[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Katchii]

I'd think you'd need an Ascian soul crystal to learn the darkness teleport ability (does that let you traverse the aetherial rift, though?). Then again, Zenos being able to use that ability with just the Resonant may imply that it's an ability tied to the Echo.

Gaia is an Ascian reborn so she could have the ability to do so, just like any other Ascian

[Thestrawman]

Gaia?

Unlikely perhaps because optional content, but it's possible.

My bet is Venat.

[Granyala]

Ifalna is taking it easy for now.
First relic will be done today.

I am occupied with Genshin Impact.

[Wangming]

I mean, he broke his old sword in 5.4, what's so misleading about it?

He deliberately broke his sword to switch it for a better weapon. I doubt there is an even stronger magic katana chilling in the cupboard.

[Graeham]

I am occupied with Genshin Impact.

Monster Hunter Rise and Resident Evil 8 will hopefully keep me busy in the downtime between FFXIV patches...

I finished my MIN relic today. I kind of want to get the BTN one as well, since the gathering relics should last well into the next expansion.

[Granyala]

I finished my MIN relic today. I kind of want to get the BTN one as well, since the gathering relics should last well into the next expansion.

I only have CUL and ALC left, mats are already there just need to find the time to slap them together.
Then I have all the Ishgard relics, except for the fishing rod. I seriously doubt I will bother with this one.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New patch notes are up.

Bozja QoL changes:

• If you sign up for a duel and don't get picked, you're chances of getting into the next duel increases. Stacks. Stacks reset to zero once you get picked for a duel.

• Bozja is now more friendly to smaller numbers of player, as Skirmishes/FATEs now scale for smaller groups of players. Small groups of players doing a Critical Engagement get Echo stacks. The fewer the number of players, the more echo stacks.

• Minimum player count required to do the raid Delubrum Reginae has been reduced from 48 players to 24 players. (I presume that the mobs scale like in WoW flex raiding? If not, then there is no reason not to try to take as many people as possible)

[Granyala]

I really hoped for some Delubrum nerfs. 40mins + per run is so annoying.

[Graeham]

I really hoped for some Delubrum nerfs. 40mins + per run is so annoying.

It's a lot faster if everybody is using the 'correct' lost actions, especially the ones that increase damage done. Assuming most people aren't messing up mechanics and dying, the fights go down pretty quickly.

I've only seen that happen once, though. I hope the more useful lost actions are made easier to farm/acquire.

That aside, it's looking like a solid patch. As always, there's lots of neat quality of life changes which makes me hopeful that they're committed to completely untangling the mess that is the game's base coding.

[Merie]

It's a lot faster if everybody is using the 'correct' lost actions

Which is to say, it's agonizingly slow 9 times out of 10.

Yeah I think it's time to stop balancing around how puggers will "ideally" behave, and start balancing around how they actually do.

[Granyala]

It's a lot faster if everybody is using the 'correct' lost actions, especially the ones that increase damage done.

Yo ... 80% of the people can't even arsed o pop low effort potions and you expect them to use the actions correctly?

Don't get me wrong: they are fun to toy with and E-peen meter in ACT but balancing the content around their use was a dumb move.

Anyhow, looking forward to the patch. Kitty is itching for some action, although Genshin impact has been surprisingly fun.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My head hurts. I can't sleep.

Was going to do this in the morning but I guess I'll go in now

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5.5 MSQ thoughts

Spoiler: 

It takes months to travel to Garlemald and back on foot. Unless they took Tataru's newly built airship, then at least several weeks - if not months - have passed since 5.4. Perhaps travel on foot is faster and easier due to the collapse of Garlemald empire and there isn't really any military closely guarding the border or any internal police patrols.

lol Estinien's face at Alisae

Funny node comedy




YES PLEASE! I'd like to save an Ascian. I'd think it'd be rather sad if we went through the entire Ascian saga and not one was saved or had a change of heart (no, Gaia doesn't count).




Is that a new race?




Damn. I'm split between bringing Alphinaud or Urianger. Alphinaud will almost certainly have the most story relevance. If Arenvald and Fordola are in the dungeon, then I want to hear Alphinaud's dialogue with Arenvald. But on the other hand... I want to see Urianger toss Thancred powder charges like Ryne did in the 5.0 dungeons.

*sigh* I will never get over how bad the new Shadowbringers mid dungeon boss fight music is.

Is that just Raubahn's voice actor as the Amalj'aa War Chief? He ain't fooling anyone.

