Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 1)

Originally Posted by JeanneOrnitier

Okay, here's my theory with the towers (specifically the big one in Garlemald)

As Urianger pointed out, being tempered to a nation instead of a primal is something we've never seen before. And then, we learned that the towers are summoning primals. My theory is Fandaniel and Zenos are trying to, or already have, use the biggest tower in the capital to summon the concept of Garlemald itself as a primal. A primal embodying the idea of Garlemald and what it stands for, explaining how people could become tempered by a nation. And then the beams coming from the smaller towers are broadcasting its tempering to other locations beyond its immediate vicinity.

I don't know how the Lunar Primals fit in, but that's what I think is going on in the imperial capital.

It's a reasonable inference IMO...

Not least of all because if you put the Garleans under a scenario where their beloved homeland is in danger, a saviour figure begins to make sense (this is not too dissimilar to the return of Xande from the grave, even if the means used for that revival differed.) Many things can serve to give rise to a Primal, even fear as in the case of the High Seraph.

As others have mentioned, they do revere their Emperor, but I wonder if Varis's short tenure will be eclipsed in that regard by the founding father's image - Solus, the same man who elevated Garlemald's status in the world after its harsh past. His clones remain an unresolved matter. Someone they could easily use as an embodiment of the concept, although an abstract design for the primal would work. Zenos would technically have the strongest claim to being Emperor, with the civil war abetted, so it may even serve to empower his image directly in such a scenario. Not too dissimilar to Thordan, drawing on the faith his nation had, with some extrinsic power sources on top of that to form a Primal.

It'd imply that their plan isn't so much to use Zodiark as the Primal of choice but as a fuel source for this other Primal, and it also makes sense of Zenos's words about the Empire. They wouldn't need to be so cryptic about Zodiark, I believe, because he is already widely expected to be the Primal whom Zenos takes hold over. This newly revealed approach to deal with "tempering" would also sidestep a lot of the risk that trying to control Zodiark would entail. All this would also be doubly anathema to Emet-Selch, our narrator for 6.0's trailer, so it ties in nicely there too... throw in his dark scion equivalent, Zalera the Death Seraph, and you have a way to tie One Winged Angel to Zenos, for however long he can keep it up...

I am also of the view, as some others, that they're saving Nerva as the "inside" contact for Garlemald, especially as his family had ties to the Populares. Gaius has been put to other uses, and Maxima seems to be more of a bridge character.

Originally Posted by Lauront

It's a reasonable inference IMO...

I am also of the view, as some others, that they're saving Nerva as the "inside" contact for Garlemald, especially as his family had ties to the Populares. Gaius has been put to other uses, and Maxima seems to be more of a bridge character.

Thirded! If only because...

Nerva is Legatus of the IIIrd, and Larsa's oldest in-series prototype was Alus, from Final Fantasy III. Even Zenos, who was a subversion of the numerical parallels at first, is now following in the footsteps of Vayne Solidor as an unrepentant evil with an immortal puppeteer.

We had literally no reason to care there even was a IIIrd legion specifically, so if Nerva wasn't important, they could have saved us the trouble by not mentioning them at all.

Nier...

I haven't played the games in the series, but I found the Tower to be the best so far, be it in terms of aesthetics, music or the bosses - especially enjoyed the third one and the creative use of mechanics. Story-wise it does seem to resolve to alien invaders using a portal, so doesn't seem to touch overly much on XIV lore, beyond some thematic parallels with the main story stuff. Dwarf babysitting was sort of funny.

Originally Posted by Veloran

I would have to guess that the bridge character won't be Nerva himself, but rather his kid Titus. If Nerva is either dead, tempered, or just uncooperative, Titus would be the last remaining heir to the Garlean throne.

Titus is Solus's second son. As far as I recall, lord Nerva is a cousin of Varis (therefore he'd be the son of Titus.) The reference in the story to Titus having no "ready heir" as at the time he attempted to assassinate Zenos could imply a considerable age gap between father and son (and possibly also first son of Solus and second, therefore allowing a sizeable age gap with his cousin, Varis.)

Originally Posted by JeanneOrnitier

Okay, here's my theory with the towers (specifically the big one in Garlemald)

And then the beams coming from the smaller towers are broadcasting its tempering to other locations beyond its immediate vicinity.

I don't know how the Lunar Primals fit in, but that's what I think is going on in the imperial capital.

Is this where I put some characters? Yay!

In agreement on the almost quite literal broadcasting. Those things look hugely like RKO-inspired radio towers it's been in my mind for some time that's kind of what they do, maybe using lightning aether.

Enjoyed the MSQ overall. More dragons is always good. Also wondering when I can file adoption papers for the twins; they are my pixel kids after all. Fandaniel has another role in another life as Salacious Crumb - I have no idea why he makes me think that, but he just does.

More ruminations on 5.5, now that I have more time to write, and I'm not up past my bed time.

MSQ

I hope we get an Echo vision of Fordola carrying Arenvald back. Or them contending with Lunar Ifrit, unless it just gashed and dashed. Also talk about character development for Fordola. She was once willing to follow any order to climb the Garlean ladder, willing to fire on her own comrades that climbed said ladder with her, killing them all. For someone who was quick to push on Alphinaud for his idealism(which I loved btw), she did something very heroic and ideal. Instead of getting out of there by herself, she carried Arenvald back.

