Final Fantasy XIV / Tropes J to L

Final Fantasy XIV
Tropes: A to C | D to F (Foreshadowing) | G to I (Gameplay and Story Integration) | J to L | M to O | P to R | S to U | V to Z

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J-K

• Jack of All Stats: Each of the role archetypes has one of these;
  • Tanks: Paladin. Warrior and Gunbreaker do absurd damage and Dark Knights have bar none some of the best mitigation in the game. Paladin doesn't do particularly high damage and their mitigation is slightly less so than Dark Knight, but unlike the others they have a reliable heal and more powerful ways to support other party members and especially their fellow tanks. While a Paladin in end-game content won't be the tank taking the majority of the beating, they can help the main tank by sharing defensive abilities with the party.
  • Healer: Astrologian. White Mage heals the most HP with all of their heals, Scholar has their potent shields and emergency spells, and Sage has high attack power along with multiple ways to deal AOE damage. Astrologian doesn't have particularly powerful heals and their damage is a joke, but they trade it off for flexibility with being able to do weaker regen or shields as needed, and can bring non-healing support with their damage-increasing cards that buff individual party members and leads to a stronger party-wide damage buff.
  • Melee DPS: Dragoon. Compared to the insane amounts of DPS a Samurai could do, and the support offered by Ninja's trick attack, they have several very powerful support spells and are firmly tied with Monk in damage output, and thanks to wearing chain mail they're also slightly more durable than their fellow melee.
  • Ranged Physical: Bards. They don't do as much raw damage as Machinist, and their buffs aren't as significant as Dancer, but they serve well as the "middle ground" of the three as their songs give small buffs to every party member, they can cure and prevent dispellable debuffs, and can increase the healing a given party member takes, and while nowhere near as potent as a Machinist, their abilities do still do damage, and with two strong Damage-Over-Time spells, they can keep damage on enemies when they're out of range or otherwise immune.
  • Casters: Summoner. Compared to the weak damage output that comes with great support (including healing and instant-cast resurrection) that Red Mage possesses, and the raw output done by a skilled Black Mage, summoner is firmly in the middle of the three, but with their freedom of movement with all the instant casts they have and their Damage Over Time spells, like Bard, letting them damage enemies when the other two can't, they can do more damage in movement-heavy fights. They do also possess a raise, but since they only have Swiftcast with a minute long cooldown, they can't use it as reliably as Red Mage can.
• Jeanne d'Archétype: Not any NPC in particular, but the 50*** Joan of Trout fish has this flavor text to describe how Made of Iron it is.
  "Caught alive and lashed to a spit; thrust into a cookpit and left to suffer the hellish flames for nigh on a quarter bell. Yet, the flames would not take her. Drubbed and beaten; tossed into a pot of scalding broth and left to endure the roiling currents as they cooked her flesh to the core. Yet the water would not have her. And thus was Joan returned to the lake."
• Jerkass: Various NPCs/questgivers qualify, but two notable examples are Silvairre in the Archer questline (at least initially; he gets better as the story progresses), and Professor Erik in the Monk Job questline (though he turns out to be a better person later on, too, and has a fairly good reason for being somewhat standoffish).
  • Heavensward gives us the Astrologian questline. Whereas all the other guilds and trainers welcome you with open arms, and consider you a famous and well respected member by the time their quest reaches either level 30 or 50, no one in Ishgard, outside of the job's trainers and few allies, have any respect for you taking up learning the Sharlayan Astrologian techniques. Many just outright dismiss your achievements, because they only believe in the use of Ishgardian Astrology, which is solely used to predict the movements of the Dravanian dragons. Others hold you in complete disdain, considering you little more than an enabler for Jannequinard's pro-Sharlayan views to spread, and they much prefer to think of him as little more an annoying idiot to be ignored.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • After the climax of Heavensward, Aymeric comes to this conclusion about people who want to keep the Dragonsong War going. The dragons have caused a thousand years of suffering to the people of Ishgard, regardless of why. Plus, the reveal that it was all because of a thousand-year-old lie on behalf of the first ruler of Ishgard doesn't go over too well, because it means that all of the deaths of the loved ones of Ishgardians were All for Nothing. Some people even try to disrupt the peace talks and restart the war, just for the sake of getting revenge and for making this sacrifice worth something. While Aymeric maintains his stance that peace with the dragons is the best option, he admits that he can see where the opposition is coming from.
  • During the opening of Stormblood, Lyse tries to encourage the people of Ala Mhigo to rise up and face down the Garlean Empire. One of the villagers shoots her down, saying that they simply can't start La Résistance just because someone tells them to, and that Lyse is being naïve in thinking the Ala Mhigans can rise up against a much stronger enemy with nothing but righteous indignation. Part of Lyse's Character Development through the expansion is coming to grips that this viewpoint, while harsh, is correct. She applies those lessons into becoming a much better leader and being far more practical in her way of thinking when liberating Ala Mhigo.
