[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I wonder whether or not the Ascian/Zodiark/Hydaelyn/Terminus storyline will end in 6.0. Would be nice if the climax of the saga was in one big, huge content patch with new zones and such, rather than parceled out over a few small patches. It'd make sense from a marketing perspective as well if 6.0 was hyped up as the end of the saga. Lots of people would come to the game looking for a complete story, and players who allowed their subscriptions to lapse would come back to see how it ends.

[Granyala]

I wonder whether or not the Ascian/Zodiark/Hydaelyn/Terminus storyline will end in 6.0. Would be nice if the climax of the saga was in one big, huge content patch with new zones and such, rather than parceled out over a few small patches. It'd make sense from a marketing perspective as well if 6.0 was hyped up as the end of the saga. Lots of people would come to the game looking for a complete story, and players who allowed their subscriptions to lapse would come back to see how it ends.

Honestly, I'm not sure whether the Ascian storyline has enough punch for another expansion.
Their plans are revealed, we eliminated all but one of them, even lots of their origins have already been explored.
They've also lost their allies in Garlemald, with Garlemald doing it's own thing now (to what end needs to be seen).

Elidibus is basically standing alone at this point.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Honestly, I'm not sure whether the Ascian storyline has enough punch for another expansion.
Their plans are revealed, we eliminated all but one of them, even lots of their origins have already been explored.
They've also lost their allies in Garlemald, with Garlemald doing it's own thing now (to what end needs to be seen).

Elidibus is basically standing alone at this point.

The FFXIV saga has a several plot points that need to be resolved:

• Elidibus

• The end of the Ascian faction

• Unukalhai, a WoL from the Void, and apprentice of Elidibus

• The Void as a dead world and a constant source of Voidsent

• Garlemald is in the middle of a civil war between multiple warlords and provinces are rebelling. Stability needs to be brought to the land, reform, and reconstruction. The Weapon and Bozja Citadel storylines are showing border areas, unlikely to actually go to Garlemald itself.

• The truth behind the Twelve.

• Zodiark

• Zenos

• Zenos' new friend/Venat II

• Hydaelyn

• The Terminus/Corrupted heart of the star

Each patch provides about 2-4 hours of MSQ content. We are on patch 5.2, with probably 3 patches left for SHB. That means we have about 10-12 hours of MSQ content left. That is not nearly enough time to wrap up all of those plot points. Some of those plot points will require us to go to new zones, such as Garlemald or the inside of the star/Lifestream. The conclusion looks like ripe for a 30+ hour long 6.0 expansion drop.

I think the next few ShB patches will have us return to the Source and set the stage for all of the above to be resolved in a 6.0 box expansion.

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I'm guessing 6.0 will be centered around the Lifestream/Afterlife, with the final area taking place in the heart of the star. It will either be themed as a FFVII esque Lifestream, or a FFX esque Farplane. The souls or spirits of the dead might show up for a cameo. They've been teasing that something is up with how souls and the afterlife works since Stormblood's Azim Steppe/Alexander raid. With the Terminus having corrupted the heart of the star, the very afterlife, the Lifestream, and all souls might be at stake.

[Granyala]

You honestly think they'll pull a Shadowlands at the same time Blizzard does?

Certainly possible but what a weird timing that would be.

[Yoshingo]

omg a FFX farplane like expansion would be amazing.

Its like the one game out of the main series that there's a relatively few amount of callbacks to in FF14 and I don't get it. Its my favorite one and I want more!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

omg a FFX farplane like expansion would be amazing.

Its like the one game out of the main series that there's a relatively few amount of callbacks to in FF14 and I don't get it. Its my favorite one and I want more!

I'm surprised that we didn't really see any FFX/South East Asia style environments during the Othard half of Stormblood. Then again, they were trying to divide six new zones between two regions. Maybe if Othard was allotted more than three zones, it might have shown up.

2.4 introduced the idea of people using themselves as a catalyst for a Primal, which is basically a fancy aetheric construct. ShB has shown three different forms of sacrificing oneself to become a summon or Primal (Zodiark, Hydaelyn, and the Guardian Force seen at the end of Akademia Anyder). I can see the FFX Fayth being brought in like this, with people sacrificing themselves to become summons.

