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this sequence hits on two things I think about a lot with stormblood, which are: 1) it's the expansion where I think they really get interested in the WoL as a distinct character as opposed to general heroic stand-in, and this is the first really overt instance of that affecting the plot, though there's probably some earlier stuff I'm forgetting about; and 2) I think it's the expansion that gets most interested in how narrative and game structure/mechanics inform each other. the connection between MMO drudgery (kill 5 bears) and your diplomatic efforts is pretty well-established by now, and the game signals in the ruby sea that it's thinking about it consciously. similarly, having you fight Zenos at multiple levels, with him at 70 (as opposed to on-level, or "???"), feels here like it's building towards some kind of larger point. plus, feeding into the first point, having you lose repeatedly is obviously meant to make both the player and WoL feel anger, frustration, and embarrassment in a particularly competitive way. obviously people feel lots of ways about this stuff but i think they're both pretty fun things for the game to do! here, i think walking into what a lot of people consider a "stupid" fight was a very fun and deliberate choice, and that the devs anticipate and hope you'll kind of think it's stupid (unlike the WoL, after all, we can see the level numbers), and they're trying to get something out of that friction. also I just think this is such a fun line. "for the time between the seconds," in particular, since for me at least FFXIV is a game that trains you to think pretty intensely and specifically about time in <2.5 second increments! Valentin fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 02:57
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Valentin posted:2) I think it's the expansion that gets most interested in how narrative and game structure/mechanics inform each other. the connection between MMO drudgery (kill 5 bears) and your diplomatic efforts is pretty well-established by now, and the game signals in the ruby sea that it's thinking about it consciously. similarly, having you fight Zenos at multiple levels, with him at 70 (as opposed to on-level, or "???"), feels here like it's building towards some kind of larger point. plus, feeding into the first point, having you lose repeatedly is obviously meant to make both the player and WoL feel anger, frustration, and embarrassment in a particularly competitive way. On further reflection, a large part of why the losing fights with Zenos didn't bother me was that I trusted the writers to be going somewhere with it. ARR and HW proved they could write good story with interesting villains, so I was on board right from the start.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:12
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Zenos is a character who would fall flat if not for Luke Allen-Gale's incredible performance. That's not to say that it's bad writing carried by good acting, I think his writing is great. It's just the kind of writing that needs an actor who puts 110% into each line.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:16
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Ah, my boy finally gets to show more of his nuance. He's a fascinating man, once you start to peel back the layers and get to see what makes him tick. Awful, terrible trash man, but absolutely fascinating to think about. I adore him. As for the actual fight, Zenos 2 was more enjoyable to me than Zenos 1 for a single very important reason: I, the player, was not being physically attacked by the weather effects. Zenos 2 was an actual fight and not me hammering buttons while looking away from my screen in active physical pain due to multiple kinds of photosensitivity. e: SirSamVimes posted:Zenos is a character who would fall flat if not for Luke Allen-Gale's incredible performance. That's not to say that it's bad writing carried by good acting, I think his writing is great. It's just the kind of writing that needs an actor who puts 110% into each line. Absolutely; if his voice actor wasn't as top tier as he is a lot of Zenos's scenes, especially the shifts from bored and disinterested to the more scenery-chewing lines, would fall flat.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:17
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There is a breed of TTRPG players that takes 3 hours to plan a Seal Team 6-style alpha strike every time they go to meet with an NPC. That's the sort of killjoy that I picture objecting to an anime protagonist acting like an anime protagonist.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:24
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SirPhoebos posted:There is a breed of TTRPG players that takes 3 hours to plan a Seal Team 6-style alpha strike every time they go to meet with an NPC. That's the sort of killjoy that I picture objecting to an anime protagonist acting like an anime protagonist. Or just the 'I know a villain who isn't going down in a mid-level solo duty when I see one, don't waste my time' crowd. I'm in the camp that hates unwinnable boss fights, and to have the same guy do it twice rubs me raw. Especially as they're both 'play until the plot demands that you lose, and if you lose before then you have to start over.' Personally, I find Zenos the most dull and one-dimensional villain in the entire game, and I'm counting the likes of Ifrit and Garuda.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:30
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Count me in the crowd loving Zenos 2, my punchbun Chiyome is very much a fiercely competitive character who, above all else, refuses to admit she’s beaten and wants to show this jerk she’s the best fighter. If he wants me to live and get strong enough, buddy you got yourself a tossup down the line. Also love me some gameplay and story integration to show that which is a delicate line to play in MMOs but I think they pulled it off.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:34
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I don't have a comment on right now, except that I continue to really enjoy Stormblood even more in retrospect, and will always disagree with people thinking Stormblood is a bad expansion with a bad story. I also enjoyed the rematch with Zenos, even if it was unwinnable. I really enjoy reading more of this LP. Every update is a genuine highlight and something I look forward to. Rythian fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 03:46
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I like Zenos 2 more than Zenos 1 in some ways, but I still had the issue of the fight taking too long on WHM even if it takes less time than Zenos 1. A lot of my personal problems with the fight would be solved by it being obviously time-based instead of HP-based, and that time being like 3-5 minutes. That said Zenos remains boring and one note, even if there are plenty of people who like that one note.
