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Chillgamesh posted:They should come up with more and more weird fantasy names for weird units of measurements. I wanna see the Eorzean equivalent of "furlong" or "dram" Cid: You've never heard of the Excalibur?! Its the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 padcheqs.
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Jul 15, 2022 01:07
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Tank limit break sees some additional use in harder content where used preventively when you see a mistake happening can save the run and let it continue without deaths or with survivable amounts of failed mechanic damage. This is especially useful when you dont have time for a healer lb3 to go off, have everyone get up, and then run to where they need to for the subsequent mechanics. It's niche still but...nice to have.
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Jul 15, 2022 02:23
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Artificer posted:Tank limit break sees some additional use in harder content where used preventively when you see a mistake happening can save the run and let it continue without deaths or with survivable amounts of failed mechanic damage. You can also use it to just ignore a mechanic occasionally. Especially if you have lots of vuln stacks so people are going to die if they have to take mandatory damage.
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Jul 15, 2022 02:31
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sweet geek swag posted:You can also use it to just ignore a mechanic occasionally. Especially if you have lots of vuln stacks so people are going to die if they have to take mandatory damage. While true, it's a relatively big-brained move* and I've seen more cases where the tank could have done it and didn't vs cases when the tank used it and saved the run (or at least enabled further prog). *"everybody has 3 vuln stacks due to missed towers and the boss is casting a raidwide, time to hit tank LB" isn't super complicated, but it is a lot more complex of a decision than "everybody dead, use healer LB" or "Bar full, push button for big number".
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Jul 15, 2022 02:36
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Thundarr posted:While true, it's a relatively big-brained move* and I've seen more cases where the tank could have done it and didn't vs cases when the tank used it and saved the run (or at least enabled further prog). In theory, tank LB3 has the most varied group of use cases, from "extra tank cooldown" to "allow a dps to do a tank's job for one mechanic" to "gently caress it, we can't do that last mechanic right let's just tank LB3 it and try to nuke the boss." But yeah, it's all advanced use stuff.
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Jul 15, 2022 03:13
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and don't forget "you are literally required to use tank LB in order to survive this" edit: i don't actually know if this is spoilers i forgot what thread i was in (sang please come back to us)
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Jul 15, 2022 03:40
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Kerrzhe posted:and don't forget "you are literally required to use tank LB in order to survive this" It's a thing for Alexander's Judgement Cast on Normal so it isn't spoilers that sometimes that happens.
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Jul 15, 2022 04:21
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YggiDee posted:I don't know whether ffxiv renaming all of its units of measurements (ilms, yalms, ponze, etc) is very charming or very obnoxious. Boring fact: This is actually a carryover from FFXI! Though there might be a previous FF that did it also.
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Jul 15, 2022 05:43
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Kerrzhe posted:and don't forget "you are literally required to use tank LB in order to survive this" Yeah that's one of the two situations where somebody other than DPS is typically expected to use an LB. The other is healer LB3 when most of the part is dead. Every other usage is for DPS to blow things up faster, or rarely a big brain tank save (there are literally no situations other than emergency LB3 in which a healer would ever want to press the LB button).
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Jul 15, 2022 05:44
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Thundarr posted:(there are literally no situations other than emergency LB3 in which a healer would ever want to press the LB button).
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Jul 15, 2022 06:05
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Doobeedoo posted:Just to be a contrarian, I will point out that there is exactly one I know of. In UWU. At this point most people don't want to do Nisi correctly in savage A4/Burden of the Father, so just letting a whole bunch of people die and a healer LB3 them back to life is a strat. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more situations like that in other raids, but I haven't done them. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jul 15, 2022 |
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Jul 15, 2022 06:08
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Outside of rezzing, I've seen healer LB3s used to simply trivialize certain healing checks in high-end content, though that's certainly a rare niche of its own.
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Jul 15, 2022 06:42
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Another use case for lb3: you want to see it go off because it looks cool. First week of ShB I had a WoD where me and another DNC both fired off crimson lotus at the same time (as soon as the bar filled ofc). Also saw a bunch of RPR lb3 around the first week of EW.
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Jul 15, 2022 10:01
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YggiDee posted:I don't know whether ffxiv renaming all of its units of measurements (ilms, yalms, ponze, etc) is very charming or very obnoxious. I find it charming because it mostly comes off as a way to circumvent classic "fantasy author doesn't understand units/scale" issues (e.g. making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, the Wall being 700 feet tall). Doing CYA on your writing and cutting pedants off at the pass like that is funny to me, and does a lot to forestall boring and pointless internet quibbling. You can't give tedious nerds an ilm, or they'll take a malm.