"Peace with Ul'dah", huh. Yeah... you're feeling euphoric right now... let us know if you still feel that way when things calm down and your trade deals with the Syndicate go sour as they try to exploit you. I'll be waiting. (Seriously, I'm not a fan of how this patch and 5.4 have been most convenitly handwaving away each city state's problems just like that).




Hm... so is the giant tower in Garlemald - the one that the Imperial Palace being transformed into - is it being used to summon the people of Garlemald's belief in... Garlemald? A Garlemald primal? The incarnation of Solus? That's the only thing I can think of that the Garlean's populations beliefs can be harvested for.

I don't like the insinuation here that Hydaelyn isn't speaking... because everything is going exactly as she wants it to. Hoping it's just some aetherial jamming or something, or she's still too weak to speak.

Once again, the fact that Alphinaud and G'raha Tia hardly ever both speak at length in the same scene together goes to show how they are both effectively the same character (young, idealistic intellectual of the group and sidekick to the protagonist) and the writers don't know how to get around that without the audience noticing.

LOLOL Zenos is pissed at Fandaniel!

Awww they blueballed us with Zenos' new weapon.

On to Diamond Weapon next.

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Werlyt/Weapon storyline

Spoiler: 

Well... that is a most strange track name to associate with this questline. What, do Alfonse and Allie reunite and a love theme plays at the end? Seriously. This is bizzare. Unless it's supposed to be an ironic name/morbid joke for the track that plays when Valens is with the kids...

Why is Valens trying to use Zenos oversoul data? He already concluded at the end of the last patch that Zenos was uncontrollable and thus ill suited to be used for the Oversoul imprint.

*sigh* Allie... you shot like 30 different lasers... and not ONE OF THEM HIT HIM!

Oh wow... is Valens dead before we even get to Werlyt? We don't even get to meet him? So who was Gaius fighting right outside of Terncliff in the trailer? Did the Overmind device imprint Zenos' cunning and tactical mind and ambition onto Allie, and now Allie is a warlord who has taken over the VIIth Legion and is trying to conquer Terncliff?

... That was it? Just a one phase fight? No second phase? Awww. Disappointing.

Wait, how did Valens survive?

Damn, Alfonse got stuffed into the robot, just like Shinji's mom was stuffed into the EVA? Ouch.

So Alfonse asked his dad to help him commit suicide? I mean... I don't know. I mean, in some fiction, being turned into an AI or a robot isn't too bad (ie Gundam 00), but I guess this seems to be more like a Nina Tucker situation where he's living a fate worse than death.

So... wait, we never even got to go to Werlyt? What?

No Livia! You don't deserve to be in the happy ending montage!




Uh... can we NOT pray to the fanboy gundam statue/bust you just made as if it was some kind of kami shrine or an idol?

Well, now that Cid has captured a fully functional Diamond Weapon, what is he going to do with it? Gaius is going off be governor/American Shogun of the offscreen Werylt, and Allie is going with him. So neither of them is going to be piloting Diamond Weapon in future storylines. Hm...

[Merie]

[QUOTE=Val the Moofia Boss;53127532]
Hm... so is the giant tower in Garlemald - the one that the Imperial Palace being transformed into - is it being used to summon the people of Garlemald's belief in... Garlemald? A Garlemald primal? The incarnation of Solus? That's the only thing I can think of that the Garlean's populations beliefs can be harvested for.[/QUOTE]

You can hear his voice during the Endwalker cinematic. Coincidence? A curious choice to have him narrate if so.

[dope_danny]

Good patch but the thing thats surprised me the most is the weapon storyline being the most impactful and engaging storyline after the 5.0 credits rolled. The villain is a piece of shit you hate, the fights are simple but fun and i was watching the final cutscenes of the questline play out thinking "boy, Gaius sure has come a long way from being the actual villain on the box art of A Realm Reborn seven years ago". Mmos seem to kill villains or give them a super insincere redemption arc and its a nice change of pace to have an arc that isn't a redemption but just a case of an enemy questioning themselves and choosing to do the right thing when so many of the people on his side chose the typical "nah, i'm just gonna be a walking trash fire and self destruct" one dimensional cliche. Honestly its still no huge epic but i would say its probably the best writing in the post 5.0 storyline.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Good patch but the thing thats surprised me the most is the weapon storyline being the most impactful and engaging storyline after the 5.0 credits rolled. The villain is a piece of shit you hate, the fights are simple but fun and i was watching the final cutscenes of the questline play out thinking "boy, Gaius sure has come a long way from being the actual villain on the box art of A Realm Reborn seven years ago". Mmos seem to kill villains or give them a super insincere redemption arc and its a nice change of pace to have an arc that isn't a redemption but just a case of an enemy questioning themselves and choosing to do the right thing when so many of the people on his side chose the typical "nah, i'm just gonna be a walking trash fire and self destruct" one dimensional cliche. Honestly its still no huge epic but i would say its probably the best writing in the post 5.0 storyline.

