Dedicated Thread for Patch 2.55 Story Discussion/Spoilers

[AnnaMolly]

You can just re-edit your post to say everything you want to say. It's annoying, but possible.

Didn't realize that, much appreciated.

[Gumiho]

My thoughts about ARR's ending

I want uldah fall to ruins like ala'mhigo, since almost all trash from uldah come from ala'mhigo, and lalas.

Nanamo UI's dead... if someone watchs bleach anime or naruto, lolorito is like aizen / black zetsu, but even more cruel, gaius van baelsar and nael van darnus are less evil than him. I prefer nero ruling over uldah than... they

I wish scions were still alive, but I don't have my hopes up

[Ralos]

I'm worried about the space time continuum

So putting aside my feelings dealing with this patch's portion of the story (Don't really like it this time) I'm finding some areas of inconsistency that are bothering me.

First is the whole Dragoon thing. My main job is DRG, but really anyone who has completed the Dragoon job quests knows we've already met Estinein before. You also know that our relationship with Estinein didn't end well at the end of the job quests. Now SE didn't completely ignore this as Estinein gives a little wink and nod to you if you've completed the job quests and says don't worry we won't fight, but I feel that's not enough.

He was entirely in Nidhogg's thrall.... he had deep anger and wanted vengeance... and now it's all subsided? I presumed him dead (and his disappearance wasn't entirely ambiguous) so can I get a little explanation here?
If I really wanna get nit picky, how do you explain this for the people who are under taking the DRG job quests durring, or even after this point in the story line?

and then Nanamo dieing (wtf to that, my favorite NPC) causes problems in the
CUL story line, the end of which has you serving dinner to Merylweb and the Sultana, and succeeding spectacularly much to the dismay of lord Lolorito.

Anyone else noticed things like this?

There's probably some quest or another featuring Raubahn too despite being jailed and missing an arm. (again, wtf to that)

[Firepower]

Things I liked:

Raubahn turning into Darth Vader, he could potentially be a good ally if freed or end up joining the darkside, if visited by an ascian in jail and be extremely dangerous.
Fancy cutscenes
An actual decent plot for once
Potential to remove all pre-existing boring characters

Things I didn't like:

They didn't kill Alphinaud!!!

Passiveness of the main character, as has been much discussed in this thread, if Thancred could bust his way out, then we certainly could, furthermore it doesn't seem apparent that we was disarmed in any way before the capture simply because we magically get our weapons back afterwards without coming into contact with anyone who could of potentially had our weapons. To me the least the hero could of done is ran away into the banquet hall and sounded the alarm before the brass blades arrived instead they just stand there and then get captured like an idiot.

To me it seemed like they had 3 different storylines and they chose the one with the least work, you could of had 2 instanced battles, one easy in the sulatana's room one difficult with raubahn against the braves and guards then have Cid airlift you out, considering Alisaie already knew in advance what was going to happen she could of sent Cid in directly instead of having the merchant come pick you up.
The 2nd chance to make it into a more engaging scene was to have a new dungeon in the caverns of ul'dah it could of been your standard dungeon with the usual patrols not to mention since it is of sil'dian age it could have some nasty traps and mechanical bosses built in that you could trigger or be set off by the pursuing braves, atleast would of made the escape more entertaining, you could even do it in reverse rushing back after minfilia back to the chamber room to face off an enraged raubahn, pacify him and escape via Cid again and leave him behind to end up in jail again.
Or you had the storyline that they chose which meant nothing really made sense and you just followed along with everyone else sacrificing themselves needlessly.

The merchant picking you up does raise some ideas that the ride with the merchant is the same as the STARTING POINT so you could always cop-out on the story with new players starting at that point and everything before being "in the past, much like you retelling your story on the trip eg: I remember that one time I cooked that meal for the dead sultana".

Things I hope for:

That they are all dead, yes I don't really want to see any of them again, I would happily start again with Tataru now being the new leader (I enjoyed following her about with the arcanist quest bit) since it wouldn't be too difficult to fill Minfilia's shoes since she did nothing anyway. I would further hope that Ishgard has their own grand company and I would happily defect to them since the 3 "allied" nations are about as useful as a chocolate teapot, they aren't allied they don't help each other and they can barely run themselves without you saving them every other day from primal's, garlean's, heck I bet if a lost lamb walked in the gates of limsa the entire city would fall to ruin with the amount of backbone their leader showed in that conference.

[Airget]

I'm worried about the space time continuum

So putting aside my feelings dealing with this patch's portion of the story (Don't really like it this time) I'm finding some areas of inconsistency that are bothering me.

