FFXIV 6.55 Spoiler Thread: Cat in a Hat

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > FFXIV 6.55 Spoiler Thread: Cat in a Hat

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Does "WoL beats the poo poo out of a guy and then the guy falls off a convenient cliff" count as the WoL's kill? I know that happens to at least a couple of ARR class quest antagonists

# ¿ Jul 9, 2022 05:13

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 02:49

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

PoorWeather posted:

So I keep hearing people say that there's not going to be a Garlean reconstruction and the country is basically being abandoned post-EW, but where does anyone know where that idea comes from? I finally saw the role quest finale today, and they talk a lot about rebuilding the nation and setting up a new government.

My assumption here is that there's not going to be a "Garlean reconstruction" in-game activity similar to the Firmament or the Doman Reconstruction, not that Garlemald is just going to sit there rotting story-wise. Presumably Garlemald will rebuild diegetically, but it makes sense that they're trying to be as self-sufficient about it as possible, and probably especially don't want the charity of the Eikon-Slayer.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2022 03:24

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Cleretic posted:

the person who does it will be an edgy dipshit child with more power than he can be trusted with, and will deserve every bad thing that results from trying.

don't you say that about our precious friend Ga Bu

# ¿ Aug 6, 2022 04:15

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Zeruel posted:

are tonberrys just afflicted lalas specifically, or can a roe be a tonberry as well?

Where do you think Tonberry Stalkers come from?

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 04:59

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Yeah, I don't think the dragon blood transformation is related to tempering at all. I know there are references to heretics being tempered by Shiva and recovering from it, but I assume the Ishgardian authorities maybe aren't great at discerning real-deal tempering vs. intense but non-supernatural ideological devotion, on top of Shiva being a weird primal anyway. (Were the Ascians even involved there?)

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 07:15

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

At bare minimum, I'd want the NPCs and their health bars to show up in the party list so I can target them from there. Also, make AoE party heals work on them; I think they've done that recently, but I recall CNJ/WHM duties in ARR with multiple friendlies being nightmarish because Medica would just ignore them.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 22:06

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Well, of course not, not after Kan-E-Senna broke the Medica elemental's spectral kneecaps

# ¿ Aug 9, 2022 23:05

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I appreciate the running gag that dwarves constantly act like their beards are real when they're flagrantly fake, and in fact identical between the two families who are constantly throwing beard-based insults at each other

It mostly just makes me want a storyline about one trying to grow actual facial hair under his helmet, and if this is viewed as sacrelige or as genius beard-power-amplification tech

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 22:13

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Yeah, I think it does a good point of highlighting that "beast tribe" is a cultural and not a biological designation; the ARR tribes happen to be species not biologically compatible with the PC races, but then the First shows us that's not universal, and that all the ARR "beasts" we see in the First are a part of mainline First society. (I suppose you could argue the Ondo aren't, but that's clearly only an issue of geography and not culture.)

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 00:03

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I always assumed Garleans were engineered, probably by Allag and/or with Ascian input, because "Hyuran, but with a bonus weird sensory organ that leaks aether and leaves them incapable of using aether-based magic/tech" sounds like an engineered rebellion-resistant slave race and/or an ideal long con to create a bitter marginalized people that you can then elevate to prominence and cause chaos with.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 03:39

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

ImpAtom posted:

It seems unlikely that Emet didn't engineer at least some significant portion of it. I doubt that the Garleans happened to be driven out of their home to the exact winter hellhole that happened to have an overabundance of the stuff they would need to become a massive threat to the rest of the world without him arranging it.

Yeah, I figure there's no way the Garleans ending up in Garlemald (and being dumped into the mess of umbral-era Ilsabard in the first place) was remotely a coincidence, even if they somehow came to exist without being direct Ascian engineering. I assume the entire history of the Garleans as a distinct ethnic group is just Emet playing Civ.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 04:18

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I feel like I'm the only person who wished that the Eden plot was fully focused on revitalizing the Empty (both because I like that sort of story and because it seems hugely important to the long-term survival of the First), but a big part of that is that I really wanted to see Ryne have a plot where she was acting for herself and on her own desires, so seeing it turn into Ryne once again becoming the Emotional Support Person to someone very sad who doesn't treat her well for a lot of the plot was pretty underwhelming.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 06:01

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I'm not that far into Werlyt (up to the second trial), so I'm prepared to believe that this becomes a decent atonement story, but the "hello, we are innocent orphans, let's become child soldiers by our own volition out of gratitude to our selfless savior" didn't give me much hope for Gaius being held accountable.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 23:00

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Do male Miqo not have old-guy face textures, or did they just not give him one? (Honest question; I've never tried to chargen one.)

