Letter from the Producer LIVE LXVIII: Ask Your Endwalker Questions!

[Aco505]

Will you increase the buff cap (currently around 30 with both buffs and debuffs counted together) to avoid beneficial damage buffs from being dodged in instances such as Delubrum Reginae or BA? It's not fun to lose damage or use macros to dispel defensive buffs and leaving it as it is could affect future adventuring forays, as the buff cap can be (and has been) used to dodge important debuffs or mechanics.

[15725462]

I want to start by apologising for talking about a topic that may feel uncomfortable and that I am criticizing without reason but I am touching on this topic with the sole intention of putting it before the devs.

Since 2.0 I have seen many characters be introduced to the game and many characters with whom we forge a deep emotional understanding with. However, with all due respect, it feels the story does not make the Warrior of Light actually share any deep emotional connection with the main casts of the game, particularly the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.

While it is always implied that through our time together, working together, we have become really close to the Scions, it is hard to feel connected to any of their stories having played the game. The Short Stories shed quite a bit of light, but compared to the connections we built with Exarch, Ardbert, Ryne, Emet Selch/Hades, Hythlodeus, Hermes, Meteion, Venat, who all got somewhat of a single expansion, some even less time with us, the Scions feel far less emotionally investable. It often feels the Scions' care and love for us is forced. The exception to this are the twins who particularly shined and felt to grow to bond with us particularly near the end of Stormblood and most of Shadowbringer and even Estinien who shares a strong reverence towards us.

Is this something the game devs and the story writers are aware of?

People have already failed to understand the importance of Minfilia in 2.0 because her role was never shown, only understood through subtext, and that resulted in majority of the playerbase to dislike her.

Although it is an uncomfortable topic to talk about, and I apologise again, but I hope going forward, the devs will focus on creating narratives that goes on to create meaningful bond between the player character and his primary allies, like the Scions were throughout 2.0 till 6.0, and not only characters that will die before the expansion ends Lol.

I strongly feel we should build more connections with characters that will stay for a long time, since if these characters are not bonded with accurately, any long time experience with them becomes tiresome for players. Many players I know already do not find that much closure with the Scions outside of the Twins, Exarch and Estinien, so I strongly hope the devs take this into account going forward.

[AgeEighty]

At a certain point in the progression of Endwalker, the lyrics to the song "Answers" come to have more meaning. Was this direction always intended since the song was written or was the Endwalker story written to fit those lyrics?

[Lihtleita]

While it is common knowledge that the original story planned for 1.x was changed, it has also been mentioned that the Zodiark/Hydalyn story direction was only finalised in 3.x.
Is there any chance that the abandoned 1.x and 2.x plot outlines can be released for ffxiv fans to read since they likely have no impact on the current game?

[Pyroclastic]

Would it be possible for raidgear to have 2 or more "materia sets"?

The reason being that currently if you play 2 jobs that share the same gear, but have different meld priorities, it's very inconvenient having to take out almost all materia and remeld it, every time you want to switch jobs.

A personal real-world example:

Playing SMN in raids/ultimate and BLM in casual content like extreme trial farm. Blm prefers a certain amount of Spell Speed that is several magnitudes higher than the Spell Speed a SMN prefers. So every time I want to properly play BLM and it's early in the raid tier (i.e. only have 1 caster piece for each slot) I have to remeld almost every piece. Then remeld again when I raid.

An ideal solution would be to have 2 or more "materia sets" on the same gear.

For example, a chest piece that is melded with both:

-2x CRIT
and
-2x SS

Only 1 materia set is active.
You choose which one depending on the job you are currently playing.
Playing SMN? Use the 2x CRIT.
Playing BLM? Switch to 2x SS.

[Lihtleita]

Why does Minfilia look like Venat's dog?

[7th7th]

Would there ever be a possibility to glamour the Summoner's egi into some of the other Primals we've encountered along our journey? It'd obviously be a ton of resource investment for just one class (and right after an entire rework/remake of it), but after seeing them all again during the trip to Ultima Thule, the thought of having a little Susano-egi fighting alongside me makes me feel unbearably wilD PURE, AND FOREVER FREE!!!

[Arcpi]

Have you considered increasing exp gained from side quests/hunt/FATEs when leveling alt jobs?

[Marcman]

With the addition of further expansions, there has been a thinning in the amount of people that do older content that requires a party of players (whether its fixed parties or a matched party). This has caused issues in players being unable to progress certain content or at all participate in the content they wish due to not finding enough players to be matched with to complete the content.
Examples of this includes specific floors in Palace of the dead (particularly floors 11-50, and 61-100), heaven-on-high, Castrum lacus litore, Delubrum reginae, The dalriada, Hidden Gorge PVP, the Feast and others.
Some of these duties like the Save the queen related ones have measures in place like the echo to help assist with this, but many times it is simply not sufficient if for example only two people choose to participate in the content.
There is both story content and items (minions, mounts, achievements) locked behind completion of these things that players wish to experience or obtain, but cannot due to this.

Do you have any plans to help alleviate some of these issues that prevents players from completing "underqueued" content? There is only potential for this issue to grow as more expansions and such kind of duties are released.
A suggestion might be creating a daily roulette that incorporates this type of content, and temporarily furnishes the players who queue in this manner with an appropriate set of stats/equipment for the content that they end up in. Example being a temporary appropriate aetherpool armor and weapon level for PoTD, job appropriate potions or actions for Save the queen content and so on.

[Lihtleita]

You have mentioned before that you wish to work on the game for at least 10 more years. Are there substantial efforts being made to future proof the game on more powerful PCs and consoles?