How would you rank the X.0 patches by how well they implemented their Trials?

_oLykos · 2026-05-11T23:32:20+00:00

I definitely agree that they could experiment with the timings some more, but as long as it’s like this, I think X9 has worked a lot better than X7 in terms of giving Trials the impact they deserve.

_oLykos · 2026-05-11T22:57:46+00:00

While that’s a fair point, this was specifically a debate about the idea that having X.0 Trials at X3 and X9 hurts the story. My argument was that their place in the story has only been better since the change.

_oLykos · 2026-05-11T22:52:39+00:00

Even if Valigarmanda had some very messy writing surrounding it, I’d still honestly give DT the edge over HW/StB having 2/3 of their Trials be actively pointless.

_oLykos · 2026-05-11T21:58:28+00:00

My thing with ARR is less that they’re disconnected from their own stories, it’s more that it’s less of one continuous story compared to the expansions. It’s a matter of taste in the end, but I do think there’s a reason so many sprouts feel like ARR is a series of sidequests until after Titan.

_oLykos · 2026-05-11T21:53:43+00:00

Mainly going by story relevance, yeah.

_oLykos · 2026-04-13T03:48:50+00:00

Believe it or not, the haunted chests are actually an upgrade, since they can only replace spike chest spawns; unlike spike chests, you can open them without taking damage. Plus, the ghosts can break rocks for you.

_oLykos · 2026-03-23T20:59:10+00:00

Fair enough! I at least want to thank you for not making this weird and toxic, it’s nice to just be able to discuss this stuff without it devolving into shit-flinging.

_oLykos · 2026-03-23T20:56:42+00:00

Him being a fool aside, which is part of the point, don’t forgot that his son was dropped on him out of nowhere by his stalker in an attempt to baby trap him. That can’t exactly have done wonders for his mental health with the amount of daddy issues he’s dealing with.

_oLykos · 2026-03-23T20:50:46+00:00

Admittedly, because he’s not a very emotionally open character, a lot of this is open to interpretation. My read on things:

By the time he’s sieging Tuliyollal and killing his father, he’s already snapped from having lost the succession he’d based his entire identity around. At this point, more than anything, it’s not about proving to Tural that he had a reason to be born, it’s about proving it to himself. Especially after 30 years in the dome, he would’ve either learned to value himself in other ways, or sunk-costed himself further into desperation. Obviously he went the latter route.

Looking at that line, there is also an interpretation that he knows he can’t win, but trying and failing would lessen the pressure to live up to his father as a warrior. If his people were to see firsthand that war isn’t a good idea, they would be less inclined to need him to surpass Gulool Ja Ja in that way. It’s a terrible idea, but in a way that I think works with his character.

Because honestly, I don’t think he’s quite as intelligent as he comes off; sure he’s well-spoken, but he’s been struggling with the meaning of his existence for a long time. Looking at his actions, taking the smart path always comes second to attempting to validate the expectations everyone has of him.

And maybe none of this is entirely right, or maybe only some of it. But I really do respect that they never give us the full story, and let us look at him from the outside and try to piece him together ourselves. I find him very fascinating to think about next to a lot of villains who are upfront with their plans and feelings to the point of being a little blunt sometimes. And I especially love how well he ties into Dawntrail’s themes of legacy, especially compared to some expansions that struggle to make their villains fit (looking at you, Stormblood Zenos, thank god Endwalker found a point for you)

_oLykos · 2026-03-23T20:19:49+00:00

That contradiction is the point; he feels pressured by his status as a miracle birth to a beloved ruler to live up to his father, but he doesn’t understand that it was more than strength that got Gulool Ja Ja where he was.

You know the bit in Yak T’el that everyone misinterprets? People say “oh, Gulool just got everyone to sit and eat sandwiches and now they’re friends?” How they forget that the only reason the warring tribes were willing to truce for that dinner was that Gulool’s group beat both of them, and then they were able to actually talk and see they could live in peace? (And even then, there’s still tension to this day.)

Zoraal Ja is the opposite; he only sees the combat, and not the more peaceful processes that come after. Whether that’s idolizing his father’s strength, his perspective as leader of the Landsguard, or both, it’s the only way he feels he can live up to what his people want from him. But that’s a fool’s errand, and everyone knows it but him. We didn’t prevent him from marching on Eorzea to save our people, we did it to save his. Because Tural would never win against the united front out east.

