I'd like to talk about the powerscaling of Zenos vs WoL

[Bright-Flower]

It bothered me too. Especially with Shinryu, the ending of HW made such a big deal of Shinryu, having Popolymo sacrifice himself to stall it and us resorting to unleashing Omega rather than fighting it. Then we just fight it like any other primal.

You can try and say 'it was weakened' but the story doesn't really confirm that.

There really is no explanation beyond 'we leveled up.' Now if this was say ARR, maybe it wouldn't bug me. We start off as a new adventurer and work our way up to a grand hero standing against godlike monsters.

But by the start of SB we've been doing this a while, and nothing we go through in SB is really out of the ordinary for what we did in ARR and HW. It's not like we were being pushed to new extremes to become more powerful. We just keep doing what we normally do and arbitrarily get 'stronger' in that vague shoenen sense. Compared to say Fordola who we beat, then she gets empowered and beats us, and then we capture her by using a device to use her artifical echo against her and weaken her. With Zenos we just kind of stroll up and fight him.

And there aren't even any real stakes to losing to him either. A couple npcs get wounded I guess. One unnamed npc dies at RR but if I recall it was Fordola that killed him anyway. The resistance doesn't have to abandon its headquarters, and in Doma there are no negative consequences for our failed assassination attempt. In fact, it plays into our hands because Grynwhat's attack on the Steppe coming after us helps to rally the Xaela against them after we win the thing.

Zenos has the potential to become interesting for me in 5.0 with his current path of reclaiming 'what's his' in the empire but for now I find him unengaging both as a character and as a menacing foe to face due to the lack of consequence when he wins.

[Yshnal]

It bothered me too. Especially with Shinryu, the ending of HW made such a big deal of Shinryu, having Popolymo sacrifice himself to stall it and us resorting to unleashing Omega rather than fighting it. Then we just fight it like any other primal.

You can try and say 'it was weakened' but the story doesn't really confirm that.

There really is no explanation beyond 'we leveled up.' Now if this was say ARR, maybe it wouldn't bug me. We start off as a new adventurer and work our way up to a grand hero standing against godlike monsters.

But by the start of SB we've been doing this a while, and nothing we go through in SB is really out of the ordinary for what we did in ARR and HW. It's not like we were being pushed to new extremes to become more powerful. We just keep doing what we normally do and arbitrarily get 'stronger' in that vague shoenen sense. Compared to say Fordola who we beat, then she gets empowered and beats us, and then we capture her by using a device to use her artifical echo against her and weaken her. With Zenos we just kind of stroll up and fight him.

And there aren't even any real stakes to losing to him either. A couple npcs get wounded I guess. One unnamed npc dies at RR but if I recall it was Fordola that killed him anyway. The resistance doesn't have to abandon its headquarters, and in Doma there are no negative consequences for our failed assassination attempt. In fact, it plays into our hands because Grynwhat's attack on the Steppe coming after us helps to rally the Xaela against them after we win the thing.

Zenos has the potential to become interesting for me in 5.0 with his current path of reclaiming 'what's his' in the empire but for now I find him unengaging both as a character and as a menacing foe to face due to the lack of consequence when he wins.

Keep in mind that we got strong enough to also fight and win against Omega, which in turn was more powerful than Shinryu. So, it makes sense that at that point we could defeat the primal. If you think about it, Omega itself kinda "tells" us (well, he doesn't, as that's the part that it can't understand) why we can keep getting stronger and stronger, which in turn makes sense after everything that happens during SB. For instance, being the first time that we get our ass handed back to us would certainly sparkle something inside the WoL to go beyond their current limits (why does this remind me of that Cloud VS Sephiroth talk during Advent Children in regards to strength?). A bit of inner reflection and self-discovery goes a long way in order to make people learn and improve, especially someone with such a huge potential like the WoL. We never truly had to do that before, despite several people/dragons telling us to do it. And as Kalise said, we weren't sitting on our hands during all that time, either. The most important parts being our additional training with our job's master, or fighting with and alongside a true warrior race like the Xaela. If you add everything up, it truly makes more sense.

I agree on the lack of consequence part, tho. Yes, some minor characters died when we lost, but that's all. I mean, for our characters maybe even losing these people was a significant hit, but it's hard for us as players to actually feel anything like when a certain someone with pointy ears died (and then it felt so rewarding to beat Thordan and company).

[LineageRazor]

I wasn't particularly pleased with the way that they showed our development as Zenos's One True Rival. There are two aspects to it that really get my goat.

