Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

[StrawberryZebra]

I really don't mean to be rude but you might have missed some of the story where they explain the reason the ascians are getting the tribes to summon primals is because Zodiark is the anti Hydaelin.

To be fair, Hydaelyn hasn't really done much in the story either - Other than pull some literal Deus Ex Machina moments out and then give you some vauge advice. Like Zodiark she interacts with the world mainy through her minions.

This brings up all kinds of other important questions that we're never going to get answered though. If Zodiark can replace Hydaelyn, does that mean at some point Hydaelyn could replace Zodiark in the future? If so, then we're looking at a universe that is much like a Day/Night cycle and Zodiark rising to power is something that I really shouldn't be concerned about. How do we go about stopping it? If its an inevitable and natural part of the universal lifecycle should we be stopping it anyway?

Once Zodiark is made whole again and has usurped Hydaelyn, then what happens? What does Zodiark intend to gain from it? What do we have to lose from it? Why is he even doing it in the first place? It's strongly implied that there are some worlds that Zodiark has already laid claim to, but for what purpose is still unclear.

Keeping Zodiark, and by extension Hydaelyn, in obscurity as the big bad and the ultimate good in the universe means that we're never going to get answers to these kinds of questions. Moving them both into a position where they are key players in their own conflict would be a solid story move. Unfortunately that means they both need to be better defined, because at the moment they're just sort of... There.

[Remilia]

Wasn't one of the problem with the warriors of dark is that their world was flooded by light because they essentially defeated the darkness. Thus nothing kept the power in check and destroyed their own world that way. Not sure if misremembering or whatever.

[Strangebrew]

Wasn't one of the problem with the warriors of dark is that their world was flooded by light because they essentially defeated the darkness. Thus nothing kept the power in check and destroyed their own world that way. Not sure if misremembering or whatever.

Yes, neither too much light or dark is good, it needs to be balanced.

As a sidenote, canonically using white magic is a violation of nature, it completely fucks with nature.
Well same with black magic really.

Hell, the sixth umbral calamity was because of black magic and white magic at war, and fucking everything up.

[dope_danny]

To be fair, Hydaelyn hasn't really done much in the story either - Other than pull some literal Deus Ex Machina moments out and then give you some vauge advice. Like Zodiark she interacts with the world mainy through her minions.

This brings up all kinds of other important questions that we're never going to get answered though. If Zodiark can replace Hydaelyn, does that mean at some point Hydaelyn could replace Zodiark in the future? If so, then we're looking at a universe that is much like a Day/Night cycle and Zodiark rising to power is something that I really shouldn't be concerned about. How do we go about stopping it? If its an inevitable and natural part of the universal lifecycle should we be stopping it anyway?

Once Zodiark is made whole again and has usurped Hydaelyn, then what happens? What does Zodiark intend to gain from it? What do we have to lose from it? Why is he even doing it in the first place? It's strongly implied that there are some worlds that Zodiark has already laid claim to, but for what purpose is still unclear.

Keeping Zodiark, and by extension Hydaelyn, in obscurity as the big bad and the ultimate good in the universe means that we're never going to get answers to these kinds of questions. Moving them both into a position where they are key players in their own conflict would be a solid story move. Unfortunately that means they both need to be better defined, because at the moment they're just sort of... There.

The idea as late as antitower is its not a completely clear good vs evil but light vs dark. Worlds have been lost drowned in darkness, but the warriors of darkness beat all their big bads and burned their world out in blinding light. Neither of them should be all encompassing but the story hints that this tug of war is why we get astral and umbral eras. She has her Warriors of Light, He has his Scions of Shadow and both think they are entirely in the right and both kill a LOT of people to crush anyone who gets in their masters way.

Personally i think they are going to be revealed to be literally one in the same in a leland palmer/bob kind of way. The only probable endgame solution is one where both are removed from influencing the world and the WoL and SoS go with them.

[Berethos08]

I'll have to come back and add to this response (on mobile so I'm not typing it all out yet)...

But most of your questions have answers already StrawberryZebra, and I'm not sure how you missed some of them.

Also, the whole laying claim to some worlds is a misunderstanding on your part of what happened (more than strongly implied, we are flat out told it has happened). Both Hydaelyn and the shard worlds created by the original split are driven to the point of calamity so that the barrier between worlds is weakened and then broken, forcing the aether of that world back into the Source/original realm while destroying that shard world. He's not claiming the other worlds so much as returning things to how they were before the split so that he can return.

