Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 1)

Shadowbringers still feels relatively new, and yet here we are, already. (Or is it just me because I've been trapped in the Eighth Hell aka grad school this entire expansion?)

If this is your first time joining us for patch day, we have fallen into a strange tradition where instead of carpet-bombing other threads with spoilers of stuff that just happened, we discuss each patch's contributions in a vacuum here. What usually happens is that the first wave of people each make their own "OP" with the name of the arc and a spoiler box...

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This

...which has all of the things they noticed, the story as they understood it, and comments / feedback for the development team.

Then people usually start quoting each other with the header visible and the content they're replying to in a spoiler box, and a spoiler box below it.

Originally Posted by Whoever

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Like

This

And that

This allows people to partake right from the get go without worrying they'll, say, spoil themselves on NieR by trying to talk about the MSQ.

──────────────────────────────────────With That Outta the Way...──────────────────────────────────────

Main Scenario (Live Blog complete. Will compile thoughts upon reflection.)

Did Thancred just start this patch by mis-defining "magitek"? I thought magitek was pure technology driven by ceruleum combusion engines that mimicks, replaces, and triumphs over magicks in a way that doesn't truly, accurately replicate them like aetherochemistry would? Why did Thancred just equate "magitek" and "aetherial manipulation"?

"Yes, this is a callout post." - FFXIV Dev. Team

Urianger
They were compelled to accept a nation as the object of their devotion. This calleth into question everything we know about the condition.

Urianger: Herald of (Back-End, Additive, Well-crafted) Retcons

Wow, confirming Tiamat as quasi-tempered but strong enough to resist (for now). Really cleaning up the "What ifs?" here.
It did make me snicker a bit to see she pronounces Bahamut "correctly" when most of the NPCs "don't."

Uh oh. Newly-crafted lore on how spirit vessels work. That's gotta be a "Please Look Forward to It" if I ever saw one.

Ayyy all surviving Allagan systems will now recognize me as ROYALTY, eh? Time to revisit some ruins... Lara Croft style...

Estinien and the Allagan nodes' mutual distrust of one another is hilarious.

Skipping a bit forward past the "taking at face value" stuff, d'aww, they remembered Damielliot.

So they took some time to give Arenvald and Fordola some serious potential death flags. (They did the same for Raubahn a while back and he's OK so that's no guarantee.) Now Arenvald's in the hospital, but FFXIV characters don't really go into the hospital and then two weeks later unceremoniously "oh btw we lost him" so I think he'll be alright. Fordola, now I'm worried. There's a whole dynamic with Fordola and Lyse that I'm still a little frustrated with. In 4.0 they represented two different ways to fight for Ala Mhigo. Until they're truly fighting together for the same thing, is that arc over? I thought Fordola might sacrifice herself for Lyse's Ala Mhigo and we'd just wrap it up easy, but something more complex would be more satisfying. And yet here I am hoping her and Arenvald get through to each other and survive in the end. But that would make a death pretty emotional, too. They can't keep telling us wars have costs while the WOL's crew gets off pretty light usually.

Also did Y'shtola just use her sexy boots to stomp all over the Hydaelyn Echo = Tempering theory by highlighting Minfilia not counting as a manifestation of Hydaelyn's will because she acted solely of her own volition? Go Y'shtola!

Werlyt (Complete)

Valens I think was the big frustration for me thoughout this arc. Not only was he more cartoonishly evil than even 2.00 Lahabrea was, he looked cartoonish. He's like Frollo meets Farquaad. I suspect there's a mismatch between the amount of consideration needed to take him seriously and the motivation to reflect on him at all when he's so overt. Obviously he fought for the Optimates, so his Garlean supremacy and maltreatment of "the savages" is not so hard to understand. But the load-bearing wall seems to be the assumption that Valens was always like this, yet it didn't jump out like this until the aftermath of the Garlean Civil War and especially after the assassination of Varis.

The rest I have a lot of hairs to split with reactions I've seen, though, I think.
For starters...

Gaius's adopted kids were fond of him ≠ Gaius was a good father figure.
He encouraged others to share in his delusions about their prospects within the Empire; delusions that would crumble to their detriment the instant he wasn't there to uphold them. It didn't work out any better for them than it did for Fordola, they were just more at peace with it.

Gaius as The Atoner ≠ Gaius as Reeemed
Both in world and out of world there are going to be people who accept, are indifferent to, or outright reject his self-propelled efforts to make self-assessed amends.