History FinalFantasyXIV / TropesSToU

** In "[[WhamEpisode The Parting Glass]]" and [[DarkestHour its immediate aftermath]], the culprit's plot goes off more or less without a hitch. [[spoiler:The Sultana is dead, as is Lord Lolorito's peer/rival Teledji Adeledji, Raubahn is in prison awaiting execution for [[PayEvilUntoEvil murdering Teledji]], and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have been broken and branded as regicides]]. Afterwards, however, the culprit runs into the problem of trying to run a FrameUp on someone with a HundredPercentAdorationRating like the Warrior of Light. Most of the public only knows rumors about what happened, and almost nobody believes the accusations against the Warrior, so the FalseFlagOperation fails. The few that ''do'' believe that the Warrior is guilty decide they'd rather just turn a blind eye to the Warrior's presence, handily handwaving the fact that they can move around more or less freely despite supposedly being Eorzea's Most Wanted. The other leaders of the Eorzean Alliance further made it clear to the Ul'dahn Syndicate that they are not to go public with the charges against the Warrior until they can present concrete evidence, [[{{Realpolitik}} ostensibly because of the unrest that would occur]] if the realm's beloved hero and primal slayer were accused of something like what the culprit intended. Then ''Heavensward'' comes around, and reveals that things [[SpannerInTheWorks didn't go so smoothly after all]]. [[spoiler:Very little of what happened at the Bloody Banquet was intended by Lolorito. Teledji Adeledji may have wanted to overthrow the Sultanate and install himself and his fellow Monetarists as the rulers of Ul'dah, but Lolorito recognized that he was already running the show in all but name. He stood to lose far too much and gain too little by going along with Teledji's plan. As such, Lolorito had the poison intended for Sultana Nanamo [[FakingTheDead replaced with a sleeping potion]], and had intended to use his [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem influence]] to publicly acquit the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, including the Warrior of Light, of all charges. But the Scions' refusal to stand down and be brought in by guards -- who, for all they knew, intended to simply execute them all on the spot -- [[PoorCommunicationKills spoiled that part of the plan]].]]

*** The initial launch patch has the expansion's Main Story Quest up until the level cap, with high-end content usually being relegated to a few max-level dungeons and the initial four trials of the expansion's 8-man raid series (Alexander for ''Heavensward'', Omega for ''Stormblood'', and Eden for ''Shadowbringers'').

** In "[[WhamEpisode The Parting Glass]]" and [[DarkestHour its immediate aftermath]], the culprit's plot goes off more or less without a hitch. [[spoiler:The Sultana is dead, as is Lord Lolorito's peer/rival Teledji Adeledji, Raubahn is in prison awaiting execution for [[KickTheSonOfABitch murdering Teledji]], and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have been broken and branded as regicides]]. Afterwards, however, the culprit runs into the problem of trying to run a FrameUp on someone with a HundredPercentAdorationRating like the Warrior of Light. Most of the public only knows rumors about what happened, and almost nobody believes the accusations against the Warrior, so the FalseFlagOperation fails. The few that ''do'' believe that the Warrior is guilty decide they'd rather just turn a blind eye to the Warrior's presence, handily handwaving the fact that they can move around more or less freely despite supposedly being Eorzea's Most Wanted. The other leaders of the Eorzean Alliance further made it clear to the Ul'dahn Syndicate that they are not to go public with the charges against the Warrior until they can present concrete evidence, [[{{Realpolitik}} ostensibly because of the unrest that would occur]] if the realm's beloved hero and primal slayer were accused of something like what the culprit intended. Then ''Heavensward'' comes around, and reveals that things [[SpannerInTheWorks didn't go so smoothly after all]]. [[spoiler:Very little of what happened at the Bloody Banquet was intended by Lolorito. Teledji Adeledji may have wanted to overthrow the Sultanate and install himself and his fellow Monetarists as the rulers of Ul'dah, but Lolorito recognized that he was already running the show in all but name. He stood to lose far too much and gain too little by going along with Teledji's plan. As such, Lolorito had the poison intended for Sultana Nanamo [[FakingTheDead replaced with a sleeping potion]], and had intended to use his [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem influence]] to publicly acquit the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, including the Warrior of Light, of all charges. But the Scions' refusal to stand down and be brought in by guards -- who, for all they knew, intended to simply execute them all on the spot -- [[PoorCommunicationKills spoiled that part of the plan]].]]

