Going through the MSQ a second time on my NA main character; It's Good, Y'all. There's also some DEVASTATING foreshadowing.
Right after the duel with Gulool Ja Ja...
Wuk Lamat: "Ugh, that's my father for you. He's going to keep dueling until the day he dies."
I knew the guy was gonna die, and that he was probably gonna die to his son. I also figured that the Head of Reason had passed away. (although it does make a sad realization when he attempts to cast his ultimate spell, only to remember that his brother was...'sleeping')
Didn't make his death any less agonizing. Say what you will about Wuk Lamat, her soft 'Papa?' killed me.
As with most of the hardhitting moments this expansion, I thought the idea was good and the execution fell flat. They really needed to do more to escape the FFXIV cutscene meme of the WOL just standing around staring and looking shocked rather than intervening.
I agree.
The moment Zoral'ja stood up was the moment the 'duel' was over and it was time to step in, but we did nothing. Stuff like that takes me out of the story harder than almost anything else, particularly because of how the WoL is a stand-in for the player in the story.
Going through the MSQ a second time on my NA main character; It's Good, Y'all. There's also some DEVASTATING foreshadowing.
Right after the duel with Gulool Ja Ja...
Wuk Lamat: "Ugh, that's my father for you. He's going to keep dueling until the day he dies."
I knew the guy was gonna die, and that he was probably gonna die to his son. I also figured that the Head of Reason had passed away. (although it does make a sad realization when he attempts to cast his ultimate spell, only to remember that his brother was...'sleeping')
Didn't make his death any less agonizing. Say what you will about Wuk Lamat, her soft 'Papa?' killed me.
As with most of the hardhitting moments this expansion, I thought the idea was good and the execution fell flat. They really needed to do more to escape the FFXIV cutscene meme of the WOL just standing around staring and looking shocked rather than intervening.
I agree.
The moment Zoral'ja stood up was the moment the 'duel' was over and it was time to step in, but we did nothing. Stuff like that takes me out of the story harder than almost anything else, particularly because of how the WoL is a stand-in for the player in the story.
Yeah the literal only reason I could think of for us not intervening was because it would be culturally insensitive to intervene in a duel and we're there as an ambassador and trying real hard to not do much interference outside our position as advisor to Wuk Lamat. ... but yeah ffs both of my WoLs should have been up in Zoraal Ja's face.
I think part of the problem now is that we are canonically so powerful that we can just no-sell most threats; it takes stuff on the level of Sphene, Valigarmanda, etc to even phase us. So while it's possible to have Stakes by threatening other characters, it feels very weird to have just standing there slack jawed. Tbh for that scene in particular, I kind of wish the WoL hadn't even been there, like, we were off in the city still helping people and then got the news via Echo (which would be a nice way I think to remind, well, everyone, that while we may be a god-killing machine, we're still one person, we can't be everywhere we're needed always.
Particularly, imagine if the WoL had only arrived just as Zoraal Ja was planning to blender everyone else there; he chooses to stop because he knows how much of a threat we are (having fought beside us against Valigarmanda). We still get to walk in on Wuk Lamat and Koana tearfully by their father's side, we still get to see his final moments, but we get the extra gut punch of once again, we're too late, because we're still, despite our strength, only one person.
So it sounds like DRK should have included more healing in the changes. PLD changes are apparently very good.
VPR got a tuning pass that I suspect some will gnash their teeth over but imo its damage was a bit high.
Not sure on others.
WHM changes apparently getting good reception(?)
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited July 30
whm didn't get any meaningful changes, not sure what that's referring to. or at least, none in this patch. they got a minor buff to their dot but that doesn't do much to close the DPS gap to astro
Going through the MSQ a second time on my NA main character; It's Good, Y'all. There's also some DEVASTATING foreshadowing.
Right after the duel with Gulool Ja Ja...
Wuk Lamat: "Ugh, that's my father for you. He's going to keep dueling until the day he dies."
