Preamble

Hello this is a topic I just find fun to think about, so I wanted to write it down! I will be going through Summoner lore itself expansion by expansion, but I will invoke lore from future expansions if it clarifies/strengthens my interpretation of a prior expansions' lore.

So spoilers freely abound you have been warned!

That being said let's get to my nerd ramblings.

The beginning-Arcanist and Summoner relation

-Summoner is one of the two offshoot Jobs from the base class of Arcanist (whose magic is called Arcanima). Though the Summoner magick tradition doesn't have a direct continuity with it the same way Scholar and Arcanist are shown to have in the Aloalo lore, they do use similar glyph and math-based techniques, as evidenced by Ruin 3 also being used by "The Lala" boss in Aloalo.

-Modern day Arcanists prefer to create their familiars' using gemstones as the focus in the familiars' creation, the Carbuncles (this will be relevant six expansions from now.)

ARR direct evidence- When things were simple and straightforward

-Summoning Magick was created by the Allagan Empire to fight primals

-When a primal dies, it disperses its "essence" to those nearby, that essence can then be used by a skilled enough mage to create an egi-familar. Thus does a Summoner need to be someone who was at the defeat of a primal

-Creating an egi requires travel to a land saturated with the right kind of aether to align the Summoners body with that aether, for example being in the Sagoli desert to align one's aether to fire.

-The egi created does not in any other way require a physical focus

-The created Egi must be battled to be commanded, similar to other powerful familiars like the mother porxie of all things.

-Summoner is the only job quest in where there is a direct ascian or even implied ascian involvement.

ARR analysis

-Summoner's magick lore is quite straightforward, kill primals to gain the ability to summon Egi's. It will not stay that way, but even now there are a few points of note.

-What exactly a primal's 'essence' is will be easier to clarify with evidence later, but it is an important note.

-Egi's being the only modern familiar creation that does not need a physical focus is actually incredibly important. Carby's need gemstones, porxies need water and clay, Silkie was made from a broom, even the scholars jobstone probably counts for the fairies. I'd say that the necessity of a physical object when making familiars is the key distinguishing trait between modern magick and creation magick. Why Summoner does not require that will be easier to theorize on later.

-The presence of ascians in the summoner job quest, does carry the implication that the study of it could lead to secrets the ascians may not want mortals to know, hold that thought for later.

Heavensward direct evidence- Things don't change much

-There is a limit to how many Egi's a mortal summoner can have, after that limit is reached the ritual simply won't work.

-To circumvent that limitation, Summoner's can perform a ritual to acquire a trance, a state that uses the primals power to strengthen the summoner instead of creating a servant.

-Carteneau is chosen as the location for the ritual as it is an area washed with specifically Bahamut's aether.

-A lower Ascian serves as the main antagonist of the questline

Heavenward analysis

-There's not much to say about the Heavenward lore on its own, it's quite self-explanatory. But the continued importance of Ascians, and the idea of Summoners utilizing a specific entity's aether (instead of a more general fire, water, etc), will both be important to my theorizes on the next expansions lore.

Stormblood direct evidence- Lorebombs galore and none of it is really explained

-In exactly 1 solo instance you fight "demi-wyverns" and these wyverns are described as "not being egi" this is the only time Demis are described in game. Those Wyverns were summoned with summon magic

- As time went on, Allagan summoners transitioned from using books to technology as their foci for magic, culminating in master Sari creating an ai summoning machine that did not suffer any limitations on how many egi it could make.

-Said machine made an Egi of master Sari, a normal person, after he killed himself near it. And plans to make an egi of the Wol by killing them.

-The capstone of the questline gives the wol the peak of Allagan summoner knowledge, which goes undescribed in text. In every expansion up to present day, this unlocked access to Demi-Bahamut

-Ultima summons "demi" versions of the alliance raid bosses, which pop in to do an attack and then disappear. She also has a connection with ancient Allag

Stormblood analysis

-Stormblood fundamentally changes the concept of what a summoner even is, and does so casually without real elaboration, but it also doesn't call out the machine as breaking the usual rules of summoning besides the egi limit.

-Therefore, due to distinctly non-primal wyverns and people being eligible to be demis and egis, that summoning magick is actually not restricted to primals at all.

-Instead it appears that whenever ANYTHING dies in the ffxiv verse, that thing will stain the surrounding area with its aether. And those stains contain a blueprint, or concept if you will, of that creature that summoning magic can then use to conjure a servant copy of it.

-Given the egi limit, it seems that this knowledge was only passed down to the most powerful summoners, as it was simply more efficient to use primals for limited egi slots instead of random people for instance. Therefore, I'd posit that the "ultimate knowledge" the Wol gains in the final Stormblood quest is both this knowledge, and the knowledge on how to make Demi's.

