Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 2)

Finally dinged 25, so I can get into Dalriada tomorrow if I feel like it.

Rank 25 Quest

Well, Fran saving Mikoto instead of Misija was unexpected, and a pleasant surprise. It seemed like this was being hinted at in the Rank 23 Quest, wherein the WoL breaks their promise to Mikoto and actually lets Lilja and that one Bangaa in on Mikoto's vision. I still maintain that a parachute would've been fine though. Seriously, why is it that the only airship heavy nation in the world that actually employs parachutes is Garlemald?

Lilja getting hurt instead was a pretty decent subversion of my expectation, too. She grew on me pretty well since her introduction at the start of the Bozja questline, and I have to say I'm far more invested in her survival than the likes of, say, G'raha Tia. Actually, that's something I've found I feel for the bulk of the Bozja characters. I'll be sad to see these characters go when this is over, whereas I can't really say the same for Y'shtola, Urianger, or Thancred.

Menenius and Lyon having a bit of a "if they weren't the villains, this would all sound heroic" moment was a very welcome touch, too. I think I do finally have a grip on Lyon's behavior at least. Maybe that'll change once I clear Dalriada, but I'm now leaning in favor of the "Gabranth's death is a coverup" train of thought.

Daguza, Clariccie, Dabog

Not surprised to see Daguza and Clariccie return for a final fight or two. I was surprised to see them run off again, though. I've taken a bit of a liking to both, though I can't help but wonder what purpose there is in their survival if the end of the story is nigh.

Another thing that surprised me was the twofold revelation that the original Dabog is dead (and may have been for quite some time), and that Sicinius has discovered the means of copying his memories and abilities into the minds of other soldiers. That sounds quite a bit like the Oversoul/Overmind system from the Sorrow of Werlyt questline, and from what's been said (Sicinius attributing this knowledge to the VIIth Legion) it sounds like that's exactly what this is referring to. It's more than a little disturbing, if that's the case, and leads me to wonder if Sicinius being handed over in the epilogue isn't actually part of the coverup. It'd be one thing if nobody could really tell that a well burnt corpse wasn't actually Gabranth. It'd be another thing entirely if nobody actually knew Sicinius's face, leading to him overwriting a hapless stranger's mind with his own.

On the other hand, I do recall his dossier not actually having his face, and mentioning something to the effect of how reclusive he is. So it's possible he really could get away with such a feat. And even if not, cloning was introduced way back in A Realm Reborn, and the Heavensward Alchemist questline featured an antagonist using modern day cloning in his schemes. Plus, there was that whole "Room full of Solus clones" bit from Stormblood. So it's not out of the question that a clone was handed over.

Ah well. I'll have more to say when I actually do Dalriada.

EDIT: Dalriada + Epilogue

Menenius is a man after my Lily's own heart, lol. According to the dossier, the Diabolos Armament was meant to house its' namesake voidsent. Obviously this can't be the case, as Diabolos was sealed in Amdapor and can't be in two places at once. So what, exactly, was being kept within the Diabolos Armament? It could have simply been an artificial voidsent, but I'm not so sure of that.

"... fine." That sounded awfully belligerent to me, and Lyon did seem to be on edge when it came to Gabranth in that final cutscene. But given the sequel hook in the form of two more apparent trigger weapons and the heavy-handed foreshadowing with Gabranth's death, I wholeheartedly believe it to be a coverup. Besides, it'd suck if Gabranth just died offscreen like that, y'know?

Misija's death is about what I expected thanks to having it spoiled for me. Literally Darth Vader'd, though with the addition of the player or Bajsaljen being the one to mercy kill her. And of course she's not forgiven by the masses for he crimes, which is... well, the most realistic ending. I'm not happy she's dead, but I'm not outraged or anything either.

Lilja taking a load of shrapnel to the gut? Ouch. Poor girl. I'm glad she's alive, though. So very glad. I wanted to write a short fic set before this patch in which she and Lily discuss their shared home of Dalmasca, with Lily relating to her what it was like before Garlean occupation and Lilja doing the same for growing up under it. I figured something like that might be interesting to read. But I never got around to it, and it feels a little cheap to do it post-ending, lol. I might just do it before Endwalker, assuming I can work up the nerve to do so. That aside, I do hope she's around in Endwalker, too. She's been the most pleasant addition to the cast in Shadowbringers short of Ryne, if you ask me.

Mikoto, well, I'm glad she's alive too. And I hope the same for her. I still believe she'll have a part to play in Endwalker's 8-Man raid questline, Pandaemonium, due to her name being a reference to an important FF9 character and Pandaemonium's name being a reference to both FF2 and FF9.

As for the rest, well, like I said earlier in this post: I like these characters a lot more than the Scions at this point. Perhaps it's recency bias, or just that they haven't rankled me quite as hard as Y'shtola and Thancred's frequent brushes with death, or Urianger and the Exarch's penchant for secrecy... or the entire snafu of Exarch's survival in 5.3, which I have rambled on enough about. Regardless: If they show up again, I'll be happy.