Which, by the way, is the major threat. Not Zodiark as some evil thing we have to fight than be beaten back when he shows up - he's not Sargeras-like in that respect. His return at all is the end for mortal life on Hydaelyn.

Editing in some answers:

If Zodiark replaces Hydaelyn, based on our current knowledge of the goals of the Ascians (including the Emissary, who is basically directly tied to Zodiark in the way a certain individual is now tied to Hydaelyn), then they are either existing together the way they were before or Hydaelyn is gone. There is no cycle of that kind that will happen and there is nothing in the lore to suggest one - the only cycle is the Astral and Umbral eras brought about back the actions of the Ascians.

Zodiark rising to power is Zodiark returning, which is the end of our existence on Hydaeln - that's something to be worried about.

It's not an inevitable and natural part of some universal cycle, it's a case of the embodiment of darkness in the FFXIV universe trying to usurp more power and upset the balance between dark and light, and being banished from the aetherial sea as a result. At this point, even a return to that balance very likely would end up with destruction of the current world.

You may have picked up on this by now, but if Zodiark is made whole and usurps Hydaelyn...we're dead. That's it. We have everything to lose if he returns, and I mean everything, which is why I keep repeating that Zodiark as an entity is not the real threat, it's his return at all. He wants to return, and based on the actions he took that got him banished in the first place, take more power than is his share.

As I mentioned above, the purpose for causing the calamities is to cause what they call a "Rejoining" as it is literally bringing back the aether of the shard world that was split from the Source back to the Source so that enough is returned so that Zodiark can return (the game makes this clear a number of times). We know the exact reason they are getting the shard worlds involved.

Would you like some more answers to questions you don't think will be answered?

[Scufflegrit]

and I'm not sure how you missed some of them.

This is what happens when you skip most NPC text, speech and cut scenes in a story driven MMO: you don't know the story.

[StrawberryZebra]

Zodiark rising to power is Zodiark returning, which is the end of our existence on Hydaeln - that's something to be worried about.

He returns and everyone dies. I get that. But then what does he do? Eat pizza and watch Netflix? No, he clearly has an end game in mind and returning is just step one.

What if he should return and then gets banished again? We end up in a similar situation as we are now, with habitable worlds Zodiark needs to shatter to reform again. What if Zodiark banishes Hydaelyn? We end up in pretty much exactly the same situation with some role reversal thrown in. Has Zodiark already been banished once, or twice, or thousands of times before and this is just the latest time its been done so? Perahps it's a cycle where one is always in a position of power and the other is always reforming?

All we really know is that Zodiark is the big bad trying to destroy the world. And that gets old. Fast.

Personally i think they are going to be revealed to be literally one in the same in a leland palmer/bob kind of way. The only probable endgame solution is one where both are removed from influencing the world and the WoL and SoS go with them.

I'd expect this to be the eventual outcome. Or else they reach some form of stalemate where they're both evenly matched and life contiunes on indefinately.

This is what happens when you skip most NPC text, speech and cut scenes in a story driven MMO: you don't know the story.

To be fair, the story is far too long winded and padded with filler. If it wasn't absolutely required to progress I'd expect most players to just skip it. Developers claiming their "artistic vision" supercedes the will of the player is outright folly and should be condemned where it happens. But lets not start flogging that dead horse again, shall we?

[Advent]

The problem is that the story is long-winded and sort of feels "full of itself". I'm not sure how to adequately articulate it other than that, but I find myself reading what you guys are on about and I'm genuinely confused by how easily it comes to you. Maybe it's because I'm not as invested, or I missed something, because that seems unlikely seeing as the only parts of the dialogue that I actively skipped was around the Leviathan arc. I've found that the story oftentimes becomes a fatiguing experience because of the lack of voice acting at parts where I should be engaged.

[dope_danny]

The problem is that the story is long-winded and sort of feels "full of itself". I'm not sure how to adequately articulate it other than that, but I find myself reading what you guys are on about and I'm genuinely confused by how easily it comes to you. Maybe it's because I'm not as invested, or I missed something, because that seems unlikely seeing as the only parts of the dialogue that I actively skipped was around the Leviathan arc. I've found that the story oftentimes becomes a fatiguing experience because of the lack of voice acting at parts where I should be engaged.

