[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Calfredd]

This seems most likely. There is no reason to assume that the Ascian's had everything figured out already. They're immortal, it's not like they were in a rush.

For "not being in a rush" they seemed hellbent on ending the WoL right then and there instead of waiting for them to die of old age or something.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

For "not being in a rush" they seemed hellbent on ending the WoL right then and there instead of waiting for them to die of old age or something.

Yeah it doesn't really make that much sense. We're supposed to believe that these guys were masterminds who built up empires and carefully controlled the geopolitical situations across 13 different worlds over the course of several millennia, and then all of the sudden they all trip up on one person and get nearly everyone killed within the span of a year or two.

And they didn't even need to just stand back and wait out the WoL. They could've had his drink poisoned or hired a sniper or something. Or maybe an Ascian could just teleport into the sky a short distance from the WoL and throw a heavy rock at the WoL's head, smashing his head in and killing him just like that.

[Lane]

I think it's a little more complicated with the WoL in ShB. Emet knew exactly what he was doing allowing the WoL to absorb all the Lightwardens knowing it would be too much for him/her and that, at the end of it, he could continue his plans unabated with the hero turning into the next mega-Lightwarden. He even comments that Lahabrea fighting against them didn't work out, so he was trying a different tactic. If anything, my gripe is that as the originator of the Allagan empire, he wasn't aware of everything the Crystal Tower was capable of doing. The Ascians could've fulfilled their goals a long time ago had they known about that. There wasn't any reason to think Emet wouldn't win, there's no way he could've foreseen the WoL powering up with an 8th soul shard which is the only reason s/he didn't turn into a sin eater right then and there.

5.3 spoilers below:

Elidibus is a little more complicated, as Emet played a hand in sabotaging him. WoL without the Azem crystal would've lost that fight too.

[Calfredd]

I think it's a little more complicated with the WoL in ShB.

Hard to know if he meant it or not but he actually said he was disappointed in us for not being able to contain the Light and that, had we, he would have tried to get us on his side. Him inviting us to Amaurot was probably him wanting to watch us transform as a form of entertainment.

[Raetary]

I really love a lot of the armor designs in this game.
Other than very early gear, every item set i have gotten so far i actually really enjoy looking at.

I mean, look my catboy:


Model material right there.

That bad, huh?
Should I consider myself lucky, that I didn't buy the expansion? It's the first one had no interest in since TBC.
Poor Draenei all alone now. ._.

It's not any worse than what we had before.

In fact, M+ is actually quite fun right.
Korthia is entertaining, it just doesn't hold nor last for very long.
Story is pretty much atrocious tho. (thankfully FF got me covered for that)

Overall it's ok, we just should've gotten more after the ages we waited for the patch.

[Lane]

Hard to know if he meant it or not but he actually said he was disappointed in us for not being able to contain the Light and that, had we, he would have tried to get us on his side. Him inviting us to Amaurot was probably him wanting to watch us transform as a form of entertainment.

Yeah, that's player interpretation, as far as I know, there's nothing in or outside of the game to prove any point of view wrong, so they're all valid. Personally, as much as I wish otherwise because I loved his character, I think it was all a line. There was never any reason for Emet to join with the WoL when we were actively preventing his one goal from happening. It's possible he was hoping to sway the WoL to his side, but vice versa was never going to happen, IMO. Had he recognized who the WoL was sooner it may have made a difference, but sadly that was not the case.

[everydaygamer]

For "not being in a rush" they seemed hellbent on ending the WoL right then and there instead of waiting for them to die of old age or something.

What are they supposed to do? Just let the WoL keep interfering?

If they just sat back and let people ruin their plans they'd never get anywhere.

[Drindorai]

If anything, my gripe is that as the originator of the Allagan empire, he wasn't aware of everything the Crystal Tower was capable of doing.

Two things here: It didn't really ever come off that Emet-Selch was confused by what the CRYSTAL TOWER was capable of doing, but more of how G'raha Tia as the Crystal Exarch managed to bring the tower and the Scions to the first. Which ties pretty directly into the second thing, by the time the Crystal Tower had gotten to The First, the Garlond Ironworks had heavily modified it with their artificial Alexander, pretty drastically changing how it worked. The Ascians may be immoral but they are not really omniscient.

