Revelations from Patch 6.4: The Dark Throne

[Tehmon]

Small MSQ rant.

I just loooove beating bad guys in trials only for them to win regardless! /s

When Golbez said '' you won the battle, but I won the war '' I was groaning. We beat his ass and he suffers no clear consequences for it. Like yeah we're in the void and we can't kill him but maybe we can at least like, keep him exhausted and occupied while saving Azdaja, ANYTHING really. DO SOMETHING SUCCESSFULLY, PLEASE. At least Zodiark had the good grace of killing himself while claiming his victory over us. This was just pure ass. The sad thing is I was thinking before the trial that oh, they aren't going to do the whole '' my defeat seals my victory '' thing again, we had that with Zodiark. But no. Void nonsense continues smh. I was looking forward to leaving it all behind.

[Carin-Eri]

Small MSQ rant.

I just loooove beating bad guys in trials only for them to win regardless! /s

When Golbez said '' you won the battle, but I won the war '' I was groaning. We beat his ass and he suffers no clear consequences for it. Like yeah we're in the void and we can't kill him but maybe we can at least like, keep him exhausted and occupied while saving Azdaja, ANYTHING really. DO SOMETHING SUCCESSFULLY, PLEASE. At least Zodiark had the good grace of killing himself while claiming his victory over us. This was just pure ass. The sad thing is I was thinking before the trial that oh, they aren't going to do the whole '' my defeat seals my victory '' thing again, we had that with Zodiark. But no. Void nonsense continues smh. I was looking forward to leaving it all behind.

Totally agree - as said in another thread:

I'll confess it annoyed me - I mean, I know there is probably some justification for it in terms of maintaining story progression... but two tropes came into play, which I found really irritating.
The first one was the classic 'Evil Gloating' trope. I mean, Golbez was on his knees, Azdaja - whilst still corrupted - was free of her cage and his control. His weapon had dissolved. Great! So what do we do? We let Golbez monologue at us.
Sorry - we should have booted his sorry ass down the abyss. Yeah, I guess that wouldn't work in terms of keeping the story going but I'm a little tired of this trope - a trope that Disney's 'The Incredibles' outright mocked - being used like this.
To be honest, it felt like a damn turn-based RPG game situation.

The second really ties into the first - the victory fakeout. Where it looks as if we've won but said assumed victory is snatched away (in this case, at least in part, because we decided that standing around listening to Golbez monologue at us was a good idea) and the situation takes a turn for the worst to the point of "oh no - we're powerless against this threat that we totally could've prevented! Run away, back to the Source!"
Run away. Again. No doubt so another convoluted contingency plan can be made.

[17cupsofcoffee]

Totally agree - as said in another thread:

I'll confess it annoyed me - I mean, I know there is probably some justification for it in terms of maintaining story progression... but two tropes came into play, which I found really irritating.
The first one was the classic 'Evil Gloating' trope. I mean, Golbez was on his knees, Azdaja - whilst still corrupted - was free of her cage and his control. His weapon had dissolved. Great! So what do we do? We let Golbez monologue at us.
Sorry - we should have booted his sorry ass down the abyss. Yeah, I guess that wouldn't work in terms of keeping the story going but I'm a little tired of this trope - a trope that Disney's 'The Incredibles' outright mocked - being used like this.
To be honest, it felt like a damn turn-based RPG game situation.

The second really ties into the first - the victory fakeout. Where it looks as if we've won but said assumed victory is snatched away (in this case, at least in part, because we decided that standing around listening to Golbez monologue at us was a good idea) and the situation takes a turn for the worst to the point of "oh no - we're powerless against this threat that we totally could've prevented! Run away, back to the Source!"
Run away. Again. No doubt so another convoluted contingency plan can be made.

Agree with all of this.

I think the main thing that bugs me is that it wouldn't be particularly hard to write around the "you win the trial, but he still gets what he wants" - have him catch us unawares (while we're mid-echo at OG-Golbez's grave?), yeet Azdaja into the pit, and then battle us to stall while she's being transformed into Zeromus. That'd leave us in exactly the same place, without making the WoL look like a chump for letting the bad guy monologue.

I suppose the only downside of that is Golbez wouldn't get his sick dragon-sword

[Lyth]

Lots of revelations from this one.

Pandaemonium:

I enjoyed the story overall, although there are some gaps that I still am left wondering about. In particular, it would be nice to know how Azem predicted our arrival on Elpis. I also wish that there were more details around what happened in the past after Abyssos, especially from Lahabrea and Elidibus' perspectives, especially after Elidibus was planning on speaking further with Azem about what they had foreseen, although there are probably opportunities to expand on this in short stories.

The P11 arena is fairly interesting, with 14 Convocation seats, and Lahabrea/Mateus' full glyph present on a couple of pillars (presumably due to his position as Speaker).


The biggest surprise was around auracite, and the optional reference to Ultima, the High Seraph. I'm glad that the concept is tied to something external to Amaurot, as it creates fresh opportunities for story potential and another potential threat external to Etheirys.

It will be really interesting to see what comes of P12S phase 2. While we've already seen Ultima represented in the story, I'll be curious to see if Athena's corruption through the Heart of Sabik gets linked back to the Lucavi with her final form.

MSQ:

What I really find interesting about this segment is the manner in which Golbez introduces Zeromus as an ancient 'hero'. It's likely that his introduction is intended as homage to FFIV alone. But all this talk about auracite had me thinking - Zeromus the Condemner was also incidentally a Scion of Darkness in FFXII. Perhaps there's another angle to this as well? There's also the question around the auracite which Goldbez was looking after, which fell into Zeromus, and whether that will have any significance in the upcoming battle.

Are there any other ways that the spice scene can play out? Do all the spice options knock out all the patrons? I thought it was a clever touch to force the player to first sample whatever choice they recommended to Zero.

Also, who on Etheirys looks at an unopen letter, wonders about it, and then decides to get back to it later?

Since Endwalker, I've stopped playing on Tuesday (which is a heavy work day for me anyway) and started streaming new content the upcoming weekend after anyone who cares about my opinion has finished it and can follow along. I'll get back to the discussion after my lorebrary is updated...

Don't forget to update your 6.3 comments... ;3

[Carin-Eri]

Agree with all of this.

I think the main thing that bugs me is that it wouldn't be particularly hard to write around the "you win the trial, but he still gets what he wants" - have him catch us unawares (while we're mid-echo at OG-Golbez's grave?), yeet Azdaja into the pit, and then battle us to stall while she's being transformed into Zeromus. That'd leave us in exactly the same place, without making the WoL look like a chump for letting the bad guy monologue.

I suppose the only downside of that is Golbez wouldn't get his sick dragon-sword

Another matter that bothers me, actually:

Why do we only take Vrtra with us? It was both stated and demonstrated that the void gate was large enough to accommodate Dragons - it had to be since, regardless of what shape Vrtra's involvement took, the plan was to bring Azdaja back.
So why only him? I find it very difficult to believe that Hraesvelgr and/or Tiamat would've declined a call for help from Vrtra under the circumstances. And surely they heard Vrtra's call or sensed her aether (6.3) - wouldn't they be curious as to what that was all about?