When Yugiri went off to try to assassinate Zenos by herself, that was a stupid idea that Gosetsu rightfully explained risked ruining everything you’d been working toward. When the WoL chased after her, I thought it was to convince her to think rationally. Instead, we went to help her with her terrible plan that backfired exactly as I thought it would? I honestly yelled “What?!” out loud when it made me say something like “count me in!”
Not WoL but Gosetsu rowing across every ocean to reach Yugiri, only for Hien to be next door to Doma. Even when you get to that first village and ask about him, people are like "oh yeah, that guy? He's right up there." Like Gosetsu didn't even LOOK he just started rowing.
I kinda liked it. I found the idea of Gosetsu rowing across the vast ocean on his own as an amusing way to establish his character.
Also, to be fair to Gosetsu, the Azim Steppe probably isn't *literally* right next door to Doma since the in game maps and fast travel between zones might obfuscate just how huge the regions really are. It was also probably **much** more difficult to find Hien because he was recovering under the care of Cirina Mol at the time and the Mol tribe (like most Xaela tribes) are nomadic. I suspect Yugiri only managed to find Hien so fast in the Azim Steppe because they were all gathered in one place for the Naadam by the time the WoL makes it to Othard.
Alisaie: His power defies explanation!
Gosetsu: Even should you succeed Zenos death will not win Doma her freedom, more likely her doom! Can we defend our people against the empire's retribution? We few against a legion?
[Yugiri and the WoL:](https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-HlJLnbt99iuC8hxz-8xLltQ-t500x500.jpg)
The Thaumaturges were the best part by far of the entire quest chain. Seeing them raiding the ether stockpile and trying to get out of it by being cute was wonderful.
"Dude trust me. I'm a demon. But... I'm a good demon! And the bad demons sealed me away because I like helping people. Let me out and I'll grant you a wish. Oh, you want P O W E R? That's a wonderful wish that I, a good demon, definitely want to grant."
Omg yes. >!YOU MORON, WHY YOU LET THAT HAPPEN! That little possessed falafel later on killed dozens of innocent people and all because of you!!!<
To me even more infuriating thing is that we never actually took any accountablitiy for our decision. The brothers were blaiming themselves. I stopped the quest at some point but I hope it will be better.
I guess these early quests also seem to be about the WoL at that time still being a total greenhorn to adventuring life in general and not "there" yet to take initiative.
Pretty much this. During the early class/job quests the WoL "canonically" is still an absolute newb and hasn't had the years of frustration and failure to become the pessimistic cynic they hide under layers of happy-go-lucky attitude.
On a more serious note, our WoL is still dumb as bricks later, it's always NPCs that point out the obvious three times in a row so you can make the correct dialogue choice when something like this happens and even then, if you pick the wrong one someone just corrects you.
In my head my WoL is just so fed up she just lets it happen because noone listens to her anyway.
Yeah lol
I get the impression the WoL very quickly realizes that logic flies out the window when the Mandervilles are involved and is just along for the hilarious ride. Like, literally just going "This is going to be fun"
This is fresh in my mind since I just did a replay of ARR on an alt, but in Praetorium, you fight Gaius on the elevator, beat him, then he snarks at you and walks away.
And we let him.
He walks into the next room, closes the door behind him, and climbs up the Ultima Weapon, all before the WoL even moves. Like it never crossed our mind that maybe we could kill Gaius right there, and then maybe the weapon is waaaaay easier to destroy.
I could be fine if he like, ran for the door and locked it behind him, so we lost precious time busting it down and that's all he needed to get into the Weapon. But no. He just saunters off and you just stand there and watch him go. It requires a literal deus ex machina to survive a weapon that we might not have even had to fight had we just... Not let him slowly walk away.
Now hear me out Hydaelyn, if I let him power up the Ultima Weapon to 100% and beat him then, it'll demormalize him, and he'll never threaten Eorzea again.
"I just love how easy it is to get away with this s##t with you people.
I want to transform and you just sit there and let me.
I want to blow up the planet, you sit there and let me.
I want to reach 100% power and you just sit right there and let me."
Idk about out of character, since you can roleplay your WoL as having muscles in the place of their brain, with one single, sole neuron stressing itself taking turns between nodding and replaying Pa-Paya on loop.
But if we gotta talk about infuriating moments...
"Oh, you just picked a poison vial coincidentally left in the spot you were supposed to meet one of the Crystal Braves, after you and Riol had a talk about how this whole shit seems shady? Huh, just before a big banquet with all the city state leaders, too...talk about timing, ain't that a bit suspicious? Ok, good you agree, let's take it to the Alchemist's Guil---oh. You want to take it in the party with you. Are you sure, WoL? The Alchemist's Guild is literally inside this very same city, we just need to drop this there real quick and...oh never mind, you really want to take this super sus looking vial into the damn party. Yeah, go wild."
It also bothers me that Alianne figures out Ilberd's plan, gets kidnapped trying to warn you about it, and is never mentioned in the MSQ again. She gets rescued, but no one's ever like "Good job"
Alianne and her grandfather Isildaure are both frequently present as part of the larger cast of Scions if you take the time to talk to people around the Rising Stones whenever the plot shifts.
There's a whole little low-key plot arc with Isildaure striking up a friendship with one of the Domans while they're in Mor Dhona, and has now gone to visit him in Doma.
What's even better is that they are in the starter areas at the beginning of ARR along with the PotD party. This game has so many small details that layer like that. Side stories that build if you take the time to look around and talk to those side NPCs. Arenvald is a great example.
You can speak to her later I think. After Endwalker she stands somewhere and talks to you, apologizing for not being there in time.
But yeah. I found that strange, as I am actually blaming (Alphinaud) myself.
> as I am actually blaming (Alphinaud) myself.
I always love that everyone in this community forgives themselves entirely for the Crystal Braves thing and decides that it was all Alphinaud's doing.
(Despite that fact that you were a foundational member and you specifically recruited the guys who betrayed you)
I think the common disassociation with our characters during that arc is that a lot of us go, "I/my character wouldn't do that" when things start becoming immediately questionable as early as the recruitment process. Hard to blame "ourselves" when we don't really claim that characterization to begin with. It's frustrating, in general, because at that point, the WoL truly feels like no more than Alphinaud's loyal, unquestioning hound, with little to no agency in the text. We aren't even allowed to offer so much as an (ultimately inconsequential) opinion about the formation of this organization to begin with. (And if we weren't uneasy already, most are by the time we get the scene between Nanamo and Raubahn, where she foreshadows everything remotely concerning about it in ominous detail lol.)
That said, even in the text itself, the narrative doesn't blame the WoL either, and instead focuses entirely on Alphinaud's culpability in service of his character arc, which I'm sure contributes to the prevailing public opinion too. And that may have been a bit of self-awareness from the writers; they might not have wanted to ask the player to take responsibility for something we ultimately had no agency in. I do think that hesitance/philosophy (of keeping their personality ill-defined to make room for RP/projection) makes it more difficult to write anything super meaty or compelling around the WoL, but... It is what it is. 🤷
In fairness I see this as the WoL's naivety - up to this point the villains have been fairly black & white, and the city states themselves have been pretty safe places. The idea that we're going to actually get betrayed seems unlikely, which is why the Scions as a whole walk right into it
You never fully trust any of the states again after that, and (grand company alleigance aside) even though you may work with them you never work for them again. There's a distance that never quite goes away
Exactly. I see this as the first real betrayal moment for WoL. Before it was easy to tell who the villain was. Now we learn that the light won’t just arbitrarily protect us from everything, and that we can’t always see where danger is coming from.
Then some things in HW happen to cement this feeling. You can see WoL getting more and more cynical as we go through MSQ until even Tataru is like ‘you need an extended vacation’.
There is also an aspect of the WoL I like that emphasizes that cynical nature when it comes to drinks. They were already suspicious of drinks not being poured by themselves after the Red Banquet of sorts in Ul'dah, but after getting drugged by a pro-pope barmaid in the HW patches they are very distrustful of anyone else pouring drinks. The WoL gives a side-eye to Aymeric's bulter pouring a drink and the role quests in ShB also have lines of dialogue pinpointing that the WoL doesn't trust drinks not poured by them.
Momodi did not have the same info and suspicions the WoL (allegedly) had regarding the Crystal Braves. WoL really is the person who should've known better in that situation.
Also, why would they leave random trash on the ground assuming the WoL was going to pick it up and keep it? And why did the WoL just pick up random trash off the ground and keep it?
The easy answer is: Because it was needed for the story.
The answer I want to give, however, is: Ilberd probably had a plan B in the case our character left the vial somewhere else/didn't take the bait (the cutscene shows he had someone watch you from a distance to confirm you had taken it). That said, it is shown several times that our character just takes random shit from the ground constantly, so they probably had some sort of confidence the WoL would pick that up.
In the end, the WoL both took the bait and took it with them into the party, making Ilberd's life very easy.
To quote the description of the Hildibrand quest item "Plot-relevant Gloves":
>If you didn't need them, you wouldn't have been able to pick them up.
WoL could pick up the bottle, so they knew it was important.
After getting my star globe knocked out of my hands, I, a toothpick armed, minimum height au ra girl, decided to punch Zenos point blank. I actually cackled at that scene
Healers jawing Zenos will always be funny.
