Yian Kutku

Levelling Roulette put me as an Astrologian into Cutter's Cry. The others were a sprout Paladin, a sprout Dragoon, and a Combat Mentor Bard. Throughout the dungeon, it felt like nobody knew where they were supposed to go. Which is fine, since Cutter's Cry is a rare dungeon to get in roulettes, and I can't throw any stones there. What was odd was that after the first area, the Dragoon started pulling. Then the Paladin runs up and Shield Lobs, and then... nothing. Occasionally they'd do a single-target combo, then Flash once, then either idle or single-target. I don't think they were a bot, since they responded to my opening "Hallo" by saying "hi" in /say. Meanwhile, the Mentor remains completely silent. The Dragoon and Bard seem to be doing okay rotations and DPS, so I just let it be. I do end up healing the Dragoon a lot more than I needed to heal the Paladin. Finally, we get to the final boss of the dungeon. I'd forgotten about it myself, but I managed to do a quick peek at a written dungeon guide on a wiki, and stated in party chat: "When the eyes glow violet, run into melee range. When blue, run out of melee range." The Paladin /says "ok". Nobody else says anything. The battle is joined, and the Chimera's eyes glow violet. Everyone runs into melee range, and avoids the AoE. Then the Chimera's eyes glow blue. Nobody runs out of melee range. Not even the Mentor. I had a double-take when I saw everyone else's HP suddenly tank, when I'm conveniently out of range for a AoE heal, because I actually did the mechanics. The Dragoon was the first to go down, followed quickly by the Bard. I Swiftcast-Raised the Dragoon, and Benedictioned him to full. Then the Chimera's eyes glow blue again, and the Dragoon stayed in melee range. The resulting AoE killed the Paladin, and the Dragoon went down to one of the frontal cone AoEs. So with the Chimera at 40% HP, I ended up pretty much soloing it. The Paladin almost immediately rezzed at the dungeon entrance. I tried Swiftcast-Raising the other two DPS, with the Bard first, only to see them go down again after eating avoidable AoEs. Finally, several (Extended) Ewers and a few Lucid Dreamings later, I finished off the Chimera. Alone. I raised the Bard again post-battle, and he said one word: "solid". Then he left the dungeon. The Paladin and Dragoon lingered in the dungeon, silently. I decided to leave. On the one hand, I'm fairly forgiving of new players. On the other hand, I explained the primary mechanic, and even if they didn't understand, having the mechanic go off should make it very obvious what to do in this case. As for the Mentor, I don't even know.

I actually did join the Discord (labelled "RPM", since I hear there are multiple). I admit I stopped logging into Discord after a few days, for entirely unrelated reasons; specifically I keep (well, three times) seeing long, protracted arguments between two or three people (usually different ones every time) about every conceivable subject. I'm pretty sure I'm not misinterpreting playful banter as serious arguments, because the mods had to step in to restore peace. This has nothing to do with making me feel welcome or unwelcome, so I have no complaints about the Discord in that regard. As mentioned, it's a completely separate issue. The issue I'm having is that it keeps happening. I acknowledge that there is probably nothing the vast majority of Mateus people can do about this, since there's really no way to prevent the occasional person from expressing their "immigrants go away" views from time to time. Which doesn't change how it does happen, and every time it happens it's one more to add to the pile. It's very difficult to let even one instance wash away, since the doubts that "I'm not welcome here, and there will be people who will never accept me due to where I come from" tend to fester. RL and in-game blur together, especially when the rhetoric is so similar. It doesn't have to be directed specifically at me. It never has, actually. But here, in-game shouts, Reddit, and the Official Forums, I keep seeing the same refrain: immigrants go away, you're ruining Mateus. Most of them don't actually care if we "go home", as long as we're not here. Transfer to Goblin or Zalera, as long as we never set foot on Mateus again. One person saying this is something I can deal with, especially if the rest of the community tells me that they do not represent the server as a whole. Two people, or three people, fine. One person (or more) every week, even if they are different people, gets tiresome. I think I've seen double-digit numbers of people by now express anti-immigrant views regarding Mateus, not including those who don't want Balmung transfers anywhere, at which point the numbers rise sharply. Double-digit numbers for a server in the thousands is pretty small, yes. But they make their views loud, known, and in public spaces where I am likely to see them just through my usual browsing/playing. Again, I'm not expecting anyone else from Mateus to keep defending the server in the face of such sustained bad publicity. I'm just saying that it's happening, and it's causing a reaction, and I don't know what anyone can do about it. I'm fortunate in RL in that I look more or less the same as the "native citizens" of my country (ie the one I'm in now). But I've long since learned to recognize a particular look I get when I mention where I'm from. It is almost always followed up by certain questions, apparently to ensure that I'm not one of The Bad Ones. It's darkly amusing to see almost the exact same complaints here as in RL (in online discussions and Letters To The Editor): that due to People Like Me, housing has become scarce/more expensive, and public services are becoming overcrowded, and these strange habits and cultures are incompatible with the native ones. And, as with FFXIV, these complaints keep happening. I don't know how to deal with it in RL, which means I don't know how to deal with it here.

