Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXXXIV Digest (2024/11/11)

We are pleased to present the full digest of the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXXXIV! If you missed the live stream, or if you just want to watch it again (and again), check it out below!

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* Don't forget to select the 1080p option to watch the video in HD!

Patch 7.1 Preview Part 2

Patch 7.1 Trailer

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We kicked off the live stream with the new trailer for Patch 7.1, Crossroads, which will be released on Tuesday, November 12.

What’s to Come in Patch 7.1

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We briefly summarized our announcements for the Patch 7.1 series thus far.

• Main Scenario
  The story will take on a more serious tone while offering a glimpse of what’s on the horizon. Starting with this update, we'll be uncovering the obscured aspects of the 7.0 story.
  
• Allied Society Quests: Pelupelu
  A cast of bright-colored characters await in these light-hearted quests!
  
  
• New Custom Deliveries: Nitowikwe [7.15]
  While Nitowikwe may be an unexpected choice for a new client, these quests will explore what her counterpart on the First may have been like.
  
  
• Additional Role Quests [7.16]
  Those who finished all Dawntrail role quests can look forward to this finale. As hinted in the trailer, your companions will assemble for what appears to be an epic battle. (Or an epic punchline, perhaps?)
  
  
• Additional Wachumeqimeqi Quests [7.15]
  The Wachumeqimeqi quests will also have a big finale! We hope you'll look forward to seeing these quirky merchants work together!
  
  
• Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures [7.15]
  This installment will set the stage for the inspector’s adventures in Dawntrail. How does Hildibrand end up in Solution Nine after his Endwalker escapades? What wacky characters will join him this time? Is that handsome gentleman in the trailer really our inspector…?
  
  
• New Dungeon: Yuweyawata Field Station
  This new dungeon will be part of the main scenario. It won’t be as hectic as sidequest dungeons but will still feature a variety of new mechanics for you to enjoy. In particular, the third boss is so unusual that even our developers were in disbelief. We hope you'll look forward to exploring it!
  
  
• The Minstrel’s Ballad: Sphene’s Burden
  The Extreme trial will have a shape-shifting arena but won't be too tough. Resolving the mechanics will involve coordination and movement, rather than brain teasers. Since the encounter is about a minute longer than the average trial, it'll award two tokens per clear.
  
  
• The Jade Stoa (Unreal)
  The ferocious Byakko will be the first trial re-balanced for level 100. With the distinct separation between phases, the mechanics should be easy to recall.

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• Duty Support for Non-Main Scenario Quest Dungeons
  Sidequest dungeons will be supported at a gradual pace compared to main scenario duties. Halatali will be updated to include Duty Support in this patch.
  
• Doman Mahjong Update
  The Scions now have voiced reactions and commentary for your Doman mahjong games!
  
  
• Housing Update
  You will be able to choose from a variety of interior designs, including the long-requested option to remove pillars! Additionally, we are considering a feature for expanding an estate's interior size. For example, a Small estate could expand to have the same interior size as a Large estate.
  
  
• Additional Quests
  A sort of epilogue to the Pandæmonium raid series will be added in 7.1, so be sure to check it out!

Jeuno: The First Walk

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We entered the upcoming alliance raid for a sneak peek.

Our meticulous recreation of Jeuno is sure to be a nostalgic sight for those who’ve played FFXI. To make the experience even more authentic to FFXI, monsters’ names will be displayed in English, even in the Japanese version.

All of the characters appearing in this alliance raid are quite charming, including the first boss featured in the live stream. We hope you’ll look forward to meeting them in-game!

The alliance raid begins in Lower Jeuno, but there will be a separate version that can be visited outside of battle. There will be other areas and fun surprises after completing the alliance raid, which we hope you’ll look forward to.

The encounters are designed to be on the harder side and will feature new mechanics. When they’re released, we imagine there will be lively debates about how the fights work.

The gear rewards are based on the Ark Angels from FFXI. They may appear simple and monochromatic at a glance, but their material textures are quite detailed! We collaborated closely with the FFXI team during the whole process of deciding the gear for each role. The developers working on Echoes of Vana’diel include veterans who worked on FFXI, as well as fervent players who were still in school at the time. This alliance raid series is a culmination of their passion for FFXI, and we hope you’ll enjoy the fruits of their labor!

The Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic)

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We took a sneak peek at the duty through gameplay.

Parties will consist of 2 tanks, 4 DPS, and 2 healers; a familiar composition for those who were around in the early days of alliance raids. The duty can be undertaken with anywhere between 12 to 24 members. This will allow players to participate or practice in relatively smaller groups, but the difficulty level and rewards will not change based on the number of participants.

The encounter features many phases with nostalgic throwbacks such as Flood of Emptiness from the Eden version of the Cloud of Darkness. Not all mechanics are party-specific, and some will require all 24 players to work in tandem. As such, it may be helpful to designate leaders in a manner similar to Eureka, Bozja, and PvP duties.

We estimate its mechanical difficulty is equivalent to the first fight of a Savage tier, or the second fight of a Savage tier when inter-team coordination is considered. Chaotic alliance raids require a lot of planning and time to develop, so we cannot implement one in every update, but if this is well received, we may add more duties like it in the future. As such, we’ll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts regarding the mechanics after you’ve tried the battle.

The Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic) will be added one week after the release of Patch 7.15.

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As promised, we are looking to increase the number of rewards added per patch by Patch 7.3. This Chaotic alliance raid will have quite a lot of rewards of its own including item level 730 gear and two mounts, with no weekly restrictions.

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We will introduce two bonuses to encourage participation and ease the hurdle of gathering 24 participants.

The First Time Duty Bonus will increase the number of tokens that are awarded based on the number of people who have yet to complete the duty. We hope this will encourage those who have already cleared to assist newcomers.

The Limited Time Bonus will randomly occur for each data center and offers increased token rewards and rare loot drop rates. A potential drawback is that players may be disinterested outside of bonus periods; on the other hand, we hope players will be encouraged to participate during times when the bonus is active.

Should this new system prove effective, we would like to use it for future content.

(01:39:24)

We took a sneak peek at the gear and mount rewards. Some rewards will be tradeable, so you can purchase them from the market board if you prefer.

PvP Updates

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The behavior of PvP actions will be refactored.

Until now, whether an attack would hit or not was determined immediately when the action was activated. This will be changed so that the timing of hit detection will match when the action's animation visually hits the target.

This excludes certain actions that feel more responsive when activated immediately, such as paladin’s Guardian. These actions will be addressed individually based on how they should feel.

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PvP actions will be added and removed for all jobs, with the exception of pictomancer and viper, which were just released.

The extent of adjustments will vary for each job. For example, black mage was hard to use in tournament play and has been redesigned quite a bit for 7.1; whereas dragoon's playstyle will remain largely the same aside from their new actions.

Since there will be many new adjustments in this patch, we will be detailing them in the Job Guide.

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For large-scale PvP duties, the multipliers for damage dealt/taken will be re-balanced based on the current performance of each job. Charge times for limit breaks will be fine-tuned separately from Crystalline Conflict and will vary for each job. In addition, we received feedback that the rideable machina in Rival Wings feel underpowered, so this will be adjusted.

Patch 7.2 will also add role actions specifically for large-scale PvP. Additionally, the rules for large-scale PvP duties will be adjusted in 7.1 and 7.2, so we hope you’ll try them out.

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Two Crystalline Conflict arenas will have their terrain and mechanics revamped.

In Cloud Nine, there was minimal cover where teams would clash, such as the center of the map, making it hard to break line-of-sight and allowed teams to trounce each other within moments. With the new points of cover, it will be easier to break line-of-sight for last-minute evasions.

The twister mechanic may feel more oppressive with the narrowed range of movement, but this will also enable new strategies such as pushing opponents into this passage.

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In Red Sands, there were only a limited number of routes that could be taken, and returning to the fray was difficult; this will be addressed by adding more Swift Sprint lanes. Until now, checkpoint mechanics could only be avoided by fully abandoning the point, but the new safe area adds the option to simply step out, adding another layer to tactical decision-making.

As a change to PvP overall, all jobs will have their HP increased. Getting a K.O. with only burst damage will be harder and you may end up relying more on basic combos compared to before.

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Crystalline Conflict ranked matches will now be held in a single data center per region. Players will need to visit the specified data center to participate in ranked matches. We are planning to have data centers take turns hosting each season.

