Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[Papayatar]

What sucks is 7.0 was an opportunity to appease both groups of players. Some key characters (Gulool Ja Ja, Koana, etc...) could've acknowledged the WoL's place in stopping the Final Days (probably should be called something else in Tulilloyal) but pretty much nobody else would've had knowledge of who we are. Instead, people turning into monsters and going on a rampage aren't acknowledged at all, which just felt cheap and lazy.

At least regarding the Final Days not reaching Tural, wasn’t it implied to have only hit specific locations and we stopped it from spreading into a Global event.

Like my memory could be wrong, but wasnt essentially that Thavnir was the epicenter of the start of the final days and things branched out from there. Cuz like aether travels around the world in a web like system, so when Final Days started there it slowly “bled” outward using that web?

And Thavnir is essentially Middle East so anything nearby that was East of it (Othard) was affected. And it branched out West far enough to affect everyone (with blasphemies) except Sharlayan. Sharlayan is farther Northwest and given Tural is even further West, it makes sense they didn’t experience anything because we were able to stop the Final Days before it became a Global issue.

Though I will say, I’d think at least Koana should have been aware of the Final Days. I feel like they made it seem like he’s back and forth between Tural and Sharlayan often so he should have known something about the Final Days. And he could have been used as someone to explain how Tural wasn’t affected (or maybe it was minorly affected like only the sky changed for a real short time).

[lolnotacat]

At least regarding the Final Days not reaching Tural, wasn’t it implied to have only hit specific locations and we stopped it from spreading into a Global event.

Like my memory could be wrong, but wasnt essentially that Thavnir was the epicenter of the start of the final days and things branched out from there. Cuz like aether travels around the world in a web like system, so when Final Days started there it slowly “bled” outward using that web?

And Thavnir is essentially Middle East so anything nearby that was East of it (Othard) was affected. And it branched out West far enough to affect everyone (with blasphemies) except Sharlayan. Sharlayan is farther Northwest and given Tural is even further West, it makes sense they didn’t experience anything because we were able to stop the Final Days before it became a Global issue.

Though I will say, I’d think at least Koana should have been aware of the Final Days. I feel like they made it seem like he’s back and forth between Tural and Sharlayan often so he should have known something about the Final Days. And he could have been used as someone to explain how Tural wasn’t affected (or maybe it was minorly affected like only the sky changed for a real short time).

If that's the direction they wanted to go, then it really deserved some lines because it just seemed like an oversight.

Thavnir was the epicenter of the start of the final days and things branched out from there.

My issue with that is at some point when they were talking about Zodiark's protection, they were explaining that the flow of aether was uneven and like rivers, they would be uneven with currents.

But it really seems like a mistake to go that route in the first place. There should've been time spent dealing with the aftermath of the Final Days, and it could've been used as a good plot device for some things in the Dawntrail story. Random storm that knocked out the roads and the ruined the Hanu Hanu festival? OK I guess, but having to clean up a couple small blasphemies and help rebuild would probably make the world seem more alive. Mamook becoming extra desperate? Well Blasphemies ruining their already hard to farm lands would do that. Valigarmanda's seal weakening? I think you can see where I'm going here. I think it would've been a good opportunity for us to see how the world reacted to a calamity. Plus it would've given Wookie actual opportunities to have conflict and character growth beyond Alpacas and Tacos.

[Vensaval]

What sucks is 7.0 was an opportunity to appease both groups of players. Some key characters (Gulool Ja Ja, Koana, etc...) could've acknowledged the WoL's place in stopping the Final Days (probably should be called something else in Tulilloyal) but pretty much nobody else would've had knowledge of who we are. Instead, people turning into monsters and going on a rampage aren't acknowledged at all, which just felt cheap and lazy.

Goodness, I was so tuned out of the story I completely forgot about the Final Days. It wasn't even mentioned in a single line, was it? Not even a throwaway thing like a Scion saying it appears the lands of Tural were spared from the event. Which narratively makes no sense to me how something of that scale wasn't acknowledged by a single person in the entirety of DT.

Unless I missed/forgot something?

[Papayatar]

If that's the direction they wanted to go, then it really deserved some lines because it just seemed like an oversight.



My issue with that is at some point when they were talking about Zodiark's protection, they were explaining that the flow of aether was uneven and like rivers, they would be uneven with currents.

But it really seems like a mistake to go that route in the first place. There should've been time spent dealing with the aftermath of the Final Days, and it could've been used as a good plot device for some things in the Dawntrail story. Random storm that knocked out the roads and the ruined the Hanu Hanu festival? OK I guess, but having to clean up a couple small blasphemies and help rebuild would probably make the world seem more alive. Mamook becoming extra desperate? Well Blasphemies ruining their already hard to farm lands would do that. Valigarmanda's seal weakening? I think you can see where I'm going here. I think it would've been a good opportunity for us to see how the world reacted to a calamity. Plus it would've given Wookie actual opportunities to have conflict and character growth beyond Alpacas and Tacos.

I’m assuming since we got the “how aethercurrents work without Zodiark’s protection” explanation in the previous expansion they just assumed we didn’t need more of it? If they wanted to do more with it then post Final Days should have had more about the aftermath and who was/wasn’t affected to drive home more of how it didn’t branch out as much as it seemed for something called the Final Days.

That would have probably delayed the Golbez and Zero plots though or if not then when Wuk Lamat first came to scout us we could have had a, hey I know you’re here for something else but did where you come from have any unusual unexplained happenings or nah? But I feel they really didn’t want to retread that plot at all so it’s just not brought up since Tural was not hit by it at all.

