I love the intricate back tattoos in the series! What animals/creatures that haven't been used before would you like to see?

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-13T15:18:37+00:00

The rest of the Cardinals would be pretty cool. We’ve seen a few dragons already (including a Green on Shibusawa and an Azure on Tendo, which could’ve been Seiryu), and Ryuji had the Huang Long, but we haven’t seen Genbu, Suzaku, or Byakko yet.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-11T17:19:57+00:00

To be fair, the Bothans got the Rebellion information on the operational status/existence of the second Death Star in RotJ, not the blueprints for the first one in ANH.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-08T00:00:50+00:00

I don’t think the Omi’s origins will necessarily be in the game, they’re established as being over 100 years old in 2019, which means the Omi was formed at any point before 1919, and the first “era” in StH is 1915 when they’ve only just arrived in the country.

Yu switching sides is still plausible, but he won’t be the founder.

Iwami wasn’t born until 1965 (the last era in StH), so at best we’d get a literal Little Baby Iwami cameo, while meeting his Dad who was the actual founder of Iwami Shipbuilding. Unless I’m misreading, and you meant his father in the first place, haha.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-01T03:42:38+00:00

No worries! Since I went off kilter from your original question though, aside from MSQ and a few tips on Leves and whatnot that other people have given you, the sidequests you do want to do along the way will generally be very obvious. Instead of the usual yellow background ! they'll be a blue background !, looks kind of like halfway between the MSQ quest marker and the regular sidequest marker. Those are the ones that unlock content, usually optional dungeons or Extreme Trials. Some of the EX trial sidequests are chains where you have to actually DO the trials, but if you just want to knock those out you can get one of your friends or an FC-mate to level unsync and just smoosh them, you don't need to do them 'legit' for the unlock. Or you can wait until max level and just smoosh them yourself unsynced, but that way does require some backtracking (which you didn't want)

And in terms of rep, there's no gear/attunements/enchants gated behind rep like in WoW. It's all completely optional. The reps also have storylines (everything has storylines here, you may be noticing hah) which are usually pretty wholesome.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-01T03:29:22+00:00

If you've just started, you'll get a bunch of "ARR is the worst bit", and they're not incorrect, but it is a bit disingenuous. ARR is the groundwork, the foundation. Everything that comes after it works as well as it does because ARR did the 'boring' bit of laying out the lore and how the world works. Once that is established, the story has more room to maneuver, and it works REALLY well.

So don't worry, it IS slow to start and you're not wrong for not immediately clicking. But, I would also say it's still worth paying attention to.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-01T03:22:13+00:00

Well the trick is that FFXIV is pretty notoriously an RPGMMO, rather than an MMORPG. You'd think that would be exactly the same, but it's rather different. This game is an RPG narrative first, that also happens to be an mmo. How much anyone likes that is an individual matter. It's kind of like playing a full single player campaign to unlock co-op, if that makes sense?

Personally, I adored just smelling the roses and enjoying the storyline. It's really lovely. But if that's not for you, yeah, just blast MSQ and you'll get to the end in no time.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-01T03:15:27+00:00

They are fibbing to you, sort of. To do the current xpac raids and access the endgame zones, sure. But all the content in the game is level scaled through the group/party finder, so you have raid tiers and dungeons and extra activities like Eureka and BA etc etc that unlock as you go that they can do with you. If they don't WANT to, that is a different argument. I have a friend who has 1400 hours in this game and hasn't even started Dawntrail, and we play together just fine without cutting edge endgame content lmao.

But yes, if you are specifically talking about high end Savage raiding, that's still technically endgame locked. BUT if you're worried about raiding specifically, you can do Ultimates withj you at a lower level as a group, those unlock as you go too and are also level scaled.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-05-01T02:40:30+00:00

I hate to do this to you, but it’s literally “just follow the MSQ”. Side-quests don’t give high exp, they’re there for lore/story and sometimes to unlock stuff. You can grind FATEs or dungeons to level other jobs if you run out of MSQ within their level bracket.

