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Badger of Basra posted:my issue wasn't that their mistrust is unreasonable, more that their insistence on their sovereignty and rights as a nation is ridiculous. like bro sovereignty over what? a bunch of ruins? we can just leave if you want, i'm sure you guys will make a great go of it. it would be like karl donitz talking about how important it is that the allies respect prussian traditions. gently caress off! bobtheconqueror posted:Yeah, the level of "if you'd just hear me out you'd agree with me!" followed by genocidal megalomania is really funny. Dwesa fucked around with this message at 10:38 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 10:19
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man i feel like Pandaemonium was both a entire third too long, and yet somehow too short at the same time. Besides Athena being somewhat undercooked, it felt like the whole moment with lahabread could've just been thrown in at the end of act 2 instead. The emotional beats he and his son got during part 3 otherwise didn't really - make me feel like it mattered, at all, because it was just very explicitly memories of them? and so very much Doesn't Matter? I suppose Elidibus' moments mattered a bit more, but it didn't really feel like it added much to him or his arc. and I get that they chose to use their limited screen time to focus on Lahabread because he sure had zero personality and died instantly, but at the same time i would've liked to have more screen time with the other ascians too, or maybe get a chance to see more of the ancients society, y'know? and limited screentime means they had to explain it as a stable timeloop, and in a pretty boring way too. Overall though that's kind of the Endwalker special, cramming the entire World Unsundered poo poo and plotlines into one zone and two raids. Just like how it crammed Garlemald into one zone, and wow this xpac really did have the same 'two+ expansions squeezed into one' issue Stormblood had huh. As for MSQ yeah them needing to squeeze in Zermous to truly capture FF4 Nostalgia Roadtrip meaning our 'climatic showdown' with Golbez is just a speedbump where he goes through with his poo poo anyway kinda sucked. also I don't...really feel like the Golbez twist actually adds anything. Ok, he was Golbez's friend who took up his mantle, ssooo what? What does this actually change or do? hopefully there's some payoff next patch with zeromus but eh. I don't think they're damned to make all healers use healer gear. Like they'll probably do that because it's the most convenient, but there's really nothing stopping them from making a healer spec scale with a non-mind stat like how ninja scales with dex, just culling Piety, which has been a bit of a nothingburger stat for ages, and merging skill and spell speed into just one generic Haste stat. Hell, if you don't want to cull Piety you could just make them use Tank gear instead and make it so Tenacity gives them MP regen like Piety does, without opening up a healer gaining access to Direct Hit.
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May 25, 2023 11:35
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Dwesa posted:How long before someone goes "Athena was right". I also wonder what makes her so creepy, maybe her stare. I'm sure someone will but I don't think many people will at all. She seems to be motivated almost entirely by personal power rather than by a vision that other people could buy into
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May 25, 2023 12:32
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The problem with healers having non-healer gear is how much damage they take as well as the stat distrubition. A Healer in tank gear, even without the tank defensive options, would still be much harder to kill than a normal healer in content for example. By comparison, I think Aiming/Scouting gear would make them easier to kill (and in fact this is part of the issue around swapping Ninja to Aiming Gear).
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May 25, 2023 12:38
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Qwertycoatl posted:I'm sure someone will but I don't think many people will at all. She seems to be motivated almost entirely by personal power rather than by a vision that other people could buy into I mean, I can twist myself into finding a point for her. It'd be in bad faith, and I don't believe it, but I could go for saying that she thinks the Ancients need to improve and weren't gonna do it themselves. That's not exactly a further stretch than other things I've seen people genuinely believe. The fact she opposed popular characters is the reason that'll never happen, though. A lot of these explanations ultimately stem from people finding excuses for siding with the character they like, and no, Themis and Erich are way too popular for that. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 12:55 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 12:50
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The thing I like about Athena is that her insanity is a demonstration on the hosed up mindset of the ascians as a whole. She takes their whole thesis of "humanity as it is now is imperfect and must be sacrificed for the return of the Ancients and applies it to the Ancients themselves.