  • Early in Endwalker, a visit to Garlemald hammers a Hard Truth Aesop in for the Scions. When visiting Sharlayan early in the expansion, Alphinaud and Alisaie's mother tells the twins that some people just won't be convinced with facts or logic. This is exemplified when meeting some non-tempered Garleans, who treat the Scions like vultures who have come to pick clean what little they have left, accuse the non-Garleans of making everything worse, spitting curses at them, and doing everything they can to defy what they want. This fear and paranoia even gets Licinia and her little sister killed when they flee their safe haven, dying in the ice floe, because they had convinced themselves that the Scions were evil. Alphinaud starts to say that he should have said something else, but comes to admit that he can't erase oppression or lingering hatred all by himself, and he understands why the Garleans think so badly of him.
• Jiggle Physics: It's very subtle and more realistic than most other games to the point where you'd have to zoom in and look closely to see it, but it is there. The devs put a surprising amount of detail into this as well and how much a female character's breasts will bounce changes based on the armor they're wearing. Wearing a solid steel breastplate? Your boobs aren't going anywhere. Wearing the default Miqo'te shirt that clearly lacks a bra? You'll be bouncing like crazy, especially if you're doing two out of three of the dances introduced in patch 2.2.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: The Echo is an ability granted to those few who witnessed a strange, meteor shower-like event in the sky, which occurred at the beginning of the game's main storyline. Those possessed of the Echo have the ability to touch people's souls, and experience their memories as if they had been present at the time. This is, of course, not time travel, but the actions of a person with the gift inside an "Echoed" memory will permanently alter the memories of the person the Echo is used on.
  • Those capable of detecting the Echo's use (often by having the gift themselves) will occasionally recognise an unfamiliar person in their memories and realise what's going on. Those with this ability who haven't given their permission - such as Raya-o-Senna - of course consider this very, very rude.
  • 1.0 was also very sneaky about its use. Prior to the Echo being explained when the player character is invited to join the Path of the Twelve, the Echo receives very little suggestion. As its use is preceded only by a soft 'whoosh' noise and a very subtle screen effect, often with no change in location whatsoever, it is only in retrospect that many players will realise certain events early in the story were actually their experiencing NPCs' memories. A Realm Reborn makes it much more obvious even before the Echo is explained that something strange is happening, and for the most part seems to have entirely dropped the ability to alter memories.
• Jump Physics: You can jump, though it doesn't serve any purpose other than leaping up a low ledge to save yourself time when traveling; you can only jump about two feet, can change facing in mid-air but won't actually change course until you land, and attacks aimed at or status effects given by the area you're in still hit whether you're on the ground or in mid-air. However, falling off a cliff will make you suffer fall damage and great heights will leave you with just a single point of HP after you land, save for certain occasions in dungeons where falling is the only way to progress. If you suffer massive fall damage while engaged with an enemy, the Last Chance Hit Point safeguard won't kick in and you can wind up KOing yourself from fall damage alone.
• Just Before the End: The backdrop for Endwalker. The grand finale to the story of Hydaelyn and Zodiark comes in the form of the second coming of the calamity that ended the world of the ancient Amaurotines. Only this time, unlike the Amaurotines the people of Hydaelyn are far more prepared to fight back in the name of averting the fates of the ancients.
• Keystone Army: At the end of Stormblood, after Zenos dies, the Garlean armies occupying Ala Mhigo fold, effectively ending the occupation with the viceroy's demise.
• Knight Templar: Ishgard show some elements of this in the Holy See and the Knights Twelve. They're defending their homeland, but they do it with such fervent bloodlust and a desire to exterminate the "heretics" they fight that it borders on fanatical. King Thordan and his Knights Twelve, in particular, seem convinced that all dragons — and by extension, anyone who helps them, symapthizes with them, or even looks like them such as an Au Ra — are inherently evil mongrels who must be put down with righteous fury. The fact that the war against the dragons was started by a lie on the part of King Thordan I one thousand years ago doesn't help matters.
• Kill the God: Repeatedly. Part of the Scions' mission to ensure lasting peace is Eorzea is stopping the recurring threat of the primals being summoned to wreak havoc against both the spoken and beast races. This means the Warrior of Light (and some of their fellow Echo-blessed adventurers) must venture out to take down these Physical Gods to limit the collateral damage they cause with their existence.
• Killer Rabbit: Bringing back the tradition as has been going on for years in the series, and a popular in-joke with the FFXI crowd, there's a number of absolutely adorable creatures here, that will happily tear apart any under-level adventurer who tries to use the "/pet" command on them.
  • Eorzean Squirrels, rats, etc. At first, fairly harmless, a non-aggressive mob, meant for new players to find their footing. Upon heading east of Camp Dragonhead, for Whitebrim Front in the Coerthas Central Highlands, players not paying attention, will meet their Chinchilla cousins, who do aggro if they spot a player within their level range or lower. First time visitors to the area have frequently had to return to the Aetheryte back in Dragonhead after that.
  • Spriggans. Little black furballs with bunny ears, and some minion versions even. They carry around a chunk of ore in their tiny arms, or in a little belt. Unlike the above, these things are on a zone by zone basis of which aggro players on sight, and which don't. And in some cases, this varies by even which part of the zone you're even in.