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Sep 10, 2022 03:59
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Sanguinia posted:“Lol,” said the Crown Prince, “lmao.”  Zenos rules. Luv that guy. Zenos haters may vacate now.
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Sep 10, 2022 04:16
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Also Heavenward music kicking in with the Estinien reveal is super hype.
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Sep 10, 2022 04:19
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Cythereal posted:Or just the 'I know a villain who isn't going down in a mid-level solo duty when I see one, don't waste my time' crowd. Stop using out-of-story mechanical/gameplay knowledge to inform your feelings for the story. Do you also hate when TV shows have dramatic moments with a hero trying to take down the season's villain in a mid-season episode? "Well, this isn't the season finale, so this episode is pointless."
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Sep 10, 2022 04:26
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hopeandjoy posted:I like Zenos 2 more than Zenos 1 in some ways, but I still had the issue of the fight taking too long on WHM even if it takes less time than Zenos 1. There were 2 notes in this exact episode, although they're very related notes.
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Sep 10, 2022 04:28
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The WoL owes immense gratitude to Yugiri who has aided us time and again. So yeah I cannot imagine anyone would abandon her here no matter how dumb the plan was.
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Sep 10, 2022 04:31
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Sanguinia posted:“Lol,” said the Crown Prince, “lmao.” There's a goon who posted some totally random screencaps of in game dialogue before; can you guess their character name? 
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Sep 10, 2022 04:43
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Mordiceius posted:Stop using out-of-story mechanical/gameplay knowledge to inform your feelings for the story. To be fair, that's not really an unreasonable reaction in the analogy either. It's not that the fight is pointless, it's that there might not be enough trust in the writers to assume the payoff will be satisfying, so this just intensifies further frustrations with the story. Plenty of people quit mid-season because the feel the story is wasting their time because there's no patience left for the story. The way I think of these kinds of unwinnable fights is as a bit of an energy multiplier. Depending on your patience, the frustration with these fights may increase your anticipation for the inevitable fight with Zenos when the climax comes or it might just exacerbate your greviences already. In fact, the writers are depending a bit on that out-of-media knowledge from the viewer and gambling that whatever they're doing is interesting enough to increase the anticipation for upcoming events rather than decrease it. That said, I didn't really think much of these fights at the time. Just a sort of "Eh, it happens" and moved on. A lot of my personal opinions on Zenos are really formed by more future events than anything. hopeandjoy posted:A lot of my personal problems with the fight would be solved by it being obviously time-based instead of HP-based, and that time being like 3-5 minutes. I've heard solo duties adjust your damage output upwards if you're not a DPS character. I haven't seen direct comparisons though, just from what other people have said and some personal observations on some streams where two people are playing the duty on different roles. AncientSpark fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 04:52
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Mordiceius posted:Stop using out-of-story mechanical/gameplay knowledge to inform your feelings for the story. And no, don't stop using anything to inform your feelings for the story. If the format means the X isn't gonna happen, the obvious way to write is to have more than just X in play. I'm sure many of the people that like Zenos fight 2 like it without taking "We're going to assassinate Zenos here!" seriously at all. It's what the attempt will do and how it goes down that's interesting. Out-of-story expectations are just one more thing to shape a story around.