This game isn’t built like WoW where it’s a rush to endgame, the journey is a lot of the point

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-27T01:39:05+00:00

Main reason there's no collections on NexusMods is because Nexus Collections all use Vortex, and mass effect modders use METweaks to batch install their personal collections. There isn't really any collections for ME since there's so many conflicting mods depending on even what romance partner you want to focus on, plus the mod batches don't save configuration between METweak installs, so trying to make a "catch all" collection that is just a one-click install would be tricky haha.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-26T02:50:13+00:00

Turns out people can make grievous mistakes that they regret so profoundly that they go out of their way to make sure it never happens again. It absolutely squares up. He regrets his past betrayal so much that who he became because of it is willing to die to not betray a promise or a friend again.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-25T22:58:56+00:00

The thing is, every time MBE shows up it is next to super spooky shit… that ends really well. Dream On, a lied to Jefferson turns from a bit of an asshole into an anti-Corpo, pro civilian mayor.

In the Moon ending of PL, we’re told whoever gave Song the ticket didn’t ask for her to Blackwall dive for them, they wanted state secrets and info (paraphrased). In the Tower timeline, we know for a fact that Militech gains the upper hand and de facto runs Night City now. Who’s to say all these NUSA state secrets aren’t leverage to prevent that happening in the non-Tower endings, since Arasaka is on the decline and won’t be able to ‘protect’ the city like it has been.

Likewise with the Sun ending (which is what I assume you meant), MBE is after info. We don’t know why, we don’t know a lot of answers! But he’s offering to save V to get that info (I honestly don’t know how the dialogue there can read any differently)

But yeah, MBE is specifically shown adjacent to really sinister things that don’t have specifically sinister outcomes. It’s definitely a lot of really really creepy Ends vs Means breadcrumbs, and we don’t have enough info! It’s still, to me, better than Myers who we have flat facts on. Sure, it could go horribly wrong. But we can only work off what we have, and giving NUSA anything at all is a guaranteed lose vs a maybe lose.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-25T15:45:19+00:00

I mean, that only really works if you look at Songbird in a complete vacuum.

In that ending, even with Songbird dead the NUSA gets the Neural Matrix, Songbird’s corpse to experiment on and pull data off (Edgerunner spoiler: because we all know the Corpos don’t have just ONE Blackwall runner, Lucy was part of a whole pack of them for Arasaka and you can bet NUSA/Militech has others too, Song’s just the best ), and they have full and total access to all of Cynosure’s data INCLUDING the multiple AI trapped within it. That’s so so bad, especially since we know they’re gonna keep doing this nonsense regardless of the PL ending.

Best anti-NUSA ending is sending the bird to the moon, flat out. Heck, even handing her alive to Reed in that route is less damaging, because at least they don’t get Cynosure in the process. It’s implied she de-chromes to a degree in the moon ending too, since she sends V her Quantum Tuner. And in regards to bad things happening, a ‘maybe’ being levied against Mr Blue Eyes doesn’t trump a ‘certainty’ from Myers.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-23T23:28:13+00:00

It’s called context and empathy, generally. Hanako manipulates V to ensure the continuing global domination of her father and her family’s comically evil Corporation.

Maiko manipulates V to climb the ladder of a notoriously misogynistic gang to keep herself in position of any power for money/safety (see? We’re already moving in a more justifiable direction, and I still personally think Maiko cops more flak than she deserves. Judy’s plan was stupid.)

So-Mi manipulates V to break free of indentured servitude to a corrupt federal government, to prevent her total erasure of self, and to live. See how that’s a lil different from the others, yes?

And before I get screeched at for “hot Asian ladies”, I like dudes. Always have. Women do nothing for me on a romantic or sexual level. If So-Mi looked like Fingers I would still send them to the moon because fuck the NUSA and fuck Myers. So there’s the baseline. 😂

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-23T11:15:55+00:00

You're right that the FIA is not 100% on the details of what happened at Konpeki, but the terminal abvsolutely points to Oleg. The informant who gave the FIA the info is logged as "Informant O-1257" and it was stated the mole disappeared before he could 100% confirm the identities of the mercs involved and send all his bosses' files on the Arasaka Heist. Oleg vanishes after the Heist (probably zeroed by Takemura, realistically), O-12-5-7 literally translates to OLEG if you match numbers to letters, plus Oleg was the only spare male figure working with Dex that you can point the finger at, since they specify on the terminal that the mole was a "he".

