Alphinaud

[Songwillow]

Urianger is in an odd place, time-wise. While most of the Scions are free to move around and be in different locations (and make permanent costume changes), he's had to stay contantly located at the Waking Sands because he has sidequests to give out, and a part to play in the Binding Coil questline.

This would also affect (or rather block) any possibility of a permanent costume change for him - he needs to appear in cutscenes for those quests, and from what I understand of how the game handles cutscenes and NPCs, I don't think they could have it dynamically show him in the correct costume depending on when you complete them. So it would be prettymuch necessary to have him revert to his normal costume.

Yet Alisaie is in her original outfit in Binding Coils of Bahamut, but her and Alphinaud can be seen in their current outfits in Sirensong Sea. I mean I get that they aren't a sidequest giver like Urianger, but I anticipate that most characters have more than one outfit and Urianger just likes to be comfortable in his clothes at the Waking Sands. I don't consider costumes to be absolute since outfits are interchangeable.

A strange tangent but one that has a silly tie to the point. The only thing that seems to be absolute in this game so far is that some characters are not able to be killed off if they featured in both MSQ and another piece of content outside of the MSQ. Examples include certain dungeons and sidequests. Alphinaud, Alisaie, and Lyse are in the Sirensong Sea dungeon (on the ship), Alisaie in Binding Coils of Bahamut, Krile in the Warring Triad arch, Cid in Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium, Nero, Biggs, and Wedge in Alexander. The sultana is in disguise in one of the saltery quests, making it impossible for her to be killed off. However if it is a character that was exclusively in a dungeon or side quest then they are able to be killed off with no issues. Alexander with Mide or Crystal Tower's G'raha Tia comes to mind. An interesting point is that Yda is not in a side quest or dungeon, but Lyse is, meaning that they won't kill off Lyse but they had no problem waiting to change how Yda would be seen until that point.

There is a weird process to quest making in FFXIV that makes each developer have to ask, "does this event contradict any other content already in the game?" Typically they are good about that where they won't make those contradictions though they won't factor certain events that keep characters away such as Krile or Y'shtola going missing, injured, or comatose due to the MSQ while doing side content. However you will know that a major character is going to stay alive if they are involved in a side quest.