Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Letter from the Producer LIVE XX summary

The 20th Letter from the Producer Live just wrapped up this morning with a large focus on Final Fantasy XIV’s upcoming expansion – Heavensward.

Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida once again took the stage to give fans a taste of what to expect, with now a bit over two months to go until launch. The first thing he mentioned was that Heavensward itself will have over 50 hours of new gameplay content – with more to come in the form of patches from 3.1 onward. New quests will be introduced as well as new job quests for jobs that already exist as well as the new jobs and crafter/gatherers through level 60.

New zones in Heavensward will be about 50 to 100% larger than the existing ones in A Realm Reborn – with nine in total. Players will be able to take up flying mounts without any restrictions and is possible to do so in all of the new areas, but not in the older ones.

On the subject of jobs, the new ones including Dark Knight, Astrologian and Machinist will start at level 30. New actions are also being added to every job with level 3 Limit Breaks being now job-specific. All jobs will be receiving new gear too with the addition of new Allagan tomestones in the form of Allagan Tomestones of Law and Allagan Tomestones of Esoterics. The latter will have a weekly cap much like the current Poetics system.

The team is also adding in new recipes and Materia Grade V for crafters. Crafters will be able to specialize themselves into three different classes with items called Scrips which allow access to specific actions. Using these Scrips, players can also change their specialization if they so choose.

The treasure hunt system is being expanded in Heavensward and new gathering spots will be added to all areas. A new feature called Divine Favors is being introduced to display hidden gathering points. Favors are active for a limited time and activated via Scrips. A Regional Folklore system is also being added which allows players to obtain rare gathering items. Disciples of the Land and Hand will be able to gather items for Rowena who will reward them with experience.

Similar to the Allagan Tomestones, the gathering currency will be split into red and blue types with the latter having a weekly cap.

Heavensward will see additions to the FATE system and the addition of new levequests, large scale FATEs and new elite marks for the Mob Hunt. Along with that, the team’s added eight new instanced dungeons.

The expansion’s high-end raid – Alexander – is being introduced in both Normal and Savage modes. Alexander will be opened for use two weeks after the release of Heavensward with the Savage version out two weeks after that along with the ability to collect Allagan Tomestones of Esoterics. The team’s new loot system will be introduced for raids as well, including the “lootmaster” feature that will give control to one player, and the “All Greed” system that will remove the ability to Need on an item if the party chooses before heaving into a duty as a pre-made group.

Alexander Normal will work similar to Crystal Tower – you’ll be able to run it as much as you want but be limited to the amount of gear taken per week.

In addition to the new raid, the expansion’s new Primals Bismark and Ravana will come in both Normal and Hard Mode Flavors – however, instead of item drops, they’ll be dropping tokens which can be exchanged for the desired weapon. This is in contrast to the current system where players would likely have to run the instance multiple times to get what they wanted.

A new map for Frontlines PvP is being added along with a new set of rules and PvP rewards. The timing for this map will be around the same time as Savage Mode Alexander.

Free Companies will also see a bit of an upgrade with the addition of FC workshops including the ability to craft up airships. A new Expeditionary system will allow FCs to explore the sky and is something that will be expanded upon in future updates.

Heavensward will add new retainer ventures, more to the sightseeing log, new Triple Triad cards and specific Ishgard market places. The Duty Finder is also being expanded with the ability to swap duties with smaller parties, new types of roulettes and the ability to level sync to the lowest member in your current party.


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Sharjeel Hanif

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