6.4 patch speculation

Ok so yes we didn't get a whole lot as this was just the 1st LL for the patch yet there are a few nuggets. So if you place the two slides they showed from the raid vertically where the tree is above the figure they make it look as though they're the same area. Who or what do we think the person/creature is and what are they locking or unlocking?

Who now thinks we still get a Zeromus fight in 6.5 considering who the trial for this patch will be? Will we get a shadow dragon ala a mind controlled Azdaja as part of the fight? Or do some think we will be wrapping up the void stuff somehow at the end of 6.4?

Where exactly do you feel the dungeon is at and does it have anything to do with Erenville's asking Krile for help that was hinted at in that one Tales from story? Is whatever Zero is looking at in an area that takes place in the dungeon or do you think the blurriness of the background is to help hide where it is? The crystal like walling that we do see kind of reminds me of the top of the Crystal Tower. Yet it could be in the area the dungeon takes place. Which looks like another Sharlayan inhabited area.

Not going to edit my Op, but where and why do you think we will be going to Mount Rokkon for? I'm a bit disappointed that we will be going to a place in Othard. When we still have crap in our back yard we can explore further. It will be interesting to see what we end up doing with Gaius and Allie.

We will probably fight Exdeath or whatever his name is in the trial. The dark guy from the story.

Golbez was confirmed for the trial.

As for 6.5, I think it's likely that 6.4 will be the wrap-up for our adventures in the Void, while 6.5 will rapidly push us to the next expansion, and the trial will be part of the push. Something so important that we get pushed there asap.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

We will probably fight Exdeath or whatever his name is in the trial. The dark guy from the story.

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Golbez!! :D

So the landscape for the dungeon is definitely Sharlayan architecture, although being near what's clearly arctic conditions makes for a bit of a funky one. Sharlayan's definitely a cold climate (it snows as part of the regular weather there after all), but is it 'polar bears' cold? Maybe in the north, around the Isle of Haam. It seems too well-maintained to be New Sharlayan, and even that's not actually very cold at all.

The actual Aetherfont, though, reminds me of a part of Eureka Pagos that we visit near the end of that story. The phenomena didn't really have a name there, just being called a 'massive concentration of aether', but it was described as mutating creatures around it. Impossible to say at this stage if that's an intentional callback or just a visual similarity, but given we got callback to Eureka just this past patch, I wouldn't be surprised!

Also, my gut says 'The Voidcast Dais' is probably a clever little pun on 'the die is cast'. And if true... oh, crap. That means something's about to happen that can't un-happen.

Actually, update to my own thing: The Japanese script being generally much less poetic comes through for us here!

The Aetherfont dungeon is, in Japanese, actually just called the Isle of Haam! So it's the island just north of the main Sharlayan island.

Speaking of Aetherfont, somethign about the way it looks feels...familiar.

https://novacrystallis.com/wp-conten...BoaYAAoiHl.jpg

I can't put my finger on it though, but it feels REALLY familiar.

EDIT: I REMEMBER NOW! It reminds me of Shimmering Island from FF9, mixed with a bit of the peninsula from FF5 where you first enter World 2 from.

Pandemonium appearing in the aetherial sea seems to have more importance than I initially thought, as the few screenshots seem to really focus on that aspect. I'm sure Pandemonium itself will be visited one way or another, but I was thinking the entire raid story would take place there, seems to not be the case currently.

My current theory is that Athena has ambitions to rule over the '' underworld '' and the cycle of reincarnation itself, perhaps going as far as turning all souls into hemitheos abominations and make them her own personal army of sorts.

Now where does Claudien, Azys Lla and Lahabrea fit into all this, I have no idea. I hope Hydaelyn ferried Themis' soul to the Source so we can call upon him once more. Hey, crazier things have happened, and the story taking place in the aetherial sea is ripe with the potential of bringing back the dead. If Amon and Asahi can just manifest themselves like they did in the Aitascope, I don't see why Themis couldn't either (and Lahabrea of course). Yes I'm coping.

