Echoes of Vana'diel Expectations? Hopes?

[Cincierta]

As someone who played FF11 for a long while, I'm expecting some of the most convoluted and complex mechanics and boss fights. UNMARKED EVERYTHING AND GUESS WHAT IT IS!

[Rithy255]

I'm hoping for like good tank glams without pauldrons yes please!

Other then that I don't really care just hope the raids aren't long.

[Powercow]

The Promyvions seem way too obvious of an inclusion for a raid like this. As amusing as it would be, I do hope they aren't gonna sync us down to 30 for them though. (Might be funny to like, give us the level sync debuff and just cut our hp/damage/healing by like 80% for a trash pack or something.)
Plus, the Promyvions are an amalgamation of decaying memories and emotions so they could throw in literally anything from the past into here and it'll work.

A Dynamis-Ul'dah, Dynamis-Limsa, or Dynamis-Gridania would be a fun area to romp through for one of the segments. Imagine fighting a horde of Sahagin next to the Limsa aetheryte. Probably can't call it that though unless they find some way to tie it in to FFXIV's Dynamis.

Aldo has to show up somewhere. The preview graphic is literally the Tavnazian ruins, and the opening of FFXI has Aldo trying to frame the city in his hand. Prishe too, of course. A foul-mouthed little girl dropkicking the bad guy in the head is too great to not include.

Tenzen is another one that I'm fairly certain will appear. They had a whole sidequest during the Tataru questline in EW about Tenzen and his Phoenix Blade that seemed like a random tangent. Personally I think it's Chekhov's Phoenix Blade and it'll be important for this.

Lastly, the Empyreal Paradox is going to be one of the boss rooms. That place is way, way too cool to not put into the game. The Thordan fight did a sort of diet version for a few seconds back in Heavensward, but seeing it in its full glory...

As for gear, stuff like the Kings/Sky Gods sets would be nice (i.e. Shura set for striking, Hecatomb for maiming, Koenig for fending, Dalmatica/Zenith for casters or healers, etc.)

[Luluna]

I am hoping Maat will show up somewhere and I would love to see Prince Luzaf....I would enjoy seeing him <3 and Shadowlord.

As for outfits I would love to see the Dancer AF gear for ranged, and also there was a nice set from campaign called the cobra set which was really pretty along with a BLM set called Igqira Weskit set.

[Kennar]

I am... apprehensive about the whole thing. Just the name, Echos of Vana'diel, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. I've said before that I'm tired of crossovers and tie-ins, which really just amount to nostalgia bait. I have no problem with them bringing over thematic elements and assets from XI and using them in original ways, but I hope they can nail the story instead of it just being, "Remember that cool thing that happened?" I thought Eureka was great for bringing that XI flavor, but in a way that worked in XIV. I think it's a shame the system was completely reworked for BSF, instead of iterated and expanded upon.

A Dynamis-Ul'dah, Dynamis-Limsa, or Dynamis-Gridania would be a fun area to romp through for one of the segments. Imagine fighting a horde of Sahagin next to the Limsa aetheryte. Probably can't call it that though unless they find some way to tie it in to FFXIV's Dynamis.

I can see something like this working and being fun, but only if we had versions of the entire cities to explore and fight in. Give us actual raids and the room to explore, with optional paths and objectives. Unfortunately, the community at-large doesn't seem to go for that sort of thing.


Oh, bring back the Seer's gear. That was always classy AF.

[Jade_Tyrant]

And whether or not you have ever played FFXI, how do you feel about it showing up as a raid?

As someone who's not played FFXI at all, I'm fairly excited; I think it'll be pretty cool to not only see lots of iconic FFXI enemies and bosses, but also to hear/see all the FFXI fans getting excited for all of it. I just want it to feel like it hits the middle-ground between being good at bringing over things from FFXI (basically, "be a crossover that FFXI players will enjoy"), and not feeling incredibly out of place in XIV's world (like NieR was, which I say as a major fan of NieR).

Personally, I like how Ivalice did it (which I admittedly say as someone who never played any of the games set in Ivalice). A good amount of the lore and backstory was very "Ivalice-specific", but it never felt like it was failing to fit within XIV's world and rules despite that. I also had no trouble following along with the narrative, despite having little to no information from the original game(s?) going in.

I'd also be fine with something like the Crystal Tower, which leans more towards the XIV side of things and less towards the 'crossover' side of things, but given its announcement specifically as a crossover, I'm not expecting it to be quite that integrated into XIV's world.