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Jul 15, 2022 11:14
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Valentin posted:I find it charming because it mostly comes off as a way to circumvent classic "fantasy author doesn't understand units/scale" issues (e.g. making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, the Wall being 700 feet tall). Doing CYA on your writing and cutting pedants off at the pass like that is funny to me, and does a lot to forestall boring and pointless internet quibbling. You can't give tedious nerds an ilm, or they'll take a malm. Except for the fact that the Eorzean units are actually 1:1 with the equivalent imperial unit. 1 ilm=1 inch and so on.
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Jul 15, 2022 12:26
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1 Eorzean hour is 0.0456 Earth hours, I can only assume Eorzea measurements in general are also 1/20 scale. Those extra large bosses are actually just real people sized.
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Jul 15, 2022 13:08
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Algid posted:Another use case for lb3: you want to see it go off because it looks cool. First week of ShB I had a WoD where me and another DNC both fired off crimson lotus at the same time (as soon as the bar filled ofc). Also saw a bunch of RPR lb3 around the first week of EW. They need to buff a few LB animations, Angel Feathers and especially Pulse of Life in particular are lame as hell compared to Astral Stasis and Techne Makre, which are some of the best LB animations in the game It's funny because a few of the 2.0 ARR ones like Final Heaven and Meteor are great, and then you have WHM praying in front of Aerith's rod because 
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Jul 15, 2022 13:12
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E: im an idiot.
Mr. Nice! fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Jul 15, 2022 |
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Jul 15, 2022 13:30
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Check the thread title, my post was just a random shitpost joke lol, wasn't even talking about ShB.
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Jul 15, 2022 13:37
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Thanks, friend.
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Jul 15, 2022 13:40
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Algid posted:1 Eorzean hour is 0.0456 Earth hours, I can only assume Eorzea measurements in general are also 1/20 scale. Those extra large bosses are actually just real people sized. Contrary to popular opinion, lalafells are not three chihuahuas in a raincoat, they are three fleas in a raincoat
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Jul 15, 2022 14:06
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People think Eorzean units are weird? Sound the alarum!
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Jul 15, 2022 14:27
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I thought it was pretty obvious: ilm = inch fulm = foot yalm = yard malm = mile onze = ounce ponze = pound tonze = ton
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Jul 15, 2022 16:17
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Feldegast42 posted:People think Eorzean units are weird? Sound the alarum! Alarum is an actual word, though. It's just an archaic one.
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Jul 15, 2022 16:53
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chirurgeon
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Jul 15, 2022 17:56
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Gaol, if you're not British.
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Jul 15, 2022 17:57
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 Congratulations, Homeowner Kilrau.
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Jul 15, 2022 18:10
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Mordiceius posted:
The real FFXIV endgame starts here.
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Jul 15, 2022 18:18
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Congrats on your new home in Eorzea. Given how Kheris has spent most of her time in Ishgard lately, it seems fitting that she landed her house in Empyreum out of the various housing districts.
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Jul 15, 2022 19:22
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Catgratulations
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Jul 15, 2022 19:37
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FuturePastNow posted:I thought it was pretty obvious: Outside of the anglosphere we're just all scratching our heads wondering which side of those equality signs has the fantasy units.  It's the intent with the names of course, but also not technically true. FFXIV, being Japanese, has all the attack ranges, model sizes, etc defined in meters under the hood. The English localization team decided to translate the Japanese tooltips' "15m" ranges to "15y". I guess they had the US market in mind first and, eh, it's close enough. Anyhow, since yalm = meter, it clearly follows that all the Eorzea length units must be 9.361% longer than their US customary equivalents. Jury's out on the weights, the Allagan Bronze Piece lacks an adequate Japanese "kg" tooltip. [E] Alternative explanation: the size of Eorzea, its denizens and the values of the various fundamental physical constants that determine the forces acting on them are part of the localization. Xerophyte fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 15, 2022 |
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Jul 15, 2022 19:46
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Mordiceius posted:
wow hosed up that yoshi-p would personally guarantee a content creator gets a house Joking, of course, congrats on the land!
