Season 2 Storyline (another 10 years) [discussion]

[EdwinLi]

Regarding Silvertear Falls and its potential importance for Endwalker - I'm currently leveling a new character and have just recently completed the level 50 monk quest again, which for the most part plays out on the shores of Silvertear Falls. Professor Erik's dialog in that quest is interesting. He mentions (quoting Cid) that Silvertear Falls is the center of the world, as in the aetheric center and thus the center of all live on Hydaelin. With that in mind I would assume we will actually go there in Endwalker rather than later (or not at all), since it seems to be the perfect place or thing to mess around with, if you want to bring about the Final Days. And with Midgardsormr sleeping at the moment, he might not have been able to keep out trespassers.

Not to mention it is near Silvertear lake where we finally meet Hydaelyn again and this time in her original form before she became Hydaelyn. I feel Hydaelyn is much strong around the area of the lake though I am not surprised she will reveal her true self now since WoL now knows the truth about almost everything.

[JeanneOrnitier]

I'm expecting Silvertear to be how we get to that crystal world dungeon seen in the trailer.

[FrightfulNight]

Ilsabard is also what I'm really hoping for. So many people seem to forget about a lot of the things you mentioned and Ilsabard has so much potential especially for a more grounded story after the high stakes of the Zodiark and Hydaelyn story. There could be potential conflicts between former imperial provinces and there's I think 7 unnamed legati that have never been mentioned. Lots of potential interesting areas and themes that could be explored in Ilsabard like Corvos and Landis. It's probably likely that everything in Ilsabard will be wrapped up neatly and perfectly entirely off-screen though since we're skipping the entire continent to get to Garlemald.

I was originally disapointed that we would not be exploring anywere else in Ilsabard this expansion besides Garlemald proper but then i began to realize, what if the reason they did Garlemald before the rest of Ilsabard was so they could tell more interesting and original stories then just more liberation stoylines like SB (they have stated they are not doing anymore of those) since we have had about 4 maybe 5 of them if you count the Ivalice raid series at this point. Think about it, since it most likely experience the most destruction in the final days since they were already in a weakened and disorganized state compared to the other continents thanks to the Garlean Civil War.

Imagine entirely new nations forming in the wake of the final days, for the sake of it lets say three for a parallel with the original city stapes, one of them Corvos gains its independence offscreen and returns to its roots like Doma, one of them Landis has more ties to the Garleans operating as a sort of Constantinople to Garlemalds Rome and maybe even run by a former legatus similar to what Gabranth was trying to do with Dalmascus, and finally a completely new nation that was founded in the wake of the events of Endwalker, not entirely to hard to believe considering the circumstances, maybe it can be seen more fanatical or even just different people coming together like with the Crystarium. These three factions are in constant tension and maybe even conflict with each other due to dwindling resources and the Chaos that has enveloped Ilsabard. From this we get an actual human war story of a more morally grey human conflict to contrast with SB which showed humanities capability for cruelty. With the original Grand companies now being formed into one large one proper these three new factions fill their role going forward.

Ilsabard gets leveling zones tied to each and maybe the PvP system gets completely revamped or has more focus set on it, something the devs have stated they have wanted to do for a while. The player takes on the role of a mercenary in this conflict (and can work for any of the three at anytime) while the true MQS, dungeon, raids, etc are separated from the three and deal with more overarching narratives. there have been some minor choices in popping up in side content, maybe this is the new territory the devs are going to. Yeah i know this is really stretching it and sounds more like a pipedream but i just want an Ilsabard expansion and i feel a more down to earth storyline that deals with the aftermath of the final days is more interesting after endwalker then imediatley going to the new world or the Dragon Star or other shards, give the game's story, characters, and worldbuilding room to breathe.

[symbiote129]

Say, is it right to assume "Season 2 Storyline" would be 6.1 and beyond a certain point? If that's the case I have proposition.

I have been noticing something from the expansions but i don't know if this pattern fits Heavensward and Stormblood as well.

