A Letter From the Producer - Live from TGS
Okay, so the live part of this title is a bit of a lie as we're covering this anything but live. However, the broadcast itself was live from Tokyo Game Show yesterday and hot off the... feeds? We're bringing you all the goss about what's to come in the land of Eorzea.
The majority of this edition was focused on the upcoming patch 2.1 which is being deployed at some point this year.
We've already touched on the Collaborations in a recent article so I won't cover that again here. It's not confirmed that patch 2.1 will go live the same time these events start though.
The Crystal Tower was revealed for the first time. The entrance is in far south eastern Mor Dhona. The Crystal Tower sees players fighting up the floors of the tower in an attempt to reach the top. The top floor won't be added until a later patch though. Each floor is designed to take around 90-120 minutes to complete (so a similar speed to The Praetorium) and caters 3 parties of 2 tanks, 2 healers and 4 damage dealers - making the grand total 24 people. There will be changes to the UI to display 24 people but Yoshi-P said that primarily you'll be focusing on your own party. It's designed to be a stepping stone between Hard Mode primals and the Binding Tower of Bahamut and will likely require an average item lvl (ilvl) of around 70 (so full Darklight near enough). The loot that it drops will likely be around ilvl 75-80. Yoshi-P did say that they generally expect people to complete their A Relic Reborn questline before attempting The Crystal Tower.
All dungeons and raids in the Duty Finder will now will require an minimum ilvl to be met before players can queue for them. This is in response to concerns about singificantly undergeared people queueing for Hard Mode Primal encounters which presents all sorts of unnecessary logistical problems in Duty Finder groups.
The Good King Moggle Mog XII encounter will be returning in patch 2.1! Just like the original he will drop Moogle weapons that make Moogle noises when you do things with them. These weapons are likely to around a similar level to current Garuda and Titan hard mode drops. (so ilvl 70)
Speaking of primals... Extreme Mode versions of the Ifrit, Garuda and Titan battles are coming. That's pretty much all we know for now, speculation is rife on how the encounters might become even more difficult. More feathers on Ifrit? More adds on Garuda? Your guess is as good as ours!
There's also a brand new level 50 dungeon coming called the Pharos Sirius alongside two "Hard Mode" versions of existing dungeons. Yoshi-P said that these won't just be re-hashes and will infact be different routes through existing dungeons with completely new encounters. Both Hard Mode dungeons are also level 50 and will provide players with alternate means of getting ilvl60+ loot as well as their Philosophy and Mythology tomes (currency used to purchase high tier rewards) each week.
Due to fan demand there's also a Hard Mode version coming of a single boss, that's currently in the game. For those of you who've completed the story, click here... Current speculation is that it's Ultima Weapon!
Daily Quests (quests you can only do once per day) are also coming in 2.1 which will explain the story of the Beast Tribe Strongholds. Not much detail about them has been revealed but it's likely they will be a way to generate Gil and possible obtain other items.
The big feature everyone is looking forward to is Housing! It's going to be mostly functional in 2.1 in that only Free Company Housing will be available. No details on individual Player Housing yet. Whilst pricing wasn't revealed, Yoshi-P did say that there are over 300 customisable parts to housing from the foundations to the fencing and interior decoration.
The final big ticket item coming in 2.1 is the Wolves Den Player vs Player (PVP) arena. The match takes the form of a 4v4 team death match - whichever team kills the other team first, wins! You can either queue and be matched with 7 other random players or you can queue as a premade team of 4 and fight another premade team. There will be a ranking and reward system with exclusive PvP gear. Yoshi-P also said that all classes will be getting abilities that can only be used in PvP too.
FINAL FANTASY XIV community member Reinhart has also provided a translation of the Q&A with Yoshi-P which you can find over on the official website at: Translation Japanese to English - Page 11
I have to say I'm looking forward to this patch. I'm not big on dailies as WoW pretty much made them monotonous. PvP could go either way for me. But the prospect of 3 new dungeons at 50 as well as The Crystal Tower has me stoked.
You can view the full video, in Japanese, over on YouTube at:
What are you looking forward too?
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Especially housing; must keep mining to save up them gil. But everytime I gather a lot, I always end up needing to spend it. 