The Crystal Tower was meant ultimately to just usher in another Umbral Calamity by connecting to the Thirteenth (At least from the Ascians' point of view, Xande thought it was to be used to allow the Cloud of Darkness and the void into the Source to defeat his enemies by siphoning off Bahamut's power), not time and dimension travelling, that was something outside influences figured out and enacted later.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

What are they supposed to do? Just let the WoL keep interfering?

If they just sat back and let people ruin their plans they'd never get anywhere.

The problem is that the Ascians kept being dumb and unnecessarily endangering themselves.

5.3 MSQ

Spoiler: 

• Lahabrea can fly. Rather than chucking a giant rock at the WoL's head, or portalling away to grab a weapon or engineer the WoL's demise, he freaking lands on the ground, allowing the WoL to reach him and attack him.

• If Nabriales wanted the staff, he could have either possessed a Scion, just walked into the office and asked for the staff, and had left. Or he could have portalled in at night while the office was closed and everyone was asleep, taken the staff, and left.

• Emmerololth: same mistake as Nabriales. Rather than just taking what he wanted and leaving, he instead hung around, alerting his enemies and giving themselves time to come up with a plan to murk him.

• Lahabrea once again unnecessarily places himself within reach of the WoL rather than engineering his demise. Also Lahabrea doesn't portal away and take stock of the situation in safety the moment he realizes something is up.

• Emet makes an egregious error in 5.0. For a man who supposedly knows everything the Crystal Tower was capable of, for some reason he walks into the Crystal Tower multiple times... when the Crystal Exarch is fully capable of using the Tower to insta-kill Emet at any time.

• Elidibus: could've engineered the WoL's demise by an assassination rather than trying to fight the guy who killed dozens of primals.

[Drindorai]

The complaints read HEAVILY like, "Why didn't the Hobbits just fly the ring into Mordor using the eagles" not going to lie.

Also most of those complaints have a reason behind why they didn't do exactly that. Lahabrea was explicitly told to us by Emet-Selch that he's arrogant and underestimates us.

Also if you're comment about Lahabrea in 3.0 is about why didn't he immediately teleport away after the dungeon fight, its very obvious that him and Igeyorhm were drastically weakened post-Aetherochemical Research Facility.

Also have we ever seen the Ascians transfer back into the world in between instantly? I donno why you're assuming that's what happens. It's clear that they have to take out their crystal and do some kind of ritual. Which is what he starts doing before Thordan shows up. If their mortal forms are destroyed, perhaps, but Lahabrea and Igeyorhm's mortal forms weren't destroyed, just weakened. As was according to the Scion's plans lol

Again the Crystal Tower complaint rings hollow.

And canonically Elidibus was barely able to comprehend what his goal was by the time we end up fighting him. This is the easiest one of all to explain. Not only did Emet build in a safeguard to helps us stop Elidibus, but Elidibus had forgotten everything except his motivation by the time we confront him.

By the way just to be clear the only Unsundered we were ever clearly told that was some kind of tactical genius was Emet-Selch. He even says that Lahabrea was more interested in just bumbling around with no foresight going from body to body in the present trying to accomplish his goal while he, Emet, was more interested in the world-building tactic of their plan.

I am not sure why you're pretending all the Ascians are geniuses when they've never presented that as a fact. They are only immortal, they are not omniscient. Not even Emet.

Finally not to get too wonky into the time travel but can Ascians even do that? It seems all they can do is travel between shards, not actually move into the past or future unless I am misremembering something. They just show up to a shard at the current time that the shard is existing in. It's not like they can go back to when the WoL was sleeping and slit their throat.

[Dakhath]

I think a lot of the stupid stuff the Ascian do can be hand-waved away with the fact that they're so arrogant and so sure they're the alphas of all existence, they decide to play with their food far too often.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The complaints read HEAVILY like, "Why didn't the Hobbits just fly the ring into Mordor using the eagles" not going to lie.

