Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 1)

2/3 way through Diamond Weapon EX prog:

This fight is boring. For the most part it feels the same as Normal but with no indicators, which is never a good look, especially since the indicators were pretty much the only distinctive graphics the fight had. Without those you're basically stuck watching the text log for unvoiced text bubbles you ignored and doing trigonometry on the fly, since the floor is also entirely unhelpful for the first time since before Second Coil. At least it's not a circle?

The NieR raids are much more dynamic in comparison, even when they don't have indicators, or only have "you failed" indicators right as the AoEs snapshot their victims. I'm glad I main a braindead 1-2-3-er that doesn't need to watch hotbars, because otherwise I'd be on the floor. They're certainly the closest FFXIV has come to being an ARPG, even though I do think the timing is a little tighter than it should be in "casual" content.

There's also no special "what if" twist to it, unlike the Minstrel's Ballad fights, which is a shame. Would've been cool to see more of the other pilots' data, since we never had a chance to know them as individuals besides Rex, and Milisandia was the only one mourned individually, probably owing to her being essentially a posthumous character (and a woman). Feels like a bit of a backslide into the ol' "death matters, but not life," schtick of Pre-Stormblood FFXIV, and that's already me doing more thinking on this story than I wanted to.

Honestly, all three of Weapon fights don't differ much on extreme vs. normal outside of the usual lack of indicators, forced tank swaps, and certain mechanics targeting everyone instead of just a few people.

I do agree that there was a relative lack of stylistic flair due to it lacking a proper second phase and change of music, though.

So an interesting theory I had when Playing the Werlyt questline

Does anyone else think the area we find diamond in after it crashes and where Gaius fights Valens in look really detailed to be just a throwaway zone used only for a cutscene. I know some of it was used in the Emerald Weapon fight but it got me thinking what if Werlyt proper is one of the new zones added in 6.0 perhaps to get closer to Garlemald and recruit Gaius.

The Sorrow of Werlyt:

It's a shame that there's so few male Raen NPC's of note and that when we finally see some more, they all end up dying. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Allie was the only orphan to emerge unscathed. On that front, it was rather boring and predictable. Valens was amusing in a similar manner to Fandaniel. He also seems to be inspired by Hojo from FFVII to a degree with the whole obsession with dangerous and weird science experiments. Ultimately, it was obvious that the entire quest chain served as an excuse for some cool and flashy robot fights with some body horror mixed in.

I thought that the fight itself was decent, though compared to some of the other trials we've seen recently it's far from my favourite. I liked the design of Werlyt itself. It's pretty and as someone who grew up next to the ocean, I have a soft spot for the views in such places. I feel it was a missed opportunity not to use our fight against the Sapphire Weapon as an excuse to show us what Regula looked like. Worse yet, there's a lot of missing potential in Gaius not acknowledging that Regula took it upon himself to root out corruption from within Garlemald.

At least he's on the path to finally try and restore his homeland to its former glory, though. I liked his 1.0 and 2.0 self much better than his 4.0 and 5.0 self. We'll see how his experiences in Werlyt shape him. I think he'd serve well as the right hand man and military commander to a Larsa type figure, so hopefully he's being nudged in such a direction. Either way, he's almost certainly going to show up again in 6.0. Hopefully somebody gives him a memo about the Ascians and explains their side of the story to give a better distinction between the goals of the Unsundered compared to the goals of Zenos and Fandaniel.

Nier:

Well now certainly lots of references to past Yoko Taro games in these fights.

Boss 1 : Emil and shadow inspired, perhaps the machines took the data from Nier to produce this scenario.

Bosses 2: Direct from Nier it is Yoko Taro's duo of just trying to protect themselves Hanzel and Gretel but you can't understand them until play through 2 :P I jest but I am really interested in what they and the 1st boss are saying in their code.

Boss 3: Red girl remains as creepy and ambiguous as ever

Boss 4 p1: Queen beast inspired more from Drakengaurd 3 than 1 and this carries over into p2.

Boss 4 p2: Kaine the hermaphrodite's theme is the remix and the boss has 2P's and a red girl's heads while adorned with the same flowers from Drakengaurd 3 set in Nier's Japan timeline after the white disease from the Queen beast from Drakengaurd 1. This boss is pure fan service while being very good fight for non fans. Bravo on this one.

As for the entire story not Yoko Taro's better works imo, there is more in the weeklies, but as is definitely needed more of a hook than what was shown. I'd like to know what Anogg saw when she went through or what world she went to because she really learned a lot about those orbs perhaps a bit of a teaser to Taro's next work.

I'll go over MSQ and Werlyt after sleep

On the subject of the MSQ...

I really hope they have the sense to just let us go investigate one of towers in the second part of 5.5 and that we get a clear picture of exactly what is going on with them; particularly how they appeared out of nowhere and what the deal is with their strange bio-mechanical nature.

If they can just pop up wherever Fandaniel wants, it begs the question of what's keeping him from just deploying them near the capital cities.

I'm also really curious as to just what exactly is tempering everyone with the mention of the victims only hearing a deafening roar and no recollection of anything happening after. We know from Titan's victims that their minds are normally being flooded with thoughts of the primal in question, whereas this "primal" seems more like it's simply mind-controlling people through sheer force of will as its victims seem decidedly less...coherent then the usual tempering victims who at times were able to pass themselves off as being normal.