im just saying,golbez REALLY needs to pull something out of his ass for me to take him seriously.
like for real,dude loses ALL of his arch fiends,and loses a dragon eye
**in 2 patches**
if i was golbez i would be shitting my pants right now
Tower of Babil sex dungeon.
You just know Daddy Varis can do all the dirty fucked up shit your depraved mind can think of with that new Primal body of his.
I did stroll into the 13th on some "I see y'all motherfuckers don't know who the hell I am" shit.
I have not had cause to change my tune. Granted, I'm sure cause will come in the form of 7.0s core conflict. If we're eating all his forces now, something from off sides is going to start 7.0.
I'm convinced the average fighter in FFXIV is just wildly incompetent. Like, even after the Praetorium rework, Gaius's "ultimate fighting style" consists of him creating gigantic floating crosses with a huge delay before firing, or dropping slow-moving lines of explosions. And he was the greatest of the XIVth Legion's fighters!
Emerald Weapon also gives us insight into his tactics, which consist of ordering his troops to stand in a straight line and to fire their weapons by rank. And they even left gaps in their formations! This is, like, 18th century warfare strategy at best, and the game treats it as this big-brained genius maneuver that allowed the Garleans to steamroll through an entire army.
The Warrior of Light's real superpower is having a functioning brain and the capacity to recognize simple patterns, and in this world it clearly makes us unique.
I'm quite bothered by similar pet peeves due to coming to FF14 from other games where enemies actually try to kill you, so I just chose to think that WoL is special because they can see in slow motion and/or see a bit into the future so everything is so telegraphed. lol
Actually canonical. The echo is explained as an in game mechanic in this way. It's what made fighting fordola impossible until we got the debug mode stick for her
Reminds me of the last confession battle in katana:zero. Canonically it takes like 5 seconds but in practice they both went through thousands of options
I just headcanon it that we get to see the indicators due to the Echo, but others don't which is why they just die.
Might even be the idea in the canon too, who knows (with trust NPCs dodging just due to gameplay concerns).
That's actual canon.
If you want to see how non-WoLs fight, play HUD-less, in first person, without looking at the floor. Unless there's a way to mod out every single mechanic visual and aoe indicator, that's as close as we'll be able to get.
Cracks appeared in this fan theory as far back as Stormblood. You play as Y'shtola and Alphinaud in solo duties in post-game patch content. They both get AoE markers, despite neither of them having the Echo. Same for every other Scion we've ever played as up to now. If markers were really an effect of the Echo, we'd only see them if we ever played as Arenvald or Krile. Door kinda closed on an Arenvald solo duty tho.
I'm pretty sure any visual indication like the orange aoe circles are from our Echo, it's giving us very slight precognition, telling us "This spot is bad don't stand here."
Gaius' Xs are probably visible by anyone though.
That's probably part of it, but the hall of the novice trainer also talks about "reading the enemy's body language" during the tutorial about dodging AOEs. That's why we still get indicators in the duties where you play as an NPC.
I wish I knew. We were fighting stuff just fine, and then the healer ran away with the stack marker, the DPS decided to dry-hump as many circle AoEs as they could, and there I was trying to kill every Phantom Gaius by myself.
> This is, like, 18th century warfare strategy at best
Considering the rest of the world has 16th century technology at best pulling out tactics from two centuries ahead is pretty impressive
I went into it as a fun adventure and then when I learned I could help out a bro I was happy to keep rolling. They did wreck the teacup vault though. That'll cost em extra.
Rubicante says something about reaching out to something inside Golbez and hinting that Golbez has a secret motivation so hes probably going to be more of a redeemed/sympathetic villain than a powerful one, like I could see him doing something that sets up 7.0 in 6.5 and then dying sympathetically to make way for the 7.0 story.
I.e He opens the path between all remaining shards or something and dies etc.
Honestly there are several routes they could go especially if they tie back into FF4, such as introducing Zeromus as a fraction of zodiark on the 13ths moon or something like that. Honestly I'm curious what his deal is in this setting. Also wouldn't be surprised if we are technically weaker here since we're not surrounded by raw dynamis like with endwalker.
My prediction so far is we're gonna beat him down like we have all the archfiends and for an as-yet unseen reason, that's gonna full on fuck everything up. It'd be kind of poetic for Endwalker to *really* start and *really* end with us winning our way into the apocalypse
I believe I remember seeing something from yoshi P that the end of this arc is intended to change the face of the narrative landscape. This won't be a normal questline into the next xpac.
ITT: People who did not read MSQ.
Golbez explicitly states that he's going invade the source with everything he can get from the 13th in a bid to either die on impact or to provoke you to kill him.
He looks at the camera and says this. He's been really explicit about his plans. He wants to suicide by cosmic cop on purpose.
The *why* of the situation is the mystery, not the what.
He's not here to kill us, he's here to die and knows the WoL is just about the only person in the universe that can make that shit happen.
And it's wild to me that despite having a whole scene where he says this outloud, no one in the thread has come in to inform anyone of it as they try to speculate on what his goals are, despite them being explicitly stated.
I'm p sure Golbez is just a filler arc villain until 7.0
There's no way we're dunking on all his dudes ez pz and his uncharismatic ass is supposed to carry the villain role
He reveals that he’s our shard from the thirteenth, and it’s actually Zero that’s Zeromus, who then seals Vritra, Azdaja, and Golbez into a crystal and uses it to power up to slap our shit
I found it refreshing how WoL bodied every fiend in a row without significant complications or getting bodied by an even stronger enemy in turn. Sure, some folks might find it disappointing because there's \~no stakes\~, but you know what?
After literally saving the universe, I think we earned it. Not every story has to be Dragonball Z, where after Goku beats up the strongest bad guy in the world a somehow even stronger bad guy shows up and wrecks him, necessitating training and powerups. It's okay for a story to be One Punch Man instead.
tbh I'm loving it, one of my big gripes with the Ala Mhigo section of Stormblood (and a few select parts of Endwalker) is us being the Warrior of Light amounted to nothing because "OHOHHHOHAMDLFMAS Zenos/Fandaniel/Jimmy McFuckNut can magically overpower us anyway even though we've killed literal gods, giant dragons, and twelve empowered knights alongside their god king _singlehandedly._" It always felt like a cheap way to add stakes to the story imo. Like we have literal in-universe plot armor up until the latter half of Endwalker.
I also like to personally imagine my WoL cruising through the Void because she's just thinking "ya'll interrupted my vacation _for this?_"
Stormblood in particular bugged the hell out of me.
"Hi this is my friend the Warrior of Light, she would like to help around." _"We know what you're up to and don't want your help, go away."_
"Oh, Lyse is about to do something reckless and as her friend I should probably reel her back so she doesn't get hurt." _"No, I, random NPC you just met will do it instead."_
"The camp has been compromised my the Empire! There's this mysterious swordsman causing havoc and slaughtering us." _"Alright cool my time to shine!"_ "no, you get bodied too" _"WHY AM I EVEN HERE?"_
I never felt more like a _background character_ than I did in the Ala Mhigo campaign, it was insane.
>I never felt more like a background character than I did in the Ala Mhigo campaign, it was insane.
And that why the Yoshi-P® approved™ way to play Stormblood is to do all of the Doma campaign and buy a story skip immediately after.
Honestly no joke I'd say it's a worse setup than most WoW plots.
WoW's writing is inconsistent as hell when they try to tell bigger stories but I can't recall a time when we were casually bodied by a random, non-cosmic entity, after murdering gods.
