Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXXIII Digest (2016/12/13)

[Gildrein]

Greetings, everyone!

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

http://sqex.to/iTK

* Don't forget to select the 720p option to watch the video in HD!
* Please note that there may be portions that contain audio/video noise due to a hardware issue.

Patch 3.5 Special Part I

0:03:33

Today we'll be going over the content that will be introduced in Patch 3.5. The title of Patch 3.5 is "The Far Edge of Fate." If you recall, the title of Patch 2.5 was "Before the Fall," while this time the keyword is "Edge." Once players have played through the patch, they will find out the meaning behind this keyword.


0:04:38

New main scenario quests, Warring Triad quests, and side quests will be added. We've received lots of feedback saying that the Anima weapon story quests added in Patch 3.4 were quite easy... I wonder what the difficulty will be for the next group of quests. Please look forward to it!


0:07:37

Baelsar's Wall
You've no doubt noticed this before, but there is a giant wall in the East Shroud that can be seen as you're heading towards Little Solace. This giant wall, which separates the Garlean Empire-controlled territories and the three city-states of Eorzea, is known as Baelsar's Wall. It was built by the previous emperor of Garlemald to protect the empire against beast tribe and primal threats. The Warrior of Light will finally scale that wall!

Sohm Al (Hard)
We'll be introducing the hard mode of Sohm Al, which debuted in Heavensward. In the normal version, you climbed up the mountain; however, this time you'll be descending it. We're excited for you to find out exactly why you'll be visiting this area once more.

0:12:01

New Alliance Raid Dungeon
The next entry in the Mhach series is Dun Scaith. This was going to be the end of the series, but there may be something else in store... We'll go over more information in the next Letter from the Produce LIVE, so hang tight! The Mhach series was introduced as a 24-man raid, featuring unique environments which changed as players progressed through them—in line with this, the next dungeon and battles will take place in a different environment. We talked about this a little during the Fan Festival in Las Vegas, but the first boss fight will be on top of an airship, and the ground may be unstable. We have prepared some interesting mechanics, so please check it out.

0:15:01

New Trials
Following Sephirot and Sophia, this is the third and final Warring Triad. Various mysteries will unfold, as the Warring Triad story finally comes to a close. I'm sure some of you are curious to find out what the third and final Warring Triad member looks like, so we have a piece of artwork to share with you. Please look forward to what kind of mechanics this battle will feature. New weapon rewards will be available as well.

0:17:24

Zhloe Aliapoh
This is a new type of content for the Disciples of the Hand and Land. Players will receive gathering and crafting requests for collectable items from specific NPCs, and strive to raise their satisfaction levels. We're also planning to introduce other NPCs aside from Zhloe Aliapoh. This content will eventually be expanded to focus on glamours, and we would like to have players be judged on their glamour in future updates.


0:20:31

Updated Content: Exploratory Missions
We put a lot of thought into whether we should create a new name, but have decided to keep the current name, even though the content itself has been completely reworked. A large cataclysmic event took place making the current Diadem area a thing of the past. The map itself hasn't changed, but there will be areas which you can and cannot enter.

The previous exploratory mission's theme was to have players decide on how they wanted to enjoy the content on their own; however, this time we have set objectives for players to complete, and rewards for completion. There are some surprises as well. For example, if you're lucky, you may encounter a boss battle which involves the entire map. These battles will be difficult to complete without four parties working together as a team. The new exploratory mission is scheduled for release in the Patch 3.5x series. Players will not be able to enter the current exploratory mission post 3.5, so we ask you to please wait until this new exploratory mission is added.

Furthermore, we have completely separated the exploratory missions for Disciples of War and Magic, and Disciples of the Land. We will have more details in the Patch 3.5 Special Part II.

There are achievements which can only be obtained from the current exploratory missions, but rest assured, we'll make adjustments so these achievements can be obtained from the new exploratory missions as well.


0:25:05

Party Finder Updates
The party finder feature will be updated so that players from other Worlds on the same data center can view, recruit, and join parties. Three new tabs will be added to the top of the window: "All", "Same World", and "Private." The "All" tab will display all available recruiting parties from all the Worlds on the same data center, and "Same World" will limit the recruitment to players in your own World.

The current party finder can be used to recruit members for open world content such as the Aquapolis; however, players from other Worlds will not be able to　tackle these types of non-instanced duties together, so please keep that in mind. Content which uses the Duty and the Raid Finder are the only types of content which can be accessed with players from other Worlds. Options such as the undersized party feature can be also used. Furthermore, just like the current party finder, once players have joined a group, they will be able to chat with their party regardless of their World.

We are also planning updates to the blacklist and friend list features; however, the friend list updates won't be available at the launch of Patch 3.5. We would like to add this in a future update. The player's World will now be displayed in the chat log, so even if players with the same name are in a party, you will be able to identify who is who.

Content that is accessed via NPCs, such as the Palace of the Dead and exploratory missions, are processed differently than other instanced duties. Because of this, changes to party recruitment　will not be applied to these duties in Patch 3.5. We would like to add this in a future update.

With this update, we expect a lot of party invitations to be displayed at once, therefore, we have added filters, like the tabs we explained earlier, and the ability to filter by the type of content.

The new party finder feature will also introduce password-locked parties. This feature is in place so that players can utilize a four-digit password to recruit friends from other Worlds.