Letter from the Producer Live XXVII has wrapped! Live from Kagoshima, director/producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida and global community producer Toshio Murouchi announced the title of Patch 3.2: “The Gears of Change” and a release date of February 23rd. The body of the letter delved into discussing the new content and features planned for the patch, and localization lead Michael-Christopher Koji Fox stopped by for a few surprises.

Check out the following summary for all the major details. You can also catch the archive the stream here, and the community team’s official digest here.

on Patch 3.2 The Gears of Change‘s story:
Localization lead Michael-Christopher Koji Fox described the setup for Patch 3.2’s story in the latter half of the program:

The character featured in the art for Patch 3.2 is Minifilia. As the name of the patch, The Gears of Change, implies, there will be various changes in Patch 3.2 which are related to what happened to her, where she came from, how she is related to the mother crystal, and the path the scions will follow.

There are many meanings for this title.

• How will Minfilia get involved in the main scenario?
• What kinds of changes will take place for the people of Ishgard now that they have seen the dragons?
• There are those that don’t wish for any change. You may see some opposition as well.
• Also, the gears from the Patch title is related to Alexander as well.

on Patch 3.2 The Gears of Change‘s content:
• Patch 3.2 will go live on February 23rd, 2016.
• Video footage of The Antitower and The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard), two Level 60 dungeons to be added in Patch 3.2 was shown.
• Video footage of The Containment Bay S1T7 was shown, featuring a battle against Sephirot, The Fiend from Final Fantasy VI. The background music was a remix of The Fierce Battle. The person who designed this fight is the same person who designed the Titan encounter, and the team likened the Sephirot trial to a “a big jumprope”.
• Video footage of Alexander: Midas was shown, the newest and most difficult raiding content in the game.
• Gnath beast tribe quests will have the same quest level sync feature as the Vanu Vanu — there’s also a new flying mount associated with increasing your reputation with them.
• The Normal and Savage mode difficulties of Alexander: Midas will release at the same time: Patch 3.2’s release date.
• Hildibrand‘s return is confirmed for Patch 3.2.

on The Feast:
• The Feast is a new PvP content type based around the Wolves’ Den.
• The goal is to collect the most medals before the end of the match or to hit a certain threshold of medals. You can obtain them by defeating, and thereby “stealing”, opposing players.
• There will be five different modes that will feature 4v4 and 8v8 matches.
• Don’t worry, you won’t drag your team down by being repeatedly KO’d — the amount of medals dropped will decrease for going after the same person successively.
• Several elements will change the flow of battle, such as supply boxes that will bestow buffs. If you haven’t been KO’d for a while, you will accrue a debuff stack called “Culling Time” that will make it easier for you to be defeated. The music will change based on this effect.

on Stone, Sky, Sea:
• This content is played solo and will have you try to defeat training dummies of different types and difficulties within three minutes. It’s a tool to refine your combat capabilities in preparation for difficult content like raids.

on the Mentor system:
• This system will allow you to mentor beginners to Final Fantasy XIV after you meet certain requirements.
• To become a combat class mentor, you must have one job from each role (tank, healer, or DPS) at level 60, completed 1000 instanced dungeons or trials (which the team assures many players have done already), and have at least 300 player commendations.
• For crafters, you must have at least one Disciple of the Hand job at Level 60, have crafted over 100 collectables.
• For gatherers, you must have at least one Disciple of the Land job at Level 60, and have gathered over 300 collectables.
• As a mentor, you can invite a player to a special chat channel to converse.
• A Duty Roulette: Mentor will be added to the Duty Finder — no extra Tomestones for this one.
• There aren’t many rewards, but you will have priority queuing with a player who has not completed certain content.

on Class/Job adjustments:
• The team is adjusting the damage output for tank Jobs in Patch 3.2, which will rely more on Vitality than Strength. If you’ve got Strength-based accessories on your tank, you may want to look into adding Vitality.
• Astrologians will have adjustments to the amount of enmity they produce, and the Shuffle will be changed so that the same card won’t be drawn in succession.
• The team feels Machinists are a bit behind the curve on damage output, so they’ll be getting a buff in Patch 3.2.
• Bards will see adjustments to the Warden’s Paean ability.
• Adjustments to the speed at which the limit break gauge fills will also come in Patch 3.2.

on miscellaneous features and content:
• Exploratory Missions will be shorter, they’re now adjusted to last 30 minutes for Easy mode, 45 minutes for Normal, and 60 minutes for Hard. Re-entry time has been reduced from 45 minutes to 30 minutes. The amount of aetherial turbulences to gain flight in the Diadem has also been reduced for each difficulty. Players who first trigger Fresh Tracks will also gain the right to attack first.
• It will not be possible to use advanced materia melding for STR, DEX, VIT, INT, MND, and PIE. You will be able to meld these stats into available materia slots. The availability of Tier IV and V materia for these primary stats will also be adjusted.
• A large amount of crafting recipes will be added, including gear that can be used for the new Alexander: Midas raid early. Allagan and High Allagan gear from the Binding Coil of Bahamut will get craft-able, dye-able analogues — but how you’ll obtain the “blueprints” was not divulged.
• New Disciple of the Land and Hand rewards for collecting red scrips will be added.
• Allagan Tomestones of Lore will be added; Soldiery will be removed, Law will be phased out, and the weekly cap on Esoterics will be removed. Poetics will stick around as they are useful to players past Level 50.
• You’ll be able to gather when the duty window pops up.
• Sword and shield rewards will be obtained at the same time.
• Light and Full Parties will be able to queue for many Roulettes.
• A teleport history feature will be added.
• Hotbar improvements that include the display of time left on cooldowns.
• Expansion of the idling camera and group pose features.
• You’ll be able to place a furnishing to summon the Aesthetician.
• The Orchestrion is a furnishing you can place to play music from elsewhere in the game. It has its own UI, and you can collect music sheets for it. Depending on where you place it, your character’s proximity will determine the sound level. The team teases there may be a higher drop rate for duty-based music if you complete it at the minimum item level, and that more music will be added in the future.
• Koji Fox is hoping to get an English lore book done by October’s Fan Festival.
• An Eorzea Collection 2016W video was shown in the intermission.

on the Mac version:
• The team apologizes for the delay — sales were initially halted due to performance problems, but the team has been making adjustments and will be ready to announce a re-release soon.