Letter from the Producer Live XXXIX Summary; Patch 4.1 content detailed further

Today’s Letter from the Producer Live is part two of a look at Patch 4.1, the first major content update since the Stormblood expansion launched in June. Titled “The Legend Returns”, it will continue the main scenario, include a “Return to Ivalice” alliance raid featuring guest creators Yasumi Matsuno and Keita Amemiya, new trials and dungeons, housing in Shirogane, and much more.

Patch 4.1 “The Legend Returns” will release on October 10th. Check out the trailer and summary below:

The Legend Returns

Return to Ivalice

The first alliance raid in the Return to Ivalice series will be Rabanastre. The scenario concept for Return to Ivalice is being created by Yasumi Matsuno (Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story) and boss creature design will be done by Keita Amemiya (Shin Megami Tensei IV, GARO).

Dungeon Exploration

Together with your Adventurer Squadron, you’ll be able to take on a new challenge called “Dungeon Exploration”. When your Squadron reaches Rank 2 you will be able to undertake these at your Grand Company headquarter. You will be able to select three adventurers that you want to take and composition must be a tank, healer, and two damage dealers including yourself.

Tweak their AI with “mission instructions” and a new class of actions called “Orders” can be set into your hotbars to issue directions to your squadron on the fly. As they gain experience, your squad will gain buffs. Some of the rewards for Dungeon Exploration will include special emotes like squats, push-ups, and sit-ups.

The Minstrel’s Ballad: Shinryu’s Domain

This trial will be harder than Susano and Lakshmi’s Exteme-mode difficulties — somewhere along the lines of the Omega raid’s Deltascape V2.0 and V3.0 Savage difficulty. During the fight there will be a different DPS check and a healer check towards the middle. You’ll be able to get a weapon from this fight, which will be useful if you are still trying to clear the Deltascape V3.0 (Savage).

Job Adjustments

Warrior: Steel Cyclone‘s HP potency increase, Fell Cleave will be tweaked, and Shake it Off will shield all party members.

Dragoon: Heavy Thrust potency changes (less penalty on missing positional combo), Dragon Eyes for Blood of the Dragon lowered to 3 from 4.

Ninja: Doton tweaks, Shikuchi animation lag reduced.

Summoner: Pet MP cost reduced, changes to Dreadwyrm Trance, Ruin III is off-global cooldown while in Dreadwyrm Trance, Aetherpact and Devotion buff party in range. You’ll also be able to change Bahamut‘s size with a command you enter for client side only.

Scholar: Adloquium cost reduced, Addle, Manashift and others have shorter recast times, Surecast tweaks.

Machinist: Hypercharge will be buffed.

Housing

The team showed off the Relocation feature, which will allow you to relocate your estate to another area. This can be done at the board in front of each estate. Note: you’ll have to rearrange your estate garden and interior when the transfer is complete as items will be placed back in the estate inventory. There will be sand beds on the beach in Shirogane and a jumping puzzle. Other housing areas with water have added the ability to swim.

Rival Wings

Rival Wings is a large-scale PvP battle involving up to 48 players. Six light parties form two teams of 24, the Falcons and the Ravens. There are no party composition restrictions, so feel free to choose any job. You must destroy the opponent’s core to win. If the time limit expires before either core is destroyed, victory is determined by conditions in this order: number of remaining towers, remaining tower HP, and remaining core HP.

Each team has a starting area and a magitek field must be disable. Machina can be ridden once certain conditions are met and are capable of greatly impacting the outcome of the battle. The Cruise Chaser is effective against enemy combatants, including machina. The Oppressor specializes in destroying towers and cores. Brute Justice is the ultimate machina, and is effective against both combatants and objects. Mammets can be deployed to attack enemy towers and cores.

The Unending Coil of Bahamut

This Ultimate level difficulty trial will available in Patch 4.11 (two weeks after 4.1) and features bosses from The Binding Coil of Bahamut raid series. This encounter is extremely tough and will test the limits of every battle role. You will need item level 340 and completion of Omega Deltascape 4.0 (Savage) to challenge this trial. Upon completion, all players will receive a token which can be exchanged for a weapon of their choice. These are individual loot and can be obtained once a week. This doesn’t mean that the number of chest will decrease even if you go again after completing to help others.

The new weapon’s item level and sub attributes will be the same as the Genji weapons and contain three materia slots.

Miscellaneous

– At the start of the Live Letter, Yoshida showed off the ability for Bards to Perform with an instrument. You can map notes to your hotbar and perform for the masses. The instrument’s range is three octaves with sharp notes. More instruments will be added in later patches like a flute, etc. Due to latency, it might be difficulty to stay perfectly in sync with other players. Since the team wants to alleviate as much lag as possible by developing a special packet for this information, we’ll see this feature drop in Patch 4.15.

– HUD updates are on the way in Patch 4.1 A simple version of the Job Gauge can be toggled in the system menu. Buffs and debuffs can be separated and rearranged on your character and on enemies.

– The Lost Canals of Uznair will have new maps where you can progress even deeper. These new levels are tougher and you’ll need a Full Party.

– Hildibrand’s scenario in this patch is a bit shorter, think of it as an introduction to the story to come.

– You will be able to recover materia melded to gear from the character sheet, but it may not always be a 100% chance of success. The higher the grade, the lower the success rate. You’ll also be able to see desynthesis level requirements on an item tooltip now. Ventures and beast tribe currencies have been moved out of the inventory and into the currency tab. Increased inventory space is currently planned for Patch 4.2.

– The Forbidden Land Eureka was scheduled for Patch 4.15, but it will end up being delayed until Patch 4.2.

– An update to the Group Pose feature is coming in 4.2 including the ability to replay a fight and change the camera position. One useful way you can use this is to review your raid footage to help in your strategy.

Announcements


About the Author

Tony Garsow Tony joined Nova Crystallis in 2015, and has spent more than a decade writing in the Final Fantasy community. He also contributes to the Nova Crystallis Twitch and YouTube channels, where you can watch select gameplay highlights, previews, and streams.

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