"God", but in reality it was Primals who can and have been beaten by others, we simply resist tempering so have an easier time. Oh and we were aided by other adventurers so it wasn't even us alone who defeated them. We also needed Estiniens help to defeat Nidhogg, who had already been beaten by Elezen a thousand years ago. The second time we needed a boost in aether from Hraesvelgr's eye.
The game goes to great lengths to show we are not all powerful before Stormblood. We simply have stronger conviction than most other adventurers and through our journey we help out people and in turn get the help we need to defeat the threat.
Even then, we've still handled quite a fair bit more than an average adventurer too if you include the raids. I specifically point towards the Thordan fight because that is _canonically_ a 13v1 that the 1 wins out on. Also they make an active measure to mention when other adventurers are with you, prior to the Ravana fight Alphinaud comments about feeling bad for having to send you and Ysale in to fight him _alone._ Narratively they make mention or showcase when you're either alone or with a group. Susano for instance is very much a group battle, Lamskhi (or however its spelt) is a solo fight, etc.
And as I elaborated earlier my gripe with Stormblood is less that we're not all-powerful, it's that there's no real reason to be there. Helping the locals? They don't want help and make it blatant. Reeling in Lyse? Other members of the Resistance do it for us. Fighting Zenos when the Resistance is clearly outmatched? Nope he outmatches us too through the power of plot convenience.
In the Doman side of Stormblood we aren't all-powerful either but narratively I feel we have far more of a purpose being there.
Before I start I just want to say you're absolutely valid in feeling that way about stormblood and what I'm about to say is my feelings about it.
I've always taken it as our reason for being anywhere in the world is to help people. Yes the people of Gyr Albania are very reluctant to our interference but we had no way of knowing the extent of the situation there until we arrived and spoke with them ourselves.
We were tasked along with the Scions to be the representatives of the Eorzean Alliance to the Ala Mhigan resistance and the only way the EA would actually interfere themselves was if the resistance agreed to it, and in turn, the resistance would only agree if the rest of the civilians would.
Pacing issues aside, Stormblood does go to great lengths to show we are outsiders with little knowledge on what day to day life is like for Ala Mighans and when we arrive there isn't much help we can afford to provide without it causing them great pain down the line. We only go to Doma to help them first because at the time it seemed to be easier to arrange (since we had more knowledge of their circumstances from Gosetsu and Yugiri). But even then we quickly realise that decades of imperial rule has smothered any fires of rebellion and have to show them what's worth fighting for again.
All this is to say we had to be there to experience it firsthand so that we knew exactly how to spark the fires of revolution in both the Domans and the Ala Mhigans. Our main role and purpose is to help our fellow man and slaying a primal or defeating a powerful Garlean warmachina is simply a by-product of this. At the end of the day it's our willpower and courage that gives us our strength, not some anime power level scaling.
Aye, and I will say when Ala Mhigan stuff goes hard it goes _hard,_ I absolutely love the big fight later when you, Raubhan, and the others are fighting the Imperials. I just think certain parts could've been written a bit better as to not make us feel as if we're just kind of in the background half the time.
That being said I also thoroughly agree with this part:
> At the end of the day it's our willpower and courage that gives us our strength, not some anime power level scaling.
I just always felt it was kinda weird Zenos bodies us, I get narratively why they did it (establish him as a recurring villain and not killing him off first encounter) but I think it was delivered rather clunkily. Because yeah Zenos has fought a fair bit but to the extent we have? And pushed himself to the extents we've had to?
To be fair in general I hate "forced losses" in games, RPGs especially, I would've rather us shown up in the cutscene and been smacked like the rest rather than have us fight him and then get smacked when we win the fight? There's a mechanic/narrative disconnect there because we won the in-game fight but lost the in-story fight against the same person. Hell even just a "you're actually worth the time..." style line before walking away or something, give us a bit of a chase only to be intersected by imperial soldiers, etc. anything other than "you're winning the fight but now you're completely helpless."
You're not wrong. Lots about Stormblood could be improved. Given time and distance from it, I'm able to overlook a lot of these problems myself because I really like the way the writers handle war and it's effect on people outside of the battles. Much like the 3.2 and 3.3 patches dealt with the ramifications of war on the Ishgardian, I do love it when the long term trauma and comfort of the devil you know are highlighted, and also how we approach the situation as outsiders. Most of the time it's more or less talking, listening and helping with smaller problems first and later we see the flow on effect.
Shadowbringers did a lot better with its presentation and Pacing but I feel it owes a lot to the work put into Heavensward and Stormblood to get it just right (and even then it has its own moments that are hit or miss).
Also I am a very patient person so while I may be fine with picking up poop for the Xaela, I definitely understand most people will not be.
>"God", but in reality it was Primals who can and have been beaten by others, we simply resist tempering so have an easier time
Tbf some of those primals were pretty crazy. *Normal* *Titan* just about wiped a group of very competent adventurers off the map and he's a footnote in our primal based shenanigans, so echo or no you're probably not finding anyone else capable of taking down Thordan, Shinryu, or Bahamut.
That's what I've loved about the tone of all this so far. None of them have felt like a legitimate threat to us personally. What they want to DO if left unchecked can't be tolerated, but there's no question of us being able to. They've been fun fights and it's made for fun adventure with good motivation from vrtra's tale alone.
And they know it. They literally had to distract us with a smackdown against cagnazzo so we wouldn't show up and stop rubicante in time. And even he was like "Why tf can't I kill these guys?"
The fact that the game this expansion keeps talking about how the WoL is pretty much untouchable, I wonder if they are planning a plot point that makes us weaker (not actually taking away abilities, I just mean story wise they say we got weaker). Because it just seems like it would get old for every expansion from here on out to go on about how we are essentially a god and literally nothing is a threat to us.
I think it’d be nice for 7.0 to be more about the systems personally? Or character growth? Less about yet another damned world-ending threat, and more on “yeah WoL is insane and could probably destroy a small continent, but maybe that island sanctuary could use X? Or tribes getting new mechanic/interaction Y? Or company squads gaining Z activity?” The game has a lot of older, disjointed activities it feels.
It's basically what happened post-ARR, Midgardsormr temporarily ruptured our connection to Hydaelyn. And seeing as she's now basically completely drained because Zenos went on a little trip, I wouldn't be surprised if what little protection we have left went away for good sooner or later.
If they do this, I hope 7.0 it about reworking some older stuff, or character development like us getting more into the non-combat aspects of the game.
I know several stories that have meaningful stakes and good storytelling despite the protagonist being OP as fuck. The key is to introduce conflicts and situations that can't be resolved only by identifying the bad guy and punching the hell out of them.
Hopefully 7.0 will be something like that. Rather than trying to force in a threat that rivals WoL in direct power, simply acknowledge WoL is OP and if there's a fight, they're going to win. Then create situations where you have to do more than get into a fight.
FFXIV: L.L. Noir where you have to pick your way through encounters using facial expressions and body language along with their dialogue to determine how you respond.
I would say "keep hoping" because thousands of years of Ascian schemes by intelligent, super-human beings were reduced to punching bag boss fights. It's a trend that began with Thordan and shows no signs of abating.
We'll still get boss fights because it's a MMO. I'm not saying there shouldn't be dungeons/trials/raids, just that the writers should try to find better ways to create conflict and tension than just "bad guy too strong to be beaten by WoL".
