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Shalhavet posted:I am vibrating with anticipation like you would not believe. I've been mouth noising the song from Shadowbringer's Trailer ever since the last update. edit: poo poo snipe. Regret nothing.
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Dec 26, 2023 02:35
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We still have a whole patch to get through, don't vibrate too hard yet.
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Dec 26, 2023 02:45
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Even absent biases, it's at least the most appropriate time in the cycle to start getting hype for the expansion, being in the relative space that FanFests started. Before 4.5, we had the first teaser trailer, the new tribes to be introduced in the expansion, two of the new zones, our first mention of the trust/duty support system that would actually let us adventure with NPC pals, a tease for a new race and job, and the introduction of Blue Mage. All on the heels of everything in 4.4. It was an exciting time!
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Dec 26, 2023 02:56
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ConanThe3rd posted:Its funny if your a Fem-Lala. Because you, alongside Tataru and Krile, become one the Scion's Lala moms.
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Dec 26, 2023 03:06
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I went into Shadowbringers like 90% blind. All I knew was that everyone who played it was declaring it not their expansion or DLC or whatever of the year, but their straight up game of the year in of itself. By the end I wholeheartedly agreed with them.
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Dec 26, 2023 03:07
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Oh yeah if you've managed to be spoiler-free up to this point then this is going to be amazing
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Dec 26, 2023 03:31
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Sanguinia posted:February 13. If not the day of, at least that week is my goal. I knew I liked Sanguinia. Being a fellow Aquarius just makes sense.
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Dec 26, 2023 04:26
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I'm trying to remember what we have left to see in Stormblood besides the rest of the MSQ. There's the rest of the Alliance raid story, our old pal Hildy, finishing up all the relevant job quests, finishing up the Tribal quests, anything else I'm forgetting?
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Dec 26, 2023 05:09
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Sanguinia posted:Even though Blue Mage technically started in Stormblood I'm almost certainly going to put it off until the Shadowbringers thread just to save myself a chapter. We'll see, I haven't 100% decided yet, but I want to get to that new expansion BAD.
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Dec 26, 2023 05:15
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Sanguinia posted:February 13. If not the day of, at least that week is my goal. My birthday is on the 16th, if you'd like to get me a present! 
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Dec 26, 2023 22:19
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I will say, as I don't think it was stated yet, on Solus being the hammiest motherfucker alive: Now we know where Zenos got it from.
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Dec 26, 2023 22:31
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While searching for something else I stumbled on one of my favorite FFXIV gag tweets and since we just covered the event, I figured I'd share it here.  https://twitter.com/protoco100/status/1256692402083057664?s=20
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Dec 26, 2023 22:43
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dyslexicfaser posted:Honestly, there's something to that. Krile and Tataru aren't my favorite Scions, but I do feel this weird kinship with them. I drop back to home base to check their dialogue a lot more than I need to. You join a very strange fellowship when you play a potato.
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Dec 27, 2023 01:15
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Sanguinia posted:February 13. If not the day of, at least that week is my goal. oh huh, what a coincidence, one of my late relatives had that as their birthday
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Dec 27, 2023 01:28
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Feldegast42 posted:You join a very strange fellowship when you play a potato. There are a few upcoming cutscenes in that are strangely funny when all three active characters are waddling about like toddlers. It is counterbalanced by other scenes stinging all the more when you're reminded of how small your hands are.
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Dec 27, 2023 23:26
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I know we've moved on a bit from it, but I just want to state again what a good loving package of a dungeon The Burn is. Also Urianger is the best Scion.
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Dec 27, 2023 23:33
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Just did the BLM 70 duty and I don't know if it was intentional since it's one of the general battle music tracks, but having the music for a fight with meteors raining from the sky being Torn From the Heavens was noticed and appreciated.
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Dec 30, 2023 06:10
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Chapter 74: Where Everybody Knows Your Name As usual, cruising around provides Kheris with an opportunity to assist someone. In Gridania, Botany has become more popular in the wake of those newspaper articles covering Kheris' adventures in Ishgard. Gridanians really are slaves to trends, aren't they? Anyway, the Guild has so many recruits that Fufucha has nothing to do anymore. To alleviate her boredom, she's planning to travel to Idyllshire to answer a request for help from a local.   Ah, it's Edgyth from the "mud" adventure! She acts like she's never met Kheris, presumably because that dungeon was in a later patch than these quests. Those times when they fail to go back and add a dialogue branch to account for that are increasingly rare, but they still happen. She DOES reference the original trip inside the Arboretum, though. Every plant on her farm, the Greengrub Mudplots, was cultivated from those Sharlayan super seeds I found in Heavensward. After inspecting the crops, Fufucha is initially confused about why Edgyth wants help.  Edgyth is quick to reject this praise.  Regardless, her problem requires more than botanical knowledge. While the crops have met Idyllshire's food supply needs, the town wants to take the next step and cultivate something for export. The Sharlayan seeds haven't worked out due to the poor soil quality. They're good enough to eat but can't compete with fresh produce in foreign markets. That means Edgyth needs to pick something new to grow, ensure that it comes out top-of-the-line in quality and quantity, AND make it marketable. Fufucha is intrigued by this challenge. She takes a soil sample and soon invites us to the Guild to offer counsel.   