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Gegenji · **12-06-2014, 01:48 PM**

(12-06-2014, 01:29 PM)allgivenover Wrote: But there absolutely must be some aetheric component to it, a few reasons being:

Many of the quests have you using hide to walk right under the noses of guards or thugs, and in many cases you're doing it in locations where there's barely any environment to blend into, for example the docks in Limsa Lominsa, and a boarding house in Aleport, both are brightly lit. No amount of non-magical skulking would get you by unnoticed in these situations.

The game itself tells you to approach NPCs in the open with your hide ability "cloaking" you to eavesdrop on what they're saying. In all of these situations you are standing mere feet away from them, completely unnoticed.

Jacke vanishes completely when someone walks in front of him at the end of the final Rogue quest. There's no crowd to blend in with, the environment is totally open and well-lit, and he does so in a half-second. This happens in a cutscene, so it's lore.

If I may provide counterpoints on these...

One of the things you need to keep in mind is that this is a mechanic designed to be used in an MMORPG game, not a stealth game. Things like using cover and generally being Solid Snake would require a lot of changes to the game to accommodate for them, so there will be concessions. Of course, they could've had the missions where you stealth having you move from "sneak point" to "sneak point" rather than walk blatantly out in the open, but hey.

However, that's a nerdy programmer way of looking at it (which I am, regrettably). So let's make this a little more creative.

It's a standard notion in the game that there is more to the cities and such that you're not seeing. So, it couldn't be that hard of a stretch that the docks and such would be loaded down with a lot more crates and potential cover than you're seeing in-game. After all, moving things by ship is kinda Limsa's main way to do trade. I would easily be able to re-imagine your sneaking in such situations to be much more physical in the aspect that you're doing the MGS-style sneaking from cover to cover. Even the boarding house has stuff you could use to stealth up on the kidnappers, with the noise you'd expect in a boarding house full of people to help cover your footsteps.

As for eavesdropping, that's really just a matter of getting close enough to overhear conversation. You can probably do this without even being able to turn invisible, since people do that in the Quicksand all the time! Substituting the straight stealth invisibility for "being sneaky" could also mean that you're just skulking up to overhear without being noticed for it.

And on the subject of Jacke, I wouldn't put too much stock into that cutscene counting as straight lore. It's a literary device (slipping into nerd again, augh!) oft-used to show sneaky thief/ninja types moving away faster than the eye can follow. It's a "badass" establishing shot; he didn't turn an invisible through Stealth, he's just straight up gone. Same with the Ninja you come across.

Basically, while you CAN make an argument that aether must be being used, it's just as easy to be able to explain away how you can do it without.

allgivenover · **12-06-2014, 01:58 PM**

(12-06-2014, 01:48 PM)Gegenji Wrote: And on the subject of Jacke, I wouldn't put too much stock into that cutscene counting as straight lore. It's a literary device (slipping into nerd again, augh!) oft-used to show sneaky thief/ninja types moving away faster than the eye can follow. It's a "badass" establishing shot; he didn't turn an invisible through Stealth, he's just straight up gone. Same with the Ninja you come across.

Basically, while you CAN make an argument that aether must be being used, it's just as easy to be able to explain away how you can do it without.

That's cherry-picking. We have no way to do know what the devs intend us to consider lore worthy or simple game mechanics and given SE's treatment of it so far we're unlikely to ever get an official word on it.Â
Even so, if we strip out the mechanics entirely there's still the scene with Jacke, that alone is reason enough to discard the notion that it's not magical in the slightest.

I'm a software engineer too, but I don't see how that gives me or anyone authority on this.

Val · **12-06-2014, 01:59 PM**

(12-06-2014, 01:29 PM)allgivenover Wrote: This is another toughie that's liable to spark a ton of debate, and evidence for either extreme can be found in the dialogue and game mechanics, but here goes.

I don't accept that you could stand in front of someone and speak while remaining completely invisible otherwise. Here's why.

V'kebbe tells you that being quiet and "skulking" is necessary for the hide to work. Once you're noticed that's it. We don't get to go back into hiding until everything that's noticed us is gone.

She also says it's "part concealment, part distraction".

The game itself forces you to slow down a great deal, and any action breaks it.

But there absolutely must be some aetheric component to it, a few reasons being:

Many of the quests have you using hide to walk right under the noses of guards or thugs, and in many cases you're doing it in locations where there's barely any environment to blend into, for example the docks in Limsa Lominsa, and a boarding house in Aleport, both are brightly lit. No amount of non-magical skulking would get you by unnoticed in these situations.

The game itself tells you to approach NPCs in the open with your hide ability "cloaking" you to eavesdrop on what they're saying. In all of these situations you are standing mere feet away from them, completely unnoticed.

Jacke vanishes completely when someone walks in front of him at the end of the final Rogue quest. There's no crowd to blend in with, the environment is totally open and well-lit, and he does so in a half-second. This happens in a cutscene, so it's lore.