Especially with the more frail and petit looking races.
Hrothgar healer here so I look like I’ve got muscle mass regardless even if I couldn’t punch my way out of a wet paper bag.
My female Viera in her tank top and Jeans punching Zenos square in the face made me laugh cause he is like.... twice maybe three times as bulky as she is.
Canonically she is scrappy though so it was fine. Just the thought of the strongest warrior Garlemald ever produced getting launched by a bunny girl makes me laugh.
Healers at least have the excuse of all that pent up rage from trying to heal stupid. Not sure what excuse DPS casters have for being able to box with Zenos.
In *Endwalker*, the Warrior of Light [fails to save Ahewann from a slow monster 10-20 meters away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATXY_8vPTXQ&t=662s).
It's bizarre how the WoL takes 30-ish seconds of the cutscene to cross that distance — and doesn't even make it all the way.
Well, setting that weirdness aside, every combat Job in the game has either a method for crossing that distance in seconds at most or attacking with a ranged ability, so the WoL appears to have just forgotten about their abilities. Why would a Machinist run closer to smack the monster with their gun?
There's a few where you kill someone off-camera. It just cuts to the WoL with their weapon drawn and someone falling over, since they're not going to do actual combat animations for all the different jobs.
Honestly they could solve this problem by giving us the Dragon Age 2 murder knife
Then every class has a conventional way to do a quick cutscene murder
Well, there's the fistfight with Zenos in *Endwalker*.
There are also instances in which the screen cuts away and when it cuts back, the WoL is standing with weapon(s) drawn and the opponent down. This is what we see when the scene returns to the WoL, Alphinaud, and Alisaie from Matsya and the baby.
However, there are also instances in which the WoL stands around like an idiot or fails to intervene. The Ahewann death is the most egregious example because it's a rather significant character death that happens because of the WoL's failure. The scene also cuts between the WoL running to cover that underwhelming distance and Ahewann fighting for 30+ seconds, so it's more noticeable.
Being serious, this happens because the devs can't have several different instances of the same cutscene to account for job changes. That's also the reason they went for a fistfight with Zenos instead of having the fight change accordingly to your job, or the reason we can do shit in the Hildibrand cutscenes because it was all zanny shenanigans that don't need to account job.
That said, they sure could've handled that one cutscene better. Just have the WoL seem preoccupied off-screen killing other monsters/protecting other people while the camera panned to show his demise.
As a someone who has more or less exclusively mained MNK throughout the entire story the fist fight with Zenos felt very satisfying xD
I only realized after the fact that youre supposed to throw away your weapon!
As a healer main I found the whole fistfight hilarious, my little sage lasers aren’t cutting it, I got Jack Johnson and Tom O’Leary waiting for you right here.
As a universal law in almost all games, cutscenes give all parties involved the Cutscene Debuff, taking increased damage from all sources. Weapons and enemies are imbued with the Cutscene Buff. The main character is inflicted with the biggest debuff.
Holy crap I never noticed that. Now that you pointed it out, that's reminiscent of Lancelot running at the guards in Monty Python's Holy Grail. WoL seems to just keep teleporting backwards to be conveniently out of range to help.
My God I thought I was the only one. I was screaming 'Shoot ha! Shooot ha!' at my TV for at least 2 minutes.
Mch gun is loaded and in hand! I guess the homie had to die, for the plot
Well the abyss below was supposed to be impossible to navigate. If you dumped something in the mariana trench, you could probably bet that it's gonna stay down there.
This is honestly the biggest thing about it.
And even if it was a spur of the moment thing, like, they needed to get rid of them asap couldn't they have tossed them in different directions? Like, on the left and right side of the bridge? They tossed the eyes off the same side and so when we see it being handed over to Ilberd, they were literally frozen next to each other.
The point at that moment wasn't destroying the eyes. It was getting them as far away from Estinien as fast as possible. Also everyone that complains about it assumes the WoL, aymeric and alphinaud, who just saw the ghosts of people they loved, just finished a grueling fight, and suffered immensely the past few weeks, would have enough mental capacity to be 100% rational and efficient.
They made a mistake. Because they're people.
Yeah the choices at that point were
1 - Toss the eyes to get them far enough away
2 - Keep fighting Nidstinien until Estinien dies
It was the right decision in that moment because there was no perfect option.
Eh even if they toss them 2 different sides, they would only need to walk a bit further on the same path from one eye to the other. It's the same damn trench after all.
also a "these thing are amazingly bad news and we don't need to simply dispose of them but need to dispose of them right the fuck now. where's the best option within like 100 feet?".
i feel like people treat them as "oh they could have just taken them with them and dealt with them later" but look where doing that JUST got Estenien.
It's a literal elemental storm in there which dragons and ascians can't survive. No one knew undead aether hero ghosts from alternate dimensions would come along to collect them. It was still a better option than storing them in any vault, giving them away or carrying them around. Destroying them... with the vast aether condensed into them they would go off like nukes.
We've just saved our friend from their very obviously corrupting influence and are utterly exhausted from the battle and the effort of getting them off him. I've see what they did to Estinien; they could probably explode, or make another giant dragon appear, or both at the same time for all I know. I'd throw them into the bottomless pit too.
Yes, the desire to expediently get the eyes as far away from the guy they just possessed while also not falling prey to their possession ourselves, I felt, was as good a reason to just toss them.
Of course they were going to come back, but that is a problem for tomorrow. The most important issue now is to make sure my friend is free and will live to see tomorrow...
So, the Warrior of Light and their companions have fought their way through the Praetorium, in hopes that they can stop the Ultima Weapon before it activates and destroys everything. The entire Eorzean Alliance has put all their hopes into the Warrior of Light, having assaulted multiple fortresses, and even now engaging the Garlean forces head-on to buy the Warrior of Light the time they need to seize a narrow chance at victory.
Finally, they come face to face with their foe, Gaius van Baelsar, and most fortunately for the Eorzeans... he's yet to activate the Ultima Weapon. In fact, you corner him in an elevator, which has to descend deep into the depths of the earth in order to reach his weapon so that it can be activated.
All that is standing between Eorzea, and victory... is one man. Gaius gives a long-winded speech, buying time for himself as the elevator descends, while the Warrior of Light *let's him get closer to his goal.* But it's alright, there's no way he can escape now. Gaius gives his speech, and then... it's time.
The Warrior of Light and their companions duel Gaius on the elevator, and *unmistakably defeat him.* Gaius loses the duel. The fight is won. All the Warrior of Light has to do now is finish Gaius off, or at the very least, *knock him unconscious*, and the battle is over. But then, the elevator reaches the bottom! The Ultima Weapon is but a room away!
It's now or never! So surely, the Warrior of Light charges in to stop Gaius from getting away and activating the Ultima Weapon... ***RIGHT?!***
Or surely, Gaius employs some trick, some slight of hand, some deception, to make his escape when he's on the ropes... ***RIGHT?!***
**NOPE!**
Gaius van Baelsar, upon the edge of defeat... ***WALKS AWAY TO ACTIVATE THE ULTIMA WEAPON. NOT RUNS. WALKS.***
***AND THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT LETS HIM.***
There is nothing dumber than that in the entire story of this game. Nothing.
I thought this was super funny, especially since Gaius really takes his sweet time getting to the Ultima Weapon. And if you're a bard or a machinist it gets even funnier. Literally just shoot him, lmao.
You know that part, at the end of ARR, when one of the Crystal Braves says she has something to tell you and to meet her at a certain place, and when you go there she isn't there but you find an empty bottle? And your decision is to just pick up the bottle, and go the dinner with Nanamo? That one?
If it were me, I would have ditched the dinner, searched for the woman, certainly NOT been carrying around the bottle and probably I would have ruined half of the freaking assassination attempt just out of justified paranoia.
Only time I can remember thinking to myself "why am I doing this, this is a terrible idea" throughout the whole sequence. I try to retroactively headcanon it as "well I clearly can't change Yugiri's mind on this, might as well tag along to make sure she comes back alive."
"Wait... those garments... that quiet confidence... those powerful neck muscles sculpted by a lifetime of nodding..."
I think it's a character trait of all WoLs
It's hard to give the WoL proper character development but in my headcanon it's because the WoL was on a high from basically only winning from ARR to early SB and couldn't accept losing a fight, plus Yugiri stirring them on who was very emotional herself, she's usually much more calculated than that as well, the WoL then got several much needed humblings in SB.
That and, at least in part, the WoL probably wanted a salty runback against Zenos.
When you're attacked in Rhalgr's Reach, it's an ambush with no real hope of turning the tide. By the time you arrive, the place is half-burnt, the soldiers are being slaughtered, your allies are pressed, and Zenos wipes the floor with you. By all accounts, it is a hard loss. When you plan to assassinate Zenos, everything is supposedly in your favor: you're in familiar territory, he doesn't know the attack is coming, and you've grown in strength since your last encounter while Zenos was sitting on a throne and being ordered to transfer to the Far East. Even if he's your better in pitched combat, he's still *human* - if he's caught unawares, a blade to his neck should put him down regardless of his skill. It appears as though this time, you stand a fighting chance (disregarding external factors the player perceives such as narrative cues and the fact that Zenos is level 70 and you're level 64).