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May 25, 2023 13:00
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Badger of Basra posted:also having been reading a lot of local development news lately it was extremely funny that we had to do a pointless community input session to ask permission to literally save the world. thank god they don't have environmental impact statements in eorzea or we'd all be loving dead I think if it were just the scions doing this stuff it wouldn't be a problem, but with Vrtra along for the ride, that's where the diplomacy becomes necessary. He's the current official satrap and has been the unofficial one for ages. If you took any other city-state leader, like Aymeric or Merlwyb, it'd be the same problem. They functionally are their respective city-states diplomatically, so barging in to another country like Garlemald or Sharlayan during peacetime and taking or using their stuff without explicit permission could lead to nasty diplomatic hostility down the line, and Vrtra is particularly protective of his people, so isn't going to let that happen. Edit: It's definitely annoying, especially since multiple city-state leaders participated in the assault on the Tower of Babil not that long ago, but it makes sense in the context of a post-war situation. bobtheconqueror fucked around with this message at 14:09 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 14:05
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SirSamVimes posted:The thing I like about Athena is that her insanity is a demonstration on the hosed up mindset of the ascians as a whole. She takes their whole thesis of "humanity as it is now is imperfect and must be sacrificed for the return of the Ancients and applies it to the Ancients themselves. Yeah that is the entire point of the character. She is the mindset that drove Hermes bonkers taken to its logical extreme. She even points out that they do the same thing so why is it bad if it happens to them? She is egotistical and evil but like the Ascians themselves her belief is born from the Ancient's innate belief they are justified in killing living beings for being 'imperfect'
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May 25, 2023 14:26
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One of the thing I notice is that a lot of the Garleans kind of don't reject the concept of the Empire. In a way, it makes sense. 'The Empire' never really got 'defeated' by their enemies. When Solus got messed up, most Garleans probably still felt like they were absolutely going to win this thing. They were all living in comfort still, right? Provinces were rebelling, but savages, amirite? Things only went to poo poo when Zenos messed things up. (And Zenos was possessed by some Ascian/tainted by Savage magics) And that is 'Magic stuff' and magic stuff you can easily blame on Eorzea that's full of scary Eikons and mages that cause horrible things. But yeah, the thing is that a lot of people are working very hard to build a lasting peace with Garleans, including the twins. And if we just went 'we're using the tower, gently caress you deal with it' we could absolutely do it, wouldn't even be unethical, everyone's life is dependent on it, and you might have done it if they'd just held on. But it might mean that everything the Contingent has been working on, spending money and effort on gets wiped out. And I can imagine that Eorzeans have a limited amount of time they are going to send resources to the people that they have a lot of reasons to resent, not least of all the Calamity.
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May 25, 2023 14:45
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Obviously it would never have happened since it's written fiction and not a chronicle of real world events, but I do wonder what the not-scions would have done if the trade proposal was rejected. Like at what point would they have to take the nuclear option of just activating the tower without Garlean blessings? Or would they have just given up completely since the diplomatic optics were too important and they'd try some non-tower based solution?
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May 25, 2023 14:48
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After we beat Zeromus, I wonder if Real!Golbez is going to pop out, take off their armor, and become a new companion.