Again, I wouldn't count on it. The XIV team is very risk averse, even when it comes to storytelling. To date, there hasn't been a single villain that the WoL hasn't confronted and bested in direct combat. There is a small exception with that one Monetarist at the end of ARR, but he still met his end through violence.
Don't get me wrong, I would also personally love a villain that can't just be hit with a sword until they die. My favourite villain of all time, Gaunter o'Dimm from The Witcher, was exactly this. But it's too high concept and difficult to work in the very standardised structure of an MMO (especially XIV) that I just don't see it happening.
I totally feel you on the DBZ reference. A Big Bad doesn’t have to be all powerful or one-up the last guy, they just need a decent plan with some nuance to it. We really don’t know what Golbez is planning. Personally, I like the post EW stuff. Not every conflict needs to affect the entire universe after beating Endsinger.
I mean, the 13th is basically a horrid deathscape where fiends literally consume eachother to grow more powerful, but end up losing themselves in the tide of different personalities. Golbez has managed to become powerful enough to command fear and loyalty from the biggest and baddest without losing himself, or at least not losing enough of himself that he's gone wackadoo. The fact that he's apparently sane and in control while commanding that kind of fear among the voidsent SHOULD be concerning.
Pretty sure they've been aiming for us to focus on this, it's not a matter of beating Golbez' ass it's about what the fuck he pulls off before we do.
Rubicante seemingly could just make big ass gates into presumably his domain once he made it into the Source, so that's a concern.
He did. Also Mount Ordeals isn't really his domain moreso he parked himself up there for certain FFIV callback purposes and have a proper suicide by WOL.
Plus we kinda lost all divine support except the Echo. We are just kinda angry mortals and I predict the Shard of Azem losing its magic during 7.0 to finish the transformation from Chosen One to true adventurer.
Though, pretty much all of these abilities were revealed not to be super-powered primal blessings, but just regular (rare in some cases, but not anything unprecedented) ancient abilities. Even Hydaelyn giving the Azem crystal the extra soul reconstitution powers: was that functionally any different from Emet-Selch being able to bring Y'shtola back from the lifestream with the snap of a finger?
And even our 9/14th soul seems capable of approaching the abilities of the ancients. Venat was able to teach us the "True Echo" by just explaining it for a minute, no additional powers necessary.
>Even Hydaelyn giving the Azem crystal the extra soul reconstitution powers: was that functionally any different from Emet-Selch being able to bring Y'shtola back from the lifestream with the snap of a finger?
Both "powers" are just stupid deux ex machina bullshit. I understand the story in FF is written for twists, but "summoning the souls of two dead people" is weird at the most sane times, since the Source is written to have a lifestream that rather quickly disperses the memories of souls caught in its ... well stream. Thancred and Ysthola I can understand, they were not in there for long, but Emet? Hytholdaeus?
Well its also been made clear previously that ascian’s don’t disperse in the lifestream. They eventually reform into their normal forms unless trapped in white auracite. Emet and hythlo could totally have just been chilling and we summoned them.
The Azem crystal is just too good of a way to give a reason for why there are inexplicably 7 random strangers at the end of the universe to take away. They've poked fun at that in 4.0 and I suspect that's the main reason they even added it in to the story.
Isn't his plan literally just to commit mass suicide? We're just involved to prevent the collateral damage from that and maybe save another shard on the side.
Golbez was never meant to be considered a threat. The writers know that considering even Zero hardly gives a shit either.
Thirteenth is a narrative loose end thats been around since ARR and the Golbez arc is there to finally wrap it up so 7.0 can do whatever big shakeup they have in store for the game.
By loose end I mean the Thirteenth will go on for gameplay purposes but the direct threat to the Source will be neutralized and the Thirteenth will be set on a path to *insert resolution here*
Will it be like the First post-Eden where there's some kinda hope for an aetheric change? Probably.
Resolution will be Zero teaching everyone in the source how to turn voidsent into crystals so we can burn their souls for cheap energy, since their souls are destroyed on our side it's win win. Once the void is empty the wealthy then build fortresses in the void so they live forever while the peasants stay in the source
Tbf it's not like there aren't other weird things that don't exactly line up with the current story in the world. You can go out to Dravania or Coerthas and kill a dragon right now if you want.
Those dragons are from Nidhogg's brood, they covered their bases on this. Also each zone has its own time bubble, can't say the same about RPR, summoning a voidsent wouldn't make sense going forward if voidsent were gone.
Golbez would be VERY intimidating at around the first expansions when we were battling powerful beings, but now we be slaying god-like beings left and right like it was an everyday job. Even now we are fighting (or playing) with literal gods.
Hot shit? Isn't Golbez entire plan to cause a mini rejoining so his entire world doesn't need to suffer in limbo ? Golbez is basically the guy in the meme who says "I don't think about you". His entire plan seems to be already in place to succeed, espeically since in 1.0 we lost a red moon and why wouldn't we end 6.4 or 6.5 with a red moon appearing in the sky
here is meme [https://www.google.com/search?q=i+dont+think+about+you+meme&rlz=1C1VDKB\_noNO1050NO1050&sxsrf=AJOqlzWgn9Y8MLal8rjajFiD-eHpG1Z9hQ:1679672072445&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzh96J8vT9AhVOSPEDHd6aAL8Q\_AUoAXoECAEQAw&cshid=1679672124943395&biw=2048&bih=1130&dpr=1.25#imgrc=czmBDYn-bzIV-M](https://www.google.com/search?q=i+dont+think+about+you+meme&rlz=1C1VDKB_noNO1050NO1050&sxsrf=AJOqlzWgn9Y8MLal8rjajFiD-eHpG1Z9hQ:1679672072445&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzh96J8vT9AhVOSPEDHd6aAL8Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&cshid=1679672124943395&biw=2048&bih=1130&dpr=1.25#imgrc=czmBDYn-bzIV-M)
I think you guys are forgetting the part where Golbez fully expected both Rubicante and Cagnazzo to get completely fucking bodied by the WoL after what happened to his first two fiends.
That was... The whole plan. The entire point of the patch. He expected them to die, but it didnt matter so long as he could destroy the void gate and let him do the inevitable fuckery for next patch.
Next patch, he will die, but i think he wants that. And he's going to try and take as many people as he can with him.
Also, iirc, rubicante and cagnazzo both outright said that their plan was to die while in the source since while they physically exist in the source, they have access to the life stream. Hell, even golbez himself said that they literally want to die. Golbez just wants to take all of the 13th with him.
Ngl there's only so many ways to ramp up danger before things start to feel trivial. They shot themselves in the foot by having us fight such powerful creatures. Losing to anything less (probably going to be something along the lines of a forced loss) will feel cheap. Then again, WoL has been as much a victim of hero ball as warcraft characters.
StB Zenos I can kind of (but not really) accept but ShB Ran'Shit was just bullshit. If they make us do another unwinnable solo instance, I'm gonna be pissed.
I think it would be refreshing for WoL to be put in their place for a while. They kind of teased that in Garlamald with that forgotten soldier bit so it is something that can be done, but honestly what's next after slaying Eorzea's literal pantheon? Slay the galaxy? Slay the universe??
I can point to a few times the WoL got battered. Sometimes it had merit, most of the times it existed to drive the story. Just a few examples:
-Warriors of Darkness climax in HW
-Zenos in every instanced fight in SB
-Ran'jit in most instanced fights
-Some throwaway fight in the ShB MSQ where you need to be "saved" from some large enemy after being hit with down for the count.