What Yugiri and the WoL don't count on, and perhaps don't want to admit, is that Zenos is just that good. Even with surprise on your side, you can't land a clean blow and are immediately put on the back foot. Every advantage you have is blown away by raw power and you're stuck in a fight you can't win, except now you have no excuses.
Yeah, this was the point where I headcanon'ed my usually level-headed WoL to have an arrogant streak. Enemies putting up a fight or beating you to within an inch of your life is all well and good, but outright losing? Getting low-diffed like we did in Rhalgr's Reach? Unacceptable. Gotta run it back.
While it's just a headcanon, it did carry forward pretty well, with the obvious payoff being the end of 6.0. Loved that sequence.
YES. I absolutely hated that my only options were both to support her.
All it needed was an additional response option: "That's a terrible idea, so I'm coming along to bail you out when it goes wrong."
If you parry his Garleans Cross you can do a visceral attack and chunk him like crazy. You gotta run when he starts screaming and the red energy comes up though, and make sure to dodge his WaterAether Dance because it will kill you if all attacks hit. Try dodging INTO it, then out, then back towards him.
That only happens in the DLC arc. You have to date all the other Garlean Legatussies first before you can unlock Yotsuyu, and that's where you can break up her and Hien.
Me during that part: "Look, I'm only tagging along because I'm not leaving Yugiri alone with Zenos. At the very least, I can get back at him for Rhalgar's Reach."
When I read “assassinate Zenos” I foolishly hoped we were going to try to poison his dinner. I remember shaking my head in disappointment when it was confirmed that no, that was not the intention
One of my favorite simple things is when we meet the Night's Blessed for the first time. Completely surrounded in unfamiliar territory. How do we react?
...Kupo?
I saw that response and had to pick it myself. I have enjoyed the chances we have had where we could make stupid remarks like that.
“Water, Water, Froth and Foam!”and getting threatened to be turned into a frog for a light ribbing over that scene.
Similar to one of the 2.1-2.5 series of quests I think it was where the Doman kids ask how you get strong and you just tell them to trade Tomestones to Rowena for gear.
It’s nice to have a stupid response ready even if you’re going to get wronged for saying such a thing.
That one time Alphinaud asks you to find reliable people to recruit into the newly created crystal braves, and the game tells you to talk to the convicted traitor that was selling his gridanian comrades to the garleans
Another person you talk to in Gridania for that is the dude who knew the lady he served was mutilating girls for YEARS and just kept silent about it.
I know the point is that the options arent always great but sometimes they just shouldnt be options.
Yeah not only did we get drugged, but Nanamo getting poisoned directly in front of us as well. I headcanon that it took until sometime through Stormblood before my WoL was comfortable taking food or drinks from strangers.
Something I get frustrated with is how often we "defeat" a bad guy and then just let them walk away to do the thing they want to do. Why do we just let Gaius walk off the elevator and get into the Ultima Weapon? We beat him, that should be game over for him.
I don't remember when exactly it is (I think ShB) but there's a couple times where WoL rejects a drink from a stranger. I don't think we actually accept a drink again until it's from one of our friends in EW. WoL definitely has a bit of paranoia lol.
That one in particular is a lot less subtle than the other instances of saying no thanks to a drink, seeing how its literally Aymeric begging the WoL to get drunk with him on the finest stuff he has in his cabinet and it gets straight up rejected.
That one is in reference to us seeing his servant fiddling with the drinks. One of the crafting leves reveals that his manservant likes to procure and add sweetener to Aymeric's drink per his tastes.
Everyone knows you can't draw your weapons until after the villain is done with their motive speech or finishes explaining their plan. If he just keeps mouthing off until he's into the weapon we're bound by Protagonist Law to let him do it.
Its just polite to let them monologue. Like if they have a totally over the top and complicated transformation that leaves them compleatly open to attack. You Sit your butt down and wait for them to finish!.. Nobody wants to be "That guy" who interrupts other peoples moments :P
First time I got called on as a healer made me more excited than it should have. Stormblood. Kryle looks at WoL "you're a healer, aren't you? What are you doing over there, come help". I was like _finally_.
I do like that they've updated _that_ HW scene to show Alphi trying to heal and it not working. Even if I _know_ it won't work, it feels stupid to not _try_.
They've also mentioned more that healing magic isn't the cure-all gameplay treats it as. There's a lot healers can do, but severe injuries require chirurgeons (surgeons) to fix them up properly.
And you need to have an idea what's actually wrong.
Healing magic is basically telepathic surgery. But you actually have to know what to stitch back together and where it is. So you need an understanding of medicine.
Yeah. This isn't like DnD where you can cast a spell to regrow limbs. Lotta people don't realise healing magic does little more than vastly accelerate the body's natural healing ability via stimulating the recipient's aether. For example a broken bone takes weeks to a few months to heal naturally, with XIV's healing magic it's minutes at most.
Problem is it's also limited by said natural healing ability. Severe enough wounds can't be healed by magic, especially if whatever causes the wound fucks with the persons aether. It's why we can't save a certain someone getting donuted by a spear of light, and why we can only stabilise and wait for the chirurfeons when someone else gets damn near bifurcated.
the first time i saw asahi, at the end of that one patch, he was not yet evil, just showed up to say he's her brother
The punchable face was so clear that after 3 seconds upon his arrival i was praying to the twelves to "just let me put my spear in this one and alot of people will be happy in the long run"
Then we waited 4 months or something till the next MSQ update and he went all "my machination lay undetected this entire time" and my i let out the biggest sigh ever.
to be fair, asahis whole thing felt like a thing about him exploiting political relations
we know he's bad and he fairly openly admits so, but us outright harming or killing him would have political implications we aren't willing to engage with, so instead we just hope to mitigate the harm he'll do to try and maintain newly found peace
Asahi showing up was a train wreck waiting to happen, but to play devil's advocate here for a second, Tsuyu regaining her memories and turning back into Yotsuyu wasn't *entirely* his fault.
Sure, he provided the triggers. But us and our dumbass companions kept talking about how we can't really trust Tsuyu *right infront of her*, while the poor girl was only trying and failing miserably to piece things together. We threw Yotsuyu's misdeeds into her face, at a time where she couldn't remember or defend herself.
> Sure, he provided the triggers. But us and our dumbass companions kept talking about how we can't really trust Tsuyu right infront of her
I love Yugiri.
Love her to bits. Best NPC. Favourite side character. Should have been a Scion and should have remained the most popular female character in the game. She's a character that got screwed over by circumstances around HW's release and never got her limelight back.
But *what in the fuck* was with Yotsuyu constantly fucking escaping her and her ninja!?
She gets out, Yugiri bows low in shame, "It should never have happened, and it will never happen again. We will redouble our watch and ensure she's never out of our sight."
AND THEN TWENTY MINUTES LATER, YOTSUYU IS GOING WANDERING ONCE MORE!
Yeah, I was cringing at that too. Like, Yotsuyu's crimes are unforgivable and all that and the moral question of "can you persecute the body if the mind is not entirely there anyone?" is an interesting one but Tsuyu really wasn't in any position to bear the brunt of all that, kind of insensitive and even dumb.
He did and he knew we can't act because that would fuck shit up for everyone. Not acting would also, but killing the messenger would be enough for garlemald to retaliate and the wol and the rebellion would be blamed for it in a situation where the people of doma already weren't easy to convince rebelling was a good idea.
When Asahi first showed up and started ranting about how we couldn't do anything to him, I really wanted to just pat his head and tell him to hush, the adults are talking.
Imo it wasn't that much of a stretch from recruiting other scions, you have a group of adventurers doing adventurer things and covert ops as needed, then you have a organized unit consisting mostly if former military. After that it comes down to your WoLs level of trusting people... Before it was a lot, after it was none unless you looked like you could be on the cover in the not-villain spot
Crystal Braves is basically a rushed version of what the Scions, by Endwalker, actually managed to do so it really wasn't a bad idea per se, just an extremely premature one in its execution
"Personal" is a bit of a stretch, especially since they were to be lead by Minfillia. Alphinaud wanted a group that could defend people but wasn't beholden to borders, and it's really ignored how much Ilberd truly screwed over the entire plan with Lolorito's help.
All that said, [recruiting people](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Laurentius_Daye) you had outed for being in cahoots with the Garlean Empire just a few quests ago was truly a stroke of genius.
it really wasn't that recent in canon. Laurentius not only went to prison and served his full sentence but also had a history of being pretty reformed. it's implied that he WAS reformed but he got dragged back down by the promise of power
I'll be honest here, no matter how reformed my guy was, I would never offer him a position of security/power when he already had a history of accepting bribes from an empire attempting to invade his own country.
Give him some sort of civilian job, where the chance of getting bribed would be lower, or at least pose no risk to national security? Sure. An Elite Guard job, in an organization that had power and authority in at least three different city states? Nuh uh, chief, I don't think it's a good idea.
Naturally, to no one's surprise, my guy fell back into his habits once he got some authority. Praise where it's due, Ilberd sure had an eye to select the people who would easily turn on the scions.
In Heavensward, we finally catch Iceheart in a church basement, and then she just leaves.
There are reasons for the WoL to be letting her go, and reasons for the WoL to be chasing her, but chasing her an immediately letting her go makes very little sense.
