Patch 3.3 (Trailer) Discussion (2.x - 3.2 Spoilers)

[Nalien]

In fact, I'm actually hoping that we don't make peace with the Dravanians.

Do you really mean peace, or just an alliance? I cannot see an alliance happening any time soon, like most of the Dravanians have said; It will take generations to bridge the gulf created between their people.

There absolutely has to be peace though... Ishgard can't still be at war with the Dravanians after all this, else the entire expansion was basically pointless... Dravania wont be joining the Eorzean Alliance, as it were, but they absolutely should be a peace, however uneasy, between Ishgard and Dravania now... Anything more than that is unlikely though, else I'll be questioning why we don't just have an army of dragons assisting us during future engagements with Garlemald... I imagine they'll take a more Sharlayan attitude from here on, staying out of our affairs with a few oddballs occasionally helping us...

[Fenral]

I'd hate the entire 3.0 story if the entire effort of the peace treaty was for naught. I don't like having my time wasted if I see that everything we did accomplished nothing and the status quo remained. No, I'm not saying everything should be ice cream and sprinkles, but a story that basically pulls the rug out from under you and goes "HA HA! Things are gonna stay the same!" makes me want to punch the writer.

I mean, that's what pissed me off about the 3.0 ending: all of that work, but in the end everyone we traveled with was was dead and Nidhogg was back in control of Dravania like he had never left. Obviously we'll still have dragons to fight in a couple of zones, but can't they just be the last few stubborn stragglers like the XIVth legion?

Most likely, nothing will change in the short term, but we'll be assured that we've laid the groundwork for things to be sorted out in The Future™.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

snip

Even you have to admit that the way we "killed" Nidhogg in The Aery so easily had to have people guessing that he wasn't dead. Spoilers. He wasn't. I wouldn't view 3.0's ending as total hogwash though since we did kick start the progress of peace between dragons and Ishgard and even Midgardsormr finally had his eyes open to the truth of his son going too far. If absolutely nothing changed, then yeah that's a bad story. But we gotten some changes whether we liked how they were applied or not.

[Nalien]

Oddly, despite not believing Nanamo was dead for a second (or any of the Scions for that matter), I figured Nidhogg was dead until Estinien used his eye to get us into Azys Lla and it was clear Nidhogg still had some influence over him from beyond the grave... Saw no reason for Nidhogg to make a full(ish) revival at that point though... The moment Thordan VII was introduced with a round table and Twelve knights (quite early on might I add), Yoshidas love of FFVII and Final Fantasys tendency to paint religious leaders as villains took over and I went "Nidhogg isn't the final villain, this guy is", then Thordan was the final villain, but Nidhogg came back anyway to draw things out... But yeah... Nidhogg dying early on didn't strike me as odd, since early on it became apparent he wasn't going to be the final boss...

Looking forward to which FFVII inspired boss will await us at the end of 4.0... We've had a space-entity corrupted "legendary" soldier in 1.0 (complete with mommy issues perhaps, as of 2.2), VIIs Ultima Weapon in 2.0, Knights of the Round in 3.0... Ala Mhigo and Gyr Abania strike me as the sort of place to have a Cosmo Canyon style area... Gi Nittak style boss as the undead King of Ruin, perhaps...

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I looked at Nidhogg's "death" with suspicion because for a Wyrm that lead a war for a 1000 years, I refused to believe he would be out of the picture so soon and be defeated so easily with simple mechanics in the fight, especially since his fight was just the halfway point for 3.0.

[ADVSS]

yeah nidhogg being a dungeon boss struck me as weak, i was hoping there was gonna be a trial for nidhogg later on, so im not complaining. Originally though i didnt expect the warring triad, i was expecting that dragons would replace the primal trials throughout the story of 3.0. But since the story went this direction, im cool with not having trials for the rest of middys children.

[Cilia]

I was originally going to append something like this to the end of my last post, but my internet was being shitty last night (this morning?), so I'll have to reconstruct it from memory as best I can.

The only character whose death was cheapened was Nanamo, and that's one of my biggest contentions with the ending of 2.x. We watched her asphyxiate, and then she's fine because we never got to check her vitals. That's got to be a damn good poison, to asphyxiate someone into unconsciousness, then stop doing so and instead leave them in a comatose state...