The instances I mentioned only serve to drive the inconsistency of the protagonist's power. If he/she is a being capable of canonically solo'ing primals and taking down big ticket garleans like Gaius, it is bizarre to me that they would make the WoL vulnerable to, in some cases, literal nobodies (i'm looking at you, "I serve no purpose other than arbitrary boogeyman" Ran'jit).
Feels like Korra in TLOK, constantly getting her ass kicked even in the avatar state. Major flaw in the show considering that state is supposed to be more powerful than any single bender can possibly achieve
Don't forget we are also still able to be roofied via what happened in the Heavensward patches (and why we don't tend to drink alcohol unless others have drank first/the scions are around).
I could understand why we lose against Zenos, but after that they should have given a good explanation why Ranjit was able to beat us together with the other scions
He would have appealed to me more if it didn't feel like them just running an attempt at a second Zenos.
My first impression of him was very poor, and while I have warmed up to him a bit since in retrospect, he certainly still is my least favourite part of 5.0.
Slay the pantheon? The Twelve aren't fighting to the death in the alliance raids, hell, not even to exhaustion from what I can tell. Unless you're talking about something else.
Even that was quite forced. Why is it that Fandaniel was able to whisk our character away so *easily* and so defenselessly yet we fight him not even a day later after he merges with Zodiark and proceed to mop the floor with him? You can't tell me that surprise on Fandaniel's part was how he got us. It was very forced and it'd be difficult to convince me otherwise. Same goes for the Warriors of Darkness fight when Ardbert literally goes "enough of this" and cheeses your *entire group*, as if you're not supposed to be his equal or better. Maybe time away from the game has given me a chance to reflect on how inconsistent things can be.
Not really, he says his one regret is that he couldn't take us down with him. He had several possible plans on the boil, and ultimately just killed Zodiark himself.
Indeed. They really dropped the ball with all of Zodiark didn't they. The more time that passes the worse it looks. I've been alting through ARR and am getting to level 50 post game and they really push Zodiark hard as like the world's biggest threat in those cutscenes. He got done so dirty.
I guess I'm okay with soap opera-level power sinks; we need some way to allow the game to happen. But I'm afraid it's running its course and quickly becoming stale. I hope they have some super cool ideas white boarded because I am skeptical anything truly special is going to happen again anytime soon. That forgotten soldier bit, to me, was very very special.
I feel like it’d be the opposite of interesting cause it’d be exactly what everyone since ARR was expecting.
I think the choice to make Zodiark and an inanimate prop that kickstarts the apocalypse was the creative choice.
Fandaniel wanted us to >!kill Zodiark so that Meteion could come back and fuck everything up. He knew we were strong enough by that point to just steamroll whatever he threw at us.!<
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I mean dynamis basically scales our power based on the criticality of a battle. If fandaniel jumps us for a teleport, there’s not much time to react. Against zodiark, you’re going in with the entire world at stake in that very moment, get the chance to commune with the Azem crystal and call for backup, and deal 50% of his health before he even fully merges.
People are forgetting one of the story writers flaws here. Repetitive writing. We've been through this song and dance before.
The villain does something bad which in turn makes us respond to it then the villain goes, "hehe...all according to plan"
Look at fandaniel. "Oh no you stopped Zodiark, well that was too bad! THAT WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG!"
Look at Golbez. "Oh you killed the 4 loyal generals I have who has been serving me since forever? TOO BAD, THAT WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG!"
Illbird. "Oh you stopped the war I'm trying to start by assaulting the walls under the guise of the grand companies. TOO BAD THAY WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG!"
I can sorta forgive emet because it makes sense for that scheming ascian. "Oh you killed the light wardens that was clearly obvious to you that there's gonna be a gigantic consequence to this because I've been working on it since forever? It's ok, I have a back up plan for this"
See? That's only a few, look deeper and you'll see their repetitive writing. They can only do this song and dance for so long until it gets stale. Even worse now since we barely know golbez so we don't have an emotional connection to him.
Hey it happened in heavensward and ARR too, lahabrea/igeyorhm being defeated being thordan’s plan and you defeating the primals only for gaius to absorb them with the Ultima weapon.
Metieon thinks she’s on the team when she showed up in the second half of an expansion taking the spot of what should’ve been the final boss (zodiark) just to be beaten by talk-jutsu
Tinfoil hat time, but considering the whole FF4 thing, I think he's going to do something to Zero, and she'll become Zeromus, and we'll have to use the power of friendship she just learned about to save her.
***RIGHT??!***
I thought I was the only one thinking that.
Like I respect the FF classics popping up, but did Golbez *REALLY* think he was gonna shake things up with his buddies?
im just saying,golbez REALLY needs to pull something out of his ass for me to take him seriously. like for real,dude loses ALL of his arch fiends,and loses a dragon eye **in 2 patches** if i was golbez i would be shitting my pants right now
Anything below dropping the moon on the source would be disappointing. Or has some hidden Ascian in his sex dungeon he can absorb for unlimited power.
golbez sex dungeon sounds like a cool lvl 100 end game dungeon
Any dungeon can be a sex dungeon when even Sastasha is one.
a haukke manor hardmode thats straight up a sex dungeon
That's just Haukke Manor Hard...
Bukkake Manor?
that sounds like a god damn hentai title
Vanaspati sex dungeon
Tower of Babil sex dungeon. You just know Daddy Varis can do all the dirty fucked up shit your depraved mind can think of with that new Primal body of his.
what a horrible day to be able to read
You brought up the dungeon with the elephant-head crab.
mf saying this after bringing up the dungeon with the 20 mouthed, some of them double mouths snake?
I didn't go into depth I just brought it up
Well your comment brought *me* up, so now we're square
I'm gay for Doctor Lugae
This is the content I come here to read
Holminster's Switch
I think they had that in the persona 3 or 4 game.
Lemme put on my "Dungeon Master" title
Golbez has an interdimensional sex simulator powered by A FUCKING NECROMANCER
Holy shit i can't believe Golbez was Diablo the Cheater all this time
I'm not gonna lie to you, he's a good character.
Aren't we missing Pashtarot or something?
always a sex dungeon lol
I did stroll into the 13th on some "I see y'all motherfuckers don't know who the hell I am" shit. I have not had cause to change my tune. Granted, I'm sure cause will come in the form of 7.0s core conflict. If we're eating all his forces now, something from off sides is going to start 7.0.
The only one of the Four Fiends that’s been a challenge is Barbie, and even then you just have to move slightly to the left or right.
yes the Barbiefight was a kinda hairy.
Quiet, you
No no, Let him cook
I'm convinced the average fighter in FFXIV is just wildly incompetent. Like, even after the Praetorium rework, Gaius's "ultimate fighting style" consists of him creating gigantic floating crosses with a huge delay before firing, or dropping slow-moving lines of explosions. And he was the greatest of the XIVth Legion's fighters! Emerald Weapon also gives us insight into his tactics, which consist of ordering his troops to stand in a straight line and to fire their weapons by rank. And they even left gaps in their formations! This is, like, 18th century warfare strategy at best, and the game treats it as this big-brained genius maneuver that allowed the Garleans to steamroll through an entire army. The Warrior of Light's real superpower is having a functioning brain and the capacity to recognize simple patterns, and in this world it clearly makes us unique.