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May 25, 2023 14:51
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah that is the entire point of the character. She is the mindset that drove Hermes bonkers taken to its logical extreme. She even points out that they do the same thing so why is it bad if it happens to them? That isn't an innate belief of the Ancients, they don't appear to kill already existing species to make new ones, that's specifically the thing that happened post sundering (pre-sundering there was something different going on with their plans to bring back those they'd given to Zodiark). They just make new species and then determine if they're safe to actually introduce to the star. Perfection isn't actually the goal for individual species, but the star as a whole. Her thing is that the Ancients cannot achieve that perfection as they are, they must be evolved to become BETTER stewards of the star, and she herself their steward and goddess. It is indeed the extreme opposite of Hermes, but one of the suggestions is that Hermes could have reached out to people around him but felt like he couldn't (a very understandable feeling), that's the point of the sequence where Hades gets convinced to teach an "imperfect" being how to fly when it seemed incapable of it (and thus inappropriate for its planned purpose in the environment). There's actually a few different Ancients who show some understanding of Hermes Mindset, and a lot of the researchers on Elpis would rather work on the design rather than scrap it entirely for being a failure, Hermes is just in the position where he gets the worst of it because he's in charge and every result ends up on his desk. Hades at minimum is by the end, well aware of his own monstrous justifications being total horseshit and his past self in Elpis reacts with quite a lot of negativity to the idea he would do the things he did, because that level of abuse/mistreatment of others is abhorrent to the Ancient's whole stewardship thing. They're good people with a weird culture, like pretty much every other good people with a different culture in FFXIV, which has a pretty heavy statement to make that most people are, by default, good people, and evil is caused by external influences pushing people to monstrous actions, not innate evil (outside some truly standout assholes). Admittedly, Athena is one of those situations where what is monstrous about her is written as somewhat innate, if heightened by losing her inhibitions/self-control.
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May 25, 2023 14:56
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Lord_Magmar posted:That isn't an innate belief of the Ancients, they don't appear to kill already existing species to make new ones, that's specifically the thing that happened post sundering (pre-sundering there was something different going on with their plans to bring back those they'd given to Zodiark). They just make new species and then determine if they're safe to actually introduce to the star. Perfection isn't actually the goal for individual species, but the star as a whole. Except that is not the case. We literally have evidence they destroyed a species because they thought it'd be cooler if they spoke English or planned to destroy another because it needed help. That doesn't stop then from being good people but they are people who have a fundimentally different view of the world because they are all demigods and it is a very short hop from the standard mindset to Ascian/Athena. Not all Ancients are like that but the extreme mindset is easy to reach when you can create and destroy life and flawed works can be considered worthy of destruction. There were dissenting opinions or Venat's crew wouldn't exist. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 15:13 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 15:06
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ImpAtom posted:Except that is not the case. We literally have evidence they destroyed a species because they thought it'd be cooler if they spoke English or planned to destroy another because it needed help. Some Ancients are more sentimental about giving their rejected creations another chance, some feel bad about putting them down, there's a whole diversity of thought on how the system works, it seems! It's just that on average, the Ancient's stewardship is very willing to create and discard and create and discard until they get the result they want, and their attitude towards it is that it's simply the way things are. Hermes's reaction was to fall into despair and Athena's reaction was to double down and take that to a terrible but logical (to her) conclusion.
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May 25, 2023 15:13
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Yeah, I figure Athena is the Ancient's philosophy twisted to its darkest way. Ancients figure they are caretakers for the star, and that means that occasionally, after carefully considering it, if a creature is just harmful to the Star, it is the Ancients' job to remove those from the equation. Athena is evil and megalomaniac, but she channels that through Ancient philosophy. I am a genius, I should be the caretaker, and just making the perfect creatures rather than sub-optimal ones.
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May 25, 2023 15:14
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The Ancients also just view life and death radically differently in general. Given that to most of them death is something they choose when they're done with whatever duty they had and then let their souls get recycled. Even for creations which the star has "not" given a soul, it's just aether being recycled into another form, not actually destroyed or killed (in their eyes), it's easy to see why it's not a huge deal to most of them.
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May 25, 2023 15:16
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Ibram Gaunt posted:The Ancients also just view life and death radically differently in general. Given that to most of them death is something they choose when they're done with whatever duty they had and then let their souls get recycled. Even for creations which the star has "not" given a soul, it's just aether being recycled into another form, not actually destroyed or killed (in their eyes), it's easy to see why it's not a huge deal to most of them. Yeah it makes perfect sense for the characters and isn't inherently evil. It is just very easy to twist to evilm
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May 25, 2023 15:19
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One thing I kinda had expected but didn't happen was that in Azys La we were going to find the Essence of Lahabrea caught up in the machines there, united it with the Hephaistos Half, and end up with a Rematch with a 'Complete' Lahabrea. I think he's one of the few Ascians we didn't fight transformed.
