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Zodiark isn’t evil because he loves genocide, Zodiark is evil because he’s old. He probably votes Republican and yells at cashiers when he thinks the meat is too expensive
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Nov 28, 2021 03:34
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Threadbanning people from the WoW lore thread was a mistake because it deprived us of a lot of free comedy and I hope it never happens here.
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Nov 28, 2021 03:36
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I believe Primals are like dogs and just sort of do things arbitrarily.
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Nov 28, 2021 03:38
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Chillgamesh posted:I believe Primals are like dogs and just sort of do things arbitrarily. lmao
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Nov 28, 2021 03:42
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brand engager posted:Why would zodiark temper him to do any of that stuff? Or even temper him at all? Were they getting tempered every time they made a burger with creation magic? Zodiark doesn't temper people to do stuff, the act of creating Zodiark tempers the Convocation because it's a massive aetheric creation. Same as every other primal, the previous creation magic likely wasn't big/desperate/aetherically aligned enough to misalign aether. Once misaligned, thoughts and feelings become in tune with whatever thoughts and feelings were used to summon the Primal. So if you summon the primal by sacrificing a great number of people to save the world, you become more certain that sacrificing is a great way to save the world, even if you otherwise understand this is bullshit (at least for Ancients, and Dragons like Tiamat). Emet straight up says, when we summoned Zodiark it tempered us. Plus later on we see that you can re-align Aether to undo tempering, which returns people to their full faculties instead of locked in whatever mindset the primal was created with.
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Nov 28, 2021 03:45
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Emet needs to stay dead. That's my only take.
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Nov 28, 2021 03:48
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Lord_Magmar posted:Zodiark doesn't temper people to do stuff, the act of creating Zodiark tempers the Convocation because it's a massive aetheric creation. Same as every other primal, the previous creation magic likely wasn't big/desperate/aetherically aligned enough to misalign aether. The later primals were summoned by people who had been trained wrong by the ascians, as a prank
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Nov 28, 2021 03:51
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Kazy posted:Emet needs to stay dead. That's my only take. He's gonna start dead, but he'll still be around.
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Nov 28, 2021 03:51
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I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of flashback/journal-type scenes on the moon since if Elidibus was there, then the other Ascians probably were too at one point or another. The tower there is crammed full of concept crystals so there's ample opportunity for it even without the Echo giving scenes to us
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Nov 28, 2021 03:54
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brand engager posted:The later primals were summoned by people who had been trained wrong by the ascians, as a prank All Primals gently caress up your Aether to summon, based on how big the Primal is. Dragons and Ancients just have so much Aether that it's less effecting to them. The bit that's wrong is that the Primals summoned later drain the land of Aether by default, Hydaelyn and Zodiark (summoned correctly) do not, they only use the Aether given to them. It's also possible that nobody could do correct creation magic anymore, and that it would always drain the land, in which case it's not so much that the method is wrong, but the people using it incapable of correctly doing so.
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Nov 28, 2021 03:54
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It's actually confirmed that Zodiark did temper the Convocation, at least. One of the soul crystals in Etched in the Stars outright confirms it. Altima's, for the record; one of the Ascians that's not really done anything.quote:"I feel my soul turning. Slowly but irrevocably. And the power I wield begins to seem terrible... but this is right. It is right." It's actually pretty much a direct description of how tempering works as we learn in 5.4. We can reason that Zodiark didn't temper the rest of civilization because of Venat's crew, but it's not clear if that means the tempering was limited or 'widespread but avoidable'. There's also an interesting wrinkle in that the final crystal line outside of Emet's (Pashtarot's, another do-nothing) mentions prayer, which is interesting, since no other mention of the Ancients suggest they really had much of a concept of religion, faith, or prayer, although that might not be evidence; you could similarly argue the claim that the Garlean Empire doesn't have sandwiches, since they've never mentioned them, but that doesn't actually work as evidence. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Nov 28, 2021 |
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Nov 28, 2021 04:11
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It's extremely telling about the magnitude of the power involved that someone with the Echo can use themselves as the focus for a Primal creation ritual like Ysayle, and not get whammied, yet the entire Convocation was upon summoning Zodiark. This is a horrifying amount of power that got tied up in the creation of both Hydelyn and Zodiark and shutting this system down, even without anything ELSE going on, could cause profound consequences.
