Revelations from Patch 6.4: The Dark Throne

[Cleretic]

I am playing too much Tears of the Kingdom right now so I have not done the MSQ. But I have read about the overall story points and its sad, that this is another world ending threat. I really hoped that our character would get a nice interesting adventure after stopping the destruction of the universe but it seems that we wont get smaller stories right now. And I really hope that we can save Azdaja. The dragons really have it bad. I also hope that we wont solve the void problem at the end of 6.5, since there is a whole team waiting on the First to do that. Would feel bad to take that away from them.

The raid (which I did play) had a nice ending but I wished for more story scenes between the fights. I guess we at least learned the fate of Eric and it did make me a bit emotional. Hopefully the Ancients and their stories will rest after this and the last 24 man raid. I am ready to move on from them and explore the world that is existing right now.

This is true, and to a degree disappointing, but Golbez's angle was always going to threaten the Source on a planetary level; he was never going to be smaller-scale than that in goals, just in accomplishments.

What I will say, though (and something you probably didn't get from just reading things second-hand), is that it's refreshing how it's not really framed that way. Zeromus is recognized as potentially being a threat on that level if left unchecked, but not only are they fairly on top of how to check it, it's also approached less as 'stopping the end of the world' and more as a rescue mission. In fact, the notion of 'what if we just kill it' is seen both as easier and undesirable as a result; it'd probably be a piece of cake to just wait until Zeromus gets through and then fight it on home turf, but doing so would lose Azdaja.

In scale, it reminds me of something closer to raid storylines, like Alexander or Mhach (which, appropriately, is the last time this writer did Voidsent Stuff): the fact that this could threaten the world is on the table, but other, smaller and more immediate things are taking priority.

[SilversLyu]

I still believe Golbez will succeed. Maybe not all the way through, but it will probably cause damage somewhere, maybe afflicting a continent like Meracydia or former Garlemald. The expansions after we have to deal with void infected landscapes on top of exploring new horizons. Essencially reducing world threatening scenarios to a smaller scale like Heavensward but adding some fuel to it to make it more dire. Couple that with political factions in say former Garlemald who wage war against each other with the power of auracite and we have an interesting story to tell.

[Alleo]

This is true, and to a degree disappointing, but Golbez's angle was always going to threaten the Source on a planetary level; he was never going to be smaller-scale than that in goals, just in accomplishments.

Honestly I am not even sure if I liked the whole Golbez storyline anyway. (Maybe because the fanservice for the older FF goes straight over my head since I never played that one) After 6.0 I wished for a more smaller, grounded adventure. Something that might hint a bit at what is to come but not more. Not jumping between shards again. The raids were already enough with the bigger mysteries and at least Pandemonium held another potential world ending threat if left unchecked.

The best part had been the treasure hunt with the group. I wanted more of that, more of being just a adventurer.

I guess how you wrote it made it a bit better and I do hope that we can save her, still not that hugely motivated to do the patch story right now.

[YianKutku]

The only Garleans I've found on the moon are at 13.5Y, 14.6X and look exactly like the regular Garleans that are also shown in the capstone of the role quests. I don't think we saw any of the high ranking Garleans until this patch tbh.

The Garleans who feature in the latter part of the 6.0 combined role quests are explicitly described as "former senate members" (as per Artoirel), "among the refugees of Camp Broken Glass". The context is in getting the former government members to create a new framework of governance.

Later, during the cutscene immediately after, Aymeric also repeats this, in the context of asking the collected Garlean refugees.

We were told a number of former members of your senate yet remain among you. Would you be amenable to an interim government led by these individuals, until such time as Garlemald can be rebuilt?

Now, it's possible there's a sleight of hand in framing here, where the Garleans in the cutscene immediately after the discussion about former senate members are not former senate members, and the former senate members are elsewhere and not in the cutscene (against all reasonable guidelines of media construction). But that still leaves Artoirel's statement that there are former senate members in Camp Broken Glass, not all holed up in a previously unenterable building in Regio Urbanissima.

To elaborate, I'm not asking for a major change in dialogue for 6.4 MSQ. I just wanted a single dialogue box (or two) acknowledging that some former senate members have decided not to bother with this "rebuilding Garlemald" business, and are either on the Moon, or are in Camp Broken Glass. And acknowledgement that most of the philosophical discussion of "Garlemald can be rebuilt" and "Garlemald is its people, not its things" has already been said (by Nero, although I understand if nobody wants to bring up the source due to Nero's Nero-ness).

[SannaR]

The Garleans who feature in the latter part of the 6.0 combined role quests are explicitly described as "former senate members" (as per Artoirel), "among the refugees of Camp Broken Glass". The context is in getting the former government members to create a new framework of governance.

Later, during the cutscene immediately after, Aymeric also repeats this, in the context of asking the collected Garlean refugees.