Edgyth really is The Most, isn't she? The analysis shows that Dravanian soil and weather aren't great for most edible plants. Fufucha suggests falling back on fiction's favorite standby for "thing to grow in bad soil," the noble potato (or Popoto, if you insist on the fantasy nomenclature). When Edgyth points out that potatoes are super common and thus we will struggle to claim any market share, the First Botanist clarifies that we're going to cross-breed and create a new species. That should grab some eyes at the market! Step one is to acquire a healthy supply of Eorzea's more common species, which sends us Ala Mhigo. The settlements in East End used to be famed for potato farming, so we should be able to find plenty of wild specimens. That area has been under Alliance control for a long while, so Fufucha muses that there's little chance of us running into anything dangerous.  Oh, gee, do you THINK it might still be out there? Recruitment standards under Pipin's command need some scrutiny. We gather sufficient starting stock, lug them back to the Mudplots, and plant them in preparation for breeding. Funnily enough, I didn't know that potatoes produce seeds. If you hear about the potato life cycle as a child, it's usually that the "eyes" or cut-up pieces will regrow into an entire new potato plant when buried. This is common knowledge, a method for producing healthy potato plants any amateur gardener can use with a smidge of trial and error. However, to create an entirely new plant, one needs to extract "true seed," from the poisonous potato berries that grow from pollinated potato flowers.  It'd have been fun if the quests included information about that since I enjoyed learning about growing methods in HW, but there's a legitimate literary reason they didn't. After Edgyth gushes about how good Kheris is at planting sprouts (and how bad she is by comparison), we head back to find out what Fufucha has in mind for our second parent.  Her idea is Walker's Popoto, a variety that was once extremely popular but hasn't been seen since the Calamity. The cultivar was known for vulnerability to cold and pests, but if we can breed a species with the more common type's hardiness, Idyllshire will have a unique market niche all to themselves! Unfortunately, our investigation reveals that Eorzea's farmers have long since given up on the plant because of its vulnerabilities. Their stores have no seeds or spuds to offer since no care was taken in the Calamity's wake to preserve a vegetable that demanded such a disproportionate degree of work to grow. Our only lead is an off-handed comment that La Noscea sold more of Walker's harvests overseas in Kugane than they ever did domestically. This eventually allows us to find the remains of a farm on the outskirts of Isari, gone to pot thanks to the Empire.  Thankfully, Doma's climate was gentle enough that the Walker's could grow wild, and Kheris brings a bushel back to Eorzea. This time, Edgyth is so fawning over Kheris' ability to put plants in the ground that she suggests handing ownership of the entire farm over to her idol, which is pretty over-the-top even for her established level of self-deprecation. Fortunately, a familiar face drops by.    Sawney tells Edgyth that he's tired of her self-flagellating attitude. She deserves to be proud of all she's built and stand as an equal to anyone in the Botanist Guild (which Fufucha said in the first quest). His rant links into that lack of explanation on how potatoes grow I lamented earlier. In Heavensward, the farmer explained agricultural basics because a layman NPC was present. Explaining it to Kheris, even though the player might not know, would have undermined the idea that our character is an expert. In this questline, Fufucha didn't go into detail about how we would breed the plants (even though I would have appreciated learning about it) because she was talking to two people who already had that knowledge. Edgyth didn't need to be talked down to because she is on our level, no matter what she's convinced herself.    The speech manages to get through to her because the pair share a bittersweet history.   Sadly, her internalization of this message is hampered when our first crop takes a turn for the worst. The potatoes were bred successfully, and the new seeds sprouted quickly, but they soon began to wither. Edgyth immediately leaps to the conclusion that she's done something wrong because she's a self-trained amateur. However, when we consult Fufucha, the expert is as stumped as anyone.  With nothing to do but hope the Guild finds an answer, Kheris and Edgyth return to the Mudplots. There, by happenstance, the Warrior of Light catches sight of something peculiar in the soil.  It's thematically essential to note that Kheris doesn't know what this thing is. Both the narrator in the black text box and the item description refer to the object only as a chalky white stone. When you show it to Edgyth, she recognizes it almost instantly.   …  She sends you to one of the town's Gobbie alchemists, who in turn sends you to collect rare seaweed that he can turn into a chemical reagent. When you bring it back to the field, she uses it to run a test… and it reveals her hypothesis was correct!   Isn't science great? And also disgusting? The Sharlayan's records mentioned these pests, which is why Edgyth knew about them, but they also claimed to have exterminated the species throughout the region. When the Mudplots were built, nobody thought to check for signs. To make matters worse, nothing in the archives explains how this problem was originally solved. Everyone breaks off to read some books and hopefully discover a solution. It is, of course, Edgyth who eventually finds the answer: companion planting!   YES, I finally got my 4H Club lecture! Edgyth's studies revealed that eelworms can be deterred by the presence of a flower called Rhalgr's Streak, but unfortunately, there are none to be found in the Arboretum. The Guild's stores also lack samples, but the name makes Fufucha suspect we'll find some in Gyr Abania. The suggestion makes Sawney nervous, given the region was a warzone just a few months prior.    See that, kids? That's what we call character development. Having Sawney be the one to say she'll "only get in the way," only for her to slap him down after he pushed her to stop putting herself down in the first place, was a particularly nice touch. A few questions to the right people tell us that the Streak is a wildflower indigenous to the most remote parts of the mountains, which is good given where we want to plant them. None of the major settlements stock the plant because its fragrance is too potent for personal use, but the info is enough for Kheris to find a patch in the Lochs.  She may have confidence now, but she's still The Most. Completing the quest changes the overworld, adding a healthy sprinkling of white flowers to the Idyllshire farm area. They look nice, and Sawney even likes the smell! As far as the story goes, the important thing is that once the pests are gone, green sprouts pop up in the potato patch. Our hybrid was so tough that it survived the eelworms.  ...   Fufucha is pleased to see the young, self-taught Botanist finally embrace her talent and self-worth. As a reward for our success, she gives Edgyth a special gift.  …   …  It's cute that you dressed her up twinsies and told her to use your title, Fufu, but couldn't you have given her a better hat? I don't see you wearing that Elf On A Shelf number! Botanist 60-70 nailed it again, though perhaps not quite as hard as in Heavensward. Even if it fell short of that story, it didn't do so by much. Edgyth was a cute character who could have been grating with all her cranked-to-twelve defeatism and self-loathing, but they balanced her out effectively with the jokes and endearing enthusiasm. Watching her learn that she was already the person she wanted to be despite all the roadblocks life threw between her and her dream worked for me. Fufucha also got a more substantial role in the story compared to HW, and her dynamic with Edgyth was super cute. The thing that's most praise-worthy about this set is how bad it makes Miner look by comparison. A part of me wanted to lay the failures of that Job at the feet of the reduced number of quests since that's been a problem for several of Stormblood's DoH lines. Botanist is definitive proof that the only reasons Miner was bad were its poor concept and execution. It had the wisdom to focus on one character and spent its effort fully developing its central theme in the time that it had available. BOT won the crown among Disciples of the Land last expansion despite being among the worst of any Job in ARR, and after this, it'll take a monumental effort for Fisher to compete. ~*~*~ Elsewhere in Idyllshire, someone else needs a helping hand. Something's going wrong at The Hard Place, the bar on the far side of town. Its enigmatic pig-masked owner, Adkiragh, has been noticeably downcast and irritable. He's such a staple of the community that even the House of Splendors staff are growing nervous on his behalf, but he won't open up to anyone. Perhaps the Warrior of Light can convince him to share?  