Revelations from Patch 3.5

[Aerish]

Only that it's different case.

Louisoix's spell on Bahamut didn't succeed and caused a huge amount of aether in the air which he absorbed into himself to become primal. Papalymo's spell worked and assuming that the spell can cost the caster's all aetheric reserve, it's unlikely he survived.

It makes me wonder why Louisoix still had enough power to cast powerful speel that sent WoL through time and space after that. Maybe he used the same aether residue...

Alexander is that u ?

[Takara528]

Enough is enough! No more lala sacrifices!

[Belhi]

Enough is enough! No more lala sacrifices!

Oh but I just finished polishing the alter and cleaning the sacrificial knives.

[Alberel]

The eyes are unlimited in that they absorb surrounding aether over time, but they can still be drained over the span of something short like a fight. If that were not the case, then we could not have defeated Thordan or Nidhogg, whose forms were sustained by aether.

Self sacrifice isn't likely a huge augment. (Especially that of a mere one person. The other dead people were not voluntary.) It helps, but if it really does modify summonings to >Bahamut levels, then you'd have huge threats popping up all the time, what with all the crazy cults & desperate inhabitants everywhere in Eorzea.

Well the difference between the original Hard Mode primals and their extreme variants was that they were summoned via ritual sacrifice instead, using the carved bones of sacrificial victims to augment the power of the primal. That was a single sacrifice in each case.

Ilberd was drawing on the desperation of hundreds, if not thousands, of dead and dying on a battlefield to augment his summoning rite. He even specifically says that the sheer desperation of the dying for anything at all to save them can act as a replacement for faith. We've never seen anything summoned under such extreme circumstances before. We have no way to truly gauge its strength besides Ilberd's own claim that it would be more devastating than the Calamity. The fact Papalymo judged it worth his own sacrifice merely to buy the Scions time makes plain that he believed Ilberd's claim as well.

Don't forget also that people only know how to summon because the Ascians teach them. If there is some super special technique that summons much more powerful things it's meaningless if the Ascians haven't taught anyone that technique. With the understanding of how the equilibrium of light and dark works as of 3.4 it's obvious that the Ascians wouldn't actually want everyone summoning the most powerful primals possible anyway. If sacrifice augments the strength of a primal (and it does, the extreme primals made that very plain) it doesn't mean everyone knows about it.

/10characters

[Ibi]

He even specifically says that the sheer desperation of the dying for anything at all to save them can act as a replacement for faith. We've never seen anything summoned under such extreme circumstances before.

I'd argue that we have.

Wasn't Phoenix summoned under similarly extreme circumstances?

[Fenral]

Seriously! Seriously unhealthy!

MSQ

I've been saying that for ages! I wouldn't have nearly the problem I did with all the various sacrifices in this game if they weren't either a final desperate act born of some vile cocktail of self-loathing, powerlessness, and despair (i.e. G'raha, Ysayle), or immediately shrugged off as necessary (Moenbryda, Minfilia twice, Estinien certainly tried, and now Papalymo). Louie still gets a pass in my book because his sacrifice did have dire unintended consequences, including the domino effect that continues to this day.

Alphinaud is still at his breaking point, apparently, but he hasn't quite broken yet. If there was any one part of your grandfather's legacy to reject, that would be it. You can do it, Alphi!

"I don't want to save the world if none of you are in it." - no FFXIV character ever.

[Cilia]

"I don't want to save the world if none of you are in it." - no FFXIV character ever.

MSQ

While I do agree that the narrative's love of self-sacrifice is getting to be quite a bit much, especially after we swore we were done with it and refused to sacrifice Estinien to finish Nidhogg, I'm getting rather more concerned with the coldness of the characters.

Yeah, grieving and beating yourself up over Papalymo's sacrifice ain't gonna bring him back. Same goes for everyone else we've lost. But so what?! They were our friends, or at least our comrades, and losing them hurts! If you don't take the necessary time to process that pain and sorrow, it'll just keep building and building until it hits like a ton of bricks and leaves you emotionally wrecked.