Now, it's possible there's a sleight of hand in framing here, where the Garleans in the cutscene immediately after the discussion about former senate members are not former senate members, and the former senate members are elsewhere and not in the cutscene (against all reasonable guidelines of media construction). But that still leaves Artoirel's statement that there are former senate members in Camp Broken Glass, not all holed up in a previously unenterable building in Regio Urbanissima.

To elaborate, I'm not asking for a major change in dialogue for 6.4 MSQ. I just wanted a single dialogue box (or two) acknowledging that some former senate members have decided not to bother with this "rebuilding Garlemald" business, and are either on the Moon, or are in Camp Broken Glass. And acknowledgement that most of the philosophical discussion of "Garlemald can be rebuilt" and "Garlemald is its people, not its things" has already been said (by Nero, although I understand if nobody wants to bring up the source due to Nero's Nero-ness).

Sadly this is another example of the MSQ having to ignore side content. They will never hint at side content if they can go about something that still works without assuming everyone has done said content. It's why even though I've enjoyed the post 6.0 story I grumble a bit at all of the rebuild up and explaining about the void stuff or making portals to the void. When I know there's a group on the 1st whom started their own journey in fixing the 13th.

Now we don't know why there were former senators at Camp Broken Glass or if any of them are the two we recently got introduced to. I just remember that none of them looked like they were actual members of a senate. Heck we didn't even get an appearance of that one royal guard from the missing mother questline in the role cap quest. If some of those Garleans from the role cap quest were supposed to be senate members then none of them looked like they had been sleeping in their fancier clothes for the last few days. Or gave off an air of importance.

Sometimes I'm glad that a lot of the trying to get them back on their feet is happening off screen and that there has been advancement in their story. Other times it would have been nice to have seen some of it. Or at least a hint. Give us a new set of static npcs that phase in and out of places talking about the newest shipment of supplies or something.

[Cleretic]

Reminder that the all-roles capstone quest does get a shout-out in 6.3 when you first talk to Alphinaud and Alisaie. So they haven't forgotten about them, they just didn't mention them literally this patch.

Personally I suspect it was a bit of a mistake to write in 'oh yeah let's send those guys to the moon', because it leaves those particular Garleans in a weird corner where they don't make sense to bring up in the moon-based quests (namely the Loporrit tribe quest) or the Garlemald-based quests. It's absolutely possible for them to write in a little epilogue with those guys to tie everything up neatly, but... well, they haven't.

(By the way: you can easily identify the group of Garlean politicians from the capstone quest, because one of them looks exactly like Hermes and it's genuinely kinda weird once you see it.)

[Alleo]

Maybe this was already talked about but I watched the raid story in english and the streamer choose the other options when they talked about not getting help from a group since Themis is not here. I choose the one where my character said that they could do it alone if they can focus on the boss. The other option though makes it sound like Azem crystal does not summon other real adventurers but only some kind of illusions?

I guess that makes more sense since I doubt so many people in this world would constantly be willing to be summoned into a boss fight without a notice while also getting no recognition once its done.

[Iscah]

The other option though makes it sound like Azem crystal does not summon other real adventurers but only some kind of illusions?

Up to this point, we've been fighting in the distant past with nobody to call on via the crystal, so Themis has been conjuring illusory allies for us. Now that we're back in the present, we have a different solution, and apparently just don't expand on the details.

[Alleo]

Up to this point, we've been fighting in the distant past with nobody to call on via the crystal, so Themis has been conjuring illusory allies for us. Now that we're back in the present, we have a different solution, and apparently just don't expand on the details.

Well the first sentence you can choose as the WoL bascially says that Themis isnt the only one being able to summon illusory allies. Up until that point I always believed that Azems crystal just summoned real people to our side (which I always found a bit strange) With that dialogue choice it seems to imply that those people are not real after all. Which I guess makes sense why they are always gone as soon as the fight is over.

I guess its just a small detail that makes us fighting with random strangers a bit more easier to swallow for me.

[Iscah]

Well the first sentence you can choose as the WoL bascially says that Themis isnt the only one being able to summon illusory allies. Up until that point I always believed that Azems crystal just summoned real people to our side (which I always found a bit strange) With that dialogue choice it seems to imply that those people are not real after all. Which I guess makes sense why they are always gone as soon as the fight is over.

I guess its just a small detail that makes us fighting with random strangers a bit more easier to swallow for me.

Maybe, maybe not. It seems more likely that the spell really does summon people and that we're only calling them illusions here to save having to explain in more detail.

Hythlodaeus makes no mention of illusions when he tells us that the spell can summon our allies, and later we genuinely use it to call Emet and Hyth to Ultima Thule, and I think to pull the Scions back from their dispersed state as well.