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Sep 10, 2022 04:59
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AncientSpark posted:I've heard solo duties adjust your damage output upwards if you're not a DPS character. I haven't seen direct comparisons though, just from what other people have said and some personal observations on some streams where two people are playing the duty on different roles. It does at least these days, though I doubt it would compensate enough to compete with dps. I at least didn't find it a drag as DRK, though I also hosed up in a way that had me go from full to 0 during that fight. And yes, Zenos does have more than one note even this early on and it frustrates me when people say he only has the one thing going on. You can think he's boring regardless obviously but he's hardly, say, ARR Minfilia. There is character nuance there.
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Sep 10, 2022 05:04
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Cythereal posted:Personally, I find Zenos the most dull and one-dimensional villain in the entire game, and I'm counting the likes of Ifrit and Garuda. In their appearances in ARR neither of those are one-dimensional villains, though? (I'd argue Ifrit is neither, though I'll concede he's certainly *more* one-dimensional than villain, and Garuda is certainly a villain but not one-dimensional.)
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Sep 10, 2022 05:06
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Like Clockwork posted:(Edited in context bc I was slow to post) Solo duties are easily the worst as healers.
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Sep 10, 2022 06:50
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Like Clockwork posted:And yes, Zenos does have more than one note even this early on and it frustrates me when people say he only has the one thing going on. You can think he's boring regardless obviously but he's hardly, say, ARR Minfilia. There is character nuance there. I lilke to joke that Zenos is so one-dimensional that he warps all the way back around again to weirdly deep, but that's true enough. He's at least got two modes of operation as far as we've seen, Bored and Excited, which is enough to at least make a coin you can flip. We don't fully have his desires nailed down yet but we're getting there, and the complexity emerges from working out why those seem to be his desires. Sanguinia's various speculations so far are very interesting and good, and certainly go deeper than what I'd bothered to think at the time. The events of this update are where I'd started to wonder if he was more than just some big scary violent monster obstacle plot device of a character. It's nice to read the perspective of someone that's analyzing everything, to catch where some foundational bits that I now take for granted were laid.
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Sep 10, 2022 06:55
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I guess I will never see how these duties are apparently so long on healer unless everyone is clicking off their story buffs at the start of the fights. This duty was, judging by my screenshot folder, like 5 minutes for me at launch on Astrologian, and I don't think White Mage would trail that hard on personal damage, either.
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Sep 10, 2022 07:19
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I really liked Zenos 2 because the fact that you're actually holding your own before he busts out the op sword sells the idea of the WoL growing in strength through Stormblood.