First is the whole Dragoon thing. My main job is DRG, but really anyone who has completed the Dragoon job quests knows we've already met Estinein before. You also know that our relationship with Estinein didn't end well at the end of the job quests.Now SE didn't completely ignore this as Estinein gives a little wink and nod to you if you've completed the job quests and says don't worry we won't fight, but I feel that's not enough.

He was entirely in Nidhogg's thrall.... he had deep anger and wanted vengeance... and now it's all subsided? I presumed him dead (and his disappearance wasn't entirely ambiguous) so can I get a little explanation here?
If I really wanna get nit picky, how do you explain this for the people who are under taking the DRG job quests durring, or even after this point in the story line?

and then Nanamo dieing (wtf to that, my favorite NPC) causes problems in the
CUL story line, the end of which has you serving dinner to Merylweb and the Sultana, and succeeding spectacularly much to the dismay of lord Lolorito.

Anyone else noticed things like this?

There's probably some quest or another featuring Raubahn too despite being jailed and missing an arm. (again, wtf to that)

There is only so much "consistency" you can have in terms of a timeline when it comes to events like that.

A way to look at it is like this. ALL DOL/DOH/DOW/DOM classes quest take place before 2.1. Assume when you are doing those class quest it's before 2.1 to further resources by having to change the story does make it a bit harder to manage so youjust have to say to yourself "All these stories take place before 2.1"

If you start to think to much into every nook and cranny it will just be that much harder to right the story, it's a lot simpler to just have ti be "did they complete x story quest" or "did they not" then with two choices they can add extra flavor for those who did compared to those who didn't. But if they started to go down the rabbit hole and prepare for every situation they would pretty much be setting up for scenarios that might occur 2% of the time.

But see it's actually a good sign they are doing this because it shows they aren't going to be held back by old CS or story based events that might conflict with present-tense scenarios. So something like the Sultana falling might have been seen as impossible because she is involved in the Culinary story but now that we see this as a possibility it pretty much means no NPC is really safe but the safety of said NPCs isn't going to occur within the same patch in which they are involved in something important.

You most likely won't run into a scenario where John Doe is involved in a job quest but then if you play in the same patch in which John Doe was revealed he dies in the main story, they most likely wouldn't do something like that but, John Doe could potentially die along the line in any subsequent patch from his arrival.

/10charlimit

[AnnaMolly]

/10charlimit

It's possible that these CSs will be tweaked to have conditions if you are far enough along like Yugiri acknowledging your study of NIN or Estinien your study of DRG.

[HakaseNyan]

This reminded me of the Brotherhood of Ash questline. During "An Eye on the Inside" you get ambushed by Zagozz Teh and his Amalj'aa. Then, they basically walk away after talking crap.

I had the same reaction for both of these:

[Recaldy]

I wanna know where the PLD AF guards were in all of this.

[BlueThunder]

It's possible that these CSs will be tweaked to have conditions if you are far enough along like Yugiri acknowledging your study of NIN or Estinien your study of DRG.

Funny enough, Yugiri aknowledging that happens exactly in the same patch that NIN is introduced, so you had to level up that before keeping on with the Main Scenario. Maybe those Cutscenes tweaks will happen or maybe not. Sometimes, developers don't want to keep ALL content UP to date for all the possible scenarios.

WoW is a prime example of time traveling. Right now as it is, in WoW, hitting level 58 and going to Outlands will take you back in time because since Cataclysm and on, Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor were updated to have new stories, so all level 1 to 60 was updated for new events, but Outlands and Northrend weren't (which are the new continents added in their respective expansions prior to Cataclysm), making you "Timetravel" each time you went to those areas.

[Balipu]

Okay don't care about the spoiler tags. We are far enough as it is. Short version: Loved the story, facepalm at some of the responses here.

