Random thought about being ilvl synced.

I wonder what it feels like for our character? To have, in most cases, the vast majority of our power currently/temporarily unavailable.

For me, I pretend it's the first time I'm running the instance. All my previous attempts don't matter and the current run is the "true" version of how it went... until the next time I get that dungeon in a roulette again. If it's the first time I'm there I'd be around that level in the story so it makes sense for me to be synced down... or at least more sense than knowing I'm level 70, have run the dungeon hundreds of times, and consent to being nerfed for no discernible reason every time I have to go back. And why would I go back if the story had moved on? It's not like the dungeon changes if you complete it. It's always the same. Some of them should be radically different after you clear them, even. So if every attempt is the first and "true" version that overwrites all the previous ones, at least I can have peace of mind thanks to fuzzy logic.

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Originally Posted by Saziel

I wonder what it feels like for our character? To have, in most cases, the vast majority of our power currently/temporarily unavailable.

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All instances that the character run a second time or more, he do it in his memory. Lore wise every instance is only running once.
The character remember how he cleared that one dungeon, back in time where he had lower gear.

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Originally Posted by Felis

The character remember how he cleared that one dungeon, back in time where he had lower gear.

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Mercifully we remember that accurately and don't exaggerate it like a certain wandering minstrel.

How my character feels? Depressed!

She's trapped in a weird sort of time loop, where every villain she cuts down perpetually returns to be cut down and looted again by her or other people and magic barriers frequently prevent her from using her full power in both new and old challenges until she descends into the matrix, finds the node saying "Undersized Party" between the wires and allagan looking architecture and pulls the lever on it. (Sync applies even if it's your first time)

And then there are these weird times where she's all on her own in the middle of nowhere in a place nobody has ever heard of before and she needs to draw a party of adventurers out of the nether to proceed against the enemy standing right in front of her.

But the worst? In spite of alcohol and other drugs being commonplace, the player character gets none to abuse as a coping measure against these twisted machinations, nor are there therapists with open spots in Eorzea. It's a cruel world!

I'm guessing it feels the same as it does when I get duty roulette'd into sastasha...

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Originally Posted by Felis

All instances that the character run a second time or more, he do it in his memory. Lore wise every instance is only running once.
The character remember how he cleared that one dungeon, back in time where he had lower gear.

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So our character has a really bad memory considering each time we do the same dungeon, clear time is different, party members are different, and other different things. O_o

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Originally Posted by Saziel

party members are different

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For most content in the game, your party members aren't even canonically there, so we're delusional besides.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

For most content in the game, your party members aren't even canonically there, so we're delusional besides.

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Is that really true? The NPCs usually tell us to "gather our adventurer friends" before we go after a serious threat.

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Originally Posted by Saziel

Is that really true? The NPCs usually tell us to "gather our adventurer friends" before we go after a serious threat.

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It's really not 'usually', as far as I remember it's a pretty recent addition that started more heavily in SB. But look at all the canon scenes before and after we run stuff - even running Sastasha, we're the ones who return to Limsa and reap the credit, not a single mention of our supposed allies. Even before the dungeon you run into Edda and Avere and the rest of their party, which would imply a party setup, but you're on your own because the party only forms when you queue and logically speaking, you would have had your party with you by then, no? Then there's one of the more important examples being after you beat Thordan and he's basically wetting himself. His question of what are you even loses a lot of its impact if you canonically acknowledge you weren't the only one beating him up, doesn't it?

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Originally Posted by Saziel

Is that really true? The NPCs usually tell us to "gather our adventurer friends" before we go after a serious threat.

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Not always.
Newest example, the new 4.1 dungeon.
Lorewise you enter the underwater entrance of the dungeon alone.

The only times the game assumes you are in a party are during the "siege" scenarios (attacking a fortification and what not) or when going against a massive threat...the trials usually. You are most certainly "in a party" for Final Steps of Faith, for example. Heck, you even "gather" the party way before the actual battle...and that party you fought with was nearly entirely wiped out by the story, even...

Basically, don't expect there being any logic to an MMO. By the fact of it being repeatable, there is none possible. Except if the game explicitly made use of time loops letting the character do something with a definitive result over and over again, changing the outcome through changing the decisions...but it's neither here not in any other MMO I know of.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Lorewise you enter the underwater entrance of the dungeon alone.