Honestly, the talk about "real natives" and "trendsters moving into the neighbourhood" is making me very uncomfortable, and certainly unwelcome. Upon consideration, I suspect this is partly due to being a RL immigrant, and hearing almost exactly the same rhetoric used against me, or at least people like me. I'm not saying the situations are identical, or carrying anywhere near the same weight. It's just a game, after all. I just have this weird reaction, since I hear enough of it in RL, and seeing it here regarding the game (where I go to take my mind off RL) is kind of jarring. Am I overreacting? I don't actually know of any way to stop feeling unwelcome other than to suck it up and deal.

In case anyone was still wondering, I may have found an answer to this. I add the qualifiers because I'm getting it second-hand from another forum, due to not having reached the Stormblood areas yet, but I think it's plausible enough. Basically, the answer is no, the Elbst mount cannot swim. However, there is apparently an actual lore reason for this: the Elbst mount has had its flippers clipped to allow it to run on land. No word on whether this contravenes animal cruelty guidelines. I wonder if this forum has a way to reply to a thread without bumping, for minor additional-information posts like this.

I think the necessity of having to ask in the first place is a sign that it's very difficult to tell, and as such the line between "kidding around" and "deadly serious" is not particularly clear in this case.

I know this is probably best asked after Stormblood actually launches, but I'm going to be out of the country (visiting the US) for the duration of Early Access and Actual Launch, returning only after the 24th. During that time, no (non-public) computers. So I figured I might as well put up a thread now, so I can check in on my phone when Stormblood is out. It's something I've been wondering about, and I'm probably not going to be able to get it out of my head until I work it out. From what I heard, mounts that are able to fly in Heavensward can now also swim in Stormblood. Similarly, mounts that can swim in Stormblood can also fly. Is that accurate? If so, a question: will the Sahagin Elbst mount be able to swim?

Fair enough. I have a vague recollection of having read the journal and being just as lost, but that could be because I didn't pay enough attention. Reading it again, I'm not sure why I didn't get it the first time.

I am aware of that option, yes. That only really works for cutscenes, though; I don't know of a way to get non-cutscene conversations. To be fair, I'd also be fine with summaries, especially if they clarify who is whom. I can't seem to keep track of all the names and what relevance they have to the story.

Are there any good guides or summaries for the class/Job stories? I know of the several options for reviewing what happened in the MSQ, but I'm not sure where to start looking for class/Jobs. This is mainly due to deciding to turn my Gladiator into Paladin after abandoning it in the mid-20s, and when I went through the remaining class quests, I had no idea who any of these people were. (Aldis? Who dis?) Considering my other sub-50 classes/Jobs, this will probably happen many more times. For the Gladiator, I ended up going to XIVDB and reading the dialogue from the beginning. It's a bit clunky to do so for every class, though.

