Revelations from Patch 5.1

[Jennah]

On Haldric:

With the nectarine - he's asking to die, not hungry or missing Tesleen. Patients were given their favorite fruit mixed with poison at the end...

On Garelemald's new threat:

Surely this is Tartarus, currently in the hands of the 4th legion? It'd be weird for the same cutscene to introduce TWO previously unknown mechanical threats

On the 1st and 3rd legions:

FF1 and FF3 were the only two games in the series to take place after (not during) the Apocalypse. Maybe a good sign? Though the 1st and 3rd Umbral Eras were kicked off by the calamities of Amaurot and Allag, so maybe not.

On the White Auracite:

Instead, we're going to rely on Allagan technology. Especially G'raha's red Allagan Eye, mark of a descendant of Allagan royalty. i.e., Emet-Selch. This strikes me as an even worse idea.

On the final two Mysterious Figures:

Paired like this, it strikes me that we're looking at the work of Hydaelyn and Zodiark ... maybe even their avatars, but at least their servants. Either one of them approaching Zenos with a plan to 'hunt Zodiark' has very interesting implications...

[AkaeiNox]

On one of the Mysterious Figures:

Did Zenos recognize its soul? Could be a fragment of our own.

[EdwinLi]

So we got our glimps at the first Warrior of Light who is going to hunt WoL/WoD and the Scions

With his appearance being Arbert's appearance

I can only assume he is also a fragment of our character because it seems as if all fragments of the Original Soul has that appearance except for our own character for unknown reasons.

I am still curious what his reason for fight Wol/WoD is though.

He speaks about bringing Hope back to the world but I have this feeling his reason for doing this maybe blind belief he is Good and WoL/WoD is Evil simply because WoL/WoD follows the Darkness or is being blamed for some kind of incident.

[Cilia]

MSQ

Kind of underwhelming, though I expected that going in. Most of what needs to happen in the immediate future is dealing with the fallout from Shadowbringers, and most if not all of what we did was directly or indirectly related to that. Half was messing with souls in an effort to figure out how to ferry the Archons back home, the other half dealing with Eulmore's governmental issues in the wake of Vauthry's power vacuum.

The stuff on the Source was interesting in setting up future events, but now that the calamity from the First has been forestalled and there are no other preeminent crises demanding our attention MSQ stuff there is just denouement... though there are applications for some of it elsewhere.

YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse

Well, nothing at all was explained. At all. I expected this as well due to a recent interview from... somewhere... saying we wouldn't really get much information on what the deal is until the 5.3 (or even 5.5!) raid, so I didn't expect to get a whole lot of info.

I liked how the fights were easier than the Return to Ivalice fights though. Still had to pay attention to avoid dying, but not so bad that a few people not being perfectly on-point will wipe the raid. You can learn as you go with the fight, instead of needing a tutorial video or pre-battle explanation. I like those kinds of fights.

The gear looks nice, but I didn't see a single tank piece drop. I guess I can run it again till I get one... I did get the 2B cosplay set, but nothing else.

I'll be disappointed if 2P bites it so early. It feels like a waste to introduce her and kill her off so early into the quest, but I wouldn't put it past Yoko Taro...

I'll start on the pixie Beast Tribe quests tomorrow, eh...

[MrThinker]

MSQ

A nice addendum to Eulmore and good to know that the sin eater victims can possibly be saved. I am glad about having the pseudo-confirmation that Ardbert rejoined with us as well (am sort of confused why they weren't able to say the same thing about G'raha when he comes from a time after an 8th rejoining but eh).
It was nice to play out the events after the ShB cliffhanger, though who the new white-robed figure actually is and how they plan to get Zenos into contact with Zodiark is anyone's guess. The Ardbert look-a-like is probs one of the 'warriors of light' Elidibus was talking about... but I feel like they are just gonna be "lesser Ardbert" if they don't throw some curveballs.

