Actually, Omega and Alexander did have a huge impact on the storyline, at least on the sidelines. It was through experiencing and analyzing the properties of Omega and Alexander that Cid and Ironworks managed to (eventually) send the Crystal tower to the First at a different point in time. Which, of course is the main reason why Shadowbringers happens in the first place. Without doing the raids, you don't really understand the context behind and might even think it is a bit of an asspull, but if you have done them it feels super rewarding to see all the threads coming together.
Pretty sure he just meant normal raids since he knows about Crystal Tower. They had story importance, but any importance they had could be skipped over without really missing much. There weren't any that had a conclusion that had immediate, significant effects on the main story. It was always just additional information if you'd like.
@@pluna3382 Which story? Omega? It wasn't important to understand Shadowbringers. You can explain how Graha traveled through time, but the explanation they gave about Cid combining all of those things to create that method wasn't so important that you'd be lost without it. It was just additional information like I said before.
For Raids having impact on the MSQ, in Order of operations: The Crystal Tower: obvious, they made it mandatory now after all The Binding Coils of Bahamut connections and closure to 1.0's ending, further ties into the Sorrow of Werlyt trials storyline (Showing that Nael was actually a woman, not a man) Alexander: Alexander changes the geography of Hinterlands, and Alexander's time travel power is what is copied by the Ironworks to make Tycoon which allowed the Crystal tower to move back into the past to for stall the eighth calamity Shadows of Mhach" Other than Tataru's Endeavor requiring it now, It's ALL about voidsent, shows their immortality 3 expansions early, Shows them eating other Voidsent to become powerful, And Destroys Diabolos' body so his aetherial soul is allowed to go mess things up in Bozja as the Diabolos Armament The Interdimensional Rift: Midgarsormr is put into a deep sleep, changing the MSQ lines about him simply agreeing to barely waking up long enough to say Okay, Omega's Rift transporting power is used as the other half of Tycoon to allow the Crystal tower to travel to the First, Cid uses Hraesvlagr's save of them from the collapsing rift as reason enough to help enhance the Warding scales, *It shows creations made purely of aether can gain souls with the strength of emotions* much like Meteion did, During Omega's quest after the end of 6.0, while he's musing about the people who survived the Final Days through strength of heart, he lets slip that he's M017, the same bot we meet in the MSQ's recreation of Alphatron that's linked up to Sir, and with the NM mode of Endsinger telling us Limit Breaks are Dynamis we retrospectively learn that Omega (who had no soul and thus couldn't learn it) wanted to learn how to use Dynamis to go home. Return to Ivalice: Shows us the power of Auracite, corrupting people into super powered beasts based by *Focusing and channeling their memories and emotions* Eden: Resurrecting the Empty gives us the proof Y'shtola uses to say how the Thirteenth can be saved YoRHa the Dark Apocalypse (Less tied to FFXIV's MSQ than literally anything, but it is actually canon to the Nier/Drakengard games, and is the final act in that story so far) The Queen of Blades arc: We see several returning features from prior raids (ivalice and the surprise Diabolos), learn more about Garlean politics and war potential in the field data we earn. For non-MSQ Non-Extreme Trials, In order of Operation: Garuda, Titan and Ifrit Extremes: Only one who goes here because this teaches us that Greater Sacrifices, like living breathing beast men, empower the primal (You get tribal tokens made of bone when you beat them, made from worshiper's bones, Lahabrea's flunkies tell you about them) Odin: Tells us why the Superboss fate Steel Reign will have Odin change his face and race to match whoever got the last hit on him. ARR Hildebrand Trials: Gilgamesh shows us the first case of Primal summoning that has no Tempering, not a god and not even tangential worship. The Warring Triad: Tells us about Mercydia, and how they all fought against allag, until only the dragons remained, and we see the rest of that story in MSQ when talking to TIamat. Unukalai is the first time we see Elidibus doing his part as a mentor to heroes, bringing the heroes from the thirteenth to other worlds to help rejoinnings. The Four Lords: We learn of a Prior Warrior of Light, bearing many of your abilities, and how they saved the world, and came back to do it again along side you. SB Hildebrand Trial: Susanoo's sword is stolen by Gilgamesh, and he uses it against you, but nothing of true note, other than after this trial Hilde is sent to the interdimensional rift and is summoned by Elidibus in the Heroes Gauntlet from time to time. Sorrows of Werlyt: Gaius comes back for the greatest redemption arc in this game, the Weapon series of anti-eikon warmachina Gives us history into the Garlean Empire and territories And add in that all of these change the voiced Scene when you get the High Adamantite for the Rangarok, The Alliances raid the Coils for Adamantite, The Adventurers Guild does too, but with backup from the Goblins of idylshire as thanks for saving Slowfix' daughter, Bozja and Werlyt send things they pilfered from their respective Garlean Legions, The Redbills and the Prima Vista are used to transport things by Air, Sorobahn shows up with Tenzen's Phoenix blade (The Warrior of light from the past) and other treasures from both the Kojin and the Auspices, and even that jerk from Eureka sends things pulled out of the Baldesion Arsenal.
@@loki555 Yes, and no. Per the Diabolo Armament Field Notes, it was built specifically to contain Diabolos. Allag wanted to control the Second Rung Voidsent (They are few in number, but incredibly powerful) but they couldn't summon him physically much less bind him with spells to control him. So they devised a soulless living weapon for him to be summoned into to control, but still couldn't get him, they theorized, until after Xande opened the gate to the Void. You must recall, the Null Stone was devised to banish a Voidsent's Physical Form, and as we know from Ferdinand and even Diabolos himself prior, being dispersed into aether means nothing to them. Even inf the Nullstone could permenantly remove his body, His aether still existed, and to return to full power, he'd need a body that could hold him. And what better than a body built specifically to house him? And yes, while we've seen Duplicate body types of some higher rung Voidsent (The lower the rung the stronger they are), It's very possible Diabolos is the literal only Diabolos, especially since it's specifically noted how hard it was to get him and other Voidsent of his power into the Source. And while a lesser Voidsent could theoretically use this body, It wouldn't have his powers and most likely wouldn't be able to break the allagan programming that was clearly controlling the body at the very start before he overruled it and declared 'I return to myself at last!'
Spoilers for the Abyssos story - I don't think it's a coincidence that the now missing professor/researcher, Claudien, bares a striking resemblance to a certain son of Lahabrea...
(SPOILERS: SHADOWBRINGERS) The optional raid series DID have a big impact on the MSQ in Shadowbringers. In the doomed future that The Crystal Exarch comes from, the way that people managed to send the Crystal tower and G'raha Tia back through time was by utilizing a theory thought up by Cid and the Ironworks crew (long dead by then). This theory encompased several principles that Cid observed during the stories of the optional raids series. Travel through time from Alexander, travel to the rift between worlds from Omega and travel to the other shards of The Source from the Crystal Tower/World of Darkness raids.
The only one of those that was explicitly required to as the crystal tower series which was made non optional. The rest aren’t actually needed to justify how the operation could have happened especially since so many years would have passed since cids death. Any manner of other developments could have occurred. So it does still stand that none of the optional raids have ever affected the main story. Hell the Alexander raid stated that the world would end if we didn’t kill him because he would drain the world dry of aether yet for a lot of players he is just sitting there still and no one cares. And given what we learned about the world in shb and ew even the ascians would have stepped in to stop that.
@@SH1NK1R01 The thing about the alexander and omega raids making the whole plot of shb actually possible is that because it is from the future the story can assume that even if you haven't helped out with those raids before doing shb your character would have done it at some point in the future.
@@thetruekakokun865 yes but that’s my point. They aren’t necessary to justify the plot point at all since completing them in any order changes nothing about the way the story plays out. While the crystal tower series is central to the entire plot of the expansion. You don’t need to know when or where the idea for time travel came about when cid isn’t even alive at the time of its creation. And the omega raids only really become relevant in ew since the dragons are discussed more. Even then it’s just flavor since the dragons themselves and the war with omegas race are explained in ew and don’t require omega raid completion to understand.
1:05 being casual in FF14 and using PF for Savages is just so much easier compared to pugging mythic in WoW...mainly b/c of the FF14 community it's amazing!
I think this is down to the inherent character of the communities. After maining FF for nearly 5 years now, people do content chiefly because it's fun. This is why people get together to do treasure maps, or fill up ocean fishing groups, or set up Triple Triad or Mah-jong tournaments. With nearly 12 years spent in WoW before I left, it seemed as if power progression and gear was the chief motivator for most of the people who did content. People want their phat loot, and it's almost like they have to suffer other people to get it.
@@Maria_Erias It's also an easier time commitment. Each raid boss in FFXIV is a separate instance with a 90 or 120 minute timer. At the end of the timer if the boss isn't dead, you can requeue with the same group or find a different group or call it for the night. There's no time spent reclearing trash. Plus an 8 player group is way easier to assemble than 20. Everything about it is designed as a much more focused experience that's amenable for pugging on whatever schedule you want, whereas WoW still has a lot of older MMO raid design behind its structure where you're intended to commit to a dedicated team and pugging capability is an afterthought.
@@troyen3869 This is also true, too. Final Fantasy raids (and all content) is based around it being a game, gone in sensible chunks of time. WoW still likes to cling to that "this is your second job" mentality that worked fine back in 2006 when the majority of their players were students who would come back after classes and be able to devote entire evenings several days a week to raiding. Which is ironic, because many other facets of their game have become super casual, like leveling or professions.
You know if Mike ever gets an interview with Yoshi P, not a media tour like one that Asmon got but a real sit-down talk, I am going to fell so sorry for the lady that does the translating because that interview could go on for a week straight.
@@___IG Yes, did you know my comment was based on a hypothetical situation? To be fair thought maybe I should have used the term chat rather than interview.
Honestly, as much as I love Dancing Mad, there's something about the FFXIV version of the fourth movement that seems...off. Maybe it's the electronic organ, but it just lacks the kick of the original song to me.
Yeah, it changed during Shadowbringers. I was already 80 and had already completed 5.0 when I was hit with the story cannot progress until I finished the CT raid series message. I was sort of confused because I had already defeated Hades and the whole Exarch is G'raha Tia reveal portion.🤣
They changed it to be mandatory with the release of 5.3 Because the way that the patch MSQ ended completely falls apart if you didn’t do crystal tower You can still watch the “I didn’t do the raid” dialogue queues in the book at an inn, but yeah
Also, in P8 when we start the fight, there is a huge eye watching 👁️ from the sky (correct me if it was already explained). I think someone else will resurrect Athena and when we fight her,she'll go "You're an obstacle on my way, in my research,in my goal to transcend"
@@DoppelgangerTH I personally think the crystal wasn't destroyed, and Lahabrea reassimilated his memory and Athena's craziness. Thus he is as he is in ARR. The whole immortal transcendence deal simply describes the qualities that define Ascians. So those elements are implicitly covered already, it's the origin of Ascians. Claudien is a big ol ??? in all this. His research and work ethic is very similar to Athena's and he ran off to Azys Lla, where Lahabrea was maybe-killed by Thordan but maybe not. The eye is a big question, as is the purpose of all the chimeric splicing. I do think we will be getting visits from ghost Lahabrea (non-crazy) and ghost Elidibus.