  • Deer type enemies. Those listed as Doe versions tend to be non-aggressive, but put up a fight if attacked. Bucks, however, are territorial, and will aggro. The same also applies with Goat type enemies.
  • Heavensward brings us Gaelicats^note Flying cats with bat-like wings, and what appears to be tiny scarfs, which aggro on sight, and begin clawing at newly-arrived adventurers to the Sea of Clouds/Cloud Top. and Deepeyes^note Owl like creatures with a single large eye, who also aggro and begin clawing at adventurers with their talons, who just left Falcon's Nest to explode the Coerthas Western Highlands for the first time.
  • The Bozjan Southern Front in Shadowbringers introduces the Red Comet, a monster of a red chocobo who introduces itself with a Colony Drop between the Rebels and the IVth Legion to the point both NPCs and players alike run like all hell to get out of the way of "the second coming of Dalamud."
  • For a more ominous example, though one you never see actually do anything onscreen, the beavers in Shadowbringers are vaguely some kind of horrible monster that somehow transform pixies into more beavers (which absolutely terrifies the pixies). It even extends to Endwalker: During one quest, a researcher in Elpis asks you to tell his creations called "nymphai" to stop stealing jars of nectar. When you go in the direction he tells you to, you find what are apparently the proto-beavers who all scurry away when you talk to them. When you return to the researcher, he is initially confused as the nymphai are apparently similar to pixies, but then he makes some sort of connection between the nymphai and the beavers, begins to laugh horribly, then tells you to keep all of this to yourself and tell no one.
  • The Silkie encountered in the Sil'dihn Subterrane is an enormous, rat-like creature with lolipop-shaped feather duster for a tail. Despite its cuddly appearance, it's a powerful familiar and guardian of Nanamo's mother, dishing out powerful ice, lightning, and water magic both to clean and to sweep away its enemies. However, the mount obtained from the Sil'dihn Subterrane notes that the creature's actual body is the tail, with the rat-shaped part being an extension of it.
• The Kindness of Strangers: Due to being an MMO, it's not unheard of to see players in the overworld lending a hand to others who are in trouble, even if the two will never meet again. There's an even an achievement of the same name for reviving defeated players not in your party.
• Kubrick Stare: Edda Pureheart gives one (together with a Slasher Smile) to Paiyo Reiyo at the end of the "Corpse Groom" quest.
• Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: The Warrior's spar with Lyse atop the statue of Rhalgr at Rhalgr's Reach in the opening trailer for Stormblood generates visible waves of force that can be felt far below.

L

• Lady and Knight: During the Little Lady's Day celebration, when every young woman in Ul'dah is treated like a princess, these young women choose an older male to be their "seneschal" or protector and servant. This can be a friend, family member, or even a kind stranger.
• Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: An odd example. The trailer for 1.0 had multiple characters in it, most of whom would appear in the trailer for 2.0 and later appear as villainous NPCs (though they were technically separate characters). All except for one Elezen Gladiator who only appeared within the first trailer, then disappeared from any subsequent appearances. That is at least until you have completed all 4 Role quests within Shadowbringers. During said quests, there is an Elezen gladiator who shows up in certain echo flashbacks, and after completing all four questlines, it turns out that she has survived for a whole century since the Flood of Light started, working as a barmaiden within the Crystarium.
• Laser Blade: The Padjali and Kinna weapons are the closest that get to this trope as they are weapons of pure light (blood red light for the Kinna) that you can obtain.
• Last Chance Hit Point:
  • Falling damage outside of combat can't KO players, bringing them down to 1 hit point at worst.
  • Several Tank classes get abilities which make use of this. Warriors get "Holmgang", which bind them and their current target in place and prevent the Warrior from having their HP depleted for eight seconds. Dark Knights get "Living Dead", which keeps the Dark Knight from being knocked out while it's active; if their HP is depleted while it's active, then they get the "Walking Dead" status effect, which prevents them from being knocked out for ten seconds, but will cause them to keel over afterwards if they aren't healed sufficiently (by an amount equal to their current maximum health). Gunbreakers get an odd variation with "Superbolide", which intentionally drops their HP to one point, in return for shielding them from all further damage for eight seconds.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • Shadowbringers was heavily beloved, but even it had a few flaws, and there was one thing that shocked and disappointed many fans: the new Gunbreaker and Dancer jobs had little to no weapon gear for anything below level 60, and even then the only level 60 gear you get — at the time anyways — is the stuff they start with (which are essentially recolors of existing gear), the Padjali gear, and the Shire gear from the very end of Heavensward. So fans couldn't get, for example, gunblades that go "Kupo!" when unsheathing or chakrams infused with the Nidhogg's aura. At the very least, the PvP glamour weapons help to alleviate this issue somewhat.
  • Shadowbringers likewise eschews the usual Deep Dungeon and Hildibrand side content (a staple since Heavensward and A Realm Reborn respectively) in exchange for different content like the Ishgardian Restoration project (one of the first pieces of content to focus heavily on crafting classes since the Ixal Beast Tribe quests before Heavensward) and group fishing on a boat.