I've seen people clamoring for Blitzball, but I'm not sure if dev time would be well spent on it. First, the actual gameplay of Blitzball in FFX is rather mediocre, and would require the FFXIV team to spend a lot of time developing and iterating on a more satisfying experience. They mind as well just create a new game from scratch. It could become a Lords of Verminion 2.0 where people check it out once and then never do it again because it isn't fun, and if they do queue for it's only so they can AFK for the weekly challenge log completion.

The biggest thing FFXIV could have borrowed from FFX would be it's version of the Summoner. When most people think "summoner", they think of Yuna: summoning big creatures which you control just like a party member (not a cutscene) and feels powerful. It is one of the most palpable job fantasies in the franchise, comparable to Jedi and Bounty Hunters from Star Wars. For some reason, when they were making FFXIV, the creators deliberately wrote the lore in such a way that such summoning was a no no, so that Final Fantasy players could not experience that iconic job fantasy. I guess one could argue that the game designers didn't want big creatures clouding up screen space, but that didn't stop FFXI from implementing them as big monsters. Raid bosses in FFXIV are big enough that even if you had four summoners all siccing their melee summons on the boss, you should still be able to see the boss. FFXIV has had to awkwardly try to write around the "summons are bad" limitation, and Egis are just unsatisfying. You can't really control them as a party member; they're just another hot bar. They're inexplicably smaller than you, and they don't feel powerful.

[Wangming]

Elidibus is basically standing alone at this point.

Wanna bet that if Elidibus manages to bring back Zodiark he will resurrect all the dead Ascians and we will have to kill the entire Convocation of Twelve?

[Granyala]

I've seen people clamoring for Blitzball.

Eew... just.... eew.
If there was one thing I hated about FF-X it was this stupid soccer nonsense.

@Wangming: Well yeah, that's kinda the point. Though if he manages to awaken Z, he would have managed another joining of worlds, so umm I guess our world as we know it would be toast by then. No, the point is to stop him before he has a chance to do it.

[Wangming]

Eew... just.... eew.
If there was one thing I hated about FF-X it was this stupid soccer nonsense.

@Wangming: Well yeah, that's kinda the point. Though if he manages to awaken Z, he would have managed another joining of worlds, so umm I guess our world as we know it would be toast by then. No, the point is to stop him before he has a chance to do it.

True. The rejoining would kill millions. Perhaps billions. But you know that in games it's never the essential NPC's that die. Case in point, in Final Fantasy VI Kefka causes the apocalypse, but none of the main heroes die. Honestly it would be weird to not fight Zodiark at some point.

[Granyala]

True. The rejoining would kill millions. Perhaps billions.

I don't get the impression that our world is that densely populated.

[Wangming]

I don't get the impression that our world is that densely populated.

Who knows? We have only really seen Eorzea and a fraction of Othard. We have no idea how Garlemald looks. Plus there is the New World and Meracydia. It is likely not as densely populated as Earth, but even half of our population is 3 and a half billion people. Also as far as I know there is no scale to compare how large of a planet Eorzea is. It might be the size of Jupiter

[Granyala]

Also as far as I know there is no scale to compare how large of a planet Eorzea is. It might be the size of Jupiter

Yeah... that... wouldn't work.
Laws of physics and all that jazz. :O

[Wangming]

Yeah... that... wouldn't work.
Laws of physics and all that jazz. :O

Would Dragoons work with the laws of physics?

[Granyala]

Would Dragoons work with the laws of physics?

Sure... they have springs in their soles. How else would they be able to jump like that?

[Wangming]

Sure... they have springs in their soles. How else would they be able to jump like that?

Springs in their souls Or soul crystals.

[Merie]

@Wangming: Well yeah, that's kinda the point. Though if he manages to awaken Z, he would have managed another joining of worlds, so umm I guess our world as we know it would be toast by then. No, the point is to stop him before he has a chance to do it.

And then there's Graha Tia. He's still around. Yet the dark future that gave rise to him coming to the first and saving the WoL has ceased to be. Or has it? His very existence is basically a paradox. Avengers Endgame/Dragon Ball Z and many other pieces of fiction that deal with time travel resolve this paradox with a "multiverse" of sorts. For all we know, the dark timeline where the first was rejoined continued in its own universe and eventually gave rise to Zodiark. And if graha tia is any indication, it could be possible to cross over from one timeline to another. If not, then Square has some serious mental gymnastics ahead of it to explain to us how a paradox was avoided.

