History FinalFantasyXIV / TropesVToZ

** For the storyline quests, Titan. For endgame content, Titan Hardmode. Titan is one of the few bosses that gives instant-death effects and hits you with unavoidable damage - most damage prior to this you could either mitigate or avoid altogether by avoiding the area of effects.

** The Scholar questline and Wanderer's Palace (Hard) dungeon explain that [[spoiler:tonberries were once originally the citizens of the ancient city state of Nym, cursed by the Mhachi with a voidsent borne plague that transfigured them into the form they are now, then sealed via magic stasis inside the palace as a quarantine, and in hopes a cure could be found.]]

* WeaksauceWeakness: The Brotherhood of Ash tells you that since the Amalj'aa are creatures of flame, they need very little water to survive. Overindulging in water is extremely foolish and can become like poison to them. One quest has you beating up a few Amalj'aa and then dousing their heads with a flask of water for pure humiliation (the Brotherhood compares it to someone of another race being doused in burning oil). [[StoryAndGameplaySegregation From a gameplay standpoint, the Amalj'aa take the same amount of damage from water attacks as they do for any other attack.]]
* WeaponBasedCharacterization: The weapon you use defines your current class. Equip a different weapon, and your Discipline changes. Previously players could also equip any weapon or piece of armor in the game at any level. Logically there is nothing stopping you from equipping that InfinityPlusOneSword... except that considering you are a novice Gladiator, your "lack of skill" translates mechanics-wise into any degree of penalties to the weapon's effectiveness, meaning you're not even going to get InfinityMinusOneSword-level performance. Gear released later in the original game's life often (but not always) required a certain level and/or class to equip it, which may not be as realistic but makes balancing a lot easier on the developers. The system was dropped entirely in ''A Realm Reborn'' in favor of level requirements on all gear, and stricter class requirements on endgame gear. This includes crafting and gathering classes, although those aren't very likely to actually use their weapons as such -- they are tools they use for their tasks, though they do have attack stats and can be used to fend off enemies, but they don't have any weaponskills to deal real damage.

** Played straight as well with various factions in the far east as presented in ''Stormblood'', although their reluctance to band together and fight back against Garlemald has less to do with vying to outdo one another and more to do with simple self-preservation. The Confederacy won't go to war against the Empire because their naval fleets would crush them, the people of Yanxia won't rebel because they've been living under the Empire's thumb for years and have collectively crossed a DespairEventHorizon, and the Xaela tribes of the Azim Steppe won't go to war unless their leader gives the order, which they currently have no reason to do because the Empire simply hasn't shown any interest in encroaching upon the steppes. Your task is to help them to overcome their reservations to form a collective army that can push Garlemald out of the Far East and then help retake Ala Mhigo.

*** The end of 5.2 completely turns things on their heads. [[spoiler: Everyone believed the Echo was a blessing given to people chosen by Hydaelyn. Elidibus reveals that the Echo is present within people who are the reincarnated souls of people who lived in the ancient civilization of Amaurot and were present during the Final Days, a cataclysmic event that sundered the world. By using illusionary magic, Elidibus conjures an imaginary meteor shower at the Crystarium to mimic the Final Days, which causes several witnesses to have their Echo awaken and hear Hydaelyn's CatchPhrase of "Hear, feel, think." It turns out that Hydaelyn was always calling out for potential Warriors of Light and the potential candidates needed their Echo awakened in order to hear her voice. Elidibus also suggests that Hydaelyn could also use illusionary star showers to awaken potential Warriors of Light if she needs them. In short, the concept of a ChosenOne or TheChosenMany is a lot murkier in this scenario.]]

** Rescue is a healer role action designed to allow healers to pull players out of dangeorus situations in a nick of time. But the recipient has no consent in being pulled and they're yanked toward the healer while interrupting any casting in-progress (barring pre-emptive use of "Arm's Length" or "Surecast"). This means that a devious healer can troll teammates by interrupting their casts (such as a LimitBreak) or even yank them into hazards such as {{Bottomless Pit}}s and enemy attacks.

** All the enemies near the major cities are low leveled and are made to be fought by new players or players switching to a new class so they have an easy time to level up. Said creatures are mostly critters like squirrels, ladybugs, marmots, and so on. Nothing is stopping a high level player from returning to the old areas and brutally slaughtering all the creatures that can't even put a scratch on the player.

** Some of the 'sarcastic' responses to cutscenes can come off as more like the Warrior of Light really ''is'' a wandering sociopath. At the conclusion of the Kojin beast tribe quest... [[spoiler:everyone completely forgets about Tsukumo, nevermind all the plot holes. The Warrior of Light can pretend that they don't remember Tsukumo either, despite the fact that the Echo renders them all but immune to that sort of memory manipulation.]]

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* WeaponBasedCharacterization: The weapon you use defines your current class. Equip a different weapon, and your Discipline changes. Previously players could also equip any weapon or piece of armor in the game at any level. Logically there is nothing stopping you from equipping that InfinityPlusOneSword... except that considering you are a novice Gladiator, your "lack of skill" translates mechanics-wise into any degree of penalties to the weapon's effectiveness, meaning you're not even going to get InfinityMinusOneSword-level performance. Gear released later in the original game's life often (but not always) required a certain level and/or class to equip it, which may not be as realistic but makes balancing a lot easier on the developers. The system was dropped entirely in ''A Realm Reborn'' in favor of level requirements on all gear, and stricter class requirements on endgame gear.
** This includes crafting and gathering classes, although those aren't very likely to actually use their weapons as such - they are tools they use for their tasks, though they do have attack stats and can be used to fend off enemies, but they don't have any weaponskills to deal real damage.

