GamerEscape

Despite the release of the highly anticipated Tears of the Kingdom today, Naoki Yoshida wrestled himself from his newly bought Zelda-themed Nintendo Switch to bring us the latest Letter from the Producer LIVE. This being the second Live Letter for the upcoming Patch 6.4 The Dark Throne, there was bound to be a lot of information, which we have summarized here for you!

As is tradition, we finally got our patch trailer and the official but already assumed release date: May 23, 2023! After going through the trailer a second time and commenting on the differen scenes shown, we got our customary overview of everything that is to come in the next few months. For a better overview of what is to come when, we have separated the new content between Patch 6.4 and 6.45 as announced during the Letter. Please note that this list may change and and that there might be additional updates to content introduced in 6.4 coming in 6.45.

What’s to Come in Patch 6.4

• New Main Scenario Quests
• Tataru’s Grand Endeavor Continues
  • Requires completion of the Patch 6.1 quest “Small Business, Big Dreams” and the Chronicles of a New Era quest series, the Sorrow of Werlyt. (The final quest is “Forever at Your Side.”)
• New Dungeon
  • The Aetherfont
• New Trials
  • The Voidcast Dais
  • The Voidcast Dais (Extreme)
• New Unreal Trial – Containment Bay Z1T9 (Unreal)
• New Raid
  • Pandæmonium: Anabaseios
  • Pandæmonium: Anabaseios (Savage)
    • Savage raid will be released one week after Patch 6.4 (May 30)
• Duty Support for Stormblood
  • The Sirensong Sea
  • Bardam’s Mettle
  • Doma Castle
  • Castrum Abania
  • Ala Mhigo
• Ocean Fishing Update
  • New route (towards Kugane)
• Miscellaneous Updates
  • Allagan Tomestones of Comedy will be added
  • Faerie glamours are now available to Scholars. (Select from Eos, Selene, or Carbuncle!)
  • Maximum number of Gear Sets will be increased to 100.
    • (Available to all characters immediately, regardless of quest completion)
  • Job icons will now be displayed in the chat log and on player nameplates.
    • (Chat log icons will only display within Parties and Alliances.)
  • The transaction fee for items sold on the Market Board can now be incorporated into their total price, displayed unter “Total”.
  • Glasses and Wing Fashion Accessories will now display when engaged in battle in the overworld.
  • Items stored in a variety of locations can now be selected when casting glamours in an Inn Room.

What’s to Come in Patch 6.45

• Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures
• Further Manderville Weapons
• Splendorous Tools
• Variant & Criterion Dungeon #2, “Mount Rokkon”
  • Three levels of difficulty: Normal, Criterion, and Criterion (Savage)
  • Completion of the Sil’dihn Subterrane not required for unlock
• Blue Mage Update
  • Level cap raised from 70 to 80
  • New spells and Blue Mage exclusive gear added
  • New enemies added to the Masked Carnivale
  • new duties added to the Blue Mage log

Job Adjustments

As always with job adjustements at this point, any final numbers and potency changes can be found in the complete Patch Notes which will be released at the start of the Maintenance on May 23!

• Primarily made balance adjustments to damage output within each role.
  • No large-scale changes implemented.
• Extended the radius of several party buffs to 30 yalms.
  • (Mainly buffs to abilities that contribute to increased damage dealt or reduced damage taken.)
• Improved usability of certain Job Actions.
  • Paladin: Execution of Atonement will no longer interrupt a combo.
  • Dragoon: Jump and High Jump will no longer affect the character’s position as recognized by the server. in accordance with this change, both actions can now be performed while bound.

PvP Updates

• PvP Series Four begins
• Season Seven of Crystalline Conflict
  • Begining in Season Seven, players who place within the top 100 rankings or Diamond tier and above will receive additional rewards, including an item that will allow them to apply an effect to their hellhound weapons.

Frontline Adjustments

• New UI element displaying match time and score
• Adjustments to Limit Gauge fill rate/damage dealt/damage taken on a per-job basis
  • (Changes to existing Frontline modifiers)
• Daily Challenge: Frontline will now also award Series EXP
• Borderland Ruins (Secure) temporarily unavailable
• The Fields of Glory (Shatter) rules adjusted
  • Changes to terrain and placement of Icebound Tomeliths
  • Data (score) acquisition has been adjusted as follows:
    • Allagan Tomeliths have been removed, and thus can no longer be occupied for data.
    • Large and small Icebound Tomeliths will now respawn.
    • Data acquired from defeating other players is unchanged.

Live Demonstrations

The next segment of the Live Letter started out with a quick look at the upcoming MSQ Trial The Voidcast Dais. If you like to see the arena and the first minute or so of the fight, check out the the VOD on YouTube here.

Before going to the next demo, Naoki Yoshida showed off some of the new weapon and glamour designs coming in the next Patch. Those include the winners of the Weapon Design contest, which will serve as our new Tomestone weapons, whereas the Tomestone gear was designed by the devs themselves.

Following our slideshow of prints, we got a first taste of Pandæmonium Anabaseios and the boss of the ninth floor, Magus Cocytus. The gameplay portion can be found here. During the presentation, Yoshida mentioned that each floor would have a very different feel to them with both the arena and the bosses changing drastically from one another.