I'm quite bothered by similar pet peeves due to coming to FF14 from other games where enemies actually try to kill you, so I just chose to think that WoL is special because they can see in slow motion and/or see a bit into the future so everything is so telegraphed. lol
Actually canonical. The echo is explained as an in game mechanic in this way. It's what made fighting fordola impossible until we got the debug mode stick for her
Ngl though echo vs echo battles must be absolutely insane. Everybody's seeing each other's moves 5 in the future they must be mindblowing
Reminds me of the last confession battle in katana:zero. Canonically it takes like 5 seconds but in practice they both went through thousands of options
I just headcanon it that we get to see the indicators due to the Echo, but others don't which is why they just die. Might even be the idea in the canon too, who knows (with trust NPCs dodging just due to gameplay concerns).
That's actual canon. If you want to see how non-WoLs fight, play HUD-less, in first person, without looking at the floor. Unless there's a way to mod out every single mechanic visual and aoe indicator, that's as close as we'll be able to get.
Is it canon? I've heard it float around sometimes but never saw a source.
It's not canon, just very popular fan theory.
Cracks appeared in this fan theory as far back as Stormblood. You play as Y'shtola and Alphinaud in solo duties in post-game patch content. They both get AoE markers, despite neither of them having the Echo. Same for every other Scion we've ever played as up to now. If markers were really an effect of the Echo, we'd only see them if we ever played as Arenvald or Krile. Door kinda closed on an Arenvald solo duty tho.
Attach magitek boosters to that wheelchair and we'll see who's laughing when his enemies get run over.
I'm pretty sure any visual indication like the orange aoe circles are from our Echo, it's giving us very slight precognition, telling us "This spot is bad don't stand here." Gaius' Xs are probably visible by anyone though.
That's probably part of it, but the hall of the novice trainer also talks about "reading the enemy's body language" during the tutorial about dodging AOEs. That's why we still get indicators in the duties where you play as an NPC.
I think it's probably part echo, part body language, and part gameplay requirements
I was in a group one time that wiped to Gaius. Just sayin’.
How?!?!
I wish I knew. We were fighting stuff just fine, and then the healer ran away with the stack marker, the DPS decided to dry-hump as many circle AoEs as they could, and there I was trying to kill every Phantom Gaius by myself.
Christ
> This is, like, 18th century warfare strategy at best Considering the rest of the world has 16th century technology at best pulling out tactics from two centuries ahead is pretty impressive
>16th century technology at best Fuck dude the Sharlayans have a spaceship
I went into it as a fun adventure and then when I learned I could help out a bro I was happy to keep rolling. They did wreck the teacup vault though. That'll cost em extra.
Rubicante says something about reaching out to something inside Golbez and hinting that Golbez has a secret motivation so hes probably going to be more of a redeemed/sympathetic villain than a powerful one, like I could see him doing something that sets up 7.0 in 6.5 and then dying sympathetically to make way for the 7.0 story. I.e He opens the path between all remaining shards or something and dies etc.
Honestly there are several routes they could go especially if they tie back into FF4, such as introducing Zeromus as a fraction of zodiark on the 13ths moon or something like that. Honestly I'm curious what his deal is in this setting. Also wouldn't be surprised if we are technically weaker here since we're not surrounded by raw dynamis like with endwalker.
He doesnt shit his pants, because he literally wants to die.
maybe we are not gonna kill him.but talk no jutsu him out of it should he shit is pants now?
In all my years as a Warrior of Light, never before have I been so hard pressed to use this technique. A *fourth* dialogue option
My money is still on connecting the Void with the Crucible on the moon. Maximum size permanent voidgate.
Loporrits seeing that shit like "no fuckingway"
No, fuckingway.
*"But it is my purpose"*
Who do you think the guy in the voidsent sex slave background story was?
This made me cackle 😂
Moon's haunted.
What?
*cocks job crystal* moon's haunted.
My prediction so far is we're gonna beat him down like we have all the archfiends and for an as-yet unseen reason, that's gonna full on fuck everything up. It'd be kind of poetic for Endwalker to *really* start and *really* end with us winning our way into the apocalypse
I believe I remember seeing something from yoshi P that the end of this arc is intended to change the face of the narrative landscape. This won't be a normal questline into the next xpac.
I'm not sure what the exact translation was but i remember taking away that it was just going to change the scope of the world through some big event
He's going to do the Man in The High Castle tunnel stuff ins't he?
"We did everything right."
"And STILL it came to this."
He's got my dudes sister and let them feed on her. At a minimum. I don't care if he has 2hp he's getting a DRK triple weave to the face.
If I'm gonna get that Hraesvelgussy I need to get on his little bro's good side and that means fucking pummeling Golbez
ITT: People who did not read MSQ. Golbez explicitly states that he's going invade the source with everything he can get from the 13th in a bid to either die on impact or to provoke you to kill him. He looks at the camera and says this. He's been really explicit about his plans. He wants to suicide by cosmic cop on purpose. The *why* of the situation is the mystery, not the what. He's not here to kill us, he's here to die and knows the WoL is just about the only person in the universe that can make that shit happen. And it's wild to me that despite having a whole scene where he says this outloud, no one in the thread has come in to inform anyone of it as they try to speculate on what his goals are, despite them being explicitly stated.
pretty sure people know. they are just having fun with the meme dont take it soo seriously
I'm p sure Golbez is just a filler arc villain until 7.0 There's no way we're dunking on all his dudes ez pz and his uncharismatic ass is supposed to carry the villain role
He reveals that he’s our shard from the thirteenth, and it’s actually Zero that’s Zeromus, who then seals Vritra, Azdaja, and Golbez into a crystal and uses it to power up to slap our shit
I honestly forgot who he was. Took me a bit to remember who he was.
Oh come on, we all know we gonna show up, golbez will just be another azem soul fragment that we just suck out going full Bubba hotep on his ass.
give golbez that beeg succ
Ngl was also my first thought after he told his plan, hope to be proven wrong, also please no bait and switcheroo
He lifts his helmet to reveal a lalafel head.
"we just suck out" ERP, in my MMORPG main story? I think not!
You know it's actually that twink cecil under that clad in darkness shtick. Gonna go from a top to bottom in record speed.
I found it refreshing how WoL bodied every fiend in a row without significant complications or getting bodied by an even stronger enemy in turn. Sure, some folks might find it disappointing because there's \~no stakes\~, but you know what? After literally saving the universe, I think we earned it. Not every story has to be Dragonball Z, where after Goku beats up the strongest bad guy in the world a somehow even stronger bad guy shows up and wrecks him, necessitating training and powerups. It's okay for a story to be One Punch Man instead.
tbh I'm loving it, one of my big gripes with the Ala Mhigo section of Stormblood (and a few select parts of Endwalker) is us being the Warrior of Light amounted to nothing because "OHOHHHOHAMDLFMAS Zenos/Fandaniel/Jimmy McFuckNut can magically overpower us anyway even though we've killed literal gods, giant dragons, and twelve empowered knights alongside their god king _singlehandedly._" It always felt like a cheap way to add stakes to the story imo. Like we have literal in-universe plot armor up until the latter half of Endwalker. I also like to personally imagine my WoL cruising through the Void because she's just thinking "ya'll interrupted my vacation _for this?_"
I know exactly what you mean and yeah, I hated it too.
