus on the people and their plight, and what we could do to help, more to the forefront, while still retaining some of the epic feeling, but not solely focusing on it, which is what I enjoyed.

But, like I said at the outset, different people enjoy different things.