His façade doesn't last long when Zhloe wanders over and starts rifling through his papers without permission. It turns out that the business is nearing collapse. Much of his revenue came from adventurers seeking their fortune in the Sharalayan Colony ruins, but that clientele has been drawn to the Far East by opportunities arising in the wake of the Empire's withdrawal. If he can't boost his sales, he'll be finished. Zhloe refuses to allow the wonderful man who helped her start her orphanage suffer that terrible fate.  The cutscene tracking the costume I dressed her in is very cool. Our conversation is interrupted by a young woman named Melodie, who bolts into the room, begging to be rescued. She was a maid in an Ishgardian nobleman's house, but he treated her poorly, so she ran away. The lord didn't appreciate this and sent a pair of thugs to hunt her down. Adkiragh doesn't hesitate.  I'm seein' double! Four pig costumes! I've been told these guys are a callback to a now-removed background NPC story in Heavensward. A noble hired them to beat up a commoner for stealing his betrothed.  Melodie is grateful, and she asks if her savior might find it in his heart to offer her a job so she can complete her escape. Given the bar's financial situation, Adkiragh feels he should deny her, but Zhloe gets an idea:  …  Basically, she thinks that if we shake up what the Hard Place has to offer, the town's regulars will spread the word, and adventurers will take the time to teleport back to old Idyllshire to see what all the fuss is about at their old haunt. The first step will be a new menu, and Kheris can be counted on to craft anything they might need for cooking.  …  Huh. I didn't see this being another Delivery Rep, but here we are. After Kheris provides cooking implements and various restauranteering accoutrements, the new menu ends up a big hit, as does the new waitress in her baby blue pig costume. At first, she wears it just in case the gangsters come hunting for her again, but eventually, she decides she's just into that sort of thing. She does stop wearing the head, though, mainly because it's heavy.  While stewing in her jealousy, senior staff member Mapopo regales Melodie with the story of how Adkiragh rescued her from a dangerous situation.  …  Oh poo poo! This is a follow-up to that side quest in the Azim Steppe! Remember, we met a future Khan whose elder brother ran away because he got sick of assassination attempts? Adkiragh must be that brother! This hypothesis plays out in the very next step. Ms. Mapopo suggests adding specially crafted house liquor to the new menu. Kheris provides distilling and fermentation equipment, but on the day the Hard Place is to begin serving the spirit, a pair of Au Ra stumble through the doors.  These two were Adkiragh's sworn protectors and took that oath seriously enough to spend years hunting for their missing chief once he disappeared. After scouring the Steppe, they began to lose hope, but then foreign adventurers began appearing in Reunion. Many spoke of their days in Dravania, and after hearing their old master's name, the bodyguards felt compelled to make the long journey to see if the pig-headed barkeep was the same man.   …  Adkiragh isn't too worried about his identity coming out back home. Most of his enemies would take his self-imposed exile as a blessing because it saves them the expense of an assassin. What bothers him is that Kheris isn't even impressed by the fact that he's secretly the great leader of the Adarkim tribe! Is a little shock and awe too much to ask?!  …  The two warriors are sworn to serve the man rather than the office of Khan, so they're content to remain in Idyllshire. Adkiragh insists that they contribute to restoring the business if they plan on staying, and they offer a brand new flavor of buuz that's sweeping the Steppe.  Good old Cirina, you can always count on her for a bright idea! Unfortunately, food and servants were not the only things to make the crossing from Othard. Someone else heard those rumors about the Hard Place's owner. Now they're closing in, and as far as Adkiragh is concerned, they're ten times worse than any assassin.   I don't know nuffin' 'bout no Khans, gumshoe! Bulugan attempts to force the barkeep to unmask himself, but the rest of the staff jumps in, claiming he's hiding a disfiguring injury. If nothing else, little brother has manners and resolves to prove his theory by questioning the townsfolk, just in case he's wrong. Adkiragh begs Kheris to shadow the man and help prevent the crisis from escalating. The young leader makes a good impression as he wanders the city, expressing pleasant surprise at the sight of Mankind living in peace alongside Beastfolk like the Goblins. Considering the virtually thoughtless brutality we observed in the conflict between Xaela and Matanga, I suppose his shock is understandable. He resolves to question leaders from both groups.  …  …  …  …  …  That's adorable. This is one of those moments where the game's efforts to maintain continuity and self-reference make it shine. Kheris has earned the trust of Idyllshire's people through many adventures, and this guy is an outsider. Having the characters you share history with look to you for cues on how to treat him underscores the existence of that bond and lets the audience believe that their actions here mattered. Unfortunately for us, Bulugan isn't an idiot, and realizes what Kheris is doing. His last resort is questioning Chloe, thinking her too innocent to be manipulated into covering up the truth.   …   Future Khan Boogaloo is instantly downcast despite acquiring the proof he needs to expose his brother. His body language expresses that he suddenly feels self-conscious about the reasons he's trying to force the man to come home. The folk of Idyllshire spoke of Adkiragh as a man who's built a life for himself. It makes Bulugan realize that all he's done for years now is let himself feel trapped in the life Adkiragh rejected. He thought he needed to force someone else to follow that destiny to escape it, but that was just him trying to avoid making a decision.   …  The story effectively ends here. Adkiragh notes to Kheris how he's certain Bulugan would make an outstanding Khan, but even if his brother walks a different path in the end, what matters is that he's resolved to start making a life instead of chasing a way to get out of one. In fact, our friendly barkeep is so relieved that he gives everyone a gift.  