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Chillgamesh posted:Need an entire inside-giant-monster zone. Dawntrail zone 6 will be the meat realm giant of babil so we can get a sick remix to the giant of babil theme or did we get that remix already and I forgot?
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May 7, 2024 13:46
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Let's combine the meat zone and the underground zone into some sort of magical mystery flesh pit thing! The best/worst of both possibilities!
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May 7, 2024 14:18
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blatman posted:giant of babil so we can get a sick remix to the giant of babil theme Unfortunately no giant of babil theme.
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May 7, 2024 15:49
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Flavahbeast posted:level 100 trial: The War Within Genuinely hoping the final zone is a cool, completely underground zone.
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May 7, 2024 19:17
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May 7, 2024 20:02
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I said a cool underground zone.
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May 7, 2024 20:10
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Zeruel posted:finally, the EVE Online crossover. give tataru a conniption.
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May 7, 2024 22:23
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Mordiceius posted:I said a cool underground zone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2cV4qc3lYo
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May 7, 2024 22:48
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Mordiceius posted:I said a cool underground zone. It is both underground and in the north, I imagine it is quite cool in there.
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May 7, 2024 23:09
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Realtalk tho - Labyrinthos is such a disappointment of a zone to me. It feels so unnecessary. To a degree, I like the idea of it, but I feel like every time the MSQ is there, the pacing absolutely dies. Everything that is accomplished in the story of Labyrinthos could have just happened in Old Sharlayan proper. I get that they need two starting zones for each expansion, but I wish Labyrinthos had been swapped out for something else - perhaps another Ilsabard zone on the far fringes of Garlemald. I feel like the story wouldn't have required too much rejiggering for that. Instead of going to Labyrinthos as one of the two starting zones, you go to the fringes of Garlemald (or hell, even just make it Corvos) to investigate what's going on with the Empire because there's been strange rumblings going on. You don't learn much, but you do learn that something is wrong. The other half is still the Thavnair part. From there the MSQ continues as normal through Elpis. (Zot->Garlemald->Moon->Thavnair Pt2->Elpis) Post-Elpis, instead of going to Labyrinthos again, the ship is revealed to be in a warehouse accessible via Old Sharlayan but you need to travel the world for various parts - a key mechanism being in the Garlemald fringes (or Corvos), allowing you to go there for part 2. It would make things more interesting than what we got for Labrynthos part 2. The big emotional beat of that section (Moenbryda's parents) could just take place in Old Sharlayan.
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May 8, 2024 00:42
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Counterpoint: A giant, living, underground library for all the knowledge Sharlayan has that can't be stored in books, is a sick as hell idea, and nothing you suggested would be even remotely as cool conceptually. 
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May 8, 2024 00:56
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I mean the biggest issue is that they just needed to stop the fuckin triumphant music after the one cutscene
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May 8, 2024 01:00
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I can't wait until that happens again in Dawntrail.
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May 8, 2024 01:00
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DanielCross posted:Counterpoint: A giant, living, underground library for all the knowledge Sharlayan has that can't be stored in books, is a sick as hell idea It is a sick as hell idea. It would be cool if they did anything with it.
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May 8, 2024 01:01
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Mordiceius posted:Realtalk tho - Labyrinthos is such a disappointment of a zone to me. It feels so unnecessary. To a degree, I like the idea of it, but I feel like every time the MSQ is there, the pacing absolutely dies. Everything that is accomplished in the story of Labyrinthos could have just happened in Old Sharlayan proper. No I do not think rerouting several major questlines into the new city which already had many questlines in it would have been a good idea during launch week. Not that I disagree with your analysis of Labyrinthos storywise, but it exists specifically to give you an area to do Sharlayan stuff that is not in the physical Sharlayan city space.
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May 8, 2024 01:03
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I was expecting a Dr. Strangelove/Fallout-style "Labyrinthos is Sharlayan's survival bunker for the coming apocalypse" twist, but I was pleased with the variation on it we actually got, especially given that it became clear that they were trying to save as much of the world's culture as possible, not just themselves. That said, I do agree that the zone itself had a little bit of the HW/StB-style flabbiness that most of the ShB and EW zones dodge.
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May 8, 2024 01:05
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sweet geek swag posted:No I do not think rerouting several major questlines into the new city which already had many questlines in it would have been a good idea during launch week. Not that I disagree with your analysis of Labyrinthos storywise, but it exists specifically to give you an area to do Sharlayan stuff that is not in the physical Sharlayan city space. Yeah, like I fully admit my spitballing idea isn't perfect, I just think Labyrinthos could have been better utilized. What we got was... just kinda boring. A good idea for a zone just... not really doing much for the story. I feel like they either needed to punch up the story in those spots or give a better Sharlayan zone. I feel like one of the complaints we see with Endwalker is that certain parts of the story are too dense or that the expansion feels like "two expansions smashed into one" or "1.5 expansions worth of story with aspects rushed/underdeveloped." And in all of those cases, Labyrinthos doesn't help the situation. I feel like every time we go there, the plot spins its loving wheels for a few hours. I don't know what the best solution would have been, but I think the Labyrinthos sections are the weakest parts of EW. The Bestways Burrow's part of EW is better than either half of Labyrinthos.
