What's with Y'shtola's vision?

[Kolsykol]

Depends on how much time you want to say has passed in the time bubble. As more than once has the game said that this or that will take a month. Part of the reason people get grumpy about her eye sight not bothering her as the devs seem to acknowledge that it's a thing when they remember it while not having it seem to place any strain on her. Heck they've showed us how hampered Thancred is from no longer being able to teleport or really use his own aether. Yet she who has gone and used flow twice seems to not be as hampered.

She was only gone for a very short while the second time, she was brought back almost immediately.
The way I interpreted it was that the longer you stay the higher the risks, which was why we were in a rush to get her back when we found out what happened.
Thancred just made it out worse than she did the first time.
He got more unlucky.

I agree to some extent that there wasn't much of a consequence to it in effect.
But I also don't think that there was meant to be a directly noticable one like with Thancred, I think they just wanted to kinda leave that as a thing that yeah she's back but her lifespan was drastically shortened.
Not in the sense that she'll die because of it ingame but just to make you feel like there was a cost.

I don't really think that we need to see it happen, at least imo.
It's like if you were playing a RPG and a character got cancer from some radiation event, I don't think that it needs to be sped up and that the character needs to develop cancer and die from it on-screen.
The implications I got was that Y'shtola is going to die or at least weaken a lot and have to stop doing it and go totally blind at some point, but not necessarily on-screen and during the time that the game takes place in ( unless she survives and there is a time-skip ).

[Jandor]

I just assumed her aether-vision has a limited range, it's fine for day to day use, sometimes even better than seeing using light, but the stars are simply too far away to sense using whatever method she's using.

[Kolsykol]

I just assumed her aether-vision has a limited range, it's fine for day to day use, sometimes even better than seeing using light, but the stars are simply too far away to sense using whatever method she's using.

This is actually a really good point I didn't consider.

[TheMightyMollusk]

So basically she's magically near-sighted.

[Vidu]

I recall a similar discussion in the lore-forum quite a while back - with the premise being "Why cant she see the night sky, but could see things like the ink?".

My personal theory is and was that her aether vision works a bit like "thermal vision" - I imagine what she sees looks like what a thermal camera would see, but instead of picking up temperature, shes picking up aether and sees everything in vage, colorful "ather-shapes" (seeing how ink/paint can be magically infused, she should be able to see the paitings that way as well).
But those are not "pretty" images. Its enough to get by, but a lot of the "beauty" or "atmosphere" is lost. Just compare a thermal vision image with a "normal" one - you might get all the important information about what is where, but it doesnt look as nice. (I'm currently re-watching "Night on Earth" on Netflix and while the heat vision cameras are cool, lions dont look as majestic in those pictures, compared to ones in daylight).

In regards to the night sky its not about the information, its about the atmosphere, beauty and feeling of it. Even if she can see the aether signiature of the stars and get an idea of the night sky being back, its going to be a very different experience than actually "seeing" it - she can see the information, but not the beauty, so to speak. Thats why shes asking Urianger to describe it to her. The night sky means so much more than just "There is darkness. There are stars.", specially to the people she spent so much time with that just getting the information is not enough. Maybe one could compare it to reading a science paper about stars to reading a poem about stars? She only gets the science paper, but she (also) wants the poem - so shes asking someone to read it for her.


Edit: Found the old thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-shtola-s-eyes

[Liam_Harper]

This here. Also, though Matoya did say that, there was no timeline given. It could simply mean she'll leave 5 years less then the average lifespan of her kind. It's not something that actually has to be directly addressed in the story itself.

They do deliberately mention it takes a toll on her lifeforce though, in story telling it would be strange to mention something like that and do nothing with it. I expect it will come up again, there have been plenty of things in the story they've brought up, then concluded several expansions later or more.

I doubt they'd kill her off, she's in enough of the story to have plot armor at this stage, but my guess would be it will start showing effect when it comes to the final battles in Endwalker. That's sure to be a lot of strain.

[Adeacia]

They do deliberately mention it takes a toll on her lifeforce though, in story telling it would be strange to mention something like that and do nothing with it. I expect it will come up again, there have been plenty of things in the story they've brought up, then concluded several expansions later or more.

I doubt they'd kill her off, she's in enough of the story to have plot armor at this stage, but my guess would be it will start showing effect when it comes to the final battles in Endwalker. That's sure to be a lot of strain.

I've seen plenty of stories have situations like this, but it doesn't take its toll until after the story ends. Says what happens to them during the ending. Wild Arms 4 is an example. One character has some kind of condition that will kill her sooner rather than later. It's brought up many times in the story, and during the ending it explains that she only lives for a few years after the story concludes. The Suikoden series is also good for this kind of thing. During the ending it shows what happened to every single one of the possible 108 characters you actually recruited after the story ended.

While it's true that being this is an mmo that format may not work quite as well unless its done properly, it's still a thing that can be done.

[ReynTime]

I don't give them that much credit. I'm convinced it's a writing oversight.

[Jandor]

I don't give them that much credit. I'm convinced it's a writing oversight.

I think I recall that in the Japanese version the way it's phrased is far less severe sounding than the English version. More 'that's not a very healthy thing to do' rather than 'OMG you're using up your life-force.'

[Maxilor]

Funny how I just got to this cutscene in game and was wondering the exact same thing.

And then this thread appears before me. Serendipity!