One last level to the reputation involves gathering new furniture to go with the refurbished menu, but there isn't any plot to go with it. Once you've ranked up, you simply get confirmation that the Hard Place is back in the black and a quick speech about how its a place for dreamers to rest while they build new lives. Your final reward is the opportunity to dress Adkiragh up, just like Zhloe and Kurenai. He got into the habit of wearing the pig mask not just to deter assassins but because he grew jaded after being judged by the Ishgardians for his reptilian features. It seemed to him that everyone in the world was cruel, and only through anonymity could he hope to avoid being used or abused. Idyllshire opened his heart again. He saw earnest folk helping each other build something new and find harmony in defiance of the outside world's prejudices. Thanks to Kheris helping him settle the last of his baggage, he's ready to put the mask aside. Besides, with the new menu and furniture, he might as well shake up his brand!  I know just the thing!  The Ninja Turtles are hot right now; they just came off that great movie and the Last Ronin omnibus sold like gangbusters! This'll get the kids in the door! Adkiragh's Delivery Rep felt different from the other three in Stormblood. Nothing is on the line except the personal affairs of one character and a bar in the middle of nowhere, but that doesn't make it feel unimportant. On the contrary, the whole point is to illustrate how much this guy matters to the people around him. We don't care about him because he's the prodigal heir to the largest clan on the Steppe but because he's a good person living his best life and paying it forward to everyone he meets. This sort of unexpectedly soulful side-content transmuted from the central narrative's odds and ends is one of the reasons I love persistent universes like comic books and MMORPGs. There's rarely room for that type of story, especially from such an unexpected source, in more contained or focused franchises. I'm glad the game made room for this one. ~*~*~ Down south in Gridania, Y'Mhitra sends word to Kheris of a fortuitous archeological find. The ruins outside the Crystal Tower have coughed up an actual book about Summoning, written on paper and everything. It's an unusual discovery given the ubiquity of tomestones in Allagan society, and somewhat troublesome because it's written in the Allagan mother tongue, meaning it must be translated manually. Luckily, Y'Mhitra is fluent, so the Sons of Saint Coinach happily hand the thing over.  …  Built-in audiobook function? Allag sure had some neat stuff for a genocidal dystopia! Being a Sharalayan, Y'Mhitra assumes that any sentient book must be dangerous and gets ready to kill it, but Principia insists it was not programmed with any attack functions. A master Summoner named Sari crafted it to preserve his techniques and teach anyone capable of wielding a Summoner's Soul Crystal. Sari realized that as time went on, there would be no Summoners. One can only create Egi if one slays a Primal, and Summoners were created to eliminate Primals; ergo, over time, there could be no more Summoners, and the advancements made by its practitioners would be lost. Of course, the threat of Primals would not necessarily be gone forever just because every living Allagan Summoner had died, so passing down knowledge became a priority. The book has certain restrictions to prevent it from teaching anything too dangerous before an initiate is ready. Kheris has to pass three challenges to bypass the lock. The first measures raw magical potential by conjuring a Voidsent for her to destroy. Principia showers the usual praise on the Warrior of Light after her victory, though it is quick to note that her technique is unrefined compared to the elites of the Empire. Y'Mhitra decides to ask when the book was created, given its primitive design. It explains that Summoning actually predates the invention of Aetherochemistry, its first principles laid down in an era when Allag was a primarily sorcerous civilization. This conflicts with the records that indicate Summoning was invented during the Meracydian campaign, but I'm not one to be shocked when a fascist empire's historical documents aren't 100% accurate. Since we learned from Omega that the original Xande created Aetherochemistry, it stands to reason Summoners were making Egis to fight Primals even before there was an Allagan Empire. I'd interpreted Solus' comments about Garlemald being worse than Allag as a cheap shot, but perhaps the Ascians played a part in the creation of that civilization, too. Not nearly as large a part as outright founding and directly controlling it, of course. After all, it wasn't until centuries later (under Xande's clone) that we saw the escalation to global conquest, Void magic, binding coils, and a Calamity. However, they could have been meddling more subtly to engineer conflict and the rise of pliant pawns, much as they were during ARR. Paradoxically, Master Sari created this old-fashioned tome in the last years before the Empire's fall.   I should also mention that this happened.  Y'Mhitra really likes the book. She treats it like a one-part research partner, one-part pet cat for the entire questline. It's pretty cute. Prin says it will offer the next challenge (which concerns fine control of aether as opposed to its raw power) when I've had time to practice, which is pretty funny because 60-69 is an absolute desert in terms of new Summoner stuff. There are two new abilities: a party-wide 3% damage buff and Ruin IV, another big burst attack that can only be cast right after you use your Aetherflow cooldown. Needless to say, since they're on long-ish timers, these have virtually zero impact on the primary gameplay loop. At this point, I don't think any combat Job has changed so little throughout the leveling process. Maybe Machinist and Red Mage? Then again, neither of them started as a Level 1 Job. Knowing that Summoner received a complete revamp to its design upon Endwalker's release, it's a quirk I wouldn't have expected. Kheris' readiness for the second test coincides with a visit for our ally, Captain Wolf.   He's come because the Immortal Flames were so impressed by our performance during the Black Mask Ascian crisis that they authorized the creation of a Summoner unit. Wolf managed to find recruits from past Primal slayings and acquire Soul Crystals from Rammbroes. Now, he wants Kheris to drop by and play drill instructor. Normally, Y'Mhitra would never give up her favorite research partner/experiment, but by sheer coincidence, the second test demands the involvement of several other Summoners. That struck me as weird, given the reason the book exists, but it would prove to be foreshadowing. We convene outside Camp Bluefog, where the Flames have shown their commitment to the program by dressing the troops in their silliest uniform.  The two Hyurans are nervous, and their abilities aren't much to speak of, but the Lalafel is an arrogant little poo poo, and for good reason. His Ifrit Egi is more than double the size and power of his comrades, and he's got an ace up his sleeve:  …  Not bad! Even Y'Mhitra thinks he might amount to something if he sticks to his training. The book is satisfied with Kheris' victory. We're still one trial away from the secret techniques, but we do earn a second Allagan history lesson focused on the period when Summoners were the target of witch hunts. Master Sari had a small cadre of apprentices dedicated to exterminating Primals so they couldn't harm the planet, but as public sentiment turned on their kind, they were forced to live on the streets and strike from the shadows. It sounds a little like what Kheris went through while on the run from Lolorito's coup. Despite these hardships, the team was able to slay an incarnation of Belias as well as several other Primals. The tragic irony is that, despite their success in protecting the people, all of Sari's students were lynched in the streets of Imperial cities. Later, the Allagan government began erasing his name from official records and deleting archives of his research. Despite the aid he provided to their campaign against the Meracydian civilizations, the military disavowed him to assuage the bigotry of the populace. Given that Prin will later refer to the Allagan military as "oppressors," in an off-handed comment, they probably also wanted to silence his dissent toward their policies. This betrayal is what ultimately prompted the man to pass down his knowledge.   