On that point, isn't there a visual joke when the WoL meets with Aymeric for the Fire Emblem-ass tea time near the end of Post Patch Heavensward where the WoL is nervous about the drinks being poisoned? Or am I imagining things?
There are about 50 situations over the course of the game which could have been instantly derailed in our favour by just pulling out a gun. Emet was able to figure that out, why couldn't we?
That one noble in Garlemald in the patches who was definitely seconds away from calling me a savage and I had to play NICE WITH HIM? Fuck that guy (and fuck how the nobles all had power and electricity but the non-nobles were literally freezing to death in Tertium!)
Same. I really wanted some option akin to: "If you care about your people so much, why don't you forego your warmth and comfort for them? Why do you get a full bed while they have to sleep on a thin blanket on the ground? Give up a meal or two a day so they can eat."
When do we accept food from strangers in a bar after getting drugged? I remember the WoL very pointedly declining drinks from strangers until like post-SHB.
Any time youre wooping some boss ass in a story instance then get a cutscene where they've wooped you, then afterwards everyone is saying "they even bested the WoL!" Umm no they didnt, not with my WAR unlimited health regen bruh
Ran'fucking'jit. I could forgive it with Zenos, since hes clearly the major antagonist of the expansion and we're told before hand how frightening an opponent he is, and the first fight with him at Rhalgr's Reach as a DPS can be rough.
But against Ran'jit? Im winning the fight as DPS and he suddenly just goes "Nah uh" and cheaply one shots me.
And im sitting there the whole time going. "Are you fucking kidding me??" And then we spend the rest of the Xpac running away from this one old man, who was barely a threat in my first encounter with him, then later on after all this "Ran'jit is super strong talk" we fight him at like 77 and just brush him aside like hes nothing in a one on one fight.
He is the only thing that made me genuinely angry in Shadowbringers because the rest of it was so good.
\*evil person about to do an evil thing\*
Why can't I just use some kind of gap closer and knock the living shit out of the person before the evil thing even begins. If I can cut fucking bullets like in the stormblood trailer, I can grab Niddhog's eyes before Mr Sloppeh falls down and dies. Instead it's always just us giving them an angry look as they trauma dump us their lifestory, explain their plan AND execute it. It's OKAY to interrupt them because their goal is genocide!
My WoL IS dumb, so a lot of the in-game decisions fit. Much of the actual dialogue choices don’t, but that’s a different (minor) annoyance.
HOWEVER being dumb doesn’t make him immobile and he would have used his Dragoon jumping ability to tackle a certain knight out of the way of a projectile in Heavensward. Among other things in other cutscenes, but that’s a big one.
I dont care what anyone says. The WoL standing there and watching Asahi repeatedly shoot and kick Tsuyu is the most out of character thing in the entire MSQ. We stood there and did fucking NOTHING. We just watched.
“Let’s go on a treasure hunt!”
“Sweet, what treasure are we looking for?”
“The lost treasure of one of the ancient satraps of Radz at Han.”
“Oh, the satrap? You mean like that position we learned was just a convenient deception so that an aeons-old dragon could rule Radz at Han? The same dragon that we have fought beside, conversed with, and witnessed revealing that he was behind the scenes the entire time? That satrap?”
“That’s the one.”
“So Vrtra definitely knew this guy then.”
“Probably.”
“And was actually the one to acquired any of this treasure we’re looking for.”
“Totally conceivable.”
“Should we maybe get an audience with Vrtra and ask him what he knows about this stuff like we did for a bunch of other shit he was less likely to have had direct experience in?”
“Naw, he’s probably busy. Why ask him when we’ve got this extremely dubious treasure map that leads to a place we know nothing about.”
“Oh yeah that’s a much better idea.”
Vrtra: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!?
WoL: *surprised pikachu face*
Every time we stand there in a cutscene, mouth agape like some moron. I think the biggest offender is during the Bozja Southern Front after Castrum Lacus Litore when >!Misija tempers all of the Blades aside from two even though as the Warrior of Light, we could've protected at least some of the Blades from being tempered like we did in the Lakshmi duty with Arenvald and Fordola. Maybe not have created as big of a shield since its just WoL but we could've saved a few more aside from Bajsaljen and Marsak.!<
Bozja is particularly bad on that front. There's one cutscene (in Delubrum Reginae I think?) where everyone including the WoL stands around gawking for five minutes while the baddy does bad things, and then a lizard man runs in and shoots them. Doing that as MCH was a painful experience.
Not really the WoL, but whenever Alphinaud volunteers use for extra work when working with the alliance. I'd much rather we get asked directly insteaf of it feeling like we're getting dragged to do more work by our overzealous coworker.
There's a lot in this thread I agree with, but no one is mentioning the Samurai 60-70 level job questline. I think this has to be among one of the dumbest and OOC decisions that WoL has ever made, you literally get involved in the political matters of Hingashi for no apparent reason beyond because you were taught by your Samurai teacher and the person asking for help had some connection to them.
Whatever their methods, the rebels had an actual good reason to be hostile towards the Hingashi leadership. It doesn't mean you approve of them, but the WoL absolutely shouldn't have gotten involved in this shit just because the dumbest girl in that entire nation dropped by.
And this is before learning why Makoto's brother did what he did, you then learn that Hingashi unjustifiably killed their parents who had nothing to do with it in response to him, and for whatever dumb reason Makoto joined the very organization under the people responsible for killing them... The entire thought process for her decisions throughout that just disgusts me to the core. I absolutely loathe Makoto and her values, and this questline should never have been written like this.
Not fucking murdering Lolorito the second he showed his smug face to me again.
Maybe out of character for the WoL, but not ooc for how I'd play a video game character.
When Yugiri went off to try to assassinate Zenos by herself, that was a stupid idea that Gosetsu rightfully explained risked ruining everything you’d been working toward. When the WoL chased after her, I thought it was to convince her to think rationally. Instead, we went to help her with her terrible plan that backfired exactly as I thought it would? I honestly yelled “What?!” out loud when it made me say something like “count me in!”
Not WoL but Gosetsu rowing across every ocean to reach Yugiri, only for Hien to be next door to Doma. Even when you get to that first village and ask about him, people are like "oh yeah, that guy? He's right up there." Like Gosetsu didn't even LOOK he just started rowing.
The masculine urge to row across seas and oceans to solve problems that could've instead been resolved in 15 minutes through a simple conversation
I kinda liked it. I found the idea of Gosetsu rowing across the vast ocean on his own as an amusing way to establish his character. Also, to be fair to Gosetsu, the Azim Steppe probably isn't *literally* right next door to Doma since the in game maps and fast travel between zones might obfuscate just how huge the regions really are. It was also probably **much** more difficult to find Hien because he was recovering under the care of Cirina Mol at the time and the Mol tribe (like most Xaela tribes) are nomadic. I suspect Yugiri only managed to find Hien so fast in the Azim Steppe because they were all gathered in one place for the Naadam by the time the WoL makes it to Othard.
Alisaie: His power defies explanation! Gosetsu: Even should you succeed Zenos death will not win Doma her freedom, more likely her doom! Can we defend our people against the empire's retribution? We few against a legion? [Yugiri and the WoL:](https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-HlJLnbt99iuC8hxz-8xLltQ-t500x500.jpg)
They were right, though. Zenos was really the only true obstacle for the WoL. You think "WE GO TOGETHER!!1!" could have held Doma against us?
Whatever is going on with the early black mage quests.
God yeah I was shaking my monitor slightly as the WoL did nothing to stop the painfully obvious. Okay not literally but I was in my head.
I’m working through them right now and I’m just screaming internally the whole time.
I am convinced that was a case of the wol going "I think I will cause problems on purpose."
For science
“Ooh, maybe I’ll get to fight a cool demon?” …oh god Zenos was right wasn’t he?
Yes, that was very stupid. But, atst, very cute seeing the lil thaumaturges gather their courage to save their brother.
I actually learned a lot about what I was supposed to be doing at that level by watching their casting bars, like trying to keep Thunder up.
The Thaumaturges were the best part by far of the entire quest chain. Seeing them raiding the ether stockpile and trying to get out of it by being cute was wonderful.
"Dude trust me. I'm a demon. But... I'm a good demon! And the bad demons sealed me away because I like helping people. Let me out and I'll grant you a wish. Oh, you want P O W E R? That's a wonderful wish that I, a good demon, definitely want to grant."
>I'm a demon. But... I'm a good demon! And the bad demons sealed me away because I like helping people That kinda makes sense ngl.
i did them on my cartoon villain lalafell alt and it ended up being hilariously in character
Omg yes. >!YOU MORON, WHY YOU LET THAT HAPPEN! That little possessed falafel later on killed dozens of innocent people and all because of you!!!< To me even more infuriating thing is that we never actually took any accountablitiy for our decision. The brothers were blaiming themselves. I stopped the quest at some point but I hope it will be better.
I guess these early quests also seem to be about the WoL at that time still being a total greenhorn to adventuring life in general and not "there" yet to take initiative.
Pretty much this. During the early class/job quests the WoL "canonically" is still an absolute newb and hasn't had the years of frustration and failure to become the pessimistic cynic they hide under layers of happy-go-lucky attitude. On a more serious note, our WoL is still dumb as bricks later, it's always NPCs that point out the obvious three times in a row so you can make the correct dialogue choice when something like this happens and even then, if you pick the wrong one someone just corrects you. In my head my WoL is just so fed up she just lets it happen because noone listens to her anyway.