I'm curious as to whether not the Aetherfont is something that's always been there or if it's related to whatever shenanigans Golbez is up to.

It calls to mind the Whorl of the world's creation mythos from which the first of the Twelve emerged.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Golbez was confirmed for the trial.

As for 6.5, I think it's likely that 6.4 will be the wrap-up for our adventures in the Void, while 6.5 will rapidly push us to the next expansion, and the trial will be part of the push. Something so important that we get pushed there asap.

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I know that Golbez is 6.4's trial. It's just people are expecting a Zeromus fight as how close we are following the IV script and some people's theory that Zero will become Zeromus and that we'll have to fight them. Also the theory that the Watcher's name being Fusoya is gaining more weight.

Edit: Oh and the dungeon shouts Eureka Pagos to me. Not quite sure how I feel about that.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The Aetherfont dungeon is, in Japanese, actually just called the Isle of Haam! So it's the island just north of the main Sharlayan island.

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Interestingly, I'm just wrapping up a replay of Endwalker, and in the post-credits conversations at the Rising Stones, Alisaie says that in addition to the main manifestation of the burning skies over Thavnair and Garlemald it also happened in other isolated locations – in particular "an area in the Northern Empty" from which the phenomenon could have spread to Sharlayan if you had taken any longer to stop it.

I find it strange that they have decided to reveal the trial instead of keeping it a secret like usual. Moreover, if we're going to fight Golbez's shadow dragon then it's almost guaranteed that the Shadow dragon encounter will be in the Aetherfont dungeon. (It could also be part of Golbez's trial, or not, or fighting the shadow dragon in the dungeon and trial too).

I wonder if the Void story is going to be wrapped up in 6.4, but if it's going to continue to 6.5 then we're probably about to see a major event occurring in 6.4 that's going to be carried into 6.5 and beyond.

It's not strange that they aren't keeping it a secret because everybody expects it...and because they never show us something that is going to be a massive spoiler. Meaning they're going to blindside us at some point.

Placing bets on which NPC travels with you for lore exploration in Mount Rokkon (which Hingashi/Yanxia honestly lack for representation in various game elements and dungeons unlike other neglected city states- Ishgard and Limsa are the other two that don’t need a Criterion). If it’s Ninja we might get Oboro, the game might remember to do something meaningful with Yugiri (doubtful), and since it looks more Hingashi than Yanxian, I don’t think it’ll be Hien. The front runner, sadly, is Hancock. As a noncombatant with comedic banter and writers’ fondness.

I doubt Zeromus shows up. That white figure in the Pandae raid is going to transform into the Pandaemonium summon.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

It's not strange that they aren't keeping it a secret because everybody expects it...and because they never show us something that is going to be a massive spoiler. Meaning they're going to blindside us at some point.

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Yeah, they only hide the dungoen/trial name when it's actually a spoiler as to who or where it is (or in the case of Alzadaal's Legacy, because it actually wasn't a spoiler at all but they didn't want people to get their hopes up). Remember that trial names outside of English are just straight-up in the structure of '<Cool Synonym For Battle>: <Boss Name>', after all, so they can't even share the instance name when it's a spoiler what we're fighting.

The Seat of Sacrifice got hidden because the Warrior of Light trial was going to be straight-up a spoiler. Storm's Crown got hidden because 'surprise, it's the Four Fiends' was a spoiler, and Mount Ordeals got hidden because already fighting Rubicante was a spoiler. It's also the same reason they hid all the details about the 6.0 trials, but if you remember 5.0 and the 5.x patches, they weren't nearly as cagey about Titania, or the Weapon trials.

Golbez isn't a spoiler because for people who are up to this point in the MSQ know that of course we're fighting Golbez next. And if you're not up to this point in the MSQ... well, what do you expect, why are you watching this live letter?

The main thing I'm curious about is what is going to be the effects of Golbez's plan, whatever that may be.

