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FF XIV Live Letter (Unofficial) Translation
HellboundHeart
Member UncommonPosts: 390
UNOFFICIAL LIVE LETTER XXVI TRANSLATION
markomilicic4 on twitter!
This translation is not a Square Enix official translation of the Live Letter. Marko will be translating important details and usually leaving out the banter between Yoshi & Foxclon. Thank you.
Official Translation Forum: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/276359-Letter-from-the-Producer-LIVE-Part-XXVI-Q-A-Update-Thread
Additional News regarding the state of 3.1 & 3.15: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/276368-The-Current-Status-of-FFXIV-Patch-3.1-and-How-to-Address-it-Moving-Forward
Opening with the Christmas Video for the year.
Introduction inside the Eorzean Cafe while they get drunk.
They are playing the HAI drinking game! (not really)
They also encouraged everyone watching the stream drink with them...oh god. I hope we don’t need it.
First they will be discussing about some “important stuff” before they talk about some 3.2 stuff and their special guest. (I hope it's Tanaka lol)
An update on the State of the Game along with their plans for the game.
Alexander Savage
Difficulty was TOO HIGH. They got a lot of feedback that players wanted more difficult content than Coil that led to this decision. They also had people who didn’t give feedback at that time and that led to a lot of people server transferring just to find groups to clear the raid.
Currently planning on making a special finder for Raid parties. (They mean cross-server finders btw)
Alexander: Midas (Savage) will come in 3.2 at a lower overall difficulty. Not easy, but easier than current Savage. The DPS check won’t be as high as it is now.
With the current difficulty of Alexander (Savage), they find that the ilvl rewards were TOO LOW since that same ilvl can be achieved in many different ways and it doesn’t reflect the difficulty of Savage properly. This may lead to reworking the ilvl of raid gear.
Diadem
So Final Fantasy XIV is a game that is built on content, so there are a lot of rules regarding that content. The game tries to enforce those rules.
The Diadem pretty much had no rules. It was even LACKING rules. There was just too much freedom.
They want to enhance the objectives, so they feel incentivized to travel around the Diadem.
As a side note: Materia will be able to slotted into raid gear in 3.2 as they discussed before…(I’m sure this will double back to Diadem)
The Diadem’s reward rate for Materia is there to support this new system.
They want players to feel more incentivized to raid with Diadem gear, as opposed to replacing raid gear with Diadem gear. So they will be reworking the way item level is obtained in Diadem.
Anima Weapons...oh boy here we go….
First: The Concept on the intended challenge.
So there's a few ways to get strong items: high player skill or you can put in time and get items, either through esoterics or weekly lockouts.
In exchange for their time, players will receive powerful weapons.
They don’t want the relic weapon to require difficult content, this is mostly because people have a means to get items by playing difficult content (raiding).
Some players are concerned about the relative lifespan of the Anima Weapons
The reason why it was in 3.15 is because the item level of raid weapons is the same as Anima. If the raid weapon ilvl was higher it would have been in 3.1. The next steps will be in 3.25 and 3.3 since this won’t be a problem then.
Just remember to mix and match the ways you approach the quest, and not do 800 alexander runs (Yoshi-p meme plz).
They will be making the beastmen FATEs faster to help speed up the daily time investment on Anima farms.
They will fix the ability to grab the quest for the same job twice.
Comments
They will also make it so you can’t accidentally sell the Anima Weapon items such as the bone.
Housing
In 3.3 they will increase the number of housing lands available again. No Ishgard yet though. Dragonsong War is still ongoing!
Ishgard housing WILL be after 3.3 after they increase housing availability. (Seems to not be related to the lore, just stating that increasing the number of wards is more important)
Furnishing limit will be increased as well.
Along with new land, players will be able to buy apartments.
Gardening Pots & New Seeds being worked on as well (Indoor gardening).
Crafting
Most players feel that crafting is just for glamour.
The new equipment in 3.2 is actually very useful for raiding. Its strong. So it will be #worth.
Patch 3.2
New Main Scenario quests will be added.
Lots of developments for the Dragonsong War.
New Side quests will be added
Gnath Beast Tribe Quests will be added.
New Dungeons
The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard)
Lore will cover what happened after Diabolos left. (Inb4 Mamool Ja Took it over)
The Antitower (Main Story Dungeon)
New Trials
The start of the Warring Triad Series
Containment Bay S1T7 + (Extreme)
The name of the boss doesn’t translate well to english, its SEPHIROT, not SEPHIROTH.