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May 8, 2024 01:37
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I understand why Labyrinthos exists from a practical game design perspective but nothing that happens in Labyrinthos matters in the MSQ, yeah. The first visit is an investigation that barely goes anywhere and ends up pointless a couple of levels later and the second visit is literally wasting time while your legions of friends do the actually important bit for you. If it weren't for the Urianger and Moenbryda's parents scenes the Labyrinthos would just be 'the place where the Aitiascope is'.
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May 8, 2024 04:23
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I chose to see it as a sort of parallel to Elpis, myself. An artificial garden of Eden, but with two different goals and mindsets.
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May 8, 2024 04:44
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I feel like the investigation is important because it's your window into Sharlayan culture and values, and you get to see a lot of both their best and worst traits.
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May 8, 2024 04:54
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turning into a toad was crucial to the narrative.
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May 8, 2024 04:56
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YggiDee posted:turning into a toad was crucial to the narrative. How else were we gonna meet Erenville
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May 8, 2024 05:01
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the_steve posted:I chose to see it as a sort of parallel to Elpis, myself. it's also weird in this regard though because after you know what the ancients are like, and have a sense of their aesthetics coming off shadowbringers, you really expect sharlayan to be an intentionally designed second coming of amaurot, and labyrinthos really super hammers that in. except no it was just a big coincidence/convergent evolution/conceptual parallel
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May 8, 2024 05:09
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Rand Brittain posted:I feel like the investigation is important because it's your window into Sharlayan culture and values, and you get to see a lot of both their best and worst traits. God I love this stupid song
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May 8, 2024 05:39
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Mister Olympus posted:it's also weird in this regard though because after you know what the ancients are like, and have a sense of their aesthetics coming off shadowbringers, you really expect sharlayan to be an intentionally designed second coming of amaurot, and labyrinthos really super hammers that in. except no it was just a big coincidence/convergent evolution/conceptual parallel this is thematically important, though. part of endwalker's point is the idea that the very understandable drive to rationalize and fix (in several senses) life, and thereby end suffering (an effort which is doomed to failure due to the nature of impermanence, which in turn can alienate people from their own feelings and desires, foster unhealthy attachments to false ideas about life, and lead to despair), recurs across time. the fact that amaurot is weird about food and sharlayan is weird about food and the ea are weird about food in totally separate but converging ways related to efficiency and the perfectibility of life is an intentional pattern. also the sharlayans were influenced into making labyrinthos by venat, a woman who chose to retire to elpis, and by familiars she made, so there is actually a causal link to be inferred if you want it. but i think the lack of a declared "labyrinthos is like elpis on purpose" is very much intentional.
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May 8, 2024 06:10
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Valentin posted:also the sharlayans were influenced into making labyrinthos by venat, a woman who chose to retire to elpis, and by familiars she made, so there is actually a causal link to be inferred if you want it. but i think the lack of a declared "labyrinthos is like elpis on purpose" is very much intentional. Venat didn't retire to Elpis, she just happened to be there on a job for a friend. She says she has a home in Amaurot when questioning why her future self told us to go to Elpis. Rand Brittain posted:I feel like the investigation is important because it's your window into Sharlayan culture and values, and you get to see a lot of both their best and worst traits. It's also early in the arc, and we (both the players and the Scions) don't know that the Forum aren't the bad guys yet. In fact, one of the most common player theories going into EW was that the Forum were either outright bad or Ascian patsies. (Turns out that was half right: they were Hydaelyn patsies.  ) Then we get there and something's weird, and given the previous betrayals by groups in power in the past (Ul'dah, Thordan, Eulmore and others) I think it's perfectly reasonable to be questioning what's going on in the partially-secret underground vault of experiments. We don't get all of our answers on our first visit, obviously, but we do find clues and potential allies that serve to be important as the story progresses. The second visit is more troublesome, unfortunately. It really could have used another round of pruning, or some of the story beats could have been placed a little earlier or in side quests if they wanted to keep them, but there is still some good to be found in it. It's the buildup showing how, now that everyone's at the same table and working for the same purpose, things are starting to come together and there's a building hope for the future of Etheirys rather than a desperate escape to a nomadic life of refugees endlessly searching for a new home that hasn't been lost to the Endsginger. (Now I want a story that's a FFXIV alternate universe parallel to Homeworld...) There is the really unfortunate music track the second time through. Please, we didn't need that playing the whole time.  The base music is too light, for sure, and the dev time was better used on Ultima Thule's buildup, but please, it didn't need to be such a short loop used for so long...Of course, there's also Urianger's closure and the ultimate payoff of "Everybody's here!" when all of the side content you've done shows up to chip in, but those don't necessitate being in Labyrinthos and could have just been questing in Sharlyan. I think they might have been lessened by being put there, and definitely would have been without the perspective we gain from helping the scientists, though. Onean fucked around with this message at 06:56 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 06:50