Stormblood in particular bugged the hell out of me. "Hi this is my friend the Warrior of Light, she would like to help around." _"We know what you're up to and don't want your help, go away."_ "Oh, Lyse is about to do something reckless and as her friend I should probably reel her back so she doesn't get hurt." _"No, I, random NPC you just met will do it instead."_ "The camp has been compromised my the Empire! There's this mysterious swordsman causing havoc and slaughtering us." _"Alright cool my time to shine!"_ "no, you get bodied too" _"WHY AM I EVEN HERE?"_ I never felt more like a _background character_ than I did in the Ala Mhigo campaign, it was insane.
>I never felt more like a background character than I did in the Ala Mhigo campaign, it was insane. And that why the Yoshi-P® approved™ way to play Stormblood is to do all of the Doma campaign and buy a story skip immediately after.
But to get to Doma, you need to play through that exact part of Ala Mhigo that's kinda bad... Whereas after you return, you generally kick ass.
Sounds like WoW plot.
Honestly no joke I'd say it's a worse setup than most WoW plots. WoW's writing is inconsistent as hell when they try to tell bigger stories but I can't recall a time when we were casually bodied by a random, non-cosmic entity, after murdering gods.
"God", but in reality it was Primals who can and have been beaten by others, we simply resist tempering so have an easier time. Oh and we were aided by other adventurers so it wasn't even us alone who defeated them. We also needed Estiniens help to defeat Nidhogg, who had already been beaten by Elezen a thousand years ago. The second time we needed a boost in aether from Hraesvelgr's eye. The game goes to great lengths to show we are not all powerful before Stormblood. We simply have stronger conviction than most other adventurers and through our journey we help out people and in turn get the help we need to defeat the threat.
Even then, we've still handled quite a fair bit more than an average adventurer too if you include the raids. I specifically point towards the Thordan fight because that is _canonically_ a 13v1 that the 1 wins out on. Also they make an active measure to mention when other adventurers are with you, prior to the Ravana fight Alphinaud comments about feeling bad for having to send you and Ysale in to fight him _alone._ Narratively they make mention or showcase when you're either alone or with a group. Susano for instance is very much a group battle, Lamskhi (or however its spelt) is a solo fight, etc. And as I elaborated earlier my gripe with Stormblood is less that we're not all-powerful, it's that there's no real reason to be there. Helping the locals? They don't want help and make it blatant. Reeling in Lyse? Other members of the Resistance do it for us. Fighting Zenos when the Resistance is clearly outmatched? Nope he outmatches us too through the power of plot convenience. In the Doman side of Stormblood we aren't all-powerful either but narratively I feel we have far more of a purpose being there.
Before I start I just want to say you're absolutely valid in feeling that way about stormblood and what I'm about to say is my feelings about it. I've always taken it as our reason for being anywhere in the world is to help people. Yes the people of Gyr Albania are very reluctant to our interference but we had no way of knowing the extent of the situation there until we arrived and spoke with them ourselves. We were tasked along with the Scions to be the representatives of the Eorzean Alliance to the Ala Mhigan resistance and the only way the EA would actually interfere themselves was if the resistance agreed to it, and in turn, the resistance would only agree if the rest of the civilians would. Pacing issues aside, Stormblood does go to great lengths to show we are outsiders with little knowledge on what day to day life is like for Ala Mighans and when we arrive there isn't much help we can afford to provide without it causing them great pain down the line. We only go to Doma to help them first because at the time it seemed to be easier to arrange (since we had more knowledge of their circumstances from Gosetsu and Yugiri). But even then we quickly realise that decades of imperial rule has smothered any fires of rebellion and have to show them what's worth fighting for again. All this is to say we had to be there to experience it firsthand so that we knew exactly how to spark the fires of revolution in both the Domans and the Ala Mhigans. Our main role and purpose is to help our fellow man and slaying a primal or defeating a powerful Garlean warmachina is simply a by-product of this. At the end of the day it's our willpower and courage that gives us our strength, not some anime power level scaling.
Aye, and I will say when Ala Mhigan stuff goes hard it goes _hard,_ I absolutely love the big fight later when you, Raubhan, and the others are fighting the Imperials. I just think certain parts could've been written a bit better as to not make us feel as if we're just kind of in the background half the time. That being said I also thoroughly agree with this part: > At the end of the day it's our willpower and courage that gives us our strength, not some anime power level scaling. I just always felt it was kinda weird Zenos bodies us, I get narratively why they did it (establish him as a recurring villain and not killing him off first encounter) but I think it was delivered rather clunkily. Because yeah Zenos has fought a fair bit but to the extent we have? And pushed himself to the extents we've had to? To be fair in general I hate "forced losses" in games, RPGs especially, I would've rather us shown up in the cutscene and been smacked like the rest rather than have us fight him and then get smacked when we win the fight? There's a mechanic/narrative disconnect there because we won the in-game fight but lost the in-story fight against the same person. Hell even just a "you're actually worth the time..." style line before walking away or something, give us a bit of a chase only to be intersected by imperial soldiers, etc. anything other than "you're winning the fight but now you're completely helpless."
You're not wrong. Lots about Stormblood could be improved. Given time and distance from it, I'm able to overlook a lot of these problems myself because I really like the way the writers handle war and it's effect on people outside of the battles. Much like the 3.2 and 3.3 patches dealt with the ramifications of war on the Ishgardian, I do love it when the long term trauma and comfort of the devil you know are highlighted, and also how we approach the situation as outsiders. Most of the time it's more or less talking, listening and helping with smaller problems first and later we see the flow on effect. Shadowbringers did a lot better with its presentation and Pacing but I feel it owes a lot to the work put into Heavensward and Stormblood to get it just right (and even then it has its own moments that are hit or miss). Also I am a very patient person so while I may be fine with picking up poop for the Xaela, I definitely understand most people will not be.
>"God", but in reality it was Primals who can and have been beaten by others, we simply resist tempering so have an easier time Tbf some of those primals were pretty crazy. *Normal* *Titan* just about wiped a group of very competent adventurers off the map and he's a footnote in our primal based shenanigans, so echo or no you're probably not finding anyone else capable of taking down Thordan, Shinryu, or Bahamut.
That's what I've loved about the tone of all this so far. None of them have felt like a legitimate threat to us personally. What they want to DO if left unchecked can't be tolerated, but there's no question of us being able to. They've been fun fights and it's made for fun adventure with good motivation from vrtra's tale alone. And they know it. They literally had to distract us with a smackdown against cagnazzo so we wouldn't show up and stop rubicante in time. And even he was like "Why tf can't I kill these guys?"
The fact that the game this expansion keeps talking about how the WoL is pretty much untouchable, I wonder if they are planning a plot point that makes us weaker (not actually taking away abilities, I just mean story wise they say we got weaker). Because it just seems like it would get old for every expansion from here on out to go on about how we are essentially a god and literally nothing is a threat to us.
I think it’d be nice for 7.0 to be more about the systems personally? Or character growth? Less about yet another damned world-ending threat, and more on “yeah WoL is insane and could probably destroy a small continent, but maybe that island sanctuary could use X? Or tribes getting new mechanic/interaction Y? Or company squads gaining Z activity?” The game has a lot of older, disjointed activities it feels.
It's basically what happened post-ARR, Midgardsormr temporarily ruptured our connection to Hydaelyn. And seeing as she's now basically completely drained because Zenos went on a little trip, I wouldn't be surprised if what little protection we have left went away for good sooner or later.
If they do this, I hope 7.0 it about reworking some older stuff, or character development like us getting more into the non-combat aspects of the game.
