Revelations from Patch 5.1

[Cilia]

On Vauthry

Vauthry is a very complicated issue to deal with.

On the one hand, he is fully culpable for the evils he perpetrated.

On the other, it's not entirely his fault because he was raised from birth to believe that anything and everything he does is right and good because he is the one doing it.

Vauthry is innocent in the sense that he is not the architect of the evils he perpetrated, and by Sin Eater standards having been born a Sin Eater he has no sins to be forgiven (all Sin Eaters except Lightwardens being named "Forgiven [Sin]"). Thus, Innocence.

Is it fair to pin all the blame for all of the horrible things that went on in and around Eulmore on Vauthry? No... not all of it, but he is still responsible to some degree.

Mysterious Figures

The Mysterious Figure that appears before Zenos is, by my estimate, [b]not[/i] associated with the Ascians. Zodiark is their god - why would they help Zenos "hunt" him? Sure, it's possible Zodiark would devour Zenos instead of the other way around... but given that Zenos has already exceeded their wildest expectations with his Resonance, why take the risk?

Who is it? I have no idea. Aulus somehow giving himself Resonance and surviving the same as Zenos is a nice idea, you know, keep the Sephiroth / Hojo duo together... but past that and his white clothing denoting an emissary, I'm drawing a blank.

With the Ardbert lookalike, there are only a few possibilities I'm seeing:
1. Elidibus has restored and body-jacked his corpse.
2. Another fragment of the Warrior of Light's soul was enlisted by Elidibus to go against us.

Notably he does not have Ardbert's trademark bloodstained "Bravura of Darkness."

[JeanneOrnitier]

There's a post-MSQ quest in Revenant's Toll.

A very touching farewell to Source Minfilia. I really do hope Ryne gets to meet F'lhammin someday, though sadly I'm sure she won't be leaving Norvrandt with the rest of us (and Thancred will probably stay behind too).

And the raid:

I know nothing about NieR so I wasn't excited for this like so many other people were. I assume the Ancients made the city and androids but they look absolutely nothing like Amaurot. And I'm wary about the story but I'm not going to judge that until we actually have some idea of what's going on since so much was left unexplained in this part. But like... I'm interested in what's going on, but it feels completely disconnected unlike how Return to Ivalice melded with XIV perfectly.

Tthe raid taken by itself was very cool looking, I loved the design of the ruined city, and the music was incredible. I also liked that 2P actually participated in the fights. And thank goodness we can go back into the ruins outside the duty, I wish more duties were like that.

[ObsidianFire]

And the raid:
I know nothing about NieR so I wasn't excited for this like so many other people were. ... And I'm wary about the story but I'm not going to judge that until we actually have some idea of what's going on since so much was left unexplained in this part. But like... I'm interested in what's going on, but it feels completely disconnected unlike how Return to Ivalice melded with XIV perfectly.

Even those of us who have played NieR: Automana before have no idea where this raid is going. Yoko Taro loves to throw 3rd Act curve-balls at his audience and right when you think you have a decent idea of what's going on, he'll pull the rug out from under you and hit you in the emotional gut. Simply put, the only thing those of us who have played Yoko Taro's games before are expecting is to be surprised and watch the story turn out not to be what we thought it was.

As much as we know about the different characters in their own games, we know very, very little about them in this game. It's not like the Return to Ivalice Raids where Matsumoto likes giving tons of exposition to the player. Yoko Taro likes to drop players into the thick of things and slowly reveal more of the setting and back-story through datalouges and scraps of left-over information about how the world used to be. So if you're confused about what is going on, that's normal. We all are. And we probably won't know what is actually going on until the last raid either...

[EdwinLi]

So anyone know the difference between the Two paths in Nier Raid storyline.

Path 1: Trust 2P

Path 2: Don't Trust 2P

As I said before, knowing Yoko Taro the choice may (*cough*will*cough*) determine the ending and differences in cutscenes we see in the Nier Raid Storyline.

PS Don't forget to go into Exploration mode of the Raid area to find collections and look into areas you could not enter during the Raid.

There is even a room full of....