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Jul 16, 2022 01:10
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Mordiceius posted:
It will not be terribly long before you rue the furniture limit. But you'll have a ton of fun reaching it! And then, probably, tearing everything down and reaching it again.
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Jul 16, 2022 01:26
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Oh yeah house decorating is fun, there's tons of furniture and boss trophies to get and yes you will rue the item limit no matter how big your house is. But you can grow stuff in your front yard though, just remember to water and weed your plot every day.
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Jul 16, 2022 02:24
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Maxwell Lord posted:So 1 yalm = 1 potato 1 yalm = 3 apples, actually.
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Jul 16, 2022 03:13
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So, party at Kheris house when this is over?
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Jul 16, 2022 05:01
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Chapter 9: Off the Edge of the Map Kheris returns to Limsa with her Warrior training complete, ready for the long journey at sea. She’s even prepared some appropriate attire:  Kheris is, of course, a long-standing veteran of the Immortal Flames. But since she’s about to sail to the far side of the planet, the only Alliance military she’s likely to have contact with any time soon are Maelstrom and their Galadion Accord allies. It seemed prudent to ensure she’d have some formal authority in any interactions that might come up, so I decided to test out the Grand Company Transfer system. All she had to do was walk up to a clerk at Maelstrom HQ, click a button, and pay a small fee (which was waived since this was my first time). Simple and painless.  Naturally, when you swap Grand Companies, almost everything resets. Your GC currency does not come with you, nor does your rank. My Adventurer Squad was the only thing that didn’t go back to zero. I couldn’t use them until I returned to the higher officer ranks and got access to their hang-out, but once I did, they were ready and waiting to get back on the mission grind. There are only two serious friction points in changing your Grand Company. First is a two-week-long cooldown before you’re allowed to do it again, which is fine because every Grand Company achievement takes many weeks or months of grinding anyway. The other thing is that starting your ranks over sucks because you lose access to Expert Deliveries (i.e., trading in gear for currency) until Rank 6. That means you need to get your hands on 20,000 currency the hard way to get back to that point. The quickest way is the Leveling Dungeon Roulette on the in-demand job and filling out your GC Hunting Log. You also have the same minor roadblock activities to climb the ranks, like the quests to clear Dzemael Darkhold and Aurum Vale and the two special Squad Missions, which take 18 hours each. It sounds like a lot, but ultimately it wasn’t a hassle. I was able to do it all while going through my Warrior leveling with only a few extra hours of dedicated time. Considering the quality of my drip, I’d say it was time well spent. And now Kheris is a Navy captain as well as an Army captain!   With her preparations finally complete, Kheris finds the Scions down by the docks. They’re escorted as a group to the berth of the good ship Misery. Tataru has set aside ample supplies for the trip, and the delay as they’re being loaded allows for a last-minute visitor: Urianger. He rushed to find us before we set off because his studies of various prophecies have uncovered one of Far Eastern origin which might be relevant to us. He wanted Alisaie to hear it before she left, just in case. “Look ye where the sun doth rise, see crimson embers, dark’ning skies. Look ye where the sun doth fall, see azure lost amidst the squall.” Even by Ancient Prophecy standards, that’s pretty cryptic and unhelpful. Alis can’t make heads or tails of it any more than I can, but she promises him she’ll keep the text in mind. Thankfully, he also rushed down to deliver something a bit more practical:  Big U notes that a blade made of pure aether, as she used against the Warriors of Darkness, is very taxing on the body. This rapier has been specially crafted to attune to her magical energy and will serve as a far safer conduit for her spells. The weapon may be purple, but she’ll be an even redder mage than before with this bad boy. As luck would have it, we soon found ourselves with an opportunity to put the weapon to the test. With the help of an Indiana Jones-style line on the world map, the player sees that the first leg of this journey takes us from the port at Limsa around the southern edge of Eorzea toward the Isle of Thavnair. Those up on their Eorzean script should be able to make out that the city on that island is Radz-at-Han, the oft-alluded heartland of alchemy. Sadly, we don’t make it that far before problems come knocking. All seems well at first. It’s a day of clear skies and fair winds. That changes when a mysterious force drags the ship off course. Everything goes wrong at once, as things are wont to do whenever Kheris has five minutes of peace. Both the wind and currents vanish despite the ship’s continued momentum. The secret ceruleum engines Carvellain had installed below decks to assist his smuggling aren’t functioning. An eerie fog descends, blotting out the sun and filling the air with an unnatural green luminescence. The few crew on deck cower in corners and speak of seeing “Things as shouldn’t be there,” in the water.  