Thread: 3.4 speculation

Originally Posted by Velhart

I....have a feeling that Minfilia is going to be herself again down the road.

False until it can be proven true.

Originally Posted by Theodric

Either way I'm personally banking on Hydaelyn being bad news. JRPG's are notorious for making religion and religious figures into antagonists after all.

You know, this actually got me thinking about something. JRPGs and Anime are notorious for making mainstream religion into the antagonists, but there seems to be a lot of love for the mystical versions of same. Take for instance Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Angels are the bad guys, they are named similar to Judaeo-Christian angels, etc. However, the EVAs have Kabalah/Qabalah symbols they use for their abilities. Kabalah symbols that good guys use is also popular in several SE games (Star Ocean).


Now in FF14 we have Hydaelyn being the supposed good guy, however, she also seems to take the role of "Idiot God". I don't want to get into a discussion about Gnosticism, but long story short, there is a type of Christianity that believes the God of the Old Testament is the "Idiot God"/Satan/Demiurge, and the New Testament is Jesus as the Savior figure and representative of the True God, who overthrows the rules of the Demiurge. From a Gnostic point of view then, Hydaelyn would be the demiurge, the god of the realm of flesh, and Zodiark could be the God. I think it would be a very interesting plot twist to find out we've been working with the demiurge this entire time. Zodiark's world might be one of pure spirit - no flesh, no death. We see this a little in the powers that the Ascians have.

This would create a moral dilemma that could be fun to explore, would our characters and the Scions choose to help bring forth a world of pure spirit where death would no longer take our loved ones (Moenbryda, Haurchefant) from us? Or would the desire to stay flesh and blood and remain what they always have been cause them to follow the demiurge. I think this is more appropriate for a Single Player game with multiple endings and a moral compass system, like Mass Effect, rather than an MMO where we would be forced to choose a particular path based on story progression, but it's fun to think about.

It's possible that Lahabrea will return, I suppose, but it wouldn't sit well with me for him to come back only to...die again. Plus there's already not enough time spent fleshing out the current batch of antagonists - it's happening at a very slow pace or in the case of most of the Heaven's Ward we didn't really get to see their thoughts and feelings.

One of the reasons as to why I like Regula and Elidibus so much is because they get a decent amount of focus and they're not just subjected to the increasingly dull plot point that is the Warrior of Light showing up and ending them immediately. I've outlined in other threads why I find Primals/Eikons to be hollow threats for precisely that reason - they're summoned and then often don't really achieve anything beyond looking cool. Then the WoL swoops in, kills them and they don't even Temper any of our allies to force us to put them down and endure psychological warfare.

Eh, I'm somewhat bias... I really don't view Elidibus or Derplander as particularly good antagonists to really develop at the moment... Garlemald I like, because that's a decidedly human story that I can potentially relate to, with a conflict that is, while perhaps questionable, somewhat understandable IMO... The Ascians? Immortal cartoony villains with a conflict stemming from some cosmic injustice that I'll likely be unable to really relate to... I very much expect the story to go down a "Hydaelyn created life, and thus death, before that there was no death so Zodiark is better!" route, which just isn't something I can get on board with... I just can't see a Zodiark revival being in our best interests... The Truth could be that Zodiark farts sunshine and poops rainbows, but coming from the mouths of a group that actively uses deception to sow chaos and ruin lives... Yeah... Actions speak louder than words, and Elidibus could say all the right things, but the only thing we've seen the Ascians do is be stereotypical shadowy villains... We may not have seen Elidibus doing anything himself, but we've seen the actions of those he associates with; Both the other Ascians and now Derplander, who basically attacked us on sight and further justified a staunch skepticism on our side of theirs... They'd need to do a lot to get me to relate to them at this point, and I don't think they can fit that in with where I think/want the story to go...

