Season’s Greetings, adventurers!

Matsui here, bringing you the latest in FFXI news.

What would Vana’diel be without its yearly Starlight Celebration? Every time I hear the eponymous theme in Jeuno, I’m reminded that the holidays are soon to be upon us in the real world as well. The Smile Bringers are working extra hard to bring you a little bit of FFXI cheer in this most festive of seasons—which reminds me of my younger years, when the most famous Smile Bringer of all (Santa, of course!) brought me a telescope for the holidays. As I stepped into the wide world of Galileo, I turned the lens onto Jupiter, put on sunglasses so I could look at the black spots of the sun [ed.: never attempt this under any circumstances!], and generally played astronomer a lot when I had my trusty telescope by my side.

Even as an adult, I can’t help but get a smile on my face whenever I hear a Christmas jingle or see the bright lights bringing mirth to the town.

But as much as I love Christmas, I love FNAL FANTASY XI even more, and we’ve got some stuff planned that’ll hopefully bring you more holiday cheer!

First off, I’ve got some news on job adjustments! This is the first month of many that we’ve promised to bring you job-related updates, and to that end we’ve got a change to damage calculation formulas that affect a wide range of jobs—together with the addition of new job traits.

Taken together, these adjustments are intended to raise the bar on a most basic level, and the jobs they affect will feel like they’ve gotten a little something from their kit that they’ve been missing. There’s nothing super groundbreaking, but we believe that you will definitively be able to feel the impact.

Next up are a couple of changes to Ambuscade. We’re adding further reforging potential to the Ambuscade weapons introduced last month, specifically in the realm of basic attributes and magic attack-related properties. But don’t worry—this isn’t even their final form! There’s still a lot more to come, so if you find yourself hankering for new weapons, you won’t be disappointed with the effort you put in to them. And in case you were wondering what new foe you’ll be coming across: it’s an iron giant.

Further changes include a refurbishing of the chocobuck exchange system, adjustments to ensure the price of scout’s bolts don’t get out of control, and updates to the Ephemeral Moogle crystal storage system. All of these were topics raised on the official forums, and we’re always happy when we can make adjustments to issues that you, our players, have brought to light.

It’s been a while since the Smile Bringers have brought me anything in real life, so tonight I’m going to go look up at the sky and see if I can find any stars to wish upon. If not, then it’ll be time for me to log in to Vana’diel and go goblin hunting!

Below please find the usual table of items to be added in December. As always, last minute issues may arise that prevent us from implementing some of these items this month.

Content and System-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
DecemberAmbuscade・Add new notorious monsters
・Replace reward items
・Add new reward and upgrade system
-
DecemberPorter Moogle・Add to list of supported items-
DecemberChocobo Racing・Adjust UI-
DecemberEphemeral Moogle・Adjust storage system-
DecemberAlter Ego・Adjust damage cap-
Battle-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
DecemberJob Trait・Add new Job Trait-
DecemberHand-to-Hand Weapons・Adjust accuracy cap-
Item-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
DecemberItem・Add new items
・ Change certain item properties so they can be delivered to characters under the same account
・Add new attributes to certain items
-
DecemberSynthesis・Change details of certain recipes-