The sound design, or rather the oppressive lack of sound, ramps up the tension. A subtle white noise roar takes the place of all traditional ambiance. The only things making ordinary sounds are your footsteps and the very-occasional creak of the ship’s frame, which reminds you that it’s moving somewhere we don’t want it to move. The whole scenario digs its claws into the subconscious and puts you on edge. It helped that I was wearing noise-canceling headphones, which amplified the effect, but credit also has to be given to the fact that FF14’s ambient sound design is so naturalistic and high quality. Completely snuffing it out and replacing it with this non-silent silence flips the brain’s fear switch very effectively. It’s almost a shame when you talk to Carv, because the usual event music starts playing in the cutscene. Our Captain explains that his men believe this is the work of the souls of dead women lost at sea, an old Sea Wolf Roe superstition. Alphinaud reacts with comical faux bravery and denies the involvement of the g-g-ghosts. You’re told he’s been a weenie about such things since the twins were very young. It’s cute but weird to me in context, considering Kheris has fought ghosts many times. Regardless, Alis believes this is a more mundane threat, like sirens or other pirates making use of magic. She declares that our only option is to wait and see where we get pulled and then send a party to deal with whatever brought us here. Two guesses who’s in charge of that job! Carv approves of this thoroughly pragmatic plan, much to Alis’ chagrin. Which means it’s Dungeon time! The Sirensong Sea, much like Dusk Vigil before it, is a difficulty reset compared to most of the final dungeons of Heavensward. You’d expect as much from a new expansion. That said, the downshift didn’t feel nearly as large this time. The variety of mechanics each boss brought to bear was pretty impressive for Stormblood’s first outing, and none of them felt like they could be ignored. On top of providing fights you have to stay awake for, this dungeon also goes hard on ambiance and theatricality. For example, things kick off even before you leave the ship, as creepy jellyfish monsters (the things the crew mistook for ghosts) hop onto the deck, and you fight them off with the help of your Scion pals. NPC combat allies are pretty rare, so that’s neat. Then the ship crashes into an island at full speed. As you recover from the impact and fight across the rocks, the dungeon theme,  Dawnbound, washes over you. It’s a song that straddles the line between dramatic and melodramatic, almost coming across as a parody with how deadly serious it takes trying to be spooky. When the strings gave a high-pitched whine to simulate screaming, or the opera singer chimed in with some mournful tones, I almost wanted to roll my eyes. Still, I could practically feel the composer glaring at me when I thought that.The designers of this dungeon faced a conundrum. They clearly wanted to make something Horror-themed. There’s an effort on every level to lean into the cursed ghost ship flavor of pirate stories instead of making this a more traditional swashbuckling affair. We can directly compare how they handled this with Haukke Manor, which comes across in a very Castlevania Adventure sort of way rather than as something meant to evoke fear. The problem is I don’t think they succeeded because they made the mechanical gameplay too cool and exciting. The second section of the dungeon, a ship graveyard, illustrates this conflict perfectly. When you step out of the first boss’s alcove, you see a lighthouse in the distance glowing with eerie blue magic. The only way to reach it is to cross the remains of dozens of derelict ships, the victims of that cursed structure. As you make your way across the planks, you find yourself under fire by cannonballs which leave behind pools of blue flame, the same color as the cursed light! You soon discover these shots are from a ship, still afloat despite being a complete ruin. It is covered in that same unholy fire.  You press forward until you can climb aboard this burning vessel, where you discover the crew are all skeletons! As you fight them off, their undead cannons continue to rain down shots on their own deck, forcing you to dodge the flames while you hammer them into bone dust. Once you’re past them, you’ll find an even more hellish being, known only as The Governor. Presumably, he was once the master of the ruined city where the Lighthouse resides. Melted flesh encases his bones and contains an eternal torch of that same cursed fire.  