Gameplay And Story Integration / Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV
Tropes: A to C | D to F (Foreshadowing) | G to I (Gameplay and Story Integration) | J to L | M to O | P to R | S to U | V to Z

When your character can be anything you wish them to be, it'd be easy to just have a cookie-cutter line of dialogue and call it a day. In here though, there's a staggering amount of little details that change and adapt according to the player's character, from quest completion, to even your character's affiliations, race, and job at the time of a cutscene. It makes the experience an extra touch personal, and gives a Rewatch Bonus when you decide to go replay cutscenes to see what changes. Whatever's down here are some of the more major points, as listing every little detail would take a while when Developer's Foresight is in play, too.

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• Vesper Bay is pretty important to the plot (as it's where the Scions' home base is), yet it lacks an Aetheryte Crystal and indeed is the only proper town to lack one, causing you to have to hot foot it from Horizon or take the ferry near Limsa Lominsa's Arcanists' Guild every time you want to go there. In the post-2.0 part of A Realm Reborn, it is revealed that the town doesn't have one because the various powerful factions of Eorzea are trying to pressure the Scions into working with them, with strings attached. They all refuse to give the town an Aetheryte Crystal unless the Scions start working with them, which is one reason Alphinaud believes the Scions should move their base elsewhere.
• During certain cutscenes, NPCs (and the player character) will openly use Aetheryte teleportation or explicitly refer to it. In a few other cutscenes, spells such as Protect are also used. One levequest in Gridania will also mention that it is standard practice for Botanists who encounter danger in the wild to drop their cargo and use Return to escape.
• Pretty much everything related to the Seventh Umbral Era was reflected in-game and commented on by NPCs during that storyline in 1.0, from weather changes to the increase of monsters' size to the changes in Dalamud.
• In the waning days of 1.0's service, a conspicuous red dot of light could be seen in night sky, which grew larger over time until it was revealed to be the moon of Dalamud, which was descending towards Eorzea. Over the following days, story quests were added revolving around attempts to stop Dalamud's descent, and contain the chaos erupting as a result of its imminent impact. In the end, the heroes' efforts amounted to naught, as Dalamud approached Eorzea, only for its destruction to end up unleashing Bahamut and bringing the realm to the brink of oblivion, with one of the heroes sending the player characters into the future. When A Realm Reborn launched, five years had passed since Bahamut's rampage, and the realm had recovered, yet irrevocably changed, while player characters returning from 1.0 would see changes to the story to account for their presence during the previous version's events. One significant change is the prologue cutscene for Legacy players: Wheras a normal player would be entering their chosen city via caravan, the Legacy player would be teleported in at the outskirts, reflecting their escape from the calamity.
• If the player gets a cutscene when logging in at the inn, their character will be without their headgear. According to the developers, that's because "no one sleeps with a hat or a helmet". Glasses, however, will remain on, as sleeping with them on is not unreasonable.
• NPCs use, and will give you, Linkpearls in A Realm Reborn. You see Raubahn using one to communicate with his troops during the Echo flashback to the battle of Carteneau and Bahamut's release, and Minfilia gives you one during the plot so she can stay in touch. Additionally, your character's race is taken account of when they answer their linkpearl; Miqo'te, Viera, and Hrothgar raise their hands higher up to reach their beastly ears.
• The level 15 Rogue class quest involves Jacke and the player starting a fight against multiple foes with backup on the way. A well-equipped and fast player can kill all the foes before that help arrives. If that happens, Perimu and V'kebbe will survey the scene and comment that "There's naught for us to do..." followed by Jacke chiding them for being late.
• NPCs will generally remember you if you've interacted with them before. This can be as minor as the leaders of the city's adventurer's guild remembering you if you started in that city when you visit them for other quests, to as major as class and job trainers acknowledging your membership if you go there on quest-related business not related to the guild itself. Even the one-off holiday events show signs of the latter.
  • Yugiri in the main story, for example, changes her dialogue accordingly if you're a Ninja when you meet up with her again ("You should train to be a Ninja" to "You fight like one of us, I'm proud of you").
  • When speaking with affiliated Grand Company members, they will formally address you by your rank (e.g. Captain (last name)). In the 3.2 MSQ "A Spectacle for the Ages", if you happen to be affiliated with the Immortal Flames, Raubahn will address you the same way since he's your superior.
• Each spellcaster (and occasional non-caster) class has a different style of mana management, and this is part of the lore.
  • Conjurers and White Mages have reserves of powerful spells, but can easily run dry if incautious — and their tutor warns that White Magic was normally restricted to Padjal in part because overuse of magic drained enough aether from the land to cause an entire Umbral Age. When compared to their other healer brethren, their spell repertoire gives them the highest raw healing and damaging power. However, they also the most costly healing spells in Cure II, Medica, and Medica II, and lack any personal MP managing abilities outside of Lucid Dreaming until obtaining Assize and Thin Air over thirty levels later. The danger of exhausting personal aether is very real as a result, and Sylphie came close to killing herself trying to use her powers without the proper practices.
  • Thaumaturges and Black Mages have structured lessons about the ebb and flow of aether through Umbral and Astral ages, and correspondingly burn through mana in Astral Fire then use Umbral Ice to regenerate MP. Astral Fire halts natural MP regeneration, while Umbral Ice greatly accelerates it. They also don't start learning any spells with massive impact until becoming Black Mages proper, as high level Black Magic is exceptionally dangerous for Thaumaturges to try to use without a conduit, which their soul crystals act as. The consequences can and will be fatal, as detailed in the Heavensward job storyline: it burns the caster from the inside, which horrifies Zhai'a enough to snap him out of his fundamentalist mentality.
