Do the writers dislike Ala mhigo?

[Jandor]

Ala Mhigo probably was considered a bit boring as far the team was concerned.

The basic foundations were already written and what was written just wasn't that interesting. City state in a desolate region with an asshole king gets stomped by Garlemald.

Not that what they did with the blank slate that was the far east felt especially inspired IMHO. Eorzea feels like its own thing, in comparison, the far east feels very copy/pasted from the real far east.

[Crushnight]

Ala Mhigan lore has been trickled feed since 1.0, Othardian lore has not, this is why things seem so lopsided in 4.X its due to needing to give at least as much lore for it as Ala Mhigo has had over the decade.

Ala Mhigo has been developed but unlike Doma it is far closer to Garlemald so its focus has been more militaristic than economical but as others have said the 60-70 gsm questline, the Saltery, and its government have been seeing changes just its more background than Doma has been.

[JeanneOrnitier]

I don't think the team hates Ala Mhigo so much as I wonder if Doma was more interesting to them. It's all conjecture of course, we can't know what's going on in the team at Square's heads unless they tell us, but that's definitely the impression I got from the lopsided representation both countries got in SB.

It really was jarring after all the importance to the MSQ Ala Mhigo and its refugees had in 2.x and the latter half of HW though.

[Bright-Flower]

It kind of felt like Ala Mhigo was something they 'had' to wrap up before expanding the story beyond Eorzea but their heart was really in the far east stuff in SB. That's the way it came across to me anyway.

[Alleluia]

I'm hoping that, after Ishgard gets the rebuilding treatment, the Ala Mhigan quarter will be next. It just feels like an empty stone mausoleum right now. Nondescript, needlessly tall buildings that you can't enter and that blend with one another, making it easy to get lost as a result. Hardly any life in it. Its not a city, yet and that could be improved, although I really don't feel like what we've seen could have EVER been a city in the same way the other 5 cities we've seen were. It needs an overhaul.

[TheMightyMollusk]

To be fair, Ala Mhigo is in generally worse shape than Doma. Their old leaders are all dead (and the last surviving heir, monk trainer Widargelt, wants nothing to do with it), and considering the last ruler is called the King of Ruin, the country wasn't in great shape even before the Garleans steamrolled them. Also, while they're technically free now, they're still the front line between Garlemald and the rest of Eorzea. Doma, by comparison, still has their rightful ruler; he laid the groundwork for helpful allies before making his move, so they had the basis of an infrastructure ready; and they have the Burn between them and Garlemald, providing a natural barrier against further invasion.

[Aurou]

...we just haven't seen the results of that.

While we haven't seen results like at the Doman Enclave, if you return to The Saltery in The Lochs after the part in the MSQ where you get it reopened, you'll see people there now trading and working again. The buildings themselves might not be fixed, but Ala Mhigo's biggest production, salt, is back in operation and is blooming.

As was stated, we've been hearing about Ala Mhigo and getting it's lore for ages now, where the Far East was a complete unknown. I'vve often looked at A.M. and wondered if they could have made a full A.M. based expansion and said, "No," due to how much information was received before hand, plus there just being a distinct lack of meaningful stories there. (By Meaningful stories I mean a large enough quantity to fill an expansion)

I'm hoping that, after Ishgard gets the rebuilding treatment, the Ala Mhigan quarter will be next.

Compared to Ishgard, and the way the Doman Enclave was... The Ala Mhigan quarter is flawless.

[LineageRazor]

One thing I'm kind of surprised hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that there's an in-game reason why the other Eorzeans don't see any good reason to bend over backwards to help the Ala Mhigans: lingering resentment. The Ala Mhigans instigated a war against them, after all, long before any of the nonsense with the Garleans or the Mad King occurred. The Stormblood Bard Job Quests provide a good view of what this resentment looks like when it bubbles to the surface.

The Eorzeans don't feel a lot of kinship with Ala Mhigo, and while the better among them are willing to lend a hand regardless, there's nothing like that kind of bad blood with the Domans.

[MrThinker]

One thing I'm kind of surprised hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that there's an in-game reason why the other Eorzeans don't see any good reason to bend over backwards to help the Ala Mhigans: lingering resentment. The Ala Mhigans instigated a war against them, after all, long before any of the nonsense with the Garleans or the Mad King occurred. The Stormblood Bard Job Quests provide a good view of what this resentment looks like when it bubbles to the surface.

The Eorzeans don't feel a lot of kinship with Ala Mhigo, and while the better among them are willing to lend a hand regardless, there's nothing like that kind of bad blood with the Domans.

As does the last of the SB carpenter quests, where you have to get an Adder unit made up of ala mhigan refugees and gridanian true-borns try to get along.

[Bright-Flower]

Not that resentment can't last this long in real life too, but let's not forget that the autumn war was like 100 years ago or so. It's not like that was in anyone's living memory, unless maybe you're a really old Elezen.

But really that could have made for some good story. The ala mhigan resistance and the Alliance chafing a bit as they start working together. Exploring different factions of the resistance that have different outlooks on the Alliance and how to fight the Empire. Instead only lip service is paid to the idea of there being different resistance factions. Only Conrad's faction matters. All the 'bad' Resistance people were part of Ilberd's group and got themselves killed. It feels like what could have been a layered and interesting take on the conflict got cut short and watered down because half the msq was spent in the far east.