Thread: Revelations from Patch 3.56

Originally Posted by Jem

It was in the same lore discussion where koji explained the time-bubible you just mentioned.

Whereabouts?

Originally Posted by Jem

Is it really that hard to believe that all of 2.1 to 3.56, the entire construction of revenants toll and idyllshire took place in at least a year?

In a sense of events happening temporally, no; not at all. But the whole point of the bending of spacetime is to prevent them from having to update thousands of lines of open-world and context-dependent flavor-text about how long it's been since Ala Mhigo fell, how long it's been since the Battle of Silvertear Skies, how long it's been since the Calamity, how long it's been since the failed summoning of Alexander. And none of those things changed this morning.

The comparison to the Simpsons implies that even though it is easy to believe that it took a year for these events to happen, even though it might be harder to believe otherwise, Bart will always be in 4th Grade. Maggie will always be a baby. Even if you could prove 5,000 days passed, it's still not 13 years, but 1.

With the bubble in place, you always know exactly how long ago something was. There's no chance open-world and fixed-date "old content" will confuse players with their inconsistencies. We just keep shoving days under the bubble. (Which isn't to say you can't interpret it as taking however long you want for you. Ten years? Why not. Use Earth time if you want. But there's no indication that the game itself has left the bubble just yet.)

The most difficult thing for me to believe is that they abandoned all of that without saying anything after so concretely establishing it. We've had debates in defense of time bubble over a dozen times; you name it and someone has used it to challenge the bubble: holiday event, relic arc, new years poem, NPC flavor-text. It bubble withstood all of those, so we just need something more solid and definitive, at least as much as what established it, to abandon it. Perhaps the 51st Bubble Battle will be the one that pops it, I can't say, lol.

The name of the year has changed, but if a movie started in December 2016 and ended in January 2017, it still took only a month, right?

Just like... the climactic battle was against a Roegadyn (I assume to be a) tribunus whose Achilles' Heel was being so reckless he killed his own soldiers? That's IT?!

Man... Steps of Faith might have been a ball-buster, and "The Parting Glass" was pretty darn long, but it felt like an appropriate send-off for the season game...

A-anyway, everything went semi-predictably. Council meeting at the Lotus Stand, Nero interrupts and suggests Omega. Everyone says they don't trust him but have little choice. Gosetsu, the Hyur with a Roegadyn build, arrives. Meeting at the Rising Stones. Tataru brags about her magitek kettle she got from Wedge and gives us fancy clothes. Gosetsu interrupts and comes along. Thrash the reckless Roegadyn tribunus who fights so wildly he kills his own soldiers, wake up Omega. It goes to fight the primal, which in a slightly unexpected turn ended up being Shinryu. Clash in the skies over the Wall ends with both crash-landing into Gyr Abania. With the seal gone Papalymo is confirmed dead, and Yda's Archon tattoo fades, and she later reveals herself to be Lyse, Yda's younger sister who took on her identity after the real Yda died six years ago. Everyone prepares for war.

Post-credits Raubahn stands atop the Wall and vows to take Ala Mhigo back, then a nameless Imperial soldier craps his pants when Zenos doesn't respond to his query suggesting a change of plans. Zenos then smiles and says this will be interesting.

I mean... I was only half-expecting Shinryu, though given where the aether came from it's not particularly surprising. Yda having been revealed to never actually having been Yda, but her younger sister Lyse, was probably the biggest surprise. At least Nero seems to be moving in the right direction, though I still don't trust him as far as I can throw him.

I guess all that remains is to wait until June and kick some Imperial teeth in, then learn to fight like Vergil.

Honestly? Even the flashy fight didn't interest me all that much. What really got me interested was Zenos. While this does seem to be a slow point, in all fairness Yoshi-P did say Stormblood would start out slowly, so I expected as much.

Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Checklist of everything awful in 2.56 story:

- WHY did everyone blindly accept Nero? Did we forget about Crystal Tower and trying to kill us?
- WHY were there opinion options to begin with? Even those felt forced "we have no choice" -- actually...
- WHY was Omega so easily released when Nero could have done it the whole time?
- WHY did we bother convening with the Eorzean alliance? What purposes did they serve?
- WHY Shinryu? I mean it was cool to see, but what does a dragon have to do with Ala Mhigo?
- WHY the convoluted Yda / Lyse story? "Oh hey, surprise, I'm someone else!" Is this an M. Night Shyamalan movie?
- WHY do we not even care about going to Doma? Why was it so forced for us to leave this area?
- WHY wasn't Red Mage even slightly brought into the story? The most anticipated job in the game and not even a mention?

I'm not the least bit excited for Stormblood. I honestly couldn't care about it.

To wit:

-Absolutely nobody accepted Nero. Half the people at the meeting didn't know who he was, and the other half didn't trust him as far as they could throw him.
-There is never a need for opinion options, but they are included from time to time to make it feel like a classic role-playing game where options are actually a thing that change the course of the story.
-Cid and Nero spent the time we were fighting the Roegadyn tribunus (Greinwaht, was his name?) figuring out how to reactivate Omega. The furthest Nero ever got was to Cartenau beforehand.
-We're convening with the Alliance because what we're doing is preparing to go to war with Garlemald, and the actions we take need to be concerted to have any hope of coming out on top. Also, Omega was in Cartenau, politically complex territory.
-Shinryu was summoned because, as Alphinaud explained, Ilberd's wish was for a disaster akin to the Calamity (aka Bahamut, a dragon) and the aether for the summoning came largely from the eyes of Nidhogg (a dragon).
-I don't know why the Yda / Lyse thing was necessary, given we had no mention in-story of Yda having a sister beforehand. I suppose Papalymo's "Farewell again, my dear Yda..." foreshadowed it slightly, but other than that I got nothing. Pretty sure this ain't an M. Night Shyamalan film though.
-We don't even know we're going to Doma yet. All eyes are on the Wall and all thoughts are on what to do after the Alliance definitively holds it.
-Red Mage was foreshadowed with Alisae in 3.4, and what Job is most anticipated is a matter of hot debate. (I honestly couldn't care less about RDM - not a fan of it, style aside.) Also, none of the 3.0 Jobs were brought into the story during 2.5(.5), so I don't see why that's such a big deal.

I'm not overly excited, but Yoshi-P has said that Stormblood will start slowly, so I'm going to give it a chance. Zenos has me intrigued either way.