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With this change, rankings will also be consolidated per region, with more placements for ranking rewards to accommodate for the increase in contenders. Since Oceania already holds their rankings on a single data center, their number of placements for ranking rewards will remain the same as before.

These changes to matchmaking are still tentative and will continue to be adjusted in the future, which we will go over on a later date.

Futures Rewritten (Ultimate)

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We showed gameplay of the entry cutscene and some of the first phase.

Estimating the new Ultimate's difficulty for our raiders can be hard since their skills are constantly improving; with that said, the battle may not be as hard as the Omega Protocol and may feel closer to Dragonsong’s Reprise. There will be a decent amount of time to execute mechanics, but the overall battle will be fast paced with mechanics happening one after another. And of course, there will be certain ones that will be worthy of the “Ultimate” designation, so we hope you’re ready for some trial and error!

The characters appearing in the raid will have quite a lot of dialogue. Players who enjoyed the Eden series will surely be interested, so even if you aren’t undertaking the challenge yourself, you may want to watch others stream their progress!

In Ultimate raids from Patch 7.11 onward, parties with more than one player per job will no longer passively gain limit gauge over time. This will apply to existing Ultimate raids as well. While some raids are better tailored for certain jobs over others, we hope this adjustment will encourage parties to undertake Ultimate with 8 different jobs rather than have multiple players on the same advantageous jobs. That said, the limit gauge will still rise for outstanding maneuvers, such as healing an ally on the verge of death or mitigating dangerous attacks.

Hall of the Novice Updates

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Patch 7.1 will add training for a variety of battle mechanics. If you’ve tried the Hall of the Novice before, the training will be available from the main menu, where you can navigate to “Duty” and select “Hall of the Novice”. Check out the video to see some of the training drills in action!

The training will also include explanations for terminology such as “stack markers.” We’ve also prepared explanations for fundamental concepts such as “attack indicators,” “buffs,” and “debuffs,” which should prove helpful for beginners or anyone who wishes to review their knowledge.

(02:55:51)

We showcased some new mounts and minions through gameplay.

System Updates

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• Group Pose Update
  Camera controls will now always remain consistent with the screen, even when the roll angle is rotated.
  We will continue making these kinds of minor adjustments in future updates as well.
  
  As mentioned in the developer’s panel at PAX West, we are working on other UI features such as chat bubbles and a Raid Planner feature, so please look forward to hearing about it in the future!

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• Outfit Glamours
  The glamour dresser will now be able to store certain outfits within a single slot. Ideally, we would’ve been able to store an outfit into a single slot even with pieces from the set missing. However, the concept required highly complex data management and was potentially unfeasible; so, for now, storing items in this way will require you to have the entire outfit.
  
  Check out the archive for a demonstration of storing outfits in the glamour dresser!

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• Copy Settings to Another Character
  We are adding a new feature for copying a character’s settings data to another character on the same service account and device. We hope this will be helpful for playing on alts!
  
  
• Tilt Configuration
  Patch 7.0 introduced tilting for mounts while turning, which can now be enabled for the mounted characters as well. If this induces motion sickness, you can always toggle it on or off in the character configuration menu. There will be separate toggles for characters/grounded mounts/flying and swimming mounts, so you can enable them individually based on your preference.

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• Graphical Update Adjustments
  Thank you all for your feedback regarding the graphical update. We are currently working on minute adjustments, such as the groove below the nose and details around the eyes. Some tweaks won’t be ready for 7.1, but we will continue with our detailed data analysis to address what we can, so we hope you’ll take another look after the patch is released.
  
  Along with these changes, another free phial of Fantasia will be available to redeem during Patch 7.1x only. Be sure to pick it up if you’re looking to make changes to your character! The phial of Fantasia will be redeemable from a specific NPC and won’t involve a quest like last time.

Patch 7.1x Schedule

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We went over our release timeline for the Patch 7.1x series.

There will be no prior maintenance when the Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic) is released on Tuesday, December 24; the duty simply needs to be activated on the system side, so you will only need to wait for the duty to be released.

(03:19:30)

To wrap up the broadcast, we showed the new weapons coming in Patch 7.1. Check out the video to see these unique designs from the weapon design contest’s winning entries!