@@jaeusa160 Lahabrea got sucked into Nidhogg's eyes in Azys La and Estinien destroyed them in Stormblood. Lahabread were Lahabaked. I see people theorize that Caludien is Erich's reincarnation and I kinda subscribe to it. It's certainly no coincidence that he can hear the voice from the crystal, but his peers cant.
The Abyssos leg of the story got me more than Asphodelos. P1-P4 was a decent setup, but P5-P8 is where the meat of the story comes in, and I loved it. There's so much to theorycraft with the story, and it's relevant to the MSQ in the sense that it looks as if we're going to get some backstory on the Ascian who was most central to ARR, yet about whom we know next to nothing: Lahabrea. That last part also left me just dumbfounded. Pandaemonium in the Aetherial Sea? Holy fucking shit.🤯
i feel like Eden did kinda do have some impact on the msq considering msq was bout restoring the first and the raid actualy working in tandem with it of restoring the elements in that world again
Hmmm...kind of but not really. The area used for the raid does not appear in the MSQ, and the restoration properties of Eden have not effected the rest of Novrandt directly. Even Amh Araeng itself saw no changes. The light flood is still there and it is still a desert. All the fights were "imaginations" if you will.
@@COA5T yea they mentioned it but no heavy effects. They did mention that eden can bring life back rest of the waste but it could take many centuries before its spreads out with major effeft.
On the Ryne/Gaia thing, I can see them both coming back for 7.0 storyline. MSQ is building up towards the void (13th shard) and since Gaia has power over darkness (voidkeeper), I imagine she will be useful there. Then there's the two survivors from the 13th that are currently on the 1st, and I'm almost positive they will be making a return as well to save their world.
Im not so sure, they'd need to make eden raids obligatory if they make this part of msq (since without WoL eden raids would stop at E2, provided they beat Eden E1 and Gaia's initial form in E2)
my theory is Athena isnt actually dead and the crystal ol' Professor has is actually her crystalized essence and shes manipulating him to take over his body. he is the one who summoned pandaemonium into present day and chimera of Professor Her will be the final boss to send it back.
Agree that Athena is going to play a key role in the next tier. We sorta found out what happened to her, but no clear details about the how. Felt like there was a bit of a void there.
@@ich3730 There is a possible exception, Azem is the same gender as the player, but Ardbert is not. I would guess that it's highly likely for a soul to reincarnate as the same gender, but not a guarantee.
If they do something with the MSQ where a raid directly changes something in the world, odds are they would do what they did with Crystal Tower, where it becomes required for progress. I could see Eden becoming required content in the future if Ryne is needed for a story. And with how important she was already, I'd be shocked if they didn't bring her back at some point. Especially if they ever do something in the story where they have to find a "safe" way to do a Rejoining. Something I think would be a potentially great plot point if it's used for the right reason.
ryne and gaia are currently missing on the first btw, the dissappeared sometime after 5.3, my guess is 6.5 is gonna be a "getting the gang back together" kinda thing where we will be getting all the side characters who weve met from the void throughout the entire story so far, together to help them pull a Eden recovery moment like we did with ryne and gaia but to the entire world of the 13th. and then in 7.0 we will have found a way to properly travel between shards, and can finally bring ryne to the source or something, and see mercydia obviously.
@@salami155 I think what they mean is that you can't actually find Ryne anywhere in the game, like you can go find other major npcs. Before you finish the 5.3 capstone, there were times between patches where you could go look around, check out what the scions (including Ryne) were up to in the first, much as you could with the scions scattered around post 6.0
I wish there is something in the game where it tells you about important side stories that you should do. something like a window with side stories of trials and raids with titles and pictures about it and a snippet to interest you I see many people don't notice the side stories and they are missing out on a lot in wow with every patch when you log in you see a window showing what is new and when you click on it it shows you have to start ... xiv needs something like
I took a different interpretation of Pandaemonium appearing in the Aetherial Sea. I didn't see it as a portal between the old Pandaemonium in ancient times and current era, I saw it as just Pandaemonium in current times. No time travel or time skip, it has just been rediscovered after all these years. It is the same Pandaemonium generations and hundreds of thousands of years later, with most things inside probably having died off except maybe things that were sealed away in stasis.
But the atherial sea is that just a bunch of Aether not really a bunch of ruins from old. Whatever the case its not a coincidence Claudien dissappear on Azys La where Bread bot got killed by Thordan.
@@Plasmacat1 There is a precedent of places and beings coming back from nonexistance of atherial sea, mainly Eureka and Isle of Val. Pandemonium did materialize pretty close to the serfuce but not far enough to appear on Etherys proper. Im honestly curious what happened in the past that would explain this wierd property of Pandemonium cuz most of the emotional story was resolved by the end of this tier and I dont see any possible drama, outside from Hephaistos Crystal form not being destroyed on screen... Yeah, they could go few places but they have a preaty blank slate with it appearing in future.
Think so too and I would even suggest that Pandaemonium might've been summoned. When they "built" the prison, the ancients didn't lay bricks, they used creation magics, which is precursor to summoning. Someone can probably pull that off, with the right knowledge/memories/concept and a huge amount of aether... good that there is literally a sea of that stuff. Pandaemonium being a place and an entity is also supported by Themis calling it the "dread beast" and the fact that we fought against raids itself in the past, like Eden Prime.
Lahabrea created a twisted copy of himself. Imagine if that copy got out and jailed Lahabrea. Then the "real" guy is still in that prison, waiting to be freed. Would be great.
i hope thats not what ends up, i like the story of the unsundered ascians being normal good hearted ancients driven to evil actions out of tragedy more Turning the lahabrea from ARR and HW into Hephaistos would take away from that
I think the son is our Lahabrea, like daddy dies and Elidibus and probably Azem recommended the kid to take over. Which is why during Emet intro where he was talking to the emperor he called Lahabrea an idiot.
@@Slade951 more of the thought that while Lahabrea cut out most of the influences of Athena, he didn't get all of it. And the countless years post sundering as well as him fraying his soul as he swapped bodies constantly, made that little influence infest him with time
@@Slade951 this was a really popular theory from the first wing, but its dampened by Hephaistos having Lahabrea's specific voice actor back in japanese
@@oleub23 Oh so by that logic fandaniel is actually Asahi all the way through until the voice swapped? So Asahi was alive in shadowbringers and early part of endwalker. Hmmm interesting.
About Pandemonium showing up in current timeline. They usually keep the side raid content as optional and contained until otherwise brought up in a later patch (take crystal tower for example, and even Edenverse). They usually use them to plant seeds that will bear fruit later in the games life, probably a couple of expansions later. I don't think anything crazy like Lahabrea or Elidibus coming through from that time is going to happen or them being trapped inside will happen. I think what WILL happen is the whole "ascians return to the Aetherial sea just like anything else and get any of their memories back" will happen again like with Emmet-selch. I think Lahabrea and Elidibus will show up from their slumber in the Aetherial sea to get rid of pandemonium or seal it. So they will have their memories of us in Elpis along with the things they did in after the sundering as well, but much like Emmet they won't care to much to hate us since they are dead. Just a thought though.
@@Aaron.Arcanum Yeah but they said even the memories would return to the aetherial sea in the MSQ. Its not implied that he would just "disappear" into nothing. So he probably returns like everyone else.
Great video, Mike and team. And ya, the Abyssos story was REALLY good. my wife skipped the damn cutscenes.. i was like "OMG..." lol. but I loved it. great stuff!
I doubt Lahabrea or anyone we know would come through Pandaemonium. We've already experienced the closed time loop with Hydaelyn it would be really weird to start adding in alternate timelines along with it. Also, Elidibus mentioned seeing us in Elpis already so us going through and handling the situation should be part of history already. It's even mentioned in the raid quest that Venat and Azem both recommended us to Elidibus for this mission. That means it's after our first visit to Elpis and before the Final Days.
One thing to consider, it's in the Aetherial Sea. Means we could definitely see Erich and Themis again. When we last saw Elidibus his aether was about to fully dissipate back into the sea. Which means he would have his memories back. If Erich was one of the Ancients who sacrificed themselves to Zodiark, then he would be recently freed and back in the Sea. It would not be beyond reason for us to meet up with them down there and fix the problem once and for all before they go to their final rest. It would just be the them from our time rather than the them from their time brought forward.
As Jesse mentioned in his video it was likely the researcher who went to Azys Lla and did something with the mysterious crystal that caused Pandæmonium to reappear in our time. The Lahabrea of our time also met his demise in Azys Lla so it's also likely something to do with him and/or Athena. The storyline makes me think of Doctor Who's End of Time specials in which a single catalyst from the past (A diamond from Gallifrey in Doctor Who and the mysterious crystal in FF14) acts as a link between the two time periods. Maybe Athena or another villain would want to bring the whole of Elpis or the unsundered world back into the present in the same way The President tried to resurrect Gallifrey and we have to stop them before it destroys everything.
It's been heavily implied that Claudien is Erichthonios's reincarnation, and what with his disappearance and the sudden appearance of Pandaemonium in the Aetherial Sea, I'm super curious to see where this goes.
The real reason that Hegemone is kinda dull is so you can rock out to Scream for the first time after having just the instrumental Silent Scream for Proto-Carbuncle.
The thing that blows my mind that's optional especially with the new MSQ is the role quests in Shadow Bringers. They even add new dialogue to those NPCs after you completed 6.2 MSQ. By extension you would need to do the Triad trials too, which they might think it's too much to ask of people, so idk how the hell are they gonna tie that up.
@@ArchieGamez Right now you can start the healer role quest right after picking up Sage (70). Same with Reaper (70) and physical dps. Gunbreaker's (60) not that far behind for tank. It will get easier as time goes on. Next expansion jobs will start at 80 so you wouldn't even need to level any to complete them.
@@jet44444 Clear all the ShB Role Quests. That unlocks a capstone quest that ties them all together. Then if you've also cleared all the Warring Triad quests, that unlocks a new quest chain known as the Void Quests. If you've completed that quest chain as well, two NPCs involved in that quest chain will comment on your adventures in the 6.2 MSQ if you go speak to them.
Besides Crystal Tower which later became a required part of the MSQ, no Normal or Alliance raids are required for the MSQ (though the Ivalice raid is a prerequisite for unlocking Bozja and the ShB Relic Weapons), though they can definitely add quite a bit of bonus context and dialogue scenes. As for NPCs in the present, I am guessing Claudien is likely The Source shard reincarnation of Erichthonios, and the other crystal he went in search of will somehow play into Athena’s plans.
Omega and Alexander are both the reason that Shadowbringers was even possible, along with CT raids. Void Ark series is getting more prevalent now that the void has become more relevant. And Eden is kind of getting more important in the MSQ too. They may not be required (yet) but all the raids have huge relevance to the story, alliance raids included, only exception being the nier raids.