For reference, this is the “Fiend” of the Warring Triad.
Mechanics?....you will fall.
Same guy who designed Titan is designing this.
Won’t be as hard as KOR Extreme. Similar to Ravana difficulty.
New Raid
Alexander: Midas + Savage
There will NOT be a two week break between normal and savage difficulty. They will release at the same time.
TWO FAUSTS
This is not a boss fight...they are the guards.
Most people call him Faust-sensei.
New PVP content
The Feast
Before it was more of a Deathmatch for the Wolves’ Den. Now it will be more sporty and obtaining points.
When you defeat players you take their points.
Ex: Defeat a player with 100 points, you get 100 points.
That's just the base of the rules of course.
5 different modes, some of them having rating systems.
8 vs 8 (Rating does not apply) (Just for fun for this mode)
4 vs 4 Solo Q (Ratings Apply)
4 vs 4 Solo Q (Ratings do not apply)
4 vs 4 Light Party Q (Ratings do Apply)
4 vs 4 Light Party Q (Ratings do not apply)
Each of these modes will have rewards.
There will also be PVP Seasons, with ratings resetting every major patch. Rewards will be issued to top ranked players.
Pre-season will be 3.2 and 3.25 to give people time to acclimate to the content.
Orchestrion will be added
Jukebox
Will initially come with a single song.
Songs will have to be “collected” by beating bosses.
New Achievements
You’ll be able to buy songs from a variety of places. 45 Songs total when it first launches with more songs added frequently.
Beginner’s Hall (Hall of Novice) will be added
This is for training for end game content to help teach you your job.
You’ll be able to access this Hall as early as level 15 before going into Sastasha, so you can develop your skills as you level.
Some rewards/achievements from it for glamour. You can graduate from the Hall of Novice for example.
The Mentor System
Someone can literally become your senpai.
You can become a Mentor after obtaining certain achievements from various levels of content.
Gathering, Crafting and Combat
There will also be a “Mentor Roulette” players can join to be matched up with a teacher.
Senpai Roulette
New Striking Dummy Training modes will be added
“Stone, Sky, Sea” is the name of the mode.
This will be a Striking Dummy you need to defeat to test your player skill.
The dummy will have actual mechanics for the player to deal with.
The point of this will be to defeat the dummy within a time limit. Different dummies test different skills and item level ranges.
A means of testing DPS without actually using a meter.
Changes will be made to the Materia system.
This was discussed earlier and in an earlier live letter.
New Allagan Tomestone of Folklore (?)
The ability to sell items directly from retainer
Minimap Elevation to help players tell when something is above or below them.
4k Resolution support will begin to be implemented.
More details to come at the Live Letter in Kagoshima.
Memories from the year of 2015 are being shared.
CLOUD BIKE MOUNT
On break they showed a bunch of memories for 2015.
All that whining people did. What do I always say? PATIENCE.
I always tell people,have faith in SE, they are a good company. If you bitch loud enough, it get's heard with this game/company. The loudest voices are heard on the OF.
This is another perfect example of a dev team listening to the complaints of the fans.
I want ALL mmo dev teams to be like this.
As I mentioned to driven regarding crafting everything is still looking good and I'm glad to see melding slots in raid gear has been reconfirmed. As far as content goes I hope they mean to rehash Diadem with better focused objectives rather than abandon it to do a better job with the next segment. As far as raiding goes moving forward I feel they made a mistake, instead of adding a third-possibly fourth difficulty mode they are nerfing the baseline. As far as incentive for the players clearing the content when its relevant, rewards should be given so everyone is happy.
These players aren't asking for much; give them a special minion/mount and have all the pre nerf armor be dye-able and a different trim for the weapons and there you go! Instead SE opted to lose their entire Hardcore playerbase and its a shame. On the flip side I like ilvl's being adjusted on savage (because it was needed) but I would prefer the game getting a cross server PF rather than DF, id like some communication and party screening/structure rather than just grab bagging wipe groups. I don't feel Savage should ever be in DF because the fights require too much coordination to pug. That said because I've been waiting since 2.0 since Yoshi promised we would be able to quest/fate/explore with players from other servers it would be a nice compromise. I wouldn't mind lockout restrictions being more lax for raids to allow seasoned players to teach other groups how to raid...