-As for how Demi's work, my interpretation is mostly based on game mechanics on Stormbloods release, boosted by Ultima summons working similarly. Demi's use that same 'concept' of the creature and a lot of specific aether compatible with it, to create a temporary summon instead of the permeant servants that egis are. (This also lined up with how demis vs egis worked in game till endwalker)

-Perhaps Utlimas interacts with Allagans is how the top summoners figured this out?

Shadowbringers direct evidence- No more job quests, should be shorter

-Phoenix trance and Dem-Pheonix are things.

-Primals are specifically called during msq as being the closest thing in the modern day to creation magic

Shadow bringers analysis

-A thought that occurred to me prior to thinking about summoner magick more deeply "If primals are just creation magic, which can make anything, what unique about them allows them to be used for making summoner summons?" this could be a plot hole- Untill I remembered the reveals in the level 70 job that there is in fact nothing fundamentally unique about them, anything can be used for summoner summon. Primals are just strong candidates

-The Summoner jobs closeness to creation magick might also help explain why the ascians were particularly interested in stopping the wol from gaining more knowledge in it.

Endwalker and Dawntrail evidence

-the gemstone primals are summonable

-Game mechanics change to involve personally using the power of the primals for all summons

-The Lopporits specifically describe primals as being creation magick that replace requiring concepts with fervent belief, with a touch of intentional ascian sabotage around tempering

-Solar-Bahamut is a thing

Endwalker and Dawntrail analysis

-First off I'd say the Lopportis description of how primals work i think lends credence to my interpretation. Primal summoning substitues concepts with faith, Summoner substitutes concepts with the 'blueprint' the things that have died leave on your aether.

-For the gemstone primals (Ruby Ifrit, etc) I'd say this is an instance of the wol using modern day arcanima to augment their summoning. Summoning a ruby carby involves flowing aether into an actual ruby, So summoning a Ruby Ifrit likely involves flowing Ifrit-Egi's aether into a physical Ruby. Lorewise, outside of present game mechanics, this would likely mean the wol could permanently have an ifrit or Titan walking around with them if they wanted.

-And Solar-Bahamut........Look it's a new model so, like the machinist's machines got in the last lore book, it will probably be described more in the encyclopedia eorzea that comes out after Evercold. I have headcanons but they're based in nothing even vaguely established in actual cannon.

Conclusions

I think I've made a very fair case for Allagan summoning actually being creation magick just limited to things you've killed before, and that fact means it's actually an art with use in the modern of the ffxiv world even if primal summoning goes extinct. Primals are conveniently powerful, and also clearly elementally aspected, creatures that are can be around to die multiple times- That makes them the ideal targets for Allagan summoning.

BUT they're not only options, as long as the world faces powerful entities strongly aspected to an element that means summoners still have a use case. For instance, as long as strong voidsent remain a threat? Seems like a source Egis in the making to me.

And the thought occurs that Tural has a perpetual problem of powerful animals beefing with people, seem like the prime spot for a school of summoners to turn the power of defeated foes for the common good. Which is in fact a head cannon of something my Wol canonically does now

TLDR- HOLLY YAP

Summoners use creation magick, but it's limited to guys they have killed before. Therefore, the Wol should get Alphy to lock in and create Emet-Selch-egi thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Title!

Hello everyone in the FFXIV community, ive been looking for an MMO to fill the gap in my gaming time (sometimes you just wanna play a game and chill yknow), i have played MMO's before, i played WoW for a very long time. I know literally NOTHING about ffxiv, but ive heard good things! No entirely specific questions here, just asking what are some things i should know and especially what are some things you wish YOU knew when you started playing? Thanks a lot you guys!

Quick question, if i wanted to hire 7 people to help me get a EX mount by paying Gil, can I post this is trials tab of PF or is that not allowed?

So I came back recently and I would like to unlock FRU and give it a shot, but I didn't do the second tier of savage since I was on a break, I know generally in the same expac you still have to do most mechanics but the ilvl difference usually makes DPS checks easier, so how does m8s hold on that aspect?

Edit: don't know why I thought it was 8S my bad, thanks for the answers

They won't let you join if you've never cleared an ult before but like... this fight has pretty much been solved since week 1 with strategies compiled by our own 9th men and women. Then there's the sims. Its all just a matter of repeating stuff til it becomes second nature. Like the difficulty has been reduced so much because of this but these ulti-raiders wanna act like you can't follow directions or something lmao.

I was p4 fresh-ish and there was this p3 enrage party I applied to cuz I liked their sched and the prog points were pretty close. The person I was dming with said no cuz I haven't cleared an ult yet at that time. I was so weirded out. I've already cleared now though on healer.