First off, in our initial encounter, we don't even show as a blip on Zenos's radar. We. Do. Not. Impress. Him. At. All. There are others who've fought Zenos and failed to impress him, and they all have one thing in common: they are dead. Why did he spare us? There's no good reason for it, and there was nothing stopping him from dealing the killing blow. In my mind, THIS encounter is where we should have damaged Zenos's mask - NOT the second encounter. Zenos should have seen potential in us from the start, because otherwise leaving us alive makes no sense.

Secondly, the second encounter. It was just as much a curbstomp as the first. This was halfway to our final confrontation, and it did not appear as though we'd progressed AT ALL. Our attacks were just as ineffectual as in the first battle. While it's fine for it to be another unwinnable fight, it should have allowed us to seem like we're actually doing better than we were the first time. Like, cue Zenos's "I win" move at around 50% health, and allow our attacks to bring him that low in a reasonable amount of time.

FIGHT 1: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: Bored now. Leaving. Also not killing you for no particular reason.
FIGHT 2: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: You chipped my mask! Best Frenemies Forever!!!
FIGHT 3: *We curbstomp Zenos* Zenos: I knew you could do it! Now, I will turn into a snake, and we will fight again!

But by the start of SB we've been doing this a while, and nothing we go through in SB is really out of the ordinary for what we did in ARR and HW. It's not like we were being pushed to new extremes to become more powerful. We just keep doing what we normally do and arbitrarily get 'stronger' in that vague shoenen sense. Compared to say Fordola who we beat, then she gets empowered and beats us, and then we capture her by using a device to use her artifical echo against her and weaken her. With Zenos we just kind of stroll up and fight him.

In the case of the Echo, it's known that the Echo affects different people in different ways. Not everyone with the Echo expresses it in the same way; for instance, Krile is able to use her Echo to trace aetheric signatures, something which no other Echo user has been shown capable of doing. It is possible that the Resonance also manifests differently in different individuals. It may be the case that Fordola got super battle intuition, and Zenos did not (he, instead, gained the ability to tame, control, and eventually to merge with Primals). So, we did not need a device to defeat Zenos, in spite of the fact that he, too, possesses the Resonance (a double helping, apparently). Of course, being Zenos, he likely doesn't NEED super battle intuition - against most opponents, at any rate.

Shinryu? Ah, well, the Warrior of Light specializes in killing eikons... so that was not the smartest move. (They also had seven people backing them up, so...)

Another villain laid low by ignoring rule 34 of the Evil Overlord's List:
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

[Bright-Flower]

I wasn't particularly pleased with the way that they showed our development as Zenos's One True Rival. There are two aspects to it that really get my goat.

First off, in our initial encounter, we don't even show as a blip on Zenos's radar. We. Do. Not. Impress. Him. At. All. There are others who've fought Zenos and failed to impress him, and they all have one thing in common: they are dead. Why did he spare us? There's no good reason for it, and there was nothing stopping him from dealing the killing blow. In my mind, THIS encounter is where we should have damaged Zenos's mask - NOT the second encounter. Zenos should have seen potential in us from the start, because otherwise leaving us alive makes no sense.

Secondly, the second encounter. It was just as much a curbstomp as the first. This was halfway to our final confrontation, and it did not appear as though we'd progressed AT ALL. Our attacks were just as ineffectual as in the first battle. While it's fine for it to be another unwinnable fight, it should have allowed us to seem like we're actually doing better than we were the first time. Like, cue Zenos's "I win" move at around 50% health, and allow our attacks to bring him that low in a reasonable amount of time.

FIGHT 1: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: Bored now. Leaving. Also not killing you for no particular reason.
FIGHT 2: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: You chipped my mask! Best Frenemies Forever!!!
FIGHT 3: *We curbstomp Zenos* Zenos: I knew you could do it! Now, I will turn into a snake, and we will fight again!


In the case of the Echo, it's known that the Echo affects different people in different ways. Not everyone with the Echo expresses it in the same way; for instance, Krile is able to use her Echo to trace aetheric signatures, something which no other Echo user has been shown capable of doing. It is possible that the Resonance also manifests differently in different individuals. It may be the case that Fordola got super battle intuition, and Zenos did not (he, instead, gained the ability to tame, control, and eventually to merge with Primals). So, we did not need a device to defeat Zenos, in spite of the fact that he, too, possesses the Resonance (a double helping, apparently). Of course, being Zenos, he likely doesn't NEED super battle intuition - against most opponents, at any rate.


Another villain laid low by ignoring rule 34 of the Evil Overlord's List:
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

Yeah I know the echo can be different between people. My point was more that I felt the handled how we beat Fordola better. I'm not saying we necessarily should have had some sort of device to use against Zenos and doing the exact same thing, but the confrontation with Zenos just felt a bit lazy. Like the only reason we're ready to fight him NOW is because we're at the end of 4.0 and the story needs to wrap up.

