Revelations from Patch 4.56

[Kalise]

So I just got around to doing the new quests today (I was blind in one eye most of yesterday :'( )

So my thoughts on things:

Beast Tribes:

I dunno... Felt kind of meh. How'd whatshisface get his hands on the materia? Why did he need to go after specifically Gyorei (Especially if he wasn't particularly concerned with authenticity)? What's the deal with "Flesh of a mermaid" like you'd be able to tell the difference between a flank of mermaid flesh and a flank of any old fish meat?

To me, the only stand out thing from the whole deal was the fanservice from seeing J'ohlmyn in a bathing suit. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Even the reward at the end felt meh... An emote where you toss gil out? Okay?

MSQ:

Okay, so we learn nothing. We still don't know who the voice actually is. We haven't learned what has happened to the souls of the other scions. We haven't learned literally anything about how we're going to travel to the First. All we've learned is that we ARE going to the First.

Also, another anti-climactic fight with Zenos... One were we fight him but first have to play as crappy level 5 Samurai Hien first, while Lyse heals us and Yugiri gets to use a badass Limit Break. I'll pass over the fact that the actual Zenos fight itself became ultra lame when you had to destroy the 3 swords as that particular phase is super punishing for melee classes (I couldn't beat it on either SAM or WAR, I ended up going on SMN so I could multi-DoT and damage all three while dodging the attacks from Zenos)

But then we beat Zenos. But not really because Ascian magic! Then right at the high point of this anti-climax *Poof* time to have a chat with Mr Clingy who's been kidnapping all of our friends and won't tell us why and merely tells us we should help him for... Reasons.

To then awaken and find that apparently, Elidibenos couldn't stop a single Estinien (Who no longer has the power of Nidhogg's eye to make him as powerful as he once was) from coming in and taking us to safety. You know, when Zenos himself was able to stop most people in their tracks and Elidibius has that body and his extra special Ascian magick.

Also, what happened with Lyse, Hien and Yugiri? There was no mention that THEY were brought to safety after being dunked on by Zenos (And I doubt Estinien came and grabbed all 4 of us...)

*Sigh* I can't wait for the next anti-climactic fight with Zenos that is being implied by Tataru forbidding us to face him alone again /s

Honestly, I think the most interesting part about this whole thing was that one of Zenos' skills was called "Flood of Darkness" which suggests some interesting things if taken at face value.

Oh well... Back to leveling the last of my jobs to 70 before ShB...

[Naria]

I think it's a pity they haven't made the Rising Stones infirmary an actual set piece, at least for cutscenes. Twice now we've had other characters go in to check on the sleeping Scions, while we have to stay outside.

It's one thing to talk about them all lying there comatose, but it would be quite potent to actually see them like that.

It would also make that "waking up after the battle" cutscene a lot stronger. Instead of the bewildered "why am I in Ishgard?" feeling, you wake up and realise you're in the infirmary and can see all the other Scions around you. You were taken, and now you are the only one to have returned.

This is something new outside the box.

THB my first thought in that scene was: "I guess this is the only infirmary model they have . . . wait, doesn't Rhalgar's Reach have an infirmary model?" It seems like it would make sense to wake up there as it is closer to the battlefield than Ishgard and if we had been unconscious long enough to be moved to long term care then why aren't we at the Rising Stones? Did Estinien take us all the way to Ishgard for medical treatment? Wouldn't we have to pass Mor Dhona to get to Ishgard anyways? I guess they stuck us on an airship. How long were we out? something something time bubble.

Maybe it is suppose to be a thematic call back to 4.3? That might have worked better if we had seen Estinien fight Elidizenos.

I mean yay more Aymeric and House Fortemps but taking everything else into account in retrospect it does seem like they were a bit rushed when trying to finish up the story patch. That combined with some of the interviews coming out of the JP Fanfest has me trying to temper my expectations for Shadowbrings.