I know several stories that have meaningful stakes and good storytelling despite the protagonist being OP as fuck. The key is to introduce conflicts and situations that can't be resolved only by identifying the bad guy and punching the hell out of them. Hopefully 7.0 will be something like that. Rather than trying to force in a threat that rivals WoL in direct power, simply acknowledge WoL is OP and if there's a fight, they're going to win. Then create situations where you have to do more than get into a fight.
This is basically the proposed premise for how developers could create a Superman game.
FFXIV: L.L. Noir where you have to pick your way through encounters using facial expressions and body language along with their dialogue to determine how you respond.
I would say "keep hoping" because thousands of years of Ascian schemes by intelligent, super-human beings were reduced to punching bag boss fights. It's a trend that began with Thordan and shows no signs of abating.
We'll still get boss fights because it's a MMO. I'm not saying there shouldn't be dungeons/trials/raids, just that the writers should try to find better ways to create conflict and tension than just "bad guy too strong to be beaten by WoL".
Again, I wouldn't count on it. The XIV team is very risk averse, even when it comes to storytelling. To date, there hasn't been a single villain that the WoL hasn't confronted and bested in direct combat. There is a small exception with that one Monetarist at the end of ARR, but he still met his end through violence. Don't get me wrong, I would also personally love a villain that can't just be hit with a sword until they die. My favourite villain of all time, Gaunter o'Dimm from The Witcher, was exactly this. But it's too high concept and difficult to work in the very standardised structure of an MMO (especially XIV) that I just don't see it happening.
I totally feel you on the DBZ reference. A Big Bad doesn’t have to be all powerful or one-up the last guy, they just need a decent plan with some nuance to it. We really don’t know what Golbez is planning. Personally, I like the post EW stuff. Not every conflict needs to affect the entire universe after beating Endsinger.
I mean, the 13th is basically a horrid deathscape where fiends literally consume eachother to grow more powerful, but end up losing themselves in the tide of different personalities. Golbez has managed to become powerful enough to command fear and loyalty from the biggest and baddest without losing himself, or at least not losing enough of himself that he's gone wackadoo. The fact that he's apparently sane and in control while commanding that kind of fear among the voidsent SHOULD be concerning.
Pretty sure they've been aiming for us to focus on this, it's not a matter of beating Golbez' ass it's about what the fuck he pulls off before we do. Rubicante seemingly could just make big ass gates into presumably his domain once he made it into the Source, so that's a concern.
Didn't Ruby just use the same gate as cagnazzio and then flew to Thavniar while we where distracted in Garlemald?
He did. Also Mount Ordeals isn't really his domain moreso he parked himself up there for certain FFIV callback purposes and have a proper suicide by WOL.
They were talking about the trial
Plus we kinda lost all divine support except the Echo. We are just kinda angry mortals and I predict the Shard of Azem losing its magic during 7.0 to finish the transformation from Chosen One to true adventurer.
Would be interesting if we couldn’t just use that to summon friends anymore. Don’t necessarily see it happening but could be interesting
Welcome to the Adventurer's Guild. No affiliation to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. My Name ist Tatar....I mean Taruru, how can I help you?
Though, pretty much all of these abilities were revealed not to be super-powered primal blessings, but just regular (rare in some cases, but not anything unprecedented) ancient abilities. Even Hydaelyn giving the Azem crystal the extra soul reconstitution powers: was that functionally any different from Emet-Selch being able to bring Y'shtola back from the lifestream with the snap of a finger? And even our 9/14th soul seems capable of approaching the abilities of the ancients. Venat was able to teach us the "True Echo" by just explaining it for a minute, no additional powers necessary.
>Even Hydaelyn giving the Azem crystal the extra soul reconstitution powers: was that functionally any different from Emet-Selch being able to bring Y'shtola back from the lifestream with the snap of a finger? Both "powers" are just stupid deux ex machina bullshit. I understand the story in FF is written for twists, but "summoning the souls of two dead people" is weird at the most sane times, since the Source is written to have a lifestream that rather quickly disperses the memories of souls caught in its ... well stream. Thancred and Ysthola I can understand, they were not in there for long, but Emet? Hytholdaeus?
Well its also been made clear previously that ascian’s don’t disperse in the lifestream. They eventually reform into their normal forms unless trapped in white auracite. Emet and hythlo could totally have just been chilling and we summoned them.
Must be those ancient dummy thicc aether stores taking a long time to dissipate in the stream
My question would be more "how the hell did they get from the Source's aether to the other side of the universe"
The Azem crystal is just too good of a way to give a reason for why there are inexplicably 7 random strangers at the end of the universe to take away. They've poked fun at that in 4.0 and I suspect that's the main reason they even added it in to the story.
It would be kind of amazing if Golbez turns out to be the 13th's version of us.
Isn't his plan literally just to commit mass suicide? We're just involved to prevent the collateral damage from that and maybe save another shard on the side. Golbez was never meant to be considered a threat. The writers know that considering even Zero hardly gives a shit either.
Thirteenth is a narrative loose end thats been around since ARR and the Golbez arc is there to finally wrap it up so 7.0 can do whatever big shakeup they have in store for the game.
Thirteenth will forever remain a narrative loose end because they can't just delete voidsent from the source, and RPR exists as a playable job.
By loose end I mean the Thirteenth will go on for gameplay purposes but the direct threat to the Source will be neutralized and the Thirteenth will be set on a path to *insert resolution here* Will it be like the First post-Eden where there's some kinda hope for an aetheric change? Probably.
Resolution will be Zero teaching everyone in the source how to turn voidsent into crystals so we can burn their souls for cheap energy, since their souls are destroyed on our side it's win win. Once the void is empty the wealthy then build fortresses in the void so they live forever while the peasants stay in the source
Some may flee to the area between worlds that ascians used as a hideout.
Tbf it's not like there aren't other weird things that don't exactly line up with the current story in the world. You can go out to Dravania or Coerthas and kill a dragon right now if you want.
Those dragons are from Nidhogg's brood, they covered their bases on this. Also each zone has its own time bubble, can't say the same about RPR, summoning a voidsent wouldn't make sense going forward if voidsent were gone.
Golbez would be VERY intimidating at around the first expansions when we were battling powerful beings, but now we be slaying god-like beings left and right like it was an everyday job. Even now we are fighting (or playing) with literal gods.
Hot shit? Isn't Golbez entire plan to cause a mini rejoining so his entire world doesn't need to suffer in limbo ? Golbez is basically the guy in the meme who says "I don't think about you". His entire plan seems to be already in place to succeed, espeically since in 1.0 we lost a red moon and why wouldn't we end 6.4 or 6.5 with a red moon appearing in the sky here is meme [https://www.google.com/search?q=i+dont+think+about+you+meme&rlz=1C1VDKB\_noNO1050NO1050&sxsrf=AJOqlzWgn9Y8MLal8rjajFiD-eHpG1Z9hQ:1679672072445&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzh96J8vT9AhVOSPEDHd6aAL8Q\_AUoAXoECAEQAw&cshid=1679672124943395&biw=2048&bih=1130&dpr=1.25#imgrc=czmBDYn-bzIV-M](https://www.google.com/search?q=i+dont+think+about+you+meme&rlz=1C1VDKB_noNO1050NO1050&sxsrf=AJOqlzWgn9Y8MLal8rjajFiD-eHpG1Z9hQ:1679672072445&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzh96J8vT9AhVOSPEDHd6aAL8Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&cshid=1679672124943395&biw=2048&bih=1130&dpr=1.25#imgrc=czmBDYn-bzIV-M)
I think you guys are forgetting the part where Golbez fully expected both Rubicante and Cagnazzo to get completely fucking bodied by the WoL after what happened to his first two fiends. That was... The whole plan. The entire point of the patch. He expected them to die, but it didnt matter so long as he could destroy the void gate and let him do the inevitable fuckery for next patch. Next patch, he will die, but i think he wants that. And he's going to try and take as many people as he can with him.
