Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.1

Well did the MSQ and my thoughts on it:

I did not like it as much as I did the 5.0 story. But lets go at it from the start to the end.

I am a bit sad that Ryne and Thancred are missing from the plot..especially Ryne who might never really be seen again after shadowbringer, so having her in more story would be great. Also since they will be with the raid which is going to be there until the end of Shadowbringers, we can at least say that either the problem to transport their souls will be stretched over all the patches or they somehow decline to go back which is bad for Thancred and Urianger since they are the ones that are there the longest. Also its kinda a confirmation that Thancred might not be able to stay there either.

I liked the dialogue between the exarch and Alisaie. Thanks for showing him that this could really hurt us even though he meant well. Hopefully he will stay alive.

I did not like Alisaie and her behavior at the boat. We get it SE, she admires the WoL...but why does she need to nearly always react that way when someone else admires us too? The jealous type is already there with Feo Ul we dont need Alisaie to turn into that too. You say that you can interpret it as her loving us or just admiring us but the way she acts really makes it hard to not see it just as love, which makes me a bit uncomfortable since she is still underage..please tone it down a bit with her. There was simply no need to act towards the exarch that way. (But I also dont understand why our character looked so surprised at this..shouldnt they already know by now that Graha wanted to go on adventures with us?

Anyway...I noticed that in this patch there is in general (at least in German) either an option to be 100% positive or be negative and rude..sad that there is less of a middle way in the dialogue options most of the time.

The dungeon was great. Interesting boss mechanics, great music and I loved the look of it. I guess that the knights and the king are kinda the Thordan and knights version of the First? Some of them looked quite a bit like them. Here I loved the interaction between Alisaie and Alphinaud..her teasing him about the ghost. More of that and less of her admiration...

The Nuo Mo was cute as ever even though I wished that we would have gotten more information on the souls..still nice to see that there might be ways to undo the tempering and good to see that Alisaie could help those people in Amh Areng. (But man did they give Haldric a way too deep voice for a kid..and he still quite creepy...)

Sadly now the part of the patches comes that I liked less..I know its necessary to give Eulmore a closure but I really wished we got more information about souls and that stuff instead of most of the patch being there and helping there. Not much to say there, I am still just a bit surprised how easy it is for these people to move on. Great in a way but also imo a bit unbelieveable. Also everyone of the rich people still wearing their rich stuff and still living in the rich part of the town while the rest still has to live in the harser parts...would have been nice to see a bit of a change there and I do wonder how they will solve that problem.

And then we are kinda already over with the patch, somehow the fist solution would not be the best (I wonder if an Ascian would lose their memories too if they are too long in the crystal?) and we go back and finally have the talk with Estinien.

I liked that sequence even though I have to say that I still dislike the look of Garlemald itself..so bleak..its interesting to see that our predicitions were wrong and Zenos simply does not take over the throne and anyone will probably believe that it was Gaius and Estinien that killed the king.

Still I am not quite happy that Zenos somehow even got some Ascian power..I mean if all it takes to get that is to get out of the body and back again in it....I just dont like how he really seems more and more to be the big bad that somehow now got cool abilities and that has now someone with him that wants to focus on taking down Zodiark...ugh please dont let this really end with him "eating" Zodiark...

Anyway Garlemald is now into civil war which will give Eorzea and the rest of the world a time to breath and maybe even serves as the fire for others to rebell against it once more.

The fight as Estinien was cool but also very creepy...if I remember it correctly that man in the machine had the garlean eye..they again used their own people for experiments..

And then the last scene...I am 100% that this is only Ardberts body with someone else in it. We got the confirmation that our soul shines brighter which means that we have Ardbert with us. But I remain skeptical on how great that fake guy will be...the first glimps of the WoD brought hype too yet their parts in the HW story was so small and disappointing for me that I kinda stay skeptical on how his role will be...

Anyway some positives from this but sadly it does not reach the same line as the 5.0 did for me.

MSQ thoughts

Wowee what a ride - I really like playing as Estinien even if he was OP. and that badass LB. The fight was creepy, could not help but feel sorry for the poor chap in that machine. proves that the empire will stop at nothing to achieve their goals even if it means experimenting on their own people.

As for Zenos a lot of folks saying hes gunna eat Zodiark - I highly doubt this is going to happen. Zenos has a one track mind and will go for the ultimate hunt and try to fuse with Zodiark like he did with shinryu but I predict in doing so Zodiark will consume him or rend his soul a sunder.