@Kalise

I'm assuming with what Banri Oda said about Estinen absorbing so much of Nidhogg's aether has made him ridiculously powerful is why he been a get-out-of-the-plot-free coupon in SB. On the other hand he did not seem that overpowered in the SB DRG questline. I do hope he gets some more character development, hopefully as part of the-lets-get-the-band-back-together and restore Ishgard in 5.0.

[Daralii]

Conspiracy theory

Considering Aymeric said we received a mortal wound before Estinien jumped in, I almost wonder if there was a scene that was cut for ESRB reasons. They've run into that issue before with the Rathalos trial, and I could easily see there having been a scene of Elidibus stabbing us, Estinien's rescue, Elidibus musing about how he was running out of time, and us passing out. I dunno, I feel like they ran into development issues of some kind- plans needing to be changed, a lack of time, both, whatever.

[Naria]

Er sorry, off topic, there was an ESRB complaint about the Rathalos trial? What happened? I missed this.

[YianKutku]

The changed small talk texts, iirc, are Rammbroes, Unukalhai, and a handful of important NPCs on the Azim Steppe and Hancock.

Also the three Scions at Rhalgr's Reach (J'moldva, Arenvald, and V'mah) seem to have new dialogue, but for J'moldva and V'mah, not much regarding the actual events of 4.56, which makes me wonder if they were supposed to be saying this stuff earlier, but the flag didn't trigger. It's generic enough that it could be set anytime after 4.4, though, and J'moldva does make a reference to Fordola.

As for Arenvald, he's definitely referring to 4.56 MSQ events, so that's a confirmed change. He doesn't say anything informative, but at least it's a change.

[Rocl]

Also the three Scions at Rhalgr's Reach (J'moldva, Arenvald, and V'mah) seem to have new dialogue, but for J'moldva and V'mah, not much regarding the actual events of 4.56, which makes me wonder if they were supposed to be saying this stuff earlier, but the flag didn't trigger. It's generic enough that it could be set anytime after 4.4, though, and J'moldva does make a reference to Fordola.

As for Arenvald, he's definitely referring to 4.56 MSQ events, so that's a confirmed change. He doesn't say anything informative, but at least it's a change.

I had forgotten to mention those, and came to this thread to rectify my mistake actually, lol!
J'moldva's text triggers after the Requiem for Heroes quest, so it's from this patch. Same with V'mah and Arenvald. Here's a complete list, I think, of who should have changed text courtesy of Garland Tools:

Vorsaile Heuloix, Swift, R'ashaht Rhiki, House Fortemps Manservant, Saulette, Cirina, Magnai, Sadu, Temulun, Bunchin, Hancock, Wiscar, V'mah Tia, J'moldva, Arenvald, Hakuro, Watt, Tataru.

(Rammbroes and Unukalhai don't appear to be easily readable with how they mine things, I guess because of the branching text options!)

The most important one, I think, is Hakuro confirming we "saved" Hien, so he's likely to still be alive, along with Lyse and Yugiri.

[Bright-Flower]

Regarding the scenario fight...

Was the tuning really that tight for melee dps? A friend of mind said he couldn't do it on nin and had to swap to sam, despite having similar gear for both jobs. Personally as a paladin in sword oath I didn't have any trouble killing all three. I wonder if part of it's a gear thing if people didn't do Alphascape/Orbonne etc?

[ChaoticCrimson]

I suppose I can throw my two cents in now...
MSQ

All-in-all, the end of Stormblood was, erm, well it was pretty anticlimactic. I was hoping for something a bit more impactful, tbh. Firstly, I know some would feel Revolutions doesn't really fit for a battle, but I still feel like it would have been effective to play in at least one section of the confrontation with Zenodibus. As it stands, it's now the one main theme that wasn't played during any kind of battle, which seems like a shame to me when Answers and Dragonsong had their time to shine. Yes, Thunderer is the generic Ascian fight song, but this confrontation was so built-up to be something big, not generic. Then again, that's probably a bit much to expect of a solo instance. Musical ramblings aside, let's talk about the battle itself...