Despite the compelling nature of my historical benefactor's biography, I was beginning to lose hope for the questline at this point. Granted, part of that was bias from the first two batches, but 60-70 did not make an amazing first impression. We'd had boring, formulaic gameplay, minimal Job evolution, a plot focused mainly on expositing Allagan lore, and only three quests left to the end. How much better could I expect this thing to become in the last ten yards before the endzone? ~*~*~ The final test is secretive in nature because if we knew what was being tested, it would influence our actions and, thus, the outcome. Prin will only tell us we must operate in a team with other Summoners under realistic battle conditions. We'll be taking on a simulated Primal threat, which I assumed would be conjured much like that Voidsent. Captain Wolf agrees to loan us his team and even gets permission for us to run the training op on Seal Rock, where no one will panic if we're fighting something that looks like it's here to avenge its worshipers' oppression. Unfortunately, we never get to find out what Prin was planning for us to fight.   When we get to Seal Rock, the Summoner Squad is badly wounded, rambling about a mystery threat. We don't need to explore far to find it.  SEPHIROT EGI?! I WANT THAT!!! There are oddities about these critters from the start, the first being their numbers. Even the Black Mask Ascian never summoned more than three Egi and more than a dozen are wandering around the island. The more notable oddity, which even Prin expresses surprise over, is the fact that they talk. Their speech is almost robotic, making the Egi sound like machines. Y'Mhitra and Prin hang back to tend to the wounded and send Kheris on to help Dancing Wolf, who's fighting what appears to be the mastermind behind this attack.  He addresses Kheris as "the potential," and drops multiple clues about his true identity. The first was the Sephirot Egis, of course, but there's also his goading about how pleased he is to see what "the art has become." His basic attacks are labeled with the adjective "Allagan." He notices our Dreadwyrm Trance and counters by wielding a familiar Bahamut attack.  Then, when his Egis are blown away, he shows an unexpected trump card.  After our heroes survive the stranger's onslaught, the perspective of the following cutscene begins inside the tomelith we'd been fighting near.  We swap back to the standard camera just in time for our team to catch up. If you noted the hints, then it's no great surprise when Prin recognizes our assailant.  …  …  Y'Mhitra is predictably upset that her adopted pet has been messed with, but Master Sari assures us in that smug, villainous sort of way that he didn't hurt the book. He simply "added a layer of security." He then tells Kheris that he'll be waiting for her before vanishing. Y'Mhitra seems to notice something peculiar about his teleportation, but her train of thought is interrupted when Captain Wolf orders us to evacuate the island. When everyone compares notes, we're able to come to two conclusions. First, while we don't know what they were, those dragons were not Egi of some unknown Primal. Add that to the fact that our opponent was conjuring small armies and throwing around spells outside the usual Summoner repertoire, and we can safely conclude that we're up against a threat whose powers far outstrip ours. He might be capable of anything. Second, Prin has checked its sensory records several times, and there can be no doubt: based on his appearance and aetheric signature, that man was the same Master Sari from the 3rd Astral Era. This makes no sense to the poor book because the Flames' Summoners would have died if we'd shown up even a few minutes later. Sari was a kind-hearted, generous soul. Even if he were testing us, he would have never struck so mercilessly. Indeed, the true nature of the third test is proof.   …  The best theory we manage to come up with is that this Sari must be a product of Allagan cloning, though where he came from and why he's suddenly been activated remains a mystery. Equally mysterious is what he did to Prin, which was to place a secondary aetheric lock on those ultimate summoning secrets. The copy recognized Prin and knows its purpose, so why deny the passing of the secret techniques? Between that and the violence, Master Sari's legacy is being dragged through the mud, and Prin refuses to stand by and let it happen.  …  …  Methinks the book doth protest too much. Y'Mhitra decides our only route to unraveling this craziness is to learn more about Sari's ultimate fate. Prin was locked away in a storage closet before his master died, and the Empire tried to purge the man from their histories, but that doesn't mean they got rid of every trace. We might find something useful if we sift through enough raw data. Of course, if you want metric tons of Allagan information, there's only one place to go.  All that dungeon grinding has finally paid off! Rowena demurs on giving us the actual tomestones since they're critical to her efforts to fleece the wealthy idiot collectors of Eorzea, but she is more than willing to share books that the Ironworks have been using to transcribe their contents. After some speed reading, we find records referring to an unnamed master summoner who became a target of the military high command.  …  Prin hadn't mentioned these experiments because they were little more than idle tinkering for most of their time together. Sari didn't trust machines, believing their complexity made them unreliable. That was, after all, why he used a purely magical grimoire to pass down his teachings. However, the document dredges up a memory that Sari began to spend a lot more hours on that work after his apprentices were killed. Prin never saw what came of this shift in focus, but the military did.    The island was, of course, the proving grounds at Seal Rock. Sari's experiments in high-speed Aetheric Geometry calculation to enhance Summoning could theoretically produce both large numbers of Egi and artificial bio-forms able to replicate the powers of non-Primal entities, like those dragons. There's only one other place those research materials were taken, the place we're most likely to find our clone: Azyz Lla. In light of this information, Prin notes that the magical lock placed on his information was designed to automatically fade upon the caster's death. The clone wants us to come after him, and he's trying to force us into a violent confrontation. The question is, why? We fly ourselves up and fight through a handful of automatons whose words indicate they were left intentionally as a trap. At the end of this gauntlet, we access a terminal near the Warring Triad's cages, and our foe shows his face. He's delighted that we figured out where to find him but mocks our theory about his origins.   …  Seeing this familiar animation a second time, Y'Mhitra realizes what was bothering her before. Sari's escape was no teleportation; it was the dismissal of a summoned entity. Sari isn't a clone. He's an Egi! The enemy we face is the final version of what we saw in those fake dragons: a computational model based on Summoning geometries used to craft a realistic biological entity, then spliced with the Egi enhancement equations. But if this Sari is an Egi, who is the Summoner? And why is it dead set on a fight to the death? We track Sari-Egi back to his lair, and he explains that his Summoner designed him to react to the presence of any entity with greater magical potential than the original Sari. His orders are to destroy any such target, analyze its aetheric signature, and use those Aetheric Geometries to construct a replacement for himself.  …  The nature of the Summoner is then revealed, making it clear why someone would give such an order.  ...  Principia absorbs these revelations… and tells Skynet to jump in a lake.  Just remember, it's definitely not programmed with any emotions whatsoever. The battle against the Summoning Node is a true spectacle. Dealing with those first three Sari-Egis is simple, but each time you destroy one, he laughs at you. They have good reason to be amused.  Despite appearances, however, the machine has limits. When our team takes out the second wave and starts damaging the orb, its minion's speech simplifies and fragments. The orb activates the fortress' security measures to supplement its offense, bringing familiar bioweapons and machina to bear against us.  Each time we destroy one and return to attacking its chassis, the AI grows more frantic and its Egi less sophisticated. Eventually, we kick it into self-preservation mode, and it spams room-wide AOEs while mass-producing blocks of biomass that barely even resemble Sari. It abandons its directive to absorb the Warrior of Light and tries to crush us all under a mountain of matter and energy to preserve itself.  The effort fails. Remember, kids, violence is never the answer to fulfilling your life's purpose! That's why I needed to kill that sentient machine. Don't think too hard about that. With our victory, the lock on Prin's higher functions is broken, and it's ready to teach Kheris the lost techniques of its master. The Summoner Squad is thrilled and begs the Warrior of Light to share whatever she learns someday. Ironically, Prin approves of the idea of Kheris passing on this knowledge rather than teaching others itself.  This is the payoff for that foreshadowing I mentioned. Sari designed the second and third tests to require other Summoners because he didn't want his successor to horde power. If one was unwilling to share the art, they were unworthy of his teachings. The story concludes with a nice epilogue that foregrounds some thematic subtext I'd been mulling throughout the final quest. Before we went to Azyz Lla, Y'Mhitra had wondered aloud if the "clone," might be more similar to Master Sari than Prin wanted to believe. After all, the book wasn't there for the final years of his life, and he had to watch as all his students were murdered by the people they were fighting for. Captain Wolf pulled a tomestone from the remains of the orb that proves her idle speculations were correct. You see, the Allagan army did not build the Summoning Node. It was already complete when they found it. Its creator was Master Sari, and it contained the Aetheric Geometries necessary to create an Egi in his image because he took his own life to complete its programming.  The murder of his disciples and the betrayal from his government led Sari to lose all hope in humanity. Despite this, he still felt it was his duty to safeguard the planet and possible future civilizations from the Primal threat. That's why the orb's directive was to kill and replicate anything that could surpass its strongest weapon. Sari's ideals were warped by grief and sadness into their darkest possible interpretation. He ended his life hoping to create a world where everybody would be safe because he had taken away their freedom and stored their future safely beneath his boot.  This revelation is why Prin's quote from its master, "Summoning is for the living," is so important that they made it the name of the last quest. It's also why the book almost exploded with outrage when Sari-Egi stated his intent.  Sari was a different man when he made Prin, and Prin's values reflect that. In his youth, Sari put his faith in people so much that he made a teaching tool capable of being used without a single machine. He programmed it to be satisfied with the idea of letting humans teach each other without its involvement. As a bitter old man who lost everything and embraced antiheroism, he turned to machines and, through them, a future where humans (if you'll forgive the cliché) would only survive and never live.  The final beat of the story exemplifies Prin's role as the protector and redeemer of Sari's legacy. Next to the tomestone, Captain Wolf also found a collection of several Summoner's Soul Crystals. The record indicates they were the ones wielded by Sari's deceased apprentices. Entombing them inside the orb was his last act before committing suicide. They may have been essential to the machine's functions, but there's no doubt they were also put there as a memorial. Even at the bottom of his spiral into darkness, Sari wanted to keep the memory of his students safe. With their old resting place gone, Prin volunteers for a new duty in his creator's name.  Y'Mhitra is a bit broken up because this means Prin intends to seal itself away. The book considers this natural. It is not alive, and all it knows has been passed to those who are. Summoning is in good hands, which means its task must be to preserve that knowledge until it is needed again. Though, if we're lucky, it never will be.  …  …  I cannot fully express how astounded I was at Summoner's turnaround in this final series. We've seen other Jobs experience sharp quality turns, for better and worse, but none have come close to improving so much in such a short time. Prin was a charming character and brought the best out of Y'Mhitra by giving her bouncy charm an outlet while taking the pressure off her to carry scenes. Wolf and his Summoner Squad were also great, to the point I lamented them not being around far earlier. More important than the character work was the sense of meaning and stakes that had been absent even when we were facing Ascians. All along, the Allagan lore and backstory had been the coolest aspect of these stories, and 60-70 finally made them a central element instead of a peripheral. That change wasn't superficial, either. Rumination on the conditions that bring about the decay of morality and later generations being stuck with the fallout of the actions of those who abused power in the past have been core to all Allagan content. In just THREE QUESTS, Summoner managed to become one of the best focal points for those themes the game has ever presented! Whoever was responsible for this deserves all the praise in the world. I was all set to call Summoner the worst Combat Job and a strong competitor for the worst Job in story terms. Instead, I got one of the biggest saving throws I've ever seen in a video game. Oh, and the secret arts that Prin taught to me? Completely worth the build-up.  …  Dreadwyrm Trance now also allows me to create a new Egi called Demi-Bahamut. Contextually, it's evident that this thing utilizes the same enhancements that crafted the Sari-Egis. Demi-Bahamut is not only larger and more powerful than my other minions, but I can command it to use Akh Morn, meaning I'm replicating Bahamut's form and abilities more accurately. How I'm able to use those upgraded magical equations without computer assistance is a question worth asking, but probably not one worth answering. I won't complain, especially since a one-to-one connection between the quest lore and my new abilities has become a rarity. Plus… I mean, look at the thing. Also, that outfit is cash money!  Next time, we find someone else who needs help... and then it will turn out that I need help. Not Kheris, mind you. Me, the player. We're going fishing. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 04:49
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I appreciate that the endpoint for the Summoner quests was basically fighting Yu Yevon from FFX. "Be a big nasty monster, find a summon capable of beating you, and then eat it to make a new monster" was his whole gameplan.
