Thread: 3.1 MSQ Reaction [SPOILERS]

To be honest, going into this patch I was very worried that I might be disappointed with developments, especially with regards to the Scions. Like a lot of people, I expected one Scion to be brought back per major number patch, but after an interview I'd read I was a bit worried that not everyone was going to make it back alive. Thankfully, this patch has gone above and beyond for me in many ways:

1. Most importantly for me, Thancred is back! The fact that he got a new look was not surprising, but the look itself was, though I quickly got used to it and in fact, it fits his roguish personality rather better than his simple tunic did. It took me a while to notice that Thancred got a tan and that his eyes went from olive to blue, but both changes are pretty good. I always did think that boy could use some color, especially since he was remarkably pale for someone who spent so much time in Ul'dah. His attitude regarding pretty much everything was completely expected, right down to his dismissal of his injuries. It also makes perfect sense for someone with his skills to be quite remarkable at surviving on his own. Given the Forelands' relative proximity to the Sharlayan colony, he probably also knew something of his surroundings. Also not a huge surprise that someone like him would be making his comeback in a fight rather than being rescued per se. And I was very glad to see that his priorities were his comrades, not Ishgard, and that he went straight to worrying about Minfilia upon learning that she was not with us. That's the Thancred I know and love. Unlike us, he has his head screwed on right.

2. Not too much focus was placed on Ishgard, least of all to the detriment of our search for our friends. That was a huge relief. I'm simply not a fan of Estinien, and imo he had his fate coming to him. Emphasis needs to be put back where it belongs: on our friends. We need to stop being babysitters for the Ishgardians.

3. More news were had about the other Scions. This was a delightful surprise, to be seeing Yda and Papalymo and having most of the people at Rising Stones give us news not only about them but also about Hoary and F'lhaminn being in Thavnair.

4. Though there was not much, the few bits of new music we had were just excellent! I'm really looking forward to a HW OST now, and feel that most of the two EPs had largely unremarkable music.

5. Alisaie is back, and what a great way to bring her back into the main scenario!

6. The introduction of the Warriors of Darkness was both amusing and impressive to me. The whole being dressed all in black is a bit stereotypical but their fight, and Thancred holding his own against the warrior, was pretty great to see. And speaking of new characters, Krile is quite the riot: not only is she interesting and intelligent, but she also snarks like a pro and has both the Echo *and* Blessing of Light.

Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

I don't know why people keep thinking the WODs are primals or that the WOL him/herself is a primal. Considering how a primal being around ain't exactly subtle when they're just around, you would think at least one of the scions would have taken notice or that we'd be sucking the land dry everywhere we go. Don't give me that we're (including the WODs) are somehow special enough to be a primal, but without the negative aspects.

Actually, if you play with japanese voiceover, Krile says the word "tempered" somewhere in the sentence where, in english, she's referring to something about the Warriors of Darkness feeling off. My understanding, admittedly limited, was that she was saying something along the lines that they felt like tempereds. Aside from being convinced by Elidibus to join the Ascians' cause, which imo isn't likely given their aggressive aversion to them in that Echo of them, their being tempered by Zodiark could be one explanation for their sudden change in allegiances.

Originally Posted by Mykaelus

So in FFXIV, we have the original Warriors of Light, whose names and faces have been forgotten after the Calamity and Louisoux's time nonsense, only to be replaced by the new Warriors of Light.

I personally don't buy into that. Regardless of whether you're a new or old player, it seems clear to me that the lore intends your character to have been a returned warrior in 2.0. That whole cutscene with the Scions while you're escaping Praetorium, that for a legacy player is the Scions remembering your character. Outside of that context, that cutscene makes no sense, actually. Too flashy for just spotting you coming out of Praetorium. As 2.0 is a continuation of 1.0, it makes more sense to assume that all player characters, legacy or not, are returned and forgotten warriors.

Originally Posted by Alice_89th

As long as we don't get another Ul'Dah moment where

We get yanked out of our quest for peace with the dragons to discover that the Sultana is still alive, only to then return to our quest and never say a word about it again

[...]

Because that is what being suddenly told to go to Ul'dah felt like to me. Like I suddenly got shot way of course and then pushed back again like nothing ever happened.

To me, what always felt off-course in the first place was staying in Ishgard as long as we did. We definitely had more important priorities, such as finding our friends, and putting that on the backburner felt like a huge mistake. If you think of the events that took place in Ishgard, they probably covered a number of months in total, and that seems like a rather unacceptable amount of time to be ignoring our friends in favor of these lazy strangers who can't even be bothered to deal with their own problems themselves. I was actually surprised that Y'shtola stuck (and is still sticking) with us. Thancred's attitude of simply going home after the Ishgard business was done made much more sense to me. I wish my character was doing the same thing. At the very least though, I did visit Rising Stones and got some nice news from a number of people there.

