Stormblood MSQ Discussion (THERE ARE SPOILERS IN HERE)

[Deleted]

What qualities do the Garleans have? I mean... Cid is alright, but thats about it. Otherwise all we know about them really is that they're technologically advanced, magically impaired and consider imperial expansion their national sport. For them to go from being the bad guys to "guys like us" we need to spend more time not killing each other for that to happen. Only, that won't happen because the Garleans are too busy invading and oppressing people, and we're too busy fighting Primals, Ascians and extra dimensional robots.

The only way it really can happen at this point is either through the old "Oh noes, something REALLY big and nasty that's going to kill all of us if we don't work together!" cliche, or through the "Hey guys, we're common Garleans who want to overthrow the Emperor and the enemy of my enemy is my friend" cliche. There is no good way for them to write their way out of this situation.

If you'd actually pay attention, you'd know a lot more about the enemy too..
The Emperor isn't really a representative of a normal Garlean Citizen or Soldier... on top of that, most soldiers we've fought so far aren't even Garlean.

It's odd that Yoshi doesn't want us to sympathize with them, when Regula van Hydrus had basically the exact opposite effect on us not so long ago.

[Jun]

If you'd actually pay attention, you'd know a lot more about the enemy too..
The Emperor isn't really a representative of a normal Garlean Citizen or Soldier... on top of that, most soldiers we've fought so far aren't even Garlean.

Honestly, Nero reminds me of Char Aznable a little much. I can't help but think dropping Dalamud was really his idea.

[Faroth]

That wouldn't be an inaccurate description. Though the method the story is delivered in is extremely weak imo.

The SMN story on the other hand was reasonably solid, though I can't help but feel you should get your very own Prin pet as a reward for completing it. Unfortunately it does leave any future stories with very little room, you've already reached the limit of what even the old school Summoners could do and unlocked all the secrets of Alagan Summoners. The quest itself ends with you being able to Summon Bahamut. Where do you go from there? It's hard to expand on that when you're already the best around and have the biggest, meanest Summon you can get your hands on already.

What I'd love to see is FFIV's "land of summoned monsters" brought into the game, discovering that there are actual versions of the Primals in their true state in another plane. The summoned primals revealed to basically be shades of their true selves. Unfortunately, they've shot that idea down by making it so anyone can become a primal if they just really believe in their imaginations.... -_-

The revelations of the true origins of the primals is my biggest disappointment in FFXIV's story. They're just manifested figments of imagination.... pretty lame.

- - - Updated - - -

If you'd actually pay attention, you'd know a lot more about the enemy too..
The Emperor isn't really a representative of a normal Garlean Citizen or Soldier... on top of that, most soldiers we've fought so far aren't even Garlean.

It's odd that Yoshi doesn't want us to sympathize with them, when Regula van Hydrus had basically the exact opposite effect on us not so long ago.

Hehe, flip side question..... if they're not Garleans and they're conscripts from conquered lands....... they're all midlander models. Or 95% are. Are they ALL Domans & Ala Mhigans (with the highlanders sent elsewhere)? Where are all these midlanders from?! They've not conscripted any miqo'te, hardly any Roe, and no lalafell.

[Resiak]

This games iteration of the summoner job is a mess. Which sucks, because thats my favorite job in the ff universe. They pigeon holed it by modeling it off of the affliction lock. But when I choose to play as a summoner, dot game play is not what i'm looking forward to. Most of us summoner fans have been waiting for some way to bring ramuh, leviathan, and shiva into our arsenal. Instead the team went from 1 to 100 and just went straight to bahamut for the wow factor hoping to make us happy. Now where do they go from here?

The job also has a really awkward flow to it. It doesn't feel like things sync up right, and you can easily get left in a long stretch of ruin spamming.

I fell for the bahamut hype, and went for the smn main in sb, and now i'm just not feeling it. Red mage will be 60 today, and is on route to being my main job soon.

[Kazgrel]

How were everyone's job storylines this expansion? I thought mnk and smn were fairly good, though I was disappointed with pld and to a lesser extent sch because it seemed to be more setting up a potential 5.0 sch story than doing anything interesting in 4.0.

BLM: Starts off with a blast, and one of the NPCs is quite entertaining during their stay in the story. The story itself is kinda unordinary; "oh noes we must blow up these mobs to prevent the world from being destroyed". Worth it for the NPC I mentioned as well as the very first quest that kicks it all off for 61-70.

