#patch 2.28

[kjosenday]

Oho! So that's what was happening.

Thank you for fixing, Square-Enix!

[garydownie]

Oh well there goes the prices of materia... Ugh...

[eorzeanriders]

Letter from the Producer Live, Part XIV

Saturday morning, YoshiP brought us his fourteenth Live Letter, discussing what's coming in Patch 2.28, as well as covering some of the major features of Patch 2.3. Here's a summary of the announcements:

Patch 2.28 was originally planned for 28 May, but SE had some issues in their office building, so it's being delayed slightly to no later than 5 June.

Zodiac Weapons

The Zodiac Weapons questline will continue in 2.28, allowing your Animus weapon to be upgraded to a Novus weapon.

The Novus weapons will be i110, with more upgrades coming in future patches, and they will look different than Animus weapons.

Novus weapons will be the first customizable Zodiac weapons; presumably this means that you'll be able to choose the stats you upgrade as part of the Novus questline.

Upgrading from Animus to Novus will involve getting Sphere Scrolls; in order to use them, you'll need Alexandrite, a new currency being introduced in Patch 2.28. It's not clear whether this will be capped (like Tomestones), but there will be multiple ways of earning it.

They don't have any immediate plans to adjust the difficulty of the Atma and Animus quests in either 2.28 or 2.3, but they may do so in the future. However, they do plan to increase the number of Mythology tomestones dropped (and add more places to get them) in the near future, so that it will be easier to obtain Trials of the Braves books.

What's coming in Patch 2.28?

Adjustments to the behaviour of pets when jumping -- I'm not sure exactly what this means.

New objectives in the Challenge Log

A new feature called the "Sightseeing Log," which is a series of locations that you'll have to reach by climbing/jumping. The locations will be provided through hints and riddles that you'll need to decipher.

Filtering and sorting options will be added to the Expert Delivery window.

Adjustments will be made to PvP, including making all skills available at Rank 0 and allowing free skill respecs.

You'll be able to queue for Leviathan (Extreme) and Thornmarch (Extreme) using the Duty Finder and without needing a full premade party.

The Echo buff will now affect Summoner and Scholar pets.

Filtering options will be added to the Crafting Log.

You'll be able to see a map of gathering nodes from the Gathering Log.

When a Disciple of the Hand repairs an item, its durability will go up by 100%, up to a maximum of 199%.

An option will be added to automatically sort the party list when you enter an instance.

You'll be able to queue for Expert and High-Level Duty Roulettes as a party.

You'll be able to give out Player Commendations even if you queued for the duty as part of a party.

The ability to preview what gear looks like on your character before you buy it will be added to NPC vendors, Market Boards, and crafting menus. This may also be implemented on treasure chest drops and quest rewards in the future.

Adjustments will be made to the Party Finder. (No word on what those are; we'll have to wait for the patch notes.)

FATE progress will now be displayed on the map.

You'll be able to click an aetheryte on the map to teleport to it.

New text commands to clear your chat logs will be added.

A list of available text commands will now be available in-game, so you don't have to go to the Lodestone to look them up.

You'll be able to press L1+R1 on a controller to dismount.

Characters' titles will now display on their nameplates.

An option to automatically skip cutscenes you've already seen will be added.

When 2.28 drops, Fantasia will be made available for purchase through the Mog Station. See below for details.

New standing and sitting poses will be added: 

Fantasia

Fantasia will be purchaseable on an account-wide level (all your existing characters will receive whatever you buy).

Three purchase options will initially be available: one, three, and five phials. You can only buy each option once, so you'll only be able to buy nine phials total. The ability to buy as many as you need will be available in the future.

They'll be delivered to you via mooglemail and cannot be traded.

They're looking at pricing them around 1000 Yen, so probably $10?

Patch 2.3 Tidbits

Patch 2.3 will be entitled "Defenders of Eorzea."

A new Primal, Ramuh, will be added, with both Hard and Extreme modes.

Ramuh will mainly drop i100 accessories, with i100 weapons being dropped rarely. There will also be a rare mount drop.

You don't have to do the Sylph beast tribe quests to unlock Ramuh, but they will provide a lore background for the fight.