I knew the guy was gonna die, and that he was probably gonna die to his son. I also figured that the Head of Reason had passed away. (although it does make a sad realization when he attempts to cast his ultimate spell, only to remember that his brother was...'sleeping')
Didn't make his death any less agonizing. Say what you will about Wuk Lamat, her soft 'Papa?' killed me.
As with most of the hardhitting moments this expansion, I thought the idea was good and the execution fell flat. They really needed to do more to escape the FFXIV cutscene meme of the WOL just standing around staring and looking shocked rather than intervening.
I agree.
The moment Zoral'ja stood up was the moment the 'duel' was over and it was time to step in, but we did nothing. Stuff like that takes me out of the story harder than almost anything else, particularly because of how the WoL is a stand-in for the player in the story.
Yeah the literal only reason I could think of for us not intervening was because it would be culturally insensitive to intervene in a duel and we're there as an ambassador and trying real hard to not do much interference outside our position as advisor to Wuk Lamat. ... but yeah ffs both of my WoLs should have been up in Zoraal Ja's face.
I think part of the problem now is that we are canonically so powerful that we can just no-sell most threats; it takes stuff on the level of Sphene, Valigarmanda, etc to even phase us. So while it's possible to have Stakes by threatening other characters, it feels very weird to have just standing there slack jawed. Tbh for that scene in particular, I kind of wish the WoL hadn't even been there, like, we were off in the city still helping people and then got the news via Echo (which would be a nice way I think to remind, well, everyone, that while we may be a god-killing machine, we're still one person, we can't be everywhere we're needed always.
Particularly, imagine if the WoL had only arrived just as Zoraal Ja was planning to blender everyone else there; he chooses to stop because he knows how much of a threat we are (having fought beside us against Valigarmanda). We still get to walk in on Wuk Lamat and Koana tearfully by their father's side, we still get to see his final moments, but we get the extra gut punch of once again, we're too late, because we're still, despite our strength, only one person.
I agree with this so hard.
The issues are not so much with what happens, but how it happens, and in part seems to be an issue with direction rather than with writing.
I had the exact same issue with the scene at the end of the Zoral'ja fight where we just let Sphene casually walk right past us to the dimensional macguffin and then do the thing everyone expects her to do to end the world. I don't have a problem with Sphene doing that, I have a problem with it happening right in front of our noses without any characters attempting to stop her. Keep the story the same but change the circumstances so we cannot act. Hell, just having her walk in from the other side of the room would have worked better than the way the scene ended up playing out.
Going through the MSQ a second time on my NA main character; It's Good, Y'all. There's also some DEVASTATING foreshadowing.
Right after the duel with Gulool Ja Ja...
Wuk Lamat: "Ugh, that's my father for you. He's going to keep dueling until the day he dies."
I knew the guy was gonna die, and that he was probably gonna die to his son. I also figured that the Head of Reason had passed away. (although it does make a sad realization when he attempts to cast his ultimate spell, only to remember that his brother was...'sleeping')
Didn't make his death any less agonizing. Say what you will about Wuk Lamat, her soft 'Papa?' killed me.
As with most of the hardhitting moments this expansion, I thought the idea was good and the execution fell flat. They really needed to do more to escape the FFXIV cutscene meme of the WOL just standing around staring and looking shocked rather than intervening.
I agree.
The moment Zoral'ja stood up was the moment the 'duel' was over and it was time to step in, but we did nothing. Stuff like that takes me out of the story harder than almost anything else, particularly because of how the WoL is a stand-in for the player in the story.
Yeah the literal only reason I could think of for us not intervening was because it would be culturally insensitive to intervene in a duel and we're there as an ambassador and trying real hard to not do much interference outside our position as advisor to Wuk Lamat. ... but yeah ffs both of my WoLs should have been up in Zoraal Ja's face.
I think part of the problem now is that we are canonically so powerful that we can just no-sell most threats; it takes stuff on the level of Sphene, Valigarmanda, etc to even phase us. So while it's possible to have Stakes by threatening other characters, it feels very weird to have just standing there slack jawed. Tbh for that scene in particular, I kind of wish the WoL hadn't even been there, like, we were off in the city still helping people and then got the news via Echo (which would be a nice way I think to remind, well, everyone, that while we may be a god-killing machine, we're still one person, we can't be everywhere we're needed always.