Anyone here have a similar elitist mindset? Would like to read your pov.

Hey FFXIV community. I would like to share my views on the current dungeon system FFXIV has to offer, especially from a Healer perspective. My point here is to give feedback for further improvement of the system. I apologize in advance if I make any grammatical errors, I'm Brazilian :)

First, I wanted to say I'm coming from a variety of MMORPGs and MMOs. I played World of Warcraft (WoW), Guild Wars 2 (GW2), Lost Ark, Runescape, Maplestory, Ragnarok, Elder Scrolls Online and others.

When I think of the most fun I had playing a dungeon in a MMORPG I often think of WoW, probably because of the non-linear design it has and the challenges it offers. I love to hear at the end of the dungeon, "GG Heal", "thx for carrying heals," and "great heals". THIS is the kind of excitement and satisfaction I seek when playing as a Healer [even if I don't get a great loot/BIS, those comments make the run worth it]. Do you know when you get 4 - 5 commendations in a Raid for saving the whole group when things got messy? When that happens you know, you, as a Healer, were relevant for the group to succeed.

But unfortunately, this kind of satisfaction as a Healer in dungeons in FFXIV is pretty much lacking, as we are rarely required for the success of dungeons, especially in roullete dungeons - which is FFXIV main product for Dungeons.

So, what are the actual problems for Healers in FFXIV in a dungeon setup that prevent us from feeling rewarded/needed?

1. Damage Pattern. I think this is the most obvious problem. We are often not needed to heal twice after a damage event comes up, or when it comes up we have a pretty long window to heal until the next big damage. Most of the time when the damage happens, it lowers the HP bars to approximately 40-50%, which is not a lot. Healers can then just spend a single GCD heal or not spend GCDs at all and use oGCDs to heal while keeping DPSing.

2. AOE Unavoidable Damage. It is very rare to find AOE unavoidable damage during packs of mobs that would require more than 2-3 GCD heals. There are very few dungeons in FFXIV that actually have them, and the ones that DO have them, I get so much excitement, but unfortunately they don't represent a real threat to the group; you can just use a GCD heal one single time, and the group wouldn't die if you don't spend anymore heals. Even for the most unused player with the role, that is a very, very low healing requirement for a Healer with a bunch of GCDs/oGCDs in his toolkits.

3. Different kinds of damage combination. Think of Ticking damage, for example; this one should be a lot more present in FFXIV, especially since we, as Healers, have a bunch of Healing Over Time GCDs/oGCDs. It just doesn't make sense we have those buttons if we get so few opportunities that they would actually shine. They could combine AOE unavoidable damage with ticking damage to make Healers actually use GCDs with oGCDs, that would be awesome! Even in Raids I can't remember any damage events that would combine AOE unavoidable damage with ticking damage - it probably must have, but it is definitely an exception. This kind of damage pattern is very common in WoWfor Healers in a M+ setup, for example, every boss encounter has this kind of blend of burst damage + ticking damage, and it is VERY rewarding to heal them as a Healer, because if you don't deal with ticking damage, your group may wipe, so you are actually needed.

4. Casts of enemies don't represent a real threat to the group. This is also a very common thing in WoW, and the DPS are pretty much used to observing enemies casts and using their tools to stop it. This is great because you make the group work as a whole, not just separate functions, so DPS "help" Healers, and of course, AOE unavoidable damage should come despite these so when DPS doesn't use their tools, Healers are heavely needed - If the healer manages to have a quick reaction, they may save the group - which is very rewarding. I don't think this should be in every kind of pack, but it would be nice to have at least 1-2 packs that COULD represent a real challenge if the tools are not used.

5. Esuna is a GCD. Why is that? I can't think of any good reason Esuna should be a GCD. You already have so few moments you do need to use it. Esuna being a GCD makes it an even worse button to press, and besides that, most of the time when Healers do use Esuna that wouldn't make any difference for the person that had the debuff - lack of a threat.

6. Creativity. Ways to use the tools we currently have. I don't know, think of a BIG enemy while you are running through the next pack of mobs that would just completely wipe the whole group, but you could put it to sleep and just pass it normally/avoid it so the tank would wait for the healer to put it to sleep... This is just an example, but there are some old dungeons in FFXIV that have spikes and rocks that you need to avoid; otherwise, you fall and die, and every time I see this dungeon, I smile. Why are old dungeons so much more creative/interactive than the current ones?

DESIGN AS A WHOLE - The current formulaic design of 2 packs of enemies and 1 boss, and then repeating the same pattern over and over again in every kind of dungeon, NEEDS TO STOP. This makes the beautiful dungeons you are currently developing feel like they are just there to be completed for the MSQ and actually not made for any kind of replayability; they are not unique in paths or number of enemies, and they are not memorable because of this choice of design. Some old past dungeons from level 50 were not like these, for example. Tanks could gather more than 2 packs of mobs, and they could even choose not to pull some of them - which is pretty cool.