[TaleraRistain]

I didn't play XI (I played EQ from the start and there was no time to try XI when it came out about 3 years after) so I'm hoping we get the XIV version of XI like we got the XIV version of Ivalice. The general Ivalice story is understandable and they've even further integrated it into XIV with the latest raid storyline. And then there were references and easter eggs for those who did play.

I've never seen any XI glam I was really that interested in, but I didn't care for most of the Ivalice and Nier glam either so hopefully XI fans can get everything they want there because it would kind of suck for them if they couldn't get the glam looks like Ivalice and Nier fans did.

[Catwho]

As someone who ran a Dynamis linkshell for three years and got Gjallarhorn to 99, here's my hopes, in no particular order:

* Dynamis style currency that can be traded in for rewards (maybe tying in to the new relic quest)
* Trainable trash mobs, mobs that respond to spells like sleep and stun, or which otherwise allow for proper CROWD CONTROL measures, instead of pure tank and spank
* Maybe an alternate time loop similar to Abyssea or the one in Wings of the Goddess - in this case, a parallel Etherys where the Final Days happened 12K years ago.
* Shantotto. Shantotto. Shantotto. OHOHOHOHO! (Prishe can come too.)
* Goblin and Moblin involvement somehow
* MONSTERS IN YOUR CITIES OH YEAH - Turn the existing city assets into a dungeon! It was so fun. Dynamis-Gridania, Dynamis-Limsa, Dynamis-Ul'dah

I'm also with you guys on wanting XI style glams. Specifically mage pants instead of dresses. I'd like the Nobles Tunic. We already got Vermillion Cloak, but the healer's Nobles Tunic was one we never got. Oh, and Dalmatica for casters.

[Cidel]

Hopes:
- Visiting iconic, nostalgic locations (even if it's on "rails" as paths between bosses).
- A few "all job/DoW/DoM" coffers with iconic gear sets in a similar vein to FFXI Eureka things like Vermillion cloaks.
- I wouldn't mind bonus gear sets with classic job-specific AF for the (relevant) jobs. Maybe coffer drops (for replayability)? Bought with tokens? Gil? Quite frankly, IDC if there's no PIC/VPR/SGE/RPR/GNB/AST FFXI equivalents. Or just give them different XI jobs that don't have a XIV equivalent: GNB can have Rune Fencer, RPR can have PUP, VPR can have THF, AST can have GEO because tHeYrE BaSiCaLlY tHe SaMe ThInG, SGE can have SCH or WHM's Empyrean AF, PIC can have... I dunno, BLU's Empyrean AF or something...
- Actual raid drops being unique, role-specific models. None of this: "healers get a Noble's tunic set and casters get a black version that never existed." Or "casters get a Morrigan's robe and healers get a white version that never existed" nonsense. Like, you want to impress me devs? Make sure every role has a different FFXI gear set, not like how you did us dirty in FFT Ivalice raids by giving things like Mystic/Oracle's iconic robes for healers but casters somehow get a white, recolor that didn't come from anything. Though, similar models like the Blessed vs the Seer set would be fine.

(My hopes are mostly gear/glamour-centric, because quite frankly that's pretty much only all that ever matters nowadays.)

Expectations:
- A few special, hand-picked NPCs to be central figures for whatever the story is. The rest will be cameo-appearance only at best. To be fair, a lot of XI story NPCs were rather generic anyway.
- Use a handful of FFXI mobs in the raid itself. Probably will see the original trifecta of beastmen as trash mobs or something somewhere. Naturally, they will probably use iconic bosses with special models to be raid bosses.
- The raid drops will probably disappoint a couple roles as usual. As maiming/ fending/ striking/ scouting/ aiming/ healing/ casting tend to have at least two roles being color-swaps. Might be mitigated with dyable status and now two dye channels. To be fair, there were a lot of gear that could be used both by healers and casters.
- Failing that, also the possibility that the selected raid gear for roles will just flat-out clash with all but 1 job. like giving ranged DPS DNC or BRD's classic AF1 to be shared across all 3 ranged jobs. Or giving BLM's AF1 gear to be shared across all 4 casters... I would hope that they avoid that, but the Ivalice raids cause me to be concerned.

[GTK0HLK]

I'm hoping for like good tank glams without pauldrons yes please!

Other then that I don't really care just hope the raids aren't long.

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