For those of you who didn’t see my last post, this is the second article in a two part series about the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Letter From the Producers Live at E3. Part one featured big reveals about the Scholar Job, as well as more details about Summoner and Arcanist.
Part two is all about the lengthy Q&A, where fans submit questions for producer and director Naoki Yoshida to answer. This Producer Letter featured Matt Hilton (Community Manager), facilitating the questions, with Michael Christopher Koji Fox (Localization Team member) serving as Yoshida’s translator.
The Q&A
Below is a transcript of the Q&A session. As a general note, the Square Enix stream was experiencing techinical difficulties, so a few questions were cut off and unable to be transcribed:
Hilton: Are there any other classes or jobs that you are considering implementing within the first year of ARR launching?
Yoshida: We want to have something, but if say what that will be the battle team will kill me. We do want to have something released before our first expansion
Hilton: How long after release should we expect DX11 support?
Yoshida: Currently we are working on both the PS4 version and DX11 support. Which we will finish first we do not know, but we hope to have both finished within one year. The biggest challenge we are facing now, is that DX11 and DX9 graphics pipelines are extremely different, so, having operations for both of those is creating challenges, but getting over those challenges is what we do.
Hilton: Can we get a few more details about the Fishing system?
Yoshida: Players will get to find out more about fishing in beta phase 4, when it will be released. As to what type of system it will be, in a previous producer letter we mentioned we did not want fishing to be like an action game, where you’re waiting for the right time to press a button. Fishing is supposed to be relaxing, fishing is supposed to be communicating with nature, and there is a lot of nature in Eorzea. We want it so players, can chose their rod, their bait, their lure depending on what type of water it is, the time of day, what type of fish they’re looking for.Some players may ask, well what about bots? Because the fishing system is not action oriented, are people going to be able to make bots that catch all these fish and then sell them off and destroy the economy?
We do not want to make the fish, the individual item, that valuable. We want fishing to be more about catching the fish, and player achievements. For example, players will have a log of each type of fish they’ve caught and how large the fish they caught was (the latter portion of this answer was cut off by technical problems).
Hilton: Will we see monsters from previous Final Fantasy titles in FFXIV:ARR?
Yoshida: We want to implement a lot of different monsters from past FFs. We don’t want them to be like Primals, but maybe like a “dream team” type of battle where you can fight some of these iconic monsters from past FFs.
Hilton: Players are curious how much down time there will be from Phase 4 and the start of Early Access.
Yoshida: Not much at all, maybe 1, 2, 3 days.
Hilton: Besides Free Company Housing (ARR’s answer to Guilds), is it possible to share housing with family, friends, or a spouse? Not so much sharing the cost of purchase, but living in the same space?
Yoshida: When you have your own housing there will be a lot of different permission settings about who can and cannot enter your house. For example, you can change these settings so your house only allows in Free Company members, or members of allied Free Companies, or allow in Friends (people on your friends list), or even people on the friends lists of anyone in your Free Company. Additionally, permissions can be set to the interior of your house, for example your Free Company chest.
When we release it [housing in FFXIV:ARR] Free Companies will be able to purchase land and build a house on this land. But we’ll look and see how many Free Companies do this, how much land has been bought up, and how everything is going. If it looks like the system is functioning well, we may allow individuals to purchase their own houses.
Hilton: So a lot of players are really fanatical about card games and mini games, and they’re really anxious to know more because you had talked before about maybe implementing something “when the time was right” or if you had a really good idea.
Yoshida: I still haven’t had a good idea come up to my desk yet. Please someone send us a good idea! (Yoshida laughs)
Hilton: How many areas, or zones, will there be at launch?
Yoshida: We haven’t really been counting them. We know that at launch, with areas and dungeons combined, we have around 40, with the hope to expand to around 80 with patches.
Hilton: Can you talk a bit more about the Primal Battles and F.A.T.E. Primal battles?
Yoshida: First, the instanced primal battles. These are a lot like the Primal battles from FFXIV 1.0. You have a small instance with a light party (4 members) or a full party (8 members), and you will take on one Primal that has multiple modes. You will have to complete something in each mode our you will wipe.
Now, the F.A.T.E. Primal battles. In F.A.T.E primal battles, anyone in the area can fight together, it’s not party based. Some of the things we have in the works are F.A.T.E. Primal battles with Odin and Behemoth. For example int the battle with Behemoth, maybe 30-40 people will come, and like the instanced primal battles, this fight will have phases. And, say, in the first phase you have to cut off Behemoths horn before you can do any damage to him, things like that.
For the Odin battle, he may have an ability that’s a very large AoE. So you’ll have that large group of 30-40 people all moving out of the way, and then they come back in to attack. And if the group can’t get Odin down in enough time then he uses Zantetsuken, and everyone one instantly dies.
Hilton: Will skirmish style content still be available in A Realm Reborn? The kind of content where you face a group of very strong monsters, skirmish style.
Yoshida: We mentioned before, in one of the questions, famous Final Fantasy monsters making appearances in ARR. Battles with these monsters are what we are planning for Skirmish style combat.
(Yoshida goes on to add more)
For Phase 3, we’ve put a lot of effort into our quest battles, as well as our open world battles. We’re hoping our quest battles will be challenging for players. Some of the main scenario battles, after level 9, some of the battles may get a bit hairy. Don’t forget your antidote, and don’t vendor them!
Hilton: Will the Garlean Emporer, Garlemald, make an appearance?
Yoshida: As many of you may know, the Emperor is sick and elderly. He built up the Garlean Empire in a single generation to the power that it is today, but now he just sits. So now the Legatuses, military lords, know this and you see them vying for the power of the Emperor.
Hilton: Will armor for the Chocobos be craftable by the disciples of the hand?
Yoshida: Yes, it will be. Players want to create their own armor for Chocbos. And they’l want to create custom parts for those Magitek armours as well.
Hilton: Have you ever thought of creating something like a Mentoring system? Where veteran players, possibly from 1.0, can help out newer players.
Yoshida: We’re thinking of something for the Free Companies system, having a mentor in the Free Company. Also the “newbies” can have a mark, so that mentors know which players to help.
Hilton: What sort of changes have been made to the Relic Reborn quests.
Yoshida: They have not been changed THAT much, but we’re thinking it may be a bit easier than 1.0. Of course it will still be hard, the last few items you’ll need must be gotten from the Garudas, and Irfrits, but you won’t have to do any more Hamlet Defense.
Wow, that was a lot!
As you can see, these Q&A sessions don’t mess around! Stay tuned for the next part in this series, when we’ll get a chance to analyze some of what we have learned today.
As always,
Comment below, game hard, and stay safe!