Particularly, imagine if the WoL had only arrived just as Zoraal Ja was planning to blender everyone else there; he chooses to stop because he knows how much of a threat we are (having fought beside us against Valigarmanda). We still get to walk in on Wuk Lamat and Koana tearfully by their father's side, we still get to see his final moments, but we get the extra gut punch of once again, we're too late, because we're still, despite our strength, only one person.
I agree with this so hard.
The issues are not so much with what happens, but how it happens, and in part seems to be an issue with direction rather than with writing.
I had the exact same issue with the scene at the end of the Zoral'ja fight where we just let Sphene casually walk right past us to the dimensional macguffin and then do the thing everyone expects her to do to end the world. I don't have a problem with Sphene doing that, I have a problem with it happening right in front of our noses without any characters attempting to stop her. Keep the story the same but change the circumstances so we cannot act. Hell, just having her walk in from the other side of the room would have worked better than the way the scene ended up playing out.
But how are we supposed to fight the cool new boss model if we don't let the boss eat the macguffin? 🤷
I suspect at this point the WoL at this point is doing it on purpose. "Yeah I could do something, but I want to see what happens."
I really, really want them to pick an attack animation from each job for cutscene use. Let DRG throw a javelin at the villain, let WHM cast glare, let us do something when a villain picks up a macguffin. We're the scions' muscle FFS. I'll even take a non-job specific body tackle. Just give us the next logical step forward from the weapon draw emote.
Going through the MSQ a second time on my NA main character; It's Good, Y'all. There's also some DEVASTATING foreshadowing.
Right after the duel with Gulool Ja Ja...
Wuk Lamat: "Ugh, that's my father for you. He's going to keep dueling until the day he dies."
I knew the guy was gonna die, and that he was probably gonna die to his son. I also figured that the Head of Reason had passed away. (although it does make a sad realization when he attempts to cast his ultimate spell, only to remember that his brother was...'sleeping')
Didn't make his death any less agonizing. Say what you will about Wuk Lamat, her soft 'Papa?' killed me.
As with most of the hardhitting moments this expansion, I thought the idea was good and the execution fell flat. They really needed to do more to escape the FFXIV cutscene meme of the WOL just standing around staring and looking shocked rather than intervening.
I agree.
The moment Zoral'ja stood up was the moment the 'duel' was over and it was time to step in, but we did nothing. Stuff like that takes me out of the story harder than almost anything else, particularly because of how the WoL is a stand-in for the player in the story.
Yeah the literal only reason I could think of for us not intervening was because it would be culturally insensitive to intervene in a duel and we're there as an ambassador and trying real hard to not do much interference outside our position as advisor to Wuk Lamat. ... but yeah ffs both of my WoLs should have been up in Zoraal Ja's face.
I think part of the problem now is that we are canonically so powerful that we can just no-sell most threats; it takes stuff on the level of Sphene, Valigarmanda, etc to even phase us. So while it's possible to have Stakes by threatening other characters, it feels very weird to have just standing there slack jawed. Tbh for that scene in particular, I kind of wish the WoL hadn't even been there, like, we were off in the city still helping people and then got the news via Echo (which would be a nice way I think to remind, well, everyone, that while we may be a god-killing machine, we're still one person, we can't be everywhere we're needed always.
Particularly, imagine if the WoL had only arrived just as Zoraal Ja was planning to blender everyone else there; he chooses to stop because he knows how much of a threat we are (having fought beside us against Valigarmanda). We still get to walk in on Wuk Lamat and Koana tearfully by their father's side, we still get to see his final moments, but we get the extra gut punch of once again, we're too late, because we're still, despite our strength, only one person.
I agree with this so hard.
The issues are not so much with what happens, but how it happens, and in part seems to be an issue with direction rather than with writing.