Its different for everyone, lotta folks play mmos for different reasons. God knows back when i still played WoW every LFR finale had people going "who the fuck is this?" to bosses like deathwing or garrosh. If you havent got an encyclopedia eorzea on your shelf you are probably not that into the lore and thats not a straight "U ARNT A TROO FAN" deal. There are folks that play mmos just to pvp for example, hell if i understand that but more power to em.

[Berethos08]

He returns and everyone dies. I get that. But then what does he do? Eat pizza and watch Netflix? No, he clearly has an end game in mind and returning is just step one.

What if he should return and then gets banished again? We end up in a similar situation as we are now, with habitable worlds Zodiark needs to shatter to reform again. What if Zodiark banishes Hydaelyn? We end up in pretty much exactly the same situation with some role reversal thrown in. Has Zodiark already been banished once, or twice, or thousands of times before and this is just the latest time its been done so? Perahps it's a cycle where one is always in a position of power and the other is always reforming?

All we really know is that Zodiark is the big bad trying to destroy the world. And that gets old. Fast.

Returning is his end game, not step one.

The last 10,000+ years of events orchestrated by the Ascians and his Emissary have been step one through step whatever we're at now.

Zodiark has been banished exactly once. There is no cycle of banishing. Light and Dark were one in the aetherial sea until Dark tried to take more power and upset the balance and was banished at that moment, which caused the shattering of the Source into 13 reflections (seven of those have been consumed entirely, one became the void from which voidsent hail, and one was nearly consumed by light). There's your crash course in the cosmology of Hydaelyn.

If Zodiark banishes Hydaelyn (assuming she's not destroyed out right)...just who do you think is going to be around to return her? We're not talking about some mirror world where everything is reversed (good people are bad, etc). Life on Hydaelyn ceases to exist - there's no coming back from that.

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Personally i think they are going to be revealed to be literally one in the same in a leland palmer/bob kind of way. The only probable endgame solution is one where both are removed from influencing the world and the WoL and SoS go with them.

That would be tricky to have happen - Hydaelyn isn't just an entity residing in this realm...she is the planet, or more specifically the heart of the planet (no joke...Zodiark was physically banished from her and is essentially the moon, dead and orbiting above). You're talking some crazy shenanigans for her to be removed without it killing the planet.

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The problem is that the story is long-winded and sort of feels "full of itself". I'm not sure how to adequately articulate it other than that, but I find myself reading what you guys are on about and I'm genuinely confused by how easily it comes to you.

Lots of time spent on the lore forums, looking for lore interviews, re-reading as many quest texts as I can (I've played through the MSQ up through like 3.2 twice, the second time with an eye toward details I had missed the first time, including talking to NPCs that were around the quest giver as they often changed what they said), and access to a Lore Book.

I'm also the type that used to read the LOTR once a year and read through the Silmarillion more than once for fun. Scouring for every bit of lore I can is pretty much my thing (and even then my knowledge of FFXIV pales in comparison to someone like Anonymoose on the official forums...he's practically a walking encyclopedia when it comes to the game and has the citations/notes to back it up).

While the story itself is long-winded, I think for most it's not too difficult to follow the main story beats, so the additional details and such are there as seasoning for those like myself who enjoy stories that go above and beyond the basic story beats.

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God knows back when i still played WoW every LFR finale had people going "who the fuck is this?" to bosses like deathwing or garrosh..

My personal favorite who would be shocked to learn that a particular boss was a female character despite something like "Lady" in the name...

And I wish I was kidding, or that they were just being silly. No...no, they really missed things like that (along with the "who is this?" for bosses like Deathwing).

[StrawberryZebra]

If Zodiark banishes Hydaelyn (assuming she's not destroyed out right)...just who do you think is going to be around to return her? We're not talking about some mirror world where everything is reversed (good people are bad, etc). Life on Hydaelyn ceases to exist - there's no coming back from that.

Zodiark is well on the way to managing it. Whose to say Hydaelyn can't do the same? We might all end up living on Fragments of world Zodiark. Fact of the matter is, we just have no idea what Zodiark intends to do when reformed and what, if anything, Hydaelyn is going to do about it. Thats why Zodiark is a dumb plot element that should have never been introduced.

