Where Dawntrail's variant dungeons might go (and why you should care)
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- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
- The fact Dawntrail's bringing us new variant dungeons is amazing news... perhaps to me, and only me. So in an attempt to make everyone else as excited as I am, I thought I'd do a video about what those dungeons might be--and the exact reasons why they'd fit this particular niche of content so well.
Section timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:16 - What makes a good variant dungeon?
9:08 - Gelmorra
13:58 - Abalathia's Spine/Golmore Jungle
17:26 - Ruins of the First
20:21 - Bozja
4:03 - Outro
Questions, suggestions, ways to convince me an Ishgard variant dungeon wouldn't be a major disappointment? Drop a comment here! You can find me on Twitter at / cleretic , or at Cohost at cohost.org/Cleretic/ (when I remember to use it), or on Bluesky (which I remember even less) at bsky.app/profile/cleretic.bsk...! - Ігри
My Variant pick: The old Garlean Republic Capitol Building. It gets specifically pointed out in the MSQ but never used for anything. Pre-Empire Garlemald is something we don't have enough lore on, they probably want to use the building again, and it's probably infested with haywire magitek. One of the Senators we've met would make a good non-combat guide.
I was kicking around an idea for a Garlemald variant dungeon; my idea was basically Garlean Area 51, but the capitol building is honestly probably more interesting provided you can rustle up some enemies for it. They kinda already used Nerva, though.
My pick for the guide was gonna be Jullus, though. I think he's the most center-stage face for a Garlean variant dungeon, you'd need a reason to NOT have him.
@@EinDose ... how about Maxima instead, totally not just because I'm still miffed Jullus basically completely stole the spotlight from him and Lucia. He's an actual non-combatant, too!
I feel that Ishgardian isnt lets find more about how more screwed up the Church was, but more about the time before the Dragonsong War got kicked off. None of the dragons ever really talk about it and none of the current time Ishgardians would have much of a clue as to how it was. There is various huge gate/doors in the Forelands that are in crannies that make you think they had to have been meant for something in early Heavensward planing stages. Then there is Ratatoskr who we hardly know about and we haven't had much interaction with any of her surviving children or grandchildren. Gulinbursti and Ehll Tou are the only ones we know anything about.
Ratatoskr is I think the biggest figure left in the story that we've never even seen a picture of, but I'd still want more spin on that ball. Like, maybe make it all Dravanian, as little Ishgard as possible.
Might also give room for some Ysayle lore.
I love the variant dungeons. It gives us the more exploration focused sized of dungeon gameplay that the leveling and patch content dungeons cast aside in favor of speed. Being able to go on adventures with NPCs you recognize (and sometimes like) and then piecing together details about the environment and clues in the log book is such a fun experience for me.
Gelmorra is much asked and I too would like to see it and the story around the relationship with the Duskwights and Elementals and whatever else needs to be unearthed about Gridania's history.
Though to be honest, I'm also a lil over everyone and their grandma asking for it.
As for NPCs for that, definitely one of the Seedseer siblings like Raya or A-Ruhn and Allie (the bodyguard lady from the WHM story)
I'm not really hoping for any specific thing they do for Variant, but I'm just as excited to do whatever comes down the pipeline.
I get being tired of people asking for Gelmorra stuff, but... well, the reason for that stems from us never getting any of it. It's not like Ishgard fans always wanting more Ishgard stuff; we've never got ANY Gelmorra stuff.
I was generally steering away from job quest NPCs for suggestions because I think the writers would too, but Allie would be a REALLY good pick for them.
I know we've had a couple dungeons and the SCH quests, but I can use a Nym variant dungeon. If another section of the city-state is revealed we could explore their relationship with the kobolds and sahagin tribes, see how the war of the magi was reflected in their culture, or explore how the plague affected the nation on a grander scale. The only thing we need is an NPC not tied to the SCH quest to join in. Maybe (Not) Mistbeard could be leading an expedition to open up new territory for the Sahagin or simply seeking out lost knowledge that can be useful for Limsa.
Aloalo has enough 'Scholar' in it that I feel like we wouldn't get a Nym one, but I certainly wouldn't turn it down, and focusing on more recent La Noscean history would be a great way to go.
I would honestly love you dedicating a few episodes to walking through the variants we have and examining what they confirmed and added. I'm biased and if you only do one, would love it on Aloalo Island, but also just go nuts.