I especially loved how a lot of old friends came together. Using the annyoing merchant guy was a nice touch and so was Thancred referencing his time as Lahabrea.
Of course it was Rowena who won the main scenario.
Even though it was in the middle of the questline I think the battle on the big bridge was a sufficiently epic conclusion. Still I kinda hoped Gilgamesh would show up saying: Don't look so smug. I know what you are thinking, but Amdapor Keep was merely a setback. And those who think Estinien being calm is a plot hole (really loved how he and Thubyrgein reference meating me), rewatch the cutscene after SoF. He is obviously out for blood. He may have calmed down, like how Nael came back to her senses after the coil fight, but hatred burns under that armor. There is more to Estinien than we can see. As for Iceheart, she seamed totally unlike how she acted and talked during 2.4 Either she is a good actress or someone got to her while we wasted time in the Gold Saucer(also it is canon, Tataru won the first tournament).
Yes we all acted kinda oblivious to the whole frame up plot, but ya know, you have to swallow these things if you dont want a boring story. 99% of horror movies would end in 5 minutes without blood if people acted liker sane human beings. I for one totally could understand while Balipu didn't turn Ul'dah into a blood bath. Not to mention we don't really know anything about the power level of saaay, Ilberd, or the Scions. Everyone seems to be convinced that we are stronger, but I am not sure what gave them that impression. Of course the story always gives them a convenient excuse when we need to have a bossfight but these are the realities of an MMORPG. Unless you wanna go the WOW route and have Thrall kill every major boss.
Remember, the only reason why it isnt Y'shtola facerolling Titan EX but 8 adventurers is that she doesn't posess the echo and is therefor susceptible to tempering. I faintly remember seeing an 1.0 video of 4 Scions fighting Gaius without a godess providing buffs. Do you seriously think you can do better than them? Aaaahahahaaaa. Nope. True Minfilia is a different matter. It was kinda funny actually that we never saw her fighting, unlike all the other Scions. As for them dying, much as I am obsessed with Y'shtola and loath to see her die I think they all kicked the proverbial bucket. At least for now. Remember, Sharlayan is in Dravania. We are going to visit it in 3.0. I think we are going to resurrect them somehow.
Nanamo however will most likely stay dead. Yes, WHM spells work as well as Phoenix Down on Aerith. Speaking of which, her death worked much the same way as Aerith's. The latter was spoiled cause everyone knows that one scene and the former could have been seen from malms away, but it still hit me like a truck. It was a very emotional scene. And Raubahn breaking down was, just wow. I have to say though, Teledji sure is stupid. He didn't even try to look sad and rubbed his evilnes in Raubahn's face after like 5 minutes and all of it just at arms reach. I mean, what did he expect? Still it was a most satisfying end to that moron.
I agree that the lack of help from Merlwyb and Kan-E was jarring, but I could see the hesitation in the former. She was considering the political ramifications, and it might have been a wise choise. She had one guard while Lolorito had an army and The admiral of Limsa Lominsa gunning down the Ul'dah elite is bad for PR. And at the very least I saw her hesitating.
For those of you disappointed by the lack of substantial changes: Is this your first MMO? You definitely didnt play wow. You begin leveling from 1-60 in an Azeroth where Garrosh is dead, you do the 60-70 questline where Garrosh is a wimp, you do the 70-80 questline where Garrosh is a military leader, you do the 80-85 where he is the warchief and looks totally different than in the past 20 levels, you do pandaria and plot his death and yaaay back to war chief vol'jin. Or something like this. And usually, huge changes arent acknowledged untill the next expansion or beyond. Ul'dah will probably get an upgrade in 3.0 but for the next 3 months accept that the fire didnt burn anything down and the monetarists covered the whole thing up, to avert panic. Of course now I understand why we want to go to Ishgard, and why might the gate be opened for us.
The unmasking of Yugiri was just a bit disappointing. I agree with Tatru she really IS breathtaking. And that warm motherly gaze makes me warm in all the places video game characters shouldnt make me warm. But still it was not as dramatic as I hoped. I kinda wished she removed her mask at a pivotal point to make a statement by showing she is a figurative and literal dragon lady. Instead the word Au Ra didn't even appear. But at least I have her, Tataru, Cid and the Leveliieur twins. I really liked that Alisae showed girlpants who is the boss without even appearing onscreen. Oddly enough at first I liked Alph cause unlike Minfilia he actually got things done and organized stuff while Minfilia has trouble finding a decent shirt on her own, whereas Alisae just threw tantrums and went offscreen, but I slowly warmed up to Alisae and got sick of girlpants. Of all the scions he is the only one to make it out alive. Go figure.
As for mister holy wrangler, I may not believe that he is totally evil, but something is fishy. Why would he request and audience with Elidibus? Should he even see him? If I recall correctly only Minfilia and the WoL saw him as we posess the Echo, but Tataru saw only empty space. And how could he get there pray tell? I doubt Lahabrea and Nabriales are plotting their plots in Thanalan. Still if he is working for the Ascians, why would he help Tataru and Yugiri espace? As it stand now Iceheart want to tear Ishgard a new one, Ishgard want to murder all dragons along with Iceheart, Urianger want to help the Scions escape death and Lolorito want UUUUNLIIIMIIITED POWAAAAAAAAAAAA. Ishgard is controlled by Lahabrea and Elidibus, Iceheart was observed by Nabriales(at least), Urianger is on speaking terms with Elidibus and Lolorito has a hidden benefactor that either is the Ascians or the Garlean Empire(who have a history of being played like a violin by a certain red masked candyman).
It is pretty hard to guess at this point what the Ascians hope to achieve other than total chaos. Where is Inspector Hildibrand when you need him? I know right behind Wymond.

TL;DR version: Color me impressed. Can't wait for Heavensward.