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Sep 10, 2022 07:31
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Cythereal posted:Or just the 'I know a villain who isn't going down in a mid-level solo duty when I see one, don't waste my time' crowd. If you're not interested in engaging in the story the writers are telling, then of course you're not going to like it. That's the downside of FFXIV's steady movement towards treating the WoL like a character and not a blank slate - and of the writers clearly having things they want to say about some pretty heavy themes that most games would shy away from entirely. Most MMO stories are bland as hell because they're just an excuse for the gameplay, and making any sort of strong statement is likely to cause some players to disengage. FFXIV makes the opposite bet: "If we tell a story that makes people feel things, they'll want to stay with it." And you know what? They were absolutely right. Doobeedoo posted:And no, don't stop using anything to inform your feelings for the story. If the format means the X isn't gonna happen, the obvious way to write is to have more than just X in play. I'm sure many of the people that like Zenos fight 2 like it without taking "We're going to assassinate Zenos here!" seriously at all. It's what the attempt will do and how it goes down that's interesting. Out-of-story expectations are just one more thing to shape a story around. I knew going into the fight that Zenos wasn't going to die. I also knew that the WoL wasn't going to die, and that Yugiri would probably be fine too. So my expectations, shaped by the setting, was "What will this tell me about Zenos and how will we lose this time? What consequences will we get?" We got a deeper glimpse into how weirdly hosed up Zenos is, and it showed that the WoL is catching up to him in one-on-one dueling skill. Seriously, before Zenos, who was the last "normal" person who could throw down in our weight class? (A certain quote comes to mind here, "Well, I haven't fought one person for so long. I've been specialised in groups, battling gangs for local charities, that kind of thing.") It's perfectly all right if out-of-story context affects how much you enjoy a story, but that doesn't make the story bad. And if a game/book/tv show has lost you for that reason or any other, it's perfectly okay to just stop playing/reading/watching instead of continuing to subject yourself to something you don't like. It especially weirds me out how people will put hundreds or thousands of hours into games they clearly hate (things like World of Tanks/Warships or League of Legends for example.) FeatherFloat posted:I lilke to joke that Zenos is so one-dimensional that he warps all the way back around again to weirdly deep, but that's true enough. With Zenos, it's not the 'what' of his weird behavior that is fascinating, it's the 'why'.
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Sep 10, 2022 07:56
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Valentin posted:also I just think this is such a fun line. "for the time between the seconds," in particular, since for me at least FFXIV is a game that trains you to think pretty intensely and specifically about time in <2.5 second increments! 2.5s is just enough time to start typing up a pun, hit esc to deselect the chat entry, start casting a spell, and then press enter to continue where I left off.
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Sep 10, 2022 08:02
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AncientSpark posted:I've heard solo duties adjust your damage output upwards if you're not a DPS character. I haven't seen direct comparisons though, just from what other people have said and some personal observations on some streams where two people are playing the duty on different roles. Yes, if you're a healer the special echo buff thing increases your damage instead of the regen effect that DPSes get. Objectively I think it's about the same amount of time, but subjectively it feels longer because you're just spamming one button for damage and it's impossible to die except to one-shots
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Sep 10, 2022 08:28
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Zenos 2 was one of my favorite parts of Stormblood storywise, and a lot of it is due to his performance, yes - Plus more Yugiri is always welcome. But it's this kind of duty that made me regret a bit maining PLD. On one hand you are at no risk of actually failing unless you stand still in the AoEs, but it's a slow process to say the least...
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Sep 10, 2022 10:31
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This LP has done a lot to help me appreciate all of the character work going into Stormblood, and the second confrontation with Zenos in particular. I know I say this a lot but it's still true. Sanguinia posted:
hell yeah
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Sep 10, 2022 10:45
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HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIII-
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It's a little amusing that Zenos goes out of his way to collect increasingly more powerful things while already being obscenely powerful and, at the same time, feels immense annoyance that no one can challenge him.
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Sep 10, 2022 11:48
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This really was the moment I came around on Zenos, personally. To hells with villains who are "relatable" or "sympathetic" or have "tragic backstories." A villain who has a personal interest and investment in the Hero, whose actions and motivations are focused on them (whether said motivations are "gently caress this guy specifically" or "You are my favorite playmate"), is WAY more interesting to me personally. Give me a Kuze over a Magus any day.
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Sep 10, 2022 12:09
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Having recently finished Stormblood on an alt, I found Zenos 2 much less egregious than the first time you fight him. At this point, you know what he is and being level 65 or so of 70, means you know the story probably isn't over (not that you don't at 60 either, but you have no idea what he is at that point). I still hate unwinnable fights. Even more when it's a "oh I was just holding back" instead of something else popping in to interrupt.
