FFXIV Live Letter #45 Summary – Patch 4.4 Preview Part 1 & MHW Collab

People wanted me to do these, but the last live letter was in English, and then I didn’t wake up in time for this one (granted, I didn’t try very hard), but well… better late than never?

Presented in stream order because if I have to sit through all that app and Feast stuff first, you do too.

Yoshida Uncensored updates will resume tomorrow. Persona backlog: P3D/P5D artbook stuff, O.A. dialogue updates (Ren, Takemi, taking longer since I have to manually transcribe everything now that they changed the setup… WTB someone who’s better at reverse engineering than me). Also worked/working on some stuff for other people.

Table of Contents
1. Patch 4.36
2. Companion App
3. The Feast Regional Championship 2018
4. Patch 4.4 – Prelude in Violet
5. Monster Hunter World Collaboration
6. Other Announcements

I. Patch 4.36

Coming August 7
The Forbidden Land, Eureka: Pagos
- Snow-themed map
- New morbol minion – for some reason the morbol NMs in FFXI had names like Hollywood actresses, so they gave it a dress
- New tarutaru minion – “it’s not a lalafell”
- Eureka weapon upgrades – sample screenshot is an intermediary stage; the final stage has “really flashy” glow effects

II. Companion App

Coming late July or early August; doing final tests and checks but it will still have to pass iOS/Android app store verifications afterwards
Recap of how to use the app
Free Functions:
- Chat/Scheduler – sync your friend list and communicate with others via the app, use the scheduler to plan events and send invites
  - Supports (or will support) linkshell and FC chat as well
  - The scheduler shows a calendar and sends notifications to your phone
- Inventory Management – organize your inventory and armoury chest
- Market Board – purchase items and put items up for sale in real time
- Register an additional favoured teleport destination in-game for the character registered with the app
- Login Bonuses – receive 1 kupo nut each day, which allows you to trick a moogle into purchasing an item on the market board for you
Moogle Coins – Companion App Currency
- You can use moogle coins to request moogle services more often:
  - Putting items up for sale, revising market listings, purchasing items
  - Additional services will be added in the future based on user feedback
Premium Subscription
- ¥540 / $5.00 / €5.00 / £4.50 for 30 days
- Access to an additional retainer – Yoshi-P says that if you think it’s expensive, you can dismiss one of your existing paid retainers to lower the overall cost
- Organize saddlebags and retainer inventories
- Doubled saddlebag capacity in-game
- 1 additional daily kupo nut login bonus, plus higher maximum capacity

III. The Feast Regional Championship 2018

Preliminaries currently underway
Rest of the slides are the same as before, just going over the rules again