  • Arcanists are told about the value of planning, and correspondingly must manage Aetherflow, buffs, and debuffs, for up a minute in advance. The skill used to generate Aetherflow is on a 60s cooldown, and what the Arcanist does in-between that time differs based on the job after level 30.
    • Summoners have the Aethercharge spell, which is also on a 60s cooldown, and grants usage of their gemstone Arcanum spells. Though all three of them are available, which order to use them is up to caster's discretion. Additionally, when an Arcanum is evoked, the effects are on a timer, so the Summoner must use their charges or lose them. Additionally, Summoner works on a twofold Defeat Means Friendship with their summoned Egi; as such Arcanists can't obtain them until killing their respective Primal (the issue of summoning Ifrit-egi is sidestepped, since you can't advance any class into a Job until completing a quest sometime after fighting Ifrit in the story), making them the only job blocked from progressing their A Realm Reborn Job storyline by Main Story progression.
    • Scholars, meanwhile, have to upkeep their Damage Over Time spell, while preemptively casting their healing spells to form protective barriers on their allies. Their Aetherflow is also what fuels several key abilities to ensure survival, ranging from Damage Reduction, to emergency burst healing. Scholars have a background in being military strategists in Nym, thus, knowing which spell to use in battle is key to keeping their allies alive, or exposing enemy weaknesses to lead the charge.
  • Astrologians draw upon the infinite power of space and stars, and thus have some of the better mana conservation of the healer jobs. Their star-charting ability also allows them to see into the future, and as such many of their buffs and healing strategies in-lore and in gameplay play them to be preemptive healers ready to get a spellcast out before damage is done even though their kit is better served towards being a reactive healer like White Mage. When dealing with The First in Shadowbringers, Astrologians even find a bit of Loophole Abuse in this logic by focusing downward, since technically the planet ALSO counts a "star", a solution that boggles your job trainer's mind.
  • The Red Mage, meanwhile, is told by the job trainer that the pioneers of the job consisted of the White Mages of Amdapor and Black Mages of Mhach who had joined other refugees in the Gyr Abanian mountains to escape the 6th Umbral Calamity's massive world-wide flood caused by the War of the Magi set prior to the events of the game, due to the land being drained of aether. Faced with the anger and destruction caused by their actions, the members of the two sides put aside their differences and swore to repay their debts to civilization by helping with rebuilding and protecting the weak. They also swore a vow to only use the reserves of aether within their bodies to power their spells to avoid another Calamity, adapting the mana-hungry disciplines of White and Black magic through "aetheric accelerator" focusing crystals that allow small bits of aether to translate into powerful spells. In game, this translates to Red Mages having relatively low MP costs for their spells, barring their healing and especially resurrection spells, but no built-in ability to restore MP quickly, only having access to the cross-role action Lucid Dreaming and their natural mana regen. They are also described to have spells that happen up front, rather than over time. This directly translates to gameplay, as they have no Damage Over Time spells - their equivalent of the White Mage spell "Aero" and the Black Mage spell "Thunder" are long-cast but instantly-damaging spells, as opposed to the quickly-cast damage-over-time spells that they are for White and Black Mage.
  • Similarly, the Bard job trainer speaks of the importance of Bardic music to inspire allies, and how one should always put their allies' needs in battle first, before their own vanity and personal glory. In gameplay, this translates as Bard being a highly support-oriented DPS job (second to Dancer), having less personal DPS than others, but having a host of abilities to boost their allies' DPS in various ways, increase the effectiveness of healing, boosting damage output, reduce damage vulnerability, and more.
  • The Sage questline mentions that Sage arts originated from the use of adder stones to channel their magicks, which eventually evolved into the nouliths used by the job. This is reflected by the class's Addersgall and Addersting gauges. Addersgall is a constantly regenerating resource that allows the use of special healing abilities, which also have a side benefit of regenerating MP. Addersting, meanwhile, is a resource that's generated whenever one of the sage's barriers is broken, which allows them to use a powerful spell that costs no MP. Expert use of the job revolves around being able to weave in Addersgall and other abilities in between attack spells in order to mitigate damage and keep the party healthy with the actual healing spells being reserved for emergencies or to shield against big attacks. The complexity of the class is also referenced by Ameliance, describing soumanoutics, the school of magic Sages use, to be a "dreadfully difficult" discipline taught by the Studium.
• Members of the Garlean Empire are biologically incapable of casting magic, therefore the only casters you find in Garlean strongholds tend to be Lalafell or Highlander Hyur (who were drafted after their countries were conquered) and tend to be low ranked at that, or use shock-sticks, in which case they can only cast thunder and paralyze. In story quests where you're fighting alongside characters who have no healing capability like Cid (Garlean and incapable of using magic), Sidurgu (never in his life touched Conjury), or Thancred (who lost his ability to use aether) instead of using a cure spell on you like most NPCs in the same type of story battle, they'll use a powerful Aqua Vitae potion that accomplishes the same effect.
• Throughout the story, and as of 6.1 even in the Duty Support menu for your Scion and Grand Company accomplices, characters only ever seem to rely on Thaumaturges for offensive magic, even if you're a Black Mage or a Red Mage, and Conjurers for healing support instead of White Mages or other classes. The art of the Black Mages was thought to be extinct with the fall of Mhach and the Warrior of Light has effectively become The Chosen One for carrying on its art in a rather exclusive manner, and the Red Mage is a highly customized fusion of White and Black magicks as the Warrior all but stumbled into learning under the sole remaining practitioner on his travels; Eorzea literally can't produce forces of either with such limitations. White Magic is also limited extensively to the Padjal as part of Gridanian tradition, with the Warrior being selected by a soul crystal to inherit it abnormally.