BOSS DESIGN ENCOUNTER - In Dawntrial, boss encounters in dungeons got better; some of them feel somewhat challenging, which is great - but most of them just don't have any kind of healing requirements/healing checks.

It's time for FFXIV to stop treating its players as if we're incapable of dealing with frustration, because without it, the sense of accomplishment doesn't come and the fun ends up being compromised. That said, moments of frustration can occur normally in a dungeon environment, and are even desirable at an appropriate level. Normal Raids are so much more challenging in the game compared to dungeons and people still DO clear them, even the most recent ones (level 100 normal Raids/Trials).

FFXIV also already has a DUTY SUPPORT for most dungeons, so you wouldn't keep people from progressing in the MSQ - I heard this argument a few times, and it doesn't make any sense when the game has a system for those who are absolutely not familiar with games as a whole. So let the ones who are less skilled/unfamiliar with games do the Duty Support and let the ones that appreciate MMORPGs to have actual FUN with a more engaging combat in the main product of a dungeon in FFXIV - which is roulette Dungeons.

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I also would like to share my experience and suggestions after playing the other kinds of modes for Dungeons - Deep Dungeon; Criterion/Savage Criterion, and the likes.

First, the music and the environment of these modes are pretty nice, especially the soundtracks for the current Deep Dungeon [Pilgrim's Traverse]. I think it's right on track. I pretty much appreciate the remix soundtracks; they are great.

I also think around floors 70-80 and 80-90 is when things started to get a lot more interesting for me at least, with luring traps of enemies that represent real threats when not dodged; and the group also starts to walk the floors together instead of splitting in the early ones. The enemies are tankier, and you choose with more care which ones to aggro/not aggro. Also, you should be careful with which items you choose in the Boss Floors - which makes pomanders a lot more interesting to manage.

Having said that, I would say that healing in these modes is a lot more enjoyable, as you are required more, though I think I would prefer we had a more steady damage pattern/more frequent with a combination of AOE unavoidable damage with ticking damage instead of a bunch of one-shot mechanics all around the dungeon. Healers have more fun when they get to recover the group after unexpected damage.

Suggestion: Instead of implementing a bunch of one-shot mechanics as a way to increase difficulty, try to implement damage increments OR shorter windows to recover; for example, after a big damage event, allow Healers to recover in a tiny (2-3 seconds) window, and then damage spikes come again. That way, Healers will be rewarded for fast/quick reactions - we already have that in the new level 100 Raids/Trials, so just bring those to the dungeons as well; they are very nice moments where Healers get to shine, and it would be nice to have those moments in Dungeons.

Now, one of my biggest gripes with those modes: WHY ARE THEY NOT IN THE DUTY FINDER? I would absolutely appreciate it if someone explained to me why they are not in the Duty Finder - this make these modes a lot harder to find people to play with. For Deep Dungeons specifically, you need to teleport to a specific map. This is unbelievable, really; the game should at least make a tab in the Teleport menu just for the Deep Dungeons; that alone would make it a lot less worse to actually find it. Also, in order for me to play Pilgrim's Traverse, I had to Google it so I could find where to take the quest to unlock it... The game definitely does not do a good job of informing the player of new content arrivals. It would do wonders if there was just a simple pop-up menu after big patches when you log in showing the latest implementations of modes, for example, "New Ultimate" and "New Deep Dungeon", similar to what WoW has when a new season comes up...

What would you like the developers to change or implement?

BUT the netcode fucking sucks. if they fixed the netcode of this game and got it in line w modern standards i think they'd actually be in contention for best pvp

Time for a new tank means time for a new invulnerability. I'm not fully sure what design space hasn't been explored yet that SE would be willing to go for, but I do have a few ideas I've thought up over the past while.

Just lock the HP. Hallowed Ground makes it so your HP doesn't go down, but what if it also couldn't go back up? Whatever your HP is when you hit the button, that's what it'll be for the next 10 seconds. This would probably be a 6-minute CD as it's comparable to Superbolide in strength/external resources.

Really, really big shield. This is a weird one because a shield is still just effective HP, as people smarter than me pointed out. A 1000% HP shield is roughly 90% damage reduction, so... Diamondback. There are things we invuln now that this probably wouldn't work on. It would need a 3-minute CD due to the relative weakness.

Something kind of like WoW Stagger. Take no or like 10% of the incoming damage and then all the damage prevented gets converted into a DoT whose total you take over the next 30s, divided by 10 in 3s ticks. This would take some technical structure to work but Macrocosmos and old Wildfire show that they have the technology to compile damage and convert it or do something with it, so it's valid. Probably a 4 or 5 minute CD based on needing external help like Holmgang does.

