Would you be ok with a good rival figure for 7.0+?(6.0 spoilers)

[Atmaweapon510]

Zenos was pretty hit or miss as rival depending on whether you really enjoyed playing that type of story or character and whether or not you actually accepted him as a sort of twisted reflection of the WoL (for me, that was stretching it to the point where you could say anyone could function as a reflection to the WoL.)

Let's say we make a really fun friend who's also an adventurer and we genuinely have a blast traveling around with them narratively and gameplay wise. Make them have a kind of zany personality where you can play the straight man or enabler to, in order to help flesh out what kind of character you are. In trusts, they'll buff you when you're about to burst, and shield you if you have vulnerability stacks. Basically, this person should feel like your new best friend on equal footing. Then you eventually hit an ideological divide, maybe not even by the end of 7.0, but it happens and they eventually go into the frenemy status that Zenos wishes he could have had.

What follows is a mixture of things, them trying to bring you over to their side, having a pointed sparring session, having their actions and results speak for themselves, possibly even being forced to fight you. All of this culminating in a final climax that remembers all of the choices you made and respects them. Imagine taking Zenos up on his offer and just ditching him to rot by his lonesome at the edge of the world. While the end result will be the same in any case, in order to create a streamlined narrative, the goal is to better define what sort of person you want your WoL to be, using a less two-dimensional character to create better nuance.

[Rulakir]

Ever since someone compared Zenos to Vegeta from DBZ I've thought about how much I would love that. The Scions are so homogeneous, I desperately want some companions with spicy personalities and diverse backgrounds.

[KageTokage]

Honestly, we've hit a point where our character is way too powerful and talented to make anyone normal able to stack up to them in a manner that's believable. Even in spite of all the advantages he tried to give himself through magitek and other means Zenos nonetheless was trounced by us in the end.

I do expect we're liable to get either a new face or for someone else to get the Estinien/G'raha treatment and be promoted to a MC role for 7.0, though.

[Shurrikhan]

At this point, I'd kind of prefer a slightly Machiavellian (but in the sense of still minimizing overall evil, maximizing overall good, even if their decisive actions may make their morals seem suspect at times) tenuous ally with whom to side more or less, at our choice.

A rival wouldn't be too bad, though, if this time around it doesn't rely so heavily on mental illness.

[Cleretic]

Right now, I'm feeling like we kinda don't need a 'rival' character at all, in part because... well, the last two didn't go down very well, even if I generally liked Ran'jit.

And I think it's because, to appropriately depict an equal-footing opponent like that you have to have the player character lose at first, and so far, they haven't managed to sell that all too well. I'll say that I accepted Ran'jit because he worked for me, but just going by overall player response, neither of them were exactly a slam dunk.

[Vyrerus]

Honestly, I don't believe we've seen the last of Zenos. I won't exactly be sad if we have, though.

My thoughts on the matter are that the writers sought to write an evil foil of the WoL in Zenos. Whereas everyone in the world loves and embraces the WoL(except Garleans/Ascians), everyone shudders and hates/fears Zenos.

I truly believe the writing teams' goal was to make us not like Zenos. It took me over a year to see it that way. After I saw it that way, I got on board with the character, and I think he's great. I really do hope to see him come back, and hope that it'll tag along behind us.

Though I see the appeal in what you're asking for. You're essentially asking for Jowy from Suikoden II. In case you aren't in the know about that character, a brief spoilery summary would be:

Jowy was the main characters best friend, almost like a brother, growing up. He has a great affection for the main character, Riou's, sister Nanami.

The two enlist in the army together, only to be driven out of it when it attempts to kill them to use their corpses as scapegoats in a war against a rival nation.

The two then join that nation, seeking to stop their home country from waging its blood war of conquest.

Along the way they are chosen by a divinity more or less. It gifts Riou the Bright Shield Rune and Jowy the Dark Sword Rune. True Runes that will give them power at a cost.

Eventually, Jowy decides on his own that with the power of the Dark Sword Rune, he can rise to prominence and take over their home country from within. This leads him to betray Riou and the country they've been supporting. This leads to many deaths, and the character spirals off from there to become an antagonist ( though one with the possibility of reconciliation provided you collect all 108 Stars of Destiny).

The issue with doing that kind of character is that it will split the playerbase on an ideological level yet again, rather than on a preference level for the character. If you think the split discourse on characters is bad right now... well... shoot. It'd be crazy worse if they introduce a character that people really come to love, who then turns on you.

There's already tons of nuances in the characters we've been given, it's just nuance isn't really what a lot of folks are here for, sad to say.

Just the way I see it. I wouldn't mind seeing it myself.

[Rulakir]

The issue with doing that kind of character is that it will split the playerbase on an ideological level yet again, rather than on a preference level for the character. If you think the split discourse on characters is bad right now... well... shoot. It'd be crazy worse if they introduce a character that people really come to love, who then turns on you.

You aren't kidding. I hated Jowy and always viewed him as a traitor. I'm definitely not interested in that type of 'rival'.

[Vyrerus]

You aren't kidding. I hated Jowy and always viewed him as a traitor. I'm definitely not interested in that type of 'rival'.

I still don't really understand his shift towards what he did. When I was a kid, I simply blamed the Rune.

[Fenral]

Griffith did nothing wrong, okay. (Bad example: in the original Berserk manga, Griffith's betrayal is actually a foregone conclusion. The entire Golden Age flashback is then there so you can fall for him while also being on pins and needles over when he's finally going to turn, what event will be the betrayal that sends Guts down the path of revenge. And there is none: he took the ideals embraced by his followers and went all the way to the edge with them. In another story, he'd be the hero.)

That would be a really hard character to pull off in any Final Fantasy, though, not just XIV. Hermes really comes close, but there's ambiguity over where Hermes ends and Amon begins, not to mention Elpis is only a few EXP levels worth of content, rather than 10 volumes of manga.

[Veloran]

I'm not sure about a rival, exactly, but the next party-group desperately needs way more contrasting characters. A major issue with Endwalker was that the Scions were effectively all on the same page about everything - Much of the time you could have easily swapped dialog between characters as they're reacting to events without anything changing. And not to go there, but a few conflicting opinions on certain characters from the Scions would have gone a long way towards a lot of people's enjoyment of both Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

More than anything, I hope we don't carry the Scions forward. I like them, but I've had quite enough at this point. There are many more existing characters that I'd like to adventure with, to say nothing of whatever new faces might come along. Instead of a group of sterling goodguy PHDs and genius savants, I'd rather have a more FF6-onwards type party of misfits who fill a variety of technical and narrative roles, and bring more to the table in terms of ideals and perspectives.