I had the exact same issue with the scene at the end of the Zoral'ja fight where we just let Sphene casually walk right past us to the dimensional macguffin and then do the thing everyone expects her to do to end the world. I don't have a problem with Sphene doing that, I have a problem with it happening right in front of our noses without any characters attempting to stop her. Keep the story the same but change the circumstances so we cannot act. Hell, just having her walk in from the other side of the room would have worked better than the way the scene ended up playing out.
But how are we supposed to fight the cool new boss model if we don't let the boss eat the macguffin? 🤷
I suspect at this point the WoL at this point is doing it on purpose. "Yeah I could do something, but I want to see what happens."
The point I was intending to make is that we can have the same story points unfold, they just need to set the scenes differently. Have Sphene in a position where she is already in control of the macguffin when the Zoral'ja fight ends, for example. For the Gulool Ja Ja duel, Lucid_Seraph's suggestion is perfect.
Honestly that stuff is so ever-present in ff14 and RPGs as a whole that it’s hard to get angry about or I’d never get anything else done
I didn't really feel that way about 14 until this expansion though.
I think it's fine for the most part but Heavensward definitely had that moment with Thordan and the key to Azys Lla. That was 4 expansions ago, though. Sucks when the limitations of the scene blocking tools get in the way of giving us a compelling scene.
Hit 90 on PLD and RDM last night, heading to the end of base Endwalker. Went ahead and bought Dawntrail since I'll be getting to it soon enough, and might as well not leave any XP on the table.
0
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Going through the MSQ a second time on my NA main character; It's Good, Y'all. There's also some DEVASTATING foreshadowing.
Right after the duel with Gulool Ja Ja...
Wuk Lamat: "Ugh, that's my father for you. He's going to keep dueling until the day he dies."
I knew the guy was gonna die, and that he was probably gonna die to his son. I also figured that the Head of Reason had passed away. (although it does make a sad realization when he attempts to cast his ultimate spell, only to remember that his brother was...'sleeping')
Didn't make his death any less agonizing. Say what you will about Wuk Lamat, her soft 'Papa?' killed me.
As with most of the hardhitting moments this expansion, I thought the idea was good and the execution fell flat. They really needed to do more to escape the FFXIV cutscene meme of the WOL just standing around staring and looking shocked rather than intervening.
I agree.
The moment Zoral'ja stood up was the moment the 'duel' was over and it was time to step in, but we did nothing. Stuff like that takes me out of the story harder than almost anything else, particularly because of how the WoL is a stand-in for the player in the story.
Yeah the literal only reason I could think of for us not intervening was because it would be culturally insensitive to intervene in a duel and we're there as an ambassador and trying real hard to not do much interference outside our position as advisor to Wuk Lamat. ... but yeah ffs both of my WoLs should have been up in Zoraal Ja's face.
I think part of the problem now is that we are canonically so powerful that we can just no-sell most threats; it takes stuff on the level of Sphene, Valigarmanda, etc to even phase us. So while it's possible to have Stakes by threatening other characters, it feels very weird to have just standing there slack jawed. Tbh for that scene in particular, I kind of wish the WoL hadn't even been there, like, we were off in the city still helping people and then got the news via Echo (which would be a nice way I think to remind, well, everyone, that while we may be a god-killing machine, we're still one person, we can't be everywhere we're needed always.
Particularly, imagine if the WoL had only arrived just as Zoraal Ja was planning to blender everyone else there; he chooses to stop because he knows how much of a threat we are (having fought beside us against Valigarmanda). We still get to walk in on Wuk Lamat and Koana tearfully by their father's side, we still get to see his final moments, but we get the extra gut punch of once again, we're too late, because we're still, despite our strength, only one person.
the reason not to intervene is because Zoraal Ja's army had complete control of the city with guns pointed at everybody. The only reason he was holding them back was because he was obsessed with proving his personal strength
Apart from my vacationing spirit being a bit dampened by the final zones it really was excellent.
