Greetings, everyone!
We're pleased to present the full digest from the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXV! If you missed the live stream, or if you just want to watch it again (and again), check it out below!
0:11:20
Quest-related
We’ll be adding new main scenario quests and they’ll feature Krile, the character you saw wearing the hood. I’m really surprised there were people that figured who she was just by looking at the picture we released earlier. I’m sure there are those of you who are curious about the naming convention since she is a Lalafell, but you’ll have to play through the main scenario quests to find out.
In Patch 3.1 we’ll be introducing the first beast tribe quests of the 3.0 series. This time around, we will be implementing a level adjustment feature for beast tribe daily quests. Up until now, the level in which you could accept beast tribe daily quests were set; however, we changed the system so that the enemies’ levels are automatically adjusted to match the job/class with which you accepted the quest. There are no level caps on these quests, so I think it will make it easy to use for leveling. However, you will not be able to finish the quests on jobs or classes other than what you accepted the quest on.
0:14:07
Originally, in order to challenge the extreme primal battles, you had to have cleared the extreme primal quest from the previous patch or you wouldn’t be able to do the most recent one. We wanted to eliminate this in 3.0, but it didn’t make it in time for launch, but we are implementing this in Patch 3.1. With this change, you will be able to tackle The Limitless Blue (Extreme) and Thok Ast Thok (Extreme) independently of one another. The same will apply to future extreme primal quests.
While many players have already unlocked all of the aether currents, there are a number of them that can only be acquired after progressing through several side story quests. We will be making it so that these can be obtained through side quests that follow the main scenario so you can acquire them as soon as possible. We’ll also be making it possible to check which quests give aether currents from the side quest rewards screen. These adjustments are geared towards new players coming into the game.
If you’ve ever received a notification that your retainer returned from their venture or your shards finally sold in Limsa during a really important cutscene, we’ll be making it so this doesn’t happen anymore. These two kind of notifications were being displayed quite frequently during cutscenes, so we’ll be displaying them similar to the login message.
0:16:42
The next line of weapon creation content following the footsteps of Zodiac weapons will be coming at the end of the year in Patch 3.15, and they are known as Anima weapons. For those of you who are currently working on Zodiac weapons, I recommend finishing them in anticipation of the Anima weapons. Many may be curious what kind of advantage having a completed Zeta weapon will give towards Anima weapons, but it will allow you to skip the first part of the Anima weapon creation quest. We’ve already decided on all the content for the Anima weapon quests, so we don’t have any plans to ease up on any aspects; however, if you have yet to start any Zodiac weapons, it will be more time efficient to just start from the first quest for the Anima weapon. Furthermore, since there are no Zodiac weapons for the new jobs added in Heavensward, as long as you have one Zeta weapon, you will be able to choose an Anima weapon of your choice. I’m sure there are many players who changed their jobs from the start of Heavensward, so please use this to your advantage. Having multiple Zeta weapons will allow you to choose multiple Anima weapons, so I hope you are looking forward to the content.
0:20:36
Exploratory Missions
* An explanation was given while using live gameplay during the stream.
A: Before I get into the advantages, I’d like to give a rundown of the system. There are two entrances for Exploratory Missions. The first is the airship created by your free company, and the other is the House Haillenarte airship in front of the Ishgard landing in the Pillars. House Haillenarte is borrowing the power of adventurers to explore islands to get rich quick. The idea is that these adventurers are freelancers. This doesn’t mean that Exploratory Missions will be available in the Duty Finder. You will have to talk to the NPC at House Haillenarte in order to participate in this content. System-wise it’s the same as the Duty Finder, but it’s a slightly different system that was re-made for Exploratory Missions.0:22:20
Q: What kind of advantages are there for using a free company airship in exploratory missions compared to entering using the Duty Finder?
Now then, back to the question about advantages when participating as a free company. While the maps for Exploratory Missions will be the same, there are three different difficulties: easy, normal, and hard. The rank of the monsters that spawn will also be different. Monsters will not have any level indicators, but instead they will be ranked 1-6, and depending on the rank, the difficulty and drop rate of treasure chests will differ.
It will only be possible to select the hard difficulty when departing on Exploratory Missions from a free company airship. House Haillenarte doesn’t have that much money, and their airships don’t have very high stats, so you’ll only be able to select easy and normal when leaving from there.
For players without a free company, it will be possible to participate by using the Party Finder, and we wanted players to proactively recruit members, so we’d like Exploratory Missions to act as a catalyst for joining free companies and other communication.