Then you fight him, and his main attack turns the ground into a portal to another dimension. He melts into the arena floor and then tries to literally drag your party to hell. I’m sure that all sounds theoretically scary, but it’s pulse-pounding, mile-a-minute action in practice. There’s a disconnect between the tone they’re cultivating and what the player is doing. It’s not like they haven’t been able to bridge that gap before. Tam Tara Deepcroft (Hard) and Amdapor Keep (Hard) were pretty drat creepy. The mechanics of the mobs or bosses never pulled me out of that headspace in those dungeons. None of my acknowledgments of this artistic failure should imply that I didn’t like this dungeon. On the contrary, I found it to be a blast. The final stretch was nearly as good as the second bit on the boats. There were some very challenging pulls and a couple of mini-bosses right before the end. Then they reveal what’s been living in that lighthouse, the monster behind this curse. Meet one of my new favorite dungeon bosses, Lorelei  This is no jellyfish masquerading as a ghost. She’s a straight-up demonic entity. Based on her elegant image, her dialogue ranting about dancing through the night, and her “Virgin Tears,” and “Void Water,” abilities, I’d guess she was the Governor’s daughter. She likely made herself into a Voidsent (much like Lady Amandine) out of a desire for freedom and love because he kept her locked away. There are environmental implications that the Governor was something of a tyrant, so that would track. After all, the largest and most intact structure in the town around the lighthouse was a jail. As an actual boss fight, Lorelei has a simple but engaging gimmick. Her Virgin Tears spawn high-damage death pools in random patterns. Then she casts a spell that forces you to walk forward or backward in a straight line. You have to position yourself so that once you start walking, you won’t walk into your demise. This task grows harder as her HP drops because the fire patterns grow larger and more elaborate.  Ironically, she probably has the most ‘horror’ oriented mechanics of any fight in the whole place, but there was never any hope of her fight being scary. She is a Final Boss, and thus she is blessed to be the player’s first encounter with the Stormblood Final Dungeon Boss Anthem, Triumph.I mean, God drat, what do you even say about that song? It’s freaking incredible. I could run Stormblood dungeons a thousand times and never get tired of jamming out to it. When Kheris strikes Lorelei down, the magic cursing the lighthouse is broken, and the unnatural gloom lifts. Alphi is quite relieved at the sun’s reappearance. The only bad news is that ramming into the rocks at flank speed damaged the ship’s hull. Thankfully it’ll only be a slight delay, especially compared to the half-a-world we still have to sail to reach Hingashi. How ever will the Scions pass the days? Well, Kheris is a Bard. Perhaps she could tell them all a story? She’s got a good one too. Not long ago, she was hanging about the Limsa docks when she heard the most peculiar rumor. A reporter for the local newspaper, the Harbor Herald, told her of a woman who seemed to be from the Far East. Yet she wore armor and used a fighting style unlike any the other Easterners have seen before… ~*~*~ The only time I attempted to play Final Fantasy XI, I lasted less than two hours. I installed the game and made my character, but upon stepping into the world found myself completely unable to figure out even the basic controls. Most buttons on the keyboard were default mapped to opening the chat box. I spent at least 20 minutes combing through the menus so I could remap the keybinds before I gave up. Then I tried to explore my starting city, got lost, and decided I wanted to do some stuff in WoW before it got any later. I’d come back to this game some other day. “Some other day,” never came. As a result, I wasn't exactly over the moon when the launcher informed me that this game was reviving an old FF11 crossover event. I figured it would be lost on me and wondered if I’d even bother. Then I remembered it’s a thing in this videogame, and I’m an obsessive completionist, so of course, I did the event. Besides, the reward was a cosmetic armor set, which was gorgeous! Our tale begins with a Lalafel reporter named Remumu looking to get the scoop on this mystery woman. A rival reporter named Petyr Winesome once scooped her on a similar story, and she’s not going to let it happen again (the first of many references I won’t get, I’m sure). We make our way to Costa Del Sol, the last known location of the wandering warrior. After a few minutes, she wanders up to ask us if we know the way to “Selbina,” or “Mhaura.” Since we’ve got no idea what she’s talking about, we all decide to start over:   Ooh, she’s a naginata samurai! Neat. Hoping to get some goodwill that might translate into an interview, Remumu suggests that Iroha’s amnesia might be treated if she returns to her training. If learning this mystery glaive technique is one of the only things she remembers, we might as well follow that clue and see if anything comes back to her. Remumu gives her a map, and our plan starts to pay dividends immediately. Seeing that she’s on an island reminds her that beaches are the premier training spot in her homeland. Aquatic wildlife is considered the ideal foe to hone your skills. Ah, crab grinding! The one FF11 meme I know. The writers don’t beat around the bush on this point either. Since the Event FATE is literally just grinding a metric ton of crabs, they have her tell us all about it.  