Three new dungeons: Hullbreaker Isle, Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard), and Stone Vigil (Hard). Not much information about them other than there'll be a fight with a "kraken that FF fans are familiar with."

A new system will be added for crafters: Item Desynthesis. More details on that below.

A new feature that they're calling Hunts will be added; see below for more details.

BLM will be receiving a buff to increase its single-target DPS; they're also looking into adjustments to other jobs.

The ability to respec your chocobo's abilities will be added.

New Main Scenario and Hildebrand quests will be added.

Personal rooms in FC housing will be added.

A new PvP mode, Frontline, will be added.

More Crystal Tower content will be added, and it will drop Oils and Sands of Time.

A chocobo breeding system will be added.

More details on Frontline, CT, and chocobo breeding will be coming in the next Live Letter on 12 June.

A new vanity gear set called "Night Wear" -- possibly sleeping clothes?

Item Desynthesis

This system involves breaking items down into crafting materials. Unlike similar systems in other games, this isn't just pressing a button and getting mats -- it involves using specific skills in order to break down the item, and was designed specifically for crafters to enjoy.

When you reach level 30 in a Discipline of the Hand, you'll get a Desynthesis skill. There are eight different skills, one for each class. These skills work differently than standard FFXIV skills: you can upgrade them by earning and spending points. However, one character won't get enough points to max out all eight skills, so you'll have to choose which to specialize in.

You'll be able to desynthesize almost every item in the game -- even fish! The only limitation mentioned in the Live Letter is that you won't be allowed to desynthesize the highest item level items that were added in the most recent patch.

That having been said, the success of your desynth attempt depends on your desynthesis skill and the item level of the item you're attempting to desynthesize. So if your skill is low, and you try to desynth a high-level item, you'll likely have a 0% chance of succeeding.

When you desynth an item, you'll get materials the item is made of. The type and amount of items you get will depend on the item level of the desynthed item and your desynthesis skill. Obtaining these items, you can do something and get rare items.

"Hunts"

This will consist of players earning a currency called "allied marks" by defeating specified monsters in the open world called "marks."

There will be multiple difficulty ranks of marks. The higher the rank of the mark, the more allied marks you earn when you defeat it. These difficulties will range from barely soloable by an i90 player to needing a chocobo companion to things that will require a group of people to beat.

While many of the marks will be available at any time, each Grand company will designate one monster per week as an additional mark that its members can defeat to obtain bonus allied marks. Similarly, each player will be assigned a bonus mark every day (these will differ from player to player, so that not everyone is hunting the same thing).

Allied marks are used to purchase items such as gear that is currently obtained by trading in Mythology tomestones, items that are unique to this content, and Alexandrite.

Miscellany:

The Rank 7 (450-day) Veteran Rewards have been announced: 

Dyeable glasses frames and lenses are coming soon:

They showed off a two-person chocobo: 

New emotes are planned as rewards from future seasonal events.

YoshiP will look into adding the ability to display enemies' remaining HP as a percentage.

There are no plans for an ingame DPS parser, but they do plan to add "training" content where you have to do a certain amount of DPS within two minutes to clear it.

YoshiP mentioned that he'd like to add a refer-your-friends program.

Finally, they showed a tonne of concept art, including this tank armour:

Also wedding outfits:

Some chocobo barding:

And a bunch of concepts for the new Crystal Tower:

That's it for this Live Letter; they've got a special English-language one set for 10 June from E3, and then Part XV (covering the rest of Patch 2.3) will be broadcast on 12 June.

[samrosemodblog]

FF14 Live Letter Take-Aways

If anyone plays FF14, here are the important updates they mentioned are coming in patches 2.28 and 2.3:

Your Zodiac weapon will gain custom stats in 2.3 (you choose what upgrades as opposed to every weapon being the same)

 Increasing the amount of drops and locations of Myth Tomes.

New Dungeons! New Boss Fights! Ramuh!