Nero's redemption arcs were all covered under raid series (Crystal Tower, Omega) and then he came back during the MSQ so I would say that's something at least
what you said at 1:45 is the biggest flex that I can give FF. i have never understood the idea of changing the overworld before the main character (the players character) has reached that point in the story.
Loved this raid set. It's always great how FFXIV makes Raids very easy to get into for even casual players like me. The mechanics are stuff you are familiar with, but they change things up enough to make such unique and fun fights, while also slowly introducing new mechanics that will ultimately show up in the story someday by being a pseudo-test run. The music this time was absolutely phenomenal. I was already hyped with "Silent Scream," but then "Scream" played and it turned it up to 11. The Savage tier this time seems to have an insane final boss though. DOn't think I will ever be able to finish that haha
Wild how "not looking at a boss" is considered a playstyle in any video game, and not just a symptom of problematic design and non-moderation of add-ons.
i was thinking the lahabrea that we fight on ARR msq was this half from the raid, it would explain the madness of him and it's pretty consistent how lahabrea ARR works, he keep jumping vessel and always behind someone else, just like the one in the abyssos where he even hiding behind eric, the actual lahabrea is the exact opposite of this behaviour, he would go straight to the point with his logic and never doing things in a roundabout way, if abyssos lahabrea does get prisoned and during sundering and unaffected, the actual lahabrea and eric who got sundered lost its power over the prison and set the abyssos lahabrea free and joined emet as the unsundered
Except lahabrea was one of the most dedicated to the plan to bring zodiark back and would stop at nothing to get it done. The copy we see in the raid is obsessed with bringing back his wife and is consumed by the same notion of surpassing mortality. Which hilariously they succeed at upon becoming ascian. So although I know it’s becoming a popular theory it really doesn’t add up. The evil laha would have nothing to strive for. And even if you spin it as “he’s helping because his wife can’t come back unless zodiark is awakened” then it’s just mental gymnastics. And cheapens his character. Since part of it was how he would stoop to the most depraved and vile actions in service of the star. Exemplified here in the raid as the real laha literally gave up his emotions for his duty. It’s more likely that he dies in this raid and his son repeats his actions and removes his emotions to replace him. Making the laha we know his son instead.
@@SH1NK1R01 Would it really be that much of a stretch that evil Laha helped create Zodiark thinking he could use it to help him bring his wife back? But after summoning it and becoming tempered, his obsession over bringing his wife back became replaced with the desire to make Zodiark whole again. Or perhaps Zodiark needed to be complete to be able to do what he wanted, and thus his obsession over Athena became his motivation to cause the rejoinings. I think it's still likely that Athena managed to corrupt Laha even after the split, and the one we see in the future is the old one from the raid. But either scenario makes enough sense to be consistent imo.
@@OldManInternet that’s the problem there. It’s a stretch. That’s why I called it mental gymnastics. His motivations would be going through multiple layers of justification just to stay in line with what we already know. That makes no sense. Also the Elpis version of laha is many years prior to the sundering so we are to believe that the fake laha managed to galavant as the original for years when it’s explicitly established that several of the convocation immediately noticed when he first changed after the split? There’s no way that adds up. They would have called him out again after the swap. Plus it would mean he would have spent all those years doing what exactly? If his wife hadn’t been brought back after having the reign over the facility then what was he doing in that time? Also laha in arr never expressed any affinity towards immortality at all and none of his antics or dialogue line up with Athena’s goals. Granted he didn’t have much since back then he was just hooded evil man who is evil. But still I think people want to make this convoluted for no reason.
@@SH1NK1R01 I don't think the evil Laha would have to galavant at all. Even though he had lost his mind to a degree, he still had the knowledge that the original Laha had, while would include the knowledge needed to perform the summoning of Zodiark. At that point they were in a desperate situation, and wouldn't have had a choice but to hope it would work out. Plus, the fact that Zodiark was as problematic as it was could have been a function of having been summoned by the imperfect version of Laha. Emet had made comments looking down on Laha for his mental state later in the story, and attributed it to his preference in possessing living bodies rather than corpses or clones. But it would make sense that this had more to do with the mental state of evil Laha himself. And this degraded mental state would explain why after 12 thousand years his goals and motivations may have changed or been lost. Just remember Elidibus's mental state by the end of 5.3. Even Emet, who had fared the best of the three, was showing signs that his foundations were starting to crack. All that said, I don't think the old Laha survives the raid in the past. I have a feeling that Ericthonious ends up getting taken over the the clone from the crystal and that's the Laha we dealt with in ARR and HW. But my point in all this is that I could see either old Laha, evil Laha, or Ericthonious all being the Laha we dealt with in ARR and HW, and it could make sense depending on what they do with the story in the last leg of the raid tier. We just don't have enough pieces yet to really make sense of it, which is why everything feels like a stretch imo.
One thing I really like about Lahabrea’s characterization here is how I can see this Lahabrea, in his single minded duty, selflessly eroded his soul by jumping between bodies and eventually forsaking himself for the sake of the star/Zodiark. Modern day Lahabrea could totally stem from this Lahabrea after years of sacrificing himself for the star.
I feel like the two halves might have recombined at some point, but Zodiark's tempering-esque influence and his own sense of duty twisted the seed of obsession planted inside him by Athena so the resulting fervour would be directed at Zodiark instead of Athena.
Raids are extremely relevant to MSQ, they're just considered to have happened, whether you do them or not, from the MSQ perspective. It just helps the player understand stuff more, and gives deeper impact and influence, if you know about what happened in the raids.
ok, I haven't seen other lore videos or posts, so if someone pointed this out like a week ago, just know I didn't know about it, its not honestly that smart of a theory. I think that the big twist of this whole raid is that the lahabrea that we met in this raid, meaning the real hephaistos isn't the lahabrea we met in ARR and heavensward, remember, lahabrea isn't a singular persons name, its a title, I think erichthonios is going to to return and reveal that he was the lahabrea we originally met. What I think is going to happen is that for some reason, erichthonios is going to have a memory wipe, what I think will happen is that, some time after we left for our timeline and when the final days start, erichthonios is going to be drawn to his mother's research, whither by some last minute failsafe his mother made to entice him or pulling on the themes that this research is too tempting to ignore. Either way, erichthonios starts dabling with it, elidibus and his father step in and there's this massive mind wipe in which the the three forget what happened in pandemonium, because there HAS to be mind wipe for at least two of them, because we've interacted with elidibus way too much for him not to recognize us, yea, he had memory problems by the end of shadowbringers, but whatever thing wipes there memories could easily be used to explain why he had such memory problems. After that happens, either as a result of a direct confrontation or during the chaos of the final days, old daddy lahabrea either dies or steps down and erichthonios takes up the title, and when he dies in heavensward, much like how emet and heph regain their memories, so does he, and fishes up the lost pandemonium and has this whole time been continuing his mother research, either for revenge against us, to try and recreate a new zodiark, anything really.
Considering how much we've gotten on Emet and Elidibus throughout the game, I imagine it could be Lahabrea so we can get to know him too (he didn't have much personality in early content). Seflishly i want Emet or Hyth, but if we see them again I don't think it'll be for a while. Azem would be excellent but I can't see this game actually SHOWING us original Azem since they'd likely have to code Azem to look like us as an ancient. Which I suppose they could do, but I'd be pretty surprised.
This raid story will likely be the same as that of Shadowbringers where it will have an impact on some of the NPCs in the world and will affect some dialogue option or cutscene in the future. Since Ishikawa has taken over as the head writer we've seen more and more interconnected things between the various stories of the game culminating in the 6.0 MSQ but it has continued on in the patches as well. I always told people to make sure that they at least did the MSQ and all of the various raid stories because they are ALWAYS a part of the story of the world to some degree and so far the game hasn't failed to bring them back up again at some point in the MSQ (if you've done them) which just adds to the overall immersion.
As a casual normal player P5 was a one shot, P6 was a one shot, P7 put me in the time out box with my healers and in P8 I just gave up surviving the last third of the fight. The torch overlap with the snake vents got me every single time.
There's a side quest in Norvrandt that requires finishing all the lvl 80 job quests, it has connections to the Thirteenth Gaia being from the Thirteenth means she'll be involved somehow in the next expansion I predict that WOL will do a 2 birds one stone The First and the Thirteenth will be connected somehow and exchange light/dark aether to balance each other out
Your comment of the difference between WoW and FF14 raiding are spot on! As a10+ year WoW player I'm still trying to unlearn not looking at the boss for visual cues in FF14 cause it was easy to just watch the timers. Nether is bad or good, they're both just different and it's so fun to do something different!
Crystal tower story and Omega story did play an impact in endwalker and shadowbringer. Maybe they will introduce .... (In order to proceed you must have cleared pandaemonium raid quests)
Remember Hephaistos was shackled with Lahabraea saying he was going to finish it later or something. I’m willing to bet he didnt/couldn’t and Hephy is back. Also, lead researcher Claudy-baby or whatever his name is is strikingly similar to Athena in the way they lose themselves in research and forget to sleep and eat and all that. Claudien went missing prior to pandemonium appearing in the aetherial sea, too
The Crystal Tower, it use to not be required. Then half way through Shadowbringer you had to complete it to move forward. The implication being, if they feel the story needs it, it will become required. Otherwise it won't be.
If you recall, Pandemonium was located inside the dimensional rift so it could be cutoff from the world in case of emergency. It is possible that it had survived the sundering and now emerged in the Aetherial sea.
It could really happen that this raid has some impact on the future story. Since even during the EW MSQ Elidibus mentioned that he remembers seeing you in Elpis, which refers to this Raid series. So in the Story of the game the character already has beaten the raid, even if the player didnt
I super hope that raid series becomes mandatory and that ELIDIBUS comes out of there to become a main character. He's SHORT, so it would kind of work. I love Elidibus so much and we REALLY didn't get to appreciate him and figure out WHO he was until immediately before he killed him...
SPOILERS for the Abyssos raid and future speculation: - - - - - I think it's pretty clear that our nice SANE Lahabrea doesn't survive...that he probably merges again with his crazy side (ergo how he is unsundered despite that we know he sundered himself). Doing an MSQ roulette and hearing Laha monologue for the billionth time suddenly had more meaning today. I think "his god" he talks about isn't Zodiark at all....it's Athena. I think the Heart of Sabik is something that Athena was working on, or somehow it IS Athena or is otherwise key to freeing her. He says "Ultima" is a sliver of his god's power, but Zodiark doesn't have an Ultima spell... In summery, I think Laha NEVER wanted to bring back Zodiark, but instead was plotting behind the other ascian's backs to bring back Athena.
Lol , the entire crystal tower series was tied in during shadowbringers , along with all the explanation coming from pieces from omega and the previous raids too. so it's defintely possible that , old story content would become mendatory in the next expansions. RINE & Gaea are very popular , so it would make sense that they are back.
