May Version Update

[Yoji_Fujito]

Good day, adventurers!

Now that the cold days of winter are firmly behind us, we can finally welcome the warmth of spring with open arms! As you may know, May is the birth month of FINAL FANTASY XI. Therefore, we are currently hard at work getting ready to celebrate the game's upcoming 23rd anniversary.

So on that note, let's get into the details of the May version update.


■ This month's updates to Ambuscade
In May, your opponents for Volume 1 are Orcs, while Volume 2 features Flies.

Although the HP for the Orcs in Volume 1 is relatively low, they are also less likely to take damage. Therefore, since the non-boss enemies can be put to sleep, the key will be to use spells such as Sleep and Lullaby to help manage the crowd.

Meanwhile, in Volume 2, try landing multiple skillchains or magic bursts on the boss when the Fly minions appear in order to get the Golden Bomb bonus character to appear. So utilize these techniques against the monsters in order to earn those hallmarks!


■ Adjustments to Besieged
As mentioned in my New Year's greetings, we're making a number of adjustments to Besieged this year, starting with the Morale Gauge.

Here are some of the major changes.

1. New feature: Implementation of the Morale Gauge
   The new Morale Gauge rises and falls according to the battle conditions within Besieged as well as the number of prisoners taken.
   In addition to powering up the Five Serpent Generals based on the gauge's status, players who complete Five Serpent General quests such as "Saga of the Skyserpent" will also receive in-battle support from the Five Serpent Generals. Note that these support effects will also apply to any pets that have been summoned to the battle.
   
   
2. Adjustments to the Five Serpent Generals
   The generals are now able to use new abilities and weapon skills.
   
   
3. Unlocking Level 11 beastmen
   The beastmen will be even stronger than they were before.

For those of you that have yet to complete the Five Serpent General quests, it's recommended that you do so before the version update arrives. I wish you luck defending Al Zahbi from the approaching hordes!


■ Adjustments to the weapon skill quests
This was mentioned as part of the April 2025 version update, but as part of the fixes for the bug that was discovered upon adding Cardians to the Macro Test feature, the target for the weapon skill quests was changed to monsters that give you experience points.

Although this change is in line with our original intentions for the content, it's also somewhat of a downgrade from what it was previously. As such, we will be adjusting the number of times you need to activate the weapon skill in order to learn it, reducing it to approximately one-fifth of its previous value.

To be more specific, you will now earn even more bonus points when performing a weapon skill skillchain. In other words, you will not need to activate the weapon skill as many times as before.


■ Upgrade materials for artifact and relic armor



As part of our changes to Limbus, we will be implementing the adjustments mentioned in my New Year's greeting in regards to character leveling. Basically, we are revising the upgrade materials needed for items at Item Level 119 in the following ways:

Regarding artifact armor (Item Level 119)
- Reduce the number of job cards needed when upgrading to the +2 version.
- Reduce the number of job cards needed when upgrading to the +3 version.
- Revise the exchange rate for job cards.

Relic armor
- Reduce the amount of materials needed when upgrading to the +2 version.
- Reduce the amount of materials needed when upgrading to the +3 version.

More specifically, we will be making some adjustments to the job card exchange rate, including some changes based on requests that we received previously.

Many of our changes are due to the comments regarding character leveling that we received as part of the Adventurers' Survey that was conducted last year. Going forward, we plan to continue to refer to the Adventurers' Survey and respond to the comments and suggestions that were made to the development and operations teams. Although implementing certain features one at a time like this may seem like we're moving at a rather slow pace, we plan to keep conducting routine maintenance and making adjustments to the game so that you can continue to enjoy your adventures for a long time to come.


■ About Shami's Trove



This content was introduced as part of our April Fool's Day celebrations, but after the event period was extended, we discovered an issue with the content and were forced to shut it down early.

April Fool's Day is meant to be a day of fun, not disappointment, so we plan to bring back the content once the underlying issues have been addressed. Once the date has been decided, we'll be sure to announce it on the official website and on our social media channels. We would like to offer our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.


■ The race change system is here!



We've been busy working on the upcoming character race change system, but we're finally ready to implement it. Currently, we plan to add the feature sometime during May.

This is not something that you'll want to use to just casually change your character's appearance, so be careful when making any changes. However, I think this is welcome news for those of you that have been wanting this feature for a while now. We are also working on an official webpage to launch alongside it, so be sure to take a look for more details once it goes live.


Lastly, I have one more announcement to make.


A special 23rd Vana'versary episode of Freshly Picked Vana'diel is coming!

On Friday, May 16th (Japan time), which just so happens to be FINAL FANTASY XI's birthday, we will also be airing the 70th episode of Freshly Picked Vana'diel!

For this episode, we're inviting a very special guest, Emiri Kato who is a Japanese voice actor and an adventurer! Together, we'll look back at 23 years of FFXI and also talk about various topics, including plans for the game going forward.

I hope you'll join us in celebrating FINAL FANTASY XI's 23rd anniversary!
*Please note that the audio of the broadcast is in Japanese only.


Safe journeys!


Mission and Quest-related

Implementation Timing	Update Task and Details	In-progress Task	Details
May	Records of Eminence	・ Update monthly objectives	-

Content and System-related

Implementation Timing	Update Task and Details	In-progress Task	Details
May	Besieged	・ Add morale gauge ・ Add level 11 enemy forces ・ Add support for content level 109 ・ Adjust Serpent Generals ・ Adjust arrival time of enemy forces ・ Adjust NPC allies ・ Adjust certain monsters at enemy camps	-
May	Quests	・ Ease unlock process and quests for weapon skills	-
May	Vana'Bout	・ Add and adjust certain Vana'Bout-specific Records of Eminence objectives	-
May	Ambuscade	・ Replace notorious monsters	-

Item-related

Implementation Timing	Update Task and Details	In-progress Task	Details
May	Job-specific Equipment	・ Ease certain upgrade costs for artifact gear ・ Ease certain upgrade costs for relic gear ・ Ease job card exchange rate	-
May	Items	・ Add new items ・ Add new synthesis recipes	-
May	Porter Moogle	・ Add to list of supported items	-