  • Shadowbringers also came with some major changes to the combat system, chief among them a rebalance to MP — now every class has a flat cap of 10,000 and every spell that uses it uses a fixed amount, rather than both fluctuating and increasing as you gain levels and put on better gear — as well as the removal or simplification of several skills and mechanics, even if the class once heavily relied on them (Machinist no longer having its ammo-management mechanic or any penalty for letting their weapon overheat too much, while Astrologian's card-drawing buffs were simplified into simple damage boosts for different roles based on the draw) or the skill is a Final Fantasy staple (healers can no longer use Protect — something the devs were planning on removing in an earlier expansion, but didn't do so because it's such an iconic spell).
• Lava Pot Volcano: Hell's Lid is a volcano located in the Ruby Sea that is perpetually smoking and filled with lava, having created numerous islands nearby it from the lava plumes it has shot into the surrounding ocean.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Thanks to a combination of Lampshade Hanging and Lemony Narrator, the game just loves to point out how silly some things are.
  • The Warrior of Light is often jokingly suggested to never sleep thanks to the sheer time commitment of their many heroic deeds. While it is possible to go to sleep in this game (by logging off in an inn) since it's a purely aesthetic thing many players don't bother. And with the speed of the game's day-night cycle, all but the shortest play sessions are going to require the Warrior stay awake for well over 24 hours at a time.
  • The third of the Level 50 Astrologian quests gives us this description from one of the Astrologian trainer NPCs who has a "Quest Available!" exclamation mark above his head at the moment it offers it to the player to accept:
    Quest-Sharlayan Ascending: So eager is Jannequinard to talk with you, it is almost as if there were a giant exclamation point hovering over his head.
  • During the Even Further Adventures of Hildibrand, you become properly acquainted with the stalker who has been following Nashu since the beginning of the ARR quests. He tells you that he first laid eyes on her 5 years ago, or possibly just a week ago, lampshading the ambiguous amount of time that has passed in-story since the beginning, while also lining up with when A Realm Reborn was released, which was 5 years previous in real-world time.
  • Another quest in the same quest line has the player character find "Plot-relevant Gloves". The description even notes that you couldn't have picked them up if you weren't doing the quest.
  • At the end of the Return to Ivalice quests, Cid notes that you have "enough battles under [your] belt to fill at least three tomes, if not four". One immediately imagines that they might be titled A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood, plus a fourth tome exclusive to Legacy characters...
  • Right before the final battle with Emet-Selch, aka Hades, he proclaims that you two shall fight with all titles thrown aside. He is the only boss in the expansion whose name doesn't have a title to go with it.
  • A quest added in 5.2 centers around ascending the various memes regarding the phrase "la hee" heard in the music for the Rak'tika Greatwood, by noting them as an "ancient word of power", and having an NPC claim that "those favored by the gods can even hear the voice of the ancients, carried on the wind as they travel through the Greatwood" before wondering whether the player has had such an experience - obviously referencing the background music for the Greatwood, where they hear it all the time.
  • Near the finale of Endwalker: a recently resurrected and soon to be dead again Emet-Selch rattles off a long list of locations back on Etheirys that your player character, and by extension, you, the player, have yet to visit. He does it as a means of encouraging your character to continue their adventuring, but it doubles as a not so subtle assurance that, story arc conclusion or no, there is still plenty of content and storytelling to be delivered in Final Fantasy XIV.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • It wouldn't be an MMORPG without the trope. There's always at least one person who will run ahead of your group and pull hate from every enemy in the area, causing him to get a beatdown so fast that the healer can't keep up. Made worse if said player is not a tank. Some NPCs will also act in a leeroy manner, whether as demanded by plot or when they're actually helping you in a fight. This has become so common that later dungeons have a number of barricades and barriers in place to prevent progress until the mobs of the area are defeated, making impossible to rush too far ahead and pull too much at once.
  • This trope is the cause for a Start of Darkness: Avere, upon his group reaching the Tam-Tara Dungeon, raced head first into the dungeon without waiting for his group, especially his beleaguered fiance and healer Edda Pureheart. He ended up getting his head cut off for his troubles and Edda's team blamed her for his death because she was too slow, not for the fact that he was an idiot who raced on ahead.
• Legacy Character: The Hullbreaker Island dungeon reveals this fact about the legendary pirate Mistbeard. Mistbeard is itself a Cool Helmet, and whoever wears it has the right to dub himself Mistbeard. The last Mistbeard hung up his helmet to enlist under the Admiral as her right hand.
• Legendary Weapon: As typical of the Final Fantasy franchise, XIV has special weapons that are known for their iconic history that players seek to gather as Infinity +1 Sword gear. The more iconic ones are the Relic Weapons in the 2.x line and Gunnhildr's Blades in 5.x.
• Lemony Narrator: The descriptions for FATE quests can get extremely sarcastic sounding at times. This happens most often with creatures that are surrounded by myth and may or may not be real... then pointing out that said myth that may or may not be real is currently trying to murder you.
  • Not just FATEs, but also Quest entries, items, and key items. Whoever is in charge of item descriptions loves being a Deadpan Snarker.
    Nashu's Delight: Many cope with grief by taking up new pursuits, such as travel or exercise. Nashu chose to study explosives.