Hm...

Spoiler: 

After 5.0, I was initially the most excited for the Bozja storyline. The first quest was really good, with you seeing a bittersweet vision of Gerolt's and Rowena's life together, and then you got to go into Cid's mind and run through the remains of Bozja, and then the cool fight against Varis. The other thing going on in that patch was Ruby Weapon, which the only thing it had going for it was the creepy cool Nael phase. I also wasn't too keen on a possible Gaius redemption arc, but he was at least an interesting character and Cid was involved so I was invested.

Then we actually went to Bozja, and... well, problems with the systems aside, my problem is that it's hard for me to care. I guess it ties into my problem with Matsuno's games, where the political stuff that is going on is all fine and good, but there aren't really any characters that grab me. I don't really cared for Bajsaljen or Marsak. Mikoto is okay. Cid and Gerolt pretty much dropped out of the storyline after the first patch. So that just leaves... the antagonists and the FATE/skirmish NPCs. From the FATE NPCs, the only character I really remember was Dyunbu. As far as the antagonists go... screw Misija. I don't understand why we didn't just lop her head off on the spot. We've killed dozens of other antagonists for less. Lyon is really cool and the only new Bozja character I really like. Also, kinda disappointed that Gabranth has been pretty much completely absent in this storyline thus far. I guess they're saving him for the retaking of Dalmasca storyline in the Endwalker post patches or something.

I think another problem I have with Bozja is that... well, we haven't actually gotten to see Bozja. Well, we are in battlefields in Bozjan territory, but we haven't really gotten to go visit any towns or talk to villagers or find out about their culture and stuff.

Whereas with the Weapon storyline in 5.3, that was when I started becoming really invested in that storyline. We got to go to a new town and liberate it and find out a little bit more about the world, and feel like we were making a difference. That's what I wanted out of Bozja. We also got the really cool solo duty in the G-Warrior against Sapphire Weapon. And also this was when Valens was introduced, who really steals the show with his creepiness in his scenes, and this was also when I started getting invested in Allie and Alfonse.

5.4: For Bozja this was when DR was introduced, which was okay story wise. Not much to write home about. Again, pissed off we didn't kill Misija. Meanwhile, the Weapon storyline continued to be great, with the awesome Emerald Weapon fight where he oversouls and becomes his father and you flashback to when Gaius conquered Terncliff 20 years ago, and the scene is tined in gold and there are houses on blue cerulueam fire everywhere.

5.5: decent ending to Weapon storyline. Disappointed that there was no second phase on the trial, no G-Warrior solo duty, or visiting Werylt after it had been hyped up. For Bozja, the 5.5 trailer focuses on Lyon, so maybe he's taking center stage as the chief antagonist in Zadnor? I want him to join us and become a beastmaster trainer. Also hoping we get to see Gabranth, but he's not advertised in the trailer, so... sad. Zadnor at least looks to be more visually interesting, with brighter colors (orangish desert and blue floating rocks) than Bozja South's dull greys and browns.

As for the Eden storyline, I liked the first two tiers, where you where flying around with Thancred and Urianger and Ryne in your cool spaceship trying to fix the world. I didn't really like tier 3. When Thancred and Urianger left, that took out a lot of my investment in the story, and I didn't really like the Gaia-magical girl story. Meh.

I don't care about the Nier storyline at all. Nothing makes sense. I don't care about these characters. The boss fights take way too long. The raids are visually uninteresting. Don't like the music. Only thing I liked was the comedy at the Dwarf village's festival.

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Alliance raids: Return to Ivalice (very good) > Crystal Tower (good) >> Mhach (okay) >>>>>> Nier (bad)

Raid storylines: Omega = Eden (first two tiers were good, last tier was meh) >> Alexander

Trial storylines: Weapon/Werlyt (great middle, decent beginning and end) >> Warring Triad (good, liked Regula and Unukalhai, didn't like the Triad) > Four Lords (okay)

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You can hear his voice during the Endwalker cinematic. Coincidence? A curious choice to have him narrate if so.

