Thread: [Spoilers] The Patch 4.2 Discussion and Speculation Thread!

Originally Posted by Belhi

I could see the Raen having a role in the story and perhaps a Raen character being more forefront (apart from Yugiri) but I doubt we will see more locations beyond what we already have. After all there is no Raen themed dungeon and it is pretty unlikely they will add notably sized locations in a patch without some indication in the preview. The MSQ seems to likely be more focused on Doma.

I think you mean there is one. It is a pity, though, because the Raen and their strong links to and origin within the Far East were highlighted when the race was first introduced, so much so to give the misleading impression that they were the main population of Doma - I wish they had been. I know many of them live in the mountainous peaks or in the main parts of the Hingash Isles (Sui no Sato is but one settlement in the end), and you do see a fair few in the Ruby Sea, so you probably won't see them elsewhere as much, but I do wish they'd focused more on them earlier in 4.0.

I would have liked to see something like the Azim Steppes for them, and more of a focus in the Samurai quests on them. NIN quests did a good job of it but again, more supporting locations would've helped. I'm not a big fan of SE's decision to come up with a Roegadyn far eastern sub-race and ultimately eschew the Raen (IMO, Gosetsu should have been raen), reclusive or otherwise. The Xaela aren't exactly the sort to spread themselves around, either, yet we got a whole zone on them, and it was great, since overall few races get proper racial zones dedicated to them. I am a roleplayer and I like delving into a game's lore, so maybe I put more weight on these things than most players would. For now, I'd be happy with a decent male Raen being introduced to the character cast.

I'm a big raen enthusiast, about as much as I am a Garlean one.

1 hope Yugiri will get to see her parents again with her going to the Ruby Sea and all.

She has the distinction of being one of the only important characters with parents who are actually alive still, so they should make the most of it.

We or someone should just tell her to do it and to forget the whole silly exile thing.

I guess jokes about mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps aren't popular, so here's the most likely culprit of the Scions' financial troubles:

Lack of revenue. The Scions do not have a revenue stream, so anything they spend is just spent - they don't have income. As a nonprofit paramilitary organization, this is to be expected. They don't regularly look for profit, since that isn't their goal - the Scions, despite what some would believe, are not mercenaries or hitmen. There is no record of anyone in the Scions taking a job purely for the sake of making money. However, the Scions have made some significant expenditures over 2.0 - 4.0, mostly moving their main base of operations from the Waking Sands to the Rising Stones and the aid provided to the Doman refugees from 2.2? 2.3? ... until 4.0. The Rising Stones was probably most of it, since it had to be carved out or built. There was also Moenbryda's aether device, as well as Urianger's modified version used to nullify Fordola's Resonant Echo.

The Scions... really did not spend much on the wars from 4.0, to my knowledge at least. Again, they are an independent paramilitary organization, and lack the manpower and funding to act as official militaries. They are mostly small support / special forces units. The only known major purchases from 4.0 are passage to and from Othard (fare is 300 gil a head; assuming the Kraken's Arms pirates were paid at all, for the round trip that comes out to a cool 2,700 gil since Tataru stayed behind in Kugane) and repairs to the House of the Fierce aetheryte (unlikely to be high; the piece was already there, just in a state of disrepair and relatively easy to fix, since it was operational after our time on the Steppe). All of the command posts on the western front were already operational by the time the Scions arrived, and other than the aforementioned repairs to the House of the Fierce aetheryte no major expenditures were divulged since Lolorito provided the EATC office in Kugane for the Scions' use, making setting up operations on the eastern front a nonissue.

The Scions lack the manpower to help much with the rebuilding process, which is one of the key reasons Lyse left the organization following Ala Mhigo's liberation.

... so really, the Scions' financial problems are likely just a result of not having income. They don't operate for profit, and without profits their operating costs have just caught up with them. I much prefer joking that it's a result of Tataru gambling with Hingan mortgage-backed securities and not bothering with credit default swaps, though. (At the very least she does seem caught up in this - she's in the Jade Stoa screenshot that is implicitly tied to Hells' Lid, based on the similar environments. So I'm still willing to bet something Tataru did caused this financial crisis.)

The entire joke is that mortgage-backed securities are unlikely to even be a thing, much less collateralized debt obligations or credit default swaps. Come on, let me have my fun!

Or maybe it was that magitek barrier manual Cid sent Alphinaud. Musta been like 3 million gil COD. /shrug

The main point of Hells' Lid seems to be gauging our capabilities, not a question of the Warrior of Light's moral character. That someone would question this is understandable; the request is for the slayer of Susano'o, and other than the Scions and the Red Kojin nobody should have known about him being summoned. So then it becomes a question of how word of Susano'o got out, but given the Red Kojin do act as mercenaries that's not too farfetched. Either way, if Hells' Lid is indeed an MSQ dungeon and that Jade Stoa screenshot is indeed linked to it... well, guess the raiders will have to put up with some of the story before their new trial. (Except Sigmascape will be automatically available...)

The Raen, unfortunately, are a very secretive people, in case their only in-game settlement being underwater and that settlement's "capital" being at the bottom of an oceanic trench wasn't indication enough. I agree that it's a shame they didn't get much focus or MSQ recognition (Shisui of the Violet Tides is optional), but it's understandable.

Still curious if Exdeath will still be a point in Sigmascape, and if so how.

Honestly I have a problem with Sui-no-Sato in that the position it's in allows it to be the single most unique Raen settlement, seeing as it's not in the mountains as the character creator information says isolated Raen villages are mostly located, and is instead underwater.
From Sui-no-Sato we can learn of the locals but not the Raen as a whole, and even then we didn't learn much beyond "Medieval Japanese People Underwater"

In the original description for Raen, like pre-Stormblood, we were told that they have isolated villages in the "eastern reaches", likely referring to that boot shaped peninsula arrangement to the east of the Steppe. Even if we don't end up going there I'd like to see at least like a quarter of the attention to detail the Xaela Tribes got paid towards these villages and their customs. I reckon we might have gotten a bit of one with the Obligatory 9 Tailed Fox Reference fate series in Yanxia but still not much there. I dunno I'm biased and would just like them to like give us an example of Raen culture that isn't as geographically far away from the original clan description as possible. I might be salty.