Emet already told us that Zodiark was one of the most powerful and oldest of primals along side Hydaelyn and I highly doubt the father of chaos is going to allow itself to become a Zenos snack more like the other way round...

Little wall of text.

Originally Posted by Alleo

Well did the MSQ and my thoughts on it:

Still I am not quite happy that Zenos somehow even got some Ascian power..

This was a thing I did just wait for.

Remember our first talk to Elidibus in Patch 2.1? He talked about, if we ever would learn how powerful the echo really is, we would see, that we are not very different to the Ascians.

Originally Posted by Cilia

Mysterious Figures

The Mysterious Figure that appears before Zenos is, by my estimate, [b]not[/i] associated with the Ascians.

My first thought was: maybe the same source as the Oracle of darkness?

So Zenos is now hunting for Zodiarc. And if he consumes him, currently I do expect he will, my idea for the direction is the following:

After this Hydaelyn will sacrifice herself to give the WoL of the Source her power and then everything is heading forward to the final battle between Zodiarc and Hydaelyn, represented by Zenos and the WoL.

From the Fanfests we do know: The Arc of Hydaelyn and Zodiarc will end in 5.x and i think, this could be an possible end.

Originally Posted by Alleo

Somehow they are talking a different language there (which the WoL also cant understand even with the echo)

Not very surprising. As we lerned at the end of the Omega story line, the "natural language understanding" only will work for individuals with a soul.

The visuals are not great. Its an ugly factory with ugly robots. And other than the last fight, none of the music was something I liked, heck the one that played when we traveled through it again really got on my nerves after a bit of time.

Without the knowledge of the game, it is hard to know why it looks and feels like it does. You should definitively give NieR: Automata a try. It has one of the best stories I've played the last decade. After the desaster of Final Fantasy 15, NieR: Automata satisfied me in every way FF15 could not deliver.

On the subject of Zenos...

With how Ascian-like he is already, it would be hilariously ironic if it went full circle and he ended up just getting tempered by Zodiark after believing he could actually manipulate a primal of his magnitude (They'd have to make up a really, really good explanation for me to actually accept him being strong enough to overtake even a weakened Zodiark with an artificial Echo).

It would certainly even the playing field for the Ascians now that Elidibus is the only remaining overlord and I'd really like for one of Zenos' schemes blow up in his face for once.

Originally Posted by KageTokage

On the subject of Zenos...

With how Ascian-like he is already, it would be hilariously ironic if it went full circle and he ended up just getting tempered by Zodiark after believing he could actually manipulate a primal of his magnitude (They'd have to make up a really, really good explanation for me to actually accept him being strong enough to overtake even a weakened Zodiark with an artificial Echo).

It would certainly even the playing field for the Ascians now that Elidibus is the only remaining overlord and I'd really like for one of Zenos' schemes blow up in his face for once.

ten thousand words

I feel that we are heading towards Zenos being the shadowlord of the story and he will be controlling Zodiark for real, I don't see the Elidubus of now surviving 5.3, while Zenos is idd going to become something more, there's this evil incarnate vibe that I feel from him, by how he interacts with ppl and events that I can see them molding into the final boss of the arc..........................and then we'll have LAVOS

@Lycropath Idd nothing that was shown in the battle was new, the battle just gave context to how strong we actually were in the Ala mhigo fight

Lots to talk about it seems:

MSQ:

Civil war in Garlemald and even more horrific experiments, wonder if the alliance will press forward for fear a rogue legion may do something drastic or let it play out either option is going to look poorly to the provinces the empire has left. As for the mysterious hodded figure placing bets on Aulus from the Ala Mhigo dungeon since Zenos recognizes the soul and SB for 4.0 was surprisingly Ascien free or was it? :P

The extra P'hiliman quest after was sweet.

Eulmore seems it is being set up to help move the 1st back to stability and i'd like that Mr Chai did alot of it unprovoked came a long way from needing an artist.

Humor has been good between the characters.

Though there is something that bothered me, the scions give up the idea of white auracite citing why yet when we go and inform Krile and Tataru they are gungho about Urianger's white auracite plan. Left me very confused.

What i can see happening in the future:

Eulmore will play more roles as an airship landing is there yet you cannot access it so either we have a flying battle ahead or hard to reach areas to go to needing Eulmore's fleet.
Garlemald will nigh destroy itself until a crown is placed on someone's head or the Alliance intervenes forcing them to stop.
The Night's Blessed will play a pivitol part next time due to the 'soulstone' reference which the gemstones would probably be the closet things to (may also get an answer to why the water pricked our character and Ryne).