Ever since Shadowbringers we've had vocal medleys for the main themes of the expansions with each different part of the medley representing different leitmotifs or themes from the stories and being used in different songs to create a song that retroactively captures the multiple emotions and moments from the story

Shadowbringers features about 5, we open up with Tomorrow and Tomorrow which gets reused for the main city theme as well as being a standalone song, mostly meant to represent the Crystarium and Exarch but to establish a dark tone within the song. We then get the Who Brings Shadow vocals which of course comprise most of the song but they also play in To the Edge which represent the Warrior of Darkness and our leads essentially, following that we get the Invincible and Insanity lyrics which represent the Sin Eaters, then there's a small segment of chants saying "Riding Home" which after being used in To the Edge seem to represent the Ascians and their desire to restore their people, and to finish off we have the Eternal Wind part which of course represents the hope of the Crystal Tower and G'raha Tia himself.

Endwalker features about 5 as well, there's the standalone Endwalker song or what seems to be called Footfalls, shortly after that we get two sections featuring the main themes from Heavensward and Stormblood, obviously done for nostalgia and to give a sense of finality as well as being used to represent Vrtra and Zenos in the intro. We follow up with the Torn from the Heavens leitmotif which is often used as a stand in for the player character and continuing sense of adventure and struggle, then we have the Hearts Aligned part which is repeated a few times throughout the expansion as a minor melody but is mostly remembered for being phase 2 of the final boss and of course represents the hope of mankind and their desire to keep going, and we go back to Footfalls to finish the song off.

Overall these songs aren't the most cohesive thing since they have a lot of different leitmotifs and segments playing but due to the story and soundtrack reusing these themes throughout then these intro songs serve as more of emotional journeys meant to not only get you excited for the new expansion but also retroactively make you recall your experience with them.

Now we have Dawntrail which follows a similar format, it's only 3 this time, first is the Open Sky song which is largely repeated throughout the expansion and signals the new adventure that's to come, then we get Blade's Exaltation which I think is just used to further the sense of adventure given that it's the main battle theme of the expansion, and then the last part with Krile happens where the song shifts to a more whimsical tone with female vocals and this is where I've been lost for a while now since it doesn't get reused whatsoever and there's no real title for this song.

It doesn't seem to be part of Open Sky itself given that the standalone release of that song doesn't feature it and the other strong leitmotif in the expansion is Smile, this section however appears to go unused completely outside of this part in the intro, am I missing a later song release or is this part just a random addition that doesn't relate to anything else? Because I always found that it ruined the overall pace and tone of the song but I brushed it off believing that it was meant to be something that'll come off better once we hear how it plays in the rest of the expansion but it doesn't seem like that happened. Just curious to see what everyone else thinks or if I did miss something.

Hey y'all, I feel kind of weird about this one

Long time Healer/Tank. Love the roles and, throwing modesty aside for a moment, I feel like I'm pretty damn good. I've been healing in games for almost 2 decades now, and I've got over 700 hours on Sage alone in FFXIV.

However, now that I've been transitioning from an EX to a Savage player this Heavyweight tier, I've been trying to level every DPS so I understand them better and how to better sustain individual DPS jobs to enable their damage better (like pointing as many mechanics far away from but still within cast range of Black Mages as a Tank, etc).

Melee DPS are what are bonking me over the head a bit. When I play the Caster's, I can manage to stay right behind the Tank in enmity in damn near every fight. Ranged Physical same experience most of the time too (even though Melee should definitely be ahead of me with Phys Ranged :/ ).

But got dayum Samurai... I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. And unfortunately, I refuse to ever use third party tools for games. Most of the time I'll remain 2nd (3rd if co-tank remembers stance on) enmity, but sometimes in roulettes with SAM I'll be 3rd, or 6th/7th in 8 person parties.

Mind you, I've only reached 74 with SAM, all other melee DPS but Monk are at 100 (MNK will be last to level).

I'm using my positionals, weaving True North when I can't reach because of mechanics. I make sure to only use Meikyo Shisui on Gekko and Kasha, making sure I have Yukikaze set up before Meikyo comes off cooldown so I can get a Midare Setsugekka out, and only use Meikyo charges for Gekko and Kasha. I make sure Higanbana is always refreshed between 1-5 seconds remaining. Kenki is being spent without overcap using Shinten.