FF14 also does a really good job at making savage raiding not feel like you're missing out if you don't do it. I have tons of fun on the normal mode and could rerun it as many times as i want and have fun. And while i know my gear could be better by doing savage, what I have currently is getting me by and I'm fine with it
Yeah, raids tying into the MSQ so far has been pretty limited to extra cutscene choices or elements, but nothing big unless it is required. So if this raid tier does do something big I think we can say two things: 1. said big thing won't be big in the near future. It can be referenced in dialogs, but nothing that would actually be story critical. 2. When it does become story critical, the raid tier will become required. Now here's the thing, no raid tier has ever been made required. Alliance raids have been, but never a raid tier. Coils, not required. Alexander, not required. Omega, not required. Eden, not required. So if they do make this one required, it would be the first to do so. Trials do have a mixed history of being required, so they could be made required without breaking pattern too much, but raids would definitely be unusual, so unusual in fact I would suspect if they do, they may make an easier version of them (even though, honestly, they aren't that hard) as they are probably the hardest story content.
@@dafire9634 No, it's an alliance raid, not a simple raid. I listed off all the raids, not a one is required. That doesn't mean that can't change, just that it would be the first if so.
Regarding raids not changing the msw preach, crystal tower wasn't made mandatory until shadowbringers post patch. That means if you didn't do CT your experience of the story would be different, and you wouldn't have some dialogue options
was super funny watching mike thinking about how raids did NOT connect to the MSQ - and the crystal tower showing up on the back LOL He also forgot about Omega hahaha He remembered the ones that *so far* did not cross over - but the ones that did "poof" gone from his quick thinking :D
If you're interested in following or even helping cover the world first race for FFXIV in the future, Frosty (host of Mogtalk) is pretty much the community's de-facto guy to look to. I'd get in touch with him to see if you could work together.
My theory is a bit wacky but it has a bit of basis on FF on itself. Basically I think Athena is the last boss in the 3rd tier of raids and (specially) in savage mode we might see a return of Hephaestus there. I take my theory not just from the story itself but maybe because I still think they might make an allusion to FF II (the japanese one). In FF II we have a place called pandemonium its the 'dungeon' of the last boss in that game and it's where you fight the evil soul of the dead 'Emperor' there, the one that conquered hell. But when remaking the game for GBA they added an extra story to the game called Dawn of Souls. In that extra story, the deceased heroes from FF II journey through what they think its pandemonium only to figure it out its not ACTUALLY pandemonium but a copy of it in heaven. They figure it out that when the emperor died his soul split in 2 souls, one evil one that conquerer pandemonium and hell and was defeated by the FF II party and another one when and conquered heaven. It was only by combined death of the 2 (hell and heaven souls) that the people on the living world was able to actually put an end to the emperor. I see athena as the 'good' soul in this and hephaestus as the evil one. We already went through a hellish pandemonium in Elpis now I think we might be go through a different one where athena is the last boss. And I think to a last savage fight we might even get both of them together in a some sort of ultimate form or even just the 2 of them at the same time.
I'm thinking that Athena's memories were piggybacked into the message we got and have taken over the missing head researcher, who is responsible for Pandaemonium being summoned leading into Athena as the final boss and a lot of interesting possibilities for bosses given mythological Athena was a big fan of transforming people she didn't like into animals/monsters.
I want it to be Elidibis who comes through. I know this is wishful thinking. But his story was so heart wrenching in shadowbringers, And from the moment he was introduced I knew it was him. The entire time I was playing through Elpis I kept thinking about if it was possible to save even one of them. If not than the devs truly are too cruel and I'll probably cry. Especially since by shadowbringers Elidibis was already so far gone nothing could be done for him.
WRT raid stories never affecting the MSQ much: This is just because of how FF14 likes to keep continuity, you can't really make MSQ depend on previous raids if you can't be sure if they've done the raid yet, and requiring people to do all content would be kind of daunting. CT was an exception that they eventually made required, but they said in an interview that they probably wouldn't do that again, and that in the future, they'll just pretend like you did previous content if they want to make it relevant to MSQ. So I wouldn't be too surprised to see raid sidestories matter more in the future, maybe certain characters like Werlyt Man can be brought out of the shed and made MSQ-relevant again.
Big shoutout to FF2's original Pandaemonium, raised from the depths of hell. (there's an entire rabbit hole about FF2's badguy and the chain of names that leads him to Lahabrea but the RUclips comments section is *not* the place for that)
Someone from the past CAN come to the future, but eventually they will go back to the past and play out their existence, which is heart wrenching if its Elidibus or Lahabrea who come through, have a few adventures with us and help us out, but then inevitably go to the past, to eventually be killed by our hands.
I wonder if we’ll wind up with a situation like from the Ivalice alliance raids. Playing with the memory crystals imparted something onto our friend the researchers.
13:30 something about the way Mike said this made me realise (MAJOR SPOILER WARNING) - what if Lahabrea comes through and the version of himself that we fought stays behind in the past? It'd certainly explain his spiral downwards more, and the way he's described by the other Ascians we've met.
Unless they make the raids mandatory like they did with the CT raids in ARR, then no characters from raids will ever appear in MSQ directly. This is due to them all being optional so anyone who doesn't do them wont be missing key parts of the MSQ
Could it be that we killed Lahabrea's clone at the end of Arr? Emet-Selch did mention that he gave into madness, but if he separated that part of himself into the clone then he couldn't have been able... And the real Lahabrea is actually trapped inside Pandemonium... Time will tell...
In regard to the spoilers at the end of the raid story: I think the scientist that upped and vanished at the start of this section of the story is to blame. I think he's brought Pandaemonium forward through time using similar tech to The Twinning.
Ive given up on predicting outcomes in ff14, however... since they usually tie up loose ends in the story pretty nicely, and we now have a kind of pathway for certain 3 ancients that went missing during a pretty big event, to well.. go missing.. Im pretty sure we will see fan-favourite ancient nr.2 added in the final set of the raid story. Sadly, his friends story however is concluded, so Im equally sure we wont see him again.
The problem with time travel in 14 is that we have had two different versions of time travel. spoilers for those not done this. Both the time travel incidents with going to Elpis and with Alexander have both been pre-destination. from the surviving Ascian's/Venat's point of view we turned up in Elpis, did everything there including helping with pandemonium then returned to our own time. from their point of view we did it, so we end up doing it. it's the same with Alexander where the lead gobbie had the book that told him what was going to happen and it did, along with the two Au Ra going back in time at the end to basically start up their own race (iirc). however the Crystal Exharch has experience the type of time travel as described in avengers where the future he came from became his past and the changes he made to the present changed his future from what he remembered of his past. hence why he and the tower did not vanish after saving the 1st and us, like he expected to. The Pandemonium in the aetherial sea was either always there just floating around, possible but unlikely, or some entity in our present was able to re-create it out of aether due to what was in one or both of those memory crystals we found, which I think is the more likely explanation. its not linked to the elpis in the past as we have determined that time that passes for the WoL in Elpis either also passes in time time period we came from or the time travel method is not accurate enough to return us to when we left and we end up up stream as it where. pretty sure its the former thou.
This their just gave a big answer to why Lahabrea acts like a madman. It's not his logical side that's in control, but his tainted emotional side whose in the driver seat. It makes more sense as to why he spirals into madness from all that body jumping.
Actually, Omega and Alexander did have a huge impact on the storyline, at least on the sidelines. It was through experiencing and analyzing the properties of Omega and Alexander that Cid and Ironworks managed to (eventually) send the Crystal tower to the First at a different point in time. Which, of course is the main reason why Shadowbringers happens in the first place. Without doing the raids, you don't really understand the context behind and might even think it is a bit of an asspull, but if you have done them it feels super rewarding to see all the threads coming together.
ya those raids, SHAPED some important characters.
Pretty sure he just meant normal raids since he knows about Crystal Tower. They had story importance, but any importance they had could be skipped over without really missing much. There weren't any that had a conclusion that had immediate, significant effects on the main story. It was always just additional information if you'd like.
And Omega's got ongoing stuff.
But it would be fair to say this is the most MSQ-y one since Coil.
@@SRFAA Except now that story is so damn important it's required for Shadowbringers and now seemingly for post-Endwalker
@@pluna3382 Which story? Omega? It wasn't important to understand Shadowbringers. You can explain how Graha traveled through time, but the explanation they gave about Cid combining all of those things to create that method wasn't so important that you'd be lost without it. It was just additional information like I said before.
"someone in the future is summoning ancients"... yes, finally all of the accumulated thirst for Emet-Selch is paying off!
"And once again i am denied a sound rest, forced to be a part of this clamorous show!"
Gimme Hythlobaeus
For Raids having impact on the MSQ, in Order of operations:
The Crystal Tower: obvious, they made it mandatory now after all
The Binding Coils of Bahamut connections and closure to 1.0's ending, further ties into the Sorrow of Werlyt trials storyline (Showing that Nael was actually a woman, not a man)
Alexander: Alexander changes the geography of Hinterlands, and Alexander's time travel power is what is copied by the Ironworks to make Tycoon which allowed the Crystal tower to move back into the past to for stall the eighth calamity
Shadows of Mhach" Other than Tataru's Endeavor requiring it now, It's ALL about voidsent, shows their immortality 3 expansions early, Shows them eating other Voidsent to become powerful, And Destroys Diabolos' body so his aetherial soul is allowed to go mess things up in Bozja as the Diabolos Armament
The Interdimensional Rift: Midgarsormr is put into a deep sleep, changing the MSQ lines about him simply agreeing to barely waking up long enough to say Okay, Omega's Rift transporting power is used as the other half of Tycoon to allow the Crystal tower to travel to the First, Cid uses Hraesvlagr's save of them from the collapsing rift as reason enough to help enhance the Warding scales, *It shows creations made purely of aether can gain souls with the strength of emotions* much like Meteion did, During Omega's quest after the end of 6.0, while he's musing about the people who survived the Final Days through strength of heart, he lets slip that he's M017, the same bot we meet in the MSQ's recreation of Alphatron that's linked up to Sir, and with the NM mode of Endsinger telling us Limit Breaks are Dynamis we retrospectively learn that Omega (who had no soul and thus couldn't learn it) wanted to learn how to use Dynamis to go home.
Return to Ivalice: Shows us the power of Auracite, corrupting people into super powered beasts based by *Focusing and channeling their memories and emotions*
Eden: Resurrecting the Empty gives us the proof Y'shtola uses to say how the Thirteenth can be saved
YoRHa the Dark Apocalypse (Less tied to FFXIV's MSQ than literally anything, but it is actually canon to the Nier/Drakengard games, and is the final act in that story so far)
The Queen of Blades arc: We see several returning features from prior raids (ivalice and the surprise Diabolos), learn more about Garlean politics and war potential in the field data we earn.
For non-MSQ Non-Extreme Trials, In order of Operation:
Garuda, Titan and Ifrit Extremes: Only one who goes here because this teaches us that Greater Sacrifices, like living breathing beast men, empower the primal (You get tribal tokens made of bone when you beat them, made from worshiper's bones, Lahabrea's flunkies tell you about them)
Odin: Tells us why the Superboss fate Steel Reign will have Odin change his face and race to match whoever got the last hit on him.
