Thread: Revelations from Patch 6.1

Originally Posted by Lyth

Also nice to see them situationally acknowledge if you've recently made a pact with a voidsent yourself.

I'm going to assume you have to actually have the Reaper job equipped for that since I had it capped but didn't see any such mention.

Alliance Raid:

Well, they sure are an interesting bunch, that's for sure. As we are at the beginning, it's normal that we lack information yet. One of their own says Hydaelyn, meaning they know her existence or know her personally.

G'raha is speculating already that they come from the time of the Ancients but he has no proof. I made that statement as a foundation that those "Twelve" might be those who sided to Hydaelyn. Their forms is just so reminiscent of Hermes taking another form. Though knowing the writing team, I might be off.

MSQ Thoughts:

The Good: I really liked the humor and a lot of little parts of the writing was very clever. Y'shtola finally had a chance to fully shine since she's mostly stepped into the shadows of some of the other Scions for quite some time. Another welcome comeback is the First Brood and the final mystery of the missing member. The nostalgia hit me hard on the new dungeon and made me miss the good old ToAU days, minus the pesky truesight imps and hidden chigoes. It also feels good to finally feel like an adventurer again and there's no greater threat of Ascians, Allagans, or Garleans anymore and we're taking a more proactive step in the story.

The Bad: Suddenly deciding to investigate the Bounty and a map auction happening right at the exact time felt more than a bit contrived and I felt like it could've been done in a better way. Then after that I feel like the cast has been taking stupid pills. It gives me the feeling like the writers were phoning in the plot for the sake of getting a dungeon in and to pad out the quests and it's a little disappointing.

A mysterious map connected to the family of the first satrap appears and it leads to a giant horde of treasure and has Vrtra pictured right there on top of a magical seal and no one at all thinks to take it to him to either ask him about it, ask if the map is genuine, or ask permission to plunder something he very obviously knows about and is related to considering his age and his depiction on said map.

Then we spend a few hours of game time wondering how we're going to do anything with the voidgate and like I thought would happen if The Void were brought up again, no one at all thinks to ask Unukulhai, who our WoL already knows is from the Thirteenth and during the Void Quests actively opens and closes voidgates. He and Cylva were brought up eventually, but a good deal of busy work could have been skipped by checking on on them. My hope is that after progressing in the MSQ, we will later unlock further progression in the Void quests and they won't be left with a dangling plot thread of what to do with the Void after we've already been there again.

Closing: Ultimately, a good deal of 6.1 could have been skipped by just going directly to Vrtra with the map, and after some exposition, bringing up that you know a couple of children in a parallel dimension who open voidgates for fun and a cat who used to work for the high voidmage of a fallen empire. But because they're locked behind optional content, the most they could ever impact is optional dialogue if you have met the requirements. While I can't see the Void quests being future story requirement, I wonder if the Void Ark quests will be made mandatory if this is the direction for the next few patches. The Void has been touched upon in many sidequests, with one group of them even being called "Void Quests" in the game itself in the Unending Journey, but it feels like the game's nature as an MMO is interfering with the storytelling again and it's frustrating.

I hope that I'm just not seeing the forest for the trees and that it will all come together eventually later on, but we have a 4-month break until we return so until then I guess I'll just stew over it.

Alliance Raid Theory

A small but probably weak theory I've got running is that the Twelve are still a form of summoning. I see a lot of parallels between the four we've seen and various Greek Gods - for example, Byregot is much like Haephestus (forging/crafting), while Rhalgar is very much like Zeus (lighting aligned, visual distinction). We could see Azemya as a Apollo counterpart (as many have seen fitting to match to Azem), and it's not terribly far-fetched to see Nald'thal as Hades. Add to the fact that Nald'thal has some aspects that make me think of our in-game Hades, or at least his second form. The wings in particular draw the eye.

So what if the Twelve are something more of an idealized version of the Convocation members? Or rather, an ideal of their position and what it embodies? The flaw to this theory, of course, is that there are fourteen seats. At least two have to be taken away, while I would normally say Azem (Venat as Hydaelyn) and Elidibus (Zodiark), Azem has too many Azemya parallels to be removed. It could be another isn't present though.

Examples:
Mitron / Neptune / Llymlaen (Mitron specialized in aquatic life, and Llymlaen is watcher of the seas and navigation)
Emet-Selch / Hades / Nald'thal (Both focus on being the "keeper of the underworld" though Nald'thal is also depicted as an overseer of transactions... which also kind of fits Emet given his visit to Elpis, acting as an overseer and judge.)
Azem / Apollo / Azemya (We get hints from Urianger that Azemya and Azim were potentially inspired by Azem, and Azemya is a goddess of inquiry, which could be further stretched to refer to our meddling in everything).
Pashtarot / Ares / Halone (Order and discipline, while Halone stands for war - this one is a stretch and better fits Athena, but she's the prior Lahabrea so she can't fit here. Ares does use the shield and spears motif that Halone has, though.)
Lahabrea / Haephestus / Byregot (Creation magic versus craftsmanship and design)

Now I will admit this is not a perfect parallel and there's a few I'm struggling to match up. For example, I could see Nophica and Halmarut (plants), but then I run into some weird ones like Menphina (Love, and the moons, which would relate to Venus (iirc other translations call Venat by that name)). Thaliak might line up with Igeyorhm (Scholar and rhetoric) but there's a lot of loose ends I haven't quite tied up. It's an imperfect theory, but I thought it might be an interesting line of inquiry.

Looking at your idea Zeich, I think it's something different than that.

It's possible that the Twelve are in fact the last surviving familiars of ancients, with the "Heavenly Realm" in fact being the last remains of Elpis. I got massive Elpis vibes while there, and them being familiars from before the Sundering would explain their massive power. Especially if they were the familiars of the remaining individuals who formed Hydaelyn, since that would explain their knowledge of things and why they never faded away...because Hydaelyn had been existing until recently.

MSQ:

I was shocked at how quickly they started moving things along, but I like it. We didn't mess around with slow epilogues, or aimless wandering, just straight into the next thing and so much stuff happened and got revealed for a single patch of story. Compared to normal X.1 patch stories which are usually really light this one was stacked and I'm excited to see where it goes.

I was so hyped to see Golbez and the Four Fiends and I'm super curious about how that's going to play out, and whether it will be MSQ or trial series related.

Also really happy to see Y'shtola getting more screentime. Even though she's been around forever, I always felt like she's been neglected in terms of characterization and personal moments compared to the other Scions. But this patch was basically The Y'shtola Show. Seeing the little personality quirks and insecurities of the characters and hearing their backstories makes it much easier to get invested and just more fun to be with them in the story.

Myths of the Realm:

Very curious to see where this goes, with the Twelve apparently not being summoned beings. The whole "we can't tell you anything until you fight us" felt a bit forced just so the raids can happen, but I wanted to fight them really badly so I'm cool with it lol. I'm glad that they did not turn out to be evil.

Admittedly the Twelve and the Heavens just being actual things that exist in normal reality feels like it has dispelled a lot of the mystique and more subtle religious intrigue surrounding them. In some ways they were more interesting simply as an analog for real-world religion, these abstract figures that exist only in the minds of people, and how their stories, folklore, and interpretations creates and influences cultures and doctrine. Having it be "yeah they just straight up exist" feels a bit weird, but we don't know their true nature yet so I guess we'll see how it plays out.

I kind of wish they had spent more time talking about each of the gods encountered in the raid, maybe as optional datalogs from Snoegeim or something. We didn't really get much insight into what each god really stands for in the respective cultures which worship them and instead only talked about how their appearance is similar. Byregot doesn't get mentioned at all.

There's definitely something "up" with Deryk but no real clues as to what it is yet. He could be one of the Twelve in disguise, or a minion of theirs created to lure us in, or some other unknown entity. But he definitely isn't just a regular weirdo who just happened to accidentally walk into Heaven one day.

The raid itself is also really cool and fun, the fights are sick and the bosses are awesome. It feels like the boss' HP is low though. If not many people die, the bosses go down crazy fast, even this early in the expansion, which isn't a good sign. It feels like they were tuned for 16 people instead of 24, maybe under the assumption that players would die a lot, but that really only happens in the first few days. Gear upgrades in later patches are going to make this raid a joke which is super disappointing.