As always they don't give us enough to know how much is natural ability and how much is magical - in fact they don't allude to it being magical at all in dialogue, but the way it's used mechanically and portrayed in cut-scenes suggest it simply cannot be only physical, and seeing how there's no official word whatsoever on if we're supposed to be ignoring game mechanics to understand the lore or considering them we just have to take it at face value and make our own (hopefully reasonable) conclusions as we go.

My take on it lies somewhere between.Â It can't be totally non-magical, and it can't be complete magical invisibility either. In much the same way our characters are able to take blows that would kill a regular human, perform feats of strength that would be physically impossible (looking at you Lalafells) without magic, and you know cast magical spells, Rogues amplify their natural physical ability with aether. In this case it's skulking about unnoticed. How far you can push that magical component is up to you.

When I RP it with my alt I don't have her standing directly in front of people, and I have her move very slowly to avoid making any noise, but I also have her hiding in places that could not be done without some magical aid. In every case I give other characters a reasonable chance to detect her.

The majority of what you've listed here are just game mechanics. Hide suddenly doesn't work anymore in level 50 dungeons because game mechanics. The creatures don't have any super special ability to suddenly see it. People simply shouldn't be able to hide in the open.

allgivenover · **12-06-2014, 02:02 PM**

(12-06-2014, 01:59 PM)Val Wrote: The majority of what you've listed here are just game mechanics. Hide suddenly doesn't work anymore in level 50 dungeons because game mechanics. The creatures don't have any super special ability to suddenly see it. People simply shouldn't be able to hide in the open.

That's the thing, we don't get to decide what's "just game mechanics" and what isn't. We could debate until we're both blue in the face about what counts as lore and what counts as just a mechanic, and we'd both be cherry-picking.

It doesn't matter anyway, even if we discard all mechanics evidence the scene with Jacke at the end is enough.

Gegenji · **12-06-2014, 02:08 PM**

(12-06-2014, 01:58 PM)allgivenover Wrote:
(12-06-2014, 01:48 PM)Gegenji Wrote: And on the subject of Jacke, I wouldn't put too much stock into that cutscene counting as straight lore. It's a literary device (slipping into nerd again, augh!) oft-used to show sneaky thief/ninja types moving away faster than the eye can follow. It's a "badass" establishing shot; he didn't turn an invisible through Stealth, he's just straight up gone. Same with the Ninja you come across.

Basically, while you CAN make an argument that aether must be being used, it's just as easy to be able to explain away how you can do it without.

That's cherry-picking. We have no way to do know what the devs intend us to consider lore worthy or simple game mechanics and given SE's treatment of it so far we're unlikely to ever get an official word on it.Â
Even so, if we strip out the mechanics entirely there's still the scene with Jacke, that alone is reason enough to discard the notion that it's not magical in the slightest.

I'm a software engineer too, but I don't see how that gives me or anyone authority on this.

So because the super-awesome thief that obviously has mad skills disappears in the brief moment of distraction caused by someone walking between the MC and him, it has to be aetheric? I'm not saying it's not - far from it - I'm just saying that you could explain it as him just having agility and speed beyond most normal folks, which is fitting to what is supposed to be the best Rogue ever (considering he's leading the entire Rogue's Guild). I'm basically arguing that there doesn't "have" to be an aetheric component to it like you posited. I'm basically just nitpicking your usage of "absolutely must" and providing a non-aetheric alternative to explain why it doesn't.

And, I should probably note, I'm not using my programming knowledge as a source of authority. I just mentioned it because of a deep-seated need to explain why I jumped to that answer first and foremost. Just like that guy from Ancient Aliens always jumps to "I'm not saying it's aliens, but ALIENS." Blush

Val · **12-06-2014, 02:12 PM**

(12-06-2014, 02:02 PM)allgivenover Wrote:
(12-06-2014, 01:59 PM)Val Wrote: The majority of what you've listed here are just game mechanics. Hide suddenly doesn't work anymore in level 50 dungeons because game mechanics. The creatures don't have any super special ability to suddenly see it. People simply shouldn't be able to hide in the open.

That's the thing, we don't get to decide what's "just game mechanics" and what isn't. We could debate until we're both blue in the face about what counts as lore and what counts as just a mechanic, and we'd both be cherry-picking.

It doesn't matter anyway, even if we discard all mechanics evidence the scene with Jacke at the end is enough.

I think it's pretty obvious what is and isn't game mechanics. I feel that deciding not to say something is a game mechanic is little more than accepted ignorance just to justify playing it a way that someone wants to play it.Â

And SE has on more than one occasion came up with some dumb reason to have a game mechanic work a specific way. Even then, Jacke isn't your character. The character you play in the story and the NPCs you encounter are super special powerful people. Our PCs simply aren't.Â

And, as someone else already said, it's little more than a literary device--a very, VERY obvious one. If we go with that logic, I guess Val can ninja flip everywhere and defy physics entirely because Thancred did in a cutscene earlier.

allgivenover · **12-06-2014, 02:56 PM**

(12-06-2014, 02:12 PM)Val Wrote: I think it's pretty obvious what is and isn't game mechanics.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree because what is "obvious" to you may be ambiguous to someone else. It's not as if I'm going to step into your RP and correct you over it, and really in the grand scheme of RP people get away with far worse than a stealth ability that's greater than it could be in real life.

