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A Letter From the Producer Live XII - Recap
The 12th A Letter From the Producer Live took place on the 25th January, featuring a wealth of details about Patch 2.2, the PlayStation 4 version and some upcoming merchandise. This letter also marked the start of the worldwide fan tour for the game, with the show being presented infront of 200 diehard fans in Osaka, Japan. Producer, Yoshi-P, has already been staggered by the response, commenting that one fan asked him if it would be okay to go around shouting "Yossshiiiidaaaaaaa" - which the fan then did once he had Yoshi-P's blessing.
The first topic of conversation was a brief discussion of the the recently released Patch 2.15, featuring a lot of hotfixes and adjustments to various parts of the game. The major points raised were:
- Free Company housing will reach it's lowest price by the end of February 2014, if very few have been purchased after this point then the prices may be reviewed again.
- Small Free Company houses will be doubled in size and will be a good fit for small Free Company's of 7-8 people
- Vote Kick is being reviewed to combat griefing (such as kicking players who admit it's their first run), with potential changes including limiting the amount of times players can use it on a daily basis.
- PvP still needs work
A few other more generic points were raised:
- Pricing for Personal housing will be announced at a later date. Yoshi-P wants a lot of Free Company's to buy houses first so that players can try those out.
- There are no plans to increase the speed at which reputation is gained through the Beast Tribe dailies. This is intended to be casual content that can be done on and off, as it just has cosmetic rewards and not something players are forced to plough through.
- Market changes are coming in 2.2 with new craftable items that will be better than the majority of dungeon drops, meaning that players will have incentive to spend their Gil again.
The first real big piece of news was confirmation that the PlayStation 4 beta will be starting on the 22nd February 2014, and that Patch 2.16 will be deployed the same day featuring a lot of quality of life game changes:
- Summoning Bell being added to Revenant's Toll
- New Market Board features such as a wish list, allowing you to save items you intend to buy at a later date
- Ability to summon mounts and minions at random, useful for players who have large collections and don't want their action bars hogged with icons
- The Relic Reborn encounters, Dhorme Chimera and Hydra, will be added to the Duty Finder
- Gear sets will automatically substitute a relevant weapon (if one is available) from the Armory Chest when the saved item is not available
- Cooldown timer for Timeworn maps will be added to the /timers menu, meaning it's no longer guess work when the 18 hour cooldown ends
- Character parameters will affect Quick Synthesis ratings (they did not really clarify on this so we're not sure which parameters)
- Preview Dyes before applying them
- New Achievement rewards (no specifics yet)
- Notification feature for the Party Finder
- Ability to automatically block Party Invitations
- New feature to reselect Focus Targets (no specifics yet)
- New Marker feature, allowing players to put Marks on the ground, this is useful when discussing tactics and positioning without running the risk of accidentally asspulling something.
- More action icons for macros
- New command to have characters face the camera
- Potential targets will have a glowing outline when hovering the mouse cursor over them, useful for finding the correct target in clusters of enemies
- Weather will affect the character now! When it's raining clothes will get wet, water will roll off the character and when it's cold you will be able to see the characters breath etc.
Next up is the hotly anticipated Patch 2.2, titled THROUGH THE MAELSTROM, which will be releasing in March 2014. The big thing is:
- Leviathan primal encounter! 8 player Trial with two difficulties. Hard Mode as part of the Main Scenario continuation, Extreme Mode for those looking for a challenge. The rewards will be "very powerful weapons." Oh, and a Leviathan Chocobo Barding!
- The Leviathan encounter takes place on a ship in the ocean. The ship sways and tilts as it is thrashed by Leviathan. Yoshi-P made a joke here about how they could make it so it requires the entire Party to be Fishers and they have to fish-up Leviathan, liking it to Monster Hunter. That won't actually happen though!
- There are no plans to add a Leviathan-Egi for Summoners at this point in time. The developers do not want to add cool stuff for one job and not others, so new Egi's would likely come with a level cap increase or expansion pack.
- New Primal encounters will be added with every major content patch.
Also, the long awaited Vanity Slot system will be implemented:
- Now called Glamours
- Will use craftable items called Mirage Prisms (spot the Sailor Moon reference) to apply the appearance of one item, to another item
Patch 2.2 will also feature some new dungeons:
- Amdapor Township, the hardest 4 player dungeon to date (even harder than Pharos Sirius!). Players get to learn the history of what happened to the town of Amdapor.
- Amdapor Township drops new high level items as well as a new form of Allagan Tomestome that can be used to purchase the latest tier of rewards.
- The Good King Moggle Mog will be getting an Extreme difficulty.
- Two new Hard Mode dungeons are being added, Brayflox's Longstop (Hard) and Halatali (Hard)
Changes are also being made to the Binding Coil of Bahamut:
- Turns 6 to 9 will be added. Entrance this time is in the Black Shroud.
- Turns 6 to 9 will use the same one week lockout that Turns 1 to 5 currently use and Turns 6 to 9 cannot be accessed until Twintania in Turn 5 has been defeated.
- There will be no Turn 3 style filler in Turns 6 to 9.
- Turns 1 to 5 will have their weekly lockouts removed, will be adjusted in difficulty slightly and accessible via the Duty Finder.
- The Patch adds new high level items for players which will also mean that Turns 1 to 5 will be slightly easier due to the increase in average item level.
- Every week players will get a buff for Turns 1 to 5 which is adjustable by the developers, based on player success rates, and means that former one-shot mechanics won't one-shot players anymore.
Existing features in the game are also being fleshed out:
- New Beast Tribe dailies for Kobold and Sahagin
- Hildibrand's adventures continue
- Fishing challenges such as God fish and weather affecting where more fish can be found
- More hairstyles are being added to the Aesthetician, this will be an ongoing thing every patch
We also got some details about some cool merchandise on the horizon:
- PlayStation 4 release date - 14th April 2014. Yoshi-P made a joke here that their PR team said they won't get a date like that for another 100 years, the Dev team meanwhile, is freaking out that it's too soon! Pre-orders will open on the week of 27th January 2014!
- The PlayStation 4 Collector's Edition features all the goodies the PC and PlayStation 3 versions had, along with a Wind-Up Moogle minion and a FAT CHOCOBO mount! Yes, EoFF's own Free Company will now have it's own mount too. All existing Collector's Edition owners will also get these new rewards.
- FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn - Original Soundtrack is finally confirmed for release! If you like listening to the music on YouTube you've probably noticed that Square tend to get a lot of it taken down, so finally we have an official way of listening to those tracks. The soundtrack features all the music up until Patch 2.1 (that's 119 songs, over 6 hours). If you listened to Before Meteor and this soundtrack back to back, it would cover the entire length of a flight from London to Japan! It will be releasing on March 27th 2014 in all regions. Check out your regional Square Enix store for pre-orders. The soundtrack also features a redeemable code that will give you a super adorable Wind-Up Bahamut minion in-game!
- Two FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn official strategy guides are being released. Featuring exclusive artwork, one covers all the Quests and FATES, the other covers characters, items etc. These books are seriously thick, around 469 pages each. No word if these will be released outside of Japan yet
- The next Full Active Time Event for fans will take place in Sapporo, Japan during March 2014 and will feature a follow-up Letter from the Producer Live, talking about more Patch 2.2 related goodness.
The next world events were also teased:
- Valentine's Day event running from February 4th to February 17th 2014.
- Little Ladies Day coming near the end of February.
- Lightning Returns event will be back from February 4th to February 24th 2014 for the NA/EU launch.
Oh and one very last little thing, the latest logo for Patch 2.2 was revealed:
Wow! So that was a lot to take in. What are you looking forward too in Patch 2.2?
