Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXXVII Q&A Update Thread

[Bayohne]

The Lost Canals of Uznair

Continuation to Aquapolis and you can think of it as a level 70 version of Aquapolis with a Thavnairian theme.
Materia VIs and other rewards have a chance to drop in The Lost Canals of Uznair.

(During the stream, we showed some screenshots of the interior.)

We are planning the next update to arrive in Patch 4.1.

[Bayohne]

Separation of field instances in new areas

Since there is a situation where players aren’t able to enter an area due to other players waiting for a specific monster to spawn, we will reimplement some instances in Patch 4.05.

[Bayohne]

[Questions from the Audience (1st Half)]

Q. We liked the showdown scene in Azim Steppes. Will event battle instances be available to replay, just like dungeons?

A. We have been discussing making the popular ones replayable, but we would like more time on this.

Q. Are there plans for a Namazu minion?

A. Yep.

Q. As a turtle lover I was concerned and it feels strange to me that the Adamantoise spins rapidly and emits fire underwater. Also, it would be nice if the Sahagin's Elbst mount could swim.

A. There would be some amount of cost required for the team to be able to make the Elbst available underwater, but we would like to work on these as we can.

Q. Is there any particular reason why Zenos’ scabbard spins so rapidly? Is it spinning by force of will or some kind of switch?

A. There is a switch by his hand that rotates to the next sword. (I thought of this now.) In Zenos’ backstory, it’s written that he developed a liking for katana while conquering Doma, but as katana quickly degrade as they cut, many katana are required.

[Bayohne]

Art Director Hiroshi Minagawa joined in on the second half of the show.

Q: Your title has changed to Art Director, but are you now able to work on a wider range of things? Please tell us about your current job!

A: (Minagawa) During A Realm Reborn, as a Lead UI Artist, I was in charge of the UI mainly; however, from 3.0 I adjusted the lighting in the field, and also managed the staff of the Background Art team.
In 4.0, I was also looking at field lighting and such.

(Yoshida) He made adjustments fitting my design of FFXIV, so we matched his title to this.

[Bayohne]

Q: With the job gauge, we can better manage the buffs; however, we still need to check the buff and debuff section for any specific changes. For some jobs like bards, we need to pay attention to more sections now. Would it be possible to check the Procs from the job gauges?

A: We’re currently looking into which stats the party members aren’t able to see now. Also, we’re also working on a simplified version of the job gauge. I believe we should be able to announce the specific details for the adjustment soon.

In addition to this, we’re receiving comments where the current buff/debuff status information is displayed in a single row which can be difficult when deciding where to place this. In order to answer player's request to separate the buff and debuff, and those that aren’t related to battle, such as those only for FC, we’re looking into splitting this into 3 parts.

[Bayohne]

Q: Please tell us implementation plans regarding the simplified version of the job gauges that Yoshida mentioned in the previous PLL.

A. I think we can implement this in 4.1.
There are quite a lot of requests to adjust the transparency, so we are considering lowering opacity so the UI can be overlayed over characters.

(Yoshida)
We are currently deciding what HUD elements to include in the job gauge.
We will then start moving forward with the simplified version.

[Bayohne]

Q: In regards to the Focus Target, would it be possible to add a setting where the buff/debuff you used are prioritized? Also, are there any plans to add a setting where you can display the buff/debuff into separate HUD element?

A: Along with seeing if it would be possible to separate the buff/debuff in the target information, as part of the next adjustment, we’ll look into Focus Target too.

[Bayohne]

Q: I would like to know if there were any major difficulties during the development of 4.0!

A: We were making adjustments for the PlayStation®4 version until the very last minute. This has finally calmed down last week, and we’re back to the normal pace!

[Bayohne]

Q. I would like filters in Party Finder that would allow me to narrow down results to groups that I can join and meet my requirements, would this be possible to implement?

A. At the moment we are not considering filters for desired requirements. Additionally, there have been comments regarding how locked content show up in search results. We are deciding whether we would like to hide such results, or make them appear at the bottom by default.

[Bayohne]

Q: As you were part of the staff of FINAL FANTASY XII, how much were you involved in the recent FINAL FANTASY XII: The Zodiac Age? It’s not FFXIV related question, but I love FFXII, so I would like to know.

A: I tried hard to make it look like I wasn’t involved too much on the project. I was invited over at the start of the development, and have attended about 10 meetings to discuss the objectives and such. In the later half, I was just creating the logo.

Yoshida: The quality of the original FINAL FANTASY XII was very high, so I was surprised how the graphics fit in with the current generation.

Minagawa: Actually, minor details like eyeball movement was in there from the original version, but we just didn’t notice because of the quality of CRT TVs.