ARR Hildebrand Trials: Gilgamesh shows us the first case of Primal summoning that has no Tempering, not a god and not even tangential worship.
The Warring Triad: Tells us about Mercydia, and how they all fought against allag, until only the dragons remained, and we see the rest of that story in MSQ when talking to TIamat. Unukalai is the first time we see Elidibus doing his part as a mentor to heroes, bringing the heroes from the thirteenth to other worlds to help rejoinnings.
The Four Lords: We learn of a Prior Warrior of Light, bearing many of your abilities, and how they saved the world, and came back to do it again along side you.
SB Hildebrand Trial: Susanoo's sword is stolen by Gilgamesh, and he uses it against you, but nothing of true note, other than after this trial Hilde is sent to the interdimensional rift and is summoned by Elidibus in the Heroes Gauntlet from time to time.
Sorrows of Werlyt: Gaius comes back for the greatest redemption arc in this game, the Weapon series of anti-eikon warmachina Gives us history into the Garlean Empire and territories
And add in that all of these change the voiced Scene when you get the High Adamantite for the Rangarok, The Alliances raid the Coils for Adamantite, The Adventurers Guild does too, but with backup from the Goblins of idylshire as thanks for saving Slowfix' daughter, Bozja and Werlyt send things they pilfered from their respective Garlean Legions, The Redbills and the Prima Vista are used to transport things by Air, Sorobahn shows up with Tenzen's Phoenix blade (The Warrior of light from the past) and other treasures from both the Kojin and the Auspices, and even that jerk from Eureka sends things pulled out of the Baldesion Arsenal.
Small note. The diablos armament is not the same diablos as the one we fight in the raid. It's also a call back to ogre battle
@@loki555 Yes, and no. Per the Diabolo Armament Field Notes, it was built specifically to contain Diabolos. Allag wanted to control the Second Rung Voidsent (They are few in number, but incredibly powerful) but they couldn't summon him physically much less bind him with spells to control him. So they devised a soulless living weapon for him to be summoned into to control, but still couldn't get him, they theorized, until after Xande opened the gate to the Void. You must recall, the Null Stone was devised to banish a Voidsent's Physical Form, and as we know from Ferdinand and even Diabolos himself prior, being dispersed into aether means nothing to them. Even inf the Nullstone could permenantly remove his body, His aether still existed, and to return to full power, he'd need a body that could hold him. And what better than a body built specifically to house him?
And yes, while we've seen Duplicate body types of some higher rung Voidsent (The lower the rung the stronger they are), It's very possible Diabolos is the literal only Diabolos, especially since it's specifically noted how hard it was to get him and other Voidsent of his power into the Source. And while a lesser Voidsent could theoretically use this body, It wouldn't have his powers and most likely wouldn't be able to break the allagan programming that was clearly controlling the body at the very start before he overruled it and declared 'I return to myself at last!'
Spoilers for the Abyssos story - I don't think it's a coincidence that the now missing professor/researcher, Claudien, bares a striking resemblance to a certain son of Lahabrea...
Yeah, he's likely going to turn up in the final installment of the raid with a few modifications and a large health bar.
I didn't notice at all until I Jesse Cox's video 😅
And also Claudien went alone to AZYS LLA, the place where a CERTAIN unsundered ascian died/was eaten by a very old elezen turned primal
@@karis_rfl he’s even got the dark skin and red eyes of Eric
Like, all the pieces are here, now we gotta wait eight months to see if they come true
Wait which son? Lahabaguette? Lahamuffin? Oh you mean eric?
(SPOILERS: SHADOWBRINGERS)
The optional raid series DID have a big impact on the MSQ in Shadowbringers. In the doomed future that The Crystal Exarch comes from, the way that people managed to send the Crystal tower and G'raha Tia back through time was by utilizing a theory thought up by Cid and the Ironworks crew (long dead by then). This theory encompased several principles that Cid observed during the stories of the optional raids series.
Travel through time from Alexander, travel to the rift between worlds from Omega and travel to the other shards of The Source from the Crystal Tower/World of Darkness raids.
The only one of those that was explicitly required to as the crystal tower series which was made non optional. The rest aren’t actually needed to justify how the operation could have happened especially since so many years would have passed since cids death. Any manner of other developments could have occurred. So it does still stand that none of the optional raids have ever affected the main story. Hell the Alexander raid stated that the world would end if we didn’t kill him because he would drain the world dry of aether yet for a lot of players he is just sitting there still and no one cares. And given what we learned about the world in shb and ew even the ascians would have stepped in to stop that.
@@SH1NK1R01 The thing about the alexander and omega raids making the whole plot of shb actually possible is that because it is from the future the story can assume that even if you haven't helped out with those raids before doing shb your character would have done it at some point in the future.
@@thetruekakokun865 yes but that’s my point. They aren’t necessary to justify the plot point at all since completing them in any order changes nothing about the way the story plays out. While the crystal tower series is central to the entire plot of the expansion. You don’t need to know when or where the idea for time travel came about when cid isn’t even alive at the time of its creation. And the omega raids only really become relevant in ew since the dragons are discussed more. Even then it’s just flavor since the dragons themselves and the war with omegas race are explained in ew and don’t require omega raid completion to understand.
@@SH1NK1R01 Alexander wasn't draining the land of Aether at all, though. It had put itself in stasis precisely to prevent that.
@@Poldovico ......yes and then it was awakened. so that's literally what it ended up doing and why we needed to stop the illuminati.
1:05 being casual in FF14 and using PF for Savages is just so much easier compared to pugging mythic in WoW...mainly b/c of the FF14 community it's amazing!
I think this is down to the inherent character of the communities. After maining FF for nearly 5 years now, people do content chiefly because it's fun. This is why people get together to do treasure maps, or fill up ocean fishing groups, or set up Triple Triad or Mah-jong tournaments. With nearly 12 years spent in WoW before I left, it seemed as if power progression and gear was the chief motivator for most of the people who did content. People want their phat loot, and it's almost like they have to suffer other people to get it.
@@Maria_Erias It's also an easier time commitment. Each raid boss in FFXIV is a separate instance with a 90 or 120 minute timer. At the end of the timer if the boss isn't dead, you can requeue with the same group or find a different group or call it for the night. There's no time spent reclearing trash. Plus an 8 player group is way easier to assemble than 20.
Everything about it is designed as a much more focused experience that's amenable for pugging on whatever schedule you want, whereas WoW still has a lot of older MMO raid design behind its structure where you're intended to commit to a dedicated team and pugging capability is an afterthought.
@@troyen3869 This is also true, too. Final Fantasy raids (and all content) is based around it being a game, gone in sensible chunks of time. WoW still likes to cling to that "this is your second job" mentality that worked fine back in 2006 when the majority of their players were students who would come back after classes and be able to devote entire evenings several days a week to raiding. Which is ironic, because many other facets of their game have become super casual, like leveling or professions.
You know if Mike ever gets an interview with Yoshi P, not a media tour like one that Asmon got but a real sit-down talk, I am going to fell so sorry for the lady that does the translating because that interview could go on for a week straight.
You know every single interview he's ever done was promotional, right?
@@___IG Yes, did you know my comment was based on a hypothetical situation? To be fair thought maybe I should have used the term chat rather than interview.
Didn't NoClip do a 3-day interview?
ah Mike deserves an interview with him if that happens again, I was confused Asmon got that chance he only played for 2 bloody months lol.
Scream is probably one of my favorite raid music since O8S
Honestly, as much as I love Dancing Mad, there's something about the FFXIV version of the fourth movement that seems...off. Maybe it's the electronic organ, but it just lacks the kick of the original song to me.
In the Balance is still my fav
The music is a banger but the voice is kinda annoying after a while, definitely better on p5s without lyrics
crystal tower was connected to story later, the raid had to be done before you can move on now. It did not use to be like that
Yeah, it changed during Shadowbringers. I was already 80 and had already completed 5.0 when I was hit with the story cannot progress until I finished the CT raid series message. I was sort of confused because I had already defeated Hades and the whole Exarch is G'raha Tia reveal portion.🤣
They changed it to be mandatory with the release of 5.3
Because the way that the patch MSQ ended completely falls apart if you didn’t do crystal tower
You can still watch the “I didn’t do the raid” dialogue queues in the book at an inn, but yeah
Unfortunately due to the huge backlash they got for it the devs promised they will never do something like that ever again.
This raid tier was definitely a big surprise. Unlike others, I really can't even guess what the last tier will be exactly.
(Spoiler) (Opinion) Athena is 12th circle for sure
Also, in P8 when we start the fight, there is a huge eye watching 👁️ from the sky (correct me if it was already explained). I think someone else will resurrect Athena and when we fight her,she'll go "You're an obstacle on my way, in my research,in my goal to transcend"
@@DoppelgangerTH I personally think the crystal wasn't destroyed, and Lahabrea reassimilated his memory and Athena's craziness. Thus he is as he is in ARR.
The whole immortal transcendence deal simply describes the qualities that define Ascians. So those elements are implicitly covered already, it's the origin of Ascians.
Claudien is a big ol ??? in all this. His research and work ethic is very similar to Athena's and he ran off to Azys Lla, where Lahabrea was maybe-killed by Thordan but maybe not.
The eye is a big question, as is the purpose of all the chimeric splicing.
I do think we will be getting visits from ghost Lahabrea (non-crazy) and ghost Elidibus.
@@jaeusa160 Lahabrea got sucked into Nidhogg's eyes in Azys La and Estinien destroyed them in Stormblood. Lahabread were Lahabaked.
I see people theorize that Caludien is Erich's reincarnation and I kinda subscribe to it. It's certainly no coincidence that he can hear the voice from the crystal, but his peers cant.
@@torte7563 and he is going to Azys Lla soo........
The Abyssos leg of the story got me more than Asphodelos. P1-P4 was a decent setup, but P5-P8 is where the meat of the story comes in, and I loved it. There's so much to theorycraft with the story, and it's relevant to the MSQ in the sense that it looks as if we're going to get some backstory on the Ascian who was most central to ARR, yet about whom we know next to nothing: Lahabrea.
That last part also left me just dumbfounded. Pandaemonium in the Aetherial Sea? Holy fucking shit.🤯
i feel like Eden did kinda do have some impact on the msq considering msq was bout restoring the first and the raid actualy working in tandem with it of restoring the elements in that world again
Hmmm...kind of but not really. The area used for the raid does not appear in the MSQ, and the restoration properties of Eden have not effected the rest of Novrandt directly. Even Amh Araeng itself saw no changes. The light flood is still there and it is still a desert. All the fights were "imaginations" if you will.
It gives extra dialgoue is msq if you did eden before some post shb quests
@@COA5T Amh Araeng is analogous to Thanalan. It was always a desert.
@@COA5T yea they mentioned it but no heavy effects. They did mention that eden can bring life back rest of the waste but it could take many centuries before its spreads out with major effeft.
