Revelations from Patch 4.56

**Nalien** · 03-27-2019 07:34 AM

Originally Posted by Remedi

Regarding the part 2 in general

I don't think the solo instance itself was the problem with this patch. 3.55 didn't have a set Trial either and I feel that worked a lot better, just because there was actually something new and exciting going on... You had a Samurai fighting alongside you as a sneak peak, you were working towards Omega, which was hinted about seemingly forever ago... There was something there...

This time however? We've fought Zenos enough, doesn't matter if you pepper in some old Ascian mechanics as well... It was just a very boring and forgettable fight, with the conclusion effectively being an entirely different plot poorly stitched in... The more I think about it, the more I feel like I'm suffering from some sort of narrative whiplash here... Both parts of what we got were below average when compared to past solo instances, and both parts just didn't merge together well at all... I think this clip perfectly sums up the finale here...

If anything, as the finale this solo instance should perhaps have been the best yet, instead it's perhaps the worst... They really should have made the fight a lot closer, it should have felt like an accomplishment to beat Elidibus here, have you both barely holding your own when the Voice kicks in and gives him the edge. That way I'd be eager for a rematch. Instead, he was a push over at Lv.70, what possible dramatic tension will there be fighting him at Lv.80? Assuming he isn't off'd off screen by Zenos while we're busy of course, but even then; Zenos taking him down in that scenario would hype up Zenos. Instead there is just no hype at all. Despite all his talk, Elidibus didn't turn out to be remotely tough or even interesting, I wish Valus laced into him a bit more for that...

As for the Hien section... I'd have much preferred a series of 1v1s which you simply can't win... That would make a nice scenario I think... We'd be talking about who we got to play as before the Warrior of Light arrived... Heck, even just using one character, there was nothing flashy in this RP like there was in even the more recent ones... You'd think a Hien vs Zenos fight would be absolutely amazing, instead Y'shtola vs Little Sun was far more entertaining and epic, given she had that nice spell at the end... Where was that kind of polish this time?

When it comes to the whiplash First plot though... That really just needed more time... Estinien ex Machina needed an actual cutscene at the very least, ever since he left I've kinda fanfic'd Estinien and Gosetsu into randomly crossing paths and going on their own adventure, so having both of them jump in would have been amazing, given Hien and Yugiri are there as well... They also could have done more to indicate that we were coma'd for a significant amount of time, enough to justify us taking a backseat in the current conflict to let us go elsewhere at least... We wake up and just rush off to the First more or less, remarkable few important characters seemed worried enough about us to come check on us... Perhaps like 2.55 there are some additional pieces of dialog hidden around with various NPCs though? Estinien took us to Ishgard, so the only two important Ishgardians checked on us, then Tataru of course, but that was it...

/10charaters

**Dualgunner** · 03-27-2019 07:46 AM

Re: lackluster solo fight

Maybe they could have tuned the difficulty of Zenos way high; like an EX-level fight, and allowed the story to continue if you lose. But if you win you get a special treat of kicking his butt before the Voice takes you down. Like Sekiro, or DMC5 did. I think that would be neat; although it's not necessarily a revelation.

**Ceridwenae** · 03-27-2019 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by Iscah

If it is meant to be G'raha, I think he does know us, he's just pretending not to. He doesn't want us to know it's him at this point. (If you choose to ask "who are you?" at the prompt, he tells you that's not important right now.)

Alternately, it's slippery double-purpose scripting that allows for either that interpretation OR the player genuinely not knowing him, without needing to include variable dialogue.

And as I linked earlier, whether it is or isn't him, it is certainly a male Miqo'te NPC who matches G'raha's appearance perfectly.

But there's still room for uncertainty, and I'll be referring to him as Enigma until we know for sure whether it's him or a lookalike.

..........

Time for another box:

I mean, what's the point of saying who he is is not important if we already know him? Would it really be so terrible to say "Hello, it's me, G'raha! Let me explain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up..." if the WoL knows him, or, in the case of people who haven't played CT, "Hello, my name is G'raha Tia, I'm mates with Krile, Cid (or whoever we know). Let me explain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up..."* Admittedly the latter doesn't give a whole room for trust to be established, but the former certainly would make a knowledgeable WoL shup and pay attention. It's silly not to: you don't lead a WoL a merry dance if they've worked with you before and you want to work together again. It's not expedient.

Well, alright, you could. But I don't have to like it, G'rahaNotG'raha and you'd better have a damned fine reason for doing it before I call you stupid several times over whilst smashing your ridiculously ostentatious crystal chandelier into many little pieces.

I know from the developer PoV I might be being a bit facile, but I figured a few extra words plus a extra small dialogue branch wouldn't be too much to include if this is someone we already know.

Feh. It's a crystal clone grown in his likeness and sent out to do stuff and/or inform him of when he has to unlock the door to the CT. Maybe there's nothing else to do but grow crystals when you seal yourself away into a crystal-based structure. The rate of growth is accelerated through aether, explaining what's going on with the current aether situation. Or something (I have no idea, it mostly just struck me as a bit daft not to (re)introduce himself in one second if it's a verifiable someone we can check up on or already know, and the rest is mostly bobbins off the top of my head). Also, this is why no cat-ear flaps. The clone hasn't cloned those, or failing that, it is G'raha, and his ears crystallised and were lost in an incident involving a party on one of the staircases in CT. All work and no play, or something. Oof.