I suppose one upside is that I don't have to worry about ripping AoE aggro from the Tank anymore on my Scholar. According to the tooltips from the video, not only will upgrading from Bio to Bio 2 be a 5 potency loss (40 potency to 35, albeit a with duration increase from 18 to 30 seconds; both skill tooltips were unchanged), I had a double-take when I saw a Bio 3 reference. Which I'm hoping is a typo. Very much hoping the numbers change between now and release. EDIT: Just saw on the Astrologian video that Nocturnal Aspected Benefic gives a shield that is 300% of the HP healed, up from 170%. This is in addition to a healing potency increase from 190 to 200. /salute Adloquium, you were a fine ability.

There's also the possibility of... I'm not sure whether it's still considered straight-up racism, but it's definitely some sort of prejudice. Specifically, instead of being racist against Elezen or Miqo'te or Au Ra, one might instead discriminate against Gridanians, or Ishgardians, or Ul'dahns. We've all heard the generalizations of "all Ul'dahns are money-grubbing", or "all Limsans are pirates", or the somewhat ironic "all Ishgardians are xenophobic". I was thinking about this mostly with regards to my Sharlayan-origin character, and the dim view the Old Sharlayans have against Eorzeans. The Sharlayan stereotype is to dismiss Eorzeans as uncivilized savages, which strikes me as having the same thought-space as racism, even if Eorzeans come in all sorts of races and cultures.

I'd like to confirm something/ask for permission: If someone asks for a RP server suggestion on another forum, eg the Lodestone, should I start pointing them to Mateus? Is there anything else I should add? I'm not sure if I should just say "try Mateus", or if I should add in all the other possible alternates.

Am I missing something, or are there no chairs in the Forgotten Knight?

Weird. I keep thinking that I've definitely seen that symbol somewhere, but now I'm wondering if it's a false memory.

Also compare the anger and mutual racism between China and Japan (and Korea, although I'm less familiar with that). Most of the justification for the anger is from WW2, but dig a bit deeper and it turns out the hatred is almost entirely because "it's always been that way". WW2 was just the most obvious go-to in a long, long line of reasons to hate the Other. It pops up in unexpected places. Much of the time, it's from the older generation as mentioned, but sometimes it gets brought up by politicians as political football, or in sudden ranting screeds from younger people. Even the milder forms of racism can still be troublesome. I hear a lot of "you can't trust them" and "they don't know our ways", or even "they're not so bad, as long as you keep an eye on them", which strikes me as more than a little backhanded.

I asked this on the official forums, but didn't get an answer, so maybe one of the lorehounds here might know. What symbol is this? I'm pretty sure I've seen it before somewhere, but I've completely forgotten what it means. (Also that flag is ridiculously big. Questions of "why" and "how the heck did they get it up there" swirl around.)

If there is another (non-Balmung) server officially designated as RP, the only delay to my transferring would be logging in just long enough to take down all my marketboard items to prepare my character. I don't have many attachments to Balmung as such. I've made acquaintances and friends, but none deep enough to anchor me to the server, should they decide not to transfer. I don't mind starting fresh socially, especially since I intentionally keep my RP light. Having said that, I doubt Square Enix is going to create (or designate) such a server. I don't think there's a large enough population of players to warrant such a move, since not only would it require said players to be interested in RP (already a minority), players would also have to care enough about the issue to demand an official RP server, and be willing to transfer to it.