@@COA5T well, because we know of the eden raids theres now talk of being able to restore the 13th too isnt there?
On the Ryne/Gaia thing, I can see them both coming back for 7.0 storyline. MSQ is building up towards the void (13th shard) and since Gaia has power over darkness (voidkeeper), I imagine she will be useful there. Then there's the two survivors from the 13th that are currently on the 1st, and I'm almost positive they will be making a return as well to save their world.
Im not so sure, they'd need to make eden raids obligatory if they make this part of msq (since without WoL eden raids would stop at E2, provided they beat Eden E1 and Gaia's initial form in E2)
@@DoppelgangerTH Same with the quests involving the "two survivors"
the two void survivors actually have new dialogue after you finish the 6.2 MSQ. So they're definitely not forgotten.
@@Keira_Blackstone I had hopium back then that we would somehow find a way to fix the 13th. Lo and behold the 6.2 revelations! Made me very happy.
"Scream" was an absolute jam
my theory is Athena isnt actually dead and the crystal ol' Professor has is actually her crystalized essence and shes manipulating him to take over his body. he is the one who summoned pandaemonium into present day and chimera of Professor Her will be the final boss to send it back.
I've a theory that is similar, but not quite the same to that. I suspect that the good professor, is, in fact, a sundered form of Athena.
Agree that Athena is going to play a key role in the next tier. We sorta found out what happened to her, but no clear details about the how. Felt like there was a bit of a void there.
@@tpkarclight3118 all the sundered pieces we meet are the same gender as their original tho i think? So a dude cant be a sundered splinter of a woman
@@ich3730 There is a possible exception, Azem is the same gender as the player, but Ardbert is not. I would guess that it's highly likely for a soul to reincarnate as the same gender, but not a guarantee.
If they do something with the MSQ where a raid directly changes something in the world, odds are they would do what they did with Crystal Tower, where it becomes required for progress. I could see Eden becoming required content in the future if Ryne is needed for a story. And with how important she was already, I'd be shocked if they didn't bring her back at some point. Especially if they ever do something in the story where they have to find a "safe" way to do a Rejoining. Something I think would be a potentially great plot point if it's used for the right reason.
fck Ryne, i want gaia.
ryne and gaia are currently missing on the first btw, the dissappeared sometime after 5.3, my guess is 6.5 is gonna be a "getting the gang back together" kinda thing where we will be getting all the side characters who weve met from the void throughout the entire story so far, together to help them pull a Eden recovery moment like we did with ryne and gaia but to the entire world of the 13th. and then in 7.0 we will have found a way to properly travel between shards, and can finally bring ryne to the source or something, and see mercydia obviously.
@@justsomeguy4422 You literally meet with Ryne in 6.0 before Elpis. They're not missing. Not sure where you got this idea.
@@salami155 I think what they mean is that you can't actually find Ryne anywhere in the game, like you can go find other major npcs. Before you finish the 5.3 capstone, there were times between patches where you could go look around, check out what the scions (including Ryne) were up to in the first, much as you could with the scions scattered around post 6.0
I wish there is something in the game where it tells you about important side stories that you should do. something like a window with side stories of trials and raids with titles and pictures about it and a snippet to interest you
I see many people don't notice the side stories and they are missing out on a lot
in wow with every patch when you log in you see a window showing what is new and when you click on it it shows you have to start ... xiv needs something like
Emet had a near perfect send off in EW, it'd be a huge mistake to bring him back.
Its funny because Yoship already mentioned his part of the story is not done yet (you get a minion when that character is done).
@@Ekineko We have an Emet minion though
@@ryanjones2297 we have a solos minion not an emet selch minion
@@heartfullbutterfly314 Its the same picture.meme
@@heartfullbutterfly314 3months later we have Emet minion too.
Thanks for your in depth coverage of the game. I can't play anymore, so this is how I keep up to date with the awesome story and such.
I took a different interpretation of Pandaemonium appearing in the Aetherial Sea. I didn't see it as a portal between the old Pandaemonium in ancient times and current era, I saw it as just Pandaemonium in current times. No time travel or time skip, it has just been rediscovered after all these years. It is the same Pandaemonium generations and hundreds of thousands of years later, with most things inside probably having died off except maybe things that were sealed away in stasis.
But the atherial sea is that just a bunch of Aether not really a bunch of ruins from old. Whatever the case its not a coincidence Claudien dissappear on Azys La where Bread bot got killed by Thordan.
Yeah same. I saw it more as that Lahabrea did destroy Pandaemonium in the original timeline and now... oops...
@@Plasmacat1 There is a precedent of places and beings coming back from nonexistance of atherial sea, mainly Eureka and Isle of Val. Pandemonium did materialize pretty close to the serfuce but not far enough to appear on Etherys proper. Im honestly curious what happened in the past that would explain this wierd property of Pandemonium cuz most of the emotional story was resolved by the end of this tier and I dont see any possible drama, outside from Hephaistos Crystal form not being destroyed on screen... Yeah, they could go few places but they have a preaty blank slate with it appearing in future.
Think so too and I would even suggest that Pandaemonium might've been summoned. When they "built" the prison, the ancients didn't lay bricks, they used creation magics, which is precursor to summoning. Someone can probably pull that off, with the right knowledge/memories/concept and a huge amount of aether... good that there is literally a sea of that stuff.
Pandaemonium being a place and an entity is also supported by Themis calling it the "dread beast" and the fact that we fought against raids itself in the past, like Eden Prime.
@@matthice5135 Pandaemonium is definitely a dread beast, based on the giant eyeball watching us fight Hephaistos at the end.
Lahabrea created a twisted copy of himself. Imagine if that copy got out and jailed Lahabrea. Then the "real" guy is still in that prison, waiting to be freed. Would be great.
i hope thats not what ends up, i like the story of the unsundered ascians being normal good hearted ancients driven to evil actions out of tragedy more Turning the lahabrea from ARR and HW into Hephaistos would take away from that
I think the son is our Lahabrea, like daddy dies and Elidibus and probably Azem recommended the kid to take over. Which is why during Emet intro where he was talking to the emperor he called Lahabrea an idiot.
@@Slade951 more of the thought that while Lahabrea cut out most of the influences of Athena, he didn't get all of it. And the countless years post sundering as well as him fraying his soul as he swapped bodies constantly, made that little influence infest him with time
@@Slade951 this was a really popular theory from the first wing, but its dampened by Hephaistos having Lahabrea's specific voice actor back in japanese
@@oleub23 Oh so by that logic fandaniel is actually Asahi all the way through until the voice swapped? So Asahi was alive in shadowbringers and early part of endwalker. Hmmm interesting.
About Pandemonium showing up in current timeline. They usually keep the side raid content as optional and contained until otherwise brought up in a later patch (take crystal tower for example, and even Edenverse). They usually use them to plant seeds that will bear fruit later in the games life, probably a couple of expansions later. I don't think anything crazy like Lahabrea or Elidibus coming through from that time is going to happen or them being trapped inside will happen. I think what WILL happen is the whole "ascians return to the Aetherial sea just like anything else and get any of their memories back" will happen again like with Emmet-selch. I think Lahabrea and Elidibus will show up from their slumber in the Aetherial sea to get rid of pandemonium or seal it. So they will have their memories of us in Elpis along with the things they did in after the sundering as well, but much like Emmet they won't care to much to hate us since they are dead. Just a thought though.
But Elidibus died in the first, he is in the first aetherial sea, so he can't show up in there
@@Aaron.Arcanum Yeah but they said even the memories would return to the aetherial sea in the MSQ. Its not implied that he would just "disappear" into nothing. So he probably returns like everyone else.
lol i like the 'friendship' pop up with ryne & gaia
Great video, Mike and team. And ya, the Abyssos story was REALLY good. my wife skipped the damn cutscenes.. i was like "OMG..." lol. but I loved it. great stuff!
I doubt Lahabrea or anyone we know would come through Pandaemonium. We've already experienced the closed time loop with Hydaelyn it would be really weird to start adding in alternate timelines along with it. Also, Elidibus mentioned seeing us in Elpis already so us going through and handling the situation should be part of history already. It's even mentioned in the raid quest that Venat and Azem both recommended us to Elidibus for this mission. That means it's after our first visit to Elpis and before the Final Days.
It was only Azem. He says he only heard and assumed you're the person Venat was going around with so that was enough for him
One thing to consider, it's in the Aetherial Sea. Means we could definitely see Erich and Themis again. When we last saw Elidibus his aether was about to fully dissipate back into the sea. Which means he would have his memories back. If Erich was one of the Ancients who sacrificed themselves to Zodiark, then he would be recently freed and back in the Sea. It would not be beyond reason for us to meet up with them down there and fix the problem once and for all before they go to their final rest. It would just be the them from our time rather than the them from their time brought forward.
As Jesse mentioned in his video it was likely the researcher who went to Azys Lla and did something with the mysterious crystal that caused Pandæmonium to reappear in our time. The Lahabrea of our time also met his demise in Azys Lla so it's also likely something to do with him and/or Athena. The storyline makes me think of Doctor Who's End of Time specials in which a single catalyst from the past (A diamond from Gallifrey in Doctor Who and the mysterious crystal in FF14) acts as a link between the two time periods. Maybe Athena or another villain would want to bring the whole of Elpis or the unsundered world back into the present in the same way The President tried to resurrect Gallifrey and we have to stop them before it destroys everything.
I could have done so much more, so much more!
-Eric when he is dying.
Just a theory.
It's been heavily implied that Claudien is Erichthonios's reincarnation, and what with his disappearance and the sudden appearance of Pandaemonium in the Aetherial Sea, I'm super curious to see where this goes.
The real reason that Hegemone is kinda dull is so you can rock out to Scream for the first time after having just the instrumental Silent Scream for Proto-Carbuncle.
The thing that blows my mind that's optional especially with the new MSQ is the role quests in Shadow Bringers. They even add new dialogue to those NPCs after you completed 6.2 MSQ. By extension you would need to do the Triad trials too, which they might think it's too much to ask of people, so idk how the hell are they gonna tie that up.
Yeah asking some players to do shb role quests might be asking a lot if its made mandatory, hope they figure it out
Wait what quests, is it the one where we get that kid from Triad over to the 1st to open a void gate with Traynor?
@@ArchieGamez Right now you can start the healer role quest right after picking up Sage (70). Same with Reaper (70) and physical dps. Gunbreaker's (60) not that far behind for tank. It will get easier as time goes on. Next expansion jobs will start at 80 so you wouldn't even need to level any to complete them.
@@jet44444 yeah you need to do all role quests in Shadowbringers and you get that. You also need to do the Triad trials from Heavensward.
@@jet44444 Clear all the ShB Role Quests. That unlocks a capstone quest that ties them all together. Then if you've also cleared all the Warring Triad quests, that unlocks a new quest chain known as the Void Quests. If you've completed that quest chain as well, two NPCs involved in that quest chain will comment on your adventures in the 6.2 MSQ if you go speak to them.