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Sep 10, 2022 13:31
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AncientSpark posted:To be fair, that's not really an unreasonable reaction in the analogy either. It's not that the fight is pointless, it's that there might not be enough trust in the writers to assume the payoff will be satisfying, so this just intensifies further frustrations with the story. Plenty of people quit mid-season because the feel the story is wasting their time because there's no patience left for the story. For me, it's exacerbated by the fact that this is the second time it's happened, and it's even happened following roughly the same sequence of events: 1. Land conquered by the Garleans is horribly oppressed and the locals have no hope. 2. Especially brutal and ruthless woman collaborator gets some scenes of being a horrible threat. 3. Scions inspire rebellion. 4. Zenos arrives, puts the boot to the woman villain, puts a woman Scion or Scion-adjacent in mortal danger, and forces the player into an unwinnable boss fight that doesn't even have the good grace to have the same resolution if you lose before the plot decrees that you lose. The dual use of Fordola and Yotsuyu, and Zenos putting Y'shtola and Yugiri in mortal danger, both previously established to be probably the most put-together and competent members/allies the Scions have, raises my hackles something fierce. Especially combined with the very creepy stalker undertones that myself and other female players of the game have felt regarding Zenos. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 13:42
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You can draw some interesting parallels in pacing between how WoW handled the Lich King in WotLK and how Zenos is handled in StB.
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Sep 10, 2022 14:14
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Cythereal posted:For me, it's exacerbated by the fact that this is the second time it's happened, and it's even happened following roughly the same sequence of events: While I think your take here is a valid and interesting one (I would read a well-reasoned feminist critique of the cast and events of FFXIV), I think it’s worth pointing out a few things: 1) to this point Zenos has not “put the boot” to Fordola, instead elevating her beyond her station in a way that rankles her fellow imperials with her favorable treatment 2) Yugiri is the one putting herself in mortal danger here, rather than Zenos being the explicit impetus of that confrontation 3) Zenos doesn’t have stalker undertones, he has stalker overtones - he’s a hunter, it’s his whole thing. That said, it’s interesting that his interactions with the WoL up until this point have been mostly incidental. The dude is threatening for sure but he’s not exactly putting in the legwork to hunt you.
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Sep 10, 2022 14:30
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Lisztless posted:1) to this point Zenos has not “put the boot” to Fordola, instead elevating her beyond her station in a way that rankles her fellow imperials with her favorable treatment He removed her from her role as the primary threat and face of Garlean aggression in the Ala Mhigo story arc. In-story he's booting her upstairs, yes, but narratively he's demoted her to the job of flunky because now Zenos is emphatically in charge. Lisztless posted:2) Yugiri is the one putting herself in mortal danger here, rather than Zenos being the explicit impetus of that confrontation The result is the same. This is uncharacteristically aggressive and vengeful of Yugiri - in a narratively well-reasoned way, yes, but still at odds with her previous behavior - in a way that had the writers again putting a female character the player is assumed to like in mortal danger from Zenos to help motivate the player. Once, things happen and it's unfair to read anything into it. Twice, I start getting mad at the writers.
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Sep 10, 2022 14:36
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Fordola was not the primary threat and face of Garlemald in Ala Mihgo to begin with, I don't think she was ever presented in that role. She was certainly visible, but we had already heard of the local Legatus by the time we met her in a way that made it clear that we would ultimately be facing said Legatus to free Ala Mihgo no matter what we did. She was the face of collaboration, but that's presented as a painful shameful thing for the people of Ala Mihgo, a different story beat to be sure. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 14:40
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Cythereal posted:He removed her from her role as the primary threat and face of Garlean aggression in the Ala Mhigo story arc. In-story he's booting her upstairs, yes, but narratively he's demoted her to the job of flunky because now Zenos is emphatically in charge. That’s funny, I always considered Zenos to be the primary threat in Ala Mhigo right from the start, with Fordola specifically being an underling, contrasted with Yotsuyu being the primary threat in the Doma arc. But expounding further on that is probably not appropriate at this point in the story. quote:The result is the same. This is uncharacteristically aggressive and vengeful of Yugiri - in a narratively well-reasoned way, yes, but still at odds with her previous behavior - in a way that had the writers again putting a female character the player is assumed to like in mortal danger from Zenos to help motivate the player. I mean, Yugiri has agency and motivation and a reasonable expectation of success, I don’t necessarily know how this compares to Y’shtola taking a wound in battle. They don’t even have the same outcome. The only thing the situations have in common is Zenos. Lisztless fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 14:49