We start off with yet another RP battle as Hien with Lyse and Yugiri as support. Your allies seemed to be able to do far cooler things than Hien was allowed to in this case. We didn't even get so much as a limit break this time, and Hien also has to get his rear end pulled from the fire, so to speak, by his companions while you spend a good 30-45 seconds doing nothing and watching them. I suppose you could say Hien saved Lyse in return if you ran in front of her during Zenodibus' subsequent linear stack attack, but... meh. Kind of a dragged out conflict when you have two lack-luster main attacks, a gap closer, and Second Wind as a token HP heal. I liked seeing Yugiri pull off a mutli-NIN limit break though.

The actual fight using your own character was also kind of underwhelming. It could be a result of me be well overgeared for it, it seemed way too easy. Aesthetically it was okay I guess. Otherwise it was basically similar to the Zenos fight in Ala Mhigo with added Byakko mechanics.

The fight concludes, events transpire. We don't really get any real new information, aside from finally meeting the enigmatic figure and having them tell us we're on our way to oblivion no matter what we do, and even then we can't say for sure how accurate that statement is. It was nice to see the old Ishgard gang again (sans Estinien, who bailed us out and decided to subsequently bail on us before we could wake up). It is a little dubious how we wound up all the way from beyond Ala Mhigo to Ishgard to be cared for, though I suppose it could be hand-waved by assuming Estinien brought the WoL to Aymeric, who then assumed responsibility for caring for them, having his chirurgeons treat the WoL until they were healthy enough to transport to Ishgard. Time, as usual, doesn't really hold much bearing on the progression of events. As nice as this was, I was really hoping for EleZenos to track down Zenodibus right as he was about to try to strike us down. It would have been at least a bit more interesting to me to have the two of them duke it out a little before Elidibus' retreat. The real Zenos could then have dropped off the WoL to some Resistance healers before taking off again. Assuming Hien revived the others in time to make their retreat during the fight, there likely wouldn't have been other witnesses if the real Zenos did make an appearance then, so none of them would be any the wiser that he wasn't just another normal Resistance soldier. Even if there were witnesses, Zenos probably would have slain them long before they could say anything about it. Alas, this was not to be, and we only get a brief scene in the stinger to confirm what we already knew about Zenos. Beyond that, there's really not much else to say about it. Compared to the end of ARR and HW, this felt to be a rushed and anticlimactic end to what also seemed to be a similarly oddly-paced expansion. Not that there weren't good moments, but I do think the story suffered overall by jumping back and forth between Doma and Ala Mhigo instead of focusing on one at a time. Anyway, those are my thoughts for the moment.

[Mira11]

Now that we‘ve seen and heard a little more of him, I came up with a theory!

MSQ:

I can‘t help but think that Elezenos is Estinien. That we didn‘t see anything of how we got saved by „Estinien“, as Aymeric said, and Elezenos saying “My enemy. My friend. Had I been but a step faster...“ kinda makes me wonder if his identity was the reason they hid the whole scene from us. His face also resembles Estinien‘s quite a lot, the only difference I can see is the eye colour. But as they say, the eyes are the gates to a person‘s soul right? Aymeric also mentioned that Estinien was not a man of many words. Hearing now, that Elezenos still has Zenos‘ voice would explain to me why he did not speak. The fact that Estinien and Zenos both fused with Nidhogg‘s eyes could also hint at a connection. Maybe even that Estinien destroyed the eyes at the exact spot where Zenos had died but a few moments before that. And one more thing that Aymeric said also got me wondering... he said that the „Ascian Zenos“ was distracted by a person who entered the battlefield right before his blade could reach the WoL. Aymeric called that person Estinien, but who else could distract an Ascian who‘s about to kill his and his god’s worst enemy this much but the soul of the body he possesses itself?

[Naria]

@ Bright-Flower

I don't know about melee, but I failed the first time on SCH and swapped to RDM to do the fight, even though my SCH is much better geared. Both jobs are above i390 though.