  • For that matter, it takes special effort and non-standard training off-screen for Y'shtola to go from a Conjurer to the unique Sorceress class that fights like a Black Mage on her own terms, something Papalymo doesn't manage to do. Meanwhile Alisaie canonically learns the Red Mage discipline properly (from the same teacher as the Warrior of Light, incidentally) and Urianger directly uses his Sharlayan studies to go the path of the Astrologian, though he can fall back to a custom version of the Summoner class as a DPS in Endwalker if need be, as he started as an Arcanist. Similar cases occur with characters like Thancred and Ryne, the former having to learn his Gunbreaker class from another character off-screen while he passed on his Rogue/Ninja hybrid knowledge to the latter, and Alphinaud only upgrades to Sage after being an Arcanist/Summoner for so long by inheriting his father's nouliths, which required returning to Sharlayan. Every Scion Job upgrade or origin comes down to either overcoming these in-universe limitations to go their own paths, or needing the right teachers and circumstances to learn the Jobs themselves.
• Speaking of the Duty Support system, it merges retroactively with Trusts to help create a better story context for a number of dungeons and even some trials; much like yourself, you start out with simple adventurers that then become Grand Company members, before finally ascending to Scion members, and it's a consistent team at that. Once the Bloody Banquet hits, however, the Heavensward content properly melds you with the canonical team members that accompany you through different parts of the story as well. In effect, unless the story implicitly implies the Warrior of Light handled a duty entirely by themselves, the Duty Support canonizes a party for them as well as finally has the story integrated into the gameplay firmly.
  • For example, Estinien is curiously absent, save for shouting suggestions from a mount above the final showdown, during the raid on the Aery to kill Nidhogg. The Duty Support ensures he's in your party as a Lancer.
  • To get the point across of how much of a canon integration this makes, at Haurchefant's death, the Warrior originally sat there idle with horror and sorrow even as a Healer class, raising a lot of questions of why they didn't try to do anything. As of 6.2, now Alphinaud is a Duty Support member and canonically is there as well, attempting to do the healing himself to no avail for a wound too intense to fix.
  • Former duties and bosses turned into solo duties also reflect this: Rhitahtyn goes from a chump of a boss eight players overwhelm, to the intended Duel Boss the story always implied him to be as one of Gaius' finest commanders. Lahabrea makes a very personal stake on the Warrior of Light's life, albeit your party inexplicably disappears for this case. And the Steps of Faith was implied to be a desperate, last-ditch defense effort scrambling whatever they could get while the other nation-states ignored their plight, which is reflected by now having a handful of Scions, Lucia and the Ishgardian Dragoons all banding together in a way the original duty party system couldn't integrate into the plot well with a random band of adventurers.
• The fact that you can fight Primals over and over is also integrated into the plot: They cannot really be killed and can just be summoned again. Bosses that you'd never ever fight again because they couldn't be re-summoned like a Primal have their harder modes explained via other means, such as losing yourself in a bard's embellished retelling of your original encounter with them, or fighting a simulacrum made of the resident Precursors' technology used for training purposes. Even dungeons show time marching onwards, as Hard Modes are, rather than the same dungeon but with the enemy levels bumped up, the dungeon after time has passed and newer, bigger threats have moved in, old pathways have collapsed and new ones been exposed, among other changes.
• "The Minstrel's Ballad" trials are retellings of past encounters you had, and it's more or less reliving your experiences through bardic tales. However, since the Wandering Minstrel has a habit of embellishing it with more dramatic description, those retold fights are harder to match it. Savage-difficulty encounters of Normal Raids have the same logic as well, though with more means than just song. Sometimes it's through data records, twisted memories embedded in crystal, or a researcher wanting to be a bit fancy with note taking.
• Jobs introduced in A Realm Reborn add new skills to your base class when you equip the corresponding Soul Crystal. This is justified by the fact that Soul Crystals contain the knowledge and memories of previous owners, which are bestowed upon you upon equipping them. This is also the reason why the jobs added in each expansion start off at higher levels (30 for Heavensward jobs, 50 for Stormblood, 60 for Shadowbringers and 70 for Endwalker): the Soul Crystals already have a plentiful amount of knowledge and memories from past users. Conversely, this is also why Blue Mages start at level 1: blue magic was only very recently introduced to Eorzea, and as such, Blue Mage Soul Crystals are new and pristine because you're the first person to use the one you receive.
  • Why does the Machinist start at level 30 despite the Warrior being given a brand new soul crystal? Because Stephanivien designed his guns to be usable by any run-of-the-mill commoner even without any prior training. Since the Warrior of Light does have prior training, their knowledge puts them several steps above the baseline for the job despite Machinist being considered new, with its crystal lacking the etching that most soul crystals have.
  • The relationship between classes and jobs comes up in a big way in Stormblood's Monk questline. Widargelt and his disciples only know the martial arts style developed and taught by the Fists of Rhalgr, and so are left completely at the mercy of Corpse Brigade pugilists who know a style specifically designed to counter that of the Fists. The player character, however, is much more able to stand against them and even defeat them, because they don't just know the Fists' style - they learned it on top of Ul'dahn pugilism, which they later teach to the others to make the group unpredictable enough to give them the edge.
• One of the first quests for Dark Knights teaches about careful use of the power of one's own inner darkness, using just enough to grant them the strength needed to stand against their foes, without letting the darkness consume them and leaving them vulnerable to their enemies. Much like the spellcasting examples above, this translates to careful and balanced use of the Dark Knight's various high-MP-cost spells and abilities. Trying to use too many at once without using their MP restoring abilities will severely reduce their ability for damage dealing, damage mitigation, and holding enmity of their foes.