While I’m sure that there are many who feel that free company airships only being able to select hard is a considerable advantage, the monsters that spawn in hard are extremely powerful, so the speed in which you defeat them will be slower making the total number of treasure chests you acquire lower. We’d like everyone to play the content and decide on the best difficulty for the highest efficiency.
It possible to possess three airships as a free company, so you’ll be able to go to the same Exploratory Mission’s area with up to 24 people. This is also a large advantage.
A: A maximum of 8 people will be able to ride on an airship. As long as there is one person from the free company operating the flight control panel, you’ll be able to enter the content, so you won’t need to have all 8 members be part of the same free company. Of course, if you are participating in Exploratory Missions with another free company, you will not have to change your free company.0:26:40
Q: What is the minimum number of members needed to participate as a free company and how many people can ride on an airship at once?
The minimum number of participants to enter is two, and this is to avoid someone from your free company doing what they want and entering alone. Eight players will be able to ride on a single airship, and up to three ships will be able to enter at the same time, so it will be possible to enter with a maximum of three full parties.
A: It won’t be possible to indicate the same instance, but there may be times that you randomly bump into your friends and free company members. If you’d like to go to the same instance, you’ll have to take off together as I mentioned before.0:28:08
Q: Will it be possible to meet up with free company members who are already out on an Exploratory Mission?
A: No, it will not be possible. If you’ve given the airship directives to go on an exploratory voyage to gather items, you won’t be able to go on an exploratory mission with this airship until it returns. However, airships that go off on exploratory missions will return in 20 minutes, so you’ll be able to use them right after they are back. We’d like free companies to communicate and form schedules for exploratory voyages and missions.0:29:09
Q: Will we still be able to use airships for Exploratory Missions that are out on Exploratory Voyages?
A: We’d like players to defeat a lot of monsters and obtain a lot of items through exploratory missions, so there are no daily or weekly restrictions. The map is quite large, so think of it as a field area. However, while this is instanced content, there is no concept of “clearing it.” We’d like you to discuss and decide how long you spend exploring. Once you press the “Quit” button, you’ll leave the instance immediately, but after 90 minutes have passed you will automatically leave the instance. Upon leaving, you’ll see a result screen that shows the number of monsters you defeated and the number of treasure chests that you found. However, you need to wait 120 minutes before you enter an Exploratory Mission again. That means that if you spend the full 90 minutes exploring, you’ll have a 30 minute break before you can go back in. This is not a restriction, but an element that has been implemented to prevent instances where it’s difficult for members to leave and join the party. Players who wish to continue going can replenish their ranks during the 30 minute downtime and then re-enter. However, we’d like everyone to try it out and give their feedback, and we may consider removing this 30 minute downtime.0:30:37
Q: Are they are daily or weekly restrictions on entry or rewards?
A: I’ll explain using gameplay.0:33:50
Q: You mentioned that we would be in instances with other parties, but does that mean there will be struggles to claim monsters or treasure chests?
While not an answer to the question, we made adjustments to the party list UI so that party members that are not nearby have their names greyed out. When they get closer, their names will appear as normal in the party list. Additionally, information will be displayed in the mini-map regarding which direction your party members are.
As you can see, the map is very large, and up to nine parties will be able to enter the instance. Think of it as a field area that fits nine parties. You’ll be able to communicate with others as well through shouts and such. During a test play session with the developers, we saw various shouts asking for help, and we would go over to their location and give a hand.
In regards to reward distribution, since there are nine parties, while there may be situations where you are uniting with them to fight, the fundamental design is that of a field area, so the concepts are the same. In field areas, the first to attack a monster will secure drops, and those who attack afterwards will be entitled to rewards after dealing a certain amount of damage to the monster’s HP. This same rule will be applied to Exploratory Missions, so we’d like players to team up with other parties and defeat a large number of monsters. However, unlike the FATE system, there is no system in place for earning rewards through generating enmity. If we had this kind of system in place, it would like to situations where players just continuously use Flash to get rewards.
A: There are multiple rules, but if you depart from House Haillenarte, everyone in the party will be restricted to greed only. When leaving for an exploratory mission as a free company, the party leader will be able to select the lotting rule. Naturally, you’ll be able to form a party beforehand when leaving from House Haillenarte, but there are no penalties for changing your job or class while on an exploratory mission. It’s the same as changing jobs at your base during Frontline, and this system is reflected in all areas of the map. For instance, if another party wipes, all members of your party could switch to white mage and raise them all. Or if a monster is really strong, you can have someone switch to a tank. Due to this system, we set the greed only rule so that you could still lot on items that are the job you are on. For example, if your main job is a dragoon, but you need to switch to a tank job to help out the party, we want to make it so you can still lot on dragoon gear.0:36:20
Q: What are the lotting rules for item drops?
A: Your airship will need to be rank 10 to access easy mode, and there will also be required ranks for normal and hard, but they are ranks that can be reached naturally by doing exploratory voyages. In regards to hard mode, you’ll have to first discover the island through exploratory voyages, and once you discover the island, you’ll be able to challenge hard mode anytime.0:38:41
Q: Are there any restrictions or rank requirements for the airships we use for Exploratory Missions?
A: As I mentioned earlier, it’s 90 minutes.0:39:41
Q: Roughly how long is a single play session on an island? Will people with not a lot of time be able to easily participate?
A: House Haillenarte will give you points for the equipment. You’ll be able to exchange them for new flying mounts, new materials for crafted equipment, red scrips materials, shards, and materia. There will also be an NPC that will exchange for these items within the exploratory mission area, along with a weather and repair NPC. You can also just desynth equipment to level up your desynthesis skill.0:40:03
Q: You mentioned we’d be able to exchange unwanted equipment for points, but what can we use these points on?
A: Upon entering an instance, each party will have different starting points. Each of these starting locations will have an “aetheric turbulence,” and by discovering four of these you will be able to fly around the islands. You will have to do this every time you enter; however, it will only take approximately 15 minutes to do this and the map will display where the aetheric turbulences are located. Exploratory missions are different than the content we’ve had up until now, and there is no concept of “clearing it,” so the first objective upon entry will be to collect the aetheric turbulences. In regards to esoterics, there will be an objective list, which also includes the collection of the aetheric turbulences, and by completing three or more of these you will earn a reward. However, there is no requirement to finish any of these objectives, so you can feel free to just fish or defeat whatever monsters you find. Since the content is 90 minutes long, we decided to set the amount of esoterics that you can earn to be on the higher side. There is an objective for discovering a bronze treasure chest, as you can see displayed in the game demo, but this can be completed naturally by defeating monsters.0:42:01
Q: It’d be convenient to earn esoterics while exploring, but will this be possible?
A: Yes, this will be possible.0:46:24
Q: I want to use both my battle classes and gathering classes during exploratory missions. Will it be possible to change jobs/classes?
A: The items you gather will mainly be new ones. However, you will also be able to directly obtain items for exchange, and we haven’t set the gathering requirements to be very high, so as long as you have around level 57 equipment, you will be able to gather. Just keep in mind to communicate with your party so you aren’t off gathering while you party members begin a battle.0:46:56
Q: You mentioned that we would be able to use gathering classes on islands, but will we be gathering existing items or new, special items?
Let’s take a look at some gameplay for a bit and try to fight a monster.
(A monster is defeated and the treasure chest it drops is opened.)
The main stats on the equipment depend on the item level and the role, but the other substats are random. There are different types of treasure chests: gold, silver, and bronze, so be excited when a monster drops a gold chest.
0:51:11
Company-related
0:51:40
Exploratory voyages
0:52:09
Housing-related
We’ll be implementing a feature that will allow you to adjust the lighting of the interior of your house. Also, we introduced house sharing during Tokyo Game Show, but we gave some incorrect information which I would like to correct. I mentioned that you could share between five others, but it’s three others – meaning yourself and two others.
0:54:17
Simply entering your house will reset the counter for automatic reclamation, and we will be sending notification emails out while you are taking a break, so you can reset the counter by logging in when you receive the email and entering your house. The period of 45 days for automatic reclamation to take place is the result of careful investigation into everyone’s data.
0:56:33
Other Content
* An explanation was given while demonstrating gameplay.
The Idling Camera behaves like a screensaver in that the camera automatically targets objects in your vicinity, showing the changing scenery at various nice angles. Of course it doesn’t just target objects, but players as well. This means you can do things like check out other players’ glamours more easily than before, where with the normal eye you would probably have fewer chances. You might discover something new by using the Idling Camera in a variety of places!
0:59:06
However, please keep in mind that the camera may sometimes face out from behind an object, so you might only see the back of an NPC’s head. When in an area with monsters and the camera targets one, the camera will not follow it if it moves.
It’s difficult to explain the Group Camera, but when I think that when players take pictures of their free company and such, it’s difficult to line up everyone’s emotes, or players’ network connections might throw others off. In these cases using the Group Camera will synchronize everyone, and you can even use subcommands to do things like make everyone face the same direction.
Please use this feature when making original FFXIV videos or making blog entries with everyone!
1:04:25
Battle
The final check for Saint Mocianne’s Aboretum was pretty difficult.
Sorry for the wait, but in addition to allowing experience points to be earned from level 50 dungeons, we have also adjusted the experience points earned from level 51+ dungeons.
As for adjusting the difficulty of certain dungeons, I believe that when Patch 3.0 went live, everyone was using the Duty Roulette: Leveling, especially those who had reached the level cap. Although I’m sure players may have been matched with those with the New Adventurer mark, but there are also players who struggled with some of the more difficult mechanics in older dungeons that they haven’t been to in a long time. These are the dungeons that are being adjusted. Even playing The Howling Eye now was a bit difficult, so please think of these as adjustments tailored toward newer players.
1:07:41
We completely changed and remade the algorithms, but there are still connection-related aspects to using them so I don’t think it will be as if no lag is experienced at all. I didn’t articulate that very well, but it’s better than it was until now so please give it a try.
We’ll not be adding a setting that only hides the effect of Darkside, but we made it so that when hiding existing battle effects that you will no longer see it.
Eventually, I’d like to make some sort of ranking system that uses the displayed time it takes to complete a dungeon, but first I’d like to have everyone compete with each other by displaying the completion time.
In addition to this, there are other detailed adjustments being added. For example, it’s been said that TP consumption for ninja and paladin is too severe, there are adjustments being made to make the bard easier to use, and adjustments are being made to astrologian.
1:10:18
The next 24-person raid to follow the Crystal Tower series is the Void Ark. Instead of exploring gradually making a climb to the top like in Crystal Tower, you’ll be exploring through the interior of the Void Ark. You’ve noticed that Diabolos, who made an appearance in the Lost City of Amdapor, is back pulling the strings, so look forward to the unraveling the story.
1:11:54
Similar to Crystal Tower, defeating bosses within the Void Ark will drop treasure coffers for the alliance, and you’ll be able to obtain Void Ark gear. As usual, there will be weekly restrictions on these, and you’ll be able to obtain one per week. Furthermore, by clearing the content, each person will receive a “Mhachi farthing,” which can be exchanged for accessory or armor upgrade materials. This too can only be obtained once per week. Previously we released upgrade materials starting with accessories, then armor, and finally weapons, but this time around we will be giving the option for either accessories or armor. Weapons are still a bit off in the future.
1:14:09
We’ve been receiving questions about this, but unlike the Minstrel's Ballad: Ultima's Bane, the Minstrel’s Ballad: Thordan’s Reign will be closer to an extreme difficulty. It will be harder in difficulty than Thok Ast Thok (Extreme), and while it won’t be as hard as the latter areas of Alexander Gordias (Savage), the difficulty will be somewhere in between Alexander Gordias and the early areas of Alexander Gordias (Savage). While the total DPS needed to clear this content has not been set very high, there will be 10 phases that are exciting and fun. Originally we were planning to make 13 phases since it’s Knights of the Round, but this seemed a bit overboard, so we cut it down to 10. Also, we originally recorded voices for the battle that we were going to put in for the 3.0 fight, but we had to lower the difficulty for the scenario, and we’ll be adding these into the new battle in Patch 3.1 where the knight’s other than Thordan will play a larger role. Reward-wise there will be weapons you can obtain that will help with Alexander (Savage), but I can’t tell you the item level just yet.
1:17:59
Other adjustments
In regards to the recast times for medicinal items, they have been carefully adjusted for balance, so we will not be changing them; however, we will be enhancing items whose effects are not strong enough.
There have been a lot of requests from players who want to punch things with their bare hands, and we’ll be making this possible through an item for sale from the vendor that sells the Emperor series items.
1:18:57
We’ve received feedback that acquiring red scrips as a gatherer is difficult, so we’ve made adjustments to the items that you can exchange for red scrips from Rowena’s House of Splendors. We’ll also be making overall adjustments to crafters in Patch 3.1, and the difficulty for acquiring Master Recipe Books from pre-3.0 will be eased for newer players coming into the game.
With the enormous amount of items that have been added to the game, we implemented a search feature for the crafting and gathering log, and you’ll be able to immediately search for the items and recipes you need.
1:20:09
It will be possible to glamour items that took up multiple equipment slots, so you can glamour your favorite equipment. Furthermore, instead of having to try on equipment one piece at a time, you’ll be able to try on multiple pieces at the same time in Patch 3.1, making it easier to coordinate your outfit.
1:21:00
Skill increases when desynthesizing items with a high item level was on the low-side, so we made overall adjustments to item desynthesis.