Invulnerable but only in an area. You have Hallowed Ground but only if you're in a 10 or 15y circle that you put down. Restrictive but creative in a way. Probably a 5 minute one in my eyes.

Hallowed but only if someone else lives. You're immune but your life is tied to someone else's now so if they die then that's it for you. Maybe they also take some % of what you mitigated? Not my idea, sourced it from someone else I was talking to on the subject with, but could be interesting. Probably in the 5-6 minute range given the relative ease of meeting the requirement.

I'm sure there are other ideas that people might have to contribute to this thread.

I have been avoiding DMU because I found FRU very stressful in PF when I did it last year. I have read that DMU is significantly harder than FRU, and also that there is no consensus PF strategy for each phase. Do you have to learn multiple strats for each phase? I can't remember FRU having different strats. The strategy was pretty much the same in each group.

Do you think it's even worth starting DMU in PF at this point a month after launch, considering it's much harder than FRU and a lot of the good players will have cleared it by now? I started FRU a week after release and it took me about 2 months to clear in PF. How long would you guys expect each phase of DMU to take for an average PF player to clear? Thanks all.

Im looking to start playing again although i finished up playing in endwalker, would the honest opinion be for me to start again with a character and class and progress that way learning the class im playing properly or would it still be a capable thing to learn rotations etc again with the character I already have? Im a white mage

What would make YOU excited about the 5th tank? What types of gameplay loops, aesthetics, gauges or core identities would motivate you to try it out?

Given we have 4 tanks that exist today and a 5th to be announced in a few weeks it'd be fun to see other people's ideas on what would make a new tank exciting for them.

All we know at this point is it is a "main tank".

The most recent example I've noticed is Dragoon's job gauge.

You can literally turn it off, and all of the relevant information it conveys is still clearly visible as either a normal buff with a timer on it or a giant glowing ring around the only skill in your entire job that cares about stacks.

The only downside to disabling it completely is not being able to tell when you have 0/1 stack of focus, but I legitimately can't imagine that mattering in 99% of scenarios when the sole function of focus is to enable a single oGCD once per two stacks, and your strict rotation means you basically always know when you're about to hit two stacks.

Another one that comes to mind is the Paladin gauge. It's a giant glowing bar that fills quite quickly, and is only spent on three skills in your entire kit, only one of which (IME) you use regularly enough to actually drain your oath gauge consistently. You earn gauge so quickly that I honestly rarely find myself wanting for a Sheltron/Intervention and lacking the Oath to do so. It feels like a gauge that technically has value, and does contain information that can't just be surmised in its absence, but in reality I feel like you could turn it off and not feel it in 90+% of cases.

I'm a semi-serious player, in the sense that I try my best to do the optimal rotations/maximize DPS, have a parser at all times, etc. but I don't consistently engage with much of the difficult high-end content for lack of a group or a desire to wade through PF.

Do these gauges somehow provide actual value in these contexts, or am I right in feeling that a some job gauges only really exist because SE wants every job to have a gauge?

I'm trying to find a group. Discord or not. How do you guys find FC's that are active and are not quiet... Seems like nobody likes it talk anymore. Lol

EDIT: Wait, hold on, faster/better way to phrase all my questions (plus a few extra that just occurred to me writing this):

Did the Meteia really 100% canonically steal away the actual aether/souls from the despair victims (as opposed to just the victims's despair/emotion/dynamis) to hide away inside her messed up dead sun or is that just a conclusion we are all jumping into?

Why was the Meteia's Dead Sun an "Egg that will not quicken/hatch", if it was just a big ball of dead people's despair, fed continuously by the emotions of the simulacra of dead civilizations in the surrounding Ultima Thule/Ultimatum area?

What (stifled) life potential could there be in that, as implied by the egg phrasing?

Was there really some sort of aether/soul-stuff also locked up in there (or elsewhere)?

How did the Meteia stop new lives from being born altogether in the universe outside of Etheirys (which was protected by Zodiark)? ...Was she stopping new lives from being born altogether as she intended?

If so, was broadcasting Radio Despair 24/7 enough for new lifeforms in the whole universe to just not... form?

Did she just turn every alien into Blasphemies-type of creatures like in "our" Final Days and then harvested their despair as Dynamis? (Assuming Y'shtola/the Scions were correct in their initial assumption and Blasphemies are super turbo-dead creatures walking, zero return potential to the life-cycle in any way, shape or form.)

Meteion kind of made it sound like the Etheirys Dynamis attacks were a special mercy-kill favor for her old beloved homeworld, because the heat death of the universe was taking too long.