Oh, and I guess I need to get good at the duels. That hoverbike mount isn't going to get itself.

Originally Posted by Crushnight

Actually HW had less content than SB did

HW had:

Ravana
Bismarck
Thordan
Sephirot
Nidhogg
Sophia
Zurvan


Stormblood had

Susano
Lakshmi
Shinryu
Byakko
Tsukuyomi
Suzaku
Seiryu
"Yojimbo"

Stormblood had:

Sirensong Sea
Shisui of the Violet Tides
Bardam's Mettle
Doma Castle
Castrum Abania
Ala Mhigo
Temple of the Fist
Kugane Castle
Sunken City of Skalla
Hell's Lid
Fractal Continuum Hard Mode
Swallow's Compass
The Burn
Saint Mocianne's Hard Mode
Ghimlyt Dark

Heavensward had

Dusk Vigil
Sohm Al
The Aery
The Vault
Great Gubal Library
Aetherochemical Research Facility
Neverreap
Fractal Continuum
Saint's Mocianne's Arboretum
Pharos Sirius HM
The Antitower
Lost City of Amdapor HM
Sohr Khai
Xelphatol
Hullbreaker Isle HM
Great Gubal Library HM
Sohm Al HM
Baelsar's Wall

The second part to Savage raids for Stormblood don't really count as "more" content, because it's still one fight. They're merely removed for the normal mode version to incentivize more people into Savage. I.E. They were originally intended to be part of the fight, they even have dialogue from the storyline NPCs in them. The Heavensward fights didn't have that, but the Heavensward raid bosses were FFXIV originals. We count them as separate fights, because there's a checkpoint, but they're not actually separate fights at all. If you wanna go with the idea that because the backgrounds around the arena change/weather changes, that happened in Creator Savage too with the Giant Alexander coming up on the outside of the arena in the final phases/utlimate attack transition. The Heavenward raid bosses were also much more difficult with far harder mechanics, like Gavel and Enumeration. Or Digititis

So, so far it's Stormblood +1 on Trials, vs. Heavensward +3 on dungeons.

Ok, so, Eureka right?

Eureka is Stormblood and it's:
Anemos
Pagos
Pyros
Hydatos + Baldesion Arsenal.

Pagos and Pyros are almost copy pastes of one another in terms of scenery, aside from Pyros's copy pasted Lava caves. Not a lot of thought went into the zone design after Anemos, best exhibited by Pyros/Pagos similiarity, but also by Hydatos being a large rectangle of mud with an interesting skybox and more unique weather relating to Baldesion's Arsenal. Baldesion Arsenal along with Lost Actions are really the only interesting and new, planned out content in Eureka. The rest of it is like an homage to FFXI while actually being nothing like FFXI, as glorified Fate farming with extra steps and different loot.

Basically it's like getting half of an overworld zone with faintest sniff of a story. More thought goes into dungeons, as well as more art and work. As all of the fate bosses in Eureka are reused, pared down raid/dungeon bosses we've previously seen with new coats of paint that don't even use the full skillset.

Heavensward had the original concept for Diadem, which was one unique new zone with a lot more to it than any Eureka zone, just by the sake of the zone mechanics themselves, as opposed to the magia and lost action system. It also had non-combat related objectives, so it was for gatherers and crafters too.

So in this respect, you may not agree, but we can take the dev time for the 3 dungeons and diadem and translate it to the 4 Eureka main zones. Stormblood gets an edge on quantity with Baldesion's Arsenal.

So what's left? Well, Stormblood also introduced Blue Mage. Blue Mage is a new job for players, but it's limited. It reuses all standard caster gear, with its own unique AF at the plateau levels. However, almost all of its spells are just monster skills that are already in the game, and the vast majority of them just do damage. It basically exemplifies what the majority of Stormblood content was, rehash of old stuff.

Like sure, Stormblood has more content than Heavensward, by a very slim margin. The quality of that "extra" content is malms lower though. Heavensward gave us 3, completely new and unlimited, jobs. It gave us more complex raids. More complex dungeons. Heavensward will also always remain the only expansion where each job only gained new skills and lost no old ones. Stormblood started the trend of trimming down skills for button bloat, so a lot of jobs wound up with a net loss on skills, though some, namely PLD, wound up with more buttons than they had, even in HW.

It's also significant to point out that until the patches at/after Tsukuyomi, there was a massive content drought in Stormblood. It wasn't until the latter half of the expansion where they started shoveling all of the content in where it caught back up.

I guess I left out the deep dungeons. HW had a 200 floor one, and Stormblood had one with 100 levels. HoH has three interior designs that are unique to it, somewhat. POTD has six, though more if we want to count crystal color changes(I don't). If we want to just talk about quantity, rather than quality as well, then POTD clearly wins there, requiring 10 more instances of floors to complete along with 10 more bosses, as well as two unique bosses. Something HoH cannot claim to have.

TL;DR - Stormblood kind of has more, but in a lot of ways less. Its quality is lower, and it really showed.

Oh yeah, we also got the Au Ra race in Heavensward. Maybe Stormblood didn't have more content after all.