It's a lazy way to always have a bigger threat for the story without ever having to produce that threat for the players. They've deliberately kept him vague so they can get away with anything they like and pin it on Zodiark.

I'm not sure how to adequately articulate it other than that, but I find myself reading what you guys are on about and I'm genuinely confused by how easily it comes to you.d.

I can skim read through pretty much the entire text bubbles even when mashing my way through the diologue ASAP. Speed reading was practically a requirement for me to keep up with Uni work and its a hard habit to break. It's a story that's pretty generic for a FF game though, so even if you miss a bit it's easy enough to follow along anyway.

[TheCount]

I think it safe to assume that we will be dealing with the Garlean Empire before Zodiark makes any return. The imperial that was shown at the end of HW was the governer of Al'migo I think, so they will most certainly take a more forward position then they did in HW

[Advent]

I may have misspoke about not being able to follow along. However, somewhere along the line I guess I stopped paying attention, or the story wasn't interesting enough that I retained the information. So I'm often having to just skim over the parts that make no sense. Like who or what Zodiark is, or where the warriors of darkness came from, or even why we fought them to begin with. At the same time, because of that, the story often feels like the villains are generic, or poorly defined to me so I lose interest. I mean, the politics of the game are so dull that I tend to just tune that stuff out. While I'm reading I'm not really comprehending it because it's so long-winded, and the way they talk in prose with such preamble. It can be fatiguing because it sets itself up to be slow, and I just want to get to the next experience. Also, many of the characters I could just do without. Alphinaud, Tataru and Aymeric to name a few. I guess I just prefer a more "to the point" style of dialogue.

[dope_danny]

I think it safe to assume that we will be dealing with the Garlean Empire before Zodiark makes any return. The imperial that was shown at the end of HW was the governer of Al'migo I think, so they will most certainly take a more forward position then they did in HW

My assumption is the war on two fronts makes them take a back burner position and we get a new world expansion then the empire shows up again but knowing SE they ended up going all FFXV empire circa chapter 13.

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I may have misspoke about not being able to follow along. However, somewhere along the line I guess I stopped paying attention, or the story wasn't interesting enough that I retained the information. So I'm often having to just skim over the parts that make no sense. Like who or what Zodiark is, or where the warriors of darkness came from, or even why we fought them to begin with. At the same time, because of that, the story often feels like the villains are generic, or poorly defined to me so I lose interest. I mean, the politics of the game are so dull that I tend to just tune that stuff out. While I'm reading I'm not really comprehending it because it's so long-winded, and the way they talk in prose with such preamble. It can be fatiguing because it sets itself up to be slow, and I just want to get to the next experience. Also, many of the characters I could just do without. Alphinaud, Tataru and Aymeric to name a few. I guess I just prefer a more "to the point" style of dialogue.

Man just imagine pre mists of pandaria WoW. You got a single brown box per quest, MAYBE there would be an npc that might say something as a speech bubble if you were very lucky but that was it for entire storylines. Times have changed a lot

[Berethos08]

I think it safe to assume that we will be dealing with the Garlean Empire before Zodiark makes any return. The imperial that was shown at the end of HW was the governer of Al'migo I think, so they will most certainly take a more forward position then they did in HW

He is - that's Zenos Yae Galvus, son to the current emperor and apparently a right bastard of a man.

Not to mention their dealings with Othard and Hingashi - the first being subjugated territory and the other an island nation that is trying to retain its autonomy by staying neutral while dealing with the Empire. Garlemald is definitely taking a bigger place on the story (and interviews hint that we may be headed to Garlemald itself in the following expansion).

We've got plenty to worry about before dealing with the final threat of Zodiark (he's the series finale level threat compared to the season finale level that's we've been facing so far)...so to cap off what kicked off this whole debate we aren't going to encounter the final threat with anything related to a side raid this expansion. At best we'll get some truths revealed the way side stories have done in the past.

[Wrecktangle]

FFXIV explores some very human motivations for a lot of the plot devices and rarely is anyone presented as truly evil for the sake of being evil. Even Zodiark and the Ascians are chucked a bit of what might be considered gray status in the later installments of the Heavensward story, not necessarily that they're morally ambiguous in and of themselves, but that at the very least the entire struggle between Hydaelyn and the servants of Zodiark may not be as clear cut, moral black and white, as it's originally made out to be.