On top of that and as mentioned previously, not only will the Savage release be one week later after the Normal mode, the loot rules will also be changed quite a bit:

Savage Raid Reward Changes

• Adjustements to treasure coffers awarded in Pandæmonium: Anabaseios (Savage):
  • Coffers will not reward duplicate armor pieces for the same slot.
  • Body gear can be earned from Anabaseios: The Eleventh Circle.
• A single treasure coffer will appear at the end of each Pandæmonium: Anabaseios (Savage) encounter (reward quantity unchanged from prevcious tiers*)
  • *Rewards will be reduced if 1 to 4 players hav already completed the duty, and there will be no rewards if 5 or more players have completed it.
• Anabaseios Mythos Exchange
  • Body Gear cost will change from 8 to 6 Mythos IV books
  • Leg Gear cost will change from 8 to 6 Mythos III books
  • Accessories Gear cost will change from 4 to 3 Mythos I books
• Mythos IV may be exchanged for Mythos I through III at a 1:1 rate

This concluded the first half of the Letter from the Producer Live LXXVII. Square Enix showed their latest Japanese Final Fantasy XIV ad as well as a video of the 2022 Eorzean Symphony. And with his shoulder rested and the support of live chat cheering him on, Yoshida returned after the break with a quick rundown of the Raid gear and weapon sets, before the next big update coming on May 23.

Island Sanctuary Update

• New Sanctuary ranks and visions
• New gathering area in the Wilds
• New construction plots in the Hideaway
• New item rewards
• New materials, craftable items, crops, animals, and Isleworks Handicrafts
• New structures
• Support for outdoor furnishings added to the Hideaway
  • Furnishings can be placed near structures
  • A maximum of 90 slots can be unlocked via Island Sanctuary progress
  • Special furnishings like Striking Dummies and Gardens will not be supported
• Island Sanctuary Furnishings
  • Furnishings in your inventory may be placed on your Isle as glamours.
    • (Furnishings placed as glamours will be bound to you, but not consumed. Thus, multiple glamours can be placed based on a single item.)
  • Island Prisms may be used to register furnishings, allowing you to place them even when not held in your inventory (note that registering them will bind them to you).
    • Number of Island Prisms yielded from Crafting will be increased in the future.
  • You may change the color of your furnishing glamours with dyes.

A extended look at the new feature as well as some of the items you will be able to place was shown on stream, check out the VOD here for an extended look, followed by even more prints of the new glamours and items you can unlock through Island Sanctuary.

Variant & Criterion Dungeon #2: Mount Rokkon

Leaving our Island Sanctuary behind, the next Live Letter segment sent us to the Far East and to the next Variant & Criterion Dungeon. If you’re already familiar with the system, you can ignore this first reminder of how these special dungeons work. Naoki Yoshida explained the mode for everyone else, so here is your reminder:

Variant Dungeons Overview

• Variant Actions
  • Duty Actions designed to compensate for Role Imbalances
  • Access two at a time with the ability to change mid-duty.
    • (Actions cannot be changed during battle or while recast timer is on cooldown.)

Criterion Dungeons Overview

• Level 90 high-difficulty challenge for four-player Parties
• Party must comprise one tank, one healer, and two DPS
• Visually similar to Variant Dungeons, but overall structure/enemy strength are entirely different, route is predetermined, and no NPCs accompany you
• Criterion Dungeon #2: Another Mount Rokkon & Another Mount Rokkon (Savage)
• “Another” dungeons are high-difficulty by default, with “Savage” providing additional challenges

Another Mount Rokkon

• Parties of fewer than four players supplemented via matching
• Normal methods of resurrection are prohibited, but each player is granted limited use of Variant Raise II
  • (All other Variant Actions are unavailable)
• Defeated enemies do not revive after party KO

Another Mount Rokkon (Savage)

• For pre-formed Parties of four (matching unavailable)
• All methods of resurrection and Variant Actions are prohibited!
• All defeated enemies revive after Party KO!
• Enemies become much stronger if not defeated within a certain time limit!

After an extensive look at the new minions, mounts and other rewards that you can get through various means in 6.4, the Live Letter concluded with the last part:

Announcements and Merchandise

First up was a reminder of the Fan Festival dates, with an additional note that the North American FanFest in Las Vegas will be livestreamed on YouTube and Twitch – save for the concerts, of course. More information on the streams will be announced soon!

Attendees of either of the three FanFests will get an early chance to try their hands on a new Special Battle: The Gilded Araya. It is planned to be implemented into the game at a later time. Prior battles like this are the Odin and the Yojimbo trials that were shown off at FanFests first and later introduced into the game proper.

With the release of 6.4 also comes an update to the official Immerse Gamepack for Final Fantasy XIV, which should provide smoother transitions when changeing directions and bringing further depth and clarity to environmental audio through an extended sound library.

Of course, no Live Letter at this point would be complete without a nod towards Final Fantasy XVI which releases in just over a month on June 22! And as the questions about a collaberation between Final Fantasy XIV and XVI have come up every single time, Naoki Yoshida said that there won’t be any official announcement about one before the release of the latest installment in the series. There will be more events and announcement streams for Final Fantasy XVI before its launch.

And of course, with A Realm Reborn‘s 10th anniversary this year, there will also be more announcements regarding more collaborations soon. Before ending the stream, Yoshida already announced, that the next Letter from the Producer Live will be from the North American FanFest!

And this concludes our summary for today. Best of luck saving Hyrule or unlocking these last few Series Milestones before 6.4! And don’t forget that the Moogle Treasure Trove will also end with the release of 6.4!

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All images courtesy of Square Enix.