And combat design was superb, haven't had time to do the EX fights yet, but very much looking forward to them.
Full msq spoilers.
At some point in the third zone I was hooked and really enjoyed Wuk Lamats story. I liked that we didn't take over entirely for the second half either. The final parts did have some retreads, but I found it to be very effective for me at least. The people of Alexandria had made some bad choices due to extreme circumstances but had to be stopped.
Some points did feel like retreads of ShB, but it mostly had it's own spin that kept it fresh enough for me. I was a bit annoyed we didn't get to argue against the memory erasure part of solution 9, but hopefully the patches deal with that. We just had an entire expansion partly dedicated to the concept of acceptance of suffering as a core part of life and not talking about it felt weird. Sphene could have used a bit more time to breathe, but I thought they did a good job with her being Wuk Lamats mirror.
Overall thus expansion seems to be just as divisive as StB, depending on whether you liked Wuk Lamats journey or not. I actually get most of the criticism, I just didn't mind it.
I am however a bit perplexed about some reactions to the final zone. The memories are to me firmly established as being alive, as perfect copies of the person and still being capable of personal growth. The scenes between Krile and Erenville and their parents were to me really touching.
The lack of a soul does not seem to impact the endless more than the lack of a body. I do wonder if they will ever explore how the established cycle of reincarnation is affected by the separation of soul and memory.
Specifically a response to your last bit:
There are a bunch of compounding factors here for me:
Right off the bat, the final zone shit shouldn't have even happened the way that it did. We shouldn't have let Sphene grab the MacGuffin after the fight with Zoral Ja. The party explicitly does not trust her. She suspiciously shows up after the big fight, walks past us, and picks up the dangerous artifact that we know is responsible for the dimensional fuckery going on. Every single person in our party would have intervened and stopped her from taking it if the writing were half decent. This moment disconnected me from a story I was previously engaged with, and nothing about the final zone reconnected me to the plot.
The biggest issue is that I just don't care about the endless. Are they alive? I don't care. They are people who lived their full lives. They don't get a second chance at life at the cost of the souls of future generations. Turning them off isn't a difficult choice for me. "Getting to know them" isn't something I want to spend time doing, especially when we have this big world ending threat we need to be actively countering. This might be different in a different setting where we don't know how souls work. We spent an entire expansion learning about how souls on Etherys work, about the aethereal sea and the cycle of rebirth. And this is hard information and not myth or speculation. We fully understand the cost of keeping the endless around.
I also hated Erenville's mom. She's such an awful parent and we didn't do anything other than subject Erenville to trauma for 80% of the zone. A real friend would have called that shit out from the get-go, but we are forced there to stand by passively while she blatantly ignores her son's suffering and makes fun of him for being 'fussy'. God she's such a shitbag.
I have some personal issues and speculation that pulled me out of the unlost world as well.
Firstly, the idea of being trapped in an unchanging theme park and cursed with eternal life sounds like a true hell. This is a personal preference thing but I do not and would not want to live forever and this specific instance of living forever sounds like actual torture.
On the speculation side of things, I get the impression that the endless cannot change or grow. Sphene herself cannot deviate from her existential directive to preserve the people of Alexandria. The children endless are still children in appearance and personality even though they have lived for an unknown number of years as kids. Every single 'employed' endless is still performing the exact job they performed in life. The most interesting endless character is the man with the fiancé, but I find it suspicious that they weren't able to successfully propose to their partner until outside involvement from a non-endless. If my suspicions are correct, the endless are distinctly lacking a 'human' component and preserving them in this way is not a pathway to truly sapient existence. This makes the cost of maintaining them even more of a bad deal.
The endless can change. During some quests you changed the desires of the NPC and they became older / younger depending on their changed preferences / circumstances. Performing the same job: Its like Robocob, you are dead and still have to come to work - I think people only perform the same job if it basically became part of their personality.
