Mystery

[Jeeqbit]

Their spoiling Solution Nine was the biggest misstep in terms of promoting the expansion imo (though I could see how it can also be jarring for someone who didn't get it spoiled). I definitely spent the first half wondering when things will connect to neon lights city instead of thinking about what the Golden City is or really caring much about the moment-to-moment stuff.

My speculation was that Solution Nine WAS the golden city, or related to it, and that since it was a city of illusions, it was projecting gold until we turn it purple. I speculated the purple we saw earlier on was likely what pushed us in the northern direction to investigate.

I wasn't too far off. The technology powering Solution Nine did in fact power the golden city and the area in Yak T'el. But Solution Nine itself wasn't the golden city.

[Azurarok]

My speculation was that Solution Nine WAS the golden city, or related to it, and that since it was a city of illusions, it was projecting gold until we turn it purple. I speculated the purple we saw earlier on was likely what pushed us in the northern direction to investigate.

I wasn't too far off. The technology powering Solution Nine did in fact power the golden city and the area in Yak T'el. But Solution Nine itself wasn't the golden city.

Oh I made that connection too. I meant that the mystery of the golden city was mostly gone because of that, so the only thing left was just a matter of how we actually get there.

[Jangles]

Biggest problem is this sentiment is carried over to the game's world aswell. There is absolutely no mystery left in the world of ffxiv, every single thing including the goddamn power of friendship as "dynamis" has been given an explanation. Even the twelve, the gods of the realm have been given a solid no questions left explanation there is not mystique about them anymore. Every single damn thing in this game has a mostly lackluster "scientific" (lore-wise) explanation given to it leaving nothing of intrigue. Nothing is just magic or their own special thing, everything is tied to some boring thing.

[Basteala]

Biggest problem is this sentiment is carried over to the game's world aswell. There is absolutely no mystery left in the world of ffxiv, every single thing including the goddamn power of friendship as "dynamis" has been given an explanation. Even the twelve, the gods of the realm have been given a solid no questions left explanation there is not mystique about them anymore. Every single damn thing in this game has a mostly lackluster "scientific" (lore-wise) explanation given to it leaving nothing of intrigue. Nothing is just magic or their own special thing, everything is tied to some boring thing.

Ehh Dynamis was--I felt--a concept that had been floating around in the past without a name in the past: DRK Role Quest, DNC, Omega...it's even somewhat quantifiable in HW PLD. That said I hate what they did with the Twelve.

[Absurdity]

Biggest problem is this sentiment is carried over to the game's world aswell. There is absolutely no mystery left in the world of ffxiv, every single thing including the goddamn power of friendship as "dynamis" has been given an explanation. Even the twelve, the gods of the realm have been given a solid no questions left explanation there is not mystique about them anymore. Every single damn thing in this game has a mostly lackluster "scientific" (lore-wise) explanation given to it leaving nothing of intrigue. Nothing is just magic or their own special thing, everything is tied to some boring thing.

It's even worse than just "some boring thing", it's mostly the exact same boring thing.
Lost ancient civilizations and technology, the gods, major disasters and conflicts throughout history, even the different races...all just caused or created by Ancients in the end.
And I wouldn't be surprised if that is going to be the explanation for all future mysteries as well.

Ehh Dynamis was--I felt--a concept that had been floating around in the past without a name in the past: DRK Role Quest, DNC, Omega...it's even somewhat quantifiable in HW PLD. That said I hate what they did with the Twelve.

Even if Dynamis existed as some unexplained force in the past, it should've stayed that way. We did not need "the power of emotions" to be literally confirmed.

[Basteala]

It's even worse than just "some boring thing", it's mostly the exact same boring thing.
Even if Dynamis existed as some unexplained force in the past, it should've stayed that way. We did not need "the power of emotions" to be literally confirmed.

I would argue that Omega rather did explicitly quantify this. But I can understand the dislike of making a science out of it (even if it's a fringe science in-lore at best). My own feelings for it are conflicted because I personally enjoy speculating on ideas that aren't fully explained, and it can be fun to see how things pan out...or don't. I think we learned a lot of about how Soul Crystals work, for example, in DT's MSQ despite them not being mentioned once. As a lore buff and RPer these open ended ideas can be fun to play with. But then you have a not-insignificant amount of people who essentially need a concept lore stamped on their faces in triplicate or else it's not legitimate, so it's kind of cathartic to see those sorts of people take a solid L when a concept has been blatantly obvious for years.

Not necessarily for those reasons, but I do feel there are definitely time ideas that have been milling around the fringes of the story are explicitly stated at a later date, sadly removing all mysticism, just so the people in the back of the class, so to speak.

[Valence]

Biggest problem is this sentiment is carried over to the game's world aswell. There is absolutely no mystery left in the world of ffxiv, every single thing including the goddamn power of friendship as "dynamis" has been given an explanation. Even the twelve, the gods of the realm have been given a solid no questions left explanation there is not mystique about them anymore. Every single damn thing in this game has a mostly lackluster "scientific" (lore-wise) explanation given to it leaving nothing of intrigue. Nothing is just magic or their own special thing, everything is tied to some boring thing.

That's why I secretly, legit hoped while knowing it would probably never happen that we actually get to another world than Etheyris to start the new arc. We've traveled through space, so in a pure star trek fashion I would have envisioned us landing on another world. Not full of aliens like the dragons the omega or the ea, but perhaps an allagan lost colony that sprouted into a full new world, or whatever.

[Akonyl]

FWIW I do agree to a small extent, namely that they should probably not show *too* much in their trailers. Though specifically with DT, I always assumed that them showing off S9 was to avoid people complaining about the tone shift, which does make sense (as someone in this thread's already shown when they didn't know about it), though they probably could've hinted it a bit more lightly.

But for this part:

This feeling is absent from FF in its entirety. The CBU3 team seem to surgically make sure that literally nothing remains unknown to us the audience through patch notes and live letters from Yoshi P. Not to mention that we know the formula of 4 raids per major patch, 2 ultimates per expansion, 2-4 side pieces of content etc.
This means that there's nothing to discover, nothing that could start rumours among players, no "there's a city deep under the sea nobody has found yet" or "if you /dance on the highest peak near Ishgard you receive an emote". The search for the undiscovered is fun, it creates chatter and makes people work together to uncover new things.

I think this game could benefit from not playing with all of its cards revealed. Give us a hint of where something begins but don't tell us what that is.

It might sound defeatist, but you're basically never gonna get this in a popular MMO anymore. Ever since the days of thottbot (and probably before then), datamining's been rampant in big MMOs to the point where if the game client has data for something, it's not a secret. And for the majority of things in the game, the client's gonna know about it, because streaming data for everything isn't efficient. So a "hidden city under the water" is going to be known about from the second someone pulls the map data, you won't have people just stumbling across it unless the game is specifically built from the start to allow for items to be hidden until people find something (at which point the data gets streamed to them). But even then, that sense of discovery only *really* exists for the first person, because at that point the information can be disseminated + datamined just the same. So unless you think you're really gonna be that first person to discover some secret, you'll get the same experience just by not reading the info SE puts out, despite everyone else viewing it.

[Kazuke_Miso]

How can they set up a mystery when they haven't changed their formula in a decade

[Asari5]

isnt that the point though? discovering something you didnt know exists?

not like there are a lot of places in this game.

you really need a hint to go checking out the main city after a patch?