Shadowbringers had its Crystal Tower, taken from FF3 while Endwalker had taken some inspirations from FF4 with its moon plot and the WoL changing from Dark Knight to Paladin.

In simple form to explain it would be like this:

• Shadowbringers - Crystal Tower - FF3
• Endwalker - Dark Knight to Paladin, Travel to Moon - FF4

7.0 will have something that would remind long-time FF fans of FF5 though I don't know if this theory will hold water in the future.

Edit:
I kinda now hope I'm wrong because I just realised that if my theory is what will happen, there is the possibility of space-time-travel being involved in 7.0.

There happens to be a character that have a king whose name is "Alexander", who reigns over the kingdom of "Tycoon" and also the Baldesion grandfather and granddaughter in FF5

[Alexandre_Noireau]

As long as there is no more reflection/shard jumping im in.
I actually dislike the very existence of Nordvrant. Plotpoints aside, for me it reduced from the very real narrative world of Hydaelyn.
I hope we visit and clear the whole map eventually. The southern emisphere with Meracydia and The New World.

Nordvrant for me was like a bad trip/isekai thing.

[Veloran]

I think it was just to prevent a Calamity. Which, for Hydaelyn, is way harder than it looks.

Remember that the real way a Calamity works is that a big blast of aether on the Source is amplified even further by the aether of a shard aetherically collapsing at the same time. So Midgardsormr would've been absolutely worthless at stopping Dalamud, for example, because it's not that they need a specific bomb to go off; they just need any bomb to go off. Midgardsormr would cause it in an attempt to stop it. Which is why Hydaelyn works in small ways most of the time; if she scaled up, she'd blow up the planet.

But that isn't at all how it works. The trigger on the Source needs to be aspected to the aetherial imbalance on the shard - It can't merely be some random catastrophe, it does need to be a specific bomb.

The Garlean Empire were very plainly controlled by the Ascians, and were being used to cause a Calamity

Kind of an argument of hindsight to suggest that Hydaelyn actually knew either of those things at the time and told him to act. Midgardsormr was tasked with guarding what lay beneath the lake. The Garleans were encroaching on the lake in force. It follows that he would act to defend it on that basis alone.

[EdwinLi]

Say, is it right to assume "Season 2 Storyline" would be 6.1 and beyond a certain point? If that's the case I have proposition.

It is not a assumption as Yoshi-P officially confirmed 6.0 will be the full ending of Season 1 storyline (they will not make us wait for 6.3 to see the full ending this time) and 6.1 will be the beginning of Season 2 storyline

That is why 6.0 story will be 1.5x larger than past expansion MSQ since it will include the MSQ that is normally in X.1 to X.3 MSQ.

Yoshi-p and the development team really wants 6.0 to be the finale of Season 1 storyline by making certain all the effort and the long 9 years development journey for Season 1 is felt that it finally reach its end. No waiting to see the ending in X.3 like past expansion, they want the entire Season 1 story end on 6.0 which is why Endwalkers has such hard work placed into it so players can feel the weight of everything the entire Season 1 storyline built up to.

[StriderShinryu]

As long as there is no more reflection/shard jumping im in.
I actually dislike the very existence of Nordvrant. Plotpoints aside, for me it reduced from the very real narrative world of Hydaelyn.
I hope we visit and clear the whole map eventually. The southern emisphere with Meracydia and The New World.

I largely find myself agreeing with this. While I don't really have any specific things I'd like to see, there are a couple of things I don't want to see. First, I don't want to see us hopping around from shard to shard fixing things, especially since there's a lot of the current world that we haven't even seen yet. Second, I don't want to see any more time travelling shenanigans. There's already been more time travelling, time loop, parallel/alternate dimensions, etc. stuff for my personal tastes.

[Turethir]

I don't see us needing to go to any of the other Shards unless there's a real reason to do so. I personally doubt we'll visit any of the others if we're closing this whole arc off with 6.0. Plenty of other places to visit.

[GoldStarz]

The only possibility I could see for us going to another shard is if we go to the 13th, but even then that's a plotline that feels years off. Maybe even more of an "exploratory missions" deal.