I say this because, of course we're going to fight Golbez, and of course we're going to beat him, but, I'm certain that either A) He won't die and will remain a villain (but not the main villain necessarily) in 7.0 or B) He will die but it doesn't matter because his plan is already in motion, or maybe even his death serves to complete the plan - and the effects of this plan is what we'll have to deal with moving forward to 7.0.
Why am I certain of this? Well, Golbez has been hyped up for so many patches now that I find it absolutely impossible that the writers would simply kill him and boom, void questline is over time to move on to something completely new in 7.0. I think it's absurd to think they would do that.

The key here is to figure out what his plan is and how could it possibly affect the story going forward

Also I really like this, I think it supports my theory and I completely agree... It's time

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Also, my gut says 'The Voidcast Dais' is probably a clever little pun on 'the die is cast'. And if true... oh, crap. That means something's about to happen that can't un-happen.

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The Crystal Tower will be involved, the closing of all other rifts available to the WoL will cause us to use the Tower to get back in, and it will backfire.

My more crackpot continuation of this is that Golbez is a Xande clone, which means he has Royal Allagan blood. This will let him hijack the Tower to cause the Void incursion he so wants.

What is disconcerting to me is the lack of a villain beyond Golbez. If this is it for Golbez, his final showdown in this trial, we have no rumored or secret villain teased for the upcoming expansion.

This leads me to believe that Golbez is another villain in a mask; meaning that defeating him in combat will only have him reveal his identity and not be the defeat we expect.

As evidence to consider, all of the other void characters have had a well thought out backstory (even if some of it is side content). But we've got nothing on Golbez except he recruited the 4 fiends. I'm going to venture further and say there has to be an association with Golbez and the Countermemoria war.

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Originally Posted by Kesey

What is disconcerting to me is the lack of a villain beyond Golbez. If this is it for Golbez, his final showdown in this trial, we have no rumored or secret villain teased for the upcoming expansion.

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That's nothing new. We didn't know most upcoming main-expansion villains by this point in previous patch cycles.

I'm expecting 6.4 is going to be the proper close for the void storyline then we get a stinger teasing that something unpleasant is going down in whatever region we're heading to in 7.x and we're getting just one patch of build up in 6.5 as opposed to two like is typically the case.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's nothing new. We didn't know most upcoming main-expansion villains by this point in previous patch cycles.

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Not true; by 4.3 I believe we had seen 'Solus', and 5.3 was the expansion where we got both Fandaniel's face and name. By 2.3 Ishgard was... a bit of a factor but that's a weird case. 3.3 was the only time where we definitely hadn't seen anything of the next expansion's villains, but the events of 3.3 did directly lead to Stormblood's inciting incident.

What we really do need to recognize, though, is that this patch cycle is ALSO completely unlike any others. Every other patch cycle essentially treated the x.1-x.3 patches as the epilogue/final chapter of that expansion, and x.4 and x.5 as the leadup to the next. Endwalker's patches have been explicitly said by the devs as being done differently, as they specifically wanted Endwalker's finale to be the actual finale in a way that wasn't true for all previous expansions. They've also said that the hook for 7.0 is coming very late, so 6.x's MSQ is neither epilogue nor prologue; it's its own story.

So yes, Kesey's right that it's unusual that we don't have a future hook or villain, but is missing that this isn't part of some mystery; that's been stated by the developers as the intention of the story we're currently in. Golbez is most likely not some secret mystery hook for the next expansion; he's probably gonna get defeated in these patches because this is just where his story ends.

I wouldn't exactly say it's a daring guess to say that Golbez was somehow involved with the Contramemoria, though. The same is true of everyone else who's a character in the Thirteenth, and the fact that life is in a birthless and deathless stasis there means he can't exactly have turned up late. At this point it'd be a bigger swing to say he wasn't involved in the war, because... well, how the hell do you dodge that one?

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

I find it strange that they have decided to reveal the trial instead of keeping it a secret like usual. Moreover, if we're going to fight Golbez's shadow dragon then it's almost guaranteed that the Shadow dragon encounter will be in the Aetherfont dungeon. (It could also be part of Golbez's trial, or not, or fighting the shadow dragon in the dungeon and trial too).