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Nov 28, 2021 04:12
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The only people confirmed to be tempered by Zodiark are those who summoned him. We have no reason to believe that Venat & co had anything to do with preventing others from it.
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Nov 28, 2021 04:34
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I feel like a critical point in understanding FFXIV is that only a handful of characters are Just Evil. The vast majority of the terrible actions in the game are born from some combination of desperation, despair or indoctrination and the game goes out of its way to explain why people can do something terrible while seeing themselves as justified for doing so. This doesn't mean the game agrees with them but "A character does actions we consider terrible in a way that fits with their upbringing and personal motivation" is good writing. Like yeah Gaius is a complete shitheel who did absolutely terrible things. Yet his motivations are not "muwahaha evil" but something he genuinely believes is for the greater good of the world since he comes from a culture where might makes right and primals are widely considered to be literally apocalyptic but he also fairly straightforwardly doesn't just want to murder people. His flaws are many and varied but you can absolutely understand why and how he got there without agreeing with him. If someone empathizes too hard with him, well, that's not something you can really control short of hammering home "this person is wrong, here is why they are wrong, please continue to understand they are wrong" at every choice. The Warrior of Light is a power fantasy not because They Are So Strong but because they represent someone who is able to force less terrible solutions into action through the people they help and unify. The real power fantasy of FFXIV isn't killing gods but being able to confront people who have gone full sunk cost fallacy or descend into despair and give them hope. They're the opposite of the Ascians not because of plot but because they seek to help the weak become stronger, the scared become brave, and the injured be healed. But the only way that really works is if there is a solid ground beneath the villains they are facing. That doesn't mean you can't have the occasional ridiculously evil character who deserves to get hilariously owned but the real victory for the WoL almost exclusively comes either when they convince someone to recognize their wrongs or when they manage to unify people to work together. Like yeah at its heart it is a game about the good guy beating up the bad guys but what makes FFXIV appealing and is more fitting for an MMO than a standard FF game is that while fighting is important, the parts of the game where you help someone with small but meaningful things end up being just as important in the long run. It's one of the reasons that I'm more forgiving of Collect Five Pieces Of Poop in XIV than I am in other games, because while sometimes it is needless busywork, more often than not it's supposed to represent actions and solutions that aren't just shooting lasers at a demigod.
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Nov 28, 2021 04:34
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SirSamVimes posted:The only people confirmed to be tempered by Zodiark are those who summoned him. We have no reason to believe that Venat & co had anything to do with preventing others from it. Yeah, when I should clarify 'we know not everyone was tempered because of Venat's crew' I'm not saying 'Venat's crew protected people from tempering', I mean 'Venat's crew aren't tempered, therefore we can reason that not everyone was tempered'. They're evidence, not protection. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Nov 28, 2021 |
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Nov 28, 2021 05:39
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The most powerful power in the WoL’s arsenal is their ability to unite 4/8/24 people to a single common purpose. And, of course, the raw sexuality of wearing a frog costume while throwing an axe made of pure light at Hades.
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Nov 28, 2021 06:59
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Also listening to their customers to craft the perfect thing.
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Nov 28, 2021 07:05
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Kyrosiris posted:I'm specifically referring to before that - the attempted use of Zodiark that Hydaelyn interrupted. I cannot fathom having such a god complex to say "well, we saved the universe, but it's not how I want it, so all this stuff I just made, I'm going to genocide". This is to me where the environmental theme comes in. Taking Emet-Selch’s words at face value, prior to the Final Days Amaurot was basically an arch-environmentalist society in the conservationist tradition. Everything was about the preservation of the star, and they were so dedicated to this ideal three-quarters of them were prepared to sacrifice them for that ideal. But immediately after that, the Convocation switched to an exploitative environmentalist position. They would still look to nurture life, to promote its growth, but (at least this once, honest guv) they would be doing it for the benefit of the Amaurotines, rather than for the sake of life itself. They would be ranchers, and no matter how well-tended the herd and the land is, the eventual end is the slaughterhouse. From what we’re told, this didn’t come from a position of greed, but one of love and grief. And it was anchored in the core dedication to environmentalism: the argument being that if the Amaurotines were gone, who would protect the star? But Venat and co rejected that argument. It still hasn’t been made clear exactly what drove them — it could just have been rejection of sophistry out of principle, but we do have some clues that they understood Zodiark’s solution was fundamentally not sustainable. The farming vs conservation lens also, I think, contextualises the position the Ascians take on the rights of the new life. Everyone draws a line on “what types of life matters”, and the apparent Amaurotines debates on “aetherological capacity vs sentience” parallels e.g. the “sentience vs capacity for suffering” debate that informs animal rights in the modern world. Which, just for the sake of clarity, itself parallels to the “Christian vs heathen” and “white vs non-white” debates that have been used to justify real-world genocide. I completely understand why the actions of the Ascians hit people so hard, and I believe it’s meant to! The environmental framing, to me, brings out the good intentions that led to hell.