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May 25, 2023 15:20
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ImpAtom posted:Except that is not the case. We literally have evidence they destroyed a species because they thought it'd be cooler if they spoke English or planned to destroy another because it needed help. Venat's crew don't dissent against the stewardship at all, their dissent is against the continued use of Zodiark and planned third sacrifice in particular. Rather than returning to the pre-Zodiark ways of managing the star and protecting/growing/creating live and beauty. Edit: Like, Venat's group didn't actually form out of any disagreement with the existing Ancient Culture, it was to deal with the final days and specifically, because of concerns about relying on Zodiark and betraying the Ancient's duty to the star in service of their own desire to undo their tragedy/loss. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 15:42 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 15:30
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Shogeton posted:One thing I kinda had expected but didn't happen was that in Azys La we were going to find the Essence of Lahabrea caught up in the machines there, united it with the Hephaistos Half, and end up with a Rematch with a 'Complete' Lahabrea. I think he's one of the few Ascians we didn't fight transformed. The number we have fought transformed is just Hades, Hermes, and Themis, so it's more of an exception than the norm.
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May 25, 2023 15:34
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Shogeton posted:Yeah, I figure Athena is the Ancient's philosophy twisted to its darkest way. Ancients figure they are caretakers for the star, and that means that occasionally, after carefully considering it, if a creature is just harmful to the Star, it is the Ancients' job to remove those from the equation. This is exactly why I was interested in Athena (and disappointed that, again, she basically gets one and a half cutscenes). She's sort of the Zenos or Teledji of the Ancients; the worst possible person that this society's outlook and values would inevitably end up nurturing and rewarding, even if that society really wishes it didn't. Shogeton posted:One thing I kinda had expected but didn't happen was that in Azys La we were going to find the Essence of Lahabrea caught up in the machines there, united it with the Hephaistos Half, and end up with a Rematch with a 'Complete' Lahabrea. I think he's one of the few Ascians we didn't fight transformed. Incidentally, when the origin of the Aetherial Sea Pandaemonium was revealed, I was madder about Athena hurting Azys Lla than I was Claudien. Claudien barely got any real focus or characterization before going missing, because he basically just serves as the launching point; I want to save him because he seems like a nice guy, but I didn't really care. But Azys Lla is important, damnit, it has history and relevance, to the point of basically being the only zone in the game I have emotional attachment to, rather than to the people inside it.
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May 25, 2023 15:41
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I don't know if Athena counts? But that might just be 'divine' rather than 'Ancient Transformation'
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May 25, 2023 15:42
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Shogeton posted:I don't know if Athena counts? But that might just be 'divine' rather than 'Ancient Transformation' We still got Savage coming
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May 25, 2023 15:44
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Shogeton posted:I don't know if Athena counts? But that might just be 'divine' rather than 'Ancient Transformation' I'm still assuming that Venat and Athena's "divine" forms are more or less their Ancient Transformations, since the whole deal with the Ancient Transformations is shedding your flesh to take on a god-like form for greater power in combat, or at least that's my assumption. We know that the Mask Reveal gives the members of the Convocation greater powers, and Hades specifically discards his vessel of Flesh to transform into a more powerful form better able to wield his magics, (after modifying said vessel of flesh into the first part of the trial). Much like how Shiva is Ysayle's idea of godhood, and probably pretty close to Ancient Transformation magic (which is related to Creation Magic).
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May 25, 2023 15:44
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On an entirely different note. I enjoyed how Estinien, on seeing an Elder Dragon having languished in centuries long captivity for the second time, decided to go for his stand by with his default thing of trying to provoke and shittalk a dragon into gaining resolve, only for her to go 'What's wrong with this one? He's got Nidhogg's manner, I'd love to get out, I'm just stuck' and Estinien just grinned at that.
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May 25, 2023 15:49
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Shogeton posted:On an entirely different note. I enjoyed how Estinien, on seeing an Elder Dragon having languished in centuries long captivity for the second time, decided to go for his stand by with his default thing of trying to provoke and shittalk a dragon into gaining resolve, only for her to go 'What's wrong with this one? He's got Nidhogg's manner, I'd love to get out, I'm just stuck' and Estinien just grinned at that. Like I mentioned before: I love that even a dragon that hasn't been around for five thousand years, and completely missed the Dragonsong War, still sees Nidhogg as a total meathead idiot.
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May 25, 2023 15:53
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Glad we are headed back to The First for 6.5. Also, prediction for next patch: "Remember how you once ate so many sin eaters it nearly killed you?"
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May 25, 2023 15:53
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Shogeton posted:Yeah, I figure Athena is the Ancient's philosophy twisted to its darkest way. Ancients figure they are caretakers for the star, and that means that occasionally, after carefully considering it, if a creature is just harmful to the Star, it is the Ancients' job to remove those from the equation.
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May 25, 2023 16:03
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Cleretic posted:Like I mentioned before: I love that even a dragon that hasn't been around for five thousand years, and completely missed the Dragonsong War, still sees Nidhogg as a total meathead idiot. Some people go with an interpretation that Estinien still has enough of a remnant of Nidhogg inside of him to react to it, considering he speaks to Nidhogg at times. Which makes me wonder if there's part of Nidhogg that goes 'hey  rude!' at that.And of course, that makes it all the more sad when said shred of Nidhogg gets to see another sister messed up.
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May 25, 2023 16:11
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Shogeton posted:Some people go with an interpretation that Estinien still has enough of a remnant of Nidhogg inside of him to react to it, considering he speaks to Nidhogg at times. Which makes me wonder if there's part of Nidhogg that goes 'hey Afaik, Estinien is Nidhogg's Heir and indeed still bears the shade/mind ghost echo, it just doesn't control him without the eyes. Like how Midgardsormr is dead but still haunting us for a while before sleeping for the most part after the Omega raids to build up revival, but on a lesser scale.
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May 25, 2023 16:13
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If Y'shtola does manage to revive the 13th, then after her booty call with Rugar, her next step should be to time travel, go back to the First while Emet is being at his smuggest and go 'Oh, don't worry about your little gently caress up with the 13th, we and our tattered little souls fixed it.'
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May 25, 2023 16:19
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Cleretic posted:Like I mentioned before: I love that even a dragon that hasn't been around for five thousand years, and completely missed the Dragonsong War, still sees Nidhogg as a total meathead idiot. Well Nidhogg being a meathead is what caused that whole thing in the first place, so it seems to at least be a consistent pattern of behavior from him.
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May 25, 2023 16:20
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MechaX posted:1. So that was the real Elidibus regaining some of his memories towards the end rather than the Eric and Laha memory clones, right? So if you die on any reflection of the Source you get dumped into the same Aetherial Sea?
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May 25, 2023 16:32
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But yes the implication is that the fake Themis actually was the real Themis' soul with fresher old memories stuck on top. Hence why there was the cutscene of him in the aetherial sea after the fake Themis disappeared.