I think it's just because he talks about the Final Days during the last two hours of 5.0 so he's the one introducing it in the trailer.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So... I was doing the latest Ishgard Restoration quests, when this line was dropped and confounded me (5.5 MSQ spoilers)

Spoiler: 

"The situation at the Ghimlyt Dark remains at an impasse." Um... what? You're still locked in a stalemate with the Garleans at Ghimlyt? That's... impossible. Provinces have been rebelling left and right, such as Nagxia and Dalmasca and Bozja, and presumably provinces in the West as well. And then Varis died and then it became a free for all as Legions were breaking away left and right. The VIIth and the IVth don't give a crap about Garlemald's Western borders. Nerva and his IIIrd Legion were busy in the capital trying to assert control, and then they got wiped out. There is no one left who has the forces to - and is interested in - holding the line at Ghimlyt. Zenos certainly doesn't care ; he is chopping up his own people! Almost everyone in the capital city has either been brainwashed into being a tower builder, or has been fed to the tower! There is literally NO ONE LEFT! There is no central command that can give orders or organize supply chains to keep a Western front sustained! And even if there was an organized central command that could organize supply chains, those supply convoys and reinforcements would never reach Ghimlyt, as they would have to pass through through the hostile territory of rebelling provinces and rogue legions. If anything, Artoirel should have been coming back from Ghimlyt to say "oh yeah, I just finishing organizing our prison camps for the Garlean soldiers".

Anyway, (Durendaire subplot) I was hoping that Carvallain was going to reunite with his father... maybe it will happen at the end of Count Durendaire's custom deliveries questline?

Nice to see the dragon guy again.

Also, really sucks that the Firmament isn't phased like the Doman Enclave. New players won't get to see it evolve over time and missed out on the earlier quests.

[Merie]

So... I was doing the latest Ishgard Restoration quests, when this line was dropped and confounded me (5.5 MSQ spoilers)

Spoiler: 

"The situation at the Ghimlyt Dark remains at an impasse." Um... what? You're still locked in a stalemate with the Garleans at Ghimlyt? That's... impossible. Provinces have been rebelling left and right, such as Nagxia and Dalmasca and Bozja, and presumably provinces in the West as well. And then Varis died and then it became a free for all as Legions were breaking away left and right. The VIIth and the IVth don't give a crap about Garlemald's Western borders. Nerva and his IIIrd Legion were busy in the capital trying to assert control, and then they got wiped out. There is no one left who has the forces to - and is interested in - holding the line at Ghimlyt. Zenos certainly doesn't care ; he is chopping up his own people! Almost everyone in the capital city has either been brainwashed into being a tower builder, or has been fed to the tower! There is literally NO ONE LEFT! There is no central command that can give orders or organize supply chains to keep a Western front sustained! And even if there was an organized central command that could organize supply chains, those supply convoys and reinforcements would never reach Ghimlyt, as they would have to pass through through the hostile territory of rebelling provinces and rogue legions. If anything, Artoirel should have been coming back from Ghimlyt to say "oh yeah, I just finishing organizing our prison camps for the Garlean soldiers".

Anyway, (Durendaire subplot) I was hoping that Carvallain was going to reunite with his father... maybe it will happen at the end of Count Durendaire's custom deliveries questline?

Nice to see the dragon guy again.

Also, really sucks that the Firmament isn't phased like the Doman Enclave. New players won't get to see it evolve over time and missed out on the earlier quests.

So much doesn't make sense, or is hand waved away so casually. I'm so burned that we didn't have a Garlean world war expansion after Stormblood where we got to see all of these rebelling territories and play a role on the front lines helping them like with doma culminating with an attack at the heart of the capital. There's so much of the world that only exists in text! Would have even been the perfect lead into ShB, with an even bigger threat with Varis and the Garleans just being pawns for Solus.

[Ashleyxoxo]

Anyone else have trouble remembering every person's name, location and story event? I'm so lost with the current story patch, I might as well not have done the previous content. It all feels like unnecessarily complex filler to the main plot: Zenos and Ascian bad, Bringer of Light good.

[RampageBW1]

Well, what d'ya know.

You know that event that ended with the patch launch? The Moogle event? I farmed up a lot of those Esoterics or whatever they were, and one of the mounts I purchased with those event stones was the Magitek Predator mount.

Tonight I finally finish the 60-70 leveling campaign for Stormblood, and in the Ala Mhigo duty, what drops AND I would have won if I didn't purchase that mount? The Magitek Predator Identification Key.

I had a sensible chuckle when I realized it.

[grandgato]

Anyone else have trouble remembering every person's name, location and story event?

All the time. I have a friend who is way better at keeping up with the lore, he keeps me on track.