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And you're alone when Alphinaud and Arenvald find you later on. Your party members were never there.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

The only times the game assumes you are in a party are [..].the trials usually.

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The trials are actually the time where it makes the least amount of sense to have a party in, regardless of Lyse and Alisaie telling you to put a group together for Susano. Logically it makes no sense you'll leave them in the middle of enemy territory where they're heavily outnumbered and get a group together, then make it all the way back to the vault to fight Susano, who was said to be a Primal so you'd have to find Echo-protected members on top of it all. And where are your allies after the fight is over? Nowhere to be seen. Garuda - you're there with Cid and Alphinaud only. Ifrit - you were captured with the group of Flames, no party. Thordan - no party members otherwise the scene after makes no sense. Ravana - only you and the Scions there with Shiva getting a beating. The list goes on, and it makes sense you're not bringing a party with you because there aren't supposed to be that many people with the Echo in the game to begin with.
There are time when it makes sense to have a party, like Sirensong - your party members could've been on the boat with you, or Doma Castle, even though the scenes after that show none of your party members so that kind of debunks that. Bardam's Mettle - you're supposed to tame the Yol on your own, and it's one Yol per person, no reason to go in there with a party of four, and then you're alone again after you leave the dungeon. And the list goes on.
tl;dr this is an mmorpg so most instances are party content, but the story ignores that almost completely.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

The trials are actually the time where it makes the least amount of sense to have a party in, regardless of Lyse and Alisaie telling you to put a group together for Susano.

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The NPC's telling to get a group is actually what I meant by the game assuming the player is in a party. Even if it does not make sense, it's there, acknowledged by the game. Such things dismissing one another are extremely common in fiction, even more so in MMO's...but hey.

And echo isn't particularly common or anything, but it's not as rare as you make it to be. It's more that people with any degree of control or mastery over it are rare. Warrior of Light is so powerful exactly because he/she have a high degree of control over it, not for having it altogether. Apparently only Minfilia had greater skill in it.

The warriors of darkness all were echo users. They are "paraller world" warrior of light party. That means, that it is not entirely without merit to assume that there are numerous adventurers that the player is "in contact with" that can be called as necessary for the difficult fight. The people you enter dungeon with may be different each time, but story-wise, they may be the very same people every single time. This is frequently implied anyway, when NPC's talk about the adventurers that the player knows and trusts. And it was a big thing with how many losses were in the dragonsong war that the player was supposedly personally knowing many of the victims.

The game assumes the character have its own life outside of what the player does after all. And the very first cinematic I remember is how all those countless people with echo were gathering around Hydaelyn. There were far more than enough for a large unit, and by the fact of them being there, those were just the ones with considerable ability in echo. Basically, other warriors of light that just didn't decide to follow the heroic path, but can still be more than happy to try their hand at god-slaying.

I just chalk it up to some form of Aetheric Dampening Field in place, and it only activates when there is a certain number of foreign aetherial bodies present in the area. The field restricts your aetheric flow, thus making your abilities less potent.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

And echo isn't particularly common or anything, but it's not as rare as you make it to be. It's more that people with any degree of control or mastery over it are rare. Warrior of Light is so powerful exactly because he/she have a high degree of control over it, not for having it altogether. Apparently only Minfilia had greater skill in it.

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Actually, we're one of the characters with the least amount of control over the Echo. I don't remember too many instances other than 4.1 where we used it proactively. Most of our usage of it is passive protection from Primals and flashbacks, meanwhile Fordola seems to have a better grasp over it and the Ascians have basically been on our case about it since ARR, complaining how if we had better control over the Echo, we'd probably see things their way. We can't fuse with other people like at the end of ARF, for instance, and again, our control over timing has been nonexistent. So I really wouldn't say we have any control over it, least of all that we're so good with it. The opposite has actually been a running plot point for most of the game. It's just that our control of the Echo, or lack thereof, doesn't change the end result of us being monsters. I always took that comment Arenvald made about how we're stronger with the Echo, which could mean any number of things from frequency of visions to strength and length of them, but that really doesn't imply control.

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That means, that it is not entirely without merit to assume

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Some people assume their characters are actually Garleans. You can assume whatever you want about your character, but the game disagrees.