*Thank you, Inigo Montoya. A never-ending source of quotes to badly mash.

**Fenral** · 03-27-2019 08:08 AM

It's not G'raha because he's turning himself into Doraemon. That's why he's turning blue and lost his ears. Hells, the Tower's practically a magic pocket already.

**Naria** · 03-27-2019 08:12 AM

NPC Ex Machina (MSQ)

So a few days ago I posted:

Originally Posted by Naria

I've been joking around since trusts were announced that Estinien as a trust would only dive in to get the killing blow on the boss.

. . . and we don't at least get to see Estinien being awesome? SE has been trying to show us more things that our character's aren't necessarily able to see. We had the fight as Hien, it would have been a nice symmetry if you had one with Estinien where we drove Elidibus!Zenos off as well. Also I do agree that this patch really should have been before Fanfest as well as the general sentiment that I would still rather be focusing on the fight with the Garleans than the First. On the other hand, I afraid there are going to split the narrative like they did in Stormblood which really didn't work for me.

I suppose I should be worried about the Scions (and I do hope that they are featured as prominently in the expansion as the trailer suggests) but they've been missing/presumed dead/on another plain of existence so many times at this point that I'm also kinda like "eh, they'll turn up". Always glad to see more of Ishgard, so I liked the bit with Aymeric and Edmont.

Allied Beast Tribe v3.0

As a whole I liked it, but I do agree Nhaaza'a is getting a bit stale as he always seems to be doing the exact same sequence of events. I'm not against seeing him again, but I hope they change things up a bit for the beastmen in Shadowbringers. He probably won't show up there anyways unless inter-shard travel becomes extremely common (who am I kidding it will be some alt reality or gender-flipped version of that character type). The ramming maneuver with the mikoshi did have me laughing. More Namazu are always fun.

Gentlewoman Demolitionist Nashu and Friends

To be honest at some point I lost the plot. I was like "who is this person and what was their motivation again?" several times. The thing that still stands out for me for this series is still that first quest with Nashu.

**Nalien** · 03-27-2019 08:22 AM

So I decided to do a quick round of some NPCs to see if they had any 2.55 style dialog to offer. Didn't check all of them by any means, but didn't really find anything of note... Slafborn is still talking about Papalymo, which is... Odd... Not even sure if the dialog I did see was 4.55 related or just 4.5 related, was just Ghimlyt Dark mentions really, with the obvious exceptions...

Once again I'm left wishing that Ghimlyt Dark was XIVs version of Besieged, rather than linear dungeon with reused boss mechanics (this time the Iron Giant slices pizzas though!) #68, if only because it would create some sense of there being a conflict outside the MSQ... One day XIV will have content that helps support the narrative, one day... Heck at this point I'd even take Squadron missions with nothing more than flavour text about sending them off to help at Ghimlyt, or help excavating...

Originally Posted by Rocl

The changed small talk texts, iirc, are Rammbroes, Unukalhai, and a handful of important NPCs on the Azim Steppe and Hancock.

Oof, given my theories the past few days, I'm amazed I forgot to go check in on old Unukalhai... Thanks.

**Remedi** · 03-27-2019 08:26 AM

About the fight

To validate my point I want to poin to the Greg fight, all the mechanics are already seen but are slightly reworked, The same has been said for all the ultimate fights. They could've done something similar for Zenos and made it a Trial fight over a solo fight, which honestly as a final send off for an expansion isn't that great.
But let me tell you seeing that my manaward could absorb triple spark +2 autos was the saddest thing ever

Also note that I did mention that the lack of connection to the expansion made this part 2 weaker it's not just the trial. The probably best part of all of that happened offscreen and is unforgivable

**Rocl** · 03-27-2019 08:27 AM

The changed small talk texts, iirc, are Rammbroes, Unukalhai, and a handful of important NPCs on the Azim Steppe and Hancock.

**Naria** · 03-27-2019 10:13 AM

Edmont is also back at Fortemps manor, although he doesn't have too much of note to say.

**Theodric** · 03-27-2019 10:57 AM

My MSQ Concerns:

There's a lot of fan service that appears to be shoehorned in, lately. Estinien showing up out of nowhere is the most glaring culprit. I don't dislike him and I'm fine with cameos...though it reeked of pandering. It also just made Elidibus look stupid and ineffective despite it being his long anticipated moment to act. We had so much build up including a very impressive CGI trailer depicting the fight but all it amounted to was the status quo continuing.

My biggest concern, however, is that we're going to another planet. How accessible will it be, exactly? If it's only limited to people with the Echo (or worse yet, only limited to the Warrior of Light) then that serves to exclude quite a lot of people who role-play and just want to portray regular adventurers and treasure hunters. When WoW leaned on a similar plot device, it simply involved stepping through a portal - and technically even a peasant with a pitchfork could make the journey if they reached that portal.

Hopefully something similar is in play in 5.0, though I'll be tempering my expectations.

Thread: Revelations from Patch 4.56

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