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I’m going to say this as someone who does personally frame Zenos as kinda stalker-y towards her WoL from this point on (for reasons of my WoL’s sexuality making her very uncomfortable and also my personal feelings on my biggest Zenos complaint which I can’t get into rn for spoiler reasons - aka very personal poo poo): I do not know what you mean by “many female players see Zenos as stalker-y”. As someone who hangs around the more female fandom-y parts of FFXIV Twitter, there are tons of women and feminine presenting people who loving love Zenos. He’s one of the most popular husbandos, right up there with Aymeric and the two big redacteds. Even beyond that, there’s one of my friends who loves to shake him in his terrarium like pretty much all the villains in the game because they really like exploring how villains tick. As usual, data is not the plural of anecdote. I don’t think Zenos being a sexual/romantic stalker is the intent of the writers too. Also, remember that the WoL can also be a man and the writing of this game does not change dialog other than pronouns! This is not exclusively directed at women, it’s directed at the WoL. Zenos is very love him or hate him but in my experience it’s people who love his archetype vs people who get very annoyed at the writing around him. All sorts of people fall into both these categories. But I’m also in agreement that Zenos’s treatment of Fordola and Yotsuyu are two very, very different things. Fordola is the leader of a single unit. Yotsuyu is in charge of all of Doma. Fordola has been promoted, last we saw her.
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Sep 10, 2022 15:08
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Cythereal posted:He removed her from her role as the primary threat and face of Garlean aggression in the Ala Mhigo story arc. In-story he's booting her upstairs, yes, but narratively he's demoted her to the job of flunky because now Zenos is emphatically in charge. This is an incredibly bad read because Zenos was always always framed as the face of Garlemald and the guy in charge for Ala Mhigo from the first time we saw him in the little teaser scene at the end of StB where we see him lounging of the throne talking about the coming war. Even in the context of just StB if you want to forget everything before, we see the skulls harass some locals and gently caress them up and then....cut directly to a scene where Zenos is in charge and treating his officers like poo poo but taking an interest in Fordola and her plan. He was always the guy charge and she was always a flunky. Her being just a flunky is why we get the whole bit about her connection to her homeland and the internal and external conflict born from no having that pride in her people that inspires the resistance because if she WAS the one in charge you can't make that even slightly sympathetic since she'd be the one directly ordering all the horrific poo poo instead of someone just trying to get to a better life by follow orders. Her arc only works because she's in the position she's in Not even going to get into the Yugiri thing too deep but, this is entirely within her character especially the reveals and beats we've seen so far in StB. After spending most of her life on the run she's finally got a chance to free her people by doing the thing she's spent her life training to do after watching those people reject her aid and the idea that things could change at all. After she sees the very people she has spent her life vowing to protect basically say hope is lost and her sacrifices meant nothing of course she's going out to prove to them it's not.. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 15:28
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Cythereal posted:He removed her from her role as the primary threat and face of Garlean aggression in the Ala Mhigo story arc. In-story he's booting her upstairs, yes, but narratively he's demoted her to the job of flunky because now Zenos is emphatically in charge. This is really not really the point of Zenos and Fordola's relationship at all. It can really be argued that Zenos' arc really only starts because Fordola proposed the direct attack on Rhalgr's Reach. They're synergistic characters; Zenos starts off as a passive character due to his archetype, and Fordola is the active one that pushes Zenos to something else, despite ostensibly being his footsoldier. Further discussion calls for spoilers: First off, it's clear that Zenos actually respects Fordola in some manner; at least her attitude and her aggression. Secondly, it also completely misses the point of Fordola's arc. The story is not being subtle about how Fordola is in a lower position because that is the whole point of her arc and the story makes it clear so they can criticize and blast that power dynamic to pieces. It's not even a subtle narrative idea, it's literally the entire point. "Hey, this is a thing that happens, now lets see how this miserable power dynamic can go wrong and make people do terrible things and make terrible assumptions about what is possible in the world." AncientSpark fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 15:50
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