I kinda just excuse it at this point because it's not fair to compare games to BG3 but also at this point I figure they're telling a story to me I am not getting to tell the story so I am just here to sit and watch and listen. I too am enraged whenever the super important interdimensional portal key is just casually left there and taken in front of our faces, but eh
also I did appreciate the payoff of everyone being like OH SHIT THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE TROUBLE all expansion and we're like uh huh just obi wan kenobi here to mentor and hang out and enjoy a nice vacation but at the end when it was like ehhh this might threaten like all of existence the wol is like okay fine time to deal with this
Apart from my vacationing spirit being a bit dampened by the final zones it really was excellent.
And combat design was superb, haven't had time to do the EX fights yet, but very much looking forward to them.
Full msq spoilers.
At some point in the third zone I was hooked and really enjoyed Wuk Lamats story. I liked that we didn't take over entirely for the second half either. The final parts did have some retreads, but I found it to be very effective for me at least. The people of Alexandria had made some bad choices due to extreme circumstances but had to be stopped.
Some points did feel like retreads of ShB, but it mostly had it's own spin that kept it fresh enough for me. I was a bit annoyed we didn't get to argue against the memory erasure part of solution 9, but hopefully the patches deal with that. We just had an entire expansion partly dedicated to the concept of acceptance of suffering as a core part of life and not talking about it felt weird. Sphene could have used a bit more time to breathe, but I thought they did a good job with her being Wuk Lamats mirror.
Overall thus expansion seems to be just as divisive as StB, depending on whether you liked Wuk Lamats journey or not. I actually get most of the criticism, I just didn't mind it.
I am however a bit perplexed about some reactions to the final zone. The memories are to me firmly established as being alive, as perfect copies of the person and still being capable of personal growth. The scenes between Krile and Erenville and their parents were to me really touching.
The lack of a soul does not seem to impact the endless more than the lack of a body. I do wonder if they will ever explore how the established cycle of reincarnation is affected by the separation of soul and memory.
Specifically a response to your last bit:
There are a bunch of compounding factors here for me:
Right off the bat, the final zone shit shouldn't have even happened the way that it did. We shouldn't have let Sphene grab the MacGuffin after the fight with Zoral Ja. The party explicitly does not trust her. She suspiciously shows up after the big fight, walks past us, and picks up the dangerous artifact that we know is responsible for the dimensional fuckery going on. Every single person in our party would have intervened and stopped her from taking it if the writing were half decent. This moment disconnected me from a story I was previously engaged with, and nothing about the final zone reconnected me to the plot.
The biggest issue is that I just don't care about the endless. Are they alive? I don't care. They are people who lived their full lives. They don't get a second chance at life at the cost of the souls of future generations. Turning them off isn't a difficult choice for me. "Getting to know them" isn't something I want to spend time doing, especially when we have this big world ending threat we need to be actively countering. This might be different in a different setting where we don't know how souls work. We spent an entire expansion learning about how souls on Etherys work, about the aethereal sea and the cycle of rebirth. And this is hard information and not myth or speculation. We fully understand the cost of keeping the endless around.
I also hated Erenville's mom. She's such an awful parent and we didn't do anything other than subject Erenville to trauma for 80% of the zone. A real friend would have called that shit out from the get-go, but we are forced there to stand by passively while she blatantly ignores her son's suffering and makes fun of him for being 'fussy'. God she's such a shitbag.
I have some personal issues and speculation that pulled me out of the unlost world as well.
Firstly, the idea of being trapped in an unchanging theme park and cursed with eternal life sounds like a true hell. This is a personal preference thing but I do not and would not want to live forever and this specific instance of living forever sounds like actual torture.
On the speculation side of things, I get the impression that the endless cannot change or grow. Sphene herself cannot deviate from her existential directive to preserve the people of Alexandria. The children endless are still children in appearance and personality even though they have lived for an unknown number of years as kids. Every single 'employed' endless is still performing the exact job they performed in life. The most interesting endless character is the man with the fiancé, but I find it suspicious that they weren't able to successfully propose to their partner until outside involvement from a non-endless. If my suspicions are correct, the endless are distinctly lacking a 'human' component and preserving them in this way is not a pathway to truly sapient existence. This makes the cost of maintaining them even more of a bad deal.