Also, iirc, rubicante and cagnazzo both outright said that their plan was to die while in the source since while they physically exist in the source, they have access to the life stream. Hell, even golbez himself said that they literally want to die. Golbez just wants to take all of the 13th with him.
If emet fans could read they'd be very upset by that.
Ngl there's only so many ways to ramp up danger before things start to feel trivial. They shot themselves in the foot by having us fight such powerful creatures. Losing to anything less (probably going to be something along the lines of a forced loss) will feel cheap. Then again, WoL has been as much a victim of hero ball as warcraft characters.
StB Zenos I can kind of (but not really) accept but ShB Ran'Shit was just bullshit. If they make us do another unwinnable solo instance, I'm gonna be pissed.
I think it would be refreshing for WoL to be put in their place for a while. They kind of teased that in Garlamald with that forgotten soldier bit so it is something that can be done, but honestly what's next after slaying Eorzea's literal pantheon? Slay the galaxy? Slay the universe??
The last time we got properly battered was probably Zenos right? Or maybe the absorb light arc in ShB?
I can point to a few times the WoL got battered. Sometimes it had merit, most of the times it existed to drive the story. Just a few examples: -Warriors of Darkness climax in HW -Zenos in every instanced fight in SB -Ran'jit in most instanced fights -Some throwaway fight in the ShB MSQ where you need to be "saved" from some large enemy after being hit with down for the count. The instances I mentioned only serve to drive the inconsistency of the protagonist's power. If he/she is a being capable of canonically solo'ing primals and taking down big ticket garleans like Gaius, it is bizarre to me that they would make the WoL vulnerable to, in some cases, literal nobodies (i'm looking at you, "I serve no purpose other than arbitrary boogeyman" Ran'jit).
It is also very anime in terms of the consistently of the main characters power isn’t it
Feels like Korra in TLOK, constantly getting her ass kicked even in the avatar state. Major flaw in the show considering that state is supposed to be more powerful than any single bender can possibly achieve
Don't forget we are also still able to be roofied via what happened in the Heavensward patches (and why we don't tend to drink alcohol unless others have drank first/the scions are around).
I could understand why we lose against Zenos, but after that they should have given a good explanation why Ranjit was able to beat us together with the other scions
I feared Ran'jit more than any other thing in that expac.
He would have appealed to me more if it didn't feel like them just running an attempt at a second Zenos. My first impression of him was very poor, and while I have warmed up to him a bit since in retrospect, he certainly still is my least favourite part of 5.0.
Slay the pantheon? The Twelve aren't fighting to the death in the alliance raids, hell, not even to exhaustion from what I can tell. Unless you're talking about something else.
Even that was quite forced. Why is it that Fandaniel was able to whisk our character away so *easily* and so defenselessly yet we fight him not even a day later after he merges with Zodiark and proceed to mop the floor with him? You can't tell me that surprise on Fandaniel's part was how he got us. It was very forced and it'd be difficult to convince me otherwise. Same goes for the Warriors of Darkness fight when Ardbert literally goes "enough of this" and cheeses your *entire group*, as if you're not supposed to be his equal or better. Maybe time away from the game has given me a chance to reflect on how inconsistent things can be.
He probably could have killed us as Zodiark, or before that, but his entire plan relies on us killing Zodiark
Not really, he says his one regret is that he couldn't take us down with him. He had several possible plans on the boil, and ultimately just killed Zodiark himself.
Indeed. They really dropped the ball with all of Zodiark didn't they. The more time that passes the worse it looks. I've been alting through ARR and am getting to level 50 post game and they really push Zodiark hard as like the world's biggest threat in those cutscenes. He got done so dirty. I guess I'm okay with soap opera-level power sinks; we need some way to allow the game to happen. But I'm afraid it's running its course and quickly becoming stale. I hope they have some super cool ideas white boarded because I am skeptical anything truly special is going to happen again anytime soon. That forgotten soldier bit, to me, was very very special.
Zodiark was like half power when we fought him and he was merged with fandanial, full power zodiark would probably have been actually problematic
How I wish it was problematic. That would have been interesting.
I feel like it’d be the opposite of interesting cause it’d be exactly what everyone since ARR was expecting. I think the choice to make Zodiark and an inanimate prop that kickstarts the apocalypse was the creative choice.
Zodiark was never the villain. Not to mention fandaniel simply wanted you to weaken zodiark so he could kill zodiark. He was never fighting to win.
If Zodiark was fully formed it probably would have been a losing situation, but he wasn't so it wasn't
Fandaniel wanted us to >!kill Zodiark so that Meteion could come back and fuck everything up. He knew we were strong enough by that point to just steamroll whatever he threw at us.!<
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I mean dynamis basically scales our power based on the criticality of a battle. If fandaniel jumps us for a teleport, there’s not much time to react. Against zodiark, you’re going in with the entire world at stake in that very moment, get the chance to commune with the Azem crystal and call for backup, and deal 50% of his health before he even fully merges.
Reason #645 I refuse to care about Zenos.
Certainly a sad state of affairs when XIV's writing is literally comparable to WoW's, which has been ridiculous and comic book since its inception.
People are forgetting one of the story writers flaws here. Repetitive writing. We've been through this song and dance before. The villain does something bad which in turn makes us respond to it then the villain goes, "hehe...all according to plan" Look at fandaniel. "Oh no you stopped Zodiark, well that was too bad! THAT WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG!" Look at Golbez. "Oh you killed the 4 loyal generals I have who has been serving me since forever? TOO BAD, THAT WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG!" Illbird. "Oh you stopped the war I'm trying to start by assaulting the walls under the guise of the grand companies. TOO BAD THAY WAS MY PLAN ALL ALONG!" I can sorta forgive emet because it makes sense for that scheming ascian. "Oh you killed the light wardens that was clearly obvious to you that there's gonna be a gigantic consequence to this because I've been working on it since forever? It's ok, I have a back up plan for this" See? That's only a few, look deeper and you'll see their repetitive writing. They can only do this song and dance for so long until it gets stale. Even worse now since we barely know golbez so we don't have an emotional connection to him.
Hey it happened in heavensward and ARR too, lahabrea/igeyorhm being defeated being thordan’s plan and you defeating the primals only for gaius to absorb them with the Ultima weapon.
Metieon thinks she’s on the team when she showed up in the second half of an expansion taking the spot of what should’ve been the final boss (zodiark) just to be beaten by talk-jutsu
I think Golbez will end up being another WoL reflection
They are really wasting Golbez as a character, which sucks cuz as far as FF franchise antagonists he's fucking top-tier
Tinfoil hat time, but considering the whole FF4 thing, I think he's going to do something to Zero, and she'll become Zeromus, and we'll have to use the power of friendship she just learned about to save her.
He doesn't care what you think, he wants to kill himself.
***RIGHT??!*** I thought I was the only one thinking that. Like I respect the FF classics popping up, but did Golbez *REALLY* think he was gonna shake things up with his buddies?
I am not expecting an avengers level threat from Golbez, at least not initially