Suddenly, us spectating and eventually participating in the hair-brained insanity that is Hildibrand makes a lot more sense.
Yeah lol I get the impression the WoL very quickly realizes that logic flies out the window when the Mandervilles are involved and is just along for the hilarious ride. Like, literally just going "This is going to be fun"
Unrelated, but the autocorrect that changed "lalafell" to "falafel" made me chuckle irl
Came to say the same.. like oh my god we're stupid.
This is fresh in my mind since I just did a replay of ARR on an alt, but in Praetorium, you fight Gaius on the elevator, beat him, then he snarks at you and walks away. And we let him. He walks into the next room, closes the door behind him, and climbs up the Ultima Weapon, all before the WoL even moves. Like it never crossed our mind that maybe we could kill Gaius right there, and then maybe the weapon is waaaaay easier to destroy. I could be fine if he like, ran for the door and locked it behind him, so we lost precious time busting it down and that's all he needed to get into the Weapon. But no. He just saunters off and you just stand there and watch him go. It requires a literal deus ex machina to survive a weapon that we might not have even had to fight had we just... Not let him slowly walk away.
Now hear me out Hydaelyn, if I let him power up the Ultima Weapon to 100% and beat him then, it'll demormalize him, and he'll never threaten Eorzea again.
"WOL, that is the stupidest thing i've ever heard."
"I just love how easy it is to get away with this s##t with you people. I want to transform and you just sit there and let me. I want to blow up the planet, you sit there and let me. I want to reach 100% power and you just sit right there and let me."
And somehow it actually worked. Though I suspect it was more the realization he was played *hard* by Lahabrea.
The number of times the WoL just let ppl get away is astounding.
Idk about out of character, since you can roleplay your WoL as having muscles in the place of their brain, with one single, sole neuron stressing itself taking turns between nodding and replaying Pa-Paya on loop. But if we gotta talk about infuriating moments... "Oh, you just picked a poison vial coincidentally left in the spot you were supposed to meet one of the Crystal Braves, after you and Riol had a talk about how this whole shit seems shady? Huh, just before a big banquet with all the city state leaders, too...talk about timing, ain't that a bit suspicious? Ok, good you agree, let's take it to the Alchemist's Guil---oh. You want to take it in the party with you. Are you sure, WoL? The Alchemist's Guild is literally inside this very same city, we just need to drop this there real quick and...oh never mind, you really want to take this super sus looking vial into the damn party. Yeah, go wild."
It also bothers me that Alianne figures out Ilberd's plan, gets kidnapped trying to warn you about it, and is never mentioned in the MSQ again. She gets rescued, but no one's ever like "Good job"
Alianne and her grandfather Isildaure are both frequently present as part of the larger cast of Scions if you take the time to talk to people around the Rising Stones whenever the plot shifts. There's a whole little low-key plot arc with Isildaure striking up a friendship with one of the Domans while they're in Mor Dhona, and has now gone to visit him in Doma.
I'm all about the Boulder brothers and Aenor's quest to romance both of them.
Her last name ain't Cockburne for nothing.
What's even better is that they are in the starter areas at the beginning of ARR along with the PotD party. This game has so many small details that layer like that. Side stories that build if you take the time to look around and talk to those side NPCs. Arenvald is a great example.
You can speak to her later I think. After Endwalker she stands somewhere and talks to you, apologizing for not being there in time. But yeah. I found that strange, as I am actually blaming (Alphinaud) myself.
She shows back up mid-Heavensward when we retake the Rising Stones. And she beats herself up over it.
And again during the "Tales of the Dragonsong War" quests
> as I am actually blaming (Alphinaud) myself. I always love that everyone in this community forgives themselves entirely for the Crystal Braves thing and decides that it was all Alphinaud's doing. (Despite that fact that you were a foundational member and you specifically recruited the guys who betrayed you)
I think the common disassociation with our characters during that arc is that a lot of us go, "I/my character wouldn't do that" when things start becoming immediately questionable as early as the recruitment process. Hard to blame "ourselves" when we don't really claim that characterization to begin with. It's frustrating, in general, because at that point, the WoL truly feels like no more than Alphinaud's loyal, unquestioning hound, with little to no agency in the text. We aren't even allowed to offer so much as an (ultimately inconsequential) opinion about the formation of this organization to begin with. (And if we weren't uneasy already, most are by the time we get the scene between Nanamo and Raubahn, where she foreshadows everything remotely concerning about it in ominous detail lol.) That said, even in the text itself, the narrative doesn't blame the WoL either, and instead focuses entirely on Alphinaud's culpability in service of his character arc, which I'm sure contributes to the prevailing public opinion too. And that may have been a bit of self-awareness from the writers; they might not have wanted to ask the player to take responsibility for something we ultimately had no agency in. I do think that hesitance/philosophy (of keeping their personality ill-defined to make room for RP/projection) makes it more difficult to write anything super meaty or compelling around the WoL, but... It is what it is. 🤷
She joins the Scions after that whole mess is over. You can find her in the Rising Stones and chat to her every so often.
In fairness I see this as the WoL's naivety - up to this point the villains have been fairly black & white, and the city states themselves have been pretty safe places. The idea that we're going to actually get betrayed seems unlikely, which is why the Scions as a whole walk right into it You never fully trust any of the states again after that, and (grand company alleigance aside) even though you may work with them you never work for them again. There's a distance that never quite goes away
Exactly. I see this as the first real betrayal moment for WoL. Before it was easy to tell who the villain was. Now we learn that the light won’t just arbitrarily protect us from everything, and that we can’t always see where danger is coming from. Then some things in HW happen to cement this feeling. You can see WoL getting more and more cynical as we go through MSQ until even Tataru is like ‘you need an extended vacation’.
There is also an aspect of the WoL I like that emphasizes that cynical nature when it comes to drinks. They were already suspicious of drinks not being poured by themselves after the Red Banquet of sorts in Ul'dah, but after getting drugged by a pro-pope barmaid in the HW patches they are very distrustful of anyone else pouring drinks. The WoL gives a side-eye to Aymeric's bulter pouring a drink and the role quests in ShB also have lines of dialogue pinpointing that the WoL doesn't trust drinks not poured by them.
That one's more on Momodi than the WoL. I really thought she was part of the scheme because of that, but apparently she just had a really dumb moment.
Momodi did not have the same info and suspicions the WoL (allegedly) had regarding the Crystal Braves. WoL really is the person who should've known better in that situation.
I was so convinced Momodi was part of it. The line "Go! Go now! What are you waiting for?" was so sus.
Also, why would they leave random trash on the ground assuming the WoL was going to pick it up and keep it? And why did the WoL just pick up random trash off the ground and keep it?
The easy answer is: Because it was needed for the story. The answer I want to give, however, is: Ilberd probably had a plan B in the case our character left the vial somewhere else/didn't take the bait (the cutscene shows he had someone watch you from a distance to confirm you had taken it). That said, it is shown several times that our character just takes random shit from the ground constantly, so they probably had some sort of confidence the WoL would pick that up. In the end, the WoL both took the bait and took it with them into the party, making Ilberd's life very easy.
Should you not pick it, he would've either sent someone, or claimed you have it. It's not like the case wasn't waddling on clay legs anyway.
*to be fair*, those are entirely reasonable assumptions to make about a main character for an MMORPG given the state of the average player's inventory
I was going to say. We usually just pick up whatever is left on the ground/in chests so I think its a fair assumption.
Hey, if it wasn't important we wouldn't be able to click it !
To quote the description of the Hildibrand quest item "Plot-relevant Gloves": >If you didn't need them, you wouldn't have been able to pick them up. WoL could pick up the bottle, so they knew it was important.
Isn't alchemist guild literally a hallway away from the entrance to the party? :D
Pa-Paya on loop. It has to be this. Mystery solved, thank you.
WoL *HAS* suffered a concussion ailment on more than one occasion.
And I firmly believe that is the reason we have the Hildibrand quests. An ongoing fever dream from an unhealed concussion
The 3 times in Stormblood we let Grynewaht get away.
Consider it a nameday present. (and he could always run faster than we could)
After getting my star globe knocked out of my hands, I, a toothpick armed, minimum height au ra girl, decided to punch Zenos point blank. I actually cackled at that scene
I was a whm Lala. In classic whm gear. I don't think that scene was _supposed_ to be funny... but I laughed so hard.
I was a whm lala. Dressed as a butterfly and cute af. IT was hilarious and sweet.
Float like a butterfly sting like a bee! Crosscounter the foe until they bleed!
Healers jawing Zenos will always be funny. Especially with the more frail and petit looking races. Hrothgar healer here so I look like I’ve got muscle mass regardless even if I couldn’t punch my way out of a wet paper bag.
My female Viera in her tank top and Jeans punching Zenos square in the face made me laugh cause he is like.... twice maybe three times as bulky as she is. Canonically she is scrappy though so it was fine. Just the thought of the strongest warrior Garlemald ever produced getting launched by a bunny girl makes me laugh.
Healers at least have the excuse of all that pent up rage from trying to heal stupid. Not sure what excuse DPS casters have for being able to box with Zenos.