Not going to comment on relics, truly a lazy and disappointing way of obtaining them. Still no Ishgard housing districts but its good to see they are on their way and will apartments mean *gasp* finally personal housing being added? Very excited and a bit disappointed at the same time as far as the Warring Triads being added (despite knowing its coming because of the structures erected in Azys). Sometimes I wish FFXIV dipped into other lore in the way FFXI did such as nordic/mythos/asian e.t.c. instead of just copy pasting SO MANY bosses and battles from every damn FF game...
Good to see PvP content but I feel its a tad bit too late for anyone to care. I am glad that it seems they are dropping individual free companies and making it more arena style, but it makes me concerned that 60 cap versions of maps I like will never see the light of day now. Beginners hall sounds nice but still no talk about a phase skipping feature and Mentor system wont be abuse at all.... Now players will get to do dungeons with a racist/sexist/elitest coach that will belittle them for low DPS and call them bad and possibly abuse the vote kick system, very excite/much anticipation. Just add a DPS parser already so we can all just get over this slap fighting we've been doing since 2.0. Cloud bike mount was a gift for one of the texture/3D asset modelers and will not be an available mount, but because of the confusion it created and the mad pitch fork riots that will ensue "please look forward to it" in the coming months.
TLDR; However incredibly slow as it is SE is getting there, making a subtle big mistake here and there but overall finally listening to its playerbase *golf clap*. PLS Add 4 man raiding SE PLS
No sir, I meant the whining from Scorpex X.
I quote him/her: "They will only listen if you're a JP player"
Now i believe they said this but, JP community has had only some of the issues we have as they, JP players, IMO, are better than NA/EU players in terms of skill and getting things done that is really hard or takes a lot of time. So their complaints, honestly, have been minimal.
Everything here I have seen has been addressed by the community on the OF for NA/EU.
The one's whining are not the one's asking for change. We are CUSTOMERS requesting change in a product we pay for.
If someone say's, "This sucks, this content is broken, i'm going to go complain on the OF", I say go for it, voice you're opinion.
But, there are those who do this, "This content sucks don't play, fail. Anybody who plays will have to pay the cash shop, p2w, etc", are the ones just pure trolling. They don't care, they want to see the game fail. That's their life goal.
I encourage the sincere. People who really care and want the game to grow and succeed, not watch it fail in a burning flaming pit.
People like him/her come here because they can't post on the OF.
So instead of supporting them and sticking it out, they just....well, I don't know.
This game has earned my 12.99$ a month for 630 day's now.
It's just MY OPINION ONLY that I think SE is a great company in tearms of FF XIV ARR's mmo dev team.
=================
On a lighter note, I am glad that you are at least recognizing that they are willing to fix their mistakes. It is a mediocre game, I will admit, but, it keeps my attention. Although I do like to level alts and stuff. The BLM story is getting good and I wand that horse/pony for doing WHM, although I suck at healing lol.
And I agree 100%, we need 4 man raids. Sometimes it is hard, even with party finder, to get a full group of 8.
Relics and Anima.....yeah...let's just hope no other game does this, ever.
Might hop onto the official forums and start suggesting things on the Apartments.
Hoping it's like a personal little instance with a house that you can walk up to and go inside. Though honestly what I would like them to do is somehow implement the whole Black Desert housing system. Maybe combine all the wards and make it so the lots are phased -- you pick one, buy it, and you see your lot as well as random lots around you. Maybe even have the ability to pick your friends lot to be seen if it isn't your own (via invite or just looking through it).
Though all in all, if they make it so you can buy Small, Medium and Large apartments, that would be great. Especially if a guild is able to adopt those.
Good to see crafting being more important again.
The changes to other things is also nice.
Hoping the PvP changes will be fun.
Mentor system looks awesome. Hopefully you can also pick your student as well as it being random.
What I would like in the future:
The ability to buy "tickets" for your friends, to be able to make a character on your realm (similar to FFXI).
Inventory system being worked on a bit, as it's annoying when you have your armory full and you have to figure out what to place in your inventory before trying to equip something.
Also... did someone just say a cloud bike mount?
For future expansions:
Samurai
Red Mage
Beast Master
Time Mage
Druid
Follow up on the current event with the FFXI maiden and her saying "we'll meet in Erozea or Vana'diel" by recreating Vana'diel as an expansion area.