** The E3 launch trailer brings us the biggest bombshell of them all:

** Ul'dah is run by the corrupt, money hungry [[TheSyndicate Syndicate council]] that undermine the power of the [[TheHighQueen the Sultana]], and the streets are filled with corrupt merchants and vicious gangs of thugs. To make matters worse, the (privately owned) law enforcement officers, the Brass Blades, are an organization of {{Dirty Cop}}s who have long since given up any notion of pretending to be otherwise. Amusingly, most of these corrupt positions are dominated by [[LittlePeople Dunesfolk Lalafell]].

** Rescue is a healer role action designed to allow healers to pull players out of dangeorus situations in a nick of time. But the recipient has no consent in being pulled and they're yanked toward the healer while interrupting any casting in-progress. This means that a devious healer can troll teammates by interrupting their casts (such as a LimitBreak) or even yank them into hazards such as {{Bottomless Pit}}s and enemy attacks.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Hydaelyn isn't seen or heard from again at the end of the main story line from patch 2.0 and no one in the game questions it. It isn't until patch 2.3 where Minfilia asks the player character if he/she has heard from the mother crystal since their battle against [[spoiler: Lahabrea]]. When the player responds no, Minfilia fears that [[spoiler: the Ascians may be behind Hydaelyn's sudden silence]]. It even gets asked again in 5.5 when was the last time the Warrior of Light had heard her voice. [[She returns in full in 6.0 and the reason for her long silence is revealed to be that Hydaelyn's strength had grown so weak from the rejoinings that her ability to beckon the Warrior of Light's mind to the aetherial sea is no longer her's to wield.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Hydaelyn isn't seen or heard from again at the end of the main story line from patch 2.0 and no one in the game questions it. It isn't until patch 2.3 where Minfilia asks the player character if he/she has heard from the mother crystal since their battle against [[spoiler: Lahabrea]]. When the player responds no, Minfilia fears that [[spoiler: the Ascians may be behind Hydaelyn's sudden silence]]. It even gets asked again in 5.5 when was the last time the Warrior of Light had heard her voice.

* WhatMeasureIsAMook: Subverted. Throughout much of the story, the Warrior of Light and their adventurer companions will have slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands of Garleans to push back their incursion into Eorzea. While this is universally recognized as a good thing for the Eorzeans, it's pointed out numerous times that the Garleans, for whatever atrocities they are complicit in, are still people with names and families. To rub the salt in the wound, many Garlean soldiers were forcibly conscripted from their home nations to serve as cannon fodder, meaning that their only wrongdoing is happening to be on the opposite side when the Warrior of Light comes strolling in. [[spoiler:The Alliance's attempts to help the survivors of Garlemald's fall in ''Endwalker'' are stymied by their long-held animosity toward one another. One woman in the [=Ist=] Legion [[YouMonster calls the Warrior a monster]], as she watched them butcher dozens of her comrades in the [=XIVth=] Legion during the battle at the Praetorium.]]

* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler:In the White Mage Job storyline, A-Ruhn-Senna gets this from his sister Raya-O-Senna after being openly disrespectful to the Player Character and trying to prove that you are not needed for the cleansing ritual. Later on, when the holy gravesite of A-Towa-Cant (a powerful revered White Mage of the past) has been ransacked by Redbelly thieves, Raya-O-Senna herself gets this from one of her moogle servants after ''she threatens to kill them'' if they don't help the Player find the whereabouts of A-Towa-Cant's ashes.]]
** And this is [[{{Hypocrite}} after she had preached to you]] that [[spoiler: White Mages must always control their anger]].

* WhatIf: All of the Minstrel's Ballads are essentially the Minstrel saying "What if the Warrior of Light's biggest battles were much grander and more epic", but the Dragonsong's Reprise takes this to its furthest thus far. At first it's just a ''much'' more epic retelling of the Warrior of Light's battles against the Heavens' Ward, King Thordan, then Nidhogg; but then the Minstrel speculates, what if history hadn't gone quite the way it had? Specifically, [[spoiler:what if the Warrior of Light had been able to save Haurchefant from dying on the roof of the Vault? In this alternate timeline, without the motivation of vengeance for Haurchefant's death, the Warrior if Light does not immediately set out after the Heavens' Ward, meaning Archbishop Thordan reaches Azys Lla and loots it without any resistance. Thus empowered by the technology of the Allagans ''and'' Nidhogg's other eye, he is able to subjugate the Dravanian horde to his will, forcing the Warrior of Light to not only battle him and the Heavens' Ward, but the hordes of Nidhogg as well. Narratively, the alternate timeline shows that war eventually claims lives no matter what; even though Haurchefant survives (and in this alternate timeline, Ysayle can be seen alive and well as well), Hraesvelgr is fitted with an Allagan control device, which forces the Warrior of Light to kill him in self defense, and much of the Dravanian horde is forced to be killed under Thordan's control.]]