Expect more Crystal Tower in Roulette soon...

[technole]

Hopefully every other major side story is made mandatory over time so their plot points can be freely addressed, explored and referenced in future MSQ's.

There is already an alternative conversation with someone in 5.0 when you haven't done CT.

[Cilia]

There is already an alternative conversation with someone in 5.0 when you haven't done CT.

There are a number of differences with the Crystal Exarch depending on whether or not you've completed the Crystal Tower series. Basically any scene pertaining to his true identity and relationship with the PC has an alternate / extended version.

They should at least make Alexander and Omega required too, given how instrumental those stories are to the explanation of how the Crystal Tower is on the First.

[Iscah]

They should at least make Alexander and Omega required too, given how instrumental those stories are to the explanation of how the Crystal Tower is on the First.

They're definitely key to the explanation, but in more of a background way. Missing that understanding doesn't form an actual block to storytelling potential like CT does.

I'd certainly like to see it all made part of the main story, but I can understand why they want to keep it minimal for people progressing through the MSQ.

[Iscah]

There is already an alternative conversation with someone in 5.0 when you haven't done CT.

Yes, but that's exactly the problem.

Instead of being able to build on the events of CT as something that has already definitely happened, the game has to create alternate versions of conversations in case people haven't done it yet. It complicates the storytelling and means that nothing can directly build on the original events, only reference them.

The huge shift here is that forcing the completion of CT removes the question mark over young G'raha Tia's current state. So long as the quest was optional, the story had to remain consistent whether he was asleep in the tower or if you'd never met him. There was no way they could have a plot point where we open the present-day tower again and wake him up, because he might not be in there yet. Now the plot can progress with the certainty that he is in there.

Up to this point, any theorising about 5.3 (for me at least) was based around the fact that we couldn't possibly be seeing young G'raha again because the quest was optional. Now it is going to be mandatory, and that changes the potential entirely.