Translation of the talk show of Final Fantasy 25th event

[TenraiNagi]

I would like to put a simple translation I made of the talk show that happened during the Final Fantasy 25th event in Japan. It's mostly bullet points of the most important things that were said, and some of their conversations! I know that it would be translated and posted, but I also know that it would take some time... ^^

This is not a perfect translation. So please don't hold it against me if I have mistranslated something...
Ok let's start:

Server and Engine

• The lighting system is very advanced and allows for complex lighting effects, not only during the day but at night and in dungeons as well.
• It was very challenging to port FFXIV:ARR to the PS3 due to low memory issues, but they did their best to optimize it the best way possible.
• Load times and character movements are real time now, and the responsiveness of the game to the player’s actions has been improved a lot.
• Multi Data centers: At the moment, there is only one data center in Japan, and all players are connected to it. Now they are making more data centers around the world to improve the server response. Players will still be able to play with everyone regardless of regions. This is just for the convenience of players not in Japan.
• More flexible world transfers
• Addition of communication support function
• The engine can tolerate the new PvP design (It’s not forcefully done)
• The servers can handle more players in one place as compared to before (was 400-500 players at a time, now around 1000). And for the mobs, it could handle 600mobs at a time and now it’s up to 2000. This will greatly affect the player’s experience, so they’re really happy about it.

Quests and Main quests

• A great number of quests have been added. The aim of these quests is to level, explore the world, story progression among other things.

Host: These quests are all good for your first class/ job, but what about your second and third? What if you ran out of quests?
Yoshi-p: Of course we are going to provide a large number of quests. But beside that we will keep on adding more, and there are other still unannounced contents, and others to be enjoyed with the public, such as NM’s, they are all being prepared. I hope that players don’t stay in one place doing the same things, but would rather they try many different contents and level in the process.
Host: But what about people who are already level 50?
Yoshi-p: They can look forward to the high level content we announced, and there are still some unannounced contents, such as raids, and new classes, chocobo raising, and other stuff. The amount of instanced dungeons is going to increase. There is going to be a level limit, but since we are adding level sync, which will allow level 50 players to go down to the required level of the content, players can group up with new players and do content together. And of course many high level dungeons are going to be added so please look forward to them.

• For the main quests; it’s the same world but different. Since it’s now going through the 7th Umbral Era, and with the new game system, these have to be reflected in the game, and as a result it became completely different.
• Parley has been taken out of the main quests (not sure about this one).
• The general progression of main quests is, you do a couple of quests then fight a strong boss to be able to continue with your story. This will add a true sense of progression of RPG games. And with level sync this is going to improve the experience for all the players. Unlike currently in the game when people challenge the “weak” ifrit, it’s as if watching a cutscene and there is no actuall fight.
• A quest progression system has been added. And there is an “objectives” tab to make it easier to track you progression through these quests.

Sound and Music

• Quest cutscenes will have Japanese VO not only English. The players will be able to change the audio language to any of the languages. The languages supported are Japanese, English, French and German.
• The way music plays is going to change.

Battle

• The first thing you’re going to notice when you try out the battle system is the tempo, and how speedy it got.
• Handling TP is going to change. In the current version the player had to fight to generate TP, but it changed to be similar to MP where you start the battle with full TP. The main reason to make it that way was due to PvP.
• We have 3 types of actions: abilities, weapon skills, and magic. Currently abilities have a recast timer on them, while weapon skills and magic have TP and MP requirements respectively along with an added recast timer. However, in FFXIV:ARR the abilities will stay the same, while the weapon skills and magic will only require TP or MP. Obviously this will affect the speed of battle greatly.
• Combos as well have been modified. Since in PvP it is going to be very difficult with the positioning requirements, players will feel like they are being punished for doing combos. So only the first move will require positioning (not sure about magic) while the rest of the combo will only require TP/ MP to be executed.
• The parameters and stats and their formulas have been changed to be much simpler to understand. But still it would be very interesting so please look forward to it.