Defeating the crabs allows Kheris to discover an “Optistone Shard.” When she shows this stone to Iroha, the spearwoman is overcome by a memory:   Seeing this vision of a resurrected Dark Lord makes Iroha wonder if this ultimate technique, Amatsu: Kiyori, is related to stopping him. Yet she also wonders why a mere trainee like her would have been entrusted with the means to slay an enemy that powerful. To figure this out, she wants to hunt for beings akin to the dark lord as part of her training, which takes us to Gridania. When she sees the Voidsent, she thinks they might be actual servants of that Dark Lord, but unlike the FF15 event, these don’t seem to be FF11 enemies lost in our world. The FATE instructions imply that she’s mistaken. Speaking of which, it’s interesting that there’s still nothing to indicate that we’re dealing with a person from another world by this point. When we met Noctis, there was no pretense that he was anything but a trans-dimensional traveler. Yet nothing Kheris has heard about Iroha would lead her to assume she isn’t from some corner of the Far East where Void shenanigans happened. Iroha mentions during the battle that she once heard a story about a great Samurai that defeated such creatures to gain power. Once we beat them, there’s another shard, this one of ‘Aurastone’ and it also awakens another memory:   As I expected, most of these references were going over my head. It didn’t take me out of things, though, because the story is ultimately about Iroha’s personal plight rather than the references just existing for their own sake. She recalls all these important events but doesn’t feel worthy of them as a simple apprentice. There’s a disconnect between who she thinks she is and what these memories portray, and that mystery is kind of interesting even if the clues have no specific meaning for me. Our next training involves heading out to the desert, where rumors tell of a creature so powerful that none know the true extent of its strength because it leaves no survivors. When we spot it, Iroha again thinks she recognizes it, identifying it as the legendary Serket. In this case, the FATE instructions back her up, so either this is also an FF11 refugee, or it’s a Parallel World, Parallel People thing. Either way, we make quick work of him. Despite our victory, Iroha is still troubled. Another stone grants her another memory, this time of some kind of wolf.   This image allows her to finally put the pieces together. These stone fragments don’t match her feelings about herself because they’re not her memories. Everything comes flooding back to her, including that she is from a place called Vana’diel, an entirely different world rather than a different continent. She wants to tell Kheris more, but first, she must complete her training. With her memories have come the knowledge of how to unleash Amatsu: Kyori, and she must put herself to the test against a powerful foe. Fortunately, we hear of a Voidsent near Bronze Lake that will make the perfect target. This final FATE is more cutscene than quest, as the boss is immune to all damage until Iroha casts her spell. She gives a speech about how she will do whatever it takes to get home and see her Master again, and then…  The beast falls easily after the light show, and Iroha gives Kheris the full story: The Master who trained her is the one whose memories were contained within the stones. The visions helped her remember that Vana’diel was once on the brink of destruction. Despite every hero’s best effort, the doom could not be forestalled. With no other options, Master (who I assume is the FF11 PC) used forbidden magic to send Iroha back in time. She would meet their younger self and other heroes of the past, guide them through the conflict and eventually strike down the Dark Lord with her ultimate technique at a moment when it would have made a difference. It seems like a cool story! Makes me curious when you learn that in the game and how big a spoiler this is. Despite feeling like she’s still forgetting something important about her Master, Iroha thinks her return home is imminent since she’s mastered her power. Eorzea is some sort of dream in her estimation, and now that she’s learned what she needed to know, she will wake up and be right by Master’s side again. Before she goes, she treats us to a sort of montage, showing us the people and places of FF11, the stories that inspired her to take up the glaive and kept her going on her mission to save the world.  Dang, Cait Sith gets around. She gets so caught up in things she even mistakes Kheris for her Master for a moment. An easy mistake to make when she’s wearing Protagonist, the newest scent from Chanel. Perfect for a night on the town after you’ve slain your latest god-like entity! Anyway, Iroha says her last goodbye and attempts to awaken, only for nothing to happen. She assumes this is “the will of the Goddess,” and rather than getting grumpy about it, she opts to head out into the wilderness and continue her training until whatever brought her here sees fit to take her home. When that happens, she hopes to meet Kheris again in the waking world. Remumu isn’t sure if the woman is a hero from another planet/the future or just a deluded nutcase, but she wishes her well.  