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And it was a big thing with how many losses were in the dragonsong war that the player was supposedly personally knowing many of the victims.

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I'm going to have to ask you to quote that because I don't remember anything along those lines and the cutscenes before and after the fight with Nidhogg, again, imply no other people there with you as far as I remember.

Well if my character could feel she would be screaming and crying every time I log in knowing she is about to be shot, stabbed, cut, smashed, and burned several thousand times. Every hitpoint you lose means some sort of pain and agony even if it is healed immediately.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Actually, we're one of the characters with the least amount of control over the Echo.

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Control wasn't exactly the right word, yes. However, the Warriors of Light echo is one of the more powerful.
Fordola doesn't even have echo. She was implemented with a power based on research of the echo. Resonation or something?! Not echo.
Ascians were about it even in respect to Minfilia. She became an actual proxy of Hydaelyn...You want to argue about fanatics arguments of "if only you had (this or that) you would see our way"?! Also, their fusion...sorry. Player characters are flesh and bones, while Ascians are purely energy. Of course it's "easy" for two bits of the same kind of energy to fuse. That happens every single day in every part of the REAL world.

If I remember correctly, many people with the echo don't have even the ability of these visions. And Minfilia, too, had very limited ability to call upon them actively. I remember one time she did what could be assumed active use of it, but was more of a prayer. After the story mission where Gaius van Baelsar was killed. Though Krile did use the echo actively on multiple occasions and she is a better user of it than the adventurer as well.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Some people assume their characters are actually Garleans. You can assume whatever you want about your character, but the game disagrees.

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Eh...it doesn't?! You still haven't given a single argument that clearly shows the game disagrees, even when the story characters literally say to take a party and sometimes, sporadically and in passing, mention other characters. It's just far easier from storybuilding perspective to keep all the credit to the players character in cinematics and most dialogue after the fact.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

I'm going to have to ask you to quote that because I don't remember anything along those lines and the cutscenes before and after the fight with Nidhogg, again, imply no other people there with you as far as I remember.

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Hm. I meant the first Steps of Faith. I consider "dragonsong war" the entirety of the war with dragons that the player participates with, though I honestly don't know whether that is correct lore-wise. Even in Administrative Decision, Minfilia mentiones the adventurer being a commander of a squadron of adventurers. And that's not the only part, either. If you want, go ahead and look for a video of that. I won't put more effort into finding all these mentions, some of which probably aren't even from the main story quests but random mentions of irrelevant NPC's (which, yes, I sometimes actually talk with). The fact that you don't talk with those NPC's doesn't mean it's not there or that it's not acknowledged in-game.


Still, this is a rather silly thing to discuss, especially since it have nothing to do with the actual topic. So, agree or disagree...well, whatever. We'll just have to "agree to disagree" at worst.

I normally think of it as one of two ways.. My character is testing herself.. which totally fits in with her personality type... or she is remembering when she ran that, cause memories can be different than what actually happened

Well, I like to take the explanation that any and all dungeon/trial repeats I do, are flashbacks on the part of my character. The different party members each time are the result of my character being really fuzzy on the details of her experiences, so she hallucinates different people each time.

^ that more or less, echo amplified memory recall, I say "echo amplified" cause every time we "remember" a fight/dungeon/trial we've already beat once before we somehow comeout of this daydream with new stuff... which u could just chalkup to ur avi "forgot" they had that until just then (which for the "forgetfull WoL" view just makes it more aparent)

It feels like when you eat too much dinner and now you have an uncomfortable pressure around your waist. You just want to release it and be yourself, but the whole family is here, watching you, judging you. So you suffer through it.

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Originally Posted by Kallistra

It feels like when you eat too much dinner and now you have an uncomfortable pressure around your waist. You just want to release it and be yourself, but the whole family is here, watching you, judging you. So you suffer through it.

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LOL that's hilarious.

When I don't have Deathflare or Gravity spam it hurts me in the feels.

For me it's nothing more then Gameplay and Story Integration. Any dungeon run past the first time is firmly in the "gameplay" category and not the "story" category. Or if I'm going back for some reason (relic weapon items, tomestones, etc.) I assume I'm always doing them "unsynced" from the story POV.

As far as it being a memory/replay of events, it would almost work like that except in parts of the story they have you go back and rerun that old content as if you were doing it for that specific task. Time travel, as far as I'm aware is not within the scope of the power the echo provides us.

As far as a comment I saw earlier suggesting that the "gather your adventurer friends" was a new thing with Stormblood, it was actually part of the 2.0 story content leading up to the assault on Cape Westwind, and then Castrum Meridianum.

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Originally Posted by odie

As far as it being a memory/replay of events, it would almost work like that except in parts of the story they have you go back and rerun that old content as if you were doing it for that specific task. Time travel, as far as I'm aware is not within the scope of the power the echo provides us.

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What parts do you rerun old content in the story? The Guildhests and Qarn run in the 2.1 story could very well have been your first run, since they were previously optional. And the rerun of Titan is explained by the story.

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Originally Posted by Mholito

What parts do you rerun old content in the story? The Guildhests and Qarn run in the 2.1 story could very well have been your first run, since they were previously optional. And the rerun of Titan is explained by the story.

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The HW Anima relic weapon questline has you run ten dungeons in sequence. Only the last one, the Vault, is you "recalling" the dungeon run in your mind. Everything else is described in your journal as physically returning to the dungeons to make sure whatever enemies were in there the first time stayed down. Including Nidhogg in the Aery, for some reason.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

The HW Anima relic weapon questline has you run ten dungeons in sequence. Only the last one, the Vault, is you "recalling" the dungeon run in your mind. Everything else is described in your journal as physically returning to the dungeons to make sure whatever enemies were in there the first time stayed down. Including Nidhogg in the Aery, for some reason.

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Well, both relic quests are as cannon to the MSQ as Hildibrand is; that is to say, the MSQ affects them, but they don't really affect the MSQ.

Item level sync has nothing to do with lore, just like HP values and potency values do not. In lore you battled through a dungeon and defeated enemies, that's it. Whatever gameplay mechanics were used is just gameplay only. Some of the moves you can use in gameplay are never even mentioned in the lore, like most every stormblood action acquire, you never practiced those in the story. Is just a gameplay thing separate from story. Or think of it like you never did a dungeon more than once and all the repeat visits were just recalling events in your mind.

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Originally Posted by odie

As far as a comment I saw earlier suggesting that the "gather your adventurer friends" was a new thing with Stormblood, it was actually part of the 2.0 story content leading up to the assault on Cape Westwind, and then Castrum Meridianum.

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That part of the story is unique in that sense - they're canonically there. They even show up in the cutscenes. The big difference is that when you're fighting the empire, there are no Primals to potentially temper your party members so the story can acknowledge other people being there. Otherwise while they don't deny other Echo blessed individuals exist (Arenvald for one) it'll be too much of a hassle to acknowledge their presence beyond lampshading jokes. That part is also one of the few parts in the game where canonically you would've had enough time to put a group together, not so much when you're in the Ananta cave and Lakshmi just turned on you.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

It's really not 'usually', as far as I remember it's a pretty recent addition that started more heavily in SB. But look at all the canon scenes before and after we run stuff - even running Sastasha, we're the ones who return to Limsa and reap the credit, not a single mention of our supposed allies. Even before the dungeon you run into Edda and Avere and the rest of their party, which would imply a party setup, but you're on your own because the party only forms when you queue and logically speaking, you would have had your party with you by then, no? Then there's one of the more important examples being after you beat Thordan and he's basically wetting himself. His question of what are you even loses a lot of its impact if you canonically acknowledge you weren't the only one beating him up, doesn't it?

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This is why we need MSQ sharing... for expanded story and promoting static groups... MSQ is glorified single player at this point...

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

This is why we need MSQ sharing... for expanded story and promoting static groups... MSQ is glorified single player at this point...

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You can share any quest that isn't in a solo instance so long as all party members are on the same quest and the same stage in the quest. And solo instances are not exclusive to the MSQ. Meanwhile it is the MSQ who, despite the lore and immediate story not adding up, keeps forcing you into group content. Personally I'm ok with this, as the alternative would've been trying to create a story that would cater to all possible party makeups - not to mention they'd have to start tuning the formerly-solo instances towards that goal as well. Development time much better invested in other things, imo.