IV. Patch 4.4 – Prelude in Violet

Coming mid-September 2018
- The Japanese patch title translates to “Prelude of Madness”
- Players that started in 2.0 probably don’t recognize the old man in the background of the patch art: Emperor Solus zos Galvus, the founder of the Garlean Empire
New Main Scenario Quests
New Side Story Quests
- The Four Lords – includes a fight this time
- Hildibrand – probably in 4.45
New Sidequests
- Doman Reconstruction – completion of the story
New Dungeons
- The Burn (tentative name)
  - Location is already marked on the map, so lore fans may have heard of it
  - Too many primal summons were attempted here, so all of the aether dried up and the land died
  - When Emperor Solus saw this, he enacted the primal extermination policy
  - Ties into the main scenario
- Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum (Hard)
  - When Yoshi-P was checking the normal mode dungeon before release, the Morbol boss spun in random directions nonstop for its breath attack, and the person in charge is still traumatized from how angry Yoshi-P was–but he improved from there and went on to create the Kefka fight
New Trials
- Suzaku & Suzaku (Extreme) – has a crazy transition
New Raids
- Omega: Alphascape & Omega: Alphascape (Savage)
Battle System Updates
- Job Adjustments – no major system updates, but small adjustments are continuing
- Role Action slots increased to 10 (insert Morbol WTF reaction and Yoshi-P sheepish “yeah…”)
PvP Updates
- “Timed Attack” (tentative name) with countdown added to Quick Chat (for some reason I thought this already existed)
- PvP-specific HUD layouts can be adjusted at Wolves’ Den Pier
The Forbidden Land, Eureka: 3rd Installment
- Currently already being balanced
- New region
- “Logos Action System” added
  - Example: A DPS can temporarily become a tank and gain increased enmity (although they’ll probably die instantly when the effect wears off)
  - A bunch of actions that would be ridiculously unbalanced in regular maps
  - Some actions are role-locked, others aren’t
  - Will be even more important in the 4th installment
- Eureka Weapons update
  - Armour upgrade as well
The Lost Canals of Uznair Expansion
- New dungeons added
- Random chance to enter, mechanics inside have nothing to do with doors, there’s a giant roulette spinner on the floor
Gathering and Crafting Updates
- New recipes added, including new tier of crafted equipment
- New fishing holes added in the Doman Enclave
- Zhloe Aliapoh custom deliveries rewards adjusted
- (Not written on slide) New custom deliveries NPC added
Grand Company Updates
- “Captain” rank unlocked
- Squadron updates:
  - New Command Missions added
  - New Squadron Missions added (to attain Captain rank)
- Earlier squadron content adjusted to make it easier for people to catch up
Housing Updates
- “Mannequin” indoor furnishing added
  - Gear equipped to mannequin can be sold on the market board as a bundle (more info in next live letter)
- New customization features added
  - Like how you can set your player status to RP, now you can set a RP status for your house showing off what it is (e.g. a bar, maze, shop), and people will be able to see it on the housing board
Gold Saucer Updates
- New GATE added: Platforming Puzzles (see screenshot, replica of the ruins that can be seen from Highbridge)
  - 120 people can enter at once
  - Bronze/silver/gold statues located along the way that give rewards (and come with their own risks)
  - More locations will be added in the future based on what people want to see
Ceremony of Eternal Bonding Feature Expansion
- New ceremonies added
- Anniversary ceremonies added – if you’ve forgotten your anniversary date, the Companion App will remind you!
Group Pose Update
- Minion actions, player walking/running motions added
- Time/weather lock setting added
- New screen effects added
Additional Updates
- New Allagan Tomestone added
- Crystal Tower requirements revised – FATEs removed, changed to regular quests involving Nero
- Duty Recorder – recordable duties increased, features revised (some features removed because it was taking way too long to debug)
- The Unending Journey features expanded – ability to view branching dialogue
- Configuration Data now saved server-side (except for display settings)
  - Keybinds, macros, etc.
  - You can save from character select screen; be careful not to overwrite it!

V. Monster Hunter World Collaboration

Special guests: Monster Hunter World Executive Director & Art Director Kaname Fujioka and Director Yuuya Tokuda
The MHW side of the collaboration launches as a free update on August 2nd
- Main Objective: Slay the Behemoth
- Conditions: Hunter Rank 16 or higher
- Obtain materials to forge collaboration armour based on the DRG job gear and a moogle companion
  - FFXIV is an MMO so they have polygon limits, but in MHW everything is rendered in full quality
- More content to come – there will be story content in addition to just quests
Full trailer for the FFXIV side of the collaboration:

Rathalos, King of the Skies
- The hunt begins on August 7th! (Same as Patch 4.36)
- Requirements: Level 70, completed the MSQ “Stormblood”
The Great Hunt & The Great Hunt (Extreme)
- Since they wanted to make it like MHW, Rathalos has no enmity table and roles don’t matter
- Watch the boss’ movements to determine whether to attack or dodge
- Starting partway through, you get a debuff that means you can only heal with mega potions, and you can only carry up to 10 at a time (you also won’t find any honey on the field)
- There are parts where you destroy parts of the monster, but because of content ratings they can’t show it visually (and they can’t apply for additional content rating until the next expansion, so when they do….)
- Normal mode
  - 1-8 players, item level 320+
  - Will be included in DF roulette, so don’t worry about not being able to clear it right away
- Extreme mode
  - 1-4 players, item level 350+
  - If you wipe 3 times, the duty is failed and “that cutscene” will play
  - Automatically raise after a set amount of time has passed
Rewards:
- No weapons, but full armour sets based on what Eorzean craftsmen would make out of the materials from Rathalos
  - Two types, one is undyeable and one is dyeable, made from different materials
- Outdoor furnishing: Campfire meat set
- Minion: Poogie
- Minion: Felyne
- Mount: Rathalos – plays BGM from MH
Comment from Tokuda: There are at least 20 WoLs on the MHW development team and it’s especially popular with the programmers – some of the ones who aren’t in a leadership role are actually leaders of respectable FCs in Eorzea. There are so many WoLs that whenever a new FFXIV patch comes out, everyone disappears, and when you ask why no one is around, they just say “It’s patch day”