Alliance Raid

I dont have much to say on the story so far, and will keep on musing until more concrete information becomes available in 5.3/5.5. However, I WILL say that the "collection" feature and (more specifically) the ability to revisit a version of the instanced raid area after the duty has been completed to gather more lore is something I actually love and have previously wanted for other instanced duty areas like dungeons and raids. I realise the dev team probably can't do that for every piece of group content, but it is gratifying to see at least ONE thing having such a feature, and hope they continue it with the rest of the raid series.

Pixies

So the pixies can make/influence dreams.... that's a somewhat chilling thought. An Lad really gives of the vibe of being reincarnated Lightwarden Titania, especially since they seem to react negatively to us. Maybe after being doused in light for so long, after being freed, they just thought it was too dark. Nonserious speculation, but we'll we see how it plays out over the next few weeks.

[Sorciechan]

MSQ

The Ardbert look-a-like is probs one of the 'warriors of light' Elidibus was talking about... but I feel like they are just gonna be "lesser Ardbert" if they don't throw some curveballs.

Jumping in here. Not sure if someone already said, but...

I, actually had the idea that maybe that was Meteor, the WOL in the trailers that takes the place for our character. Thought, maybe Square decided to make him more of an individual, now. Would explain why the Shadowbringers trailer had scenes that didn't show up in the game and why the guy looks like Ardbert (but, may not be Ardbert) in the first place.

[Rannie]

Jumping in here. Not sure if someone already said, but...

I, actually had the idea that maybe that was Meteor, the WOL in the trailers that takes the place for our character. Thought, maybe Square decided to make him more of an individual, now. Would explain why the Shadowbringers trailer had scenes that didn't show up in the game and why the guy looks like Ardbert (but, may not be Ardbert) in the first place.

I highly doubt that, derplander is of the source and would have to kill himself like Ardbert and them did to travel the rift

[Sorciechan]

I highly doubt that, derplander is of the source and would have to kill himself like Ardbert and them did to travel the rift

I know, I know. I just thought that...

maybe he was be from one of the dead worlds that happened to have been a direct parallel to the Source, explaining why his and our are near alike. Or, since the idea of parallel timelines is a thing (ty, G'raha), maybe he's from a parallel universe all together.

Haaah, but, yeah, seeing as how that's convoluted as all get out, I'd rather look at the idea of Elidibus keeping Ardbert's body to use as an option, since it makes more sense.

Still, as others have said, it would be really stupid, since he's already jumped out of one body.

[EdwinLi]

YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse

Well, nothing at all was explained. At all. I expected this as well due to a recent interview from... somewhere... saying we wouldn't really get much information on what the deal is until the 5.3 (or even 5.5!) raid, so I didn't expect to get a whole lot of info.

I liked how the fights were easier than the Return to Ivalice fights though. Still had to pay attention to avoid dying, but not so bad that a few people not being perfectly on-point will wipe the raid. You can learn as you go with the fight, instead of needing a tutorial video or pre-battle explanation. I like those kinds of fights.

The gear looks nice, but I didn't see a single tank piece drop. I guess I can run it again till I get one... I did get the 2B cosplay set, but nothing else.

I'll be disappointed if 2P bites it so early. It feels like a waste to introduce her and kill her off so early into the quest, but I wouldn't put it past Yoko Taro...

I'll start on the pixie Beast Tribe quests tomorrow, eh...

This is Nier after all and if you been following the series in the first game then prepare for some serious Emotional Truck hitting you much later in the storyline.

On that note: Anyone know if the Path you choose for Nier Storyline may affect the cutscenes and end results of current Nier Raid Storyline events?

Currently at the end of Nier Raid story you are presented with 2 Paths...

1) Trust 2P

2) Don't Trust 2P

Knowing Yoko Taro, this choice will certainly affect the Ending of the Nier Raid Storyline.

[Theodric]

Alliance Raid:

I enjoyed it. I played Nier Automata so I knew what to expect and was not left disappointed. The 'Collection' tab for snippets of lore is a neat addition and I hope we see it used again in the future. I also like how we could explore the raid zone itself outside of the duty. More opportunities to do that in general would be great! I think it fit well into FFXIV's game world. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. I'll be crossing my fingers for a certain opera singer to show up as well as a certain two brothers.

It's a bit painful having to wait roughly six months for the next bit, though!