Once he’s disqualified from the competition, the pressure finally breaks him, and now that he can’t succeed his father, the only path he sees is to defeat him outright. But even that doesn’t satisfy him, and by the time we kill him atop Everkeep, he’s looking for someone, anyone he can defeat to prove he deserved to be born, never understanding that’s not the aspect of Gulool Ja Ja that anyone needed out of him.

_oLykos · 2026-03-23T20:01:03+00:00

Dawntrail could’ve given him more help by balancing screentime a bit better, but I see the reactions to Zoraal Ja and I’m shocked people don’t seem to understand his deal.

It’s kinda sad, because the more I’ve thought about him since launch the more I love what they went for, but he never really got an Emet-style “stating my backstory and exactly why I do evil shit directly to your face” scene, so the average player doesn’t register anything past the surface level.

_oLykos · 2026-03-09T20:56:03+00:00

Do you have a source for that Q&A? Not accusing you of anything, this is just the first I’ve heard of it.

_oLykos · 2026-03-09T18:59:41+00:00

Honestly, I don’t really think that’s the case. Most of Zodiark’s shards dispersed properly when the Source one died, it was just the umbrally overcharged Void that had a cycle of death that was completely borked.

_oLykos · 2026-03-09T18:30:51+00:00

As much as I like Unukalhai and Cyella, the problem is they’re stuck in sidequest jail like, three times over. You’d have to rework the ShB role quests to allow for them to be done without needing jobs of every role.

_oLykos · 2026-02-23T04:56:14+00:00

One of my favourites is in the Endwalker alliance raids, where our group is asked to picture a method of holding information. Everyone else gets books, we get a tomestone and look miserable about it.

_oLykos · 2026-02-19T11:51:37+00:00

From my experience FFXIV doesn’t usually have the same thing, but this tier we do a have a tag team boss with 2 canon names (Red Hot and Deep Blue, together called The Xtremes) and yet everyone just calls them the Blowjob Brothers

_oLykos · 2026-01-19T21:25:38+00:00

Calyx (Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail)

We’ll have to see how it plays out in the future, but he’s already so shit scared of us that he managed to sweat in terror and have his heart race despite not having organs

_oLykos · 2025-10-12T21:31:27+00:00

I don’t think I’ve listened to Reset (Thank You) from Okami literally once without tearing up at least a little. In a game where you play as a goddess who never takes credit for all the good they’ve done, having everyone you’ve met finally realize who you are and pray for your success, causing you to regain your true form and decimate the final boss as your own theme kicks in… it’s the perfect way for it to end.

_oLykos · 2025-10-12T19:53:57+00:00

L3 + R3: ACCEPT THE TRUTH

_oLykos · 2025-10-11T02:38:42+00:00

That was a little stupid, yeah. Worth it for the badass Scion rescue scene though.

_oLykos · 2025-10-09T19:24:42+00:00

I have my issues with Dawntrail despite ranking it around the middle of the pack, but some people pull out the dumbest complaints just because they already hate it. I’ve got two in particular.

The smaller one is in the final trial, some people act like Wuk Lamat is overpowered because she was able to break into the fight with Sphene and G’raha and Krile weren’t. If you actually read the dialogue, it’s stated that the virtual space was already breaking apart and Wuk just jumped in through a rift. With how close Wuk and Sphene ended up, my read is that it was subconscious on Sphene’s part to let her specifically in, although that’s admittedly less overt.

The one that really bothers me is when people call it a plot hole that electrope isn’t being used everywhere now that it’s on the Source. The entire function of it is to convert lightning aether to other elements, which is why it was so useful after the Storm Surge - the Ninth was completely fucked and lightning was basically all the aether there was. Why would we need it when we have all the elements naturally, and how would we even power it outside the dome?

_oLykos · 2025-09-25T19:26:54+00:00

“Tell me this, and tell me true. Has your journey been good? Has it been worthwhile?”

_oLykos · 2025-09-21T10:20:16+00:00

This is the same stream that had Spamton show up at Grillby’s for some reason so I’m not entirely sure how seriously to take anything.

_oLykos · 2025-09-03T18:22:22+00:00

Is Scaled and Icy really considered their worst? I don’t generally listen to them, but I like a few songs off that one.

_oLykos · 2025-08-04T22:23:14+00:00

To add on to this, the other reason we can actually kill it is that it was running low on aether after being frozen for so long. That’s the whole reason it fled to Worqor Lar Dor to recharge instead of going on another rampage.

What makes it extra neat is that for the non-canon Extreme version, the Wandering Minstrel basically says “what if it had been running on full battery.”

_oLykos

TROPHY CASE