I've commented before often my Lore-based love for Variants and where I'd want to go next, and to repeat: Gelmorra to give us Actual Gelmorran lore and some of the 1.0 plot hooks, plus the dungeon space architecture is already made for some of the routes and it could have a heavy foliage forest route for one path to explore the DT tech. Second is Norvrandt, specifically Voeburt (and lean into the German/Central European pre-Fae look to distinguish it from Ishgard) or Laxan (as the civilization on the First's version of Eorzea that we know least about but also the one that doesn't have a current Source counterpart except Revenant's Toll. Which is why Ahm Areng is disqualified- too much like Sil'dah). I'm eagerly awaiting EE III solely for the Pre-Flood Norvrandt lore. Third- Ala Mhigo needs more love. The Ziggurat or the Ark. Pull from the cut Tribal content that the Namazu ate into. Plus that region was done dirty by SB and like Gelmorra and Norvrandt the MSQ has no reason or interest in returning to but it is a locale heavily featured and loading-bearing. Bojza would be cool but the prerequisites are too high/not solely MSQ.
Now that I play a Hellguards that started in Gridania has nothing to do with my votes, I swear. (Also Hellguard's homeland or northern Islabard/pre Imperial Garlemald and their magic-wielding Roe neighbors. Golmore repeats Raktika and Tural's tropical jungle aesthetics; it's disqualified)
I do love the idea of doing an Ala Mhigan dungeon, especially since it'd be prime 'give Lyse something to do' material.
A variant dungeon I'd like to explore would be Nagxia. It's only acknowledged a few times in game and most of what we know of it is that it's basically ffxiv's version of Vietnam and was occupied by Garlemald for a time, so the dev team have a lot creative freedom with designing the dungeon. One path could focus on the remnants of the Garlean occupation force, another on the nation's guerrilla resistance fighters, and the third on its ancient culture. Slap on some Southeast Asian inspired glamour as a reward and I believe we got ourselves a banger.
Oh, I love this idea.
I think Variant Dungeons are a good way to explore regions and cultures in a context where the world or that culture *isn't* in mortal peril. We're always outside observers to a story that's already unfolded, and that's refreshing in a game where the player is so involved in the conflict of whatever place we visit as a necessity.
My only real gripe with them is that the current ones have very little relevance in terms of the active patch cycle they're a part of; something that i believe will change with dawntrail and their apparent shift in focus with how content is laid out as opposed to endwalker.
Personally though, i'd kill for just about any part of Ilsabard being used as the destination for a variant dungeon, it's my favorite region in-game because of just how dense all of the storytelling for it has been up to this point (barring maybe endwalker's garlemald portion being relatively brief).
My dream pick would be an exploration of Landis with Lyon serving as a guide, with one path focused on Landis's unification with Garlemald, one focused on Lyon's history and one focused on life in a conquered nation when rendered relatively stable; maybe even giving us a status report on the non-garlean sections of Ilsabard after endwalker.
But ofc, this is just a pipe dream because:
A) To have even learned about Landis or Lyon the player needs to have done the entirety of Ivalice, and at least some of Bozja, which is an absurd amount of side-content given that the current EW variants have no side-content requirement.
B) Not sure what enemies we could even fight there beyond more robots. But i can't imagine many players would be thrilled to be fighting more magitek units.
Gimme the Gelmorra variant dungeon!
As much as we've seen the pirates in Limsa, I feel like there's a lot that could be explored there. Would love to have a deep dive into some pirate themed exploration beyond Sastasha and Hullbreaker Isle.
PS: Side note, but I'm glad they didn't do the time travel thing. The Bozja Incident is too important an event to start messing around with time travel shenanigans.
I think there's ways it could've worked well, but yeah, Bozja's better how it is.
All the different content types for Dawntrail are really interesting to think about where they'll be set. Since the exploration zone will probably be the site of some huge event like the isle of val and bozja, and the lifestyle content is set to be probably abandoned planets, I'd love to see at least one variant dungeon that's tied to a living culture and the place they inhabit.
I’m 100% on board with all these picks.
I think Laxan and Bozja are my top choices from your picks. Iirc Tartarus, which was teased in the Ivalice raids, was meant to be the means by which we’d time travel for the Bozja storyline before it was changed. So we could still use that plot thread as the Gabranth’s people should still have access to it. Please come back to XIV Matsuno!