Gwaihir refusing to carry the Fellowship to Mordor was explained in the books. Sauron had aerial forces of his own. Sauron is watching all approaches to Mordor. The Ring resonates with Sauron more the closer it comes to him. Any entry into the skies of Mordor would almost certainly be detected, and the Eagles would have to contend with Nazgul and who knows what other flying beasts. Sauron was also an incredibly powerful sorcerer, and we already saw in Fellowship how a lesser powerful wizard, Saruman, nearly killed the Fellowship from hundreds of miles away by casting spells (the very reason why the Fellowship went down through Moria in the first place, to throw off Saruman), so if they were detected by Sauron over the skies of Mordor they would almost certainly be killed by an even stronger sorcerer. The only reason Frodo and Sam weren't detected and killed travelling through Mordor was because of Aragorn bluffing Sauron into thinking he had the ring, and launching a diversionary effort. When Frodo failed and put the ring on, he was immediately detected and Sauron redirected his fastest riders towards Frodo. Frodo had literally seconds to live and would have died if not for Smeagle.

Here, the Ascians have no excuse. They have every advantage over the WoL except in melee combat. The Ascians have literally no reason to endanger themselves by entering melee combat with the WoL when they can attack him out of his reach, or plot from the shadows and orchestrate the WoL's death, or circumvent conflict with the WoL by remaining hidden and/or manipulating him and his allies, and so on. Ascian victory isn't even dependent on the WoL's demise; they can trigger the rejoinings without the WoL even knowing what they are doing.


"Why didn't the eagles fly the ring to Mordor?" is not a plothole. Why half of the Ascians allowed themselves to be killed and no one ever took a hint is.

[Drindorai]

Here, the Ascians have no excuse. They have every advantage over the WoL except in melee combat. The Ascians have literally no reason to endanger themselves by entering melee combat with the WoL when they can attack him out of his reach, or plot from the shadows and orchestrate the WoL's death, or circumvent conflict with the WoL by remaining hidden and/or manipulating him and his allies, and so on. Ascian victory isn't even dependent on the WoL's demise; they can trigger the rejoinings without the WoL even knowing what they are doing.

Except...they can't? I donno what you want this story to be. "Oh nothing happens because the Ascians are just waiting for the Warrior of Light to die" and then ignoring the fact that we know their soul would just go back into the lifestream and be reborn again.

The storyline of Shadowbringers is about the Ascians trying to bring about a Calamity away from the WoL and us discovering it through out own means and the help of people on a different shard and stopping it. It's about the literal exact thing you're complaining about.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Except...they can't? I donno what you want this story to be. "Oh nothing happens because the Ascians are just waiting for the Warrior of Light to die" and then ignoring the fact that we know their soul would just go back into the lifestream and be reborn again.

I presented several options the Ascians could have taken to accomplish their objectives that would have been much more sensible than antagonizing the WoL and placing themselves within reach of him.

- - - Updated - - -

The storyline of Shadowbringers is about the Ascians trying to bring about a Calamity away from the WoL and us discovering it through out own means and the help of people on a different shard and stopping it. It's about the literal exact thing you're complaining about.

The moment Emet found out 1. there was a Crystal Tower on the First, a weapon that could insta-kill him, and 2. the WoL was also on the First, who has a superb track record at killing things, Emet should have stayed far away from both and scoped out information from the shadows. He could have taken over Kholusia and used it to destroy the Crystarium, and try to get the WoL killed by other means (assassination, death by Ran'jit, baiting multiple Lightwardens towards the WoL so that the WoL gets overwhelmed and dies, etc).

[everydaygamer]

I presented several options the Ascians could have taken to accomplish their objectives that would have been much more sensible than antagonizing the WoL and placing themselves within reach of him.

At the end of the day, the Ascians aren't infallible nor do they know everything. Despite how they present themselves they are capable of making mistakes and allowing their emotions to get the better of them. Their only real advantage is their immortality which allowed them to just keep trying no matter how many times a plan didn't work out the way they wanted it to.

