Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XVIII! (FFXIV: ARR)

[DeviFoxx]

Some players take great pride in dressing up, glamouring, and outfitting their Personal Retainers. It's a shame that only the Player him/herself is able to see or interact with their Retainer NPCs. Have you thought about allowing players to make their NPCs either companions that can be summoned (Similar to how helper NPCs were in both Final Fantasy XI, and Final Fantasy XIV 1.0) , or make them visible and able to sell Bazaar goods as they were back in 1.0?

[Vespar]

Are there any plans to make a high level crafting gear set that does not have materia slots?
I ask this because new players find it extremely overwhelming to catch up to the new standards of crafting and lack the resources to buy or spiritbond for the materias necessary to do so within a timely manner. The new artisan's gear was a step in the right direction, but it still requires another high level master crafter to make, and some very expensive and hard to attain items to craft them, and also still includes materia slots (albeit fewer are needed). So the cost to make one and max meld it, is still out of the reach of newer crafters.

[Grey_Cain]

In Chocobo racing, will it just be a flat track where speed and angling is the most important, or will there be obstacles that need to be avoided?

[DarkmoonVael]

In patch 2.4 you introduced 2 new items in the Ixal vendors: Ehcatl Sealants and Xelphatol Spring Water. The Ehcatl sealants are high value items, gated behind 1.3 days worth of Ixal dailies per sealant, and are used in some very powerful crafted recipes (i.e. The new artisans gear). The Xelphatol Spring water has the same gating, but an inherently lower value put on them due to the recipes they are used in, most of them being consumables. Do you have any intention of rebalancing the costs of the Xelphatol Spring Water, maybe reducing them to 3 oaknots per unit, keeping the products made with them rare, but reflecting the the fact that consumables will never have the same value as the items made from the Ehcatl Sealants?

[Knives]

Will other jobs get unique animations for certain things like NIN's running and jumping animation? (For example, DRG getting a higher jump and unique jumping animation when their weapon is out)

[Knives]

With ARR coming to an end and Heavensward on the horizon, are there any plans for horizontal progression in the future? (for example, Item level finally maxes out and rather than seeing increases in stats, we get gear with unique sets of stats, or certain equipment that improves certain abilities, unique gear that has materia slots, set bonuses, weapons that attack twice for each auto-attack, accessories that improve TP regeneration, etc.)

[Knives]

Will MNK ever get "Boost"!?

[Knives]

Will tanks ever get traits for existing abilities that improve their mobility? (for example, a gap-closer like "Shoulder Tackle" added to "Shield Bash" PvE only -- or a draw-in effect added to "Steel Cyclone" and "Tomahawk" while in "Defiance" PvE only)

[Skyler_Hawkins]

Will there ever be a Bestiary added? If so, could there be a subcommand feature when clinking on the enemies to examine them like other players?

[Knives]

For MNK, will different Fighting stances and auto-attack animations ever be added to correspond with the three "forms" they go through while fighting?