I’m not sure what variant I’d like, I just know I wanna go to Corvos which could be planned for some other side content in DT or the future from how much they talked about it in EW.
It's still so weird we heard so much about Corvos and then never went.
I'd personally hope for Corvos to get explored in a relic area or a full on raid/trial/ar series, but that might be too much of a retread of bozja/ivalice depending on what aesthetic they go for there.
Would be fun to get a noscean variant dungeon to explain the deal with nymeia/nym, the tonberry statues in thaleia, and provide a story justification for why this area has extraordinarily high level fish deep in the water
I feel like the role of a La Noscena variant dungeon is largely filled by Aloalo, but I certainly wouldn't turn down some way to answer some of those questions.
Would love a dravanian/ishgard/allagan variant that explores a few more areas of coerthas we haven't seen and backstory of being one of the great wyrms and there relationship with midgardsorm lol
I absolutely love this video, and I'd give a limb (not mine but yknow, someone's) for a Gelmorra variant dungeon! UA-cam or something has screwed up your timestamps, though; it's displaying the ones from your "Estinien = Heavensward" video.
Weird, I'll figure that out when I get home!
I think they should add Variants o the daily roulette, it would fix the interest and help us get more tomes, everyone happy :)
For Old Stuff, I share similar feelings about Gelmorra, and I guess, many people as well, as it often comes back in the comments.
I wouldn't mind to go there with Kan-E-Senna as her escort. She doesn't need to fight, just ligth the way, put some protection barrier, cleanse the thing, listen to elementals, push the darkness or whatever, ... but... we really need to fight the Toto-Rak :D and maybe some small corrupted elemental or something as well. I think the Underdark, oh, I mean, the Gelmorra, should be more exploited, as you said nicely, we only saw abandoned ruins/parts of it.
Btw: talking about Heavensward I would prefer to have Cait Sith than Aymeric
I guess he would be cooler guide if we could just bring him alone for the side-adventure :)
For Shadowbringers, I have the same sentiment to Ronkan Civilization, as to Gelmorran. Although it was used much already in the msq and duties and tribe quests, I would love to see more and learn more about characters like Tiuna and the Ronkan Emperor. Let's burn the last sin eaters nest hiding underground, fight some cool looking Ronkan golems, let's bring image of Tiuna to life or Emperor that look like an angry Kimahri. Those themes were always the most interesting for me in ShB, so of course, I want more :D
For New Stuff, I have only one wish.... bring us to Minion's Factory! :D :D Let's have some Funny bosses and weird lore and some inside jokes, too much darkness everywhere :)
Regards
The worry I'd have with adding variant dungeons to a roulette is that the community would immediately lock themselves into a 'right' way to do every one (regardless of if it's actually the best in any way), and only ever do that. So we'd just see one route, all the time.
Honestly after getting to do the first Variant with Nanamo I was flabbergasted that they didn't give us one for all of the three starting city states. When the first one was announced, I was so sure that it would be us finally getting to go to Gelmorra. I really liked A-ruhn-senna's inclusion in the EW story, and I would really like to see him in a variant dungeon.
Also I don't care how much Ishgardian lore we have, and get. I will always want more of it and more of the elf boyfriends. Gimme gimme more gimme more gimme gimme more.
I actually feel like everyone thought, after getting Sil'dih, the other two would be for the other city states! It just felt like such a natural pick. Aloalo is sorta that for Limsa in a roundabout way, though, and when we got Rokkon it really opened my eyes to the other stuff they could do with the format.
@@EinDose Yeah, absolutely! I am highly looking forward to where we'll go in the future! Loved your thoughts on it~ Great video!!!
Nyunkrepf's Hope for six umbral calamity stuff. i was also thinking about a haunted manor(or more like resident evil 1 stuff )but we already have haukke, other spoopy stuff and technicaly rokkon
A Resident Evil-style haunted/infested mansion of some kind would actually be a really fun one, and an aesthetic we haven't touched much. I'm just not sure where exactly you'd put it. Garlemald maybe, visit the Galvus Estate looking for clues?
This was a bit of a tough question considering I had to figure out what my favorite thing in this game was that needed expanding upon. Not gonna lie it was a tough thing to think about but then I got it.