** In ''Heavensward'', [[spoiler:Azys Lla: an ancient Allagan research facility, which imprisons both the elder dragon Tiamat, and the game's iteration of [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI the Warring Triad.]]]]

** In ''Shadowbringers'', [[spoiler:you experience a flashback to the fall of Amaurot; the Ascian's old capital. Here we see first-hand the horrors that drove the Ascians to their initial summoning of Zodiark, and the beginning of the downfall of their once magnificent empire. The first two-thirds of the dungeon are set against the backdrop of a modern, art-deco inspired city that wouldn't look out of place in [[VideoGame/BioShock Rapture]], burning as it's assaulted by eldritch horrors. It culminates in an AstralFinale where you view the un-shattered Source from space, seeing how far-reaching the devastation is.]]

** At one point in "Endwalker", the Warrior of Light, Thancred, and Urianger must take a trip to another continent with a proto-type aetheryte. Normally, one can simply travel to any given aetheryte and attune it, but as none of them had ever been to that continent before and time was of the essence, they used the prototype to get there. The scientist warned that they may experience some aether sickness upon arrival, but it becomes clear that she undersold the effect as all three are knocked flat on their asses by a violent bout of nausea seconds after arriving and can barely move for a while without risking throwing up.
** During the Fisher role quests for the Studium, the Warrior of Light is partnered with T'laqa Tia, a scientist with a condition that causes him to experience aether sickness upon attempting ''any'' manner of aether manipulation (simply attuning to an aetheryte is enough to make him throw up). At one point, he needs to travel to Thavnair and is forced to use the aforementioned proto-type. You arrive after the worst of his sickness had passed, but it was apparently a disgusting sight to behold. It also apparently caused him to hallucinate in the process.

** The story for the 2022 Moonfire Faire festivities centers around R'fhul Tia, now an adventurer of some renown and experience, becoming obsessed with his image after taking two less-experienced adventurers under his wing. He subsequently makes a fool of himself because he doesn't take the Eorzean Nimble Warrior challenge seriously, resulting in his pupils leaving him in disgust. He later reconciles with his mentees after he recaptures what it means to be an adventurer. In short, the entire story is a thinly veiled jab at player mentors who are more interested in the internet cred their status gives them than being actual helpful resources to new players.

* UnfinishedBusiness: In the post-story quest of the 2018 Little Ladies' Day event, you encounter a whire-haired girl desperately looking for her parents' jewelry as she lsot them during the festivities. After you help her find them, she asks you to take them to a man named Tobyn at Crescent Cove and thanks you for being her seneschal for the day. [[spoiler:Tobyn informs you that the girl was in fact his late aunt, who was kidnapped by human traffickers disguising themselves as seneschals who lured in young girls to sell them to the highest bidder. Your actions granted her spirit peace, allowing her to move on as no one is able to find her afterward.]]

** 6.1, titled "Newfound Adventures", does a reversal of the previous examples, being the title of the very first quest of the patch to mark the beginning of a new story.
** 6.2, "Buried Memory", follows the trend, though with just a title card instead. It returns to making the patch name the story's capstone quest.

** The "Flow" spell is considered a ForbiddenDangerousTechnique for good reason: its users rarely come out where they intended or unscathed, ''if at all''. [[spoiler:This is what happens to Thancred, Y'shtola, and Minfilia following the storyline of ''A Realm Reborn''. While Thancred managed to emerge from the Lifestream afterwards, he was prematurely aged and robbed of the ability to manipulate aether, leaving him unable to use magic at all. Y'shtola had to be retrieved from the Lifestream with help, and even then, she lost her eyesight as a result, forcing her to use a life-shortening technique to visualize the aether around her. Meanwhile, Minfilia never re-emerged and eventually became the avatar for the Mothercrystal (though this was, at least, an intended effect on Hydaelyn's part, since She had become too weak to communicate with her chosen after protecting them from the Ultima Weapon).]]