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Nov 28, 2021 07:21
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The recording of Venat and friends did not mention any consideration of the new life though. That was the assumption of a shade Emet Selch created. Their actual stated reason was that Zodiark didn't provide a real solution to the final days, which the EW trailer seems to support if whatever Fandaniel is doing just turned it back on.
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Nov 28, 2021 07:27
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I can't help but feel like we're either missing something important or have been deliberately misled about something, the arrangement of things. I feel like the writing team has at least another good reversal on the level of 'We got Light and Dark backwards.' left in them.Algid posted:The recording of Venat and friends did not mention any consideration of the new life though. That was the assumption of a shade Emet Selch created. Their actual stated reason was that Zodiark didn't provide a real solution to the final days, which the EW trailer seems to support if whatever Fandaniel is doing just turned it back on. My guess on that is that ES couldn't imagine a situation in which someone might disagree with the idea that his new god had solved everything outright.
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Nov 28, 2021 07:32
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To open a different discussion. I just did Diamond Weapon Extreme, and I'm reminded of how, disappointing I guess, the fight ends up being with the lack of a second phase like Nael or Gaius. There's nothing particularly wrong with the story of that fight as is, the brother being the combat data and the sister piloting it is fine and all. The Robo-Ifrit is, weird especially with Lunar Ifrit also being a thing in 5.5, but it's still fine. I just have to wonder why they didn't do a second phase with an Imperial Combat Data. Off the top of my head if you can't or won't do Zenos (and you probably shouldn't) I'd have enjoyed one of the other royal family members. Combat Data for Solus would be neat, in that it'd be seeing what Emet was actually like fighting for Garlemald and be a nice bit of mirroring the fact that Diamond Weapon is arguably the last hurrah of the Garlemald he designed. Plus given the story is to an extent about Gaius, seeing the emperor he idolised and served under as a young man like that could further the narrative alongside the stuff with the victims killing Valens. Titus would also be neat because we know he challenged Varis for the throne and that's about it, so much like Memoria Miseria you get to make an entire fighting style (although Solus also gets this benefit) for someone to show off their version of Garlean Magitek combat.
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Nov 28, 2021 07:49
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Algid posted:The recording of Venat and friends did not mention any consideration of the new life though. That was the assumption of a shade Emet Selch created. Their actual stated reason was that Zodiark didn't provide a real solution to the final days, which the EW trailer seems to support if whatever Fandaniel is doing just turned it back on. To be fair, we did kill the heart of Zodiark so that might have opened up something
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Nov 28, 2021 08:05
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I suspected that they were going to throw us a curveball when they revealed that the combat data for Diamond was going to be Zenos. When we found out there was something Wrong with that data to the extent that it was discarded as a plan, that was a good indication that there is more to Zenos that we have not yet seen that an Oversoul of Zenos would've spoiled. They already did Varis. An Oversoul of Solus would've honestly just been a retread at best and a Horrible Idea at worst. I feel like Nerva is a good candidate for being a future Reasonable Authority Figure when we try to sort out the flaming mess that used to be Garlemald, throwing his Oversoul at us might be setting the wrong impression up.
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Nov 28, 2021 08:09
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Gearhead posted:I suspected that they were going to throw us a curveball when they revealed that the combat data for Diamond was going to be Zenos. When we found out there was something Wrong with that data to the extent that it was discarded as a plan, that was a good indication that there is more to Zenos that we have not yet seen that an Oversoul of Zenos would've spoiled. Solus I think you don't have to be a retread is my point. Show us what Emet-Selch was like when building Garlemald, get to the origin and heart of his most visibly monstrous action to the modern day. After all, Solus Zos Galvus absolutely could not have fought the way Hades fights, as he's meant to be Garlean and thus isn't capable of any magic at all. Titus also still works I think, he's the opponent Varis killed to become Emperor, which implies he was in some way an actual rival and not just a pushover. Solus though helps drive home the Gaius thing because Gaius served under Solus when Solus was a Legatus, and seems to think incredibly highly of the Emperor until his world comes tumbling down with the Ascian revelation and the general situation in the Weapon story.