I know my rant above was a bit critical, but slowly SE is getting the hang of things. Diadem was kind of a hope that didn't quite fruition but I hope we can really get something like that. Imagine a crash site of the Lunar whale from FFIV where you move through the un instanced zone and fight packs of monsters for mats that crafters put together to make a key to unlock battlefields where we can fight big monsters for vanity/comparable ilvl equips and crafting mats to make current ilvl crafted equips. Walk through a mechanical labyrinth of corridors and bays while passing other players or joining active farming groups. I've dreamed about this game making crap like this, instead of sitting in IDLE-Shire jumping up and down on mounts while waiting for 90% instanced platform of X raid content...
This game has such a beautiful world that just ISN't being realized... such a shame.
Above average content updates, above average time to introduce such (in a good way), above average grind (good and bad depending on the person), above average difficulty (likely a result of no mods to help with massive rotations with some classes and them overtuning Savage difficulty), an originally mediocre story that grew into an above average one with 2.5 and heavensward. Above average graphics and unique music, above average character creation, etc. Even the community itself is above average with Pugs -- with me always seeing people say "hello" and "take care" at the beginning and ending of each dungeon, even if they don't say anything inbetween when focused on fighting.
Though I like Yoshi's team's attitude and how they focus on a variety of things for patches and not just expansions. Especially how they implement new idle stances and hair styles and the little things as well as the big -- whether they be experiments of new systems or updates to existing ones. That alone gets me to support them by keeping an account up and regularly posting on the official forums with feedback with the hope that the game will continue to grow as they learn.
Biggest pet peeve is still housing, though that seems to be addressed in the future with this information. Same with crafting and changes to PvP.
To me, it's the only game out at the moment that is worth a mandatory subscription price. At least in terms of knowing what I'm getting and seeing work continuously put out instead of leading us on for 15 months.
The concern this thought stems from is this interview my friend posted for me that goes behind the scenes of 1.0 to 2.0 from Yoshi's standpoint. Its a very long video but a good watch to really understand the challenges his team faced and the true sense of how understaffed their Dev team currently is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRZ_4H0OK60
Grr just add the GC platoon, ie FFXI trust system, or hopefully that's what it is.
My life leads to way too many crap I have to go moments, and I hate bailing on people mid everything, not to mention, I can t get things done.
It's certainly a game that deserves the praise it gets from those who play it or support it. Though often it falls to the way side -- with most games -- of how much better everything can always be. The new classes aren't all that popular aside from Dark Knights for world PvE and it feels like they just made up convoluted mechanics or added abilities that change things in a messy way just so they have an ability to give them to match the other classes for that level. Though they are showing as a team that they're learning, especially with these patch notes for upcoming content.
Honestly, I think it's a stupendous game and have fun whenever I play it. But I always want the games I genuinely enjoy to become better and continue to show that growth. Some QoL things are being implemented at a fair pace into patches -- such as mounted chocobos and interaction and such -- but the inventory is still a problem (especially how you can't move items around when interacting with something in some cases) and housing issues still need a more elegant solution.
I'm not worried about subscription numbers personally, as the numbers last seen were higher than I would've estimated, and since then an additional few hundred thousand subs joined from differing regions. To match the couple hundred thousand from the Chinese market (which actually fell below my expectations as a market due to poor preparation, likely). There were good estimates that the game -- with the addition -- was well over 1.5 million at the start of Heavensward . Which is much higher than the 350k Yoshi was aiming for with his stance of knowing that people quit and come back for large patches and or expansions -- something he does with games himself. Though I also have to attribute the youtube and podcast craze it got from a lot of influential people will millions of followers to this growth.
In truth the servers I play on always have a queue to get in, so I couldn't even give any retention numbers (see the cities always full, save for very early in the morning). Would definitely agree about them boosting the team more to give us even greater expansions -- and better thought out classes for them. But I suppose there is a danger of being too critical as well. After all, they did release four new classes leading into Heavensward (three being a part of the expansion). In addition to a new race with two subraces. Leagues ahead of the competition in that regard, I'd say. Not to mention that the actual storyline for Heavensward have some interesting moments and patch updates.
They'll have to do a bit more to understand their community if they want it to be as prosperous in the next expansion and the one after that. People are already getting fed up with the anima grind; the prospect of having every character maxed loses its appeal after a few years -- especially if the level keeps on going up and the FATES / Dungeons / Etc. involved don't offer enough reason to even try. In truth, they're good about adding new systems in patches -- something that games like WoW only do in whole expansions. That's another thing to be appreciative for... in addition to all the little things they provide with each patch as well as the big main stuff.