** In ''Stormblood'', every village you come across in Garlean occupied territory is [[DespairEventHorizon completely and utterly broken]]. The people live in destitution and suffer under Imperial taxation, conscriptions, and general cruelty. The people have lived like this for 25 years, and [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror have come to accept it as their lot in life]]. They believe that so long as they keep their heads down and obey, nothing worse will happen. As such, every time the Scions arrive to offer aid and a chance at fighting back, they're met with fear and hatred for it. Everyone in Ala Mhigo knows what they have is awful, but to take any action would mean they'd be butchered by the Empire. But when the Warrior of Light becomes a HopeBringer as they always do, [[HopeCrusher the Empire stomps it out]], stopping an uprising before it starts. Starting LaResistance isn't as easy as it sounds when there are eyes and ears everywhere.

*** After Aymeric pushes to end the war between Ishgard and the dragons, the people are resistant to peace. Members of House Fortemps note that peace is generally popular, but some people are staunchly against it. Some Ishgardians even try to sabotage the peace proceedings. Emmanellain de Fortemps, shocked at what he's seeing, wonders why someone would ever try to stop peace talks, which has to be spelled ot to him later. [[spoiler:The revelation that the whole affair was started over a thousand-year-old lie on Ishgard's part was never going to be handled well. There are some people who think that Aymeric is making it all up and went about {{Patricide}} because he wanted power. Even those that don't think Aymeric is grabbing at power still want the war to keep going, because otherwise, the deaths of their loved ones will have been AllForNothing. Aymeric notes that this means perpetuating the CycleOfRevenge, but he also gets why people would think that way. Add in long-simmering class divides coming to the surface at the worst possible time due to a power vacuum and the airing of a large amount of dirty laundry by the Holy See, and the entire campaign for peace was ''never'' going to go smoothly.]]

** In a fantasy world filled with adventurers, monsters, gods, and magic, one of the biggest threats is [[WeAreStrugglingTogether having to navigate the political hellscape of the Eorzean Alliance]]. Rarely is there a long period of time where some issue with one of the three main factions doesn't crop up. And for all their attempts at unity, the citizens constantly end up at each other's throats for personal gain and power, with those at the top ironically being powerless to stop it all. This problem is a persistent one, even throughout the expansion storylines, and is part of the crux for Ala Mhigo's entire collapse when Eorzea refused to defend them from the Garlean takeover. Notably, this is also a large part of the reason why Garlemald itself is ineffective; constant internal conflict, everyone trying to one-up each other for their own ends and being a nation ran by nightmarish, megalomaniacal bastards results in mass inefficiency even if all of them can agree on the general conquest goal.

** Played for drama in the Leatherworker questline. [[spoiler: The leatherwork guildmaster Geva [[SinkOrSwimMentor acts incredibly mean all the time and constantly puts down the efforts of her guildmembers]], rather than rallying them to keep trying harder to surpass her expectations. As Geva is surprised to learn, this is an excellent way of getting people angry at you, even if they're passionate about their work. Geva learns this the hard way when almost the entire Leatherworkers' Guild leaves en masse, tired of listening to her constantly belittle the quality of their work, even if she's doing it in a DareToBeBadass kind of way. This mass resignation leaves Geva running herself to exhaustion trying to complete more work orders than is possible for any one person to handle, even if she's a master leatherworker. It takes Geva apologizing to everyone and vowing to cool her jets a bit that brings everyone back.]]
** In the ''Stormblood'' Astrologian quests, it's shown that there's a strong demand for geomancers in Kugane, as the local businesses consider their divinations to be essential to success. Unfortunately, this also means that there's no shortage of fraudsters willing to play on the general population's ignorance, aided by a general attitude of "buyer beware" and lack of regulatory authority. [[spoiler:And, as Kyokuho discovers the hard way, it's all too easy for a genuine and honest geomancer to be branded a fraud.]]