  • The narration for the Dwarf tribe questline is particularly sarcastic.
    Narrator: Despite Ronitt's dearest efforts, time refused to slow down, heartless bastard that it is.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Volcanic Heart arena in Crystalline Conflict is located next to one, with its major stage hazard consisting of Bombs spawning in and exploding in a cross pattern, potentially killing unlucky combatants.
• Let's See YOU Do Better!:
  • A common theme of the Crafting guild quest lines should a rival be introduced in them. Averted in the Armorer guild, through, as you actually do better than a fellow guild member, but then try to pass your creations off as hers to help her complete an order and gain confidence in herself.
  • Played for laughs during the main story line, when during the rescue of the Scions from the Garleans Castrum Centri base, Wedge abandons "Maggie" the magitek armor after getting surrounded by Garlean soldiers right when the Scions could use her firepower.
    Biggs: You ditched your magitek armor?! Fool of a Lalafell!
    Wedge: Well, EXCUSE ME! She's all yours if you think you can do any better!
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: The Crystal Tower has several areas where all 3 party groups must split up in order to complete the objectives. You're only separated by several feet so you can still be in reach for healing from another group, but not close enough to actually help out completely in a fight. Other areas will have invisible barriers to prevent people from healing other alliances.
• Level Grinding: At the game's original launch, Square Enix tried to blunt this trope with a fatigue system where as you earned experience the amount of experience you earned would very gradually decrease until you would earn nothing at all. Fatigue would diminish while a character was inactive, but the system was still generally unpopular with the people that played enough to be affected by it, and it was ultimately removed in patch 1.18. As of 2.0, you can get to level 50 with very little level grinding as long as you complete sidequests at the same time as main quests.^note For your first job, anyway. Subsequent jobs, not having access to those same quests (which can only be completed once), have to get more creative, though they do get an exp boost
• Level in Reverse: Common among the Hard Mode dungeons, which generally feature the players returning to a previously-cleared dungeon under new circumstances.
  • Amdapor Keep's hard mode has you working your way towards the boss room that normal mode ended at and working your way backwards with some of the paths slightly altered.
  • Similarly, Pharos Sirius' hard mode has you starting at the very top of the lighthouse where you fought the Siren and working your way down to the bottom, though you also get to explore a sub level beneath the ground floor that was recently opened up by the kobolds.
• Level Scaling: Inverted by most things, which "level sync" an overleveled player down to the appropriate level — complete with temporary loss of actions, which can be disorienting if you're not expecting it. Optional (but played straight by default) for guildleves, which can be increased in level by up to 5 to keep the challenge and rewards appropriate for slightly overleveled players who haven't unlocked the next set yet - conversely, if you try to complete a level with a class that's above their set of levels, you get a penalty to the rewards.
• Life-Affirming Aesop: The Endwalker expansion's Central Theme is focused on the importance of finding and keeping the will to live in the face of life's adversity and hardship. The Final Boss of the expansion is the Endsinger, the collective amalgamation of the hate and despair of those who tried to find happiness in life, failed, and came to curse existence. Her song of oblivion would destroy all life in the universe by weaponizing despair through dynamis. By affirming their will to carry on and find meaning in the suffering of life, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn turn the dynamis against the Endsinger and save the universe.
• Life Drain: Some enemies have abilities or buffs that will absorb your HP and adds to their own. As of patch 4.0, caster DPS jobs can use the Drain spell for the same function.
• The Lifestream: The Aethereal Sea, which is also referred to by the trope name.
• Light Is Good: In the grand tradition of Final Fantasy, the Warriors of Light count as this, especially if playing as classes like the white mage or paladin. Among the cast there is also Hydaelyn and certain members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn like Minfilia. This belief is so enduring across the shards that all Elidibus has to do is summon a piece of the Warriors of Light's souls from other shards, point them at the heroes and say, "Here lies darkness." to get them to attack the Scions en masse.
• Light Is Not Good:
  • The final battle of Heavensward, the pope-turned-primal King Thordan and his Knights of the Round, use attacks like "Holiest of Holy" and "Light of Ascalon." Their motivations, however, are anything but good.
  • The Amdapori aesthetic is a high gothic cathedral style of polished white alabaster stone, and they utilized White Magic. They also along with the other Magi caused an Umbral Calamity and the Great Flood. The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard) has undead/resurrected White Mages that will use healing magic on their allies and will not hesitate to cast Holy on your party and it's just as strong as the player's Holy spell while also having the same Stun effect. The second boss will use a more powerful version of Holy that can instantly wipe the party if not countered in time and the final boss can use Cure III and Cure IV to heal itself, but it can also turn the same spells against you to deal massive damage if it's under the Reverse effect.
  • Patch 3.4's storyline introduces the concept that pure light is just as dangerous as pure darkness. The Warriors of Darkness hail from a world where light was stronger than darkness. They easily dispatched the evils of their world, only to find that their constant destruction of darkness caused what almost became a flood of pure light aether. A pure, blinding radiance permeates their world, erasing color and life itself. Only the intervention of Hydaelyn herself can prevent the world from becoming a light-aspected void of positive energy.
