Predictions for Patch 4.4

[Iscah]

But really, first Xelphatol, and now the Burn. Really wish they'd stop turning areas that should be fully-explorable zones into one-off dungeons, though I guess we should be grateful that the eternally-underutilized Azys Lla wasn't just a dungeon.

I think the Burn probably does make more sense as a dungeon. If it's so desolate, it's unlikely to have many of the things that you would expect on a field map - NPC population, functioning aetherytes, etc.

Though I suppose there's a chance we'd get some kind of habitable underground area that's visited separately to the 'dungeon' area?

(Also Azys Lla is such a weird place. That eerie sky that looks like we've ended up on another planet. It hardly feels like it's part of the same game.)

I wouldn't put it past the the writers (or Yoshida) to have Alpha defeat Omega once and for all with the magical power of sacrifice.

Well, "Alpha and Omega" were almost inevitably going to be set against each other at some point, I guess.

Though, if Alpha is part of Omega's computer simulation in the first place, what does that mean if we destroy Omega?

Haurchefant, I'm pretty sure is gonna stay dead. Ysayle, I'm not so sure...

I agree with the rest of what you wrote - I missed a lot of the emotional impact of Ysayle's death because I was still thinking "wait, what, is that all the involvement she gets in the end?" - and then afterwards the story almost rushes onwards to the next thing, no time to mourn.

However, even though we "never found the body", I think there's no question of her (or Haurchefant) coming back because of the scene we get with them when we save Estinien. It's a farewell and closure, an assurance that they are at peace and 'moving on'.


An aside to this - I really wish the 'ending scenes' of Heavensward, particularly the placing Haurchefant's shield at his grave, happened at the conclusion of Dragonsong instead. There was a symbolism of carrying the shield with us - carrying him with us - and I feel like we should have kept it until the very end. (Also the actual credits rolling, at the point when things were unresolved and we'd just seen Estinien taken over by Nidhogg, felt like I hadn't properly earned it yet.)

[SaitoHikari]

I don't think it was ever resolved whether Varis was spitting on his recently-deceased uncle, who challenged him and nearly tore the Empire apart, or whether the War of Succession was relatively short and they left Solus hangin' in the throne room on an extended period of mourning until it was resolved, and then he spit on him at the end of it anyway for some reason. (For being too sick to name a successor after his son died in the first place...?)

I do want to ask a question while on this topic. It's been about three years since I started the game, and I've pretty much entirely forgotten... What was the timeline for the war of succession anyway? Was it already happening throughout the ARR story? Did it break out after Gaius' defeat? Or starting even before that? Or do we actually not know?

As for Solus being on the artwork, it's not too much of a stretch to guess why he's featured so prominently on there. After all, the world's dealing with the fallout of what are ultimately his decisions. This direction's pretty exciting because it means we're going to get a lot of answers for the motivations of the Garleans.

Haurchefant, I'm pretty sure is gonna stay dead. Ysayle, I'm not so sure... In her case, we never recovered the body (or even held a funeral, to my recollection). On a more personal note, I wasn't really satisfied with her sacrifice. It seemed pretty pointless, as all it did was slow the Garleans down a bit and temporarily cripple one of their flagships. They still got to Azys Lla and set up shop, so all it really did was give us a minor head start. It really didn't feel like her character arc had come to a satisfactory conclusion, either, regarding her angst at having the rug yanked out from under her with the revelation that Primal Shiva was just a poor copy of the original, rather than the original reincarnated. Additionally, the way she died was just weird, shattering into crystal fragments. I don't think any other individual, including other folks who've been defeated after transforming into Primals, have died the same way. A clever writer could definitely take advantage of that.

She's probably dead, but if she were to make a reappearance, it would not shock me.

I think the topic of Ysayle is going to get brought up again at some point, though I am 100% sure she's dead. I don't imagine that Ysayle was the only other person to possess a crystal of Light in our current time period, the Imperials probably know of several more and I wonder if we'll eventually run into another individual like her. I think that one warrior from the Four Lords questline is highly implied/stated to have possessed a crystal too, but he's from another era.

Also, around the time that we defeated Zurvan, if you talked to the Imperial soldiers nearby, they mentioned something about how they were going to ship Regula's body back to the mainland too. I imagine they would have difficulties since the main ship is apparently semi-permanently grounded at Azys Lla, which is something that should really be addressed again.

[Alleo]

I agree with the rest of what you wrote - I missed a lot of the emotional impact of Ysayle's death because I was still thinking "wait, what, is that all the involvement she gets in the end?" - and then afterwards the story almost rushes onwards to the next thing, no time to mourn.

She was my favorite female character and yet unlike with Haurchefant, I am fine with the way she died. I would have loved to have her survive it but at least her death makes sense. We were in a situation which was highly dangerous and could not be solved by jumping out of the way..we could have teleportet but that takes time in lore and we would have left others to die. In the end even the WoL cant do much about gun fire from ships. And her death also stopped the flagship till even today so she also played a big part in the future story line with that. (The ship could have done quite the damage to Eorzea) So her death was sad but at least felt like it had meaning..unlike the pure tragic and drama one that we got before that..

So as to not be completely off topic:

I know that the shadowhunter got burns on his arms (since he probably does not keep such things for the looks only *looks at Thancred*) but with the amount of fire that went after us while we rode out of the dungeon, one would believe that he should have been completely consumed by it thus more scarred then that.

About the last step of Omega: I really hope that our friend Alpha is not our enemy, that need to be killed. I wish for him to stay with Jessie and the rest of the team and begin a true life at their side. But seeing how SE loves drama..I really have a bad feeling about him.