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May 25, 2023 17:01
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(Pandaemonium spoilers) Athena's big departure from Ancient philosophy is that she thinks perfection means she's a god in charge, not as a general goal to strive for across the Star. It's entirely self centered ambition rather than altruistic. She's a product of certain aspects of Ancient culture but it's mostly just "this is how Being a lovely selfish Person manifests in their quasi divine utopia." It is again even pointed out that to the ancients "godhood' is a pretty nebulous concept and Athena has a very specific interpretation, which amounts to "can create souls and thus ensure her lasting creations are totally obedient to her." And she's such a narcissist she seems to sincerely believe that Themis and her simulacra of Lahabrea and Erichthonios, even given souls - basically just as a flex, there's no reason for her to mentally violate two unrelated souls by imposing an identity on top of them, and their having their own souls may have helped them to rebel more than a familiar without a soul would - would naturally speak in her favor. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 17:05 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 17:01
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iPodschun posted:Hydaelyn, via Krile, lets us know that she specifically plucked Minfilia "and another" (Emet) from the First and threw them into our Aetherial Sea. I missed the part Blueberry Pancakes mentioned so I gotta find that dialogue again; I did P9-12 at 4AM Tuesday so I probably missed some other key dialogue as well. Here it is from the quest "Pandæmonium Awakens". Lahabrea: I ought to have anticipated this. If she bore witness to past events within Pandæmonium, Athena would have found Elidibus impossible to overlook. Few possess such a talent for magicks─to say naught of the emissary's discerning judgment. And so she found his soul upon the tides of the aetherial sea, and used his memories to craft a puppet that would serve her whims. I suppose there are two ways you could read that line, in retrospect, but I believe my initial interpretation is how it's meant to be read.
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May 25, 2023 17:03
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Lord_Magmar posted:Venat's crew don't dissent against the stewardship at all, their dissent is against the continued use of Zodiark and planned third sacrifice in particular. Rather than returning to the pre-Zodiark ways of managing the star and protecting/growing/creating live and beauty. Yeah, Team Venat's stance was "Throwing more tires onto the massive tire fire will not extinguish the massive tire fire."
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May 25, 2023 18:06
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Yep, I'm taking that as 'she reached into the Sea of Souls of the First and dragged Themis' soul to the Sea of Souls of the First. Hey, at least hi!s soul gets to chill and get formatted alongside Emet and Hythlo (though Lahabrea's soul is still a bit of an open question. Did it just return to the Aetherial sea when Thorden bit it?) Hm, I also figure that a lot of the weirdnesses of ancient Society. (Everyone dresses the same, you wear masks, it is indecent to show off your 'Transformed, awesome self', if you become a person in power, you pretty much give up your own name) is actually because they try to prevent people like Athena from happening. Trying very, very hard to prevent people from seeing themselves 'above others' because with that kind of power, that, well, we see what can go wrong.
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May 25, 2023 18:10
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Shogeton posted:Yep, I'm taking that as 'she reached into the Sea of Souls of the First and dragged Themis' soul to the Sea of Souls of the First. Hey, at least hi!s soul gets to chill and get formatted alongside Emet and Hythlo (though Lahabrea's soul is still a bit of an open question. Did it just return to the Aetherial sea when Thorden bit it?) Well they're literally based partially off More's Utopia, and a lot of these are also somewhat contextual - there are rituals and contexts where people don't wear masks, show off their transformation OCs, and of course your WoL's attire is taken in Elpis as a sign you might be a mercenary, so there's presumably situations and subcultures where people don't just wear robes. Even Lahabrea's robe is actually a bit different from the standard Amaurotine robe, with a molded undershirt and elaborate embroidery - I like how the first tier of Pandaemonium's loot is variations on Ancient robes. And Hesperos had to get his idea for his weird Dracula getup from somewhere. But yeah, it makes sense as a current social fad trying to ensure that jerks like Athena don't arise that often. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 18:34 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 18:21
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Shogeton posted:One of the thing I notice is that a lot of the Garleans kind of don't reject the concept of the Empire. In a way, it makes sense. 'The Empire' never really got 'defeated' by their enemies. When Solus got messed up, most Garleans probably still felt like they were absolutely going to win this thing. They were all living in comfort still, right? Provinces were rebelling, but savages, amirite? Things only went to poo poo when Zenos messed things up. (And Zenos was possessed by some Ascian/tainted by Savage magics) And that is 'Magic stuff' and magic stuff you can easily blame on Eorzea that's full of scary Eikons and mages that cause horrible things. it's funny because this is literally just the dolchstosslegende
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May 25, 2023 18:39
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