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Jan 1, 2024 05:21
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Oh boy. The waters call Kheris once again, and the Fish Log calls Sanguinia.
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Jan 1, 2024 05:25
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Still disappointed we never got a Principia book glam
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Jan 1, 2024 05:30
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Jajasamu has been waiting for the perfect moment to reveal that he is not left-handed. I have to wonder if summoning Bahamut is one of those things the Warrior of Light can only do in extremely isolated situations given how much PTSD the sight of it might cause.
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Jan 1, 2024 05:56
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Hell yeah, I love these summoner quests. Fully agreed about the summoning squad, it would've been cool to have them around earlier in the storyline. But a lot of the 60-70 job quests have a theme of the WoL entering the role of a master, now ready to pass on their knowledge, and this was another part of that. Plus, it aligns well with the themes of this arc, showing that summoning truly is no longer a dead art.
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Jan 1, 2024 05:56
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A trio of respectable questlines, though I could have done without the face reveal personally. Sorry to Kheris and her fondness for scaly ladies, but my brain parses the majority of Au Ra scale arrangements as looking like they have bad skin diseases. The combination of a wispy scale moustache and his sickly skin colour do Adkiragh especially dirty. (Hopefully the graphics overhaul will help fix this for me.) Prin rocks though, love our toothy book friend. Here's hoping she rests easy. Yapping Eevee fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 06:01
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Also, while someone brought up the Yu Yevon connection, I was somewhat reminded of Kuja, personally. In no small part due to the outfit. They even have a similar motivation of using a machine to capture/control an extremely powerful Summon at the expense of the life of the person the Summon came from. Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 06:02
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I'm FOREVER indignant that there's no prin minion
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Jan 1, 2024 06:43
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That leads us to whoooooo knows where, who knows where But I'm STROOOOOOOOONG Strong enough to carry him He ain't heavy, he's my brother … So on we go
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Jan 1, 2024 06:59
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This arc of SMN is kind of what I was eagerly awaiting for you to get at, because it's the first time since ARR we see anyone affiliated with Allag, to my knowledge unless there's some in classes I haven't done (I admit I'm not reading chapters for classes that I myself haven't done). It also exemplifies the transformation of Allag from a wizard society that we've rarely gotten a glimpse at into the techno-horror that has shown up time and time again. It's interesting timing for it to show up at the same time as Solus appeared in the MSQ babbling about the greatness of Allag surpassing Garlemald, since Allag didn't meet Omega until ~150 years after Xande's original reign ended. In Garlean's history Solus actually created the method of refining ceruleum into Magitek devices, which was the reason why the Garleans decided to annoint him with totalitarian rule. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 07:26
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Craptacular! posted:This arc of SMN is kind of what I was eagerly awaiting for you to get at, because it's the first time since ARR we see anyone affiliated with Allag, to my knowledge unless there's some in classes I haven't done (I admit I'm not reading chapters for classes that I myself haven't done). There is that catgirl in Mor Dhona who is possessed by the spirit of Archmagus Noah, but she doesn't really do anything aside from hand out a quest that I believe has since been removed from the game.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:41
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Craptacular! posted:It's interesting timing for it to show up at the same time as Solus appeared in the MSQ babbling about the greatness of Allag surpassing Garlemald, since Allag didn't meet Omega until ~150 years after Xande's original reign ended. In Garlean's history Solus actually created the method of refining ceruleum into Magitek devices, which was the reason why the Garleans decided to annoint him with totalitarian rule. It certainly creates some interesting potential implications. Obviously there's still a lot of Fog of War surrounding Primal Summoning and the Ascians, but if we assume that they were the ones responsible for Eikons running around leading the Pre-Imperial Allagans to invent Egi Summoning to counter them, then were they responsible for Zande inventing Aetherochemistry? Did they help him to rise to power after that invention and thus the rise of the Allagan Empire? Both? Neither? Was the interaction with Omega and the sudden tech leap that came with it the reason for this apparent gap in their influence between the original and Xande's clone? Regardless, whether it was theirs or they're just plagiarizing, it IS pretty clear now that our Paragon friends followed the same blueprint as Allag when Solus founded the Garlean Empire. Perhaps more clarity will come as we learn more about him and how/why he is an Ascian. More information about Garlemald's pre-Imperial history and how their tech developed (what did they create before Magitek, how did Magitek develop once Solus introduced the basic concepts, when did they start finding and reverse engineering Allagan stuff, etc) would likely also prove illuminating.
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Jan 1, 2024 07:52
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The fight with the Summoning Node is one of my absolute favourites in the game, and features the second and last time He Who Continues the Attack, the battle version of Azys Lla's theme, plays. The only other time you hear it to my knowledge is fighting Regula van Hydrus. Zutaten fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 08:06
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Yeah, the good summoner quests! I am excited. And now you are getting to the fun part of summoner. Throwing Bahamut at people is a very large part of why I play it.
