In the newest episode of Letter From the Producer Live XVIII, the Final Fantasy XIV team comes to us live from Kobe, Japan to discuss Patch 3.2 and beyond. Today’s special guest is lead UI designer Hiroshi Minagawa (HQ Hiroshi), who has worked on previous Square Enix titles like Vagrant Story, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and Final Fantasy XII.

Should you desire to catch the show’s archived broadcast you can do so here, as well as pore through the official digest.

The team received feedback that healers were having a hard time hitting enemies in dungeons due to accuracy, so there will be adjustments made that appropriately reflect the difficulty of the duties. With regard to raiding, the team doesn’t want to create instances where healers are forced to do a certain throughput of damage, but they understand that many groups are melding accuracy based around this strategy. The jury’s still out on what the team wants to do with accuracy in this situation, so we’ll have to wait for further information.

Summoners have been anticipating the ability to glamour their egis to different Primals, and Yoshida shared that this would take up much more resources than originally anticipated. However, they’re still planning to go forward with it, and want to put out one glamour per patch starting in 3.4. For Machinist glamour and aesthetics, the team will have a text command ready in the next patch for you to disable the look of Gauss Barrel.

Players have mentioned that parties that have a Scholar and Astrologian as healers don’t bestow a bonus to Mind, and therefore have difficulty healing in some instances. The team is looking into adjusting this carefully without nerfing either class, and are considering removing Piety. They’re still looking for feedback on this, so be sure to speak up!

Regarding tanks and Parry, the team is aware that stacking the stat on gear doesn’t seem to be that effective in damage mitigation – where tanks are opting to stack Determination instead. Major changes are in the works and Parry might get a rework in time for Patch 3.4. If not then, Yoshida says it’ll likely come in the expansion.

With the new difficulty tiers introduced with Alexander, players have noticed that some players will transfer servers to where there is a higher population of hardcore raiders. The team has has also noticed this and aims to implement a Raid Finder around Patch 3.3. Available for the hardest raid content (currently Alexander: Midas), players will be able to use the tool to designate if they are practicing, clearing, and so on. You’ll also be able to check if someone has an achievement prior to invitation. A cross-server party finder is also in the works.

While the DPS checks in Alexander: Midas (Savage) weren’t as tough as Gordias, there are pretty tough health checks, so much so that melding Grade 5 Vitality materia may be recommended. The team understands a lot of groups are struggling with The Cuff of the Son (Savage) as it is a gauntlet of four bosses with tough mechanics, so they are planning to adjust it appropriately. They are also concerned about the difficulty leap between The Cuff and The Arm of the Son (Savage).

In Patch 3.25, which is scheduled to launch next week, they will be adjusting the match times so that battles will end sooner. Aspects that draw out the length of a match will also be adjusted, as well getting rid of some of the walls that break line-of-sight with your target. Adrenaline boxes will be easier to bust open too. Matchmaking will be tweaked to better match you with players closer to your rating.

Regarding class/job adjustments in PvP, they feel that Machinist’s burst damage is a bit too high, so expect incoming nerfs.

Since the team needs additional feedback on all the aforementioned changes, the kickoff of The Feast’s first proper season will be two weeks out from 3.25.

• Respawn rates for the “What a Boar” and “Quenching The Flame” FATEs will be adjusted.
• Orchestrion roll components will become a guaranteed drop in alliance raids like the Crystal Tower series.
• The next Alliance raid will take place in Patch 3.3.
• The next Anima weapon questline will arrive in Patch 3.25.
• Regarding the Phantasy Star Online 2 collaboration, the graphical quality of the Odin fight in that game is quite high, so Final Fantasy XIV would like to do something great too.
• Crafter item level cap will increase in Patch 3.3, and there will be a shared equipment across the jobs.
• Alternative ways to gain Crafter-based materia will be revealed in the 3.3 special.
• The team will carefully look into NPCs that can do advanced materia melding.
• They will consider the ability to turn HQ items into NQ en masse, but state that this is tough to do in a MMORPG since each item must be checked individually.
• If you want the Chinese-themed glamours, speak up on the forums!
• Hildibrand will return in every major 3.x series patch!
• The Saint Endalim’s Scholasticate story will continue in Patch 3.4.
• The Warring Triad scenarios will continue to be separate from the main scenario, but they’re not unrelated or unimportant to it.
• A new chocobo racing feature will be added in 3.25 where you can challenge NPCs. MGP payout will also be increased.
• The Fenrir mount will be able to fly in Patch 3.3, and tank mounts will be able to fly later on. A new Dravanian down flying mount was shown.
• Treasure hunting dungeons will be added in Patch 3.3. They’re simple and not too difficult like maps. You can pull a switch to fight more monsters.
• A new gameplay type where you can lead a platoon of Grand Company NPCs into dungeons will arrive by Patch 3.4, as well as a new GC rank of second lieutenant.

The next segment of the broacast included Q&A session with lead UI designer Hiroshi Minagawa. Some of his previous work includes Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story, and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. His job on Final Fantasy XIV is to design and oversee how all of the UI elements in the game look on all platforms and regions. You might be surprised to know that he is the one that designs all the logo text for the patches and expansions.

When asked if he was impressed by other games’ UI in the genre, Minagawa cited RIFT and Guild Wars 2, with special mention of The Division and how it has a new type of visual UI. Minagawa said the hardest thing to develop for Final Fantasy XIV was the controller interface system, in which they needed to make MMORPG gameplay more accessible to consoles and fans of single-player Final Fantasy games.

The team picked up a question from Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII director Yasumi Matsuno in which he follows up on an inquiry he made to Yoshida when they went out drinking one night. Matsuno wants an unspecified ability to switch targets, and the ability to see enemy HP as a whole number rather than a percentage. Yoshida said that he would look into both options.

Regarding VR, Minagawa has a lot of interest in it, but since Final Fantasy XIV was not developed with VR in mind – he sees it as incredibly difficult to implement this. If there was a standalone feature where you walked through a major city-state maybe, similar to the demo units they’ve showed off at Sony events.

Minagawa also showed off progress on the double cross hotbar, and optimal equip feature they’re adding in the future.

He shared a bit of future plans including the ability to save HUD configurations as well as increasing the number of macros – including the ability to share them across characters. Minagawa also hinted at the increase of armoury chest and inventory slots, but said this was a slow process and the final increased amount is not yet final. Regarding custom addons, integration is still a ways out, and it seems that the team will only approve of aesthetic options rather than ones that provide extraneous functionality.

In a previous update, gear sets from Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together were added, so the possibility of Vagrant Story gear was discussed. Yoshida showed off a picture of protagonist Ashley Riot and Sydney Losstarot, sharing that they looked great on the PlayStation, but these days they might not fit in Final Fantasy XIV. It’s still under deliberation it seems!

• A new collaboration with 7-Eleven Japan was announced, and features exclusive glamours.
• North American and European regions, don’t worry! Ways to obtain these items are currently being planned.
• “Locus” from the Final Fantasy XIV soundtrack will be used as a theme song for a new news program in Japan.
• Letter from the Producer Live XXIX @ NicoNico Chokaigi on April 29-30th, 2016. (Special Guest: Akihiro Hino, CEO/President of Level-5)
• Final Fantasy XIV will be at PAX East 2016! (April 22-24, 2016)
• “Strolling Yoshi-P” will visit the Elemental data center on April 1, 2016 to walk through the game to meet players.
• Full Active Time Event in Akita, Japan will be on May 22, 2016.