The endless can change. During some quests you changed the desires of the NPC and they became older / younger depending on their changed preferences / circumstances. Performing the same job: Its like Robocob, you are dead and still have to come to work - I think people only perform the same job if it basically became part of their personality.
But they were only able to change under outside non-endless influence. Prior to our party arriving, they had been in that same state for an untold number of years, and effectively multiple 'lifetimes' of living the same unchanging life.
Something that's been troubling me about the end of Endwalker:
In the final fight with Zenos, he uses a bunch of the elemental powers associated with Shinryu despite no longer being in that form, which means that he could have retained some of the other powers that he had as Shinryu, like laying eggs. He mercifully doesn't do that during the fight itself, but I just realized that there's a big stretch of time when you're talking to Meteion where Zenos is nowhere to be seen. In theory, Zenos could have been doing anything during that time.
Something that's been troubling me about the end of Endwalker:
In the final fight with Zenos, he uses a bunch of the elemental powers associated with Shinryu despite no longer being in that form, which means that he could have retained some of the other powers that he had as Shinryu, like laying eggs. He mercifully doesn't do that during the fight itself, but I just realized that there's a big stretch of time when you're talking to Meteion where Zenos is nowhere to be seen. In theory, Zenos could have been doing anything during that time.
So what you're saying is
Zenos laid an egg at the edge of the universe, and when that egg hatches he will use his resonant powers to inhabit the hatchling a la Fallen and eventually return
+2
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Something that's been troubling me about the end of Endwalker:
In the final fight with Zenos, he uses a bunch of the elemental powers associated with Shinryu despite no longer being in that form, which means that he could have retained some of the other powers that he had as Shinryu, like laying eggs. He mercifully doesn't do that during the fight itself, but I just realized that there's a big stretch of time when you're talking to Meteion where Zenos is nowhere to be seen. In theory, Zenos could have been doing anything during that time.
why is laying eggs the singular example you thought to use
+1
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Zenos laying eggs, how is there still confusion on this point
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited August 4
they're also stupid. even if you're dissatisfied with her performance, like I am overall, five minutes of research into the VA reveals she can absolutely do all the things with her voice that the transphobes claim she can't do due to being trans. It is clearly down to voice direction because she is far from the only awful VA in Dawntrail. The vast majority of Dawntrail voice acting was awful, nor was there anywhere near enough. It's a huge weakness of the expansion and it's not limited to the VA that happens to be an easy target for bigots. You don't see any of them pointing out that Ysh'tola sounds disengaged and honestly not even like herself.
Dhalphir on
+3
Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
I really need to get into at least some cosmetic modding so I can fix perhaps the greatest oversight in this game
the lack of fluffy bunny tails for Viera
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
This game can be subtle when it wants to be. End of third zone spoilers:
There's an inherent paradox going on with Blessed Siblings that you can completely miss if you don't pay attention to the quest about the statue. The two heads are given the responsibility of radically different goals, one to lead the Mamool Ja out of the forest and one to give them mastery over it. In Gulool Ja Ja's case, the Head of Resolve succeeded at its duty but the Head of Reason failed, leading to some of the Mamool Ja to consider him a failure and reject him in favor of more attempts at a Blessed Sibling who could somehow manage to do everything.
In the end, Koana succeeded where the Head of Reason couldn't precisely because he wasn't subject to the paradox. The fact that he wasn't stapled to someone else enabled him to use that independence to go places and learn things that a Blessed Sibling never could.
This game can be subtle when it wants to be. End of third zone spoilers:
There's an inherent paradox going on with Blessed Siblings that you can completely miss if you don't pay attention to the quest about the statue. The two heads are given the responsibility of radically different goals, one to lead the Mamool Ja out of the forest and one to give them mastery over it. In Gulool Ja Ja's case, the Head of Resolve succeeded at its duty but the Head of Reason failed, leading to some of the Mamool Ja to consider him a failure and reject him in favor of more attempts at a Blessed Sibling who could somehow manage to do everything.