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ah whoops. well, sub in "influenced . . . by an amaurotine" and it still works
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May 8, 2024 07:04
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Onean posted:Venat didn't retire to Elpis, she just happened to be there on a job for a friend. She says she has a home in Amaurot when questioning why her future self told us to go to Elpis. I mean, sure, but none of those clues end up mattering because we find out the answer without having to figure it out ourselves, and those allies would have been allies whether or not anything had actually happened in Labyrinthos. We literally could have avoided going in there the first time and all we would have missed out on is Erenville's introduction (which doesn't even matter for the Endwalker MSQ, just Dawntrail) and the Elpis flower introduction (which could have happened anywhere.) I can't be too mad at Labyrinthos because I'm pretty sure it's there to avoid a Kugane situation where a main city is basically irrelevant to the MSQ plot, but it's still, I feel, time and effort spent on stuff that goes nowhere that could have been better spent on stuff that needed expanding.
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May 8, 2024 07:27
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Hellioning posted:I mean, sure, but none of those clues end up mattering because we find out the answer without having to figure it out ourselves, and those allies would have been allies whether or not anything had actually happened in Labyrinthos. We literally could have avoided going in there the first time and all we would have missed out on is Erenville's introduction (which doesn't even matter for the Endwalker MSQ, just Dawntrail) and the Elpis flower introduction (which could have happened anywhere.) Sure, the Elpis flower could have happened anywhere, but I question how easily Hydaelyn would have been able to get in touch with Krile if she wasn't so close to the Aitiascope (reminder that even when she shows up in Garlemald, Krile had been in Old Sharlayan at the time), and I heavily disagree about Erenville's importance to Endwalker. He serves as our introduction to the Gleaners, but more importantly he's a dissenting voice that's still loyal to Sharlayan, showing that all Sharlayan's (edit: that aren't part of our group, I should add) aren't of one mind. Remember that he absolutely saw through our attempt to disguise as frogs yet still probed the Forum representative for answers in front of us. Then gave us some more information that he wasn't alone in questioning the Forum, and so neither were we, giving weight to how shady the Forum is acting and further differentiating them from Sharlayans as a whole, filling out the place so it doesn't feel entirely one-note. Later he serves as our point of contact to go around the Forum's bureaucracy to get the Gleaners help in spreading word about our need for sources of aether and refined adamantite. (He's also the token New Race representative, but that hardly matters from a story perspective.) The mystery of whether the Forum is against us or not isn't just wasted space once we realize they're the a backup plan in case we fail. It's part of the story the writers wanted to tell, that Hydaelyn didn't just put her faith in the WoL, but has other plans. It gives her agency, letting her not just be locked into a time loop and robotically repeating what needs to be done, but able to think and plan on her own. (Edit: The fact it was a mystery to begin with has less to do with Hydaelyn, and more to do with being consistent to how Sharlayan, specifically the Forum, had been written up to that point. They'd always been the pacifist-but-shady keepers of knowledge, with a number of the representatives we meet being assholes, or even outright villainous. Our first visit to Old Sharlayan being an easy introduction to new allies without any friction would have been entirely against how they'd been portrayed in the previous expansions.) The revisit is a bit more questionable, but again, it serves as a visible representation of everyone coming together and building the hope towards a brighter future, rather than just telling us that everything's cool now in a single quest across a handful of dialogue boxes and a couple NPCs. We get to see it happening, even give it a kick in the pants in the right direction. It also shows just how hard the people of Sharlayan were pushing themselves, or being pushed, and that while there's grumbling about it they're still doing what needs to be done. All of this could have been cut or changed, sure, but then we're getting awfully close to, "Why didn't the Eagles just fly Frodo and the Ring to Mordor?" Because that's not the story the writers are telling. Onean fucked around with this message at 08:44 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 08:17
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I thought Labyrinthos worked very well as a good mystery the first time and the breather episode the second time.  They don't all have to be nonstop bangers, sometimes an RPG just has an interesting, relaxing place.Well, they could have a few more interesting hooks in Labyrinthos as far as questing goes since ultimately it is played completely straight. Maybe a little schism in the Sharlayan forum/some bigwig directly tries to sabotage us and the effort. The Twin's Dad didn't really directly get in our way until big story beats and mostly was the crusty old dean upholding his way of things.
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May 8, 2024 10:13
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Hellioning posted:I mean, sure, but none of those clues end up mattering because we find out the answer without having to figure it out ourselves, and those allies would have been allies whether or not anything had actually happened in Labyrinthos. We literally could have avoided going in there the first time and all we would have missed out on is Erenville's introduction (which doesn't even matter for the Endwalker MSQ, just Dawntrail) and the Elpis flower introduction (which could have happened anywhere.) Not everything has to be an efficient Point A to Point B affair. Sometimes you follow a lead in an investigation and it turns out to be a dead end, or the clues you do find don't make any sense until much later. At that point in the story, and in the meta sense, we were convinced that Sharlayan was up to something that was likely not good, and that the end boss of Endwalker was either going to be Zodiark or Hydaelyn, so we worked off those assumptions and that information, because we were fully expecting to find a copy of MY_CRIMES.txt left behind by Dadphinaud if we poked around Labyrinthos enough.
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May 8, 2024 14:54
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Considering one of the characters introduced in Lab is a major character in the next expansion I'm pretty sure going "nothing major happened there" is objectively wrong.
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May 8, 2024 15:38
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ImpAtom posted:Considering one of the characters introduced in Lab is a major character in the next expansion I'm pretty sure going "nothing major happened there" is objectively wrong. Don't spoil that Kokkol Dankkol is the leader of Solution Nine.
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May 8, 2024 16:30
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Labyrinthos is a cool zone full of fun characters where Sharlayan built a starship and has a portal to hell. It's as significant as any other zone in the expansion lol Why do we go to Garlemald? It's full of nothing but useless ruins and nothing fun happens there. Fandaniel could pull his body-swapping trick on you anywhere
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May 8, 2024 16:44
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the_steve posted:Not everything has to be an efficient Point A to Point B affair. Sometimes you follow a lead in an investigation and it turns out to be a dead end, or the clues you do find don't make any sense until much later. Not everything has to be an efficient affair, but when you're making an expansion and trying to shove 1.5 expacs worth of story into one it might help to streamline things.
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May 8, 2024 16:51
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I do find it kind of funny that the game has so many "meanwhiles" where they cut to Garlameld (or some imperial base I assumed was Garlameld) and when we finally visit, it's a ruin and a shadow of it's former self. Granted Solution Nine might be giving me the cool tech city/town I had hoped for. Fun detail I saw while watching friends who are new - the appearance of Garlameld on the map has a (appropriately) non-hosed up version for people who aren't at that part of the story.
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May 8, 2024 16:53
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They gotta put the spaceship somewhere right? They gotta store all the stuff they are taking off the planet. So that zone is all at once research area, warehouse, and secret construction facility. I don't see how it's a wasted zone 
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May 8, 2024 19:44
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I think it gets a bad rap because it's just the zone where the story moves forward and not something completely crazy. Every other zone is either full of the world unravelling, fighting and killing god, time travel adventurers with two dorks, or the edge of the universe where dreams become reality.
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May 8, 2024 19:55
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Oxyclean posted:I do find it kind of funny that the game has so many "meanwhiles" where they cut to Garlameld (or some imperial base I assumed was Garlameld) and when we finally visit, it's a ruin and a shadow of it's former self. One of the things they've basically had to pull with Garlemald and Othard in general as demonstrated by the Bozja storyline is relying heavily on "this is actually a much larger and more complex sprawling society and you're only visiting a few notable places. There's lots of offscreen towns and villages supplying manpower and goods, trust us." I don't know what else they could have done with Garlemald, but we fairly obviously bypassed a bunch of other Garlean provinces and towns given there's stuff like the destroyed highway leading off the map or the entire other half of the city we don't visit.
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May 8, 2024 20:24
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:I think it gets a bad rap because it's just the zone where the story moves forward and not something completely crazy. Every other zone is either full of the world unravelling, fighting and killing god, time travel adventurers with two dorks, or the edge of the universe where dreams become reality. The story barely moves forward there. You start off in Sharlayan thinking the Sharlayans are up to something, you go into lab and you come out with no further information on the sharlayans being up to something. Then it ends with Montichaigne explaining the death cycle, now with more information on what happens to memory there which is the most immediately relevant thing that happens there. In terms of the narrative, it was probably the least relevant zone in the entire expansion. In terms of vibes and fleshing out Sharlayan I liked it though. I enjoyed interacting with all the researchers and learning random bits here or there. I enjoy the aesthetic, It's probably my favorite EW zone to just idle in. Just wish it didn't suck so much rear end to get around in until you got flight.
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May 8, 2024 20:37
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