How about we go World exploring with Meteion! I know that sounds wacky as hell but it would be
1. A great way to see what she’s been up to after the end of Endwalker.
2. Explore some of the planets and confirm how some of the planets may be healing post Final Days
3. Fill in more of the missing spaces of her message to Hermes.
As for what we’d be seeing is all up in the air but it would be a neat way to sort of have a variant dungeon as we’d be exploring different planets and environments with each path. That way it would be varied.
It’s all wishful thinking but miracles happen every day do they not?
I always kinda worry that going into full-on Space Adventures would be a bit of a shark-jump. ...but if you gave me an actual dungeon about the Nekropolis, I WOULD love it.
Going to Golmore with Fran as the NPC to find more Ultima lore to tie into the Pandaemonium story would be amazing. I have a feeling though that they may use one or more to flesh out the depth of the new world lore.
Also, we haven't done anything with the treasure islands in Othard's north" teased at the end of 6.0 yet. As a side note, I would like to know if there are more hidden Azem symbols in the other areas Emet mentioned like in the 6.1 dungeon. I'm guessing there are in each named location (giving the impression that he took the Azem crystal and went exploring for sentimental reasons.)
Queen of Gelmorran representation
I do like them, but I need to get better doing them more and learning the lore.
You can't have made up the phrase "Plot Meat" - I remember writing that for a Vampire book in the early 00's, so you're good there!
Knowing Vampire, I kinda suspect 'plot meat' to have a more literal definition in that context.
I would love a deep dive of the lore in variants!
A Mor Dhona variant could go through a lot of lost 1.0 lore, right?
They could do some stuff with a Mor Dhona variant, but I feel like if they wanted to, they would've done it in Eureka Orthos, right?
I don't know I kinda like Handcock. I can see very much why you didn't though. As for variants though I want the spine/Farreach. I play a Hellsguard from there and having to dance around the nature of that portal to hell as either a void gate, regular volcano, Allagan ruin, or something like the anti tower , drives me nuts. And that's to say nothing of "hone their magics through fire walking" and the constant orphaning mean on paper. I just feel like a culture devoted to living in the worst patch of Eorzea, by choice, is worth looking into. Also we could go there with Ocher Boulder or Midnight Dew.
I like Hancock too, but I feel like Rokkon goes beyond the Recommended Daily Intake of Hancock.
@@EinDose honestly that's fair. He makes a great "Uncle you see at Christmas, with other people" not great for road trips
As a certified hancock enjoyer, part of that enjoyment is disliking Hancock. He's just so smarmy! I love him even while I hate him, he's great!
thumbs up
I feel like The Northern Empty has some potential for a variant dungeon; sure, it's /empty/, but something could have survived. We could even plant the seeds for its recovery a la the Eden raids!
I think you mean the Burn. The Northern Empty is actually a sea!
@EinDose I do! It's been a while and that was a very small part of the story 😅
I literally cheered at bozja 2 it’s also my hyper fixation
Something feels undone about that storyline it’s more a pause than a definitive end
I love variants. Also, can you use that sword?
It's a foam sword, and it's a bit too big for my liking anyway, so it'd be a bit awkward.
Another thing for Bozja:
We'd get to see our QUEEEEEENS!!!!
(And maybe change history juuuust a little bit to save a few more Cat-Men and Cat-Women)
Where's the source for the cut bozja story? It seems really interesting but I've not been able to find the source for it anywhere...
A Famitsu interview from 2021. They were stunningly candid, actually, they never talk about canned ideas that much.
Can't stand the slander of my man Hancock, I fully believe his bad reputation comes almost entirely from his boss.He's otherwise a great character.
I mean, he's also got his own flavor of stupid going.
i love ur videos, but I am BEGGING pls stop putting scary background music I get scared to watch LOL
hard pass on Bojzan revisit, Matsuno , is far from my favorite SE writer, Bojza really insults the players intelligence in how it played out. I hope he never touches 14 again. Sorry. It's one of those either you love it or hate it, and me personally Matsuno falls in hate it.
It's fair that he's not something that grows on you, but I still feel like there's not much Matsuno content in this game, a Matsuno variant dungeon wouldn't feel like too much, especially with Endwalker between Bozja and it.
A lot of the things I don't like in this game are things I feel vastly outstayed their welcome, and I don't think Matsuno got anywhere near there in the ways that, say, Hildibrand and the Ancients have for me.
@@EinDose meanwhile it's Hildibrand that has kept me here for 10 years, that and Blizzard going full Evil. (At times I miss my old Warlock, but I get so much more out of 14.)