Dead 2Bs.

which I can assume is part of the hints on what is going on in the Nier Storyline like the Collectable intels found in Exploration Mode of the Raid Zone.

[Rannie]

Edwin lalalala stupid 10 char.

from what I've read the difference aren't that big at the moment. It doesnt change the outcome so far and all it does is do some minor changes to the journal entries

https://twinfinite.net/2019/10/ffxiv...nogg-answered/

Also it doesnt mean that later quests wont be different due to the paths chosen either.

[ObsidianFire]

Looking at the quests on Garland Tools, there's no significant dialogue changes between the two different paths. Not that that fact doesn't mean the game considers you to be on two different quests...

[KageTokage]

Pixie quest stuff

Seems like the initial suspicions about An Lad being Titania in some form or fashion were basically confirmed with them mentioning having experienced a vision of being trapped in a castle.

The Mysterious Figure that appears before Zenos is, by my estimate, [b]not[/i] associated with the Ascians. Zodiark is their god - why would they help Zenos "hunt" him? Sure, it's possible Zodiark would devour Zenos instead of the other way around... but given that Zenos has already exceeded their wildest expectations with his Resonance, why take the risk?

My thoughts on that matter.

Working with what they've already established about the nature of the soul and the Echo, it wouldn't make a lick of sense to me for Zenos to be that powerful.

If there was something genuinely special about the nature of his artificial Echo or his soul the Ascians almost certainly would've noticed by now, but from all we've seen so far he's basically just one of them; albeit one with exceptional physical/martial prowess to go along with their usual abilities.

His soul was mostly made exceptionally dense due to being infused with the aether of countless sacrifices which seems to be directly tied to potency of one's Echo as soul perception was a standard ability amongst the ancients and he was revealed to be capable of such as well.

The only unusual ability he's shown off so far was the ability to dominate a primal and control it, but we don't actually know if that isn't something any sufficiently Echo user could pull off. The notion of him being able to dominate something as powerful as Zodiark, who was summoned through the sacrifice of countless thousands, if not millions of individuals possessing strength of soul/aether comparable to him and was able to temper unsundered ancients like Elidibus and Emet Selch still comes across rather absurd to me even if said primal is still weakened from the Sundering.

That said, I'm thinking he's just being strung along by the Ascians as they're aware of how simple-minded he is and they see him as an easy target for exploitation. I'm also on board with the possibility of the "new" mystery Ascian in question having been Aulus as there's not too many notable individuals Zenos would actually recognize/be concerned with outside of us. It would certainly help explain why the Resonant project was such a success as no one understands the nature of the soul better then they do.

I honestly think he might end up choosing to cooperate with them willingly simply under the reasoning that wherever they're making trouble, we're bound to show up.

[Alleo]

Nier

They really have to give us massive amount of lore and explanations later for me to like this raid...

I was not a fan of Ivalice raid either but at least tried from the very start to make it feel like it belongs to the planet. We knew that Dalmasca and thus these cities existed and they are tied in with Garlemald and its rebellions. They showed us how Garlemald behaves, gave us a glimps of the lifes of Garlean people that also dont agree with them and tried to make us like the characters or at least understand them. From the start to finish it had many cutscenes and it looked visually quite well. I also liked a lot of the music. Some bosses even were tied in with the story and could create an emotional impact.

Nier did nothing like that to me. I had not played the Ivalice games either which is why I am too not a whole fan of that raid but at least I got the feeling that it could fit into he game. Nothing in that first part of the raid screamed to me like it was meant to fit into the world.

Somehow they are talking a different language there (which the WoL also cant understand even with the echo) which makes it doubtful that the Ancients had anything to do with it..at the same time the machines, the androids and the text is in a language that even the dwarves can understand.

The visuals are not great. Its an ugly factory with ugly robots. And other than the last fight, none of the music was something I liked, heck the one that played when we traveled through it again really got on my nerves after a bit of time.

The boss fights left me completely cold. Of course a lot of boss fights in raids are like that but even the visuals and the fights itself were not that fun either. Its just against lots of robots and later one android boy. As someone that did not play NIer nothing in there touched me.