  • Shadowbringers is pretty much Light Is Not Good: The Expansion. You travel to the world the original Warriors of Darkness came from, about a hundred years after the Flood happened, and it's not looking good - even just looking at the world map shows that, outside of the specific playable areas, everything in the world is covered in pure, solidified light. Only the intervention of Minfilia as an extension of Hydaelyn kept it from swallowing the entire world, and even then what's left has to deal with daytime that never ends, aether poisoning if they go out for too long into the endless expanse of light, and constant attacks from Sin Eaters, angelic-looking monsters that attack with reckless abandon and turn all those who aren't killed outright into more Sin Eaters.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • While the main story line does have some humorous moments here and there, the Hidlibrand side quests are all about wacky hijinks that look like they came straight out of a cartoon.
  • The Alexander raid storyline is intentionally light and somewhat goofy, using Goblins as the main enemies, in order to counterbalance just how dark and bleak the Heavensward storyline as a whole is.
  • While the beastmen quests in 2.0 had fit in with the rest of the game's darker themes, the Ixali beastmen quests focuses more on the Ixali outcasts simply wanting to return to their homeland in the sky and have no desire to get involved with the conflict with the spoken races. Heavensward shows off the Vanu Vanu that ran away from their oppressive village and are trying to build their own village in peace as well as getting along with their brethren neighbors while the outcast Gnath are looking for a purpose in life and want to help other people like the Warrior of Light does.
  • Dawntrail appears to be going in this direction, as seen in the first teaser trailer from Fanfest 2023. After the end of the world stakes in Endwalker, Dawntrail is about exploring a new South American style continent. The expansion was described as "sending the Warrior of Light on a summer vacation" by Yoshida at the Fanfest in which the expansion was announced.
• Limit Break: Introduced in ARR^note There was a limit break mechanic in the original 1.0 version, but it was very complicated and confusing: Each Role gets a different Limit that starts at level 1 in a light party (four people), 2 in a full party (eight people), and gains another bar when fighting the last boss of an instance, allowing up to level 3. In Heavensward the mechanics of limit breaks were changed slightly so that only Jobs can use the level 3 limit breaks, and each was also granted a unique visual (as opposed to 2.0 only having three, one for each role). The four types of limit breaks are:
  • Tanks: Grants the party a brief but significant reduction to damage taken (Stone Wall and Mighty Guard). The level 3 version has a visual unique to each class, and briefly reduces all damage taken by party members by eighty percent. This is potent enough to prevent wipes from some attacks that were designed to wipe the party if not handled properly.
  • Magic DPS: AoE damage in a large circular area. At level 1 and two it's a Kill Sat and rain of comets, at level 3 the area of effect becomes absolutely massive, with a visual unique to each class.
  • Melee DPS: A massive single target hit, doing far more damage than the other two kinds of DPS. Level 1 is Braver, level 2 is Omnislash but called Blade Dance, and level 3 has a visual unique to each class.
  • Ranged physical DPS: AoE Damage in a direct line; fairly narrow across compared to the casters' but absurdly long, making it the safest to use. At level 1, the character draws a crossbow and uses Big Shot, a big charged laser. Level 2 is Desperado, in which a second crossbow is drawn and shoots a hilariously large hail of bolts. At level 3, the width grows massive and damage increases with a visual unique to each class.
  • Healers: Healing Wind, a giant wave of healing that becomes more effective at level 2 (Breath of the Earth). At level 3, the range is increased even more. It also gains a raise effect with a unique class based visual, reviving all dead party members without any resurrection penalty, and restores everyone to full health.
  • There's a unique Limit Break in Command Missions called Ungarmax, usable only in that mode. When used, the Warrior of Light and their three squad members all rush a single target at once before an explosion of aether engulfs the target, dealing damage to one enemy and granting Damage Up to the squadron for fifteen seconds. It costs only one bar regardless of how much the Limit Break was charged at the time it's used, and its effect is the same for every class.
  • In PvP modes, each player instead gets their personal Limit gauge that fills over time or by completing mode's objectives. Unlike PvE, each job has its own Limit Break - some are based on job's abilities that aren't normally available in PvP, and others are wholly unique.
• Lingering Social Tensions: “The Dragonsong War” story arc deals with this trope. Following the revelation of what Archbishop Thordan and his Heaven’s Ward had done and the truth about the start of the war, Aymeric and his allies attempt to push Ishgard away from the troubled and antiquated theocratic ruling system and bring peace with the dragons. However, the church wants to retain power and the social order and many of the citizens can’t imagine being friendly with dragons after the war took their loved ones. And, of course, there’s Nidhogg, whose bloodlust has him refusing any sort of peace offering. The storyline deals with putting these problems away.
• Lip Lock: The few voiced cutscenes don't have lip animations that even come close to matching the dialogue in any language, just generic Mouth Flaps that start when a line's audio does and stops when the line ends with no pauses. The problem is the Japanese lines are much longer than the English ones, and the localization team didn't write around that fact, so quite a lot of the English audio is spoken very slowly and unnaturally to make sure the audio starts and stops with the mouth flaps.
• Little People: Lalafell, the spiritual successors of the Tarutaru. A lalafell is about half the height of the average Hyur, and lalafell frequently need accommodations to use things that every other race could use with no problem. In the First, the race is called "dwarves", and there's a unique dwarf village where everything is sized appropriately. The game enforces this by making the housing block access from anyone that isn't lalafell, and prevents summoning of mounts while inside.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Many of the crafter quests require you to make a specific item. However, nothing is stopping you from having another player craft the item for you or you just straight up buying the item on the marketboard. The crafter quests in Stormblood changes it up by giving you the required materials to craft the item and they can't be acquired anywhere else or traded between players, thus you have to actually make the items with your own hands. However, while the Beast Tribe crafting quests (Moogles, Namazu, and Dwarfs) do require you to turn in the items with the same class you started the quest with, there's no restriction other than that and the crafted items are the same for all crafting classes. There's nothing stopping you from picking up the quest and crafting materials from the moogles with your level 50 culinarian, actually doing the crafting with a much higher level crafting class, then switching back to culinarian just before turning it in.
  • Some cultures, such as the Vanu Vanu of Ok'Zundu and the Viis of Fanow, have traditions where youngsters undergo a rite of passage or training and can not be assisted in their efforts. Some of the side quests in these areas involve individuals recruiting the Warrior of Light to assist a trainee, as they aren't bound by these rules.
  • Want to do a duty from "A Realm Reborn" or "Heavensward" because of how easy/low effort they are, but you also want the reward for using the duty roulette? Easy - lower your item level so the game will not place you in any higher level duties. Ain't No Rule saying you can't put your removed gear back on once you get in and thus end up with adjusted stats that are on the higher end of the game's scaling.
  • Endwalker tried to address the bot problem with housing by making houses awarded via lottery in order to give people a chance to enter. Sure enough, people started to enlist the use of alt accounts and Free companies to stack the lottery in their favour.
• Lost in Translation:
  • One that caused some major xenophobic Epileptic Trees, the Japanese fanbase was "pleasantly" surprised to discover that Chocobos^note Always spelled チョコボ/Chocobo in both Japanese and English were renamed to the Kanji for "Horse-bird/馬鳥" by the development team. This, combined with the announcement of a Chinese release and the hiring of a Chinese localization team to translate it after the game was released, led to the assumption by some that the entire development of the game was outsourced to China. This is despite the FFXI development team basically transferring entirely to this game. Then, when the fanbase screamed bloody murder about this, they were renamed "Chocopos" before quickly being corrected a final time. Thankfully, since the new producer took over, his first priority has been to keep players of all regions informed and listen to their suggestions. This is later lampshaded in ARR with NPCs from the Far East analogue calling Chocobos "Horsebirds" in at least the English localization.
  • This trope also ruined the big punchline to ARR's Hildibrand quest line, causing it to just seem like it was simply more Hildibrand style humor. In Japan the punchline was a brick joke. One of Hildibrand's fans refers to him as a "Gentleman of Light", not a "Warrior of Light". In Japanese, Warrior of Light is written as "光の戦士" (Hikari no Senshi). Gentleman of Light, meanwhile, is written as "光の紳士" (Hikari no Shinshi). The joke is equivalent to being "one letter off" in spelling, something that doesn't translate easily from Japanese to English.
  • Another naming issue cropped up when Labyrinth of the Ancients was being added and later, Syrcus Tower. The dev team in Japan, wanting to keep the Crystal Tower dungeons true to their inspiration from Final Fantasy III, wanted to name the final boss of that dungeon after the character it was modeled after, namely, FFIII Titan. Problem is, there's already Titan, the Primal and its related Summoner pet, in game. Japan can get around this issue, with a slight change in pronunciation, using タイタン (EN pronunciation: Tie-tun) for Primal Titan, and ティターン (FFIII spelling, and Greek pronunciation: Tea-tahn) for the Labyrinth's final boss. The English, French, and German language localization teams aren't so lucky, since no matter how you pronounce it in those languages it's still spelled the same. Solution? Get special permission to rename the final boss to Acheron, one of the FFIII Titan's Palette Swaps. Everything was fine, until the 2.3 localization came about, and a certain issue seemed to have slipped the Japanese team's minds, the full details of which are found here, but which is summed up best with the following:
    Fernehalwes (Michael Christopher Koji Fox), English localization lead/game world lore master: Fast-forward to a month before patch 2.3. We get a list of the enemies slated to appear in the second leg of the Crystal Tower... and what do we see? アケローン. For those of you who don’t read katakana, let me give you a hint: it’s Acheron. (And he made a point to bring this up at his panel at FanFest, too.)
  • The naming issue is also referenced by an NPC within the game, stating that the name of (then) Acheron was mistranslated and has been rectified by the research team (he's now Phlegethon in English).
  • Astrologians aren't from Coerthas, rather, they're a specific type of scholar from the Sharlayan providence; the "Astrologians" in Coerthas suffered the same Kanji-English mistranslation as Acheron/Phlegethon. When Heavensward released, they clarified this by mentioning that Ishgardian Astrologians originally started with the art from Sharlayan, but because of their single-minded, Knight Templar obsession with the Dragonsong War, it was bastardized from an art dealing with healing and manipulating fate to purely tracking the dragons' movements via the Dragon Star.