I only let Lahabrea off on this because, in the narrative I'd want for him, he has greater ambitions that "Kill Hydaelyn, Revive Zodiark, Throw Party", he wants to be Zodiark, hence the experiments in Primal summoning and the "Lahabrea> By my will", "Elidibus>> No no, by His will" thing... That not only makes him somewhat more interesting IMO, but it also gives Elidibus a bit more room for development... Right now I do not see the possibility of us working together with him ever happening, we're far too polarized at the moment... Make Lahabrea a common enemy for us both to defeat? Jolly Cooperation all round! That also maybe lets us keep Elidibus/Derplander around for longer... I expect 3.55 to end with a closing of the Ascian plot... Mostly just because I'm tired of it and hope 4.0 can give us more human stories than cosmic ones... Give us a dramatic confrontation with Derplander/Elidibus and I don't think they'll see much more development, and if we take down Elidibus I doubt the Ascians will ever resurface... That'll be that done... Give us a dramatic confrontation with Lahabrea, who has just come back from the brink and thrown a wrench in Elidibus' plans? We team up, they get much more development, we finally defeat the games first real antagonist in a satisfying manner, and Elidibus backs off since his plan just flopped... We move onto more human antagonists, but the threat of Elidibus returning and a final confrontation with Zodiark still looms about for 6.0 or something...

It's entirely possible that they don't intend for us to have a finish to Elidibus/Derplander before 4.0 of course, but I see that being what the remainder of the patches before 4.0 will focus on for now... If they're still just milling about, and will be for all of 4.0 as well, I'll honestly be sick to death of them... I'd rather a scenario in which we force them to back off, then when Elidibus shows up in the #.55 teaser after a long absence, I'd lose my shit in excitement... It's also entirely possible that we can force him to back off in 3.55 without anyone like Lahabrea pulling a last minute revival, but I'm not sure of any other candidates... A situations in which we fight Elidibus/Derplander, but they back off rather than being defeated seems fairly lackluster to me...

Originally Posted by Alisa180

The Echo has always given us foresight.

You know the Echo buff in dungeons? When we 'wipe', the failure in-lore is considered a possible vision of the future. This gives us insight, which manifests gameplay-wise as increased stats and power.

We actually have a canonical example of someone who manifested future vision as a part of the Echo. Moreso then the foresight given to the WoL.

In the very first trailer for FFXIV, Derplander received what was confirmed as a vision of the future as a result of his Echo, which involved him fighting alongside yet-to-be met companions. After receiving it, he then set off to find the adventurers he'd seen. By the time of the End of an Era, he's found them and they fight alongside him during the Battle of Carteneau.

That's actually not correct - the Echo does not grant the user the ability to 'see the future', because it only acts on 'breaking down the barriers of the soul', namely, literally reading another person's memories Inception style. When you view the Echo, you're viewing events that have already happened to another person, experiencing those events as if you yourself had lived through them - this is what Minfilia told the player way back at the start of both 1.0 and ARR. The Echo thus does not work on viewing future events because the future has not happened yet - unless SE adds some kind of time-travel aspect to the game, this will remain an impossibility.

And the scene of Derplander Echo-tripping in the original opening movie to 1.0 was into the past not the future - he Echo-travelled back into another's memories of what was then ten years into the past to the Battle of Silvertear Skies where he inadvertently encountered another adventurer party fighting a malboro, only to be carried away by a Garlean Juggernaut into the battle against Midgardsormr and the Dravanian Horde, witnessing Middy's 'death' and the destruction of the Agrius... and the release of the Primals from the aetheric seal beneath the lake. All that happened in the game's 'past' not it's future or present. Ferne confirmed that officially in this really old thread now archived in the 1.0 forum section.

So basically, the Echo does not allow it's user to glimpse the future, because that simply is not how it works - it works on breaking down the boundaries of the soul and allowing it's user to read another's memories and glimpse their past. Because the future hasn't occurred yet, no memory yet exists of it, and hence, no Echo glimpse of the future. And the 'Power of the Echo' buff in duties is simply a gameplay mechanic that actually has no story connection, it's just a gameplay gimmick with a fancy name, nothing more - to say otherwise would be the same as saying the GLA ability 'Tempered Will' tempers the player or something equally stupid.