There will be new main content to rank up?

[ApplePie]

ROFL did you think I was gonna say "the one where they added the shiny light/full party animations?"

No, more like "The one where they made shell/protect amazing ^-^" Protect now negates +1 dmg! Nerf!

[Richard]

I'm sure they will at some point or there will be nobody left in the game. lol You can't just take away the main focus of the game and not replace it. The real questions are 'how quickly will they replace it?' and 'how good of a replacement is it?'

If it takes 'til 1.19 to get a decent replacement, I have a bad feeling about the future of the game given the time between the last decent patch and 1.18. Sad but true.

1.18 will hit in July, 1.19 will hit in August and at the latest be spread into Sept. They already confirmed that patches are gonna roll out in quick succession post 1.18 so I wouldn't worry about it. If we're lucky we'll get 1.20 in Sept. for the 1 year anniversary along with jobs.

[kanjitai]

I hope they add rank up content that isn't forced group based. penalizing people for not having to play for long periods isn't right. The system used for XI was fun but they should not bring back this type of system. Even if it's slower a way to get max rank should be made available to the solo and or casual player.

[Bayohne]

I know that there have been a lot of questions regarding ranking up, and how earning SP will be changing with the shift in guildleves that are coming in 1.18. So we posed your questions to Yoshida to try and get some more details about the future changes.

Hi, this is Producer/Director Yoshida.

In regards to the questions cropping up about what will be done to party content now that leves are being made for solo play, we are thinking about the below for the future of FFXIV.
(Keep in mind that these are just examples and we’ll be adding unique new features and upgrading them.)

Casual Party Content

• Behest
• Public dungeons
• Instanced dungeons
• Variety of defense battles/Chocobo escort-related features
  

We are planning to make adjustments to behest to make it more of a completion-type battle. We plan on improving Behest in stages beyond its current form.

Party Content

• Hunting NMs
• Beast tribe settlement battles
• Instanced raid battles
  

End-game content
Along with PvP, we are also envisioning a large-scale PvE, but since we are not really at the stage where we can release information, I’d appreciate it if you just take this as "They're gonna do it!!" for now.

For soloing as well, we are planning to increase the amount of content that can be enjoyed constantly while placing emphasis on quests and leves, being mindful to maintain a balance between the two.

In the future, I would like to keep on enhancing the experience point gains through quest completion and exp. parties in public fields. This is because at the very least, I feel this is "normal." However, I think the work will continue up to about 1.20 until the game reaches a point where I think the balance of ranking up methods is normal.

I wanted to mention this in the letter, but from patch 1.18 we will begin reforms to remove the current feeling that players are being bound to specific play styles. Travel-wise anima is a bit hard to touch on right now (as I've referenced in another thread), but we will be making edits to the return costs and surplus system in the same fashion. Especially in regards to the feeling that a loss will be incurred if you don't do leves every day, we are looking into implementing a type of ticket system that will let you store them up, and heading into 1.19 we will be starting the specification edits of this. (I will talk about the details of this in the letter following the release of patch 1.18.)

I deeply apologize for the current lack of content and focus on the core fixes, but we have solidified our plans, so please look forward to the future!

[Anima]

That sounds nice

[Malakhim]

Variety of defense battles/Chocobo escort-related features

Looks like somebody HAS been reading my posts about this!

[Cichy]

Dang, it does seem like he has it figured out, all we can do now is that the audience will respond well to the content.

[Mug]

What is Chocobo escort-related features?

I have to commend SE for giving us lots of information nowadays. If they keep on like this, I will be a very happy bunny! From what it looks like, they'll have no alternatives for party SP in 1.18. If this is indeed true, then they should wait with the leve SP-changes until they do.

[PrettyPrincess]

I am VERY pleased with this dev post

[SydeBeheln]

PVP has been confirmed, and it looks like in the form of possible large scale. That or it is more of an end-game related event.
Question is, will pvp be allowed below the levels of end-game? we'll have to find out. Also that chocobo escort thing sounds fun.. haha