Franky I wish it were true, if not to have Zodiark as a final boss then to bring Emet Selch back into the picture. (albeit one who's experiences diverged from ShB. Who knows, maybe he "won" in said dark timeline, only to find the reality wrought was not the fantasy he had been chasing)

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@Wangming: Well yeah, that's kinda the point. Though if he manages to awaken Z, he would have managed another joining of worlds, so umm I guess our world as we know it would be toast by then. No, the point is to stop him before he has a chance to do it.

I just had another thought; I speculate we might actually face Zodiark in ShB.

Albeit, a weaker one.

In Eden 8 we have Ryne taking on the form of Shiva just as Ice heart did. But as Hraesvelgr revealed to Ice heart back in Heavensward, she was not actually becoming the "real" Shiva, but a watered down version. Elidibus could possibly summon himself as a watered down version of Zodiark the same way. It is probably no coincidence that his predecessor, the previous Elidibus actually became the real Zodiark by making himself Zodiarks heart as revealed in the very same patch. It is also probably no coincidence that Ryne's incarnation of Shiva actually embodies Hydaelyn and her depiction in paintings.

[Wrecktangle]

So Ruby Weapon EX was hands down one of the easiest EX's I've ever done. Going to try and see if I can get E5S down tonight. Gonna be tight on a monday, but we'll see how it goes.

I've seen people clamoring for Blitzball, but I'm not sure if dev time would be well spent on it. First, the actual gameplay of Blitzball in FFX is rather mediocre, and would require the FFXIV team to spend a lot of time developing and iterating on a more satisfying experience. They mind as well just create a new game from scratch. It could become a Lords of Verminion 2.0 where people check it out once and then never do it again because it isn't fun, and if they do queue for it's only so they can AFK for the weekly challenge log completion.

Eew... just.... eew.
If there was one thing I hated about FF-X it was this stupid soccer nonsense.

I have little faith that SE can make Blitzball fun or interesting. They failed miserably with Chocobo Racing. However, that doesn't mean that it COULDN'T be done.

I cite Rocket League as a perfect segue. They could borrow the elements and style and mechanics and then flesh them out slightly differently and add FF flair. Rocket League is tremendously popular.

What SE would need to do though is make sure when they design it, that it's actually robust. If I were in charge I'd make sure it had:

• Matchmaking - both random and fixed. Not only that, but allow groups of 8 or whatever a size is, to challenge other teams (in FCs, statics, on your server, etc.). Make it EASY, not complicated to get into matches with people who want to play.
• Betting - pretty straightforward.
• Spectating - also pretty straightforward. It needs to be easy to get into and watch your friends or random people playing the game.
• Single Player "team manager" feature - so players could make AI based teams and spreadsheets and shit and then pick and control a single character.

Then you just build a bunch of supplementary stuff to it. If the core gameplay is good then adding rewards and sustaining the content is easy.

[Katchii]

Reported. Enjoy your ban nerd.

Sidebar, all good though .

also yo what server on Primal has cheap HQ crafted gear? I need a handful of pieces for my PLD so I can get into savage. Behemoth is showing ~700K and im broke af.

Honestly have no idea, I run on Excalibur and stuff varies considerably depending on slot and class. I got a ring and a belt for my DNC that cost ~80k each, looked at another pice and it was 550k so...yeah. It's all over the place.

[Wrecktangle]

Honestly have no idea, I run on Excalibur and stuff varies considerably depending on slot and class. I got a ring and a belt for my DNC that cost ~80k each, looked at another pice and it was 550k so...yeah. It's all over the place.

I ended up just crying and spending ~800k, by going to Exodus which had the cheapest. One of the servers had some listed at 180K, but I couldn't click fast enough. Someone literally bought em all.

[Granyala]

And then there's Graha Tia. He's still around. Yet the dark future that gave rise to him coming to the first and saving the WoL has ceased to be. Or has it? His very existence is basically a paradox.

I don't expect Graha Tia to survive the expansion.
He is already experiencing health issues and pain.