Thanks to all for the info, especially with the transcriptions. I haven't really commented on them much, largely because I'm still digesting the information. While I appreciate that the history is probably muddled in-universe for perfectly understandable reasons (viz time), it does make it a bit more difficult to work with out of game when we don't have concrete answers. Putting all that aside for the moment (because thinking about it too hard makes me tempted to just give it up as a huge mess), what sort of population does each of the city-states have, and how many outlying settlements are significant enough to be potential origins? I ask because I'm thinking of having my character come from around Sharlayan, as opposed to the city itself. In-game the city-states are kind of deserted, which I assume to be a gameplay conceit. For example, the actual number of NPCs in the areas around Limsa Lominsa would not have been significant enough to constitute an incursion into Kobold territory, and yet here we are. I'm not sure if Sharlayan even has outlying settlements in the first place, but every other city-state does (with the possible exception of Ishgard, since I haven't gotten into Heavensward content yet), of varying sizes, eg compare Summerford Farms and Moraby Drydocks.

Currently listening to this, thanks to this thread. Agreed that it's pretty entertaining, although there hasn't been very many episodes yet. I'm currently on episode two, and I don't know if it improves, but there's a lot of dead air on occasion, which implies that the hosts don't really have a script, and often just fall silent when they run out of things to say. It's one of those things which can absolutely be corrected with practice, so I don't begrudge them that. Anyway, what prompted me to comment here is something from their first episode; namely the idea of the "muse" and "mun". Is this something that's widespread in the FF14 RP community? I admit I've never heard of this, but it does make sense in that there has to be some way of signifying the separation between character and player, and "muse"/"mun" is as good a method as any I've seen elsewhere.

It's sounding like Sharlayan is the best option I have. Which is great, now that I have an answer for people who ask me in RP where I'm from. Is there anything in particular about Sharlayan I should know about? Given whatever can be easily Googled as a base, and the extra tidbits in this thread. If nothing else, I can headcanon the vague bits, but I'd rather not contradict canon/fanon. I do find themes of colonialism in stories interesting, academically. This does run into my personal preferences of low-angst, so I don't actively seek out stories about colonialism, but I'm fascinated by the viewpoints expressed on both sides. Maybe this is due to living in a country that saw colonialism as a net benefit, with a vague acknowledging gesture towards the fact that not every other instance was as positive. In any case, I'll probably not use this aspect until I'm a lot more comfortable with my character, but it's something to keep in mind. I've met Elfy-nod Alphinaud and Alisaie, yes. If my headcanon holds, I can pretend that the voyage to Limsa Lominsa when I started the game had originated in Sharlayan, thus conveniently explaining why the twins and my character happened to be in the same place. (The Chocobo cart rides to Gridania and Ul'dah did not happen in this timeline.) I admit I'm not sure how old to make my character, apart from the generic "old enough to be of age". I don't even know what Miqo'te lifespans are like in general, much less if Sharlayan Miqo'te have different lifespans than those living in harsher conditions. I know nothing about Thavnair apart from a Thavnairan Bolero that I think I got from the Palace Of The Dead hoard. Googling, it appears to be an island nation in the "Near East" that is known for alchemy and being desert-hot. Which does match the whole Seeker Of The Sun savannah-cat thing, but I'm not as comfortable with it, since I know even less about Thavnair than the little I do about Sharlayan.

Do the Garleans conscript every non-Garlean they come across, or do they just have a non-discrimination policy? Or do they impose a quota of a certain number of conscripts from each given region, and it's just a matter of luck (and possibly some minimum criteria)? I don't actually know much about how Garlemard rules its domains. Logically they shouldn't be too hard on the majority of their holdings, apart from the rebellious ones like Doma and possibly Ala Mhigo, simply because otherwise they'd have rebellions everywhere. So I was thinking it's possible for P'liko to have come from a Garlean-controlled territory, but not really care one way or another due to daily life being more or less the same as before. Or maybe the Garleans had been in charge for long enough that most people have gotten used to it; the saying about fish not noticing water comes to mind. So P'liko would have no opinions on Garlemard either way, and her actions in the latter stages of the 7th Umbral Era MSQ would be mostly due to Holy Carp Ultima Weapon, and she unconsciously separates the Garleans invading Eorzea from the (totally reasonable) Garleans ruling her homeland. Of course, I could be totally wrong about all of this, in which case I'd better look for a non-Garlean region for P'liko to come from. I pin a lot of hopes for Sharlayan being a valid option on Y'shtola, who is pretty cool (and coolly pretty). I seem to recall she, and a lot of other Scions, is from Sharlayan, and the only remotely arrogant thing she did so far is the usual "why can't everyone see this horrible thing happening in the near future" from the MSQ. Well, that and exasperation with Yda, but everyone gets exasperated with Yda. (I love Yda.)

