I just dont understand whats going on with the 24 man storyline

[Phileas]

I heard that the 24 man was based on Final Fantasy Tactics and FF12 but everything goes over my head. I feel more confused by what happened at the end and what the heck is Ultima the Seraph? Any relation to ultima weapon? Ramza is a warrior of light?

I havent played FF12 or Tactics so i just dont get it. I really loved the crystal tower because its not only a reference to FF3s crystal tower but the story is intriguing and had implications on allaghan lore.

This “return to ivalice” storyline feels entirely separate to anything within eorzea and it felt disconnected and uninteresting unless you have played ffxii or tactics.

[Lacan]

All the FFT stuff in XIV is their own incarnation. It isn't connected to the actual Ivalice games. I'll try to answer your questions though!

Ultima the high Seraph is an entity from outside our world that has some sort of relationship/conflict with Hydaelyn. I think at one point Hydaelyn sealed her away but Ultima was able to create magicite that when used by man would pave the way for her to break free and occupy a host. Ramza in XIV's world was a WoL who uncovered Ultima's plot and did what he could to stop it, but wasn't able to finish her off. So Orran left clues in the Durai Papers and Delita/Alma passed on the magicite over the generations in hopes that they would allow a future WoL (you!) to join with Ramza and his companions to finish the job.


The only connection we know of between Ultima the Seraph and the Ultima Weapon is that the "Ultima" spell the weapon uses is modeled after the Seraph's. Think the Ascians were responsible for that, no one else was able to determine how the spell worked.

[Iscah]

I also felt very "lost" and unengaged by the Ivalice questline. There was so much lore to take in, disconnected from anything else in the game and so much of it delivered via text dump, without making the actual characters likeable or enjoyable to spend time with.

I had no idea the Crystal Tower was a reference to another game until later, but I didn't feel lost at all. We were finally getting information on Allag, we were spending time with characters central to FFXIV, and the only stuff we actually needed to know to grasp the storyline was "there's a guy at the top of the tower trying to destroy the world - go stop him".

[DrWho2010]

the whole ivalice 24 man series was an homage to FF Tactics,XII, etc. if you got more out of it yay, if not just think of it as more lore for you to grasp. it's just one of those things where YMMV. i for one will try to play Nier before the next 24 man series begins in 5.1.

[Iscah]

the whole ivalice 24 man series was an homage to FF Tactics,XII, etc. if you got more out of it yay, if not just think of it as more lore for you to grasp. it's just one of those things where YMMV. i for one will try to play Nier before the next 24 man series begins in 5.1.

Lots of lore, sure - but unenjoyable lore that was very hard to take in. What must have been a huge recap of Tactics plot points with pages of "Ramza did this; Delita said that" in two-line textboxes at the bottom of the screen, and absolutely no visuals to connect it to. I tried to read through it all and gave up when it was talking about someone betraying someone else and I couldn't even remember who the people were, how they were related and why I should even care.

Maybe Tactics is a great story when you actually play it and experience the characters, but the raid wasn't presented in a way that considered how a non-player would feel about what was presented to them, and to make sure they still got something enjoyable out of the questline.

[LineageRazor]

It's not really important to know the stories of FFT or FFXII to follow along with the raids, though if you do know them you get some fanservice nods along the way during the Ivalice raids. The FFT storyline apparently happened in the distant past of FFXIV ALMOST exactly like it happened in the original games. Very little of the FFXII storyline carried through, though, aside from having some of the same characters, races, and settings.

Seraph Ultima, as Lacan mentioned, was an otherworldly being who was worshiped by cultists during the long-ago storyline. She answered their prayers by providing them with Auracite, which could be used to grant their deepest desires. Auracite is apparently neither good nor evil, but can transform the user based on their emotions and desires. Folks brimming with negative emotions tend to turn into evil, or vicious monsters (like the final bosses of Rabanastre and Ridorana, who fought for power, domination, and vengeance). People with more positive, noble desires can turn into powerful guardians (like the first three bosses of Orbonne, who fought to keep the world safe from Seraph Ultima, and to test any who would face her).

I don't remember if it was ever stated that Hydaelyn herself ever sealed Seraph Ultima away, but Ramza, a Warrior of Light (and therefore a representative of Hydaelyn) certainly did. While his friend Delita was overthrowing the corrupt aristocracy, Ramza was waging a secret war against the corrupt church, who were trying to use Seraph Ultima to solidify their power base.

It is never made clear where, exactly, Seraph Ultima came from, or even what kind of creature she is supposed to be. She's almost Lovecraftian in how utterly alien she is, and it's not really clear whether she's actually good or evil.