Back to the point, the following characters were dramatically impacted by "The Parting Glass:"

• Nanamo: made comatose until halfway through Heavensward.
  Teledji Adeledji: killed (not that he didn't deserve it).
  Raubahn: right arm dismembered.
  Yda and Papalymo: exiled along with the rest of the Scions, currently fighting a guerrilla war against Garlemald in Ala Mhigo.
  Y'shtola: blinded, using aethersense to compensate which is slowly killing her.
  Thancred: magic circuits fried aetherial attunement destroyed, rendering magic impossible for him.
  Minfilia: became the Word of the Mother (functionally died).
  Alphinaud, Tataru, and the WoL: exiled, sought refuge in Ishgard leading to Heavensward. Emotionally devastated by the event.

The following is a list of MAJOR characters that are seemingly dead in chronological order:

• Rhitatyn sas Arvina
  Livia sas Junius
  Gaius van Baelsar
  Nael van/deus Darnus
  Moenbryda
  Nabriales
  Louisoix Leveilleur (functionally)
  Wilred
  Teledji Adeledji
  Minfilia (functionally)
  Lord Haurchefant Greystone
  Ysayle (Lady Iceheart)
  Igeyorhm
  Lahabrea
  Archbishop Thordan VII and the Heavens' Ward (13 total)

... and that's not including minor NPCs such as the merchant Teledji bought out for his plan, dungeon bosses and NPCs such as Edda Pureheart, and sidequest characters such as G'raha Tia (who, like Minfilia and Louisoix, is functionally dead). Lots of people have died, and we're going to be adding Estinien and/or Nidhogg to the list before long along with who knows who else (someone isn't making it out of the Final Steps of Faith alive, mark my words). So while Nanamo surviving was a major ass pull, nobody else's death has been nullified or cheapened, and death remains a real threat (just not to us).

As for the Dravanians... I do want peace with them, even if many are insufferable, just to end the needless death. The only really "good" dragon NPC is Vidofnir, who has made a genuine effort to mend relations. Even Hraesvelgr isn't willing to do so.

[Theodric]

Remove the antagonists and it quite quickly becomes a very short list.

I also disagree with the extent of the impact that has been left upon the protagonists. Emotional turmoil? Sure - but the game doesn't really explore the emotional turmoil that surrounds the antagonists losing their own allies. Which is a pretty major oversight as far as I'm concerned. They did it with Livia to some extent but didn't really follow up on it elsewhere. Thancred? Yes, he lost his ability to use magic. That might have meant more if he didn't perform acrobatic feats effortlessly on two occassions - the first going toe to toe with the Warrior of Darkness and the second leading the giant away from the tournament during 3.2. Y'sthola is blind, yes, but she's still capable of 'seeing' and fighting alongside us. So that, again, cheapens her supposed affliction. Raubhan lost an arm yet somehow managed to throw Aymeric across the battlefield and put up a good fight against the Warrior of Light - arguably the most powerful individual present in Eorzea at the moment.

That's not to suggest that there isn't death happening - it just isn't to the same extent that many people here like to imply. We know now which NPC's are unlikely to experience any major harm - and so long as those same NPC's are prominent in the story then it's easy to predict who will survive and who will die. If anything, the only real threat of death is to anybody who is a secondary or temporary character. Here's hoping future expansions/patches shake that up a bit. Death for the sake of death is silly but only limiting death to secondary characters is much sillier as far as I'm concerned.

[Fenral]

Minfilia and Ysayle are not so much classically dead as in a state beyond mortal comprehension. I'd be extremely surprised if some phantom of Ysayle didn't participate in whatever is coming in the next patch, and Minfilia, is... well... Whatever happens with her is what was intended to happen to her from the beginning. Maybe.
Already prepared to be salty if Doga and Unei got a TT card, but not a certain someone else, but that's another matter entirely...

[Phyllo]

Ysayle died the same death louisoix did, aether dispersed because of overuse of power or hit during intensive use of power, so yes she's definitely dead, I doubt she'll come back like louisoix did cuz that louisoix wasn't exactly the real one but bahamut's puppet made out of louisoix's aether and memories, and there was no primal like him back when she died.