In fact, it kind of sounded like most of her Dynamis efforts were about accelerating the heat death of the universe while she angsted with the replicas of dead people?

...Is Etheirys the only living star existing in the period of time between the two bouts of Final Days?

...Could it be that the Meteia actually really suck at killing the universe, and only did it accidentally in those old stars while they were doing the life surveys for Hermes, plus later on Etheirys intentionally? (And just kept going at it while frowning when they inexplicably stopped getting despair feedback for twelve thousand years.)

END OF EDIT

(BTW: If anyone has the Encyclopaedia Eorzea III at hand: does it clarify anything of this? Anything at all?)

I understand that Meteion was using Dynamis to enhance the despair she collected from the people who died in all the universe, to both hasten the heat death of the universe and "mercy kill" everyone else.

Question, though:

Was Meteion actually storing just the despair, or also the actual souls of the dead from the worlds she ravaged inside her Ultimatum/Dead Sun/Big Ball of Despair thing, to stop them from being reborn ("where life cannot quicken", she describes it, an egg that will not hatch, in Japanese, I think?) by keeping them all stuck there and away from the lifestreams of their planets (or the big universal one souls go as a backup)?

Or is this a fandom misunderstanding?

The wording about everything Meteion does in all her lines is always so ambiguous to me:

Like, for example:

How Meteion kills people with Dynamis sounds like it doesn't quite destroy souls immediately (but she still expects that the soul will not be able to cling to existence indefinitely):

Urianger: Our friend Thancred─where is he?

Meteion: A strange question. He is at your side, is he not?

Meteion: Oh yes─he is here, and there, and everywhere within this space. He would tell you himself if he had form to form words.

Meteion: Huh. Such loathing and uncertainty... You don't know why you still exist.

Meteion: In like manner to the oblivion I send, I tried to drown out your aether with dynamis.

Meteion: Beginning with this Thancred, who came at me despite being unable to breathe.

Meteion: Such a simple thing, unmaking men. In the blinking of an eye, he was gone. Didn't even have the chance to be transformed.

Meteion: Yet somehow, he managed to leave a sliver of himself behind.

Meteion: What you call...the heart...or perhaps the soul*? In his final moment, he...cried out from it. A single word...*

Meteion: “Survive...”

Meteion: That wish proved stronger than the despair that ruled here. It overpowered it, causing this space to be remade.

Meteion: Into a place you can perceive, and where life can endure.

Meteion: That you draw breath is proof that his soul lives on. For how long, however, remains to be seen.

Semi-confirming that the soul/aether(?) in the person who gets blasted by despair-dynamis isn't necessarily destroyed outright (as Y'shtola perceived in the blasphemies? edit: she did say that to her the aether looked like it "rotted and crumbled like mud" and then was unable to see the blasphemies at all edit edit: in Japanese her dialogue is less flowery, she says the aether is simply gone, and she describes seeing something akin to negative space, making the blasphemies stand out and easy for her to "see"), just... becomes formless and scattered so it cannot be perceived? ...But might still be eventually gone?

And:

Meteion: You spoke with the Ea, yes? Heard their tale of what awaits the universe?

Meteion: It's true. The stars grow colder and more distant. Eventually all will enjoy frozen solitude.

Meteion: Using the power of dynamis, I am hastening that process.

Meteion: In so doing, nothing will be born ever again. Everyone will remain dead.

Meteion: Alas, it will take time for that to happen. So in mercy I sent you my gift, to spare you needless suffering.

Meteion: Don't worry. Even if no living witnesses remain to mark the event, I'll make certain that Etheirys has a proper end.

She uses the word "dead" rather than... non-existing, or the like?

And then:

Meteion: No expression of regret will undo what my sisters and I have done. Will restore what we have stolen.

Meteion: But if you would allow it, I would sing one last song. A song of the newfound joy that swells in my heart...

Meteion: Of the beauty of light when it shines across a dark and starless sea...

Meteion: Of a dream that from the soil of worlds now lost to sorrow, life will spring forth once more...

Meteion: ...Nourished by gentle rains and caressed by uplifting winds. A song of hope.

Meteion: One day, life will fill the universe again. And Hermes will see this and smile.

Meteion: How, I do not know. But I do know that, where there is a will, there is a way.

Meteion: After all, miracles happen every day, do they not?

I can't tell how much is literal, how much is just poetic language, how much is wishful thinking at the end there, and how much is actual possibility. New souls require aether to be formed again, right? ...Unless souls can be born from dynamis?

Was "stolen" literal? Metaphorical?