Honestly we don’t need Final Days or Blasphemies in Tural, but we needed more than Beast Tribe MSQ edition. The aftermath of the storm or the crop issue for Hanu Hanu doesn’t need Blasphemies on top of that or to make it interesting. But having us actually do more than rebuild a festival float would have been nice. Like maybe we help move debris or get materials for rebuilding homes and structures. Or go forage or get food and supplies resources from the Tulliyolal to help with recovery post storm and current food crisis.

Then it could be used as Wuk Lamat figuring out how to get resources to a location after a natural disaster. Figuring out the magical float thing could have been the last thing to do after all the other things were taken care of. Then it wouldn’t look so weird to show up and be like, well a disaster just happened guess and their crops are dying guess we should party the sad away.

[Fiel_Tana]

Devs got tired of complaints about hats on Viera and Hrothgar. From now on you ONLY ever play as a Hrothgar in a hat. One single Hrothgar. One single hat. Square Enix starts selling Wuk Lamat NFTs. All the money from ffxiv and NFTs goes towards making Forspoken sequels, except the main character is also Wuk Lamat.

OMG! The foreshadowing for this was right in front of us the entire time.

Wuk Lamat: "I love peace"
W L ☮
W☮L

[Allegor]

In hindsight, a few things could've easily been blamed on the Final Days. The hanu fields getting their aether stagnant, the big sudden offscreen storm that hit half the region some time before we arrived, Valigarmanda's seal getting weaker...

The fall of the Garlean empire reached Tural, there's no way they didn't hear about a literal apocalypse happening shortly after.

[Mnemy]

What sucks is 7.0 was an opportunity to appease both groups of players. Some key characters (Gulool Ja Ja, Koana, etc...) could've acknowledged the WoL's place in stopping the Final Days (probably should be called something else in Tulilloyal) but pretty much nobody else would've had knowledge of who we are. Instead, people turning into monsters and going on a rampage aren't acknowledged at all, which just felt cheap and lazy.

SPEAKING OF THE FINAL DAYS...

WHY IS TURAL NOT AFFECTED BY IT AT ALL???

IS IT WUK LAMAT'S OPTIMISM SERVING AS A FORCEFIELD TO SHIELD THE PEOPLE OF TURAL FROM BEING AFFECTED BY IT???

Joking aside, for continuity's sake I wish they had an area in a zone or a zone where it was affected by the Final Days specially in the Mamool Ja area...

[Lady_Silvermoon]

The fall of the Garlean empire reached Tural, there's no way they didn't hear about a literal apocalypse happening shortly after.

Because it didn't, really. The sky went black in two places, Garlemald and Thavnair and we fixed it in like a day.

[Papayatar]

SPEAKING OF THE FINAL DAYS...

WHY IS TURAL NOT AFFECTED BY IT AT ALL???

IS IT WUK LAMAT'S OPTIMISM SERVING AS A FORCEFIELD TO SHIELD THE PEOPLE OF TURAL FROM BEING AFFECTED BY IT???

Joking aside, for continuity's sake I wish they had an area in a zone or a zone where it was affected by the Final Days specially in the Mamool Ja area...

I know it’s a joke but honestly if the DT MSQ explained it was essentially that, Id just accept it. I wouldn’t be happy but it’d be par for the course with how the story went lol

Though I think the issue with the Final Days and continuation with that plot is that no one else has said anything. It didn’t need to affect Tural at all, but like I said it’s, at minimum, Koana didn’t say something even if it was like a throw away line to bolster why he wanted to push more innovation on Tural. Or not even Koana, but WoL and Co during the Tulliyollal tour could have mentioned something about it. Whether it be from a curiosity standpoint or a thank god we can chill and not worry about that coming up at all.

Tural doesn’t get a lot of outside visitors but it’s not like they get 0 either. And Sharlayan being where we leave from there’s gotta be others who know a bit the final days.

In hindsight, a few things could've easily been blamed on the Final Days. The hanu fields getting their aether stagnant, the big sudden offscreen storm that hit half the region some time before we arrived, Valigarmanda's seal getting weaker...

The fall of the Garlean empire reached Tural, there's no way they didn't hear about a literal apocalypse happening shortly after.

Honestly I think it’s good that those issues were not specifically domino effects from final days. Plus final days stuff seemed to specifically affect the people themselves not so much causing storms, absorbing aether, or weakening seals. The story just wasn’t presented well so things just happened cuz the writer said it had to happen, just like Bird ex Machina so Wuk could save the red Giants.

It happened because they needed to move the story from point A to point B without any further thought for stuff like being interesting or proper storytelling, or even gameplay.

[ZXN]

-Snip

-Double Snip

-Triple Snip

They could've, and should've, used the Final Days...if they actually delivered with the event in Endwalker. In Shadowbringers the Final Days were painted as this seemingly massive apocalyptic event, so much so that many of the ancients had to give themselves up to summon Zodiark, and even then the best it could do was just halt it instead of completely stop it. Unfortunately, Endwalker painted the final days as a minor inconvenience to us and pretty much everyone else by having it only affect Garlemald and Thavnair, with some small traces being felt in the other places with some blasphemies that you don't even have to worry about unless you do the role quests. We solved something that pretty much annihilated all of the ancients in a single day like it was no big deal. So for Dawntrail, there just wasn't really anything to use involving the Final Days given it was written as a "one and done, now moving on" plot progresser.

Granted, Dawntrail is just "FF14 WoL's greatest hits collection", so wouldn't be surprised if the attack on Tuliyollal that Wuk goes through is just her "Blasphemies attack Thavnair" moment.