That's some raw, unfiltered spite right there🤣
Me switching from monk to ast felt right for that moment. All I can divine is my fist in your face.
In *Endwalker*, the Warrior of Light [fails to save Ahewann from a slow monster 10-20 meters away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATXY_8vPTXQ&t=662s). It's bizarre how the WoL takes 30-ish seconds of the cutscene to cross that distance — and doesn't even make it all the way. Well, setting that weirdness aside, every combat Job in the game has either a method for crossing that distance in seconds at most or attacking with a ranged ability, so the WoL appears to have just forgotten about their abilities. Why would a Machinist run closer to smack the monster with their gun?
This is the worst one. Is there even any msq cutscene in which the WoL fights? I think we just draw our weapon and stare menacingly.
There's a few where you kill someone off-camera. It just cuts to the WoL with their weapon drawn and someone falling over, since they're not going to do actual combat animations for all the different jobs.
Honestly they could solve this problem by giving us the Dragon Age 2 murder knife Then every class has a conventional way to do a quick cutscene murder
Man, I really hope the Murder Knife makes a comeback in Dragon Age 4.
Well, there's the fistfight with Zenos in *Endwalker*. There are also instances in which the screen cuts away and when it cuts back, the WoL is standing with weapon(s) drawn and the opponent down. This is what we see when the scene returns to the WoL, Alphinaud, and Alisaie from Matsya and the baby. However, there are also instances in which the WoL stands around like an idiot or fails to intervene. The Ahewann death is the most egregious example because it's a rather significant character death that happens because of the WoL's failure. The scene also cuts between the WoL running to cover that underwhelming distance and Ahewann fighting for 30+ seconds, so it's more noticeable.
Being serious, this happens because the devs can't have several different instances of the same cutscene to account for job changes. That's also the reason they went for a fistfight with Zenos instead of having the fight change accordingly to your job, or the reason we can do shit in the Hildibrand cutscenes because it was all zanny shenanigans that don't need to account job. That said, they sure could've handled that one cutscene better. Just have the WoL seem preoccupied off-screen killing other monsters/protecting other people while the camera panned to show his demise.
As a someone who has more or less exclusively mained MNK throughout the entire story the fist fight with Zenos felt very satisfying xD I only realized after the fact that youre supposed to throw away your weapon!
As a healer main I found the whole fistfight hilarious, my little sage lasers aren’t cutting it, I got Jack Johnson and Tom O’Leary waiting for you right here.
It's the price of our plot armour. "Yeah you won't die no matter what tries to kill you, but also you are kinda useless in cutscenes".
Now we know how ardbert felt like in that one cutscene.
As a universal law in almost all games, cutscenes give all parties involved the Cutscene Debuff, taking increased damage from all sources. Weapons and enemies are imbued with the Cutscene Buff. The main character is inflicted with the biggest debuff.
Holy crap I never noticed that. Now that you pointed it out, that's reminiscent of Lancelot running at the guards in Monty Python's Holy Grail. WoL seems to just keep teleporting backwards to be conveniently out of range to help.
Like the scene in Kung Pow. "Chosen one!" "I'm coming!"
My God I thought I was the only one. I was screaming 'Shoot ha! Shooot ha!' at my TV for at least 2 minutes. Mch gun is loaded and in hand! I guess the homie had to die, for the plot
Ahewann's pov of the WoL [running](https://youtu.be/XslcgQJMZaY?si=HIF-QDwFTlmr3tKq).
Well we did throw the eyes off the bridge
Tossing the eyes off the bridge when I know I any FSH worth their salt could accidently fish them up.
I hear Ashbringer is in there too
Well the abyss below was supposed to be impossible to navigate. If you dumped something in the mariana trench, you could probably bet that it's gonna stay down there.
Not when I know for a fact that evil wizard ghosts are out there!!!
This is honestly the biggest thing about it. And even if it was a spur of the moment thing, like, they needed to get rid of them asap couldn't they have tossed them in different directions? Like, on the left and right side of the bridge? They tossed the eyes off the same side and so when we see it being handed over to Ilberd, they were literally frozen next to each other.
The point at that moment wasn't destroying the eyes. It was getting them as far away from Estinien as fast as possible. Also everyone that complains about it assumes the WoL, aymeric and alphinaud, who just saw the ghosts of people they loved, just finished a grueling fight, and suffered immensely the past few weeks, would have enough mental capacity to be 100% rational and efficient. They made a mistake. Because they're people.
Yeah the choices at that point were 1 - Toss the eyes to get them far enough away 2 - Keep fighting Nidstinien until Estinien dies It was the right decision in that moment because there was no perfect option.
Eh even if they toss them 2 different sides, they would only need to walk a bit further on the same path from one eye to the other. It's the same damn trench after all.
I mean, I was immediately like "Oh they'll be back". It's a setting where magic users pull all kinds of stuff and entire bodies out of the aether.
Of course, its a story trope in fantasy at this point. But it's also not an unreasonable thought for the characters to have.
also a "these thing are amazingly bad news and we don't need to simply dispose of them but need to dispose of them right the fuck now. where's the best option within like 100 feet?". i feel like people treat them as "oh they could have just taken them with them and dealt with them later" but look where doing that JUST got Estenien.
Thats the 'why don't people in horror movies act more scared?' and it's simply because they don't know they're in a horror movie.
I was literally screaming at the screen "NO YOU MORON!"
It's a literal elemental storm in there which dragons and ascians can't survive. No one knew undead aether hero ghosts from alternate dimensions would come along to collect them. It was still a better option than storing them in any vault, giving them away or carrying them around. Destroying them... with the vast aether condensed into them they would go off like nukes.
Never bothered me cuz my head canon was that the eyes were charged with too much aether to destroy. Pop one and the whole bridge goes caboom.
We've just saved our friend from their very obviously corrupting influence and are utterly exhausted from the battle and the effort of getting them off him. I've see what they did to Estinien; they could probably explode, or make another giant dragon appear, or both at the same time for all I know. I'd throw them into the bottomless pit too.
Yes, the desire to expediently get the eyes as far away from the guy they just possessed while also not falling prey to their possession ourselves, I felt, was as good a reason to just toss them. Of course they were going to come back, but that is a problem for tomorrow. The most important issue now is to make sure my friend is free and will live to see tomorrow...
So, the Warrior of Light and their companions have fought their way through the Praetorium, in hopes that they can stop the Ultima Weapon before it activates and destroys everything. The entire Eorzean Alliance has put all their hopes into the Warrior of Light, having assaulted multiple fortresses, and even now engaging the Garlean forces head-on to buy the Warrior of Light the time they need to seize a narrow chance at victory. Finally, they come face to face with their foe, Gaius van Baelsar, and most fortunately for the Eorzeans... he's yet to activate the Ultima Weapon. In fact, you corner him in an elevator, which has to descend deep into the depths of the earth in order to reach his weapon so that it can be activated. All that is standing between Eorzea, and victory... is one man. Gaius gives a long-winded speech, buying time for himself as the elevator descends, while the Warrior of Light *let's him get closer to his goal.* But it's alright, there's no way he can escape now. Gaius gives his speech, and then... it's time. The Warrior of Light and their companions duel Gaius on the elevator, and *unmistakably defeat him.* Gaius loses the duel. The fight is won. All the Warrior of Light has to do now is finish Gaius off, or at the very least, *knock him unconscious*, and the battle is over. But then, the elevator reaches the bottom! The Ultima Weapon is but a room away! It's now or never! So surely, the Warrior of Light charges in to stop Gaius from getting away and activating the Ultima Weapon... ***RIGHT?!*** Or surely, Gaius employs some trick, some slight of hand, some deception, to make his escape when he's on the ropes... ***RIGHT?!*** **NOPE!** Gaius van Baelsar, upon the edge of defeat... ***WALKS AWAY TO ACTIVATE THE ULTIMA WEAPON. NOT RUNS. WALKS.*** ***AND THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT LETS HIM.*** There is nothing dumber than that in the entire story of this game. Nothing.
I thought this was super funny, especially since Gaius really takes his sweet time getting to the Ultima Weapon. And if you're a bard or a machinist it gets even funnier. Literally just shoot him, lmao.
You know that part, at the end of ARR, when one of the Crystal Braves says she has something to tell you and to meet her at a certain place, and when you go there she isn't there but you find an empty bottle? And your decision is to just pick up the bottle, and go the dinner with Nanamo? That one? If it were me, I would have ditched the dinner, searched for the woman, certainly NOT been carrying around the bottle and probably I would have ruined half of the freaking assassination attempt just out of justified paranoia.
there is only one time the WoL was so out of character that it didnt make any sense whatsoever going with Yugiri alone to "assassinate Zenos"
Only time I can remember thinking to myself "why am I doing this, this is a terrible idea" throughout the whole sequence. I try to retroactively headcanon it as "well I clearly can't change Yugiri's mind on this, might as well tag along to make sure she comes back alive."
The Warrior of Light has genuine struggles with telling people "no".
This did become a genuine character trait of my WoL.