I wonder if the Void story is going to be wrapped up in 6.4, but if it's going to continue to 6.5 then we're probably about to see a major event occurring in 6.4 that's going to be carried into 6.5 and beyond.

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Also probably fair to assume that said Shadow Dragon will be a brainwashed/controlled Azdaja - I'd always assumed we'd end up having to fight her one way or another.

Honestly, if we DO fight Azadaja that's more fodder for my pet theory that they're building up a (Orthos Spoiler)

The First Brood Ultimate fight, considering we've now fought Nidhogg, Hraesvelgr, Midgarsormr, Bahamut, and Clone Tiamat. Now I don't mean Lore-wise building up to it, rather slowly figuring out mechanics for each dragon of the first brood in case they do decide to design that Ultimate

For MSQ patch-content, my best guess is there won't be any indication of where we're going next or what the next story arc will be until 6.5 or even 6.55. Obviously we as players will know from expansion announcement at FanFest, but we the players knowing WHERE doesn't translate to WHY.

(Still holding out hope for Krile to rise to prominence as we explore the New World and she takes up Native Geomancy which is closer to a more attack-based Conjury and just coincidentally happens to share a name with Hingan Geomancy)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I wouldn't exactly say it's a daring guess to say that Golbez was somehow involved with the Contramemoria, though. The same is true of everyone else who's a character in the Thirteenth, and the fact that life is in a birthless and deathless stasis there means he can't exactly have turned up late. At this point it'd be a bigger swing to say he wasn't involved in the war, because... well, how the hell do you dodge that one?

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Adding to that, the real question happens to be who IS Golbez? We have not seen his face, and his power and ability to strategize is far outside of the norm of Voidsent. Is he a Sundered Ascian from the 13th? Is he Azem's Shard? Does he happen to be a shard of anybody we know? Or is he something even more outside of the ordinary that will throw us all for a loop when we discover it?

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Adding to that, the real question happens to be who IS Golbez? We have not seen his face, and his power and ability to strategize is far outside of the norm of Voidsent. Is he a Sundered Ascian from the 13th? Is he Azem's Shard? Does he happen to be a shard of anybody we know? Or is he something even more outside of the ordinary that will throw us all for a loop when we discover it?

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I think he's just similar to Rubicante's case in having a strong willpower that keeps his personality from before the flood intact while overcoming his voidsents instincts, at least to a degree.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Adding to that, the real question happens to be who IS Golbez? We have not seen his face, and his power and ability to strategize is far outside of the norm of Voidsent. Is he a Sundered Ascian from the 13th? Is he Azem's Shard? Does he happen to be a shard of anybody we know? Or is he something even more outside of the ordinary that will throw us all for a loop when we discover it?

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My favorite theory I've heard is that he's an eidolon/primal who's just... alive forever, now; we won't see under his helmet because there's nothing actually meaningful under there, it's like Susano. It would also explain his kinda cycloptic look when we do see him straight-on; that is not a humanoid in there. That doesn't super square with his stated goal at the end of 6.3, but it also doesn't contradict it.

I mostly like that theory because it completely throws out 'oh he's a shard of X', which I find a dreadfully boring answer that would actually completely flatten Golbez and probably whoever he's a shard of, too. Suddenly he is not his own character, he's merely a narrative extension of somebody else. And he can't even do that right, because the best explorations of that (mostly seen in comic books, think alt-universe Superman or Batmen) are exploring that overtly and right from the start, so you can follow all of that very well. Golbez just hasn't been given that chance.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's nothing new. We didn't know most upcoming main-expansion villains by this point in previous patch cycles.

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We knew many villains by this point. Zenos leading into Stormblood, Emet into Shadowbringers, and Fandaniel into Endwalker. Even Heavensward, while not establishing a direct villain, had laid the ground work pretty fast for entire war before we walked into Ishgard.