*** The Ishgardians have spent almost their entire history as a nation fighting dragons. So when they have to face threats that ''aren't'' dragons, they do poorly because [[CripplingOverspecialization they haven't been trained or equipped to fight against anything except dragons]].
*** After Aymeric pushes to end the war between Ishgard and the dragons, the people are resistant to peace. Members of House Fortemps note that peace is generally popular, but some people are staunchly against it. Some Ishgardians even try to sabotage the peace proceedings because fighting dragons is all they know. [[spoiler:And the revelation that the whole affair was started over a thousand-year-old lie on Ishgard's part doesn't go over well, either. There are some people who think that Aymeric is making it all up and went about {{Patricide}} because he wanted power. Even those that don't think Aymeric is grabbing at power still want the war to keep going, because otherwise, the deaths of their loved ones will have been AllForNothing. Aymeric notes that this means perpetuating the CycleOfRevenge, but he also gets why people would think that way.]] Add the long-simmering class divides coming to the surface at the worst possible time into the mix, and the entire campaign for peace was ''never'' going to go smoothly, even if it was the best option.
*** The questline for the expansion's Machinist job also gives another good demonstration of what happens when a nation that has been doing its thing for a thousand years is presented with sudden and noticeable change - the nobility of a nation that trains soldiers all their lives to serve with distinction, and presents them as "better" than lesser folk because of it, doesn't take it well when one among the nobility suddenly starts attempting to arm that lesser class with cheap, widespread, easy to use and incredibly powerful firearms to bolster the nation's defenses, which turns "defending one's homeland" from being a mark of noble pride to something anyone - even the outcasts in the Brume, come the ''Stormblood'' class quests - can do, and makes friction between the classes heat up in both the 50-60 and 60-70 questlines.
** At various points in the game and the expansions, the Warrior of Light is ordered by their allies to rest, especially after a heavy battle or event. Even if the Warrior of Light is a powerful figure capable of slaying what are nearly PhysicalGods, they still are a living being who needs rest, or they run the risk of being tired or getting hurt because of it. [[spoiler: Come ''Endwalker'', with nobody around to stop them, the Warrior of Light immediately goes from fighting the Endsinger, a RealityWarper PhysicalGod far more powerful than even Zodiark and Hydaelyn, to Zenos, who gives the Warrior the chance to walk away. The only reason they don't end up bleeding out and dying at the edge of the universe after killing Zenos is that their active teleporter ends up landing next to them, returning them to the Ragnarok for immediate medical care.]]
** During the ''Heavensward'' side quest "The Fate of Stars", Krile gets grabbed by a Garlean Death Claw, at which point the player needs to kill it to free her. When Krile gets free, she is heavily injured and unable to proceed, and ends up sitting out for a while to heal. Due to being a Lalafell, her smaller size meant that a weapon designed to grab people of larger sizes is going to be much more painful as a result, and she ends up admitting she fears a rib might have been broken from the device trying to crush her.
** When the player is introduced to Radovan at the start of the Gunbreaker job quests, he had recently escaped from a Garlean prison where he was regularly subjected to ElectricTorture for ''years'' on end. That kind of damage doesn't just disappear, and Radovan still suffers from occasional fits of paralysis.
** In a world that's [[MedievalStasis stuck in the Middle Ages tech-wise]], the country to advance their tech fastest is the country to have an edge. The Garleans, initially shunned by the other people of Eorzea for being unable to use magic, promptly turned things around upon their discovery of ceruleum and magitek. This ended up not only putting them on par with the magic-using peoples, but even allowed the Garleans to surpass them in some areas, such as building a proper air force to subjugate far-off lands. Eorzea was the first and only nation to beat the Garleans back out of a combination of one of their most brilliant minds, Cid Garlond, defecting to Eorzea, and the bad luck of the aforesaid air force running afoul of Midgardsomr and his brood of dragons. The game also demonstrates how TechnologyMarchesOn, with you constantly encountering new and better magitek devices that, even as you defeat the early prototypes, still show enough success that they enter mass-production and become common enemies in later quests; at the original 1.0 release, the Garleans only had airships and the standard magitek armor, but by the end of 4.0 they've pulled out at least ''twenty'' different designs at different points. [[spoiler:And as even these keep failing to stop you, more unscrupulous elements among the Empire have begun delving into less savory methods of beating back the oddly-resistant "savages", including genetic engineering (artificially imbuing people with the Echo) and chemical warfare (the Black Rose DeadlyGas, which is so devastating that ''Shadowbringers'' reveals that, in a BadFuture, the use of it triggered the Eighth Umbral Calamity.]] By the end of the ''Stormblood'' story cycle, its final dungeon looks less like a traditional ''Final Fantasy'' dungeon than it does a battlefield of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, complete with mortars, mass casualties, and a run through muddy trenches.[[invoked]]
** Overlapping with LeaningOnTheFourthWall, there's the changes to "old" Alliance Raids. Throughout the 3.x and 4.x content cycles, completing the Alliance Raids would award you with various ancient coins that could be exchanged for materials to upgrade your equipment. Later patches did away with this for all but the current expansion's raids, and the coins' tooltips now note that while they were previously sought by historians and collectors, "a sudden influx caused their value to plummet, rendering them almost worthless".
** Related to the above are the Valentione's and All Saints' Wake event tokens, giving out chocolates and pumpkin cookies respectively. These are used to trade in for seasonal goodies, but with each iteration of the holidays, the tokens being foodstuffs go stale and become worthless, preventing players from hoarding the tokens to easily get next year's goodies. After all, who would want sweets from a year ago?