If I’m being honest, I can’t say the FF11 event was a patch on the FF15 quest. Iroha was a cute (if subdued) character, and I was interested in where her story was going, but Noctis and your relationship with him were far more fleshed out and engaging. Still, if nothing else, I credit it for making me mildly interested in FF11 for the first time in my life. I didn’t even know that game had a story! Maybe I’ll look it up on a Wiki sometime. At least I got my cool armor. ~*~*~ The night sky is crystal clear when Misery finally completes its trek to the far side of the world. The Scions get our first view of the Kugane as we slide into the docks, and it’s quite a sight.  Lyse’s narration (which sadly still isn’t very well-acted) informs us that this is the only port in the nation of Hingashi open to foreigners. The camera jumps about, showing us great castles and manors, bustling markets, tranquil parks, and a very out-of-place structure bearing the symbol of the Garlean Empire. She also drops an interesting line: “I wish you could have seen it.” The Heavensward narration made it clear that the text came from Lord Edmont’s memoir, but there’s been no framing for Lyse’s words. This line is our first clue. Is she speaking to Papalymo while visiting his grave? Her father? Yda? Or someone else entirely? The Scions seem pleased to be off the boat after presumably months at sea. Carvellain notes that the city is full to bursting with opportunities for the open-minded. Alphi is quick to rain on everyone’s parade and remind us that our resources are limited, and we’re about as far from help as we could get. Alis, for once, keeps her eye-rolling at a minimum and notes that we shouldn’t be looking to stick around here anyway. Our destination is Doma, and this is just a pit stop. Our objectives are two-fold: find passage across the Ruby Sea so we can make landfall in Othard proper and seek out any information about Yugiri and Gosetsu. If they’re still in the city, we could use their help. If they’re not, we can use the same method they did to reach Doma. To that end, Tataru suggests we find ourselves a tavern so she can put the skills she cultivated in Ishgard to work. As it happens, there’s one on the docks, the Shiokaze Hostelry.  Tataru’s eager to get to work, but before she can speak to a single patron, she finds her way blocked by a stranger in robes. It takes him all of two sentences to make it clear that we’re already in trouble.  Alphinaud is quick to tell this Hancock fellow that he can jog on. None of the Scions are inclined to accept Lolorito’s hospitality no matter how many continents we have between us. The memory of the last time we had a meal and a drink in the same room as him isn’t going away anytime soon. Hancock feigns hurt at this casual dismissal, spitefully asking if Alphinaud’s lost faith in his fellow man over the Crystal Braves incident. He’ll claim that he let out that barb because he misses more direct conversation after living in a culture that prizes communicating covertly and by implication. I think he said it because he knows he has us over a barrel. See, because this is the only port open to foreign trade, it is a hub of wealth and political influence on a global scale. We’re most likely already being watched.  Is that a Ninja Turtle? Anyway, there’s an active power struggle in Kugane for a place of primacy, both in relations with the government of Hingashi and general influence over the port. Every street is a covert war zone where the agents of nations, tribes, corporations, and criminals (but I repeat myself) are all playing 12-Dimensional Chess. None of them will be happy if they find out a piece like the Scions has been placed on their board. Lolorito may still be an enemy in Kheris’ book, but he’s an enemy she’s in a cease-fire with. That’s more than she can say for the Garleans or anyone else around here that might want to fit her for a pair of cement shoes. The good news is that they may have some leverage. Hancock seems to be a fan.   Alphinaud reluctantly agrees. Next time, we’ll take the scenic route to the Kugane Branch Office of the East Aldernard Training Company and get to know this new city.
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Jul 17, 2022 04:36
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Kugane is a great city and also this means we’re close to meeting the Namazu.
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Jul 17, 2022 05:02
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Hooray, we're in Kugane! Huge fan of this city, the atmosphere is fantastic, the music is great and the sightseeing logs are brilliant! Kheris needs to do the jumping puzzle ASAP!  I like Sirensong as a dungeon a lot, I'm always happy to see it in Leveling Roulette. Very flavorful, and a cool one to kick off the Stormblood dungeons. Kheris is looking fly as heck in her new Maelstrom outfit. I've been Flames for life, and I don't think I'll ever change, but glad to know that grind isn't too horrible.
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Jul 17, 2022 05:04
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 20:47 |
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Stealer of Pants should be an equippable title.
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Jul 17, 2022 05:13
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