In the end, Koana succeeded where the Head of Reason couldn't precisely because he wasn't subject to the paradox. The fact that he wasn't stapled to someone else enabled him to use that independence to go places and learn things that a Blessed Sibling never could.
Shoot, I did that quest but I somehow missed that bit. Man, people REALLY gotta do sidequests in this game, there's so much subtle stuff that you can miss if you don't.
So my retainer brought me a minion named Flag, which is a reindeer calf that's described as having a voracious appetite for corn. There's an obvious minion interaction here, and I'm preemptively incredibly disappointed by my assumption that it probably doesn't exist.
Speaking of corn-based disappointment :P, I am kinda sad that the only recipe you can craft with turali corn is corn oil. I was hoping you’d be able to make elote or something.
Speaking of corn-based disappointment :P, I am kinda sad that the only recipe you can craft with turali corn is corn oil. I was hoping you’d be able to make elote or something.
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I agree.
I think part of the problem now is that we are canonically so powerful that we can just no-sell most threats; it takes stuff on the level of Sphene, Valigarmanda, etc to even phase us. So while it's possible to have Stakes by threatening other characters, it feels very weird to have just standing there slack jawed. Tbh for that scene in particular, I kind of wish the WoL hadn't even been there, like, we were off in the city still helping people and then got the news via Echo (which would be a nice way I think to remind, well, everyone, that while we may be a god-killing machine, we're still one person, we can't be everywhere we're needed always.
Particularly, imagine if the WoL had only arrived just as Zoraal Ja was planning to blender everyone else there; he chooses to stop because he knows how much of a threat we are (having fought beside us against Valigarmanda). We still get to walk in on Wuk Lamat and Koana tearfully by their father's side, we still get to see his final moments, but we get the extra gut punch of once again, we're too late, because we're still, despite our strength, only one person.
VPR got a tuning pass that I suspect some will gnash their teeth over but imo its damage was a bit high.
Not sure on others.
WHM changes apparently getting good reception(?)
viper's changes were also a net buff overall
I agree with this so hard.
I had the exact same issue with the scene at the end of the Zoral'ja fight where we just let Sphene casually walk right past us to the dimensional macguffin and then do the thing everyone expects her to do to end the world. I don't have a problem with Sphene doing that, I have a problem with it happening right in front of our noses without any characters attempting to stop her. Keep the story the same but change the circumstances so we cannot act. Hell, just having her walk in from the other side of the room would have worked better than the way the scene ended up playing out.
I suspect at this point the WoL at this point is doing it on purpose. "Yeah I could do something, but I want to see what happens."
I didn't really feel that way about 14 until this expansion though.
I think it's fine for the most part but Heavensward definitely had that moment with Thordan and the key to Azys Lla. That was 4 expansions ago, though. Sucks when the limitations of the scene blocking tools get in the way of giving us a compelling scene.
also I did appreciate the payoff of everyone being like OH SHIT THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE TROUBLE all expansion and we're like uh huh just obi wan kenobi here to mentor and hang out and enjoy a nice vacation but at the end when it was like ehhh this might threaten like all of existence the wol is like okay fine time to deal with this
and then it's like
So what you're saying is
why is laying eggs the singular example you thought to use
he does it right in front of you!
Zenos laying eggs, how is there still confusion on this point
Because assholes rarely, if ever, face any actual repercussions for being assholes.
the lack of fluffy bunny tails for Viera
https://xivmodarchive.com/modid/111950
https://xivmodarchive.com/modid/84165
In the end, Koana succeeded where the Head of Reason couldn't precisely because he wasn't subject to the paradox. The fact that he wasn't stapled to someone else enabled him to use that independence to go places and learn things that a Blessed Sibling never could.
Shoot, I did that quest but I somehow missed that bit. Man, people REALLY gotta do sidequests in this game, there's so much subtle stuff that you can miss if you don't.
And people say video games aren’t realistic.
Steam: pazython