• During the 51-60 Blacksmith series of quests, you are working for a noble family that has fallen into poverty (the family just being a young girl and the one employee who remained to take care of her after her father was falsely convicted of heresy). The employee tells you that he will be unable to pay you for your work until their house rises back up again, and indeed you get no gil from completing the quests until the final one (though you still get gear/silver pieces as a reward).
• The aetherytes — large rotating crystals that serve as fast-travel points across the game — get a lot of in-universe justifications for their locations and their functions.
  • Why do you have to teleport to aetherytes in the first place? Why can't you just teleport anywhere you wish? Because you could possibly die from teleporting if you did it wrong! As explained in lore books, aetherytes are situated in areas where the physical and aetherial planes are closest to one another, with the aetherytes serving as beacons to allow a person to rematerialize their bodies and souls safely. Without them, they would be lost in the Lifestream and run the risk of having their bodies break down completely into aether. The spell "Flow" allows one to teleport anywhere they wish, at least in theory; in practice, it's so difficult to use that using it means risking one's life because you might end up in the Lifestream, which is basically a death sentence. And even if you somehow manage to escape from the Lifestream, your body and aether will suffer for it. Thancred managed to return under his own strength, but completely lost his ability to use magic, meaning he was stranded in the Dravanian forelands where the spell plopped him out at until the player character happens to come through for an unrelated matter. Y'shtola used Flow twice, once in A Realm Reborn and once in Shadowbringers. Both times, she needed outside help to return from the Lifestream, and the first time Y'shtola used it, she permanently lost her eyesight.
  • The cost of teleporting to an aetheryte depends on the in-universe distance between where you are and where you want to go, much like how a plane ticket at an airport would be more expensive the further away your destination is. The first three cities are all in Eorzea and relatively near to one another, so it doesn't cost a lot of money to travel between any of them, and the costs gets lower the closer you physically get to them (e.g. teleporting to Ul'dah from Eastern Thanalan will cost noticeably less than teleporting there from the North Shroud). Going from anywhere in Eorzea to the Far East (Othard and Hingashi) and vice-versa will always cost a lot of money no matter where you are, due to them being quite literally in different continents on the opposite side of the world. The First, being a different dimension altogether, takes this to its logical extreme, with capped teleport fees to any other area in the game.
    • The 6.0 update alters the logic behind teleporting to the First slightly; rather than it being as expensive as possible because the Warrior of Light is traveling across the rift, the cost is calculated based on them using the Crystal Tower as a conduit, which, in universe, was how they were able to travel to the First all along. As such, the costs are calculated based on the player's proximity to Mor Dhona and the destination's proximity to the Crystarium (or vice versa), where the Crystal Tower is in both planes. Endwalker's 4th, 5th and 6th Zones have similar justifications. ^{To elaborate (Endwalker Spoilers)}The 4th Zone is the moon, accessed from the Garlean Palace turned Space Elevator, so teleports to the moon are relative to Garlemald. The 5th Zone, located in the distant past, is accessed via a time gate opened in the First's Crystal Tower, so fees are relative to the Crystarium and Mor Dhona. The 6th zone, the edge of the universe, was accessed via the Ragnarok, which generated its own aether currents to hasten its flight; post-MSQ, there's also an interesting quirk where your spaceship somehow exists both in its hangar in Labyrinthos and in the landing site simultaneously. Teleports are relative to Labyrinthos and Old Sharlayan. This also explains why teleporting between the Moon and Ultima Thule is so expensive; despite both being in the Sea of Stars, they are accessed via completely opposite ends of the Ethyris.
  • This is why you have to use your aether to attune to the aetheryte's power and location — doing so allows someone to teleport there safely since both your aether and the aetheryte's are in sync. In Endwalker, a researcher in Old Sharlayan has produced an experimental aetheryte where the two aetherytes are attuned to each other, thus allowing for a workaround, albeit one that requires significant prior preparation. Said teleportation does leave you with very bad aether sickness that basically cripples you for around half an hour in-universe, the first time it's done, but later use of the same aetheryte does not, whether by conventional teleportation or by using the experimental trip again.
• Normally, the game does not take into account on what the player's job or class is when a cutscene occurs, but as the game has gone on it's started to acknowledge your job more often. In Stormblood, Y'shtola is gravely wounded and Krile asks you to help her out. Normally, she would ask you to hold the person down as she heals them. If you are a healer, she asks you to help her heal. One of the Eden raids in Shadowbringers has Urianger asking if you know how rain is formed. Normally your options are to say you're vaguely familiar with the idea or claim "it's an Allagan conspiracy", both of which result in Urianger explaining how it works in the game's lore; if you're playing as a Scholar, you can point out that people of your profession are generally well-versed, at which point he apologizes for not remembering and asks you to explain it.
• Glamour of all things is used in the main story of Stormblood. Yes, the mechanic you use you make your gear's appearance change and is purely cosmetic is used as part of a major plan: lacking the manpower to take over an Imperial Castrum, the Alliance and Resistance make a plan where their forces pull away as many Imperials as they can while a small group sneaks in on griffin-back and glamours the Imperial flag into one of their own, making it look like they had successfully taken the outpost, and causing the Imperials to flee, thinking they had lost. It works. A literal False Flag Operation, anyone?
• Pet Glamour is backed by Arcanist theory and practice, with Y'mithra's research as the basis for Summoners, or Nymian arts for Scholar. The pet's initial appearance is based on what the practitioner gravitates to, i.e. Ifrit-Egi for fire aether. If the caster wills it, they're able to reimagine the summoned creature form into another, such as a Carbuncle, since the outer appearance has no bearing on the summon's aetherial properties. This is how players are able to alter the appearance of their Egis or faeries without compromising the integrity of their summon magic.