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Nov 28, 2021 08:11
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Algid posted:The recording of Venat and friends did not mention any consideration of the new life though. That doesn’t really change the point, though. The exploitation vs conservation debate is about the management of the entire ecosystem. Conservationism doesn’t require that you actually care about poisonous toads more than anybody else, just that you accept that eliminating them will impact the environment as a whole. Opposing a direct intervention in the ecosystem (Zodiark resurrecting the Amaurotines) out of concern it will lead to ecological disaster (the Final Days returning) is pretty much spot on. But yeah, stipulated, the motivations of Venat and co are deliberately not revealed at this point. All the above makes sense to me based on what we’ve seen to date, but we’ll see in a week!
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Nov 28, 2021 08:15
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Algid posted:The recording of Venat and friends did not mention any consideration of the new life though. That was the assumption of a shade Emet Selch created. Their actual stated reason was that Zodiark didn't provide a real solution to the final days, which the EW trailer seems to support if whatever Fandaniel is doing just turned it back on. These don't have to contradict or have to both come up at the same time. You can think that sacrificing the other life is wrong, and that it is also unsustainable, and you don't necessarily have to keep saying both at the same time. Especially when you're in an internal meeting, as Venat's crew were. They don't need to sell each other on 'but it's morally wrong', they know it's morally wrong. It's just also unsustainable. I get the idea that sustainability is the thing they've been trying to argue with the Zodiark supporters. Which is fair enough as an angle if both sides think they're in the moral right; you're never gonna convince a religious man that their god is wrong, but you might be able to convince them that their church's plan has problems.
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Nov 28, 2021 08:31
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I think with Diamond Weapon they didn't want to keep putting Zenos in. Not everyone likes him and you fight him plenty of times as part of the story. With Ruby we got to see a remix of the White Raven, fully enthralled and at the height of her obsession with Dalamud. It was also Ruby operating outside of system parameters, manifesting the flesh of a dead person wasn't intended and added to kind of the sheer horror of it. I initially expected it was a case of the data being afflicted in some way by her tempering such that it kind of took over the Ruby Weapon but they didn't go with that explanation. I don't remember Sapphire Weapon's fight very well so rip Regula I guess. Poor guy. With Emerald Weapon we get the synthetic auracite seemingly working as intended. Rather than just outright manifesting a monster from the machine, Emerald manifests Gaius in a manner that utilizes the machine itself as part of its capability. It also kind of fits with Gaius' reputation as a Garlean leader and all. He's iconic in a way, both in and out of universe, and Emerald Weapon is a remix of him as an icon of Garlemald itself. Man and machine working in tandem under a single iron will, and the mechanics of the fight with phantom gunblade formations is just so perfectly my poo poo. If Ruby was the horror of an Dalamud-enthralled being corrupting the machine itself through its data (my interpretation), then Emerald is the machine working entirely as designed, intended, etc. Everything works in harmony here. So what could they do with Diamond really? Fighting the White Raven and the Black Wolf was a nice way to revisit and remix things. We got the White Raven at the height of her madness, and we got the Black Wolf as Garlemald idolizes him. We've got Zenos quite a few times between solo instances and group content. We've got him in multiple forms too, not just repeating the same fighting style. We've even got remixes of him with him possessed by someone else with their own capabilities. And they're working on an expansion where he is again almost certainly another dungeon boss or trial boss. Do we really want another Zenos fight? Sure, Zenos embodied in a giant ravenous beast (imo Shinryu was more the primal's capability) or embodied in a similar way as Emerald did Gaius could be cool but that is already a lot of Zenos. Can we get off Zenos' wild ride already?
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Nov 28, 2021 10:46
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Cleretic posted:These don't have to contradict or have to both come up at the same time. You can think that sacrificing the other life is wrong, and that it is also unsustainable, and you don't necessarily have to keep saying both at the same time. Especially when you're in an internal meeting, as Venat's crew were. They don't need to sell each other on 'but it's morally wrong', they know it's morally wrong. It's just also unsustainable. They very explicitly don't condemn the Convocation morally, though.
