/r/ffxivdiscussion: Has FFXIV had any major retcons or plot holes in the story?

[Jeeqbit]

There was a retcon which was 1.0. They tried to salvage as much of it as they possibly could, but they didn't manage all of it. They didn't retcon the Circle of Knowing, but they virtually are all doing the same thing with no evolution 5 years later. They redid a lot of the 1.0 fights 5 years later in 2.0 by saying there were remains ie. of Bahamut or recreations or survivors that we didn't know about. They redid the dungeons by just saying they are overrun with creatures again since it's been years.

In most cases, instead of retconning, what they did was to evolve it in the lore. For example, they say that materia used to work differently, but advancements in society meant it was simpler now.

In the case of Lyse (and all the other scions for that matter), they didn't retcon them, but they did have a problem with them, which was that they were all the same. In order to solve this, they made them all disappear at the end of 2.5, to eventually return with unique disabilities or, arguably, super powers.

• Thancred returns with the inability to use magic, thus making him focus on his physical prowess.
• Y'shtola returns blind, thus causing her to use magic to see aether, which becomes something of a super power that helps us greatly in the story.
• Yda returns as Lyse, with a backstory relating the Ala Mhigo.
• Minfilia returns as part of Hydaelyn.
• Urianger was already unique. He was the book guy that knows everything, so required no changes other than maybe to fight.
• They killed off the ones they couldn't do anything else with or make different to Urianger: Papalymo and Moenbryda

All the characters since then are new, including Alphinaud and Alisaie.

"The biggest one is that in ARR there's this one scene with a bunch of ascians plotting or whatever, and I don't remember the details but that scene makes absolutely no sense considering what we know today of them. It's an issue of the devs having no plans for them at the time beyond "evil bad guys doing spooky stuff".

(I think the "retconned" part is that some of the ones present in that scene should be dead by all accounts, and have never appeared in the story beyond that one scene)"

Some of them appear in sidequests, including job quests (for example, you kill a load of Ascians in the Summoner quests, effectively explaining how many of the non-red mask Ascians die). There is also the one in the Eden quests.

As we know, only two red mask Ascians guinely survived the sundering with their full power intact and maybe Elidibus but of course he was a primal by then, so the other red-mask Ascians died like Ardbert did to become souls that inhabit flesh on a shard of their choice but weren't as powerful as the unsundered ones who never died (Lahabrea and Emet).

And the difference between the red-mask and non-red mask Ascians, of course, is purely that the ones with red masks were part of the Convocation. In terms of actual power, the one in the Eden quests wasn't necessarily anymore powerful than the throwaway Ascians we kill in the Summoner quests, aside from Arcane knowledge they would have remembered from being imbued with the memories from their Convocation crystal. Except, of course, they merge with Gaia and have the power of Eden at their disposal which is what makes them as strong as they are.

Let's not forget that even if there were red-masked Ascians that we didn't fight, there were other ways in which they could have died: Shadowhunter, Ardbert and other Warriors of Light on the various shards.

The echo/blessing of light has gone through like three or four significant retcons, from stepping into people's memories to change the past, to just seeing the past/xenoglossy + tempering immunity, to specifically having the power to weaken the servants of darkness.

The Echo allows you to see the past. It allows you to benefit from Hindsight without having any, by seeing their past.

However, what we know of The Echo now is it doesn't necessarily protect you from the aetherial corruption aspect of tempering. You're just less likely to get put into petrified state and walk towards the attack that will temper you because you can Remember who you are and come to.

What protects us from the aetherial corruption is The Blessing of Light, a complete collection of all the elements, something that is replicated by Nidhana to protect everyone, just like we get a specific element to allow Cid to break through Garuda's barrier.

Yet, we tell Arenvald he is safe because he has The Echo. So maybe Hydaelyn did give a lighter blessing still, or maybe primal tempering was never that much of a threat if you were simply a good fighter. The Company of Heroes seem to suggest that if you are just good at being a team, you can defeat a primal even without these gifts (it's not made clear if they have any gifts, I think).

I think the most legitimate retcon here is this. The difference between The Echo and The Blessing having been unclear throughout the game. Effects that are supposed to be granted by The Blessing are sometimes explained by The Echo both in the story and as status effects in battles.