* TheSacredDarkness: ''Shadowbringers'' in general exudes this trope, especially with the Night's Blessed, a friendly religion that worships darkness, avoids the daylight by living under the shroud of a forest, and believes that souls will find their eternal resting place in the "sunless sea", their name for the night sky that's been hidden by the EndlessDaytime the planet's been stuck in for a century. They become staunch allies of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and their religious beliefs are treated with the utmost respect.

* SmashCut: M'zhet Tia is a swaggering M'qote who wants to become the leader of his tribe via its AsskickingEqualsAuthority rule. But he's so pathetic that the chief of the tribe sends the Warrior of Light to train M'zhet. When this is pointed out to him, M'zhet tries to demonstrate just how strong he is by fighting the Warrior. Only, he's so weak that there isn't even a fight, just a quick fade to black before returning to see M'zhet lying and groaning on the ground.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: Heavy armor worn by the Tank-roles, for the most part, {{avert|ed}}s this, as they're supposed to be protective. That said, we have examples such as the Subligars, which can be succinctly described as "leather-padded briefs", and the Coloseum Shawl, which leaves little to the imagination no matter who wears it. Some female versions of armor are a bit skimpier, but examples are rather tame, usually consisting of exposed cleavage or shorts instead of pants. Not even the men are exempt from this, as the Elezen Hempen Undershirt, for example, is some kind of inverted shirt--sleeves, but [[WalkingShirtlessScene nothing on the torso whatsoever.]]

** Played for drama in the Leatherworker's questline. [[spoiler: [[SinkOrSwimMentor Acting incredibly mean all the time and constantly putting down the efforts of your guildmembers]], rather than rallying them to keep trying harder to surpass her expectations, is an excellent way of losing them, unlike in other games where it's usually played for laughs. Geva learns this the hard way when almost the entire Leatherworkers' Guild leaves en masse, tired of listening to her constantly belittle the quality of their work, leaving her running herself to exhaustion trying to complete more work orders than is possible for any single person.]]
** In the Stormblood Astrologian quests, it's shown that there's a strong demand for geomancers in Kugane, as the local businesses consider their divinations to be essential to success. Unfortunately, this also means that there's no shortage of fraudsters willing to play on the general population's ignorance, aided by a general attitude of "buyer beware" and lack of regulatory authority. [[spoiler:And, as Kyokuho discovers the hard way, it's all too easy for a genuine and honest geomancer to be branded a fraud.]]

* SpeedRun:
** Popular at endgame as a means of farming gil and endgame gear currency in dungeons. In 1.0, instanced dungeons offered more rewards and achievements if completed in fifteen minutes or less, leading to all kind of SpeedRun strategies.
** In the current state of the game, the team has mostly killed off speed running content, as best as they could. Speed running things such as the Main Scenario roulettes have been actively killed due to people leaving new players in the dust and actively abusing them for it, making it content that takes between 30 minutes to an hour. Most dungeons too now have walls set up that only fall once a certain wave of enemies has been cleared out, forcing rushing tanks to pause so the party can kill whatever's been collected.