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Jan 1, 2024 08:31
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Sanguinia posted:
Sanguinia posted:One woman has opened a daycare where traders and travelers can leave their children while they work. Each child is from a different tribe: The Himaa, who birth only twins, the reverse-harem polygamist Bayaqud, and the dung-collecting Bolir. However, when given a chance to interact, they seem to know no divisions and become fast friends. It gives her hope that intertribal warfare might end one day. Adkiragh posted:What's that? You wonder if I am an Adarkim? Hahaha! Y-You are quite a comedian. No, no, I am just a regular piggy. Even if I were an Adarkim─which I'm not─I wouldn't dream of trying to become the next khan.  Yapping Eevee posted:A trio of respectable questlines, though I could have done without the face reveal personally. Sorry to Kheris and her fondness for scaly ladies, but my brain parses the majority of Au Ra scale arrangements as looking like they have bad skin diseases. The combination of a wispy scale moustache and his sickly skin colour do Adkiragh especially dirty. (Hopefully the graphics overhaul will help fix this for me.)  Sanguinia posted:Prin says it will offer the next challenge (which concerns fine control of aether as opposed to its raw power) when I've had time to practice, which is pretty funny because 60-69 is an absolute desert in terms of new Summoner stuff. There are two new abilities: a party-wide 3% damage buff and Ruin IV, another big burst attack that can only be cast right after you use your Aetherflow cooldown. Needless to say, since they're on long-ish timers, these have virtually zero impact on the primary gameplay loop. At this point, I don't think any combat Job has changed so little throughout the leveling process. Maybe Machinist and Red Mage? Then again, neither of them started as a Level 1 Job. Knowing that Summoner received a complete revamp to its design upon Endwalker's release, it's a quirk I wouldn't have expected. That said, 61-70 wasn't too much of a change to how the job already operated until the capstone in 4.0 as well: 62 - Ruin IV served a bit different of a purpose - you also got the Ruin Mastery trait which gave a 15% chance that whenever your egi performed an action, Further Ruin would proc, which turned Ruin and Ruin III into Ruin IV until cast. 64 - Aetherpact made your egi cast Devotion on the closest party member (+attack/healing potency, reduced damage taken). Sort of the earlier Searing Light. 66 - Bio III and Miasma III, both upgrades to DoTs no longer on Summoner. 68 - Enhanced Enkindle trait reduced the cooldown of Enkindle by 10 seconds whenever Further Ruin procced. (Enkindle used to be the level 50 capstone ability that made the egis perform their signature moves; Inferno, Earthen Fury, and Aerial Blast.) 70 - Demi-Bahamut still, but back here, you needed 2 Dreadwyrm Aether to summon it - you got an Enhanced Dreadwyrm Trance trait that gave you 1 Dreadwyrm Aether at the end of every Dreadwyrm Trance (so 2 Trances - Demi-Bahamut - 2 Trances - etc.) The only other thing I'll add on Demi-Bahamut is to be very glad you're in after many AI tweaks. The original was a notorious diva that would decide not to attack whenever it felt like the wind was blowing the wrong way. Hogama fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 08:55
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Baha Blast does entirely stupid damage as the Summoner's opener, so much so I believe it's the go-to for when doing unsynched boss content for catbook or similar. It also makes every first pull of a dungeon a little spicier then normal.
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Jan 1, 2024 10:28
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Hogama posted:This is kind of a common refrain to the Summoner rework for 6.0+ - it's certainly newbie-friendly now, but they've also changed it so your loop is practically the same from 30-70 (and 70 mostly changes because of the Demi-Bahamut phase). Unfortunately this isn't strictly true because Summoner in Stormblood and most of Heavensward is subject to something that's otherwise rare in FF14: Math Error. At those levels your base Ruin 3 is higher potency/time than both Emerald Ruin 3 and Topaz Ruin 3. This is not the case at any other Ruin potency level, far as I am aware, and is likely an oversight. Anyhow, it means that between L54 and L72 you want to intentionally sink one of your egi phases. Generally Garuda if you have some spell speed, but possibly Titan if you're close to 0 speed on gear. Summon that primal last and then ignore the shiny button, do not spend charges, and continue casting regular Ruin 3 until Aethercharge/Dreadwyrm Trance/Summon Bahamut comes back up. It's not a huge difference but there is one, it's very stupid and counterintuitive, and it really annoys the people who play SMN in the L70 Ultimates. Xerophyte fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 10:55
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Summoner is one of the simplest jobs so I think it suffers more than many when it comes to spreading its small number of buttons across the levels.Blueberry Pancakes posted:I have to wonder if summoning Bahamut is one of those things the Warrior of Light can only do in extremely isolated situations given how much PTSD the sight of it might cause. I've always thought the summoner playstyle is kind of in-unverse bad taste. Bahamut is the big one, but there will be a decent number of people around who have lost loved ones to Ifrit tempering and whatnot Qwertycoatl fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 11:16
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Sanguinia posted:It certainly creates some interesting potential implications. Obviously there's still a lot of Fog of War surrounding Primal Summoning and the Ascians, but if we assume that they were the ones responsible for Eikons running around leading the Pre-Imperial Allagans to invent Egi Summoning to counter them, then were they responsible for Zande inventing Aetherochemistry? Did they help him to rise to power after that invention and thus the rise of the Allagan Empire? Both? Neither? Was the interaction with Omega and the sudden tech leap that came with it the reason for this apparent gap in their influence between the original and Xande's clone? I just like the narrative idea that there is essentially two different eras of Allag, and obviously some sort of intervention or catalyst happened that moved them from classical fantasy to high tech dystopia. Not only does it play into the Final Fantasy hallmark of a game starting off with castles and wizards and ending with computers and death lasers, but both of those originate in the same place. And while both eras have made their own wonders, it's obvious that Labyrinth of the Ancients has a different, uh, vibe than the Gamer LED stuff of Dalamud and Azys La, and that was always going to need to be addressed eventually. Sanguinia posted:More information about Garlemald's pre-Imperial history and how their tech developed (what did they create before Magitek, how did Magitek develop once Solus introduced the basic concepts, when did they start finding and reverse engineering Allagan stuff, etc) would likely also prove illuminating. It's hard to tell how truthful that history is going to be when the Emperor has spent 80-something years pretending not just to be a normal person, but one with no magical abilities at all. Which brings up another subject, we've never seen Garleans channel magic before but now we have not one but two Space Wizards in Garlean bodies (making reasonable assumption about the person Solus moved into after being shot). Elidibus certainly seems to think that having Zenos's anatomy will give him an advantage where the kind of magical explosions and beams we're accustomed to from Lahabrea and Nabriales did not. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 11:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:Baha Blast does entirely stupid damage as the Summoner's opener, so much so I believe it's the go-to for when doing unsynched boss content for catbook or similar. It also makes every first pull of a dungeon a little spicier then normal. My guild's Tank Main weeps whenever we break out the Summoners because good lord, does that class ever frontload damage. Your burst phase is basically your opener.
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Jan 1, 2024 14:48
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:There is that catgirl in Mor Dhona who is possessed by the spirit of Archmagus Noah, but she doesn't really do anything aside from hand out a quest that I believe has since been removed from the game. She gets fleshed out in the Endwalker deep dungeon questline at least.
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Jan 1, 2024 15:09
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Rorahusky posted:My guild's Tank Main weeps whenever we break out the Summoners because good lord, does that class ever frontload damage. Your burst phase is basically your opener. The openers I found do delay the Baha Blasts until like 3 GCDs in (so it lines up with other DPS buffs), if you haven't gotten all the aggro you need by then, skill issue  (Or ask the OT to use Shirk to do something)
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Jan 1, 2024 15:14
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