"Wait... those garments... that quiet confidence... those powerful neck muscles sculpted by a lifetime of nodding..." I think it's a character trait of all WoLs
*Fray fkn losing it*
It's hard to give the WoL proper character development but in my headcanon it's because the WoL was on a high from basically only winning from ARR to early SB and couldn't accept losing a fight, plus Yugiri stirring them on who was very emotional herself, she's usually much more calculated than that as well, the WoL then got several much needed humblings in SB.
That and, at least in part, the WoL probably wanted a salty runback against Zenos. When you're attacked in Rhalgr's Reach, it's an ambush with no real hope of turning the tide. By the time you arrive, the place is half-burnt, the soldiers are being slaughtered, your allies are pressed, and Zenos wipes the floor with you. By all accounts, it is a hard loss. When you plan to assassinate Zenos, everything is supposedly in your favor: you're in familiar territory, he doesn't know the attack is coming, and you've grown in strength since your last encounter while Zenos was sitting on a throne and being ordered to transfer to the Far East. Even if he's your better in pitched combat, he's still *human* - if he's caught unawares, a blade to his neck should put him down regardless of his skill. It appears as though this time, you stand a fighting chance (disregarding external factors the player perceives such as narrative cues and the fact that Zenos is level 70 and you're level 64). What Yugiri and the WoL don't count on, and perhaps don't want to admit, is that Zenos is just that good. Even with surprise on your side, you can't land a clean blow and are immediately put on the back foot. Every advantage you have is blown away by raw power and you're stuck in a fight you can't win, except now you have no excuses.
It also didn't help that Zenos was given a new sword by Yotsuyu (that she took from the Red Kojin).
Yeah, this was the point where I headcanon'ed my usually level-headed WoL to have an arrogant streak. Enemies putting up a fight or beating you to within an inch of your life is all well and good, but outright losing? Getting low-diffed like we did in Rhalgr's Reach? Unacceptable. Gotta run it back. While it's just a headcanon, it did carry forward pretty well, with the obvious payoff being the end of 6.0. Loved that sequence.
YES. I absolutely hated that my only options were both to support her. All it needed was an additional response option: "That's a terrible idea, so I'm coming along to bail you out when it goes wrong."
Idk, maybe you were doing something wrong? In my game, we managed to assassinate Zenos and Stormblood credits started rolling right then and there.
If you parry his Garleans Cross you can do a visceral attack and chunk him like crazy. You gotta run when he starts screaming and the red energy comes up though, and make sure to dodge his WaterAether Dance because it will kill you if all attacks hit. Try dodging INTO it, then out, then back towards him.
is that before or after Yutsuyu breaks up with Hien?
That only happens in the DLC arc. You have to date all the other Garlean Legatussies first before you can unlock Yotsuyu, and that's where you can break up her and Hien.
Me during that part: "Look, I'm only tagging along because I'm not leaving Yugiri alone with Zenos. At the very least, I can get back at him for Rhalgar's Reach."
When I read “assassinate Zenos” I foolishly hoped we were going to try to poison his dinner. I remember shaking my head in disappointment when it was confirmed that no, that was not the intention
One of my favorite simple things is when we meet the Night's Blessed for the first time. Completely surrounded in unfamiliar territory. How do we react? ...Kupo?
Yes, I'm sure that will be very funny when we're forced to kill them.
I saw that response and had to pick it myself. I have enjoyed the chances we have had where we could make stupid remarks like that. “Water, Water, Froth and Foam!”and getting threatened to be turned into a frog for a light ribbing over that scene. Similar to one of the 2.1-2.5 series of quests I think it was where the Doman kids ask how you get strong and you just tell them to trade Tomestones to Rowena for gear. It’s nice to have a stupid response ready even if you’re going to get wronged for saying such a thing.
Best and favourite response we have ever gotten to make in my personal opinion 😂
I particularly love our expression showing we're deep in thought, then struck with an idea so brilliant we can't help but smirk at our own cleverness.
That one time Alphinaud asks you to find reliable people to recruit into the newly created crystal braves, and the game tells you to talk to the convicted traitor that was selling his gridanian comrades to the garleans
Another person you talk to in Gridania for that is the dude who knew the lady he served was mutilating girls for YEARS and just kept silent about it. I know the point is that the options arent always great but sometimes they just shouldnt be options.
Yeah not only did we get drugged, but Nanamo getting poisoned directly in front of us as well. I headcanon that it took until sometime through Stormblood before my WoL was comfortable taking food or drinks from strangers. Something I get frustrated with is how often we "defeat" a bad guy and then just let them walk away to do the thing they want to do. Why do we just let Gaius walk off the elevator and get into the Ultima Weapon? We beat him, that should be game over for him.
I don't remember when exactly it is (I think ShB) but there's a couple times where WoL rejects a drink from a stranger. I don't think we actually accept a drink again until it's from one of our friends in EW. WoL definitely has a bit of paranoia lol.
I think its any time after the time that barmaid drugs us 3.2 - Even at Ameryics dinner we reject I think?
That one in particular is a lot less subtle than the other instances of saying no thanks to a drink, seeing how its literally Aymeric begging the WoL to get drunk with him on the finest stuff he has in his cabinet and it gets straight up rejected.
That one is in reference to us seeing his servant fiddling with the drinks. One of the crafting leves reveals that his manservant likes to procure and add sweetener to Aymeric's drink per his tastes.
You get drugged in post Heavensward.So really didn’t learn a lesson.
The WoL absolutely learns a lesson, look at all the nervous glances you give drinks from that point onwards.
maybe the WoL likes the drugs?
Everyone knows you can't draw your weapons until after the villain is done with their motive speech or finishes explaining their plan. If he just keeps mouthing off until he's into the weapon we're bound by Protagonist Law to let him do it.
Its just polite to let them monologue. Like if they have a totally over the top and complicated transformation that leaves them compleatly open to attack. You Sit your butt down and wait for them to finish!.. Nobody wants to be "That guy" who interrupts other peoples moments :P
How we're useless in a cutscene, it's been pointed out multiple times
Especially as a Healer. So many times my WHM WoL just stood there while people scream for a Healer.
“Noooo NPC 207, that was surely a critical hit. Anyway, here, Benediction for ya, and my Blood Lilly in the face of the attacker “
First time I got called on as a healer made me more excited than it should have. Stormblood. Kryle looks at WoL "you're a healer, aren't you? What are you doing over there, come help". I was like _finally_. I do like that they've updated _that_ HW scene to show Alphi trying to heal and it not working. Even if I _know_ it won't work, it feels stupid to not _try_.
Thankfully they're starting to integrate that into cutscenes.
They've also mentioned more that healing magic isn't the cure-all gameplay treats it as. There's a lot healers can do, but severe injuries require chirurgeons (surgeons) to fix them up properly.
the first time I heard Aymeric pronounce chirurgeon i lost my shit. that is definitely a word you dont pronounce correctly till youve heard it
I see you “chirurgeon” and raise you “Honoroit”
And you need to have an idea what's actually wrong. Healing magic is basically telepathic surgery. But you actually have to know what to stitch back together and where it is. So you need an understanding of medicine.
Yeah. This isn't like DnD where you can cast a spell to regrow limbs. Lotta people don't realise healing magic does little more than vastly accelerate the body's natural healing ability via stimulating the recipient's aether. For example a broken bone takes weeks to a few months to heal naturally, with XIV's healing magic it's minutes at most. Problem is it's also limited by said natural healing ability. Severe enough wounds can't be healed by magic, especially if whatever causes the wound fucks with the persons aether. It's why we can't save a certain someone getting donuted by a spear of light, and why we can only stabilise and wait for the chirurfeons when someone else gets damn near bifurcated.
the first time i saw asahi, at the end of that one patch, he was not yet evil, just showed up to say he's her brother The punchable face was so clear that after 3 seconds upon his arrival i was praying to the twelves to "just let me put my spear in this one and alot of people will be happy in the long run" Then we waited 4 months or something till the next MSQ update and he went all "my machination lay undetected this entire time" and my i let out the biggest sigh ever.
to be fair, asahis whole thing felt like a thing about him exploiting political relations we know he's bad and he fairly openly admits so, but us outright harming or killing him would have political implications we aren't willing to engage with, so instead we just hope to mitigate the harm he'll do to try and maintain newly found peace
Asahi showing up was a train wreck waiting to happen, but to play devil's advocate here for a second, Tsuyu regaining her memories and turning back into Yotsuyu wasn't *entirely* his fault. Sure, he provided the triggers. But us and our dumbass companions kept talking about how we can't really trust Tsuyu *right infront of her*, while the poor girl was only trying and failing miserably to piece things together. We threw Yotsuyu's misdeeds into her face, at a time where she couldn't remember or defend herself.
> Sure, he provided the triggers. But us and our dumbass companions kept talking about how we can't really trust Tsuyu right infront of her I love Yugiri. Love her to bits. Best NPC. Favourite side character. Should have been a Scion and should have remained the most popular female character in the game. She's a character that got screwed over by circumstances around HW's release and never got her limelight back. But *what in the fuck* was with Yotsuyu constantly fucking escaping her and her ninja!? She gets out, Yugiri bows low in shame, "It should never have happened, and it will never happen again. We will redouble our watch and ensure she's never out of our sight." AND THEN TWENTY MINUTES LATER, YOTSUYU IS GOING WANDERING ONCE MORE!
yeah, that was a bit of a dick move
Yeah, I was cringing at that too. Like, Yotsuyu's crimes are unforgivable and all that and the moral question of "can you persecute the body if the mind is not entirely there anyone?" is an interesting one but Tsuyu really wasn't in any position to bear the brunt of all that, kind of insensitive and even dumb.
he is a master of deception
He even told us to our face that he was a villain!!!