[Anonymoose]

I do want to ask a question while on this topic. It's been about three years since I started the game, and I've pretty much entirely forgotten... What was the timeline for the war of succession anyway? Was it already happening throughout the ARR story? Did it break out after Gaius' defeat? Or starting even before that? Or do we actually not know?

The timeline is definitive for when we learned about it (2.2), and even clearer about when it ends (2.4), but Stormblood has made me question whether we were ever up to date on information to begin with.

Even in 2.00, the rumor mill was that Solus was over 80 years old, in failing health, and without a successor. Roialle and Kan-E believed these rumors an explanation of why the XIVth Legion had become less active than when they first invaded. Livia confirms this when she and Nero are watching the Warrior of Light's battle with Ifrit - the "troubles at court" prevent any help from coming.

The XIVth had reportedly gained permission to resume conquest because of the Ultima Weapon, but High Legatus Varis then-yae Galvus had felt that marching on Eorzea was premature and commanded Baelsar to halt only to find that he'd already gone rogue.

One might assume we had relatively up-to-date information, but when Yugiri shows up in 2.2, Solus is already dead, a war of succession has already erupted, a rebellion in the midst of that war has already risen and fallen, and in 4.00 everyone acts as if the Doman Rebellion was over a year ago, outside of the confines of the bubble. It could be that Eorzea and the XIVth Legion were just very poorly-informed and this was in motion ere the game even began.

I am amazed that none here knew of the war of succession until we arrived. Have you truly heard naught of what has transpired?

[ObsidianFire]

Garlemald's War of Succession starts sometime between the end of 1.0 and the start of 2.0. We don't have a hard confirmation on exactly when it started or exactly when it ended. We do know the Eorzeans have word that it ended by around the 2.3 -2.4 time period, but given how little intelligence they have from the Garlean Homeland, that doesn't mean much. It is very likely we well be getting a thorough run down of the War of Succession in the coming patches/expansion.

The War of Succession was what Giaus decided he wasn't going to have anything to do with and is why he and the entire XIVth Legion are considered traitors back in Garlemald. If he had gone back to take part in the War of Succession, then Garlemald and the Ultima Weapon probably wouldn't have been in 2.0 to begin with. On the other hand, that's what leads to Gaius finding out about what the Ascians true plans are, which from the looks of things, no one in Garlemald knew about.

Edit: I really need to learn not type up stuff ASAP if I think Anonymoose will post on it...

[Anonymoose]

Edit: I really need to learn not type up stuff ASAP if I think Anonymoose will post on it...

BEHIND THE SCENES: If I type EDIT INCOMING and it stays that way longer than 25 seconds, what's happened is that I think I know the answer, I've typed the answer, and I now have the official lorebook and my unofficial lorebrary open and am making sure I could prove those things if asked, lol.

[ObsidianFire]

Ha ha! In this particular case, I'd started typing out my reply before your initial (EDIT INCOMING) post had gone up. And then it was like... oh... guess we were both typing at the same time...

[Cilia]

On the subject of the casket Varis spits on in his introductory cutscene -

I never considered it was his fallen uncle; it always seemed like it was Solus. While Varis was his heir apparent, they had a number of disagreements and differences in philosophy. Varis disagreed with the Meteor Project and opposed it covertly though van Baelsar and Eline Roaille. He also felt that Solus was too soft on his children, which led to the war of succession that concluded around 2.4 (if I remember right) and as such blames Solus for the war. Varis is also implicitly not a patron of the arts, and has instilled censorship policies where Solus let them do as they pleased.

His uncle, on the other hand, will go down in Garlean history as nothing more than a treasonous would-be usurper - hardly someone befitting a burial service like the one shown.

There's nothing definite, but my money would be on Solus...

The timeline suggests Gaius went rogue shortly before or shortly after the war of succession broke out, which would have made it possible for him to operate without interference from the rest of the Imperial military. The implication is that he considered his own ambition (conquering Eorzea) more important than resolving Garlemald's political dispute, which would line up with how he and the rest of the XIVth were declared deserters punishable by death. (Varis is harsher than Solus was for sure...)

On the Shadowhunter's identity -

In a recent interview, Yoshi-P said that he "doesn't want to betray everyone's expectations" and that he deliberately had the crew zoom in on the mask fragment resembling Gaius' old faceplate. Basically, all the hints dropped are big and glaring on purpose so the people who care can figure out where things are going and who is who (i.e. it was painfully obvious the Griffin was Ilberd). Between that, his fighting style, weapon, and dialogue, it's almost a sure bet the Shadowhunter is Gaius. (I figured it out even without recognizing the mask piece, and 60% of the time I'm right, every time.) I'll be genuinely surprised if it's not.

[Remedi]

The fact that Rhitathyn and Livia had their last breath shown while Gaius hadn't to me is clear enough that they either weren't sure about his ultimate fate or that there was more in store, afterall Nero had the same treatment and he was back the patch later.
Usually when writing a story if you want to kill off somebody you make sure that his death is unconfutable, making things vague is done exactly for this reason when you are not yet sure of the ultimate fate of a character.
It's easier to explain a character that supposedly died coming back than a character that was shown exaling his last breath, unless you have some plot deice (COUGH ZENOS COUGH) or some questionable writing decisions like in the Ul'danh revolution resolution in HW, let's be honest that was pretty lame and it's no like Zenos plot device, while reasonable because of the situation is a good way to deal with that situation either.

[Tygiuu]

I'll just leave this here.
https://imgur.com/a/3hxCsDP