Thread: Patch 3.4 - Soul Surrender

In all fairness, most games (especially JPRGs) are little more than glorified kinetic visual novels when you get down to it. The story advances in a single direction and failure or death just leads to reloading your last save and trying again, because failure means the world is doomed and the story can't continue.

Some games give you flex on this, but that ultimately comes down to choosing the ending - the inFamous series giving you the Hero or... Infamous endings, f'ex. Western RPGs (the Elder Scrolls series) do tend to give you more freedom in how the story advances, but ultimately all roads lead to the same ending.

Even if they did add something like what you want, the enemies would stop at some arbitrary point (i.e. Gridania's gates), meaning the threat would be just as hollow. All it would do is aggravate players who need to do content in that area - i.e. if the hostile Ixal took Fallgourd Float, it would irritate people who need to do some Ehcatl Nine dailies there but don't have the firepower to retake the settlement themselves (despite the story sometimes presenting us as such, in gameplay we are not one-man armies).

... open-world content with major repercussions story- and gameplay-wise is, regardless of personal taste or opinion, rather antiquated. If they added Hamlet Defense people would do it for the pluses, sitting around while waiting for it to start up (and get irritated by having to wait), then not touch it once they've gotten everything they want or need out of it. It would be just like the CT attunement FATEs except worse. (Cf. instanced content, which can be done via the Duty Finder with a random party or hard content with a dedicated group at any time you want until you get what you want, assuming you have the ability to clear said content. Much more convenient. That's not to say I don't understand the appeal of large-scale open-world content, but the amount of resources that would go into developing it isn't really justifiable and you'd get a lot of people irritated with various aspects of it. True of every piece of content, but remember the wise words of Kan-E-Senna...)

I feel that a different concept form XI would get the danger across more (as much as they can without Gameplay/Story Segregation or sacrificing player convenience). Alternate Universes showing what will happen if we failed at any point our didn't exist (Say Ifrit. Titan and Leviathan tempered and took over the starting citystates. Nidhogg battling Garuda and Ravana for control of Ishagrd. Garlemald managing to conquer Eorzea etc.)

Given what we (don't) know about the Warriors of Darkness and that Hydaelyn confirmed the existance of paraellel worlds (and that some still remain IIRC), I think that 3.4 will be a great jumping point for this concept

Ok, sophia.....



All i can say is, congrats....

Alexander looks like such HYPE! Those fights looked incredible, and the gear from them looks beautiful!

As does Sophia. Can't wait to fight her, and see what the weapons from her EX are like. Not that I'll likely ever beat her...still haven't beaten SephEX...

And looks like any doubts are gone, we're headin' towards Ala Mhigo for 4.0. Should be fun.

Still disappointed in not even any news or updates regarding Ishgardian Housing.

So the WoD each have their own Crystal of Light (or Darkness?) as I have suspected. They may very well be capturing the defeated Primal's aether to power up these crystals? With there being 5 WoD with their own respective elemental crystal ... could there be a 6th member? Could that member be Urianger based on his comment?

Sophia also seem to have spoken dialogue in battle, hopefully she has a cutscene of her talking.

I also speculate the reason why that mask man was preaching outside Qarn was because it's in between Little Ala Mhigo and the Sepulcher Ala Mhigan settlement, maybe he hopes to unite both factions?

Lastly ... Garuda might be the boss or is a phase in Xelpaltol

Originally Posted by myahele

So the WoD each have their own Crystal of Light (or Darkness?) as I have suspected. They may very well be capturing the defeated Primal's aether to power up these crystals?

That's my first-impression guess as of watching the JP trailer one time. We know that once you have a crystal you can use it for whatever, apparently. Ysayle was empowered by hers all the way through summoning primals and breaking down Ishgard's wards (though you could argue that it was all for the best in giving the Warrior of Light an opening to strike at the heart of the conflict).

It'd be interesting to see them essentially being led down the road of Unukalhai's world - converting their Crystals of Light into auracite in order to have the power to stand against the Warrior of Light and their full set. Auracite might be empowering, but it's no containment vessel; it radiates the energies stored within and corrupts its wielders.

Originally Posted by myahele

Sophia also seem to have spoken dialogue in battle, hopefully she has a cutscene of her talking

I hope so. I've missed hearing primals give their take on the world. Wrong? Sure. Worthless? Not entirely. Satisfying? Always.