Fan Questions
Host: How will we fight together with our chocobo’s?
Yoshi-p: You call it, a menu appears, select “fight together”. That’s it.
Host: what about colors?
Yoshi-p: We are thinking about various things.
Host: We can jump now! But what about flying and swimming?
Yoshi-p: I am more towards flying at the moment. Since it’s a Final Fantasy, and having airships and going to the skies sounds like a really nice idea to me. But this is all too soon to talk about.
Host: Other than meteor what can we expect as limit breaks?
Yoshi-p: Tifa’s… Tifa’s… Tifa’s…
Host: Will Excalibur and Masamune appear as weapons?
Yoshi-p: Of course I’m thinking of addind Excalibur when the time is right, but Masamune will come when the Samurai or Ninja jobs are introduced to the game.

Arcanist and Summoner
It’s the same as what I posted in the relevant thread regarding both of them, but I’ll just add the little comments and teases they made.

• Please look forward to the auto-attack motion. (Throws the book?)
• The players will be able to craft the books and they will have recipes. The class that crafts them is of course… can’t tell right now.
• Summoners will not have carbuncle as a pet, but they’ll be using the primals as their source of power. However, not the primals themselves but they’ll use only a part of a primals strength. “A pet that the primals power dwells in” are Matsui’s exact words if I wasn’t mistaken.
• The summoners will be able to borrow the power of 4 primals (this is what is planned till now, and could be expanded later on). The ones that are confirmed right now are Ifrit, and Garuda.

Thank you very much and hope you enjoyed it

[Griphyt]

Awesome read but...so Archanist only summon pet carbuncle and when we use Sumoner/job cant summon carbuncle??? :S

[Starlord]

There is going to be a level limit

Level...cap...

The general progression of main quests is, you do a couple of quests then fight a strong boss to be able to continue with your story. This will add a true sense of progression of RPG games. And with level sync this is going to improve the experience for all the players. Unlike currently in the game when people challenge the “weak” ifrit, it’s as if watching a cutscene and there is no actually fight.

Best thing out of everything listed here!

Masamune will come when the Samurai or Ninja jobs are introduced to the game.

Confirmed!!! DD Squeee!! ( not for 2.0 obviously)

The way music plays is going to change.

Hmmm.. in what why will they change?

Load times and character movements are real time now, and the responsiveness of the game to the player’s actions has been improved a lot.

Awesome! Real-time is always good!

[Nuru]

Crafting Arcanist/Summoner book... I'm calling on Alchemist. ;o

[Andrien]

The best part for me was Tifa's


WAIT HOLD ON A SECOND!! DO WE GET OMNISLASH TOO!?

excuse my caps.

[Lissandra]

Crafting Arcanist/Summoner book... I'm calling on Alchemist. ;o

I was thinking the exact same thing! And their auto-attack motion? I would think they'd slap/whack the enemy with it more so than throw it, like OP is speculating.

[NoloeTazier]

Yoshi-p: They can look forward to the high level content we announced, and there are still some unannounced contents, such as raids, and new classes, chocobo raising, and other stuff. The amount of instanced dungeons is going to increase. There is going to be a level limit, but since we are adding level sync, which will allow level 50 players to go down to the required level of the content, players can group up with new players and do content together. And of course many high level dungeons are going to be added so please look forward to them.

Gotta love the extra S's. Thanks for the post. Can't believe Summoner won't be using Carbuncle. Being able to "borrow" the power of Primals, looks like they'll be able to do what BLM can't, actually cast things other than Thunder.

[Nuru]

I was thinking the exact same thing! And their auto-attack motion? I would think they'd slap/whack the enemy with it more so than throw it, like OP is speculating.

Haha, well it seems like he is hinting at a unique type of auto attack, so I am guessing it is more ranged like spirit dart used to be.

Gotta love the extra S's. Thanks for the post. Can't believe Summoner won't be using Carbuncle. Being able to "borrow" the power of Primals, looks like they'll be able to do what BLM can't, actually cast things other than Thunder.

Don't forget, class/job skills will work differently in 2.0, so we don't know how BLM will be yet. lol Everything in 1.0 will not be carried over. Skills are being re-worked.

[TenraiNagi]

I was thinking the exact same thing! And their auto-attack motion? I would think they'd slap/whack the enemy with it more so than throw it, like OP is speculating.

They were joking about the book being thrown at enemies, but didn't actually say how it's going to be

[Tahldon]

I would like to hear more about the "various things" they're considering for the Chocobos.

This suspense, it's wretched!