First few quests of ARR: Look at this amazing world! Sure there was an apocalypse a while back, but people have bounced back and you have all these adventures to go on! First few quests of HW: Ishgard has a whole bunch of secrets to uncover and it's hard to tell what's really going on. Better figure it out!
On the other hand, he did force the Alliance's hand. As at fault as Ilberd is, there's definitely fault to be laid at the Eorzean Alliance's lap for their inaction.
I just think if they were doing more, even if they didn't make a big push like they're forced to do now, Ilberd wouldn't have been able to procure so many willing followers.
One thing that's done in the real world is sending excellent soldiers who are excellent teachers to then teach the resistance groups the tactics necessary to succeed, basically getting them up to speed faster than the opposition group would anticipate.
One thing the Eorzean Alliance definitely wasn't doing though was organizing its effort to help Ala Mhigo as an alliance it was very disjointed until now.
It worked to bring the Alliance in, yeah. It also depleted Ala Mhigo's already low population of people willing to fight, and devastated the morale of the people left. Ignoring ethics and looking at it with a practical eye, I'm on the fence about how effective it was.
Of course, Ilberd no doubt expected Shinryu to actually attack the imperials rather than get knocked off who-knows-where by Omega, so it's not like everything went the way he intended.
Ilberd's vision is that the resistance failed and you should be willing to die for your cause. If you are not willing to die for your cause, then you are a traitor and getting you killed or worst is just retribution.
Mmmm. Though, how much of that is because this is a game and the good guys have to win, and how much is actually believable is the question. Which, obviously, I don't have the foggiest idea this early on.
And I do believe we've met the Big Bad of this expansion, or the Ala Mhigo side of it anyway. Plus his main subordinate, though technically we saw her earlier.
Something I really love about FF14's worldbuilding is that, like... you know how there's sometimes a designated Merchant Race? And they're usually capitalist assholes, and often have a bunch of antisemitic tropes?
FF14 has two Merchant Races, fully distinct from each other in both the mercantilism and the cultural values and mores that lead to the mercantilism, and neither of them are assholes or stereotypes.
in ARR and HW it was fairly formulaic, you'd have a tribe with a subgroup you did quests for that was in some way resisting their tempered brethren (with the exception of the moogles)
if you already know about this then I'm sorry for repeating, but - there's a bit in the second lorebook that actually specifically calls out the Syndicate for this
and yeah didn't want to bring it up at the point you were at, but this lends credence to what you were saying of "What could the Alliance do?" Because freeing Doma is instrumental in the plan to free Ala Mhigo
So now we're almost on par with Zenos until he draws that supersword... Okay, we know Kami are real thanks to Susano, so maybe he's channeling energy through it like Louisoix's staff or something.
Okay, this is interesting, because I did conceive of the Ortrite as being one of the tribes still on the Steppe. So either they don't participate in the Nadaam or my WoL is gonna be fighting her own family...
I did notice several tribes seem to have left the steppes, like Sid's and Alaqa's. I could go that route but I like the idea of this being Kalla's homecoming.
... So one of the biggest tribes is basically a cult with Mr. "I am the Sun God" at its helm, and the other consists of the most metal version of reincarnation belief I've ever seen.
Hien: Okay guys, we won the fight, so now we're gonna go save Doma. Sadu: You want us to fight your war? Hien: ... Sadu: Yeah sure I just want to kick someone's ass.
Yay! Doma's free. Awww, we're gonna have to leave everyone behind to go back to Ala Mhigo Yay! Hien's sending Yugiri with us as part of his plan to keep the Empire on the back foot! Oh fuck! Zenos has Krile!
Taken out the bridge, clever plan with the flag, and found out that we've got a new Primal to punch! Once again the imperials are their own worst enemies when it comes to that.
... Okay so Zenos's science dude thinks he's found a way to let Garleans use magic. But he did something else to Fordola, they were pretty cagey about what.
Okay, so, Krile's back, Fordola's captured, we know what Zenos did to Fordola (somehow gave her the Echo), and we're coming up on the end of 4.0, it looks like.
I am... less than impressed with Fordola's attempt at a motive, but there are plenty of people IRL who haven't figured out by her age that doing your captors bidding will never be rewarded.
Stopped to finish the Monk questline, and unsurprisingly, it was a very good one! The main disappointment is that it doesn't actually intersect with the main quest at all.
In HW you go from the absolute bottom, betrayed by everyone, left with just a few allies and one family of a nation you know nothing about willing to take you in, to the unchallenged hero of both that nation and its ancient enemies, ender of a thousand-year war.
The things that makes it the WoL's story are A: The fact that they're the one who beats down almost everyone, and B: Zenos, because as far as he's concerned everybody else may as well not exist.
I don't particularly mind this, though. You get to play a supporting role, helping other people become their best selves after they get broken down like you were at the start of HW.
Putting Doma and Ala Mhigo into the same expansion did require splitting things up, yeah, but that's written in to the story, and I think they make it work. They do introduce a lot in this expansion, though.
In the end, it was an ambitious expansion, and if some things didn't get all the attention that we would have liked, I feel like that's perfectly understandable. But in the end, all of these places were important and the story would have suffered for losing any of them.
Character-wise, we know most of the people on the Ala Mhigo side of things already. We just get introduced to a handful of red shirts and Fordola over there.
Which might be why Ala Mhigo seems smaller? There isn't much in the way of interesting new faces to add to the cast... but that's because several of the people we already know came from there in the first place.
The Doma side of things piles on the characters. Hancock and Soroban in Hingan are both delights for very different reasons, despite both being merchants.
The pirates in the Ruby Sea were never gonna measure up to the Lominsans, and I'm fine with that. As for the Raen, they're clearly later-patch material.
Hien is a very serviceable rightful king returning to save his people, what makes him most interesting are his interactions with Lyse and how he helps her grow.
First few quests of HW: Ishgard has a whole bunch of secrets to uncover and it's hard to tell what's really going on. Better figure it out!
Me: /DELIGHT
Alisaie: What if we took away their Raphaels?
Pirates: ... Go on.
Sadu: You want us to fight your war?
Hien: ...
Sadu: Yeah sure I just want to kick someone's ass.
Awww, we're gonna have to leave everyone behind to go back to Ala Mhigo
Yay! Hien's sending Yugiri with us as part of his plan to keep the Empire on the back foot!
Oh fuck! Zenos has Krile!