• While, as noted below, some boss fights treat you as alone despite being in a party, others fully integrate the idea of having a party into the story. The fight against the colossal Dravanian "siege engine" Vishap in A Realm Reborn is a good example - a large part of the story leading up to it involves desperately trying to recruit the assistance of the Grand Companies of Eorzea to defend Ishgard; when that fails, the Scions go around recruiting adventurers to help, instead. The seven people you do the fight with are implied to be some of those adventurers you recruited.
  • Lampshaded by the in-game dialogue before the fight with Susano. Lyse will muse that it's likely there will be friends of yours who happen to be on a trip in the area who can help you.
  • The Final Boss of the Shadowbringers expansion involves temporarily and successfully summoning 7 Warriors of Light from other shards, who make up your party for the actual boss fight. This ends up becoming a recurring plot point from patch 5.3 onwards, when the Warrior of Light retrieves Azem's crystal and gains its ability to summon allies to wherever they are, simultaneously justifies how they're able to conveniently bring 3-7 people into group content in even the most out-there locations. They first use it against Elidibus, and then continue to use it in Endwalker for most Trial Boss (the exception being Hydaelyn, where the canon party is the Scions).
  • During the Pandemonium raid series, you can't use the Azem's crystal in the past without raising eyebrows from your allies, so instead Themis summons "phantom warriors" to serve as your allies for the first two tiers. The last tier takes place during the present day, so when one of your allies worries that Themis isn't arround to summon allies, you remind them that you have Azem's crystal and use it to summon your party for all the fights in that tier.
• The expense of acquiring and maintaining an aethernet within a city is implicitly acknowledged by the number of aethernet shards and their convenience for getting around in the three major city-states. Ul'dah, the wealthiest of the three city-states, has aethernet shards in close proximity to every single guild and other important area of the city, while Gridania and Limsa Lominsa require a fair bit of hoofing it to where you're needed even after using the aethernet, especially in Limsa Lominsa's upper decks, where a single aethernet shard at the center is the closest you can directly teleport to for anything in the southern half of the decks, requiring a fair bit of walking to reach the Maelstrom HQ or especially the Armorer's and Blacksmith's guild.
• The implementation of New Game Plus in 5.1 is similar to the Minstrel's Ballads: an old man in Vesper Bay suggests that you take a moment to walk down memory lane now and again, and remember what brought you to where you are now.
• Travel logistics are worked into how individuals and armies both move. In 4.5, Hien explicitly says that the main Doman fighting force will be delayed arriving in Eorzea as crossing the south sea (and having to avoid the Garlean home continent of Ilsabard) takes time, and not every fighter has the necessary anima to just teleport halfway across the world. Hien himself, Yugiri, and a decent chunk of Doman fighters are still present in time for the Ghimlyt Dark dungeons, however, because they attuned themselves to the aetheryte crystals in Ala Mhigo during the fight to take the city, just like the player does when they find a new aetheryte, so they could just teleport there.
  • 6.0 has this pop up again when the Scions split up after arriving in Sharlayan, with about half the group staying behind to perform research while the other half decides to check the situation in Thavnair. One of the latter group has already been there, has already attuned, and can travel easily, but the rest (including the Warrior) have not; since traveling by boat again would take too long, the only way they can even get there in a timely fashion is thanks to a prototype Sharlayan aetheryte which is itself attuned to the destination aetheryte, allowing people to teleport between them even if they're not attuned to the destination themselves. The downside? Since the traveler is not teleporting there on their own ability, but is instead "tugged" rather forcefully by the destination, each trip causes such severe aether poisoning that the powerful, hardy, healthy Scions who use it spend the next few hours quietly and pitifully nursing the equivalent of a massive hangover. To reflect this, when the Warrior of Light attempts to fight through the aethersickness, they're stopped by regular bouts of nausea and are afflicted with the Heavy debuff to represent their nauseated sluggishness.
• One of the aether current quests in Shadowbringers in Amaurot has one of the specters give you a lightning crystal at the end of the quest so that you can will robes into being. You of course cannot simply will objects into being like the old ancients could, but lightning crystals are used by the weaver class to craft clothing.
• The Trust/Duty Support system is loaded with nods to some Scion/ally's priorities and specialized abilities that the player does not have access to:
  • When using the Trust System in Shadowbringers, Thancred won't be able to use all of his weaponskills as a Gunbreaker unless "Minfilia"/Ryne is also in your party. This is because, after the events of ARR and his brief trip with the Flow spell, he can't manipulate aether and relies on Ryne to provide aether cartridges ahead of time. Once the story brings him and the others back to The Source, Urianger and Y'shtola take up the role of providing cartridges to him.
  • In the event that both Alphinaud and Alisaie are in the party together, they will support each other more than anyone else: if Alphinaud is hurt or knocked out, Alisaie will stop attacking and cast Vercure on him, and if Alisaie is hurt or knocked out, Alphinaud will put a high priority on healing her before anyone else.
  • If Y'shtola is in the party and the battle isn't going well, she'll stop attacking and assist in healing, which is a nod to her being a Conjurer as well; she never forgot how to heal, after all. Inversely, in the few dungeons that she is assigned as the healer, she can and will weave in high level black magic when the party is in good health.
  • In the single dungeon where Ysayle is a party member, she only uses ice attacks as a Thaumaturge - functionally, these do more damage than the ice attacks that you yourself get (as those are meant for rebuilding mana, not dealing damage).
• Dwarves, being the First's reflection of the Lalafell race, has all their structures scaled to match, such as the fences being waist-high for most races. The dwarven housing in particular can be accessed by only lalafell players, as anyone else is obviously too tall to fit through the tiny doorway.
  • Many dwarf NPCs will also have altered dialogue or additional comments if the player is a Lalafell, as their society in the First is vastly different from their society in the Source (showing one’s face, for example, is a massive taboo).
