Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XIV! (Zodiac Weapons)

Hey everyone!

We're pleased to announce the next Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XIV focusing on the many exciting updates coming with Patch 2.3! This next Live Letter will take place on Saturday, May 24, 2014, from 4:00 a.m. (PST) / 11:00 (GMT)!


In this thread we'd like you to specifically pose questions regarding the continuation of the Saga of the Zodiac (scheduled for patch 2.28). In addition to collecting your questions in real-time via Twitter, we will also use this thread to gather your questions ahead of time and answer them during the event.

When submitting your question, we ask that you follow these steps:

• Please post your question(s) as a reply to this thread
• Please limit posts to your question(s) only and do not use this thread for discussion
• If another player already asked a question you had in mind, simply click the "Like!" button instead of re-posting the question
• Please post only one question per reply (of course you are allowed to post several replies!)

For more information regarding the Letter from the Producer LIVE, please read the following: <a href="http://sqex.to/Gix">NA</a>/<a href="http://sqex.to/B_r">EU</a>

Please note that once the event is over, we will be closing this thread.

What will the item level be of the Novus weapons and what will be the process in obtaining them?

Will there be any adjustments to the process of getting the Animus weapons for those who still haven't to make it easier for them? (Such as raising Atma drop rate or lowering Myth required for books)

when will stat customization of the zodiac weapons happen and what can we expect?

will the weapon appearance change drastically at one point or will we keep getting recolored versions of the same weapon?

Will this be the only weapon we're able to upgrade throughout the entire game or will there be another "epic" quest in the expansions to come?

Will the Novus weapons require Soldiery to upgrade, similar to how upgrading your Relic weapon to Zenith in 2.0 and 2.1 required 900 myth with the weekly cap halting your progression temporarily? Or will it be something like 2.2's method where we perform various tasks to upgrade our weapon?

Are there any plans to allow ATMAs to drop when playing other classes so that the EXP gained from FATEs isn't wasted?

In one of Yoshi-P's recent post(Letter from the Producer, LVI (04/23/2014) , he said "Novus upgrades will revolve around the use of sphere scrolls."

How do we obtain these sphere scrolls?

Will upgrading from Animus to Novus is tedious as to upgrading from Zenith to Animus?

will the graphics of the weapons change instead of being the same as the first Curtana?

Also will there be slots added in the future and have special materia made like example double attack materia or counter attack materia and so on?

1. What is the design philosophy for the Zodiac weapons compared with the the weapons attainable from the hardest fight in the game? is it always going to be equal in ilvl and power throughout the life of the game?

Will Atma weapons eventually be made available for purchase from the Calamity Salvager, similar to how base relic weapons are currently sold by that NPC?

Why did you opt for animus to be obtained through grinding low-level content and dependant on how lucky you are with RNG, rather than how Zenith was where it was obtained through skill-based, and at the time, high level content without any RNG?

You often talk about keeping players motivated, taking me 2 weeks and over 20 hours of doing boring FATEs to get 1 single Atma, while having friends get all 12 Atmas in that sime time frame, is not motivating.

Will the balance of work to stats it upgrades be fair this time? or do you plan on making players work there butts off for little reward again like the atma.
(referenceing the fates & the 1500 myth requirements, not the books, they were fair.)

Would you ever consider bringing the relics up to current ilvl cap if the process were to involve trading in a current Coil weapon of the same class to give players passionate about a specific job an ultimate prestige weapon to strive for?

Can you please shed some more light on what exactly you mean by "ability to adjust parameters" for the final stage of the weapon - does this simply mean adjusting the base native stats on the weapon as we personally desire, similar to how we can allocate stats to our Jobs in any field we desire. Or will this include trading a stat from our weapon that is not native to the weapon itself. For instance, Stardust Rod uses Vit, Int, Det and Spell Speed. Would we be able to Remove Vit and replace with Crit Hit?

Since feedback on the prior two quests (Atma and Animus) was the reason that Novus upgrades were held back, what changes have been made from how the Novus quest was originally designed to its current implementation?

Will Daily Hunts, Primals, Coil or Crystal Tower have any part in the upgrades after the Animus Weapon as it increases in Item Level?

I am worried that all my hard work and effort, not to mention Myth Tomes, i put into my Atma and Animus weapon will have very little value anymore if the difficulty is dramatically reduced.

What can you say to reassure me i didnt waste months of time gathering something i could get in an hour now in 2.3?