# ¿ Aug 17, 2022 06:20

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Dude was the ruler of an entire city and still not a Nunh

Nobody has ever scored less

# ¿ Aug 17, 2022 06:43

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

One of my great regret about MCH is that you don't get Chain Saw from a quest where Steph calls you up to be like "dude, get over here, I just invented the sickest poo poo" and then you go out to the Highlands and completely obliterate some trees and/or yetis

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 23:46

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Off the top of my head: Hilda is half-hyuran, half-elezen, and the side content in Sui-no-Sato about a Hyur and an Au Ra having a child. I think you can also make a fair argument that the fact that any native of Ishgard, including Hyurs, can transform when drinking dragon blood (an affliction of the Elezen nobles who ate Ratatoskr) implies that Hyuran and Elezen blood have thoroughly intermingled there even if nobody admits it.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 01:20

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

There are at least two storylines where Miqo'te dudes are crushing on Lala women, and at least one where they actually get together; it's extremely weird to me that this happened twice.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 02:46

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

How would the Au Ra being connected to Voidsent even work, though? They're present on the First as the same people they are on the Source, and seem to have been there since antiquity, which I think implied they were a product of the sundered Ancients like everyone else.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 02:50

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Yeah, "Lalafell are just treated as adult humans and not either saccharine cutesy or 'comically' evil" was a big selling point for me when I was just getting into ARR, and I certainly don't mind that extending to their being romantic interests for other races, but the specific male-Miqo/female-Lala dynamic coming up more than once just felt kind of wild.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 03:08

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

The question of "is this thing I remember reading somewhere actually from a canon source, or is it fanon?" is one of the most vexing things about discussing FFXIV lore minutiae. I know I read somewhere that Othardian Roegadyn frequently intermarry with Hyurs, hence why their skin tones and features are so much more Hyuran than you see in Eorzean Roes (and also why they seem totally assimilated into general Othardian culture), but I have no idea if this is real canon or just a plausible thing somebody made up.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 03:36

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I always just assumed that Black Mages wore those hats and eyepatches to look super sick and Gothic, and I see no reason to disbelieve this

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 04:02

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

FuturePastNow posted:

Au Ra are demonkin

And could Ramza and Alma just be adopted? Garleans love stealing war orphans from conquered territories.

Sadly, I think it may actually be plot-relevant that the Lexentales are all blood relatives of the original Ramza, although I may be wrong because about all I got out of that plot was "remember FFT? It's back, in MMO form!"

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 05:21

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I'm really hoping the explanation there is that the entities we're encountering appear in whatever form the perceiver would expect for that given deity, so they look like the Eorzean Twelve to the presumed-Eorzean WoL, but would look different with a different viewpoint character (and might show up in different combinations, since presumably different religions don't all have analogues of the same twelve guys).

EDIT: when it comes to the tribes, I don't think there's any lore that would contradict "true" deity (or whatever the Twelve are) versions of the primals existing and those being the basis of the pre-Ascian-corruption religions. It's messy with the Ixal and other created races (although I'm not sure we have any others -- maybe the Ananta?), but it seems like you could plausibly have a "real" Garuda existing even if the worship is relatively recent.

Antivehicular fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Aug 23, 2022

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 04:12

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

It's funnier if you imagine they're all the same guy

# ¿ Aug 23, 2022 06:19

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I really just hope we get more Athena characterization in the last leg of the raids. It's nice that they let a woman be an amoral-scientist villain for once, but the heavy emphasis on dad pain and the whole "I looked into her soul, and yeah, pure evil, nothing to be done but kill her" from a game that's all about giving villains humanity and motivations fell a little flat to me.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 01:50

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I think Athena-as-Igeyorhm could theoretically happen with Space Ghost shenanigans -- either Athena bodyjacks the sitting Iggy, or she gets herself a new body and identity that gets offered the seat later -- all convoluted, but theoretically possible, especially if we assume nobody knows that her space-ghost research bore fruit. I lean towards Occam's Razor, though, and the assumption that Athena's research will get passed on through the memory shard and Iggy isn't her. If they need to be lovers for the Ascian Prime thing... well, I hate to advance the most improbable theory in thread history, but maybe Lahabrea just managed to get into a second romantic relationship?

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 02:36

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I presume a lot of the triad romance vibes come from the bit in Elpis where Hythlodaeus (who has a fairly important and prestigious job in his own right) declaring that he believes his life's purpose is to help Emet and Azem achieve theirs, and when they choose to die, he's going with them -- not explicitly romantic or sexual, but definitely a level of devotion above and beyond just Adventure Pals. (Or maybe just more evidence that the Ancients had some problems with emotions, I guess?)

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 04:35

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Ibram Gaunt posted:

It's been funny seeing people lament the lack of generically evil women in the game and then this patch hits and people are now lamenting how Athena seems generically evil. You can't please everyone!