So, should we assume that the souls/life-force/what-have-you of those who died because of her actually have a chance at being reborn (the "miracle" of her song of hope)? Is conservation of energy/dynamis a thing in the setting? Can aether be created/destroyed or just transformed like energy in our world? (?)

edit:

As for blasphemies, to Y'shtola the transformation looked like the aether rotted and crumbled like mud, and the resulting monster was simply invisible to her eyes, but this was before any of them knew about dynamis. She saw no aether able to return to the lifestream, but maybe what she saw was a transformation from aether to pure dynamis. (Or maybe the aether was corrupted so it could be taken by the Meteia via dynamis to chuck into their dead sun to keep it from entering Etheyris lifestream?)

Could the Scions have been mistaken with their initial assumption about there being truly nothing left of the original humans (or at least so faint it couldn't be saved)? Maybe the overwhelming, invisible dynamis the world was being flooded with covered up whatever happened to the aether after it "crumbled". Maybe bodies and souls can be transformed from aether to dynamis. Maybe bodies and souls consist of both aether and dynamis. I don't know. Just spitballing here.

It's worth noting that the Meteion in Elpis initially thought the timetravelling WoL was a dynamis/aether creation like herself, implying that sundered humans are normally made of dynamis in addition to aether.

So whatever is going on with souls, it might be more complicated than we thought?

Y'shtola: The beast was there...and now it is no more, yes?

Thancred: Indeed, we saw it plain. But...you didn't, did you?

Y'shtola: I saw nothing. Not the blasphemy that perished here, nor the other men-turned-beasts. And because of this, I now see all too well...

Y'shtola: There is no aether. Where the creatures should be, I saw naught but emptiness...

Alphinaud: Emptiness? But that would mean...

Y'shtola: Recall the words of the watcher. 'Twas a stagnancy of aether─a cessation of flow leading to decay and absence─that led the ancients to conclude their star was dying...

Y'shtola: This is the same phenomenon. The instant these people are seized by the transformation, their aether begins to...rot and crumble away like dried mud...

Y'shtola: Until, from their corporeal forms to their very souls, naught remains...

Alisaie: But the beast spoke with its dying breath! Surely, at least a sliver of the man it was endured!

Y'shtola: ...Mayhap so. But even if the process was incomplete, 'twas little more than a faint residue.

Alisaie: Gods be good... You're saying they cannot be saved?

Y'shtola: Not by any means known to me.

Y'shtola: ...Or by any means at all, like as not. For there is naught left to save.

G'raha Tia: They return not even to the aetherial sea...

edit edit, hey this might be important????

It seems Y'shtola says something like this in Japanese:

The false divine beasts, and the beasts that transformed from other people, I could see them precisely because they were invisible.
...There's no aether there. In my field of vision, it's a blank space.
The words of the Moon Watcher... The story goes that the Ancients saw a star "beginning to rot" from a place where the celestial veins were not circulating properly...
That's exactly what happened. The moment a person transforms into a beast, the aether rots away*.*
Not just the body, but even the soul... nothing remains...

偽神獣も、ほかの人から転じた獣たちも、

視えないからこそ、視えていたわ。

……ないのよ、エーテルが。

私の視界だと、空白になっているの。

月の監視者が言っていた言葉……

古代人たちは、天脈が循環不全を起こしている場所から、

星が「腐り始めた」と見たという話……。

まさに、そのとおりだったんだわ。

人から獣に転じた瞬間に、エーテルが腐り落ちてしまうのよ。

身体はもちろん、魂まで……なにひとつ残らずに……。

The vivid description of it being like mud that crumbles away seems to be a flourish added in English. What that might mean, I'm not sure, but I think the aether just suddenly "not being there" makes whatever happened to the people's aether--and by extension, their essence or souls--a bit more ambiguous (whether the aether was taken somewhere away somehow, or squashed down into invisibility, transformed directly into dynamis--maybe to be later slurped up by Meteion's dead sun?--or outright destroyed as first assumed), compared to the English phrasing.

There's also whether what Fordola saw with her friend was wishful thinking or a hint to these souls not being entirely lost to annihilation as first assumed.

Checking through what Meteion says in Japanese, she also reiterates in there that shit is fucked but allows that miracles are possible through dynamis (and she also blasts the cosmos with a bunch of dynamis carrying that same wish and the joy of living so hey who knows):

What we took will never return. I won't ask for forgiveness for that.

I just want to sing just once... This time, to my own heart... to the joy I found...

For example, the light shining on a dark, starless sea... It's so, so beautiful.

On a star that has lost all life... on a land ravaged by sorrow... May life one day return and sprout again...

A song of hope, pouring down as rain and rising as wind...!

When life is full, I hope Hermes can see it too.

I know it's difficult, but... Possibilities (Dynamis) are always trying to fulfill our wishes.