For all non-Zodiark related threats, such as the Crystal Braves or the beast tribes and their primals, they're given very human, understandable, and even at times entirely rational justifications for their actions. Limsa betrayed their pact with the kobolds forcing them to summon Titan to protect themselves. Ilberd was an ends-justify-the-means type of guy who maybe got a little too desperate to free Ala Mhigo, but had arguably noble intentions up until he basically sold his soul to the Ascians at the end, which is clear from how Raubahn talks about him, including in the latest installment of the MSQ. To that end, Zodiark and the Ascians are perhaps a catalyst at times, but not really a cause, which continues to be a very human environment of conflict over resources and ideology that pretty well reflects what happens in real life.

I agree with this. I've found that FF14, even FF in general tends to nail the bit players REALLY well (the good games that is). You can see and relate to their reasons and their logic in the story and it makes sense.

That said, I actually do agree with Zebra about one thing. Zodiark. I just don't care about him as a villain. He hasn't done anything, he hasn't posed any kind of a threat, other than hey guys I'm a threat. People are telling me that him returning is his endgame plan and that is a guarantee to end all life on Hydaelyn, but the question no one is answering is WHY does he want to come back? Why does he want to erase all life? What does he do with a completely barren lifeless world? Where does he go from there?

Villains need something like this IMO to bring urgency. It's the same shit with Alexander. Alexander was terrible because we were told about its threat instead of witnessing it, exploring it, etc.

I thought the reason our defeats of the primals were wins for the Ascians weren't directly due to killing the primal, but because every time we defeated them, it only made the beast tribe who summoned them more desperate and more motivated to summon worse incarnations of them.

One thing FF14 gets credit for (from me) was that it incorporated the EX/HM trial distinctions in unique and clever ways.

There's a story reason why there are more powerful primals that are functionally the same. There's a story reason for why they have new abilities and are a bigger threat.

Then they even up it once more. The use of the Minstels Ballad to "relive" a more exaggerated version of your conquests. That's such a neat little tidbit. WoW could take some notes.

[Berethos08]

If the villain is meant to occupy a more cosmic level threat...dare I say Lovecraftian in design or inspiration?

Then no, I don't think we need to know its game plan beyond wanting to return - that it's more akin to a force of nature that can't be reasoned with and means our utter destruction with no recourse if it returns is how it serves as a threat...

Which also means we've almost certainly already met the main villain of the series and he's had plenty of development so far - Elidibus.

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There's a story reason why there are more powerful primals that are functionally the same. There's a story reason for why they have new abilities and are a bigger threat.

It even serves to provide a foundation for the events in 3.5 and 3.56.

Namely that it's the death and the aether associated with it that is key to how this particular primal is summoned, and how it includes both using a powerful source of aether and a ritualistic sacrifice which has long been shown to enhance the power of the summoned creature.

[dope_danny]

If the villain is meant to occupy a more cosmic level threat...dare I say Lovecraftian in design or inspiration?

Then no, I don't think we need to know its game plan beyond wanting to return - that it's more akin to a force of nature that can't be reasoned with and means our utter destruction with no recourse if it returns is how it serves as a threat...

Which also means we've almost certainly already met the main villain of the series and he's had plenty of development so far - Elidibus.

To be fair it doesnt need a bigger design. Like sauron zodiark is effetely impotent and trapped "outside" the world and they want back in. That is a completely understandable motivation in and of itself. It is home invasion on a cosmic scale.

[Kazgrel]

Added link in my OP to the official Stormblood site (for NA, at least), since it was just updated today and contains some bits of lore pertaining to the new jobs and a few new screenshots.

[Wrecktangle]

To be fair it doesnt need a bigger design. Like sauron zodiark is effetely impotent and trapped "outside" the world and they want back in. That is a completely understandable motivation in and of itself. It is home invasion on a cosmic scale.

Except I don't know why or care why Zodiark is trying to come back. Unless this was explained in the plot I haven't seen yet it's why he's not a terribly compelling villain. The reason I don't care is because he poses no real threat in the game. Zodiark is shit because the same reason Alexander was shit. Instead of experiencing why it's dangerous/scary/bad I'm told in text why.

Yeah no thanks.