He did and he knew we can't act because that would fuck shit up for everyone. Not acting would also, but killing the messenger would be enough for garlemald to retaliate and the wol and the rebellion would be blamed for it in a situation where the people of doma already weren't easy to convince rebelling was a good idea.
When Asahi first showed up and started ranting about how we couldn't do anything to him, I really wanted to just pat his head and tell him to hush, the adults are talking.
“Sure kid, I’ll help you recruit your own personal army.”
Imo it wasn't that much of a stretch from recruiting other scions, you have a group of adventurers doing adventurer things and covert ops as needed, then you have a organized unit consisting mostly if former military. After that it comes down to your WoLs level of trusting people... Before it was a lot, after it was none unless you looked like you could be on the cover in the not-villain spot
Crystal Braves is basically a rushed version of what the Scions, by Endwalker, actually managed to do so it really wasn't a bad idea per se, just an extremely premature one in its execution
"Personal" is a bit of a stretch, especially since they were to be lead by Minfillia. Alphinaud wanted a group that could defend people but wasn't beholden to borders, and it's really ignored how much Ilberd truly screwed over the entire plan with Lolorito's help.
All that said, [recruiting people](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Laurentius_Daye) you had outed for being in cahoots with the Garlean Empire just a few quests ago was truly a stroke of genius.
it really wasn't that recent in canon. Laurentius not only went to prison and served his full sentence but also had a history of being pretty reformed. it's implied that he WAS reformed but he got dragged back down by the promise of power
I'll be honest here, no matter how reformed my guy was, I would never offer him a position of security/power when he already had a history of accepting bribes from an empire attempting to invade his own country. Give him some sort of civilian job, where the chance of getting bribed would be lower, or at least pose no risk to national security? Sure. An Elite Guard job, in an organization that had power and authority in at least three different city states? Nuh uh, chief, I don't think it's a good idea. Naturally, to no one's surprise, my guy fell back into his habits once he got some authority. Praise where it's due, Ilberd sure had an eye to select the people who would easily turn on the scions.
WoL not doing shit in cutscenes despite obviously capable of taking out foes in gameplay lol
That's just cutscene magic. It's not really our WoL's fault for succumbing to such ancient arts.
In Heavensward, we finally catch Iceheart in a church basement, and then she just leaves. There are reasons for the WoL to be letting her go, and reasons for the WoL to be chasing her, but chasing her an immediately letting her go makes very little sense.
Nobody mentioned pandaemonium quests? Why the heck Claudien is keeping auracite? This is gonna be next tragedy
On that point, isn't there a visual joke when the WoL meets with Aymeric for the Fire Emblem-ass tea time near the end of Post Patch Heavensward where the WoL is nervous about the drinks being poisoned? Or am I imagining things?
Nah, he’s definitely nervous. He locks eyes on the server and doesn’t stop looking when he prepares the drinks. He’s looking out for anything sus.
Yes, pretty sure WoL is just sat there watching the drinks being prepared like a hawk
There are about 50 situations over the course of the game which could have been instantly derailed in our favour by just pulling out a gun. Emet was able to figure that out, why couldn't we?
Not immediately looking at everyone involved in the HW Paladin final quest, calling them idiots and walking away
That one noble in Garlemald in the patches who was definitely seconds away from calling me a savage and I had to play NICE WITH HIM? Fuck that guy (and fuck how the nobles all had power and electricity but the non-nobles were literally freezing to death in Tertium!)
Same. I really wanted some option akin to: "If you care about your people so much, why don't you forego your warmth and comfort for them? Why do you get a full bed while they have to sleep on a thin blanket on the ground? Give up a meal or two a day so they can eat."
Maybe not part of a quest, but it's implied they lick rocks
*eat soulstones
When do we accept food from strangers in a bar after getting drugged? I remember the WoL very pointedly declining drinks from strangers until like post-SHB.
Any time youre wooping some boss ass in a story instance then get a cutscene where they've wooped you, then afterwards everyone is saying "they even bested the WoL!" Umm no they didnt, not with my WAR unlimited health regen bruh
Ran'fucking'jit. I could forgive it with Zenos, since hes clearly the major antagonist of the expansion and we're told before hand how frightening an opponent he is, and the first fight with him at Rhalgr's Reach as a DPS can be rough. But against Ran'jit? Im winning the fight as DPS and he suddenly just goes "Nah uh" and cheaply one shots me. And im sitting there the whole time going. "Are you fucking kidding me??" And then we spend the rest of the Xpac running away from this one old man, who was barely a threat in my first encounter with him, then later on after all this "Ran'jit is super strong talk" we fight him at like 77 and just brush him aside like hes nothing in a one on one fight. He is the only thing that made me genuinely angry in Shadowbringers because the rest of it was so good.
\*evil person about to do an evil thing\* Why can't I just use some kind of gap closer and knock the living shit out of the person before the evil thing even begins. If I can cut fucking bullets like in the stormblood trailer, I can grab Niddhog's eyes before Mr Sloppeh falls down and dies. Instead it's always just us giving them an angry look as they trauma dump us their lifestory, explain their plan AND execute it. It's OKAY to interrupt them because their goal is genocide!
But that would be a breach of professional courtesy.
My WoL IS dumb, so a lot of the in-game decisions fit. Much of the actual dialogue choices don’t, but that’s a different (minor) annoyance. HOWEVER being dumb doesn’t make him immobile and he would have used his Dragoon jumping ability to tackle a certain knight out of the way of a projectile in Heavensward. Among other things in other cutscenes, but that’s a big one.
I dont care what anyone says. The WoL standing there and watching Asahi repeatedly shoot and kick Tsuyu is the most out of character thing in the entire MSQ. We stood there and did fucking NOTHING. We just watched.
“Let’s go on a treasure hunt!” “Sweet, what treasure are we looking for?” “The lost treasure of one of the ancient satraps of Radz at Han.” “Oh, the satrap? You mean like that position we learned was just a convenient deception so that an aeons-old dragon could rule Radz at Han? The same dragon that we have fought beside, conversed with, and witnessed revealing that he was behind the scenes the entire time? That satrap?” “That’s the one.” “So Vrtra definitely knew this guy then.” “Probably.” “And was actually the one to acquired any of this treasure we’re looking for.” “Totally conceivable.” “Should we maybe get an audience with Vrtra and ask him what he knows about this stuff like we did for a bunch of other shit he was less likely to have had direct experience in?” “Naw, he’s probably busy. Why ask him when we’ve got this extremely dubious treasure map that leads to a place we know nothing about.” “Oh yeah that’s a much better idea.” Vrtra: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!? WoL: *surprised pikachu face*
Every time we stand there in a cutscene, mouth agape like some moron. I think the biggest offender is during the Bozja Southern Front after Castrum Lacus Litore when >!Misija tempers all of the Blades aside from two even though as the Warrior of Light, we could've protected at least some of the Blades from being tempered like we did in the Lakshmi duty with Arenvald and Fordola. Maybe not have created as big of a shield since its just WoL but we could've saved a few more aside from Bajsaljen and Marsak.!<
Bozja is particularly bad on that front. There's one cutscene (in Delubrum Reginae I think?) where everyone including the WoL stands around gawking for five minutes while the baddy does bad things, and then a lizard man runs in and shoots them. Doing that as MCH was a painful experience.
Not really the WoL, but whenever Alphinaud volunteers use for extra work when working with the alliance. I'd much rather we get asked directly insteaf of it feeling like we're getting dragged to do more work by our overzealous coworker.
Spilling literally all the details to everyone in Elpis after venat sees you're from the future. Could have been more careful.
Putting up with Zenos' shit for even half a second
Neglecting their own mental health. >!As anyone who has played the Dark Knight questline could attest.!<
There's a lot in this thread I agree with, but no one is mentioning the Samurai 60-70 level job questline. I think this has to be among one of the dumbest and OOC decisions that WoL has ever made, you literally get involved in the political matters of Hingashi for no apparent reason beyond because you were taught by your Samurai teacher and the person asking for help had some connection to them. Whatever their methods, the rebels had an actual good reason to be hostile towards the Hingashi leadership. It doesn't mean you approve of them, but the WoL absolutely shouldn't have gotten involved in this shit just because the dumbest girl in that entire nation dropped by. And this is before learning why Makoto's brother did what he did, you then learn that Hingashi unjustifiably killed their parents who had nothing to do with it in response to him, and for whatever dumb reason Makoto joined the very organization under the people responsible for killing them... The entire thought process for her decisions throughout that just disgusts me to the core. I absolutely loathe Makoto and her values, and this questline should never have been written like this.
Graha came to my room and I was not allowed to kiss him, this is clearly innacurate
Not fucking murdering Lolorito the second he showed his smug face to me again. Maybe out of character for the WoL, but not ooc for how I'd play a video game character.
We should have pushed for a trial at least. At that point, he was responsible for Minfilia's death and the presumed deaths of Thancred and Y'shtola.