Thread: 6.4 patch speculation

I find it strange that they have decided to reveal the trial instead of keeping it a secret like usual. Moreover, if we're going to fight Golbez's shadow dragon then it's almost guaranteed that the Shadow dragon encounter will be in the Aetherfont dungeon. (It could also be part of Golbez's trial, or not, or fighting the shadow dragon in the dungeon and trial too).

I wonder if the Void story is going to be wrapped up in 6.4, but if it's going to continue to 6.5 then we're probably about to see a major event occurring in 6.4 that's going to be carried into 6.5 and beyond.

It's not strange that they aren't keeping it a secret because everybody expects it...and because they never show us something that is going to be a massive spoiler. Meaning they're going to blindside us at some point.

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

It's not strange that they aren't keeping it a secret because everybody expects it...and because they never show us something that is going to be a massive spoiler. Meaning they're going to blindside us at some point.

Yeah, they only hide the dungoen/trial name when it's actually a spoiler as to who or where it is (or in the case of Alzadaal's Legacy, because it actually wasn't a spoiler at all but they didn't want people to get their hopes up). Remember that trial names outside of English are just straight-up in the structure of '<Cool Synonym For Battle>: <Boss Name>', after all, so they can't even share the instance name when it's a spoiler what we're fighting.

The Seat of Sacrifice got hidden because the Warrior of Light trial was going to be straight-up a spoiler. Storm's Crown got hidden because 'surprise, it's the Four Fiends' was a spoiler, and Mount Ordeals got hidden because already fighting Rubicante was a spoiler. It's also the same reason they hid all the details about the 6.0 trials, but if you remember 5.0 and the 5.x patches, they weren't nearly as cagey about Titania, or the Weapon trials.

Golbez isn't a spoiler because for people who are up to this point in the MSQ know that of course we're fighting Golbez next. And if you're not up to this point in the MSQ... well, what do you expect, why are you watching this live letter?

Originally Posted by Kranel_San

I find it strange that they have decided to reveal the trial instead of keeping it a secret like usual. Moreover, if we're going to fight Golbez's shadow dragon then it's almost guaranteed that the Shadow dragon encounter will be in the Aetherfont dungeon. (It could also be part of Golbez's trial, or not, or fighting the shadow dragon in the dungeon and trial too).

I wonder if the Void story is going to be wrapped up in 6.4, but if it's going to continue to 6.5 then we're probably about to see a major event occurring in 6.4 that's going to be carried into 6.5 and beyond.

Also probably fair to assume that said Shadow Dragon will be a brainwashed/controlled Azdaja - I'd always assumed we'd end up having to fight her one way or another.

Placing bets on which NPC travels with you for lore exploration in Mount Rokkon (which Hingashi/Yanxia honestly lack for representation in various game elements and dungeons unlike other neglected city states- Ishgard and Limsa are the other two that don’t need a Criterion). If it’s Ninja we might get Oboro, the game might remember to do something meaningful with Yugiri (doubtful), and since it looks more Hingashi than Yanxian, I don’t think it’ll be Hien. The front runner, sadly, is Hancock. As a noncombatant with comedic banter and writers’ fondness.

I doubt Zeromus shows up. That white figure in the Pandae raid is going to transform into the Pandaemonium summon.

The Crystal Tower will be involved, the closing of all other rifts available to the WoL will cause us to use the Tower to get back in, and it will backfire.

My more crackpot continuation of this is that Golbez is a Xande clone, which means he has Royal Allagan blood. This will let him hijack the Tower to cause the Void incursion he so wants.

What is disconcerting to me is the lack of a villain beyond Golbez. If this is it for Golbez, his final showdown in this trial, we have no rumored or secret villain teased for the upcoming expansion.

This leads me to believe that Golbez is another villain in a mask; meaning that defeating him in combat will only have him reveal his identity and not be the defeat we expect.

As evidence to consider, all of the other void characters have had a well thought out backstory (even if some of it is side content). But we've got nothing on Golbez except he recruited the 4 fiends. I'm going to venture further and say there has to be an association with Golbez and the Countermemoria war.

Originally Posted by Kesey

What is disconcerting to me is the lack of a villain beyond Golbez. If this is it for Golbez, his final showdown in this trial, we have no rumored or secret villain teased for the upcoming expansion.

That's nothing new. We didn't know most upcoming main-expansion villains by this point in previous patch cycles.

Originally Posted by Iscah

That's nothing new. We didn't know most upcoming main-expansion villains by this point in previous patch cycles.

Not true; by 4.3 I believe we had seen 'Solus', and 5.3 was the expansion where we got both Fandaniel's face and name. By 2.3 Ishgard was... a bit of a factor but that's a weird case. 3.3 was the only time where we definitely hadn't seen anything of the next expansion's villains, but the events of 3.3 did directly lead to Stormblood's inciting incident.

What we really do need to recognize, though, is that this patch cycle is ALSO completely unlike any others. Every other patch cycle essentially treated the x.1-x.3 patches as the epilogue/final chapter of that expansion, and x.4 and x.5 as the leadup to the next. Endwalker's patches have been explicitly said by the devs as being done differently, as they specifically wanted Endwalker's finale to be the actual finale in a way that wasn't true for all previous expansions. They've also said that the hook for 7.0 is coming very late, so 6.x's MSQ is neither epilogue nor prologue; it's its own story.

So yes, Kesey's right that it's unusual that we don't have a future hook or villain, but is missing that this isn't part of some mystery; that's been stated by the developers as the intention of the story we're currently in. Golbez is most likely not some secret mystery hook for the next expansion; he's probably gonna get defeated in these patches because this is just where his story ends.

I wouldn't exactly say it's a daring guess to say that Golbez was somehow involved with the Contramemoria, though. The same is true of everyone else who's a character in the Thirteenth, and the fact that life is in a birthless and deathless stasis there means he can't exactly have turned up late. At this point it'd be a bigger swing to say he wasn't involved in the war, because... well, how the hell do you dodge that one?