As for her relation to Ultima Weapon and the Ultima spell - that's kind of a tangled mess. XD There was a big thread debating it a while back, but the basic problem is that Ultima Weapon was built during the time of the Allagans, and the Heart of Sabik (an even MORE ancient artifact which served as Ultima Weapon's core, and is what enabled the Ultima spell to be cast) was ancient even to the Allagans. All the stuff with the Zodiac Braves is far more recent - and yet, it is mentioned that the Ultima Spell was named after Seraph Ultima? Perhaps the Ascians knew Seraph Ultima long before she came to Hydaelyn? It's hard to say.

[Belhi]

I tend to be a lore hound so it all pretty much made sense to me.

Basically it was a story about a family trying to prove the historical account their ancestor left to be true and show the tale of Ramsa to be historical fact. This tied to Auracite, a magical stone that manfests a person's desires. In digging into the story of Ramsa we discover that Ramsa found that the Auracite that was being used extensively in the war at the time, had its origins from an alien being that was using the Auracite to tempt and manipulate mortals. In trying to take it down they were unable to destroy it and so sealed it instead. Note it is important to remember that the source of Auracite was Ultima itself. It created the it.

A pair of Auracite necklaces were left along with the history, to guide someone back to eventually finish off the High Seraph. That was us.

As for its relation to Ultima, in the questing they suggest there are hints and references to the High Seraph that predate Allag and it's ability to manipulate aether has similarities to the Ultima spell, suggesting there might be a connection since such Aetherial behaviour doesn't occur naturally on Hydaelyn. We know that the Ultima ability that the Ultima weapon had came from an artefact called the Heart of Sobek that predated the Allag so my personal speculation is that Heart of Sobek was a large chunk of Auracite.

Ultima itself is something foreign to Hydaelyn perhaps in the same way Omega was. Something that had come to the world through a summoning magic. Something from another world.

[MistakeNot]

I also felt very "lost" and unengaged by the Ivalice questline. There was so much lore to take in, disconnected from anything else in the game and so much of it delivered via text dump, without making the actual characters likeable or enjoyable to spend time with.

I had no idea the Crystal Tower was a reference to another game until later, but I didn't feel lost at all. We were finally getting information on Allag, we were spending time with characters central to FFXIV, and the only stuff we actually needed to know to grasp the storyline was "there's a guy at the top of the tower trying to destroy the world - go stop him".

One big problem with the "Return to Ivalice" questline is that the NPCs involved talk about the historical places and characters as if everybody is supposed to have heard of them, if only as tales.
In other words, the NPCs have a lot of background that we players don't have.

Characters in game: "It is the Ivalice of legend! Amazing"
Me in front of game: "Ivalice? WTF is that? And what legend? Should I be interested?"
(This was incidentally pretty much my reaction when we first were told that there would be something called Return to Ivalice, and many people started to get excited - and I had no idea why.)

With the Crystal Tower questline most NPCs didn't know anything about the Crystal Tower, so we learned everything along with them.

[ObsidianFire]

The Return to Ivalice raid series is a very old-school raid series at its heart. Most of the exposition takes place in dialogue boxes and and by talking to the NPCs between every quest. If you aren't the kind of person who likes learning information by reading it, then Return to Ivalice can get really tedious. If you do like that style of story-telling, then it's not too bad.

I didn't know much about Tactics, but I have played FFFXII. I found that they did do a good job explaining everything from the ground up in a way that does not require you to have played Tactics or FFXII. However, Matsuno loves storytelling via information dumps. And he loves intrigue and more subtle story plots then is "normal" for Final Fantasy.

[Iscah]

Characters in game: "It is the Ivalice of legend! Amazing"
Me in front of game: "Ivalice? WTF is that? And what legend? Should I be interested?"
(This was incidentally pretty much my reaction when we first were told that there would be something called Return to Ivalice, and many people started to get excited - and I had no idea why.)

With the Crystal Tower questline most NPCs didn't know anything about the Crystal Tower, so we learned everything along with them.

True - and what we did know is that it was Allagan, at a point when (for me at least; don't know about 1.0 players) Allag was just a vague historical empire that kept getting mentioned everywhere, artifacts all over the place, without any information about what it was actually like. So it felt like the entire game up to that point had been leading up to that story, where we finally learned about Allag itself.

Ivalice feels so out-of-nowhere and disconnected from the rest of the story. I don't know why I need to try to absorb all the information about it, because it's not relevant to anything except the raid itself (which I wasn't enjoying).

I'm really dreading the Nier raid, on several levels. The whole prospect of a large-scale canon crossover that isn't even Final Fantasy is disappointing to me, and after the way Ivalice has felt so "off" to me, I'm not looking forward to an even more foreign storyline that's been imported from elsewhere, instead of getting original lore for this story-world that I chose to engage in.