The importance of a rival

[sindriiisgaming]

Ever since the game started there has always been a character who's strength rivals our own, whether it was the white raven, black wolf. Lahabrea, nidhogg or emet selch. But these characters were more of a villain of the expansion than a rival.

In writing, particularly shounen and other superhero media, the single most important character besides the protagonist is the rival. A rivals job is to be just leaning enough to the side of good to help the protagonist, but leaning against good enough to have conflict with them

For some time ffxiv had a rival, and while many don't agree he was good rival (I liked him) he fit almost every criteria needed to be a rival

His strength rivaled our own
He was positioned against us but also against our foe
He pushed our character to greater heights
He understood the wol on a primitive level
He was entertaining and intimidating
Our wol was interested in him all the way through
He is both a friend and an enemy

Now; am I going to say zenos was the PERFECT rival.. of course not. But in the scope of everything we have he might just have been the best thing we had (also we stole his job twice, lol) zenos as a constant lingering threat... even when on our side kept the tension in the game alive aswel as power checking the wol.


And - that's the issue with dt. There is no longer a power check, a morally ambiguous figure or even a real sense of friendly competition. In my honest opinion removing zenos from the msq was a mistake. Because they removed the only thing which grounded the WOL and killed all sense of danger . We Know we're a God slayer, we know we're 7/14ths ascian and that makes us stupidly powerful and we know we can essentially swat anybody who tried to punch up to us. EXCEPT ZENOS. If you think surviving within an inch of our life is something we could do again and again then of course your not looking at the broader picture. We can't just fight zenos whenever we want because we are gonna take a massive hit from it

But if they were to either bring back zenos, or add a new rival it might go some way to rebalancing one of the games more jarring elements right now. A complete lack of tension or personal investment in the story
With how dawntrail is being written, I would not advise creating a new rival, as I feel they might be shallow and un-intimidating . And the zenos minion still isn't out 3 years later either which gives me hope for a retcon on his death

[St0rmy]

Zenos was a mistake that should've stayed in Stormblood. I'm not quite sure why people think he offered anything substantial to the story of Shadowbringers or Endwalker. I'm glad he's gone. I don't think he should come back.

[Mawlzy]

I've always been in the camp that Zenos dying once was the perfect amount and that he should have stayed dead. I take the OP's point about a rival, but is it the rivalry, or the knowledge that at some point we're fated to meet that challenge again? Still not gripping for me. We always win eventually.

I think what we're struggling with at the moment is a lack of wondering what is going to happen next. At the end of 7.1 and the so-called cliffhanger, my only reaction was "oh no, not her again."

Currently there isn't much that we don't understand, or at least anything that is compelling. Maybe that takes a while to build up, but despite the weaknesses of the storytelling in ARR, I was propelled forward by a desire to figure out what was going on. I haven't felt that at all in DT.

[Kazuke_Miso]

In writing, particularly shounen and other superhero media, the single most important character besides the protagonist is the rival.

If you want Marvel slop go play Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

[Clockworks]

If you want Marvel slop go play Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

How would we keep getting their multi-daily threads about how the game is terrible though, all that while they keep their subscription up and project on others about how "people are bad mkay"

[sindriiisgaming]

If you want Marvel slop go play Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

and dragonball, and one piece, and yugioh, and pokemon, and DC, DEATH NOTE, and sonic. all stories with solid rivals. And you can dislike them as much as you may, but lets not pretend that those franchise aren't massively successful in part because of their strong rivalries





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udKR...nel=MangaKamen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SsR...annel=CADomain
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...urnalCode=opra
https://www.thegamer.com/best-anime-rivalries/
https://youtu.be/16Nb7hIr3-A

Rivalry is positively related to performance. We then performed a meta-analysis that confirmed that this relationship is statistically significant. We further found that this relationship is more robust for rivalries in the context of individuals compared to groups. The association between rivalry and performance is most prominent in certain domains, such as sports rivalry.

now if were going to argue ffxiv isnt a typical "shounen anime" I'm going to literally cite Stb/Shb/EW and DT as complete anime ripoffs.
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fin...f-overpowered/

Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida says Dawntrail's new Viper job was partly shaped by the MMO community's desire to play a two-sworded melee DPS character who felt like Sword Art Online's Kirito.

> Viper is literally kirito.
> the ending of Endwalker mirrored the final fight in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
> The Powerup animation seen in ARR final fight seams to call back to the SSj aura in dragonball

but moving away from that, one of my most favourite movies is MEGAMIND, a movie that centers around the concept and importance of rivalry from the POV of the villian. The movie is amazing if you haven't seen it

[Kazuke_Miso]

and dragonball, and one piece, and yugioh, and pokemon, and DC, DEATH NOTE, and sonic. all stories with solid rivals. And you can dislike them as much as you may, but lets not pretend that those franchise aren't massively successful in part because of their strong rivalries





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udKR...nel=MangaKamen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SsR...annel=CADomain
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...urnalCode=opra
https://www.thegamer.com/best-anime-rivalries/
https://youtu.be/16Nb7hIr3-A



now if were going to argue ffxiv isnt a typical "shounen anime" I'm going to literally cite Stb/Shb/EW and DT as complete anime ripoffs.
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fin...f-overpowered/


> Viper is literally kirito.
> the ending of Endwalker mirrored the final fight in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
> The Powerup animation seen in ARR final fight seams to call back to the SSj aura in dragonball

but moving away from that, one of my most favourite movies is MEGAMIND, a movie that centers around the concept and importance of rivalry from the POV of the villian. The movie is amazing if you haven't seen it

I really cannot tell if this is ironic when you posted a bunch of cartoons for 13 year olds.

Nice one Titanmen, you really got me

[DiaDeem]

Who's the rival?? Robert De Niro?

[Jangles]

Zenos was a mistake that should've stayed in Stormblood. I'm not quite sure why people think he offered anything substantial to the story of Shadowbringers or Endwalker. I'm glad he's gone. I don't think he should come back.

Truly. Him offing himself at the end of stormblood was genuinely an impressive end to the character. To be honest he did save the boring ass ending of endwalker but that's doesn't excuse him being a horrible character for the rest of the game.

[UNDEAD10000]

I rather want having good new villains in each expansion then having same rival coming back all the time in every expansions.