While I don't agree with everyone sacrificing themselves, that's their choice to make and respect those decisions, no matter how painful it may be. What pissed me off was how cold everyone was about it. Y'shtola more or less said "Papalymo sacrificed himself to stop this new primal. Welp, better get back to work! Get your ass in gear, Krile!" and Urianger was just like "I shalt go pore over mine books in mine stuffy cellar, that I may find a course that shalt make Papalymo's sacrifice worthwhile." Is he not worth a single moment or a single tear?! He was our friend, or at least our comrade, damn it! If he bought us time, use just a little to grieve so you don't break down at an inopportune moment, then get back to work!

We're not even taking time for ourselves to grieve for our fallen friends. Not even the tiniest bit. One should not get lost in sorrow and regret, but it's stuff like this that leads to things like "Fray." And that is a truly dangerous road to walk.

Even if the Garleans, primals, and Ascians don't manage to kill us, we could end up breaking down and collapsing in despair eventually. Get some grief counseling, Scions! You've all clearly got some form of PTSD!

"As long as I don't think about it, my anguish doesn't exist." -Scions of the Seventh Dawn

[Alleo]

Warning: Ranting incoming

MSQ

I dont want to be a downer for everyone that enjoyed the main story but I just found it horrible and kinda boring. First they suddenly decide that they dont need some kind of leader (I was like "I want to be one...so I can finally boss you around..mwahaha..." but at least they kinda said that we do most of the stuff..) and yet later Y'sthola takes the reign and gives everyone their role..how about letting the people decide for themselves?

I also find it kinda..strange seeing someone on deaths door and yet there was no visible injuries. At least make the skin look a little hurt. No need for it to be bloody but it kinda felt off seeing that woman without any injuries..

What I did like was, the nutkin next to Thancred at the bar, Tataru finally noticing that we are still missing an outfit from her and Aliseas sentence about important people always talking so complicated instead of just saying a simple "thank you".

The rest was kinda..okay. At least the grand companies did not loose people yet and I kinda feel even more annoyed at the resistance..[I dont want to help them set Ala Mhigo free..I dont like them and even if they have a right to be angry, trying to pull in the other city states and thus allowing others to die is too much for me..yet like always it will be us that will liberate another country..] I just cant buy that Laurentius (?) suddenly feels conflicted after betraying us two times for money..I can already see how somewhere down the road he will sacrifice his life for someone to redeem himself..

I felt nothing at Papalymos sacrifice. Sorry SE after you killed of Moen, Haurchefant and Ysayle aka. my favorite characters for some imo stupid plot reasons..I kinda stopped caring about the rest of the characters..and the last time I felt really emotional was with the wild beast child Ga Bo (?). Nice try of SE to hit us with the feelz again by showing the new commander of camp dragonhead..really in the end nothing truly changed with his sacrifice and thus it makes his death so utterly pointless that even after such a long time I cant accept it...sorry ranting..

I tried to stay with him and help and was kinda angry that they did not at least try to maybe use one of my crystal to power up the spell. Its okay if its not possible to do so but at least show us trying to do it different. I absolutely hate how in FF14 people are so willing to die without maybe just thinking about some other ways to do it..[SE also wasnt really subtle with his coming death..all the talk about sacrifice before that.] Can those people that want to die so much maybe think about what this might mean for the survivors?

I also agree about the scions bad method of overcoming death..really if they want to go that route fine..but at least give our character the chance to choose how they react. Is it too much to have a cutscene with us being alone and we have the choice to react? Like punching the wall in anger or hiding our face in our hands as a sign of sadness? Heck they could even just give us the choice of not caring at all..It annoys me that everyone always tells us how we should just live on, smile and get over it fast...no sorry SE I cant get over some deaths fast and I absolutely hate how every NPCs is like "welp life goes on and everything is fine again..". Maybe this is a little Asian thing because they often dont show such emotions but it would be nice to include at least the choice for the WoL. Well in the end I play my character like she is already over the breaking point and just smiles on the outside and feels empty on the inside. Kinda makes it all a little more dramatic and in my opinion more realistic. [Oh look down a lot of people are outright murdered..welp lets look a little frowny but dont show much distress or panic or anything like that..we are just a weapon after all..no need for emotions ]