VI. Other Announcements

Fan Festival 2018 in Las Vegas is sold out
- For NA Fan Fest 2016, it took 10 hours for tickets to sell out
- This time they raised the venue capacity, but there were 6,000 people in the virtual queue in the first 2 minutes
- There was an access code required, but the ticket vendor’s servers were about to crash (taking the queue down with it), so the vendor disabled the verification briefly (about 500 people) to avoid that
- On the forums, there was outrage over people being able to purchase tickets without the code, but they examined all of the people who bought tickets during that time and determined that all of them were eligible players (but of course, this shouldn’t have happened in the first place)
- They recognize that the demand is greater than what they planned for, and when they plan the next fan fest, they will seriously consider a larger venue
- They need to revisit their ticket sale methods (currently in Japan they use a lottery system while NA/EU are first come first serve)
Fan Festival 2018 in Paris
- Ticket pre-sale for active players begins July 23
- General sale begins July 30
Sponsors for the Feast Regional Championship in Japan are Alienware and Intel
FFXIV 5th Anniversary
- August 31 @ 8 p.m. PDT – 14-hour broadcast with live letter, talk sessions with special guests, and other celebrations
- FFXIV will appear in the Aomori Nebuta Festival with a chocobo/fat cat/bomb float and a moogle/cactuar/namazu float
  - The festival is August 2-7, and the FFXIV floats will appear August 3-6 from 7:10 p.m. – 9 p.m. JST and August 7 from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. JST
- FFXIV collaboration with accessory brand CHAN LUU
  - Job bracelets (all 15 jobs are available), pre-orders are open in Japan and will begin in NA/EU at a later date
  - ¥14,000 / NA price TBD / EU price TBD
- Vote for your favourite FFXIV songs!
  - The top voted songs will be included in a best-of album released this fall
  - Voting period July 16 – August 10 at 7:59 a.m. PDT
  - https://sqex.to/vHC (Last I checked this page was only in Japanese)
Free Login Campaign
- Eligible players can play for free up to 96 hours (see Lodestone for details on eligibility)
- July 16 at 12:00 a.m. – August 2 at 7:59 a.m. PDT
FFXIV at gamescom 2018
- August 21 – August 25
- Battle challenge & stage events
Eorzean Symphony in Dortmund, Germany
- August 24 at 8 p.m. / August 25 at 8 p.m.
- Tickets are nearly sold out
Eorzea Cafe in Yokohama open again for limited time only, with new exclusive menu items
- July 20 to September 2
Eorzea Cafe 4th Anniversary Stamp Rally
- Receive 1 stamp for each item ordered, collect 10 stamps to get 1 of 15 acrylic stands
- July 20 to September 2, available at all branches (Akihabara/Osaka/Yokohama)
New Merchandise: Spriggan Plushie, comes with indoor furnishing: Stuffed Spriggan
- Releases July 20, 2018 – preorders open now
- ¥3,200+tax / $34.99 / £29.99 / €34.99
Encyclopædia Eorzea II is in the works!
- Japanese and English versions
- 304 pages, 8 chapters covering new topics like cultures/traditions across the three great continents, geography/people/races of the Eastern lands, etc.
- On sale November 24, preorders for the Japanese version begin today
- English version will debut at Fan Festival in Las Vegas, preorders for non-attendees will be announced at a later date
- ¥4,000+tax / $49.99
- Comes with bonus in-game item: Matoya’s Hat (single-character only)

なんでもない