And the worst for me was the lore, the story, and the characters. The most part of the story before the raid was to get the key from a dwarf that is probably not even important to it. (I also found it interesting how the twins ran away from that fight yet are completely fine to go with us into the raid) There is imo nothing great about that. The part in the mines were funny (the bombs) but still kinda lackluster and the introduction to 2P felt the same. Her character is kina non-existent and stayed that way until the end of the raid. For me it also makes no sense why this raid is there...In times were people have flying mounts and airships there is no reason on why this factory was not found. And if it was suddenly just there...shouldnt the dwarves have noticed anything? Did none of those that are in the mines ever thought about opening the door? How was it even possible for 2P and the robots to come out of it? And if it all just breaks down to: We were teleported here by something then I find that to be lame. I also cant see how we will get to our next destinations..will a portal appear and we will just go through? Or will they try to tell us that there is even more land hidden from plain sight?

The only really positive thing for me: The ability to go back in there and explore it and find informations about that place. Sadly even that had a bit of a negative thing too..the information we found just sounds like nothing. Like randoms thoughts and maybe it will mean something to those that played Nier but for me it was another disappointment..But I hope that they use something like that for future raids and dungeon..because if they did all that work just for an "out-of game" raid then I will be kinda angry..lore fans have wanted for a long time to have some more lore ingame and this could be a great way to bring it to us.

I really hope that the next raids can change my opinions on this but right now this on the same line as Omega..fanservice for other games..

Pixie tribe:

Right now this is probably the highlight for me in this patch. The story is awesome and heartwarming, the new playground is beautiful, dreamlike and has great music and I like the new characters. I am really looking forward to seeing more of that story and learning more about the other pixie.

Custom delivery:

So Eulmore needs to change and the first thing we do now is to keep the entertainment business open? In times when they still have to solve the problems of survival for the poor? I am a bit baffled with that..why would people even visit it when seemingly most villages fight against hunger? This does not sound like customers that want to give their money for such entertainment, especially since I am not even sure how these people have money at all..I would have liked it more if we had quests to directly help the people instead of keeping that business alive. (It could be a part of the quests but not the main one)

[EdwinLi]

Custom delivery:

So Eulmore needs to change and the first thing we do now is to keep the entertainment business open? In times when they still have to solve the problems of survival for the poor? I am a bit baffled with that..why would people even visit it when seemingly most villages fight against hunger? This does not sound like customers that want to give their money for such entertainment, especially since I am not even sure how these people have money at all..I would have liked it more if we had quests to directly help the people instead of keeping that business alive. (It could be a part of the quests but not the main one)

There is a importance to it and a very big one if they want to keep up a good moral of the workforce.

A place for entertainment is helping people, even if you don't realize it yet, as there will always be a demand for a place that people can go after a nice hard day of work to relax and forget their worries for a moment before returning back to that work.

In a world where the only thing they can focus on now is to rebuild and resolve past issues now, there is little amount of places left that can provide them a place to relax from the memories and physical labor of rebuilding what their world has a left. It is still a depressing world and psychologically to keep their minds from getting too depressed during these times is a place of entertainment.

Keeping the Bee Hive running is important because it is literally the only place left on the First that acts as a place where people can rest from the days of long hard labor and constant depression of how little is left of their world now as they strive to rebuild from what little survived.

Maintaining a good mental Health is very important for the reconstruction of the First because if people can't sustain a good mental health, they are likely to fall into depression and it will become more difficult to rebuild what is left of the First which is why making the Bee Hive more accessable is important because that will be the place where workers go to recover from the mental stress they experience from their hard labor of rebuilding since not everyone can keep up a good mental state through knowing they did a good long days of hard work alone.

[Crushnight]

Mysterious Figures

With the Ardbert lookalike, there are only a few possibilities I'm seeing:
1. Elidibus has restored and body-jacked his corpse.
2. Another fragment of the Warrior of Light's soul was enlisted by Elidibus to go against us.

Notably he does not have Ardbert's trademark bloodstained "Bravura of Darkness."

The law says 10

Also to note no stubble beard i think this is a warrior of light from another shard possibly another part of us.