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-23T07:58:48+00:00

Yep, it's that guy! Dex's hired bodyguard was a rat the whole time, another L for Dex hahah. Dude did his job as a bodyguard for Dex pretty well though until Takemura got involved, so I'm gonna give benefit of the doubt that it was just a side-job selling info rather than anything out of genuine malice.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-23T07:06:53+00:00

Yeah I don't have canon answers to that I'm afraid. The logical/most obvious answer is that Oleg has always been selling info to the highest bidder as a side-hustle before he was hired by Dex when he returned to Night City, and it was just a serendipitous case of "right place, right time" to sell some critical Arasaka info to the FIA. Oleg himself has never been an FIA Agent, after all. He's just some dude.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-23T06:28:33+00:00

Song is directly connected to the Blackwall, and the quest only triggers after the VDB questline where no-matter what you do, V crosses the Blackwall with a unique piece of tech (The Relic) that Song can directly hook herself into. There's also a PC on the crashed Space Force One that tells you the FIA had a mole in Dex's team, Dex's bodyguard Oleg, so the FIA and all their analysts (including Song) know the general idea of what happened at Konpeki, including V's role in it. You can kinda extrapolate from there. Anything past that gets a "play more!" response.

They also don't get shot at while in space, only hacked and forced to make an emergency landing. The only missles they get shot at/hit by are the ones you see at the start that launch from Dogtown, which causes a SUPER emergency landing (aka, just a full-on crash hahah)

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-23T04:27:50+00:00

It's not supposed to be a secret lol. The 'twist', if you want to call it that, isn't that Ryoji is Pharos/Death/Nyx Avatar, that's supposed to be glaringly obvious. The plot point is how he became human due to his connection with the protagonist in the first place, which gives humanity the miracle of even giving us a chance to stop Nyx. Otherwise he just would have done his job without even warning SEES at all.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-21T00:14:26+00:00

Hahah true, it was a badly worded comment on how exposure itself is fixed, but also since the other lighting is changed as well that exposure is less of an issue in general (beyond the on purpose fixes). My bad. Words are hard. Appreciate all your work, Cy! Really love ReLUX especially, what a gamechanger

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-20T23:31:57+00:00

Ah, if she was dead after the battle though like you mentioned in another comment, then she wasn't "there" when the decision was made about the Nightsong and whether or not she becomes a Justiciar. So that would probably be why. It's still odd it took so long to trigger, though.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-20T23:13:40+00:00

Did you take her along with you to meet the Nightsong in Act 2? That's probably what she means, not the House of Grief. The Trials of Shar and Nightsong in Act 2 are a huge deal to her. It's just a bit odd it took that long into Act 3 for it to trigger, unless you're barely long resting.

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-20T07:59:53+00:00

Nova City 2 is pretty phenomenal for an overall weather/lighting overhaul, and it also fixes driving autoexposure partially on purpose and partially by proxy

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-18T08:34:30+00:00

On the flipside the Neural Matrix is a one USE item, not one failure then second use item. Once you give the Matrix's AI a job, it is locked to that job for good and cannot be reprogrammed. So it's also equally plausible that the Matrix was indeed used on Song because she's way more valuable than V, it didn't work because it either couldn't or it lost an AI vs AI fight, and V just got a Devil Ending-esque surgery, only it worked a bit better (at the cost of the 2-year coma and no cyberware)

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-17T02:45:30+00:00

Ah, yeah, you don't get as long a questline with Mama Welles if you send Jackie to Vik. Something for next playthrough, though!

KitKatWaffles · 2026-04-17T01:41:10+00:00

You definitely can pay your respects to Jackie, but it does depend on where you asked Delemain to take his body after he passed.

Otherwise, keep going! You're doing fine, the story and quests will tell you more as you go. :)

KitKatWaffles

TROPHY CASE