Letter from the Producer, XVII

1 Sep 2011
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FINAL FANTASY XIV fans the world round, the seventeenth Letter from the Producer has arrived for your viewing pleasure!

Pore over the complete letter.

Hello everyone! Yoshi-P here with another post for all you FFXIV-ers. Hot one day, cold the next. The weather’s been getting kinda funky on the cusp of the seasons here. Hope you’re all managing to stay in good health while enjoying your time in Eorzea.

We’re firing on all cylinders heading into the next patch, and there’s been some late nights and weekends spent here at the office. The encouragement we’ve been receiving on the forums has us doing everything we can to get things done.

Lemme start things off with a screenshot of one of the new airships taking to the skies come 1.19.


Looks like that one’s about to whisk some players off into the Gridanian twilight. Nice.
Sorry for the long wait, but they’re finally coming to Eorzea in 1.19, together with chocobo mounts, to help make traveling around the realm more enjoyable. Ride a “horsebird” to get wherever you need to go by land, or book passage on an airship to fly the quickest routes between Ul’dah, Gridania, and Limsa. Airship voyages themselves will take only mere seconds, though there will be sweet little cutscenes accompanying departures and arrivals.

Aaand now on to the update list. Changes coming in 1.19 have been detailed on the Lodestone in some Topics and forum posts, so as I mentioned last letter, this is just a list of changes slated for 1.20 and beyond. There’s a couple healthy-sized ones among them, so I’m looking to update the list again with a more detailed breakdown of those sometime after 1.19 goes live. Without further ado…

Quests

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Ongoing Quests revolving around the danger facing Eorzea Planning and release of quests
Ongoing Storylines and world quests Development and release of supplemental storylines and world quests
1.21 -NEW-
Job-specific quests
-NEW-
Creation of quests to unlock jobs and their abilities

New Content

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
1.20 -NEW-
Second primal battle
-NEW-
Release of second primal battle quest
Release of second primal battle (continued from 1.19)
-NEW-
Release of cutscenes for second primal battle
Release of second primal battle (continued from 1.19)
-NEW-
Release of second primal battle
Release of second primal battle (continued from 1.19)
1.21 New instanced raids -NEW-
Third release of instanced raids
-NEW-
Fourth release of instanced raids
1.20 -NEW-
Achievements
-NEW-
Setting and release of achievement system
Additional changes planned post 1.20
Ongoing Caravan escort -NEW-
Release of high-level caravan escort duties
1.21 -NEW-
Hamlet defense
-NEW-
Release of hamlet defense duties

Guildleves

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Ongoing Grand Company leves Addition of a new leve type issued by Grand Companies
Ongoing Balancing of guildleves Adjustments to leve difficulty and rewards

Behest

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Ongoing Balancing of behests Adjustments to behest difficulty and rewards

Company System

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Ongoing Grand Companies Addition of Grand Company ranks and items

Enemies and Non-instanced Areas

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Ongoing Balancing of enemy attributes Adjustments to enemy parameters and reexamination of drops
Ongoing Adjustments to environment collision detection
Ongoing Balancing of enemy distribution Adjustments to distribution of enemies in several areas
Ongoing Design and release of additional NMs Continued release of NMs

Battle System

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
1.20 Redistribution of crowd control actions Reexamination of distribution of crowd control actions across classes
1.20 -NEW-
Battle system adjustments
-NEW-
Tweaks to balancing done in 1.19
1.20 Reworking of crowd control Implementation of rules for overlapping crowd control actions

Armoury System

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
1.20 Reworking of rules for setting actions Automatic setting of current class’s actions
Addition of rules and conditions for setting actions of other classes
1.20 -NEW-
Disciple of War & Magic actions
-NEW-
Balancing and release of actions for all Disciple of War & Magic classes
1.21 Groundwork for job system Completion of groundwork during 1.20, release in 1.21
1.21 -NEW-
Job-specific gear and abilities
-NEW-
Release of job-specific gear and abilities together with job system

Items, Synthesis, and Gathering

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Ongoing Addition of new recipes Continued addition of recipes in line with new synthesis concepts
1.20 -NEW-
Reworking of HQ crafting
-NEW-
Reexamination of and adjustments to HQ crafting

User Interface (UI)

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
1.20 Achievement window Design and implementation of a UI window for achievements
1.20 -NEW-
Achievement system UI
-NEW-
Implementation of graphic notification and fanfare for achievements
1.20 -NEW-
Title Window
-NEW-
Design and implementation of a UI window containing titles earned from achievements
1.19a -NEW-
Pop-up help
-NEW-
Implementation of pop-up help windows

Markets

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
1.20-1.21 Improved item search Planning of tasks aimed at improving search function

The Lodestone

Patch Planned Current Tasks Notes
Post 1.20 -NEW-
Community Page
-NEW-
Release of a page containing Community information
Planning an easy-to-view page that combines Lodestone top page and My Page features.
Post 1.20 My Page -NEW-
Revisions to History accompanying release of achievements
Character History will be redesigned to coincide with the release of in-game achievements.

* View the list of planned changes for 1.19.
Well, time to get back to it. I’ll keep posting letters up until release to keep you updated on where we’re at, so keep an eye out!

Talk to you next letter, or on the forums. See you soon!