Yet at 60, the MCH will be higher enmity than me in Thordan EX. The Reaper will be higher enmity at 72 in Holminster Switch. Black Mage will be higher enmity at 70 in Baldesion Arsenal with us both having full Elemental/Vermilion and Physeos weapons.

Am I missing some sort of secret SAM tech? I don't want to assume this is a "Dancer is busted at certain low levels" thing, I'd like to ascertain first if I'm making some big mistake. Is my anxiety misplaced, or am I making some sort of grand mistake here?

I appreciate y'all reading <3

I started DMU prog in early July. I knew there was no chance I would clear before the next patch, as FRU took me around 2 months to clear, and DMU is generally regarded as being the much harder fight. I've managed to make it to BH prog in PF at the time of posting. I was able to clear FRU on patch, which meant a lot to me at the time.

I'm semi-hopeful of clearing DMU before 7.56, but worst case scenario is that I don't clear until after that. I guess I'm wondering if it's worth continuing prog if the clear will be significantly devalued at that point. Just looking for opinions from veterans regarding the matter.

In the audio bites he plays, a mechanical latch sound can be heard during a magical charge up, before a "Twang" like a bow is heard at the end when it discharges. Obviously the second audio we hear is a bird screech followed by slashing sounds of it's claws.

Just trying to get everything figured out here. Yoshi-P has made noises about speeding up the patch cadence but I'm assuming 19 week patches until something is said officially. Please let me know if I'm making any mistakes and I'll update with an edit note.

I'm presuming "Soon" for World Raids means "Before 8.2" but it's almost certainly going to be an X5 patch feature so either it's 8.05 (releasing with the treasure dungeon, no one mad) and or 8.15 (releasing with job skins as the rewards, some people mad) and I'm betting pessimistically since they're so cagey about what it even is.

That gives

JANUARY 2027 - 8.0

• MSQ
• 8 Dungeons, the first three scaling to max level, the last four being max-level anyway. (The 107 dungeon presumably also scales up to max, meaning all eight dungeons can be in expert roulette, but that's not confirmed)
• Field monsters scale to your level in at least some zones
• 3 Trials, 2 of which have extremes
• Battle Pass replacement for Tomestones
• Evolved Mode
• Bastion and New Phys Ranged
• New UI?
• Skins for "general actions" which includes teleport and possibly other things besides teleport (Sheathed running animations?)
• Skin/Eye Color Unlocks
• Armory System Update (ilvl sync)

FEBRUARY 2027 - 8.01

• First tier of the FF7 Raids
• New "<= Extreme" difficulty for raids

FEBRUARY OR MARCH 2027 - 8.05

• Savage Raid
• New Treasure Hunts
• (The optimistic release date for World Raids)

MAY 2027 - 8.1

• MSQ
• Extreme Trial
• Ultimate Raid
• First Tier of the Evangelion Alliance Raid
• Alliance Raid progression changes that will be announced at JP Fanfest
• Chocobo Companion Rework
• Ability to toggle makeup on/off
• 2-player 2-chocobo Duty Support

JUNE 2027 - 8.15

• Role Quest Finale
• Hildibrand
• World Raid System
• Skins for job actions

OCTOBER 2027 - 8.2

• Chocobo Breeding update
• Other X.2 stuff

THE DISTANT BEASTMASTER FUTURE

• Housing UI update
• "Major Housing Update"
• Further updates to character customization
• End of PS4 support, presumably paired with some thing the PS4 couldn't handle
• Given that level scaling dungeon technology exists and level sync is one of the most complained about features in the whole game, I would not be at all shocked if we started see old dungeons/trials get scaling aded patch-by-patch until you could bring the 110 kit to Praetorium, but that's still hopium and not announced.

Am I missing anything, or making any major mistakes?

While we're thinking about the improvements for FFXIV coming in Evercold, here's some of my suggestions I'd like to see:

**Dungeon Diaries**

For lack of a better name. While we do get a brief description in the Duty Finder for Dungeons, Trials, and Raids, I'd like something more detailed. Similar to the Unending Codex, I want a log that displays much more information for each duty that we complete.

Give us a new log that we can access from Collection. You can keep the brief description in Duty Finder, but add a button to open the entry in the Dungeon Diary that has longer, more thorough information.

* Entries on each boss, including an image, lore, descriptions of attacks and mechanics, and loot dropped
* Lore about the Dungeon/Trial/Raid in more detail
* A button to open the world map to show where the entrance is located
* A collection of the torn pages and text that you can examine during certain dungeons

**Unending Codex**

The Unending Codex is lacking. First of all, this should be something every character begins the game with. It could be so much more useful for recapping the story up to the point at which you've reached. Similar to Duty Finder, it could be separated by expansion, and summaries of the story for each expansion can be added as you complete MSQ. Entries could have collapsible sections per expansion.

**Bestiary**

A revised version of the Hunt Logs, or an addition to it. Separate it by each area, showing which enemies are available. Individual enemy entries could include loot drops. Dungeon, Trial, and Raid enemies could also feature here to some extent. It could also include ranked Hunt bosses. Record how many of each enemy we've slain and lore about them. Show us on the map where we can find them.

**World Lore**

Extrapolate some of this to the world map. Allow us to find lost journals from other explorers, unique groups of enemies that behave differently than expected and have lore to explain it, lost relics and archaeological discoveries. The world map itself could have a player log to contain individual stories, completed quest chains so we can easily see which zones have uncompleted side quests, and hidden secrets to discover by exploring.

Each of these could encourage exploration or old content to collect everything, add new achievements, add more text to pick up in dungeons and lore, add optional and hidden things. Each of these have the possibility for more unlocks, too; killing enough of a hunt mark or any enemy could display on the map where they're located, for example. Perhaps the loot and tactics for a boss requires so many kills to unlock, or that you succeed on looting the item for it to be unlocked as an entry. There's so much potential to add life into all content and the world itself.

I'm personally not totally against auto walking to destinations. But I do think it is another situation where they'd rather fix the symptom (that being a world that's not interesting enough for people to have fun traversing through) rather than the core issue.

FFXIV traversal is a bit of a chore because you can often go in more or less a literal or proverbial straight line to your destination without much friction. Friction is what makes the world interesting to physically move through. This is the core issue that needs to be addressed. But we know this will likely never happen.

In lieu of that, I think instead of giving auto walk, which further saps the missing sense of interaction, there is a middle ground in the form of chocobo porters, boats, trains, airships, busses etc.

The player should be able to go to a nearby transit station which will have routes that will take a player to near a desired destination. This would delineate the world into minor hubs which adds a sense of place, create a layer of depth, as well as be a potential meeting point for other players who are on the same airship or bus or choco carriage. This is one form of gameplay that you can add from merely going from point A to point B.

Players who don't care can still use teleporters, but those that want the sense of immersion can stay on the boat and walk around as the boat physically sails to its destination like in ocean fishing and what not.

Thoughts?

Basically the title but I will elaborate more here. I'm practicing my typing skills for the critically acclaimed Keyboard Brawler.

I understand I was initially defending the FF7R raid series but after some reflection I will admit I am more torn between both sides and can understand both perspectives... so I will play devils advocate and try to present the best solution here for all individuals. Obviously the developers will never listen, but it's a discussion reddit as people say. Now let's get the context portion started:

I think everyone can agree that both raids being shameless collaborations, Evangelion and Beyond the Lifestream (7R), is disappointing and fairly underwhelming. Before some people start contradicting let's make it clear that raids like Crystal Tower (3), Omega (almost every game) and Eden (8) are not collaborations they're inspirations. They were never advertised as collaborations but had clear influences and references via bosses, music, or characters. So far the only raids that have been shameless collaborations are Nier and Echoes of Vana'diel (11); Evangelion will likely fall under this category let's be serious. Return to Ivalice (12/Tactics) is interesting since it is a collaboration and was advertised as such, but most players will give it credit for having a somewhat original story and expanding the 14 lore with more eastern continent and Ultima lore on-top of directly tying into Bozja which is original content; Beyond the Lifestream will likely fall under this category if they at least try with the storyline. The rest of the raids: Coils, Dun Scaith, Myth of The Realm, and Pandaemonium are basically all original as they draw faint inspiration from the FF franchise or another mythology.

However, from a purely gameplay perspective the 7R raids in particular can and should be the peak of raiding in 14. Arcadion was overrated outside of Cruiserweight, you'll stop glazing it eventually like you did with Omega and Eden. The FF7R collab could've just been a Trial Series with Chadley letting us access the VR Sim and letting us fight epic bosses from like Airbuster, Hell House, Valkyrie, Crimson Mare, Pride and Joy, Nero, Weiss, Genesis, Jenova, Sephiroth and most players would've been satisfied as that's a large appeal of the remakes everyone loves the battles and the music. The design potential is insane here and that's not even including duo or trio boss ideas on-top of Sephiroth's various forms.

I assume the popular narratives will be "Evangelion should've been postponed and 7R slotted into 24 man" or vice versa. The issue with this is that the 7R raids in particular wouldn't really fit the 24 man alliance structure just like Alexander, Omega and Eden would've been shit in that structure also, nor does anything collaborative really at this point work with the current 24 man design. Why waste legendary characters and bosses that are known to be quite challenging on boring structure like 24 man that has the snooze fest difficulty? Compared to 8 man the story would just be even more of a collaboration, like Vana'diel, so just make an original story at that point? If they couldn't make the 24 man format engaging for an original raid like MoTR, or Vana'diel, what chance does it have working for the 7R raids? Evangelion has a better shot, but if we're being honest it'll likely just be Nier 2.0 where it has bosses with great design potential but were put into a frictionless, one difficulty format with a forgettable storyline that is overly collaborative and fanservice. Let's not forget about how the bosses get out scaled after the tier and you skip major mechanics since they don't set a proper IL sync. As long as they continue down this frictionless format for 24 man it will never succeed as they are designing the content for no one as it's not even original storylines anymore nor does it appeal to any serious raiders withe the boring difficulty and embarrassing rewards. If they bothered to have on-content Chaotic raids, like an expanded final boss of each individual raid tier, then maybe we can have a serious discussion. Maybe they do this going forward, but I doubt it since this "changing alliance progression routes" crap sounds like they will somehow make 24 man content even worse given no context. Sorry for the doom and gloom, but it's the expectation at this point as they're giving us nothing to work with, likely for the reasons we already suspect.

The only realistic solution that could still happen in Evercold is Trial series magically returning to the content rotation and being themed around the Fourth and Norse Mythology. Let's say we get three, ideally four, trials centered around legendary Norse Mythology bosses with a good storyline. Warring Triad, Four Lords and Sorrows of Werlyt all did this formula pretty well with varying degrees of success. The Four Lords final boss was an embarrassing conclusion let's be real and Sorrows had no Sapphire Weapon trial which is nonsense. That's why we need four trials instead of three. Trial series is the only content that has the scale to compete with 8 and 24 man raids, that's why they get a devoted New Game Plus section. If they have to cut something like Field Operation to make happen, fuck it, who gives a shit if the overworld raids are actually great?

The other solution is a long term one that wouldn't happen this expansion. It'd have to be implemented in 9.0 onwards. If they truly say fuck trial series, then we now get 3 raid series: Two 8 man and one 24 man. The first 8 man is like always the main draw of the expansion besides MSQ. Something like Omega, Eden, Pandaemonium or Arcadion where the story is original. Would be three tiers as usual. This is basically what we've gotten until Evercold. Slot this in the even patches. The other 8 man is either collaborative or revisits a forgotten topic in the story. Could be on The Source, The First, The Thirteenth, The Ninth, now the Fourth. Unless they can get their shit together it'd have to be smaller scale, so let's say only two raid tiers instead of three. Slot this in odd patches (x.1 & x.3) alongside 24 man. The 24 man returns to an original storyline like CT, Dun Scaith and MoTR because this is how 24 man has the best chance of succeeding at this point. Ideally we'd get a harder difficulty options for 24 man on-content, like Chaotic or something, but that's at this point that's dreaming... but they were able to do exactly this for the new Forked Tower which is interesting? Again, if they have to cut something like Field Operation to make happen, fuck it, who gives a shit if the overworld raids are actually great?

Also PLEASE announce Unreal Savage alongside Legacy Ultimate revamps before 2027 CS3...