私たちが奪ったものは、もう、決して戻らない。

そのことを、許してとは言わない。

ただ、一度だけ謳わせてほしいの……。

今度は自分自身の心を……私が見つけた歓びを……。

たとえば、星のない暗い海に差す光が、

こんなに、こんなに綺麗だってこと。

生きる者を失くした星に……悲しみに荒れた大地に……

いつかまた、命が巡って芽吹くよう……。

雨として降り注ぎ、風として舞い上がる、希望の唄を……！

命が満ちたら、ヘルメスにも、見てもらえるといいな。

難しいのは、わかってるけど……

可能性は(デュナミス)、いつだって想いを叶えようとしてる。

​I suppose the actual real answer is: The lives of the blasphemies as we knew them were snuffed out. Civilizations died and live only in echoes and memories. We grief them, remember them and move on. The exact mechanics are less important than the emotional narrative weight.

>About Memoria is a FFXIV player lookup tool. A Dalamud plugin scans the players you encounter in-game; this website is where the data becomes searchable, browsable, and — if you claim your characters — yours to manage.

>Anyone can see public profile sections. Members of our Discord community can see richer data (locations, name/world history, alt characters). Owners can claim their character via a bio code and control what's shown.

>Contributing data Install the plugin via XIVLauncher's custom plugin repo. Every player you walk past enriches the dataset for everyone. No scans, no data.

From the plugin's database website. Any player you encounter with this plugin installed will upload a log of your character data with a time and place available for anybody to see on their website, a much more open version of Playerscope and all of the currently active copycats like PlayerTrack. It also tracks name changes, free company history, full character data, and alt characters. The developers claim you can hide yourself, but it comes with a set of hoops to jump through with Discord or a takedown request form with an email requirement, while that data is still being collected on your character.

Plugin developers will continue to push the line further and further with the development teams lack of action against them. Cheating, botting, harassment and stalking continue to be amplified with the continued advancement of plugin developement. At what point will things finally require the development team to put their foot down on everything?

I've been playing FFXIV actively for around 10 years. I've raided throughout multiple expansions, cleared every Ultimate on release, and spend most of my gaming time in XIV. Yet one thing has always been surprisingly difficult for me: finding genuine male friends.

Before anyone asks, I know the obvious answer is "join an FC." The thing is, I don't really enjoy FC culture, which is why I run my own solo FC instead. That part isn't likely to change.

What I'm looking for isn't just people to clear content with. I've had plenty of static groups over the years, but a static isn't necessarily a friend group. You're all there because you share the same goal and schedule. Once raid is over, everyone goes back to their own in-game lives.

What I miss is having a group of bros to just log on with. Running roulettes, chatting in VC, farming random content, doing treasure maps, hanging out, or just wasting time together because you enjoy each other's company.

Ironically, I've found it much easier to become friends with women in this game than with men.

The problem is that I'm in a committed relationship, and out of respect for that, I don't really want to spend lots of one-on-one time bonding with female players. Mixed groups are completely different and something I'm totally comfortable with, but constantly having mostly female friendships isn't really what I'm looking for.

On the other hand, a lot of the male players I meet seem to disappear the moment there's female attention involved. It often feels like they're more interested in chasing an e-kitten than building lasting friendships with other guys. Obviously this isn't everyone, but I've run into this pattern often enough that it's become frustrating.

And then there's the other side of it. Sometimes you do meet someone who's interested in becoming friends, but either your personalities don't click, or they're incredibly quick to rage over the smallest inconvenience, making it hard to build a long-term friendship.

Maybe I'm just getting unlucky, but after 10 years it genuinely feels harder than it should be to find normal guys who simply want to game together without drama, ulterior motives, or constantly revolving around female attention.

Does anyone else feel like this, or has your experience been completely different?

I've been building a new FFXIV community website - I'd love your feedback!

Hi everyone!

Over the past few months I've been working on a passion project called XIV-Nexus:

https://xiv-nexus.com

The idea is to create a modern hub where players can explore character information, progression, achievements, and community features without having to jump between multiple different websites.

The project is still in active development, so there will almost certainly be bugs and features that need improving. That's exactly why I'm sharing it now, I genuinely want feedback from the FFXIV community to help shape where it goes next.

Some of the things currently available include:

• Character profiles
• Achievement and progression tracking
• Community features
• Clean, modern interface
• Mobile support (still being improved!)

I have a long list of new features planned, and I'm building this as a long-term project rather than something I'll abandon after a few months.

If you have a few minutes to take a look, I'd really appreciate hearing:

• What you like
• What you don't like
• Features you'd love to see
• Any bugs you find
• Anything that feels confusing or unintuitive

I'm not looking to replace the fantastic FFXIV tools that already exist, I'd like XIV-Nexus to become another useful resource that complements them.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out, and I appreciate any feedback you can give!

https://xiv-nexus.com