Beast Tribe

Please SE more quests like that. A little drama at the beginning but solving everything in the end for good. (And dancing like hell ) I also like the beast tribe members way more than most of the scions. Especially deftarm. I am so proud of him, he kinda learned some sass from my character. *teary eyed* I also liked that they used that cat boy as an enemy again but at the same time I kinda found it a little over the top that it ended the same way as last time..hopefully this time he will not survive such a fall..[after watching the camera zooming in on him all I could think of was "no wonder that he loves madness...poor kitty man has nothing in his underwear and looks flat like a girl" ]

Hildibrand

It really shows how I distrust SE about making Happy Endings because for a short time It truly believed that it will end in a tragic way..thankfully it was not and I really hope that Gigi will still play a part in another sidequest in the future. I loved Cyrl character development and I hope that we can talk to him later. It still kinda felt too short and was not as funny as the one before that or the 2.0 ones but still I loved it way more than the MSQ.

School quest

I was not a fan of this side quest because it kinda started of slow and boring imo and with that much time between each part it was really hard to remember the people but the final had at least some nice new lore information about Isghard and I do like the "Harry Potter" NPC. Still it would have been nice to have more chances of solving it ourself like the one in Gold Saucer. Kinda curious if those characters will ever get another screen time. Still I enjoyed it way more than the MSQ..kinda sad..

Warring triad

Even if I like that we finally saw a enemy soldier in a more positive light and kinda worked together with him for a short amount of time, I wished that they showed his change already a little bit in the last quest..because for me it kinda came a little to fast. All this talk to Ulkukhai (sorry for all the misspelling) raised a lot of death flags and I feared that he would be tempered..well he was not but still died..another one on the long list of sacrificed characters..Zurvan itself did not feel as good as the other two and I just shake my head on my character standing there again and watching Ulukhai nearly being killed..what a great warrior we are..the ending was alright but lots of this was already discussed in this forum so barely any surprises. I do find it kinda strange that we just accept him into our group after being told that he works for Elidibus..its like we were never betrayed before in the story, right?..*sigh*

[is it mean that I was like "please put that mask back on..your face looks strange? ]

24 man raid

It was alright. It was nice that it showed that the void creatures truly only care about themselves and the city really looked beautiful. I am also quite happy that Caith survived. Really my hopes had been quite low since SE loves to use death on such characters so it was really a great positive surprise.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Regarding MSQ:

I have more thoughts than this, but I kinda just wanna say that I'm nowhere near as down on it as some of you seem to be. That's not to say I thought it was perfect - the necessity of Papalymo's sacrifice was poorly built up to despite the ludicrously anvilicious foreshadowing being my biggest issue - but most of it was well-executed otherwise. I liked how mundane it started, I liked Ilberd's false flag plan, and I didn't feel like the game was forcing us into stupidity, despite how things shook out. And as for the grief - sorry guys, I'm really not seeing the issue. I didn't get the sense that it was just shrugged off; Yda had an appropriately emotional reaction, Y'Shtola getting to work right away felt determined rather than callous, and as for everyone else...well, they didn't really know Papalymo all that well, did they? I never really got the sense that he was especially close with anybody but Yda. This game has handled mourning better - Moenbryda - but maybe this was supposed to communicate that with everything else that has happened, the Scions are getting better at channeling pain and grief into forward momentum. I don't think that has to be negative, or unhealthy, and at any rate we haven't even seen all of the fallout from this. And that's if he's dead at all; the game certainly wants us to think he is, but it's not exactly unambiguous, and BOY was this patch ever unambiguous with its slaughter (blood or no blood, the scenes inside Baelsar's wall might be the most brutal thing this game has ever depicted).

So yeah, I'm not gonna be so quick to toss shade at it. Let's see how this actually ends and what the ultimate outcome ends up being.

[Fenral]

"As long as I don't think about it, my anguish doesn't exist." -Scions of the Seventh Dawn

Not even really talking about MSQ anymore but

And this is why FFIII > FFII. Sure it still had some of FFII's... problems with guest characters (Aria who?), but it also had a moment that told a bunch of them "we still need you, even if you think your role is over." Thus far, FFXIV is far more representative of FFII than anything else, no matter how many other references it throws at us, and that's kind of troubling, because so many other games in the series could almost be thought of as responses to FFII's handling of death.

In the meantime, I suggest curling up in a blanket with some hot cocoa and watching Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, if you haven't already.