My issue with Athena isn't that she's generically evil, it's that she's falling into the trap where female villains have to be evil because of romantic/sexual/family issues, ideally in connection to a man. Because of the POVs we've had so far, Athena's real crime isn't being a mad scientist, it's being a Bad Wife and Bad Mom and Cold Unloving Bitch -- very tired directions to take female villains, and particularly tired and frustrating when it turns into "this woman disappointed a man, hence she is uncomplicated pure evil and the man has the right to kill her." Once again, I know this is because we're seeing her crimes from the perspective of Laha and Eric, but I'm worried this is where the character is going to be left at the end of the raid. I'm not hoping for a redemption arc or anything (especially since this fandom has demonstrated over and over that it can't handle women having redemption arcs without turning them into waifus), but I'd like her to at least get as much depth as Amon, where we see her as a human being in her own right even if she's still a complete monster.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 20:59

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Hogama posted:

Zero doesn't know if voidsent can be decrystallized, or whether memoria is related to auracite. Just that the Contramemoria was fought with those who had the power of memoria, until the Flood of Darkness transformed the whole of the Thirteenth into the Void.

My guess would be that nobody knows this anymore, and quite possibly they never did, given how swiftly and completely things seem to have gone to poo poo on the Thirteenth. I'm hoping this means that Nidhana and the Alchemy Squad are going to get to do science to this.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2022 23:57

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Was it stated the Ascians taught them the technique? Cause it feels like its a bit too good of a solution to the primal problem.

It's not really any better a solution to the primal problem than just slaying it, really, since every primal "summoning" is creating a new entity. It might be less costly in terms of effort and manpower, though, especially if the Thirteenth didn't have anyone with the Echo/traveler's charm to resist tempering.

It also makes sense if it turns out to have been a stupid tech for the Ascians to hand over, though, since it was their first attempt and a huge fuckup all around, and it seems plausible that they were just throwing stuff at the wall at that point. I could buy them only realizing how dangerous giving mortals that tech was in the postmortem for "oops, we accidentally the entire shard."

# ¿ Aug 31, 2022 05:35

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Mordiceius posted:

Golbez is totally going to try invading the Source, isn't he?

It's free ~~real estate~~ aether

# ¿ Sep 1, 2022 22:35

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Don't souls also kind of dissolve and intermix in the Aetherial Sea anyway, which is why reincarnations aren't the exact same people as their predecessors? I assume that effect, as well as the fact that it seems like being trapped in Zodiark for 12000 years was clearly a Bad Time and caused psychic degradation, means that the reincarnations aren't going to just roll up like "sup motherfuckers I got creation magic."

# ¿ Sep 2, 2022 01:37

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

I always got the vibe that Ancient society was mostly healthy and functional, but that being immortals who never experienced any kind of scarcity left them with a deep emotional brittleness about any kind of negative change, and a lot of their societal adaptations to their immortality (like the idea of choosing to die when you considered your duty complete) meant that they siloed off a lot of negative emotional stuff into a narrow band of accepted, ritualized responses. (Look at how Hermes gets lectured during the first meeting for expressing sorrow and regret about his mentor's approaching death -- I know it mostly exists to justify the exposition about returning to the star, but it also sends a very strong message of "you are not allowed to be sad in this society except in very specific ways.") These people didn't have any degree of resilience, because they never needed it, and then when poo poo hit the fan they didn't have any ability to adjust or move on.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2022 00:08

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Yeah, I'm really hoping that if the Whalaqee are based on real indigenous North American cultures, they draw from the cosmopolitan pre-Colombian society mold. I feel like you barely see that in Fantasy North America settings.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 02:56

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Yeah, if they end up doing something totally weird and purely fantasy with the New World, that's also great! I'll be happy with anything other than the stock noble-savage crap, honestly.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 04:03

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Man, I really hope the future direction of the plot isn't just "go down that one Hades dialogue line like a shopping list"

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 04:25

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Eh, I feel like actually having Azem show up at this point would require much more narrative weight and purpose than the story really has for the character at this point; even if you set aside how many players have clear ideas of their WoL's Azem and wouldn't be satisfied with what the game would give us, Azem works better as an echo or reflection of what's happening in the modern day, especially now that we're moving away from the Ancients after 6.x. I just don't know what value you'd get out of an on-camera Azem.

EDIT: I would accept an off-camera linkpearl message or something, especially if it's just "I wanted to say good luck, we're all counting on you."

# ¿ Sep 11, 2022 07:26

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Hogama posted:

My read's just been that the WoL is the most similar reincarnation to the original Azem there's been in quite some time - to the point where Elpis denizens mistake you for the Ancient Azem in appearance.

Wait, when does this happen? Is it race-specific to playing a Hyur or something? I haven't done all the sidequests in Elpis, but the closest I've seen to this is people recognizing the WoL as Azem's familiar, presumably because the news is going around that their familiar is present. The only dialogue I can remember about physical appearance was some NPC being like "you talk like a person but have the horns and scales of a beast," presumably because I play Au Ra.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2022 12:16

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 02:49

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

It's funnier if you go off of Urianger's elements talk from ShB and just assume every ambiguous reference to "darkness" or the "umbral" is talking about dark, fertile topsoil

# ¿ Sep 13, 2022 13:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > FFXIV 6.55 Spoiler Thread: Cat in a Hat

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