[Daralii]

I wasn't particularly pleased with the way that they showed our development as Zenos's One True Rival. There are two aspects to it that really get my goat.

First off, in our initial encounter, we don't even show as a blip on Zenos's radar. We. Do. Not. Impress. Him. At. All. There are others who've fought Zenos and failed to impress him, and they all have one thing in common: they are dead. Why did he spare us? There's no good reason for it, and there was nothing stopping him from dealing the killing blow. In my mind, THIS encounter is where we should have damaged Zenos's mask - NOT the second encounter. Zenos should have seen potential in us from the start, because otherwise leaving us alive makes no sense.

Secondly, the second encounter. It was just as much a curbstomp as the first. This was halfway to our final confrontation, and it did not appear as though we'd progressed AT ALL. Our attacks were just as ineffectual as in the first battle. While it's fine for it to be another unwinnable fight, it should have allowed us to seem like we're actually doing better than we were the first time. Like, cue Zenos's "I win" move at around 50% health, and allow our attacks to bring him that low in a reasonable amount of time.

FIGHT 1: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: Bored now. Leaving. Also not killing you for no particular reason.
FIGHT 2: *We barely scratch Zenos* Zenos: You chipped my mask! Best Frenemies Forever!!!
FIGHT 3: *We curbstomp Zenos* Zenos: I knew you could do it! Now, I will turn into a snake, and we will fight again!

He effortlessly killed or incapacitated everyone that encountered him at Rhalgr's Reach using a generic katana, and while the WoL lost, they still managed to break it. His desperate search for an emotional response revolved around cultivating something that could be a challenge for him, and the WoL did more in that regard than anyone he'd encountered previously.

[Cilia]

To the complaints about how boring Zenos is - yes, individually he is boring, but if you take a wider view and observe what he shows about the Empire and especially Varis, he becomes an extremely interesting character. He's almost analogous to Avatar: The Last Airbender's Azula - yes, he is a monster, but (to some degree) he was molded into one by his upbringing. (Azula at least had her father's acknowledgement to strive for; from the sounds of it Zenos didn't have even that.)

Zenos spares the Warrior of Light in their first couple bouts not because they are presently challenging him, but because he sees promise in them. The Warrior of Light tanks his blows until his cheap Garlean katana breaks, which is more than anyone else in the attack on Rhalgr's Reach can say. They fight him more or less evenly at Yuzuka Manor until he pulls out Ame-no-Habakiri and decisively turns the tide in his favor - and even then they still manage to chip his armor (again, more than anyone else can say they've done).

[Anonymoose]

I would argue the idea that didn't impress him at all at Rhalgr's Reach - though I can't fault anyone for not remembering to check what he says during the battle.

Zenos
I have no need for this rabble.
[Casts Alisaie and Pipin aside]

Pipin
Seven hells... Not even Father could do that...

Zenos
Hm. You yet stand. Mayhap you have potential.
[Fight continues]
Better...but lacking nevertheless...
[Fight continues, Zenos grows bored]
It would seem I misjudged you. This ends now.
[Big attack, WoL gets up]
[Rush slash, katana breaks WoL survives, but can't get up]
Pathetic.

Yes, letting the Warrior of Light survive was probably a whimsical decision based on the breaking of the katana, but he knows who the Warrior of Light is, knows their reputation, and can almost see where it comes from. He's not sure the WoL will better live up to their potential in the future, but he hopes for it because for a moment during that battle, he could almost see it. He refers to this when you meet him in Doma; there's a palpable excitement in his voice that whimsically going with his gut is paying off.

Zenos
Ahhh...I remember you. Ala Mhigo. The champion of the savages.
Oh...how right I was to spare your life.
Hear me, hero. Endure. Survive. Live.
For the rush of blood, for the time between the seconds─live.
For the sole pleasure left to me in this empty, ephemeral world─live!

[NessaWyvern]

The way Zenos talks towards the end one of the cutscenes, it's almost like he is talking about the person behind the screen, rather than your character. I'd have to watch the cutscene with him again, but what if his advanced resonance doesn't just let him see our characters past, but past our characters, seeing the player.

[Jonnycbad]

Also the Resonance means that Zenos likely saw and predicted all of our attacks as prey markers and orange ground marked AoE, just like we do for foes we fight.

[Bright-Flower]

Also the Resonance means that Zenos likely saw and predicted all of our attacks as prey markers and orange ground marked AoE, just like we do for foes we fight.

He never seems to really 'avoid' our attacks though, I don't think he had the same ability Fordola did. Else we would have needed that device to fight him. He just sort of tanks us from what I can tell.

I don't think aoe markers are the echo either, we see them in fights where we're not controlling the WOL as well, I think it's just a game mechanic.