  • Primal Brainwashing is another translation error. In Japanese, the word they use can be used to describe any form of brainwashing, but in English "Tempering" was saddled as the generic term by virtue of being the first one players encounter, despite that it only works for being taken by Ifrit, as the act refers to fire. While they have distinguished them in English (having Ramuh's thrall be "touched", and Leviathan's "drowned", etc.), tempered is still used as the shorthand for when the branding process isn't specifically named. Eventually it was established within the English script that "tempering" became the catch-all term because Ifrit was one of the earliest primals to be encountered by current Eorzean society.
  • Lead composer Soken apparently wrote lyrics for the Titan theme which, as the English translators described it, were "one big problem", presumably meaning it was full of profanity. Apparently not speaking English, a lot of the devs didn't realize anything was wrong with it until the translators said they needed to scrap it. They eventually got the lead translator Koji Fox to write new lyrics, which are the ones that appear in the final product.
• Lost Technology: A lot of the game's problems and advancements deal with Allagan Empire, a mighty empire that existed in the Third Astral Era whose technology even surpassed that of the Garlean Empire. While the Eorzean Alliance seeks to discover these devices for the betterment of all and to help them in problems that trouble them, the Garlean Empire seek them out to help push their conquest drive.
• The Lost Woods: The Black Shroud, or Twelveswood, where lies the city of Gridania. The trope was clearer in 1.0, where the region was a giant gridlike maze and more fuss was made about the semi-sentience of the forest, but elements of this are still plenty evident.
• Low-Level Run: There's a feature in the duty finder that allows preformed parties to sync their item level to the absolute minimum for that dungeon/trial, allowing people to re-experience their first time doing a duty with weak gear.
• Low-Tech Spears: Discussed. During the Lancer and Carpenter quests, it's pointed out that the weapons wielded by lancers were originally born out of the primitive fishing and hunting tools used at the dawn of civilization. The harpoons once used for fetching food were gradually adapted into tools of war with more complex and effective techniques. The player has access to several of these primitive-looking harpoons that are usually made from the shells of animals.
• Luck-Based Mission: Crafting high-quality items involves a lot of RNG; there is a base chance represented by the Quality bar (increased by using high quality ingredients), there are abilities you can use to increase the quality (which also have failure chances) and there are random variations in item condition (Normal, Good, Excellent and Poor) that change the effectiveness of those abilities. Crafting high quality items consistently requires a combination of good gear, cross-class skills and a rotation that minimizes the effect of RNG swings.
  • The Atma drops introduced in patch 2.2 is the trope in spades. Upgrading your relic zenith weapon to higher levels requires 12 Atma items that can only be found in specific areas from any FATEs and the drop rate of said items are ridiculously low. Without all 12 items, you are not going to get your relic weapon powered up. Fortunately, patch 2.4 greatly increased their drop rates, so it's at least a little bit less painful now.
  • Patch 3.15 brings the new anima weapons, the first quest of which (unless you have a fully upgraded relic weapon from ARR to trade in) — soul without life - requires you to gather 18 luminous crystals from FATEs in each of the six Heavensward outdoor zones. The drop rate isn't quite as bad as was alleged for the above patch 2.2 drops (pre-boost), but there is still an element of luck involved.
  • Everything about the Aquapolis. To get in, you need to open a treasure chest from Deciphering a dragonskin treasure map. After you defeat the mobs and open the chest, there is a chance a portal to the dungeon will open. If it does, the layout is simple; you beat the mobs on the floor, open the chest, and then the person who initially Deciphered the treasure map has to simply pick the left or right door. The correct door lets you go down a floor, the wrong door boots you out of the dungeon. There are no hints or clues as to which door is the correct one, except rarely a door will light up as a free pass (and it can still be the wrong door!). There are seven floors total. Good luck! The Lost Canals of Uznair is an updated version of the Aquapolis, and follows the same format.
  • The "Wondrous Tails" weekly activity is very much luck-based. You're given a journal that has a 4x4 grid in it, and completing specific activities (Complete a level 60 dungeon, beat Shiva Extreme mode, etc.) a seal will be placed, randomly, within the grid. The goal is to make three lines worth of seals for the best rewards, but again, you have no control over where the seal is placed. You can use two of your Second Chance points to shuffle in the hopes of a better arrangement, but you cannot shuffle after you've gotten more than 7 seals, and it's still random. On top of that, you only get a Second Chance point when you or someone in your party is doing an activity for the first time, and you can only hold a max of 9 Second Chance points.
• Ludd Was Right: The fall of the Allagan Empire, as described by Doga and Unei in the Crystal Tower storyline, began when it became apparent that their reliance on that same tower had fostered stagnation and decadence on a global scale, and collapse was imminent. It's treated merely as backstory at the time, but ends up forgotten entirely even as the story ends with the remaining members of NOAH vowing to restore the Tower to that original purpose in the future.

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