And I understand that this patch cycle is different. But it seems counterintuitive to introduce a villain who by all hints is going to disappear before the big chunk of story is released in the expansion. I think the start of a good villain is routed in mystery first, character development later. But we have no one if Golbez is killed next patch.

But there is a mystery with Golbez, which is rooted in his identity behind the mask and who/what was he before 13th was corrupted. Are they really going to just gloss over this to get to another story entirely? Their track record says no.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

My favorite theory I've heard is that he's an eidolon/primal who's just... alive forever, now; we won't see under his helmet because there's nothing actually meaningful under there, it's like Susano. It would also explain his kinda cycloptic look when we do see him straight-on; that is not a humanoid in there. That doesn't super square with his stated goal at the end of 6.3, but it also doesn't contradict it.

I mostly like that theory because it completely throws out 'oh he's a shard of X', which I find a dreadfully boring answer that would actually completely flatten Golbez and probably whoever he's a shard of, too. Suddenly he is not his own character, he's merely a narrative extension of somebody else. And he can't even do that right, because the best explorations of that (mostly seen in comic books, think alt-universe Superman or Batmen) are exploring that overtly and right from the start, so you can follow all of that very well. Golbez just hasn't been given that chance.

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I'd prefer him to be an Ascian than a primal or shard of x. At least as an Ascian he can make their choices, even if the Ascians are over done. Primals are too one sided and shard of x are just a what-if scenario (looking at you Mowena and Gerolt). An Ascian will at least be a better story from a character development point of view.

If it's an Ascian, my money is on Pashtarot. Why? Because his title (going by FF12's info on the Scions of Light and Darkness) is Knight-Star...and Golbez certainly looks like a knight. Plus his other half is Zeromus, the Condemner. Makes for a perfect Ascian to be play the role I'd think.

I wouldn't completely count out ascian involvement. At the moment it seems like Zero is a pretty heavy-handed reference to Cecil, Golbez is just Golbez, but there is no sign of Zemus/Zeromus quite yet. Golbez mentions to the four elemental archfiends that ascians shared information with him about the Source iirc, so an ascian controlling Golbez could be a reference to Zemus, similarly to how in FF4 Zemus controlled Golbez. But overall Golbez' plan makes... '' sense '' in that he wants to free all the voidsent of the Thirteenth from purgatory, which is not a terrible motive, so it does feel like he has more agency this time around and wouldn't need a Zemus equivalent to control him and feed him potential lies. Yet even if Golbez' motives aren't terrible, his plans are going to mess with the Source and that's most likely in line with what ascians would want. Or is it? I don't think Golbez has any interest in rejoining the shards, and the Thirteenth is still a void that ascians would want to fix before rejoining. So an ascian orchestrating all this doesn't sound too convincing just yet.

Then there's the fact that Zero's name is so close to Zeromus that it doesn't feel like a coincidence, but it might just be a red herring, especially with Zero being a reference to Cecil in specfic. And with that said, I am expecting Zero and Golbez to be brother and sister, just like Cecil and Golbez were brothers in FF4. But how that is going to influence the story going forward, I don't know. Rubicante mentioned that he wonders whether we can essentially '' reach out '' to Golbez, as he hasn't completely gone feral and there might still be some humanity left in him, and perhaps Zero will have much to do with that.

i like new patches i mae lotts of cha ching gil lotts

i like new patches i make lotts of cha ching gil lotts

I’m kind of over the void content at this point. I was REALLY excited for it and then it just felt kind of.. lacking. Probably because it’s coming after such a big story ending. Hoping that 6.4 rounds out and ties off the void content and brings that Scions back together so they can get ready for 6.5 where we get our first taste of hopefully this “new old world”.

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Originally Posted by BasicBlake

I’m kind of over the void content at this point. I was REALLY excited for it and then it just felt kind of.. lacking. Probably because it’s coming after such a big story ending. Hoping that 6.4 rounds out and ties off the void content and brings that Scions back together so they can get ready for 6.5 where we get our first taste of hopefully this “new old world”.