• During the second boss of the Eden raid, the boss has spells that are delayed, you see the markers but they don't actually go off until later. It's revealed that her magic isn't really her own, all her spells take time to go off.
• Although many job quests in 2.0 can be taken up as soon as you have the right level, the Summoner has two break points. In order to summon a Primal-Egi, you have to have been present at the Primal's defeat and bathed in their Aether. Since you can only take up jobs after beating Ifrit, your first Egi is naturally based on him; however, to convert Emerald and Topaz Carbuncle to Garuda- and Titan-Egi respectively, you have to first defeat them in the story. The fights happen close to the level points you would face the respective Primals, but if you overlevel ahead of time, the quests will remain locked. Demi-Bahamut and the Dreadwyrm Trance, meanwhile, only require you to reach the requisite level and complete their related job quests, regardless of whether you've played through the Binding Coils, since everyone in Eorzea has been washed in Bahamut's aether after his destruction at the end of the Sixth Astral Era.
• You can't join the Rogue's guild until you've gotten to be at least level 10 in another combat job. This because the Rogues are a secretive group and they won't invite you until you've established yourself, either by becoming a rising member of one of the other two combat guilds in Limsa Lominsa, or have distinguished yourself enough that one of the other two members of the Alliance asked you to be their messenger to the city.
• Although level will restrict you practically, in theory once you have the airship pass as of level 15, you can travel to almost any area from 2.0 - none of the main areas are restricted, though travel can take time without mounts and flight, but you aren't able to travel to expansion areas until the plot allows it. However, each area has reasons for why you can't normally travel there. To wit:
  • Ishgard is the only accessible gateway to Abalathia's Spine and the other parts of Coerthas (itself the only accessible gateway to Dravania), and they are notoriously isolated, with only the Central Highlands acting as a contact point before the start of Heavensward. You only gain access to Ishgard after you are made a ward of one of the Houses.
  • The western part of the Dravanian Hinterlands is divided from the eastern part by a river, with the surrounding land way too high up above it for you to just jump in and swim across; the only crossing point that isn't broken is Idyllshire, and there is a blockage of the path until you win the trust of the Goblins and they agree to help clear it.
  • Azys Lla is an ancient flying Allagan city protected by an energy shield which requires a key (or a powerful tool) to gain access.
  • Gyr Abania is right next to Gridania, but remains inaccessible until Stormblood - thanks to a massive Garlean fortress and equivalent of Hadrian's Wall. You can only gain access after a fringe group of the Ala Mhigan resistance forces the issue, pierces the wall, kills the Garlean forces, and summons/creates a Primal.
  • Othard is potentially accessible by sea, but it took months for the Doman refugees to travel, and all of the "ijins" (foreigners) in Hingashi seem to have been there for a while. However, it takes finding a willing captain (and Tataru blackmailing him) to open the path for you... which reveals that the real challenge is a haunted ships' graveyard. Once you clear it, ferries are more freely able to travel between the areas.
  • There is literally no physical way to reach the First before the plot of Shadowbringers is set into motion; the Source and the Shards are separated from a dimensional rift that is nearly impossible to cross. It's not until the Crystal Exarch calls upon your character that you're able to breach that Rift, and that's only with the help of the very powerful Crystal Tower, one of the few things in the setting that can create portals to the Shards.
  • Sharlayan is incredibly isolationist; a significant amount of time is spent arranging the paperwork to get you into the country in the first place.
  • Garlemald is the capital of the Garlean Empire, the mortal enemy of the Eorzean city-states. It's not until it's devastated by the civil war that erupts from Varis' death that you can enter, as part of a humanitarian mission.
  • Like with the First, there is no physical way to reach Mare Lamentorum before the plot of Endwalker allows, on account of it being on the moon.
  • Similarly, Elpis only exists in the distant past. It takes the sacrifice of Elidibus' remaining being, along with the capabilities of the Crystal Tower, to allow even a shade of the Warrior of Light to get there. Once Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch use their aether to turn the Warrior of Light corporeal, they can attune to the Aethernet and travel freely through time.
  • And rounding out the Endwalker areas, Ultima Thule exists at the very edge of the universe. It takes the construction of an extremely advanced spaceship to even get there, and even then you have to deal with the fact that it is hostile to life by its very nature.
• Allied Beast Tribes in A Realm Reborn all begin relations with the player at Rank 1, "Neutral". You may be a national hero who defeated the primals of their tempered kin, but they have no reason to believe you're any different from the other "civilized" races who treat them like dirt, and thus only truly begin to see you as a friend as you continue to help them out. The uneasy alliance is also why they only cap at Rank 4, "Trusted". The Ixal is the only tribe in A Realm Reborn that caps at Rank 7, "Sworn", for the sole reason that they don't give two shites about the Wood Wailers or worshiping Garuda, and just want to make a high-tech airship to reach their promised land. Them being assisted by an outsider with same passion for engineering adds on to that. From Heavensward onward, the allied Beast Tribes tend to start with better relations to the player.
  • Heavensward
    • The Vath begin relations at Rank 3, "Friendly", because helping them out is a part of the main scenario. This makes them the sole exception in their expansion, before Stormblood made Rank 3 the baseline for all races.
    • The Vanu Vanu and Moogles begin at Rank 1 despite you helping them out in the main scenario because the tribe of Vanu Vanu you assist are a different tribe than the one you interacted with during the main story, and the Moogles are ungrateful bastards who would rather laze about than do any of the work they've hired your help for.
  • Stormblood
    • Like the Vath, helping the Kojin out is part of the main scenario.
    • The Ananta are part of the Ala Mhigan resistance, and literally half of the expansion was spent helping the people of Ala Mhigo drive the Garleans out.
    • The Namazu, in contrast to the Moogles, are too trusting for their own good and thus see you as a valued friend even though you've only just met them and your character wants nothing to do with them initially.
  • Shadowbringers
    • Not only are you the famed Warrior of Darkness who brought night back to Norvrandt, but there's also a secondary reason: The Pixies are aware that you've made a pact with Feo Ul, the current Titania and don't want to make them angry.
    • The Qitari personally saw your fight with the Lightwarden Eros and thus know for a fact that they can trust you.
    • The Dwarves are lead by a man you personally helped get over his social anxiety and who also looks up to you for your skill.
  • Starting in 6.1, Allied Tribes drop the "beast" label to better reflect Eorzea mending their relationships with them. Especially since the term was made up by the Ul'dahn monetarists and the Garlean empire specifically to drive a wedge between them and the so-called "five races" of Eorzea. This is reinforced in their rename from "Beast Tribe Quests" into "Tribal Quests".
  • Endwalker
    • The Arkasodra themselves are far more docile than the Gajasura, their Azim Steppe brethren, and as savior and close associate with Nidhana and the Great Work, Trna and her co-workers are more than willing to put their trust in you to reform their hippo racing lifestyle into a local delivery service.
    • The Last Dregs is ran by N-7000 and Jammingway, whom you helped to placate Stigma-4. They call for your help to investigate a newborn star.
    • The Dreamingways are led by Dreamingway, a despondent Loporrit who didn't know where his skill lie until discovering his ear for music thanks to the Warrior of Light. The Loporrits are also created to ferry the survivors of Hydaelyn off to flee the Final Days, and are innately friendly to mankind.
• The Marauder's opening questline deals with a feral Aurochs named Kujata, who is so dangerous because those he attacks are very difficult to heal, and it's common for victims to die even when getting treatment. When you actually fight him, he places an Infirmity debuff on you with every hit, which drastically reduces the effectiveness of healing spells on you.
• Several services will be locked on the Source or the First with no crossover between each other. For instance, Jandeleine can appear in all inns except the one in the Crystarium, because while he's always on the move, there is no way for him to physically cross over to the First. Postmoogles on the First can also give you messages with the in-game justification that Feo Ul telepathically sends messages between the moogles of the First and the Source (the same justification for why you can still interact with retainers from the Crystarium's inn); if you're in the middle of the Postmoogle side quest, the First postmoogle will still tell you your rank but admits they have no idea what that means.
  • Inversely, the story also has a plausible explanation as to why you're able to get Allagan Tomestones in the First: because they came along with the Crystal Tower, which itself is an Allagan construct containing Allagan tech.
• The three "Deep Dungeons" - Palace of the Dead, Heaven on High, and Eureka Orthos - both have a limited range of levels within, and starting from the first floor will reduce you to level 1 and 61 respectively as part of the challenge, with each dungeon also having a cap of 60, 70, and 90 respectively. Further, within each, your gear is replaced by two simple stats which modify all relevant traits - your Aetherpool Arm and Armor. This is explained by enchantments on the two dungeons, and the security protocol on the third - it takes acclimating to the dungeon to reach higher levels of power, but there is a limit to how powerful each will let you be. Further, the weapons are specialized gear; other weapons are suppressed by the magic involved in each place.
• Each expansion has subtle explanations as to why the level cap is lifted worked into the patches in-between. In the Seventh Astral Era, Midgardsormr suppresses the blessing of the light, without removing any of the main character's innate power. Rebuilding the blessing caps off at level 60, when you've reached the new level cap. In the Dragonsong War, you temporarily borrow Hraesvelgr's eye, and though you soon return it, there's likely some benefit to carrying that power. Further, Stormblood involves going into lands long subjugated by the Empire; aether in the land can respond to outside influences, and such long-standing control means that the aether may well recognize you as an intruder, forcing you to fight harder to evolve. Finally, in Shadowbringers, you travel to a world saturated in Light, and furthermore spend much of the time absorbing the Lightwardens' essences. The Light is again something you have to fight through, and the other factor visibly cracks your soul until the ending, where you fuse with another soul to contain it and channel it into a weapon, adding another hero's aether to your own. The time it was cracking, however, gives it room to expand, and your fusion with Ardbert likely means you have even more room to grow now.
• Area of effect markers are explained as some combination of the Echo granting minor precognition and/or the enemy tipping their hand before unleashing a big attack. Moreover, some enemies actually notice and even take advantage of this, particularly Sigmascape V4.0's fight against Kefka Palazzo: after you dodge a marked attack or two, he catches on that you've discovered his "tells", then immediately begins giving false tells for some attacks, which translate into slightly different area of effect markers which tell you where his attack won't hit.
  • This even becomes a plot point late in Stormblood, when Fordola is transfused with an artificial Echo. The result is her easily dodging multiple attacks from the heroes altogether like she sees them coming, because she does. It takes using an aetheric siphon made by Urianger and the Warrior of Light being completely unaware of what it does to defeat her, because she'd just read exactly what the item does from their mind if the Warrior knew ahead of time.
  • Additionally, the Echo is an Anti-Frustration Feature buff that boosts your maximum HP, attack power, and healing potency so that you can clear a battle if you're struggling with it. In lore, the Echo is granted to a select few whose abilities differ from person to person. In the player's case, their Echo grants them ungodly strength and makes them immune to being tempered by a Primal. During the Heavensward main story, you come across the Warriors of Darkness and they also possess the Echo. Just like the player, defeating the group has their Echo kick in and makes them stronger in the exact same way as the player.