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Nov 28, 2021 10:55
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Argas posted:So what could they do with Diamond really? Fighting the White Raven and the Black Wolf was a nice way to revisit and remix things. We got the White Raven at the height of her madness, and we got the Black Wolf as Garlemald idolizes him. We've got Zenos quite a few times between solo instances and group content. We've got him in multiple forms too, not just repeating the same fighting style. We've even got remixes of him with him possessed by someone else with their own capabilities. And they're working on an expansion where he is again almost certainly another dungeon boss or trial boss. Do we really want another Zenos fight? Sure, Zenos embodied in a giant ravenous beast (imo Shinryu was more the primal's capability) or embodied in a similar way as Emerald did Gaius could be cool but that is already a lot of Zenos. Can we get off Zenos' wild ride already? Hence I think Solus, Titus or another member of the family would work after the teaser of Zenos failing. I don't want Diamond Weapon to do a Zenos thing, but I would've liked it to keep up the second phase face a manifestation of a Garlean thing.
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Nov 28, 2021 12:18
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Jetrauben posted:They very explicitly don't condemn the Convocation morally, though. I'm not sure how much I'd condemn them morally if I were in Venat's position, either. They're making a choice I disagree with, but it's presumably not outwardly from a position of malice or cruelty, they've just got different priorities. We know as players that the Ascians go on to be stupid loving evil. And we know from Etched in the Stars that at the very least Emet's internal process at the time actually was rooted in a sort of malice, he is outright hateful of the new life. But Venat's crew can't read the future, they can't read Emet's secret racist thoughts. Presumably, the Convocation are either being coldly practical or speaking to the genuine desire to bring back the lives lost, whether or not they believe it at the time (and even if they don't, a whole lot of Amaurot probably believed that same thing). They probably weren't outwardly corrupt or hateful like real-world lovely politicians. Alternatively: Venat's figured out they're tempered, and as a result doesn't want to sling poo poo at people they know aren't in their right mind. I don't know how much I like that thought, since I'm not really a fan of absolving the Ascians of the whole 'willingly and unapologetically committing genocides' thing, but I could see it. Especially from the mouth of the Ancient who would go on to be the heart of Hydaelyn, a primal who genuinely seems to hate tempering.
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Nov 28, 2021 12:53
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I can't wait to once again draw the blood of my enemy, Zenos. We're gonna have so much fun!
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Nov 28, 2021 13:29
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Lord_Magmar posted:To open a different discussion. I just did Diamond Weapon Extreme, and I'm reminded of how, disappointing I guess, the fight ends up being with the lack of a second phase like Nael or Gaius. There's nothing particularly wrong with the story of that fight as is, the brother being the combat data and the sister piloting it is fine and all. The Robo-Ifrit is, weird especially with Lunar Ifrit also being a thing in 5.5, but it's still fine. Thank you I've said it before ITT but the for being the last fight in the series of the whole expansion the Diamond fight was a huge letdown
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Nov 28, 2021 15:32
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All of the final trials are disappointing. It’s tradition. Orcs and Ostriches fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Nov 28, 2021 |
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Nov 28, 2021 18:35
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.5 must suffer for the sake of the next .0
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Nov 28, 2021 18:36
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:All of the final trials are disappointing. It’s tradition. I guess you're right. Sophia, Suzaku and Emerald are all god-tier (even if Diamond is a lot less annoying as an EX to me than Emerald), while Zurvan, Seiryu, and Diamond are at the very least not as interesting.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:39
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Zurvan and Seiryu at least keep up the consistent fight design ideas of their previous trials. Zurvan changes the arena to something befitting his powers same as Sephirot getting huge and wooded and Sophia’s scales. Seiryu even more so keeps the shift that the two other fights do. Diamond Weapon is straight missing a second phase to match Ruby and Emerald and it’s a shame.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:46
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Diamond Weapon also has what I consider to be the most absurd of FFXIV's "okay you unlocked the trial, but you don't have to do it right now" situations it leaves you in, and that's saying something.
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Nov 28, 2021 18:52
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Even missing a second phase Diamond weapon is a much more fun fight than Emerald, which is a boring slog of a first half for a second half that has maybe 1 real tricky mechanic, and Ruby, where the first half is a real fun fight and the second is way too boring for the spectacle it's trying to pull off.
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Nov 28, 2021 19:27
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diamond weapon is a cool fight, people just wanted a second new theme and phase
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Nov 28, 2021 19:33
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Yes but, it is boring
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Nov 28, 2021 19:33
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