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Mostly because it's just the filler arc before the next big story stuff. 6.4 is likely going to finish off the Void, and then 6.5 will be the leadup to the next expansion. Hopefully it's Meracydia so we finally know what's going on there...and because I DO want to know what's on that continent.

I think the Void being explored like this is more conceptually interesting to me than if it were an expansion focus, simply because I like the feeling of absolute desolation and nothingness that we've seen from the Void. That's not something an entire expansion would've been able to do, for simple reason that expansions have very base-level requirements that would've hindered that. The Void wouldn't feel like a desolate, empty hole of misery and pain if it had to accommodate an inn, two core cities with all those required vendors, multiple crafting storylines, three diverse tribal quests, and six zones' worth of unique fish.

Could some other form of content maybe have the ability to tell that story as well? Sure, I could see it done by a Eureka-style series of side-zones, and I remember when 6.1 was laying out the requirements to traverse it thinking it might be an elaborately-explained deep dungeon, or the central framework for the variant/criterion dungeons. But if they want this to be centrally important, affecting and status-quo-altering in some way, none of those can play; this is the best way to do it.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

inb4 "noooo, let them rest!" but I honestly think we might see Emet and Hyth again while we're gallivanting in the Lifestream. At least in Pandaemonium.

Golbez's face being plastered on the announcement for the trial makes me think it's a red herring and he might not actually be the main enemy we fight.

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Then who would we fight instead?

Say Golbez does turn out to be a red herring for a bigger bad, I'd only be disappointed to be faced with an enemy that may or may not have had any prior setup -- but certainly no setup in this current arc. (That said, if it's a villain we're probably going to see more of in 7.0, that would make more sense to me.)

I know some theorize that Zero may fill that role because of the Zeromus thing, but I'd be very surprised, given how earnest she's been written up to this point. And again, I think that kind of twist demands greater foreshadowing than what we've seen. Though of course the heroes had reasonable doubts when they met her, the narrative hand-waved that as swiftly as it could lol.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

inb4 "noooo, let them rest!"

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Let ME rest.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

mixed with a bit of the peninsula from FF5 where you first enter World 2 from.

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Having in no way looked at the live letter, this makes me go wild with speculation.

Golbez has to have a way to get to and from the 13th's Moon, right? Could it be that this stream at aetherfont is on every shard and every moon, as the default aetherial link?

Cause to me in this pic, the blue energy looks like what Ryu described, but it also looks like a blue version of the vermilion energy that ebbs out of Zodiark's cradle.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

Potentially someone we haven't met yet. People were saying in some other languages the name of the trial is more like "Seat of the Exile" and specifically a feminine exile.

I do still think we are going to fight Golbez, I just have a feeling there's going to be a twist. Putting it front and center like that seems strange given how they usually go about discussing story beats.

I also didn't necessarily mean to imply Golbez himself is a red herring because I don't think so. I just meant that I think his appearance as the main focus of the LL trial reveal might be.

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They usually discuss trial fights like these straight-up unless they're blatantly spoilers, and we've obviously been leading up to fighting Golbez, so it's not a spoiler that we're fighting him. I think you're just used to it being spoilers and therefore hidden because the last time a trial wasn't hidden like this were the Weapon trials.

I'm also against 'surprise, Golbez ISN'T the real villain', because them doing that in IV was the worst part of IV since it just kills Golbez as a character. (And seems to be so unpopular within S-E that they've never tried to retread it despite Golbez being in every single FF crossover thing.) They'd have to do some major work to make that compelling instead of just feeling like Golbez was a waste of time and characterization.

That said, I do think they're hiding something, and I don't even think it's that hard to see what. I don't think it's even an extra twist beyond 'fight Golbez'... but it is still technically some kind of spoiler.

Golbez is going to be somehow controlling Azdaja as part of the trial. Golbez is known for using a Shadow Dragon in combat, and that dragon seems to be the loose inspiration for Azdaja's design, so... yeah, obviously that's gonna happen.