• In Endwalker, a central plot point is the existence of an energy form independent from aether, akasa/dynamis, which is stirred by and responds to emotions. As soon as the concept is first introduced, you're given a dialogue option suggesting the concept sounds familiar due to the Warrior of Light overcoming their limits through sheer determination in the midst of battle. It had a passing acknowledgement in the Interdimensional Rift story, with Omega unable to comprehend how your character can transcend limits amidst the heat of battle after your triumph in the Sigmascape, but this implication that dynamis is intended as a canonical explanation for the ability to Limit Break is cemented when the Final Boss requires the use of a level three tank Limit Break to survive one of its attacks, said boss exclaiming "Dynamis?!" after you do so.
• A side quest in Endwalker tasks you with gathering a very poisonous plant that can gravely poison you on mere touch unless you use a pair of gloves to extract the plant without harming yourself. You can still gather the plant without the gloves and doing so will inflict a very strong poison debuff on you whose damage is higher than your natural HP regeneration, meaning it's possible to outright die from the poison.
• Teleporting while part of a party allows everyone else in your party to follow you (assuming they're attuned to the destination) without having to spend gil or go through the cast time for the teleport. In the early Sage job quests, Loifa and his group escape the player several times in just this manner, by having one of them teleport away for the others to follow with no downtime.
• It is stated that food helps a person replenish their spent aether and that people who use a lot of aether in battle will become very hungry afterwards. As a game mechanic, food gives you a small buff in a few stats which helps fuel you as you use aether from your abilities. This also extends to G'raha Tia who used to rely on the Crystal Tower to fuel his magicks and notes that he feels very hungry once he starts using his own aether to cast spells.
• The Endwalker dungeon Ktisis Hyperboeia gives you three very, very good Trust party members in Venat, Hythlodaeus, and Emet-Selch. While they're not going to completely steamroll the dungeon as party members (with Emet functionally being either a Dark Knight or Black Mage, Hyth being a Bard, and Venat being a Dancer, Paladin, or White Mage), the three still are very much masters of creation magics in a society of creation mages, and it reflects in some of their unique skills and behaviours - they're (especially Venat) better at predicting boss movements than the Scions, they all have party wide instant healing skills in emergencies, and their battle synergies are designed to always give you and the others maximum breathing room and support, making the dungeon much less of a challenge.
• Being able to replay dungeons that have already been cleared falls under this category as it relies on knowing how the Echo worked in 1.0. In that version of the game, the Warrior of Light can go back and interact with the past and transfer physical objects between the past and present but are unable to change the outcome. Redoing past dungeons is the same thing, they relive the events in the past and obtain items from within but can not change the events that follow.
• Hraesvelgr swore a vow to Shiva to not kill anyone. In Dragonsong's Reprise (Ultimate), he is enslaved by Allagan neurolinks and is forced to fight alongside Nidhogg. If anyone dies to Hraesvelgr's attacks, he will become enraged by the broken vow, gaining Vulnerability Down and Damage Up buffs and wiping the party.
• Bosses will often repeat their last phase and say the same lines until they're killed (or enrage in high level content). During the Return to Ivalice raids, a piece of auracite that transformed the final boss of the Royal City of Rabanastre is recovered. In a cutscene after, a Sharlayan scholar explains how the auracite amplified the warped desires of the boss, causing him to repeat the same phrases and attacks over and over again.
• While the Scions change classes over the course of the story, whatever class they embrace is skills compounded on what they already know to make them unique from the standard skillset players have access to. Thancred, while having become a full-time Gunbreaker, is capable of performing the Ninja's "Shukuchi" to skip the tightrope illusion in Dohn Mheg. Y'shtola's Sorceress job functions like a Black Mage, but she is capable of casting Water, Aero, and Stone to full capacity; elements normally restricted to Conjurers, and is what she started as in A Realm Reborn. She can also heal in an emergency, and true enough, in 6.2, if the need requires it, she can fall back into a healer role. In Endwalker, Urianger is able to change from a healer to a Magic DPS, utilizing his Arcanist knowledge to fight alongside the Scions against Hydaelyn.
• One of the late-game raids in Endwalker has a moment of Gameplay and Story Integration which can only be seen with Trusts. During the fight against Hydaelyn, every Scion is programmed to get hit by at least one mechanic during the fight, except for Y'shtola. This is because all of Hydaelyn's attacks are telegraphed with aether — which is the only thing Y'shtola can see, and thus would be able to predict with ease. She'll even say "The aether... I can see it!" during the fight in a text balloon.
• When fighting Alexander Prime, the primal will sometimes freeze everyone in place by stopping time. Buffs and debuffs on the players are also affected by having their timers stop and resume counting down when the time freeze effect ends.
• During the second phase of Abyssos: The Eighth Circle (Savage), you must create concepts to survive Hephaistos' High Concept. At the end of the second High Concept, you are required to mix two different concepts in order to survive his Ego Death wipe. The concept you're supposed to create is the Phoenix, the symbol of cyclical death and rebirth. Hephaistos laughs in glee as the Phoenix concept you made resurrects you, as he himself was trying to resurrect Lahabrea's wife Athena.
• In Heavensward's storyline, when Nidhogg attacks the peace conference between Ishgard and Dravania, Aymeric briefly takes up a bow and tries to shoot him. The 6.3 update adds him as a duty support party member for Sohr Khai, and he normally acts as a Gladiator. However, if the player is a Tank job, he can fill a DPS role as an Archer instead.
• The Galatea Magna in Lapis Manalis is built to be a combat training dummy for Reapers, measuring how fast you defeat her once her fight begins. She rates your performance from 1-12, with lower numbers denoting higher ranks of power. A highly competent speed-killing party can achieve higher ranks, which can lead to befuddled responses wondering how you're that strong. If you take Zero along, Galatea Magna will appropriately acknowledge her powers.
  (Rank 2) "Impossible... Only Rullus has achieved such a feat."
  (With Zero) "An equal to Drusilla. Extraordinary..."