I feel like Estinien's commentary to Alphinaud is foreshadowing the ground punching scene from the trailer. It brought to mind the final slew of Trigun episodes, where Wolfwood tries to embrace Vash's ideals, and then dies for it. Followed up fairly quickly by Legato forcing Vash to choose between compromising on his ideals and killing him, or watching Milly and Meryl die to his horde of mind controlled minions. Ideals are nice to have, but you can't really uphold them 100% of the time unless you are omnipotent. I look forward to seeing the fire in Alphinaud's eyes in Endwalker. I suspect he will have a truly scathing, blistering condemnation of his homeland's isolationism, along with their hoarding of technology that could have been used to uphold his ideals. Mercy always has a cost. Estinien's perspective aligns very closely with my own.

I see a lot of people remarking surprise, or that they didn't really think Tiamat was tempered. Of course she was, and I rather think that its effects were weaker in her, because dragons aren't sundered. Plus, she is a powerful, elder dragon. Though it also calls to mind our fight against Isgebind in Stone Vigil. That's the only other time I can think of, where an Ascian roused and perverted a dragon's will. Though obviously that's a bit more grey, since Isgebind was harrying us earlier in the dungeon anyway.

It was odd to see Zenos care about losing the dragons. Perhaps their aesthetic truly pleased him, since he took control of a primal version of their forebear.

As for Fandaniel's nonchalance... I do not believe it is feigned. He wants to die, and he wants everything to die. Many died, and it does not prevent his overarching plan, but even if it did... even if we were to kill him, we would still satisfy him in some way. There are no stakes for Fandaniel, which contrasts against us nicely, where the stakes for us are ultimate. He is being setup to be a character who is undeserving of the idea that every life is precious, running directly counter to it even, in his actions and will.

Nier

The majority of my experience with the Nier series is with Drakengard(Drag on, Dragoon) 1, and then the soundtrack to the first Nier. I bought and played about 6 hours of Automata, but it wasn't for me.

I am rather pleased with the soundtrack integration for the raid though. The combination of the prelude into the final boss theme was simply divine. I won't understand any of the bosses without looking further into Nier, though.

My trouble with getting into Nier is that the ideas and concepts being explored with its narrative are concepts that I have already explored in other, earlier games. It's not that it holds no appeal to me, but it's not as profound to me, because I'm already familiar with such things.

More musings on Werlyt, and sort of responding to Cilia's take on the fight.

I found it interesting that the weapon changed into an Ifrit like shape. I'm looking forward to seeing what it does in Extreme. I assume that the shoulder pads breaking off completely with the "muscles" bulging and rippling happens in Extreme, as in the trailer.

Huh, I found it to be as exciting as the other fights. It's true that as with most end patch trials, it's easier mechanically, but I thought it was just as, if not more exciting. I mean, Goo Nael was pretty cool and definitely was expecting things like that in future weapons... but when Emerald Weapon used data on someone living, I knew it was only going to tone down again. Maybe I just had curbed my expectations heh. I thought it was really cool that Diamond Weapon could transform back and forth, and I also like that there was no holodeck tech this time, but it still controlled the battlefield, to an arguably greater extent, since it was fighting us in a situation that could not have been predicted by its designers.

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

More musings on Werlyt, and sort of responding to Cilia's take on the fight.

The answer is quite simple:

Just about everything in the Diamond Weapon fight we've already seen, and more dynamic at that.

Diamond Weapon's armored form relies on the powers of the previous three Weapons: Ruby's claw tentacles, Sapphire's chest blaster, and Emerald's disembodied hands. It's unique abilities consist mainly of explosions, which... aren't all that impressive. This version appears to use Shinryu's skeleton, albeit with unique animations.

Diamond Weapon's unarmored form is... a coked-up mecha Ifrit, whose main form of attack is knockback into a bottomless pit. It's... not a particularly novel strategy in this game, and while other bosses do employ it said strategy is particularly egregious here because you probably aren't going to die otherwise in this phase.

Finally, the backdrop is... and endless expanse of clouds. While fighting high in the sky on an airship deck is interesting, we've already done crazier stuff; the Bismarck fight is almost identical in setup, except there you're on a floating island being towed behind an airship, shooting harpoons into a sky whale while it manipulates the weather and throws endless flunkies at you... it's much more dynamic than the Diamond Weapon fight which is, again, just an endless expanse of clouds. You hit the Weapon and swap platforms to evade some of its armored attacks. Woo.

As for EX differences... I've watched some tutorial videos to get ready for it (maybe), and there are no major changes to the fight. It's essentially the same as most EX fights: same as normal with some tighter coordination needed, no AoE markers so you have to rely purely on visual tells to dodge attacks, and a couple new mechanics to keep it fresh. I haven't seen the "mutation" type animation anywhere; I dunno, maybe there's a secret phase with Zenos' combat data that triggers if you bring it down fast enough? (Probably not.)

Ruby had the Evangelion-style Nael hatching out of its back. Sapphire was a mano e mano mecha battle. Emerald was a complete battlefield shift, along with a chance to see Gaius in his prime. Diamond... is you beating on a mecha while riding an airship, surrounded by an endless cloud expanse. It's just boring in comparison. There's no "wow" factor.

To me, at least.