Iex · **12-06-2014, 03:00 PM**

I would say this thread is very similar to the thread about how far can you take 'because aether' or discussion of Dragoon abilities. As some folks said before, as far as you like depending on the narrative. Val could be able to do flips and what not all he wants if he used aether to enhance his physical ability (see the lalafell bros throwing people) or... he could not depending on what Val's player wants.

When you RP with other folks you just need to work with them on what they think will work. Maybe someone can use the aether to make themselves less noticeable all the way to invisible... or maybe they are just good at blending in to the environment or sometimes it is just easier to BS the whole thing and merely have the character unnoticed rather than trying to explain it.

The ending Rogue quest scene was a dramatic flair that is used ALL the time when a character needs to disappear. Frankly if you look too into it... you can start asking yourself did any of this actually happen, have I just gone mad?

However, if we apply realism too much to a world with some sort of trait that makes it supernatural (aether in FFXIV) it starts making things tricky. A Roegadyn Rogue or Ninja starts to seem silly, a Lalafell Warrior or Paladin seems unwise, and Dragoons start becoming red pancakes or you just see them jumping up and down (with the amount of armor probably only a foot up)Â trying to poke Dragon's bellies as they swoop down. (Not to mention how can dragons fly much less hover.)

Blue · **12-06-2014, 03:24 PM**

Personally I am a bit confused at how much negativity there is about aether and its uses in Eorzea. Surely there are people who do not want to be magic users, but we have to remember that aether is not simply "a magic substance". It's the prime matter of all things.

In a real-world aspect, it's the equivalent of atoms. While we do not have mental control on them, we already have the ability through our technology to manipulate atoms and do both great and terrific things with them. But do we call that "magic"?

The way I see it, Eorzea is a world in which a percentage of its inhabitants can, through training and study (or technology, if we look at Garleans), have control on atomic physics and the way they work (and thus manipulating their laws too, such as in the case of dragoon jumps or white mages floating during Holy). That's what aether is to me.

While it is perfectly okay to RP not having this kind of control on aether, I feel it should be reasonable to use it as a justification to things that are not possible to common people who do not exploit aetheric control. Much how in modern days we use physics and chemistry to explain what we cannot normally do on our own.

Everything else, that we label with all kinds of words such as miracles and supernatural phenomena should be much much rarer in the world than a rogue using Hide.

I am losing my own thread in all what I'm trying to say, but the main point is: to me, things explained through aether control are legit enough and not necessarily requiring magic powers.

Gegenji · **12-06-2014, 03:48 PM**

(12-06-2014, 03:24 PM)Blue Wrote: I am losing my own thread in all what I'm trying to say, but the main point is: to me, things explained through aether control are legit enough and not necessarily requiring magic powers.

I agree, there are plenty of things that you can just use aether as explanation. I just like to think it doesn't have to be the only explanation. Well, minus stuff like actually casting magic - which is explicitly stated as using aether and such. It's only when people just haphazardly peg "aether" as an answer, or assume it's the only way something could work when alternatives exist... that's when it starts to bother me.

... I hope that makes sense. Blush

ProvaDiServo · **12-06-2014, 04:26 PM**

As long as one in stealth is aware of their envionment when they use concealment arts, and not just casting out in broad daylight with their shadow cast on lit flooring (unless with intent on being caught) then I don't see any problem, I use stealth quite a bit, and borked immersion a few times with improper use XD.

Artigan · **12-06-2014, 05:27 PM**

Mae · **12-06-2014, 11:07 PM**

My two arguments about the "must have aetheric component" thought:

1) The ability itself does not require MP, nor does the description mention aether

andÂ

2) To say/insist/decide that the ability must be aetheric, would screw some players out of the chance to RP the class/job (or using one of the bigger RP perks of the job).

Give me any class and job, and I can go down the list of class/job abilities and come up with arguments for why most of them (if not almost all) are aetheric in nature, regardless of MP requirements and ability descriptions. Of course, if I did this and insisted it was how things Must Be, I'd be screwing a portion (even if just a small one) of the community out of playing all classes/jobs with passing ability -- the pureblood-Garleans and anyone who was inept with using aether. Yes, a Garlean character could say that they made a magitek device that lets them do whatever ability, but to me that just seems... I don't know, impractical, maybe?

I honestly think it's just better to go with a mindset that if an ability doesn't require MP or specifically mention aether, then it shouldn't always require it. Could some people be using aether to hide themselves? Sure, why not. I can think of some situations where that would actually be a better option. Does everyone HAVE to use aether to hide? No, I don't think so.

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