Revelations from Patch 7.3: The Promise of Tomorrow

[Raraka]

Cant show spoilers on mobile, this entire thread is unreadable ;n;

[Cilia]

Cant show spoilers on mobile, this entire thread is unreadable ;n;

Refresh the page and you should be able to open the spoilers. Works for me, at least.

[Raraka]

Refresh the page and you should be able to open the spoilers. Works for me, at least.

Today I learned, thank you ;w; ♡

[17cupsofcoffee]

One more MSQ thought:

I'm surprised that the tiara ended up being completely irrelevant to this patch - red herring, or has Chekov's gun still not fired on that? Sphene hasn't worn it yet, after all...

[Cleretic]

MSQ vibes: Overall B+, good-not-great... part of it really dropped the ball.

I feel like someone on the dev team REALLY wanted to go full horror with this one, and the cutscene direction and dungeond esign was REALLY on board with them. ...unfortunately, not everything else was; the music especially feels like it fails to carry that energy. Which is a shame, when this patch is knuckling down on horror vibes with the sentries and Necron it REALLY nails it.

The lab exploration segment is great, it really gives me PS1 Final Fantasy vibes with how they did extended, puzzle-ey non-combat sequences. (I wonder how many people stonewalled themselves with the fact that Wuk Lamat's the one with the keypad code and they refuse to read her dialog.) There's some interesting stuff there regarding the inner workings of Preservation, and I suspect Director Demetrios in particular isn't done yet.

Calyx continues to be firing on all cylinders, and I love that his version of the 'villainous monologue' dungeon is to just dispassionately describe his crimes against humanity in a plan to... not even beat you, just tire you out. Necron was as good an adaptation as I'd hoped--I loved the inclusion of regulator and Meso Terminal visual elements, and the idea of 'killing a god of death only makes it stronger' is SUCH a good one.

...but of course, they throw it all away by bringing back the goddamn Ascians. Frankly, I don't have it in me to be optimistic, to look for a silver lining or possible way this could be interesting: the Ascians were wrung dry as a concept at least one expansion ago, frankly weren't even that interesting before that point, and bringing them back smacks of nothing but desperation.

But also, Echoes of Vana'diel got a new raid! And this one's got some fun lore both in terms of Actual Lore and 'player culture from another, older game' lore.

A quick couple things explained to me by a friend of mine:

• The quest described in the first memo you can find lying around is describing a specific quest, to get what was essentially a relic-tier fishing rod; you had to bring those two characters named ten thousand carp. Naturally, this completely broke the carp market.
• The second fight in particular is here to represent an extremely infamous fight: Ultima and Omega in Chains of Promathia, colloquially called 'the airship fight', is among the most difficult fights in the game, and unlike many of the other hallmark hard fights is a mandatory part of the game's story. The fact that it's even here is a big 'I see you' moment for FFXI players.
• The second half of Eald'narche's fight has the lost capital of Zilart in the background, while the area itself is Lumoria, an area basically dunked into the ocean after the Zilart tried to get too clever; it's basically FFXI's version of The Tempest. ...But as for why they set the fight here instead of IN the capital: this is also where Absolute Virtue spawns. So they found a way to fit in the most legendary boss they can't include.

And as for the lore, I think the way they told Sareel Ja's story is fun: it's non-linear, largely because he doesn't care enough to just TELL us his plan. But, it turns out his Phantom Gulool Ja Ja is actually the FFXI Gulool Ja Ja, and Sareel Ja plans to give him whichever body manages to finally kill us. (Frankly, I think the Shadowlord has made the strongest case so far.) Next up he's gonna try thowing gods at us, so I expect we'll see Promathia.

Sareel Ja also seems to have figured out who Alxaal is; he hasn't said it yet, but that at least confirms there is an answer.

[Carin-Eri]

For Main Story quest.

In the end....

it always goes back to Ascians.

Considering what was said, the one he was talking to was just a messenger. I am curious who is the Winterer and what position was he or she among the Ascian society. Not to mention their goal since it seem these are just the left over members who refused to accept the end result that happened in Endwalker. I am guessing they may be seeking a separate method to bring back their people since the Zodiark plan failed or they always had this second plan developed just incase the Zodiark plan did fail.

I found it strange since Shadowbringer, that they did not have a backup plan incase Zodiark plan failed but guess we are now dealing with their backup plan with the surviving members of the Ascians.

Not to mention Calyx being a low ranking Ascian is a bit unsurprising. Certain things pointed to this but mostly how he knew far too much about things only Ascian can do.

Agreed - that element felt a bit predictable to be honest.

And where the Ascians are concerned, I feel it's a pity that they're still set on using the whole 'lurking in the shadows, manipulating people/events' routine with them. I mean, it was interesting and mysterious in 2.0. Not so much now we know so much about them and their history.

[Zackneifein]

Globally liked it, especially how the WoL was treated in and out of cutscenes.

I'm quite convinced that the Ascians aren't the new/old big bad returning again. I think they are some (all ?) of the remaining Ascians who, now that the Unsundered are gone, joined the Winterers that was an older organisation, maybe / probably from multiple shards peoples.

And I'm also convinced that if there is a "big bad", a leader for the Winterer, it won't be an Ascian, mostly because the Winterer seemed to be older that our defeat of Elidibus, and before that Elidibus was monitoring the Ascian and definitely wouldn't have let them join another organisation or plot against them somehow (like why Fandaniel waited for Elidibus to die to act truely with his grand plan).

So I think the Ascian appearance is just a way to make us think that the Ascian are back again with the same old methods, just to suprise us when we understand that it isn't that at all and while there is some Ascians, the threat is entirely new.

Except for Primals, they are definitely back (and honestly, in Final Fantasy, it was near impossible to not have Primals, it worked a little in Dawntrail but Primals are too much of importance like Eikons in Final Fantasy).

[EdwinLi]

Globally liked it, especially how the WoL was treated in and out of cutscenes.

I'm quite convinced that the Ascians aren't the new/old big bad returning again. I think they are some (all ?) of the remaining Ascians who, now that the Unsundered are gone, joined the Winterers that was an older organisation, maybe / probably from multiple shards peoples.

And I'm also convinced that if there is a "big bad", a leader for the Winterer, it won't be an Ascian, mostly because the Winterer seemed to be older that our defeat of Elidibus, and before that Elidibus was monitoring the Ascian and definitely wouldn't have let them join another organisation or plot against them somehow (like why Fandaniel waited for Elidibus to die to act truely with his grand plan).

So I think the Ascian appearance is just a way to make us think that the Ascian are back again with the same old methods, just to suprise us when we understand that it isn't that at all and while there is some Ascians, the threat is entirely new.

Except for Primals, they are definitely back (and honestly, in Final Fantasy, it was near impossible to not have Primals, it worked a little in Dawntrail but Primals are too much of importance like Eikons in Final Fantasy).

For me there are many possibilities....

Surviving Ascians being the antagonist is certainly one possible outcome since it was strange they had no backup plan if Zodiark plan failed but since we should be exploring more about Azem in this new storyline we could also be seeing something different as well.

Another possibility is that the Winterer could be someone or something much older than the Ascians since their world still had to develop overtime to become what it is.

It could be a completely different group who always had worked separately from the main government in their civilization since while the Ascians in their old civilization was all "united utopia" like, they were clear some of their people still developed separate groups to work on other things and other goals.

It may even be a Antagonist that Azem himself/herself had to defeat during the era of the Old Civilization during his/her own Final Fantasy Journey and has finally returned due to the sundering setting it free.

for now guess we just wait to learn more.

[Zackneifein]

For me there are many possibilities....

It may even be a Antagonist that Azem himself/herself had to defeat during the era of the Old Civilization during his/her own Final Fantasy Journey and has finally returned due to the sundering setting it free.

Man, I would love that far too much, and will be severely disappointed when it will not the case.
And I will hate you for making me think of that.

[Eltdown]

The cutscene technology on display during the MSQ was great! Really enjoyed the technical level of delivery. Unfortunately, I think the writing has been XIV's weakest point through the 6.x series, 7.0 and 7.x series — and that was the case here, too. A bit predictable, a bit mishmashed as it didn't know what to do with most of the Scions. But I think this is something that can be improved in 8.0 with the right lead writer.

In particular, I am intrigued by that final cutscene, which really got me thinking:

Calyx specifically says:
"A rash decision... One perhaps influenced by the others and their developments."

"Be sure our Winterer peers are apprised of the details."

To me, both of these suggest that he's part of a larger group, the "Winterers." Out of curiosity, I looked up the dictionary definition of it to see if there were any double meanings that I wasn't aware of.

Per Merriam-Webster:

winterer
noun
win·​ter·​er ˈwin-tər-ər
: one that winters
specifically : a winter resident or visitor

Typically, this is used in the context of migratory patterns. Someone/something that spends the winter in a particular area.

My current theory is the "Winterers" are an organization of individuals forced to "winter" in the Source for various reasons, who ultimately want to go home. Some might be from reflections that have been rejoined and somehow managed to escape the fate of their worlds. In the case of the Ninth, the rest of the reflection may now be uninhabitable, overwhelmed by lightning aether.

I think this theory could make for an interesting motivation for the Ascian in particular. We know that the Unsundered are gone — and sundered Amon/Fandaniel was from the Source. But what about a sundered Ascian that originally hailed from a rejoined reflection before being restored to office? What if they retained their memories (as Fandaniel did of being Amon) and want, more than anything, for their world to be restored... but instead of the World Unsundered, they long for one of the rejoined reflections?

If that is the goal of the Winterers, Calyx's research on soul and memory transfer could be very relevant to an effort to partition Source souls — isolating the rejoined portion of soul and manipulating memory (locking or unlocking) to restore those that have been rejoined.

Obviously this is just a theory. But it feels like this could make for an interesting parallel and foil to the original Ascians' goals, and neatly bring us into a second saga focusing on the reflections.