Will there be Extreme Primal battle requirement for next upgrade? Please say no :(

i guess ill be the first person to ask a non-zodiac related question lol... in xi, i made quite a bit of gil from breeding chocos. will we be able to sell breeding cards or eggs in this game? i hope so. and with the gardening at the fc house, only 1-3 people can really handle the gardening at a time, will the choco breeding stables be something that everyone at the fc can use at the same time to breed their own birds, or will it be one person at a time, like how gardening currently is? (an yes i realize that anyone in the fc can plant whatever they want if they want, but if you want to grow good stuff, its best to leave only certain people in charge of the crops so they know what all is planted when)

Will you be making it so that we can turn off the glow? please for the love of God will you make it so can we turn off the glow. I love the way my relic/animus looked without the glow I think the coloring on the ball is done great. then you through that glow on it, and while it looks cool and is fun, all the detail of the weapon goes away and its just a purple cloud. I want to be able to see my weapon that your artist spent so much time creating not a partial system.

Will we see FATEs phased out of the next upgrade objectives?

will the upgrade involve doing FATES again?

Will Fates get adjusted for new people to obtain Atma at a faster pace?

How will you include meaningful customizability to the weapon's stats without just having a clear "best" choice and other "wrong" choices?

Will the upgrade of the weapons ever be job or race specific? Such as a quest line similar to the job quests that we all progress through to hit 50, only more involved and lengthy... I understand the grind for the atma, but the high level weapon quests that are in place now feel like cookie cut when moving from one job to the next.
Will there come a point when we would have a Job specific quest line or requirements to get that high level weapon?

Hello!

- Since I suspect there will be another round after novus (to call it Zodiac?) will you make it iLvl 120, beating high allagan! That should make it worthwhile to have spent so much timesink into the process, and as well making others realize they should hop into the bandwagon? *I found it ok , part of the fun, and I know how though EX primals can be.

Keep up the good work, nice game! :D

I have seen videos of people claiming that in the near future zodiac weapons will be able to be reforged a third time with the ability to choose the stats you want on the weapon. if this is true would there be a feature to allow something similar for end game armors like being able to meld material to them? I think this would help crafter classes become more important and used more frequently by people trying to meld material into their best gear and some other mmo games have a similar feature where you can put gems into your end game gear to make you even stronger.

It has already been asked if you plan on reducing the myth/atma requirement (Id prefer reducing the myth to say 300/book); what about making the weapons powerful enough to be worth the current time frame? e.g: animus = 110, Novus = 120.

Are there any plans to increase the spawn time for the Fates that Animus books ask for?

The relic weapons in XI were game changing weapons whose final form had very difficult requirements in order to attain them. Currently the Zodiac weapons are second best compared to dungeon drops. Can we eventually expect the Zodiac weapons in their final form to be the best weapon available for a class, but super hard to upgrade to their final stage? I guess what I am really asking is what is the grand vision for these weapons over the long term life of the game?

Will stat points be expanded upon? currently there are only 3 ways to split stat points; full main stat, full vitality or a mixture of the two. the system as it stands serves no actual functionality in terms of customization.

Would it be possible to cap the number of FATEs necessary to optain an ATMA ? For instance, integrate RNG into obtaining an ATMA for first 49 FATEs in a specific zone but 100% drop rate on the 50th.

The RNG is killing my casual play style. I can manage doing a fixed number of FATEs, specific FATEs, specific dungeons, killing a set of specific monsters, obtaining fixed number of Myth tomes, etc., but not knowing if I'll need to spend 5 minutes or 5 hours doing FATEs to get an ATMA and maybe not getting one is not fun at all and feels like a waste of my time.

As mentioned before, we were hinted that "sphere scrolls" were going to play a role in the next upgrade for the Novus. Will these, or any task in the Novus upgrading process, involve any real-time elements that will force players to wait a certain amount of real- time hours before continuing the next step?
(Ex: We have to wait 18 real-time hours before being able to obtain another map from a node.)

Will the next steps involved in the Zodiac weapon quests, following Animus, be focused on individual play or rely on parties? Or will it be a combination of both?

The relic had a few individual elements but many involved trials that required parties to complete.
The atma was individual and required grinding fates to obtain the crystals.
The animus, for the most part, is individual, being able to do leves, slay specific monsters, with the exception of some of the fates being difficult to solo, and having to have a party for the dungeon requirements.

I love the names of the zodiac weapons, atma, animus, and now novus. I am curious what the other tiers of the weapons names will be. So my questions is what are the names of the next tiers of the relic weapon be called?

Wait, does this mean we won't be getting 2.8 till June now? What the hell man. You guys delayed it once already. Stop delaying 'poop' and deliver.

EDIT: I edited since I was sent a violation warning yet you guys didn't edit nor delete my post. Your welcome for saving you the trouble.

As we progress further and further into the Zodiac questline, will adjustments be made to the earlier parts of the questline to accommodate players that are new or have held off on progressing towards the Zodiac quest? It sounds like as the masses move on to the later parts, it would make it extremely difficult to do the earlier upgrades if left as is.

i love the glow of the weapon makes me feel powerful even for a lalafell. However can we dye our weapons so we can feel somewhat different?:confused: