Tonight, Square Enix broadcast a new live letter from Final Fantasy XIVbut its format was a little different from usual, since it was not regarding giving the first information regarding the next update. Producer and director Naoki Yoshida’s goal was indeed to offer a first glimpse of his goals for the game’s next ten years, such as asserting that the epic is far from over. He also took the opportunity to recall once once more that, unless the CEO of Square Enix asks him or if the development team rebels once morest him, he will remain in charge of the project.
Note that on the specific subject of update 6.1, a dedicated live letter will take place at the beginning of March. For now, here is a summary of the information revealed today.
A more welcoming solitaire game
The first important theme concerns an answer that Naoki Yoshida regularly receives from players or his marketing department: many people say they are resistant to the idea of playing a Final Fantasy online, which is the main barrier to entry into FFXIV (as well as in FFXI, even if it is not the subject of the day). The producer and director therefore hopes to change this over the next few years, his goal being to attract more and more players who prefer to play alone.
This will involve a major update to the Conjuration system, which allows you to play pending activities with non-player characters. During Updates 6.1 through 6.5, the team will gradually make all 4-player dungeons and challenges compatible with Conjuration, starting in Update 6.1 with Quest Missions.A Realm Reborn (update 2.0 only). On the other hand, 8-player challenges will not be affected for the moment: this will wait for the 7.0 update and following.
For reasons of scenario logic, the NPCs who will accompany the player in certain dungeons will not always be the Heirs of the Seventh Dawn, but characters linked to the quest in progress at that moment in the epic. Yoshida specifies that the team will however have to make certain adjustments to the scenario to justify the presence or not of certain NPCs in the dungeon. In addition, it will make improvements to low-level dungeons and challenges, in order to correct certain problems. Similarly, the famous Cape Vendouest will be transformed into an instanced quest fight, while the Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium will be changed to 4-player dungeons, instead of 8.
The first graphical update
The team’s second main objective is to improve the graphic quality of FFXIV. The project is enormous, even if Naoki Yoshida insisted heavily: it will not be a complete overhaul that will give rise to cutting-edge visuals, and the game will not catch up with the graphic quality of the Final Fantasy main current ones. Instead, designers will polish existing content in the background, step-by-step, primarily to take the time to test changes to avoid conversion issues. Until the launch of Update 7.0, this will only be a preparation period.
Likewise, the hardware requirements on PC should change with the next expansion, but Yoshida promises that he wants to continue offering FFXIV on the widest range of machines possible. As for the PlayStation 4 version, he assured that there is no question of stopping it yet – it will even be the subject of an optimization somewhere before the 7.0 update.
Testing of the first graphical update started very recently (just over a month ago), but first examples were shown today. The team’s objective is to modify the appearance of the characters as little as possible: it will mainly focus on improving the textures of the characters (hair, skin, equipment, etc.), the quality of the materials (skin, metal , fabric, etc.) as well as lighting and shadows (on the characters and in the backgrounds). Yoshida cautioned, however, that as this will be a gradual process, not all existing NPCs will necessarily be updated at once.
In addition to the characters, the sets will also be affected by these improvements. Yoshida points out that a simple addition of additional light sources combined with a refinement of the shadows can reveal details that were not very visible until now (note that on the example of Titania, which is intended to show the shadows, the colors have intentionally modified and do not represent a desire to modify the atmosphere of the game). The team also plans to enhance the atmosphere by adding objects to the decor and diversifying the textures. It will also go through an overhaul of auto-generated grass, which is very pixelated in the current game. Finally, tests to improve the ambience effects and haze are also in progress.
Preview of upcoming updates
Finally, Naoki Yoshida offered a first list of content that will be added in the 6.x updates, stating that the 6.1 update is currently scheduled for the month of April. First of all, the producer and director announced that in addition to the epic, updates 6.1 to 6.5 will add new Hildibrand adventures as well as a series of side quests featuring Tataru. Here is what is planned, knowing that some names do not yet have a translation:
Update 6.1
– First part of the Eorzean Myths alliance raid
– New PvP mode: Crystalline Conflict
– Arkasodaras Tribal Quests
– New Fatal Challenge: Dragonsong’s Reprise (Update 6.11)
– Reopening Unreal Challenges with the Scourge of Ultima
– Added Conjuration system to A Realm Reborn (2.0) epic dungeons
– New type of reward: business cards
– Added hairstyles for Hrothgars
– Opening of the residential district of Ishgard
– Start of special deliveries from Ameliance
– Added challenges and other updatesUpdate 6.2
– Added Conjuration system to 2.x update dungeons
– Added Conjuration system to 2 or 3 Heavensward epic dungeons
– Weapon upgrades
– Addition of “criteria dungeons”, dungeons with variable difficulty depending on the number of players (from 1 to 4 people)
– Opening of the island sanctuary
– Continuation of Pandæmonium, Touché-tourne, new challenges, etc.Update 6.3
– Added Conjuration system to remaining Heavensward epic dungeons
– Launched the third bottomless dungeon
– Added the fifth Fatal Challenge
– Island Shrine updates
– Continuation of the Eorzean Myths, Touché-tourne, new challenges, etc.Updates 6.4 and 6.5
– Added Conjuration system to Stormblood dungeons
– New criteria dungeons
– Added a new island shrine area
– End of Pandæmonium and Eorzean Myths, Touché-tourne, new challenges, etc.
– Other additions including improvements to Gold Saucers and Tribal Quests
To conclude this presentation, Naoki Yoshida announced that the rate of release of major updates to FFXIV will change: from now on, they will be published every 4 months, once morest every 3 and a half months currently. The producer and director indeed wished to relieve his team a little by giving him two additional weeks each time to carry out the integration and the fine-tuning of the novelties. To justify this decision, he indicated that the volume of updates has greatly increased over the years, in all areas (content, bosses, length of cutscenes, quantity of texts, interfaces, dubbing, etc.). This may have put additional pressure on the team, and probably explains Endwalker’s last-minute postponement.