Originally Posted by Pinkie_Pie

IF you were a 1.0 player, you were *ALONE* and walked to your *city* you listed and were on your road to become the next "champion" of the light.

If you were a new player, aka the 2.0 player, you are not a vet from the battle, instead you are some nobody on his road to glory/fame or whatever you chosen only to later down the road to become the next champion of light and having no idea you had these powers "the echo" and so on in the story and was told this.

That's the way the game is set up, so that both legacy and non-legacy players can understand what the heck is going on at the beginning, but lore-wise, this doesn't make much sense. What *does* make sense is that every player character is actually a forgotten warrior who has returned and, by the end of 2.0, been remembered.

In case someone says "Well the scions don't know who you were if you were blah blah blah after helping them in 1.0" that my friend is a plothole because something they didn't have time to add in due to time.

Actually, it's not a plothole. As a legacy player, you get little extra bits in most of your cutscenes with the Scions (where they mention that you seem familiar), and the one that's shown of them waiting for you to exit Praetorium has them remembering your character. The reason they don't remember you during the entirety of 2.0 up to that point is because what Louisoix did to you in porting you out of Carteneau affected every non-Echo-user's memory of not just you, but every warrior of light who was there.

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Confusion about Hydaelyn's Gifts (Please Send Help, I am Dying)
Back in 2.5, Midgardsormr's actions made us draw a distinction between the Echo and the blessing of Light, but don't the conversations with Krile muddy our theories a bit? Remember how Krile says she was saved thanks to the blessing of Light and Alphinaud immediately equates it with the Echo? ... What?

My opinion is that both the Echo and the Blessing of Light are aspects of Hydaelyn. Hydaelyn and Zodiark can likely both give their own Blessing, just as both can gift people with the Echo, which is just a god's version of being possessive of their followers. Alphinaud's line might be a mistranslation, or also it could be that Krile's explanation in the original japanese mentions that she has both the Echo and the Blessing of Light and the translation of her lines was unclear. Either way, I think anyone can be given the Echo, but only a select few will get the Blessing. None of the Scions have either except for Minfilia (and ourselves). Alphinaud's assumption, if not a mistranslation, is probably just that one who has the Blessing of Light also naturally has the Echo, which makes sense if you think of the Echo as being a weaker version of the Blessing (with slightly different functions). So, you can have the Echo without the Blessing but you can't have the Blessing without being an Echo user. Another thing: Alphinaud, as well as the other Scions, may well be ignorant of the player character and Minfilia having the Blessing. Minfilia's explanations to you only mention the Echo, after all, and her Path of the Twelve also focused solely on Echo users. The Blessing may never have been brought up to the Scions (they could even have assumed that the Echo was what protected the Waking Sands and Rising Stones from the Ascians), so they may be completely ignorant of it. It even makes sense in light of 2.55 events: none of them assume that you have a super power that will protect the Scions against all evil, and they rely on you purely for defeating the Primals.

I'm still trying to suss it all out, what it is then that makes us different (and something must, Midgardsormr didn't care that we had the Echo, he was furious about us being "Her champion"). The blessing is still seemingly different than the Echo, but (at this moment) I think what's going on is that [Echo & Blessing] are potentially linked even when [Champion] is not included - that I had previously lumped aspects of [Blessing] in with [Champion] and failed to make the third distinction.

Given the complete difference in personality between japanese and english Midgarsormr, I'm going to have to ask which version of him you're referring to here when you say he was furious. From what I remember of the japanese version, he was merely surprised.

Krile says that Hydaelyn bestows a Crystal of Light upon many who are gifted with the Echo, which fits with Ysayle. Yet the Ascians make a big deal out of the fact that we have a bunch of them - that they are drawn to us - that we can interfere with the aetherial realm to manifest them. Perhaps that is the third tier. There are people who are gifted with the Echo, chosen warriors best suited to bear Crystals of Light (and through them, the blessing), and then there is the Warrior of Light, with a few other perks (and much more power).

Those with the Blessing are able to get Crystals, and the more powerful you are, the more Crystals you get. Seems to make sense.

Thancred
At first glance, I thought the Thancred thing was ridiculous - that he was, like, the direct-to-video unofficial sequel of himself. Upon reflection, however, that assessment was colored by the scene with the Warriors of Darkness (more on that in a moment). We learned in 2.00 that the smooth, confident bard we thought we knew actually puts himself under too much pressure, cares too much what people think, and doesn't like receiving assistance. He's not going to tell anyone that he's helpless to find his friends because he - an Archon of Sharlayan - can't work a simple teleport anymore. You throw that guy naked into the forelands with no MP and that's exactly how things are gonna end up.

Not only that, but he had every reason to treat strangers with at least a healthy dose of suspicion, especially given what happened with not-so-stranger Ul'dahns only recently. Not to mention that a guy like him is probably aware that he has a reputation as a Scion and might be a recognizable face.

The Warriors of Darkness
That was bizarre. First things first - we saw normal Derplander in the Echo, throwing some hefty weight behind the theory that Derplander (Player Symbol and Individual) has split into Darklander (Individual) and DRGlander (Player Symbol). He treats the Warrior of Light like they're last year's model, like they've got a lot of catching up to do on "The Truth." He is the player that joined Elidibus, trusting that the white-robed Ascian, Emissary of Zodiark, was being honest about the whole "putting the world back on the right path" thing.

About that, Krile does mention in the japanese version that the Warriors of Darkness feel like they've been tempered, so that might be a clue that all is not as it seems. Or that could simply be what the Blessing of Darkness feels like, just like when the Primals mention that we feel like we've been tempered by another god to them.

Now that we know that the Matoya's crystal eye is actually an ancient -and very potent- crystal of light I guess it's safe to assume that Y'shtola will be using it to either restore her eyes or use it's aether instead of her own life force to see?

I also predict that our character will probably use it's vast store of aether to defeat yet another Ascien

Originally Posted by Alisa180

ALISAIE! YES! I KNEW she was going to be re-entering the plot soon! Ahahahaha! I’m surprised how giddy I am about it. I blame the fact that I’ve been working on a fanfiction with her as the protagonist, and so I’ve grown pretty fond of her.

I'm also really glad to see her reintegrated into the main scenario. It was really nice to see her scenes with Bahamut in the Coils and that was only showing us the potential she held as a Scion. I've always really liked both Alphinaud and Alisaie and look forward to what the plot will do with them.

We got several reminders that Alphinaud is still a teenager. He got a good deal of grief in this patch, mostly courtesy of Krile (though that one line to Y'sholta...XD).

That was hilarious, with Krile, and somewhat expected given his character, which made it all the cuter for him to be inadvertently hitting on Y'shtola like that. Boy's been taking lessons from Thancred, looks like.

Seems I was paranoid about characters dying. Can you blame me, given what we went through in Before the Fall followed by Heavensward???

Given a recent interview, I was also getting pretty worried that some of the Scions might be killed off, but really, the 3.1 patch went above and beyond there, even mentioning that Hoary and F'lhaminn are safe in Thavnair and strongly hinting (if you speak to Krile at Rising Stones after the end of 3.1) that Minfilia will be found next. I was so incredibly relieved to see Thancred again, and more than happy to see that aside from getting a (imo) much-needed tan, he also took a level in badass.

Thancred lost his magic? That’s not a very big deal, he’s a melee DPS class.

I don't really see it as being a big deal either, unless it endangers his life. Not being able to teleport is not that big of a problem. In fact, all it does is reduce him to the level of a normal man of our world who just happens to have super special strength and knife skills which, all things considered, makes him all the more badass.

Is Uriganer turning on us? What is going on here? There’s something Elidibius is dangling just out of our grasp, and by this point it's starting to get annoying. That said, looks like Alisaie (oh yes!) might be a Spanner in the Works for whatever they are planning.

I think Urianger is too desperate to protect us and the other Scions to ever turn on us, at least consciously.

I don't know if they changed is his dialog again but talking to him in the Waking Sands, Urianger says something about the doom of the world being foretold in Divine Chronicles but it that is truly the unchangeable fate of the world then our struggle to fight against that fate is set too. I don't think Urianger is going to turn on us though I think he may play along with Elidibus for some time. Really, we need to find out what the Ascians know cause currently the Scions are locked in a struggle with them without knowing all the details of that struggle.

The Ascians seem to believe their way is the only true way to save the world and from the mocking way the WoD called us the 'Savior' of Eorzea, I suspect they have convinced him of it too. I have my doubts.

blea. just blea.


more magical deus maguffin plot devices more magical resurrections that completely destroys anypoint in even showing sed person in question dieing more future plot cliff hangers

rince and repeat i sapose