The new trial was a blast. Even on easy it’s was fast paced and you need to be quick on your toes. And that new raid armor? Chefs kiss
Really looking forward to him doing the trial in particular.
Besides Crystal Tower which later became a required part of the MSQ, no Normal or Alliance raids are required for the MSQ (though the Ivalice raid is a prerequisite for unlocking Bozja and the ShB Relic Weapons), though they can definitely add quite a bit of bonus context and dialogue scenes.
As for NPCs in the present, I am guessing Claudien is likely The Source shard reincarnation of Erichthonios, and the other crystal he went in search of will somehow play into Athena’s plans.
Omega and Alexander are both the reason that Shadowbringers was even possible, along with CT raids. Void Ark series is getting more prevalent now that the void has become more relevant. And Eden is kind of getting more important in the MSQ too. They may not be required (yet) but all the raids have huge relevance to the story, alliance raids included, only exception being the nier raids.
Probs my fav raid music so far. What a jam
No in the Balance
@@alder96ontwitch88 for sure the best alliance raid song
Lahabread became my favourite ancient overnight.
Literally same, if you told me 6 years ago that i will be crying over lahabread, i'd ugly laugh in your face, and yet here we are 😂
Nero's redemption arcs were all covered under raid series (Crystal Tower, Omega) and then he came back during the MSQ so I would say that's something at least
you're not gonna talk about how lit the damn boss fight music is?! I can't stop listening to it.
The look at the boss mentality has been the hardest switch for me…
I'm still neglecting to watch the boss when there's overlapping mechanics sometimes 😬
@@kimaclaret Just don't shout for long fish and you'll be fine :P
what you said at 1:45 is the biggest flex that I can give FF. i have never understood the idea of changing the overworld before the main character (the players character) has reached that point in the story.
Loved this raid set. It's always great how FFXIV makes Raids very easy to get into for even casual players like me. The mechanics are stuff you are familiar with, but they change things up enough to make such unique and fun fights, while also slowly introducing new mechanics that will ultimately show up in the story someday by being a pseudo-test run.
The music this time was absolutely phenomenal. I was already hyped with "Silent Scream," but then "Scream" played and it turned it up to 11. The Savage tier this time seems to have an insane final boss though. DOn't think I will ever be able to finish that haha
Abyysos is really intresting story wise, but also seeing some combat changes in savage it feels would be intresting points to the story.
As a scholar main, I'm very happy to see preach playing this job.
Just glad to see you happy and in a good place enjoying games and life.
Wild how "not looking at a boss" is considered a playstyle in any video game, and not just a symptom of problematic design and non-moderation of add-ons.
i was thinking the lahabrea that we fight on ARR msq was this half from the raid, it would explain the madness of him and it's pretty consistent how lahabrea ARR works, he keep jumping vessel and always behind someone else, just like the one in the abyssos where he even hiding behind eric, the actual lahabrea is the exact opposite of this behaviour, he would go straight to the point with his logic and never doing things in a roundabout way, if abyssos lahabrea does get prisoned and during sundering and unaffected, the actual lahabrea and eric who got sundered lost its power over the prison and set the abyssos lahabrea free and joined emet as the unsundered
Except lahabrea was one of the most dedicated to the plan to bring zodiark back and would stop at nothing to get it done. The copy we see in the raid is obsessed with bringing back his wife and is consumed by the same notion of surpassing mortality. Which hilariously they succeed at upon becoming ascian. So although I know it’s becoming a popular theory it really doesn’t add up. The evil laha would have nothing to strive for. And even if you spin it as “he’s helping because his wife can’t come back unless zodiark is awakened” then it’s just mental gymnastics. And cheapens his character. Since part of it was how he would stoop to the most depraved and vile actions in service of the star. Exemplified here in the raid as the real laha literally gave up his emotions for his duty. It’s more likely that he dies in this raid and his son repeats his actions and removes his emotions to replace him. Making the laha we know his son instead.
@@SH1NK1R01 Would it really be that much of a stretch that evil Laha helped create Zodiark thinking he could use it to help him bring his wife back? But after summoning it and becoming tempered, his obsession over bringing his wife back became replaced with the desire to make Zodiark whole again. Or perhaps Zodiark needed to be complete to be able to do what he wanted, and thus his obsession over Athena became his motivation to cause the rejoinings.
I think it's still likely that Athena managed to corrupt Laha even after the split, and the one we see in the future is the old one from the raid. But either scenario makes enough sense to be consistent imo.
@@OldManInternet that’s the problem there. It’s a stretch. That’s why I called it mental gymnastics. His motivations would be going through multiple layers of justification just to stay in line with what we already know. That makes no sense. Also the Elpis version of laha is many years prior to the sundering so we are to believe that the fake laha managed to galavant as the original for years when it’s explicitly established that several of the convocation immediately noticed when he first changed after the split? There’s no way that adds up. They would have called him out again after the swap. Plus it would mean he would have spent all those years doing what exactly? If his wife hadn’t been brought back after having the reign over the facility then what was he doing in that time? Also laha in arr never expressed any affinity towards immortality at all and none of his antics or dialogue line up with Athena’s goals. Granted he didn’t have much since back then he was just hooded evil man who is evil. But still I think people want to make this convoluted for no reason.
@@SH1NK1R01 I don't think the evil Laha would have to galavant at all. Even though he had lost his mind to a degree, he still had the knowledge that the original Laha had, while would include the knowledge needed to perform the summoning of Zodiark. At that point they were in a desperate situation, and wouldn't have had a choice but to hope it would work out. Plus, the fact that Zodiark was as problematic as it was could have been a function of having been summoned by the imperfect version of Laha.
Emet had made comments looking down on Laha for his mental state later in the story, and attributed it to his preference in possessing living bodies rather than corpses or clones. But it would make sense that this had more to do with the mental state of evil Laha himself. And this degraded mental state would explain why after 12 thousand years his goals and motivations may have changed or been lost. Just remember Elidibus's mental state by the end of 5.3. Even Emet, who had fared the best of the three, was showing signs that his foundations were starting to crack.
All that said, I don't think the old Laha survives the raid in the past. I have a feeling that Ericthonious ends up getting taken over the the clone from the crystal and that's the Laha we dealt with in ARR and HW.
But my point in all this is that I could see either old Laha, evil Laha, or Ericthonious all being the Laha we dealt with in ARR and HW, and it could make sense depending on what they do with the story in the last leg of the raid tier. We just don't have enough pieces yet to really make sense of it, which is why everything feels like a stretch imo.
"A entanglement begins between our timelines" - Crystal Mom
One thing I really like about Lahabrea’s characterization here is how I can see this Lahabrea, in his single minded duty, selflessly eroded his soul by jumping between bodies and eventually forsaking himself for the sake of the star/Zodiark. Modern day Lahabrea could totally stem from this Lahabrea after years of sacrificing himself for the star.
I feel like the two halves might have recombined at some point, but Zodiark's tempering-esque influence and his own sense of duty twisted the seed of obsession planted inside him by Athena so the resulting fervour would be directed at Zodiark instead of Athena.
Raids are extremely relevant to MSQ, they're just considered to have happened, whether you do them or not, from the MSQ perspective. It just helps the player understand stuff more, and gives deeper impact and influence, if you know about what happened in the raids.
Interviewing Echo would be good, maybe also try get a seasoned XIV player. So you have thoughts from new and vets
"Worst dad in Final Fantasy"
Not even a close one. Hojo.
Does he count as one though? Just because biologically he is one in the end he just view him as an experiment.
@@Plasmacat1 Which makes him by far the worst dad. XD
To be fair, he hasn't finished 7 yet
Athena is basically Hojo
@@Toksyuryel True, she and he are pretty equal on the monstrous front.
The real story cliffhanger is "why did he shave his eyebrows when he was younger?"
ok, I haven't seen other lore videos or posts, so if someone pointed this out like a week ago, just know I didn't know about it, its not honestly that smart of a theory. I think that the big twist of this whole raid is that the lahabrea that we met in this raid, meaning the real hephaistos isn't the lahabrea we met in ARR and heavensward, remember, lahabrea isn't a singular persons name, its a title, I think erichthonios is going to to return and reveal that he was the lahabrea we originally met. What I think is going to happen is that for some reason, erichthonios is going to have a memory wipe, what I think will happen is that, some time after we left for our timeline and when the final days start, erichthonios is going to be drawn to his mother's research, whither by some last minute failsafe his mother made to entice him or pulling on the themes that this research is too tempting to ignore. Either way, erichthonios starts dabling with it, elidibus and his father step in and there's this massive mind wipe in which the the three forget what happened in pandemonium, because there HAS to be mind wipe for at least two of them, because we've interacted with elidibus way too much for him not to recognize us, yea, he had memory problems by the end of shadowbringers, but whatever thing wipes there memories could easily be used to explain why he had such memory problems. After that happens, either as a result of a direct confrontation or during the chaos of the final days, old daddy lahabrea either dies or steps down and erichthonios takes up the title, and when he dies in heavensward, much like how emet and heph regain their memories, so does he, and fishes up the lost pandemonium and has this whole time been continuing his mother research, either for revenge against us, to try and recreate a new zodiark, anything really.
Considering how much we've gotten on Emet and Elidibus throughout the game, I imagine it could be Lahabrea so we can get to know him too (he didn't have much personality in early content). Seflishly i want Emet or Hyth, but if we see them again I don't think it'll be for a while. Azem would be excellent but I can't see this game actually SHOWING us original Azem since they'd likely have to code Azem to look like us as an ancient. Which I suppose they could do, but I'd be pretty surprised.
This raid story will likely be the same as that of Shadowbringers where it will have an impact on some of the NPCs in the world and will affect some dialogue option or cutscene in the future. Since Ishikawa has taken over as the head writer we've seen more and more interconnected things between the various stories of the game culminating in the 6.0 MSQ but it has continued on in the patches as well. I always told people to make sure that they at least did the MSQ and all of the various raid stories because they are ALWAYS a part of the story of the world to some degree and so far the game hasn't failed to bring them back up again at some point in the MSQ (if you've done them) which just adds to the overall immersion.
As a casual normal player P5 was a one shot, P6 was a one shot, P7 put me in the time out box with my healers and in P8 I just gave up surviving the last third of the fight. The torch overlap with the snake vents got me every single time.
There's a side quest in Norvrandt that requires finishing all the lvl 80 job quests, it has connections to the Thirteenth
Gaia being from the Thirteenth means she'll be involved somehow in the next expansion
I predict that WOL will do a 2 birds one stone
The First and the Thirteenth will be connected somehow and exchange light/dark aether to balance each other out
Your comment of the difference between WoW and FF14 raiding are spot on! As a10+ year WoW player I'm still trying to unlearn not looking at the boss for visual cues in FF14 cause it was easy to just watch the timers. Nether is bad or good, they're both just different and it's so fun to do something different!
Crystal tower story and Omega story did play an impact in endwalker and shadowbringer. Maybe they will introduce .... (In order to proceed you must have cleared pandaemonium raid quests)
Remember Hephaistos was shackled with Lahabraea saying he was going to finish it later or something. I’m willing to bet he didnt/couldn’t and Hephy is back.