Item Desynthesis

Crafters can raise Durability of Gear to 199% (Crafters will be much more important now)

FATE Progress displayed on maps (Hover over them to see if you can make it to them in time or not)

New Crystal Tower Floors (With Sands/Oil of Time drops for upgrading Soldiery gear)

"The Hunt", FF12 Style Daily and Weekly Monster Hunts. (Pick a 'notorious' monster to go fight and kill it solo or the Weekly with a group! Get points that you can trade in for Myth tomes and Alexandrite)

Potential 2.3 Chocobo Raising, Two Player Mounts, Wedding Gear and Chocobo Garb, Chocobo Companion stat resets.

Beyond that, mostly minor things, but these were what I felt were the most important things to come out of the Live Letter. They gave us a big nice look at the content to come, and told us to wait for E3 before we get the FULL list of new things coming to FF14 (and possibly our first look at the new jobs, so exciting~).

Even when the game gets dull for me, every patch always re-sparks my drive to play the game more and more~

[sheikahstones]

Just some cool stuff from the live letter!

[eorzeanriders]

Dev Post Roundup, 22-29 April 2014

Hi, everybody! First off, let me apologize for the lack of dev post roundups recently -- between playing FFXIV and RL stuff, I haven't gotten a chance to write a post. I'll try not to let it happen again. :) Now, onto the news:

This past weekend, YoshiP and company were at a NicoNico event in Tokyo, and as part of it, they hosted a livestream in which they talked about patches 2.28 and 2.3. Here's a summary:

Patch 2.28 will be released in May.

Additional housing areas will be added in 2.3, in preparation for personal housing.

Many players have requested that the limit on the number of furnishings able to be placed in a house be increased; unfortunately, because of the additional stress that would place on the servers, that can't happen yet.

In 2.3, you'll be able to have a room of your own in your FC house; it'll be slightly larger than an inn room, and you'll be able to choose whether to allow others to visit your room. No decision has yet been made as to whether to allow you to go to your room directly from the front door of the house.

Personal houses will be released shortly after personal FC house rooms are ready. They may end up being delayed until 2.35. In order to buy a house of your own, you'll have to be level 50 and hold a certain rank with your Grand Company.

A new PvP mode, Frontlines, will be added in 2.3; this will allow large-scale, three-team battles involving 24 or more players. It won't necessarily be 8 vs. 8 vs. 8.

Other PvP balance changes are coming in 2.28 and 2.3, including unlocking all PvP skills from the start (rather than requiring you to earn PvP XP to unlock them), and allowing you to respec your PvP skills for free. No word on what's going to happen to the existing respec items.

The drop rate of Allagan Tomestones of Mythology will increase in 2.28 and/or 2.3.

The next chapter of the Crystal Tower will release with 2.3. It will feature a number of things that should make long-time Final Fantasy fans happy.

The chocobo system will be expanded in 2.3 or 2.35; they mentioned crafted chocobo food, the possibility of adding stables where you can train your chocobo, and possibly allowing you to dye your chocobo.

They're in the process of testing two-person mounts.

They plan to introduce new content that can be done with fewer than four people.

Each job will get a unique Limit Break animation. This change is still in the planning stages, and no implementation timing has been determined.

They're finalizing design of the marriage system; it won't be released until sometime after 2.3.

They're still working on the DirectX 11 version of the game. They hope to release it before the end of the year.

Finally, they have big plans for beast tribe quests involving the goblins. Those are still pretty far off.

Onto posts from the Community Team on the official forums:

An improved gear comparison tool will be coming in 2.3.

Also in 2.3, you'll be able to see the current progress of FATEs on the map.

They're planning to add training dummies as an outdoor furnishing item for your house; no date yet.

A furnishing-specific category will be added to the Nameplate Settings tab of the Character Configuration window sometime after 2.3. This will allow you to, among other things, hide the nameplates of interactive furniture, such as the Company Chest.

They're looking at adding additional designs for the pages of grimoires, so scholars, summuners, and arcanists don't have to stare at the same page of every book.

They have plans to expand the storage space of company chests; additional tabs will be unlocked as rewards for upcoming ranks.

The dev team is aware that /r is broken, and is working on changing its functionality.

Finally, there are no plans to allow summoners to summon carbuncles rather than egis. (Apparently some players would like the ability to "glamour" their egis to look like carbuncles.)

That's it for the news this week; I'll have another installment on 6 May.