WHM: Not that it was hard to do, but this one was 100x more interesting than "cleanse the taint". Gives some background/insight on the Padjal, too. Also brings back a NPC from earlier in the class/job quest line, whose presence worked pretty well.

DoH classes: Worth doing simply for the massive xp bonuses and ability unlocks alone, but some of the stories and the NPCs involved are gold, though. BSM one was hilarious, in particular. Several of them did tend toward the same arc of "know/learn what the customer wants", though. The actual items you have to craft are provided by the quests a la Ixali/Moogle BT quests, which is a huge convenience factor.

DoL: Nothing particularly noteworthy; I'd say the BTN and FSH ones were a bit more interesting due to the NPCs that were involved. I can't even name a single one of the new NPCs introduced for the MIN ones.

DRK: Work in progress on this one...it's weird like 30-50, to me, so needless to say, I've been proceeding through this with the look of suspicion on my face every time we have to work/deal with the newest addition to the story line. Should ding 70 on it this evening and finish up.

[StrawberryZebra]

If you'd actually pay attention, you'd know a lot more about the enemy too..
The Emperor isn't really a representative of a normal Garlean Citizen or Soldier... on top of that, most soldiers we've fought so far aren't even Garlean.

Which was the point I was making. We've never really had the chance to do anything other than fight Garleans. Other than Cid and Luica, we don't get the opportunity to find any common ground with Garleans and as a result we've not really had the chance to get to know anything about Garleans or Garlemand as a whole.

We'd never get the opportunity for them to be anything other than the bad guys in the story if that continues. The only Garlean we've met with any shades of grey to him is Nero and that only stems from his self-serving nature.

The revelations of the true origins of the primals is my biggest disappointment in FFXIV's story. They're just manifested figments of imagination.... pretty lame.

I do recall one of the Ascians hinting that the Warrior of Light could well be a primal in the same way that Shiva was. Where other peoples belief in us and their hope ends up being manifested as our own power.

It's a shame they did nothing with that story hook, having Eorzea's slayer of Primals himself be a Primal would be a pretty interesting way to go. The idea that he who fought monsters became one himself through virtue rather than violence, and resolving it would mean having to compromise on some of the values of the Scions. You know, tell a potentially interesting story driven by the players actions for once. A concept Squenix seem to have forgotten as of late.

This games iteration of the summoner job is a mess.

Yes, yes it is. Not to flog that dead horse again, but they really dropped the ball on it in my opinion. The game play is a hodge podge of pet skills and DOT's - They should have gone for one or the other rather than both.

To use your WoW analogy, they should make it an Affliction Warlock or a Beastmaster Hunter. Not some weird hybrid that is a mix of both. Were it up to me, I would move it to BM Hunter and free up the space for an actual DoT class to be added in a later expansion.

[lawow74]

I would like to see something akin to BRD songs for SMN, i.e. get rid of the different pets. Yeah, that's right, no more Titan/Garuda/Ifrit. Instead you summon a generic Egi that TRANSFORMS to your desires in battle. Call upon Earth, it becomes Titan. Wind, Garuda. Fire, Ifrit. Ice, Shiva. Lightning, Ramuh. And DoT ticks trigger different abilities based on which element you're using.

Boom, you just dropped a giant rock on your enemy and stunned them. Or smacked them with ice and caused heavy. Jolted them with lightning and caused paralysis. Hit them with a fireball and caused burning. Have different Aetherflows to unleash, changes to Ruin/Ruin II, there's a lot they could do to mix it up. Make it feel like you're unleashing the power of Primals, not just cursing something while a stunted summoned thing pecks at them.

[Deleted]

Which was the point I was making. We've never really had the chance to do anything other than fight Garleans. Other than Cid and Luica, we don't get the opportunity to find any common ground with Garleans and as a result we've not really had the chance to get to know anything about Garleans or Garlemand as a whole.

We'd never get the opportunity for them to be anything other than the bad guys in the story if that continues. The only Garlean we've met with any shades of grey to him is Nero and that only stems from his self-serving nature.

We've talked to quite a few garlean soldiers though.

[Faroth]

I do recall one of the Ascians hinting that the Warrior of Light could well be a primal in the same way that Shiva was. Where other peoples belief in us and their hope ends up being manifested as our own power.

It's a shame they did nothing with that story hook, having Eorzea's slayer of Primals himself be a Primal would be a pretty interesting way to go. The idea that he who fought monsters became one himself through virtue rather than violence, and resolving it would mean having to compromise on some of the values of the Scions. You know, tell a potentially interesting story driven by the players actions for once. A concept Squenix seem to have forgotten as of late.

Story hooks from level 30 didn't come back up until the end of the following expansion 4 years later. What makes you think the idea of the people's faith and hopes empowering the WoL will never come up again?

Though I think it's a BS idea teased by a villain that wants us to doubt ourselves. The WoL is blessed by Hydaelyn and we're not draining the aether of the land with every step we take, which Primals do. We're not summoning a concept and transforming into a primal temporarily like Ysayle either, who needed crystals. As did Gilgamesh to summon Enkidu.

On top of that, unless we scrap everything we've done in the entire game's story, there's only one solution: the player must be eliminated. You really want to finish an expansion with your character deleted?

I think if anything, Square leans too heavily on talking about the Warrior of Light's "power" when the actual fact of the matter is we're not supposed to be anything different than any other skilled combatant only with the blessing of Hydaelyn in our favor. There were a whole group of "warriors of light" a mere 7 years ago. We got the moniker warrior of light in comparison to them (or if you're a veteran player, you WERE one of them). Like I said before, Square's misstep was emphasizing the player as the sole special variable rather than implying there are more, even if they aren't a multitude among the people in Eorzea.

I swear, we've now seen a complaint that players themselves actually playing the game creates a "convenient plot device" and now "nothing we do drives the story." People are falling into the "I just want to hate everything about this game I like" trap lately. -__-

[Katchii]

We've talked to quite a few garlean soldiers though.

We've talked to a few soldiers that fight for Garlemald, we have fought or spoken with very few true blood Garleans, the ones with that weird jewel thingy in their forehead. Even the generals we fought through 2.0...I believe only one of them was actually Garlean; Nero. The rest were all soldiers from other nations who rose up through the ranks.

I'll check some sources to verify, but just wanted to clarify that a Midlander fighting for Garlemald is not the same thing as a Garlean.

[Florena]

We've talked to a few soldiers that fight for Garlemald, we have fought or spoken with very few true blood Garleans, the ones with that weird jewel thingy in their forehead. Even the generals we fought through 2.0...I believe only one of them was actually Garlean; Nero. The rest were all soldiers from other nations who rose up through the ranks.

I'll check some sources to verify, but just wanted to clarify that a Midlander fighting for Garlemald is not the same thing as a Garlean.

Pretty sure Gaius and Hydrus were purebloods. The only one of Gaius' posse I think wasn't is the bug guy we fifht in an easy trial.

[papajohn4]

Anyone else feel that Yda is not really dead after all? And that sometime we will meet her? Maybe she is hiding? Maybe they took her away and brainwashed her and we will see her as an enemy?

[StrawberryZebra]

Story hooks from level 30 didn't come back up until the end of the following expansion 4 years later. What makes you think the idea of the people's faith and hopes empowering the WoL will never come up again?

Experience. There are a lot of story hooks littering the MSQ and Job quests, very few of which have had anything hung on them at all. There's just not enough time to flesh them all out in the way they deserve. This one in particular would require some skillful handling to force player introspection on their actions, and Squenix have been playing it very safe with FF14's story in general.

While they may yet decide that this particular story hook is worth hanging a story on to, there are plenty more that have fallen by the wayside to be ignored.

I swear, we've now seen a complaint that players themselves actually playing the game creates a "convenient plot device" and now "nothing we do drives the story." People are falling into the "I just want to hate everything about this game I like" trap lately. -__-

Honestly, it felt like Deus Ex Machina was in charge of the plot as it wrapped up towards the end. Like Estinien showing up out of nowhere to ruin the Empires cannon right as they were going to kill all of the lead characters. Or Urianger showing up with a "Fuck you Fordola!" device mere minutes before we're involved in a showdown with her, which in itself happened only minutes before Hien and Yugiri show up out of nowhere to provide air support to allow our assault of Ala Mhigo to continue uninterupted.

It's hard to downplay the fact that there were a lot of Deus Ex Machina moments throughout the plot, but the last 15 or so quests really took it to an extreme.

[Faroth]

Experience. There are a lot of story hooks littering the MSQ and Job quests, very few of which have had anything hung on them at all. There's just not enough time to flesh them all out in the way they deserve. This one in particular would require some skillful handling to force player introspection on their actions, and Squenix have been playing it very safe with FF14's story in general.

While they may yet decide that this particular story hook is worth hanging a story on to, there are plenty more that have fallen by the wayside to be ignored.

Such as?

Honestly, it felt like Deus Ex Machina was in charge of the plot as it wrapped up towards the end. Like Estinien showing up out of nowhere to ruin the Empires cannon right as they were going to kill all of the lead characters. Or Urianger showing up with a "Fuck you Fordola!" device mere minutes before we're involved in a showdown with her, which in itself happened only minutes before Hien and Yugiri show up out of nowhere to provide air support to allow our assault of Ala Mhigo to continue uninterupted.

It's hard to downplay the fact that there were a lot of Deus Ex Machina moments throughout the plot, but the last 15 or so quests really took it to an extreme.

Hien and Yugiri I expected. You knew the Domans would show up. They were explicitly clear they would lend their forces to Ala Mhigo, so their Han Solo moment was kind of set up for it. Especially after we saw the Xaela handling airborn battles previously. That's not really Deus Ex Machina since it was so heavily foreshadowed ahead of time.

Estinien felt shoe horned in because we didn't see enough of him for my tastes. I actually didn't mind him destroying the canon because we saw him earlier at the big pit, so he was on the trail of Nidhogg's eyes, but they really didn't give us enough glimpses to see his pursuit further into Ala Mhigo. It felt like he had the framework to fit into the whole thing, but wasn't given enough time to feel like he fit into the puzzle. As a result, his final scene was particularly out of place.

Urianger was definitely plot convenience, I'll agree 100%.... They didn't even lay the groundwork for his device with a throw away line from Alphinaud about Urianger working on blah blah blah.

[Kazgrel]

Anyone else feel that Yda is not really dead after all? And that sometime we will meet her? Maybe she is hiding? Maybe they took her away and brainwashed her and we will see her as an enemy?

It's the "they're not dead unless you see the corpse" trope that's almost all too common, especially in SB.

[papajohn4]

It's the "they're not dead unless you see the corpse" trope that's almost all too common, especially in SB.

haha yea :P if gosetsu managed to stay alive, why not Yda!

[StrawberryZebra]

Such as?

The Sultana's abdication, which was a major reason for the events of Heavensward kicking off, and was written off later on in one of the story patches with a "mumble mumble maybe later" explanation. Hell, almost the whole of that storyline was resolved off screen. It hasn't been revisited since and the Sultana, like the leaders of the other city states minus Raubahn, has been relegated to a minor character.

Then there was the one with Nidhogg later on, where killing him in the dungeon just perpetuates the cycle of hatred and violence. Which is good, as far as story telling goes. It left a nice hook they could build on in future patches. The point was later resolved by revealing that we just didn't kill Nidhogg enough the first time around, completely undoing all the good work they've done up to that point and contradicting the entire direction the story was heading in.

Remember Hilda? Remember how she was shaping up to be an interesting NPC in her own right, someone who could have a position of power in the new Ishgard and could represent those who'd not had a voice previously? She was set up for big things that never came about.

What about Riol, who was always skeptical about the Crystal Braves and was one of those who remained loyal to Alphinaud? Given his cunning and his observational skills he should have been able to keep tabs on what Yuyuhase and Laurentius have been up to. The storyline moving to Ala Mhigo and the aftermath of Ilberds actions would have been an ideal time to reintroduce him.

What about Alianne, who is involved in framing you for regicide, yet just swans back into the Rising Stones without anyone questioning why she's still also loyal to Alphinaud. It's like it never even happened.

And these are just the ones off the top of my head that had the hook placed, got some slight attention, then was later either abandoned or sidelined.

[Deleted]

We've talked to a few soldiers that fight for Garlemald, we have fought or spoken with very few true blood Garleans, the ones with that weird jewel thingy in their forehead. Even the generals we fought through 2.0...I believe only one of them was actually Garlean; Nero. The rest were all soldiers from other nations who rose up through the ranks.

I'll check some sources to verify, but just wanted to clarify that a Midlander fighting for Garlemald is not the same thing as a Garlean.

Regula + Lucia (you know, the blonde chick @ Aymeric's side) are Garlean too.
And the Wolf should be Garlean too...

[blackblade]

Remember Hilda? Remember how she was shaping up to be an interesting NPC in her own right, someone who could have a position of power in the new Ishgard and could represent those who'd not had a voice previously? She was set up for big things that never came about.

Hilda shows up in the MCH 60+ storyline FWIW (I haven't started it beyond the level 60 opener, so no spoilers plox)

[Karamaru]

Welp finished the DRK 60-70 story its eh not as bad as the 50-60 story but on the plus side a certain someone makes a return also the DRK 70 job armor is really bad looking in my opinion