This is a question I've been rolling around in my head for a while, but I haven't really had a chance to let it coalesce into something concrete I can ask about. Therefore, bear with me as I ramble on. Short version: I want my Miqo'te Seeker of the Sun character (P'liko Cuga) to be new to Eorzea. What options do I have? I like the idea of the opening cutscene where P'liko (and other non-Legacy characters) arrive in their starting cities via some mode of transportation. In P'liko's case, she comes from Somewhere Else, and takes a ship to Limsa Lominsa, which she quickly comes to call home. Also, there's a meta reason for being new to Eorzea: I didn't know where the IC/OOC divide is in search info and the like, so I put in "new to Eorzea" as a way of saying I'm new to FF14 (and thus could use advice and help). The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt it was fitting for P'liko to not be familiar with a lot of Eorzean customs, matching my own lack of knowledge. So the options for where P'liko comes from would be places which have a decent Miqo'te population, and which allow regular commercial sea travel to Limsa Lominsa. The latter almost certainly exists; even if I get the impression the entire world minus Eorzea is Garlean-occupied, that does not preclude trade. The former is trickier, since Miqo'te apparently came to Eorzea from "across the frozen seas" during one of the Umbral Calamities, but I don't actually know where they came from, or what Miqo'te society is like outside of Eorzea. I'd also prefer if P'liko's origin is relatively drama-free, so nothing like escaping Garlean persecution or such. P'liko travelled to Eorzea in pursuit of knowledge, learning all she can, simply because she likes learning new things. That is about the extent of what I've worked out, since without knowing more lore, I can't even answer questions like how old she is, or what she was doing during the Calamity. Right now I tentatively put P'liko's home as Sharlayan, or at least somewhere around that area. This is entirely because I don't see any of the major cities on Eorzea as valid origin points for P'liko for various reasons, and Sharlayan is an option only because I know next to nothing about it. However, this may also be problematic, as the Main Story Quest appears to be building up to something involving Sharlayan, which involves it being completely wiped off the map. Googling for information/spoilers does not seem to help, and indeed complicates matters; there are apparently two Sharlayans, one of which is a colony in Dravania. I don't know which of these got destroyed by "an Ultima-like spell", according to Minfilia and Urianger. Presumably this will get explained later in the MSQ, but I haven't gotten there yet.

Having never used Discord before, is there anything I should know about it? I'm looking through their website right now, but I don't know if there's anything specific to look out for. I don't have a mic, but Discord says it also supports text chat. Is that acceptable? (Timezone-wise I'm certainly eligible. GMT+8, Singapore.)

Apologies for the double-post, but I thought this was relevant enough to update the thread: I am finally on Balmung. The delay was mainly due to the "character must have existed for three days" criteria, which my probably-unplayed alts had to meet first. Now to see what a Ridiculously High Population server looks like, and hopefully spectate some open-world RP.

I did assume that Minfilia was essentially a non-combatant, since it would be reasonable to assume not everyone who receives the Echo (and is inducted into the Scions) is a combat badass like the player. It's just that I keep wondering if she is literally stuck inside her office, unable to depart. Putting aside the travel involved in getting to Vesper Bay in the first place, her office is behind two loading screens. Of course, that still doesn't explain why she insists on having me come to her, instead of just relaying instructions via linkpearl. I honestly have no idea how that works, sartorially. Is there some sort of transparent material holding the sides together? How would one attempt to cosplay that? I admit when I first saw that, I thought I was seeing some weird clipping issue with Yda's thighs.