[Drindorai]

The moment Emet found out 1. there was a Crystal Tower on the First, a weapon that could insta-kill him, and 2. the WoL was also on the First, who has a superb track record at killing things, Emet should have stayed far away from both and scoped out information from the shadows. He could have taken over Kholusia and used it to destroy the Crystarium, and try to get the WoL killed by other means (assassination, death by Ran'jit, baiting multiple Lightwardens towards the WoL so that the WoL gets overwhelmed and dies, etc).

These things were literally part of the story did you just forget?

His introduction is done via an illusion. And he immediately hides in the shadows and is watching us. He EXPLICITLY SAYS HE'S DOING THAT in the introduction to Rak'tika.

Kholusia WAS trying to destroy the Crystarium. That was the entire plot of multiple zones.

Why the hell would he send Lightwardens to the Warrior of Light---the being able to safely kill them? You act like there's an infinite number of Lightwardens. You also act like Emet-Selch can control the Lightwardens when there's no evidence of this either.

Emet-Selch didn't know how the Crystal Tower got there. So what is your suggestion, he just then do nothing when clearly forces are being enacted to actively stop his plan? I mean honestly like every post in this thread you're just using supposition to say something is bad or stupid and your alternatives are far, far worse. And based on total and whole subjectivity that plenty of people clearly disagree since they keep trying to argue against this nonsense.

Again you act like it'd be good storytelling if an Ascian just showed up while the Warrior of Light was sleeping and just cut his throat. Which, even IF that was the case, they would be reborn anyway. And it's not like they inherently know who the Warrior of Light will be reborn as.

[Lane]

Well, like I said, both the fights in ShB were sure victories save for unexpected events. Lahabrea's definitely the weakest link though.

pretty drastically changing how it worked.

Thanks, I didn't realize that was the case, that makes sense then why he didn't know.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

These things were literally part of the story did you just forget?

His introduction is done via an illusion. And he immediately hides in the shadows and is watching us. He EXPLICITLY SAYS HE'S DOING THAT in the introduction to Rak'tika.

Kholusia WAS trying to destroy the Crystarium. That was the entire plot of multiple zones.

Why the hell would he send Lightwardens to the Warrior of Light---the being able to safely kill them? You act like there's an infinite number of Lightwardens. You also act like Emet-Selch can control the Lightwardens when there's no evidence of this either.

Emet approached the WoL on foot and openly announced himself, placing himself in mortal danger. And he enters the vicinity of the Crystal Tower multiple times, also placing himself in immediate mortal danger of being killed. At no point does he try to play to his strengths as a teleporting immortal who can shapeshift and possess people. He did not command Kholusia during the story. All he does is teleport in and watch the WoL and Alphinaud converse with Vauthry. Vauthry wages as weak and ineffective war against the Crystarium. Had Emet (who has built up and commanded multiple empires over his lifetime) been in charge then there is a good chance the Crystarium would have been defeated, even with their technological advantage.

[Drindorai]

Thanks, I didn't realize that was the case, that makes sense then why he didn't know.

A major plot point OF Shadowbringers is them using the Crystal Tower in ways that were not originally what it was meant for. Yes, eventually G'raha Tia uses it in a way it WAS to stop Elidibus, but everything before that was because of the Garlond Ironworks'...work over generations. The entire scene after G'raha is kidnapped following Innocents' defeat is explaining this. As well as the storyline post-Twinning dungeon.

Also...just to be clear, Emet-Selch didn't physically build or give them the plans to make the Crystal Tower. He was just behind the Allagan Empire. I don't know why it's being implied that he should have every inner knowledge piece of information about it. Even though he flatout says he is acutely aware of how it's purpose was supposed to originally work, but is confused about how and why the Crystal Exarch got there and what he's doing with the Tower.

All Emet did was do what he'd do again in the future, establish an empire with the knowledge of how to bind and use primals to try and start calamities.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also...just to be clear, Emet-Selch didn't physically build or give them the plans to make the Crystal Tower. He was just behind the Allagan Empire.

5.3 MSQ

Spoiler: 

Emet straight up says he knows everything the Crystal Tower is capable of, and what it cannot do. Link.

G'raha Tia's wording implies that the Crystal Tower's potential to be used to nuke Ascians should have been known to Elidibus. Link.