Also, lead researcher Claudy-baby or whatever his name is is strikingly similar to Athena in the way they lose themselves in research and forget to sleep and eat and all that. Claudien went missing prior to pandemonium appearing in the aetherial sea, too
The Crystal Tower, it use to not be required. Then half way through Shadowbringer you had to complete it to move forward. The implication being, if they feel the story needs it, it will become required. Otherwise it won't be.
If you recall, Pandemonium was located inside the dimensional rift so it could be cutoff from the world in case of emergency. It is possible that it had survived the sundering and now emerged in the Aetherial sea.
It could really happen that this raid has some impact on the future story.
Since even during the EW MSQ Elidibus mentioned that he remembers seeing you in Elpis, which refers to this Raid series. So in the Story of the game the character already has beaten the raid, even if the player didnt
I super hope that raid series becomes mandatory and that ELIDIBUS comes out of there to become a main character. He's SHORT, so it would kind of work. I love Elidibus so much and we REALLY didn't get to appreciate him and figure out WHO he was until immediately before he killed him...
SPOILERS for the Abyssos raid and future speculation:
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I think it's pretty clear that our nice SANE Lahabrea doesn't survive...that he probably merges again with his crazy side (ergo how he is unsundered despite that we know he sundered himself). Doing an MSQ roulette and hearing Laha monologue for the billionth time suddenly had more meaning today. I think "his god" he talks about isn't Zodiark at all....it's Athena. I think the Heart of Sabik is something that Athena was working on, or somehow it IS Athena or is otherwise key to freeing her. He says "Ultima" is a sliver of his god's power, but Zodiark doesn't have an Ultima spell...
In summery, I think Laha NEVER wanted to bring back Zodiark, but instead was plotting behind the other ascian's backs to bring back Athena.
This is exactly what I think after this raid tier, I also think that we will see Athena in the final tier but fused with her son or Lahabrea.
Lol , the entire crystal tower series was tied in during shadowbringers , along with all the explanation coming from pieces from omega and the previous raids too. so it's defintely possible that , old story content would become mendatory in the next expansions.
RINE & Gaea are very popular , so it would make sense that they are back.
The raid/story was idd amazing oh and that music hot damn so good.
Also a big thing with tree boss, the arena isn’t the typical square. I think they should try to step away from typical square or round shaped.
FF14 also does a really good job at making savage raiding not feel like you're missing out if you don't do it. I have tons of fun on the normal mode and could rerun it as many times as i want and have fun. And while i know my gear could be better by doing savage, what I have currently is getting me by and I'm fine with it
Yeah, raids tying into the MSQ so far has been pretty limited to extra cutscene choices or elements, but nothing big unless it is required. So if this raid tier does do something big I think we can say two things: 1. said big thing won't be big in the near future. It can be referenced in dialogs, but nothing that would actually be story critical. 2. When it does become story critical, the raid tier will become required.
Now here's the thing, no raid tier has ever been made required. Alliance raids have been, but never a raid tier. Coils, not required. Alexander, not required. Omega, not required. Eden, not required. So if they do make this one required, it would be the first to do so. Trials do have a mixed history of being required, so they could be made required without breaking pattern too much, but raids would definitely be unusual, so unusual in fact I would suspect if they do, they may make an easier version of them (even though, honestly, they aren't that hard) as they are probably the hardest story content.
You're forgetting that crystal tower became required after 5.3 and thats a raid
@@dafire9634 No, it's an alliance raid, not a simple raid. I listed off all the raids, not a one is required. That doesn't mean that can't change, just that it would be the first if so.
Regarding raids not changing the msw preach, crystal tower wasn't made mandatory until shadowbringers post patch. That means if you didn't do CT your experience of the story would be different, and you wouldn't have some dialogue options
I think Panda being in the Sea is less time travel and more that it just was there for 12,000 years.
I really can’t wait when Preach jumps into Ultimates.
Hearing Scream while seeing Sargeras on the video - "I Bet Sargeras would be secretly jamming if he hear this."
Hythlodaeus! :P ♥
Thinking of Themis/Elidibus though. If he got back, it wouldn't do much of a problem. Because there's this memory loss of his
was super funny watching mike thinking about how raids did NOT connect to the MSQ - and the crystal tower showing up on the back LOL
He also forgot about Omega hahaha
He remembered the ones that *so far* did not cross over - but the ones that did "poof" gone from his quick thinking :D
I cant believe you're not going to savage raid. I was so looking forward to it
when he said "spoiler warning..5..4..3." i was like wait wait wait and paused the video, XD ill come back to the video when i get through the story
If you're interested in following or even helping cover the world first race for FFXIV in the future, Frosty (host of Mogtalk) is pretty much the community's de-facto guy to look to. I'd get in touch with him to see if you could work together.
Is he starting the msq next monday?
My theory is a bit wacky but it has a bit of basis on FF on itself. Basically I think Athena is the last boss in the 3rd tier of raids and (specially) in savage mode we might see a return of Hephaestus there. I take my theory not just from the story itself but maybe because I still think they might make an allusion to FF II (the japanese one). In FF II we have a place called pandemonium its the 'dungeon' of the last boss in that game and it's where you fight the evil soul of the dead 'Emperor' there, the one that conquered hell. But when remaking the game for GBA they added an extra story to the game called Dawn of Souls. In that extra story, the deceased heroes from FF II journey through what they think its pandemonium only to figure it out its not ACTUALLY pandemonium but a copy of it in heaven. They figure it out that when the emperor died his soul split in 2 souls, one evil one that conquerer pandemonium and hell and was defeated by the FF II party and another one when and conquered heaven. It was only by combined death of the 2 (hell and heaven souls) that the people on the living world was able to actually put an end to the emperor.
I see athena as the 'good' soul in this and hephaestus as the evil one. We already went through a hellish pandemonium in Elpis now I think we might be go through a different one where athena is the last boss. And I think to a last savage fight we might even get both of them together in a some sort of ultimate form or even just the 2 of them at the same time.
I'm thinking that Athena's memories were piggybacked into the message we got and have taken over the missing head researcher, who is responsible for Pandaemonium being summoned leading into Athena as the final boss and a lot of interesting possibilities for bosses given mythological Athena was a big fan of transforming people she didn't like into animals/monsters.
I want it to be Elidibis who comes through. I know this is wishful thinking. But his story was so heart wrenching in shadowbringers, And from the moment he was introduced I knew it was him. The entire time I was playing through Elpis I kept thinking about if it was possible to save even one of them. If not than the devs truly are too cruel and I'll probably cry. Especially since by shadowbringers Elidibis was already so far gone nothing could be done for him.
Did the alliance/normal raids affect MSQ? One word: Twinning. If you know, you know. T_T
You guys, there's a brand of bread in a local grocery store's bakery called La Brea. I just needed to share.
The MSQ is a goddamn 10/10
WRT raid stories never affecting the MSQ much: This is just because of how FF14 likes to keep continuity, you can't really make MSQ depend on previous raids if you can't be sure if they've done the raid yet, and requiring people to do all content would be kind of daunting. CT was an exception that they eventually made required, but they said in an interview that they probably wouldn't do that again, and that in the future, they'll just pretend like you did previous content if they want to make it relevant to MSQ. So I wouldn't be too surprised to see raid sidestories matter more in the future, maybe certain characters like Werlyt Man can be brought out of the shed and made MSQ-relevant again.
Big shoutout to FF2's original Pandaemonium, raised from the depths of hell.
(there's an entire rabbit hole about FF2's badguy and the chain of names that leads him to Lahabrea but the RUclips comments section is *not* the place for that)
Someone from the past CAN come to the future, but eventually they will go back to the past and play out their existence, which is heart wrenching if its Elidibus or Lahabrea who come through, have a few adventures with us and help us out, but then inevitably go to the past, to eventually be killed by our hands.
I wonder if we’ll wind up with a situation like from the Ivalice alliance raids. Playing with the memory crystals imparted something onto our friend the researchers.
2 words to describe P8s: Holy Shit
13:30 something about the way Mike said this made me realise (MAJOR SPOILER WARNING) - what if Lahabrea comes through and the version of himself that we fought stays behind in the past? It'd certainly explain his spiral downwards more, and the way he's described by the other Ascians we've met.
"Hythlodaddy"
Imma use that now.
Unless they make the raids mandatory like they did with the CT raids in ARR, then no characters from raids will ever appear in MSQ directly. This is due to them all being optional so anyone who doesn't do them wont be missing key parts of the MSQ
Could it be that we killed Lahabrea's clone at the end of Arr? Emet-Selch did mention that he gave into madness, but if he separated that part of himself into the clone then he couldn't have been able...
And the real Lahabrea is actually trapped inside Pandemonium...
Time will tell...
I am happy to see Swolebuncle a name I came up with independently, has become accepted as a nickname for the first boss.
In regard to the spoilers at the end of the raid story:
I think the scientist that upped and vanished at the start of this section of the story is to blame. I think he's brought Pandaemonium forward through time using similar tech to The Twinning.
When did Mike do Asphodelos? Can't find the vod for it.
Ive given up on predicting outcomes in ff14, however... since they usually tie up loose ends in the story pretty nicely, and we now have a kind of pathway for certain 3 ancients that went missing during a pretty big event, to well.. go missing.. Im pretty sure we will see fan-favourite ancient nr.2 added in the final set of the raid story.
Sadly, his friends story however is concluded, so Im equally sure we wont see him again.
The problem with time travel in 14 is that we have had two different versions of time travel. spoilers for those not done this.
Both the time travel incidents with going to Elpis and with Alexander have both been pre-destination. from the surviving Ascian's/Venat's point of view we turned up in Elpis, did everything there including helping with pandemonium then returned to our own time. from their point of view we did it, so we end up doing it. it's the same with Alexander where the lead gobbie had the book that told him what was going to happen and it did, along with the two Au Ra going back in time at the end to basically start up their own race (iirc).
however the Crystal Exharch has experience the type of time travel as described in avengers where the future he came from became his past and the changes he made to the present changed his future from what he remembered of his past. hence why he and the tower did not vanish after saving the 1st and us, like he expected to.
The Pandemonium in the aetherial sea was either always there just floating around, possible but unlikely, or some entity in our present was able to re-create it out of aether due to what was in one or both of those memory crystals we found, which I think is the more likely explanation. its not linked to the elpis in the past as we have determined that time that passes for the WoL in Elpis either also passes in time time period we came from or the time travel method is not accurate enough to return us to when we left and we end up up stream as it where. pretty sure its the former thou.
This their just gave a big answer to why Lahabrea acts like a madman. It's not his logical side that's in control, but his tainted emotional side whose in the driver seat.
It makes more sense as to why he spirals into madness from all that body jumping.
When I saw that castle where it shouldn't be I just said to my friend "oooooh we f'cked up"
Whats the pandaemonium castle in the elpis past doing in our present though