FFXIV at E3 2017: Playing Stormblood’s New and Returning Content
Twinfinite: You recently said that you would be reducing the amount of new dungeons that enter FFXIV, with two appearing in some patches, and one in another. How will this change the expert roulette? Will there be less or more dungeons included? Or will it work completely different for Stormblood?
Yoshida: Just to reiterate, for the even numbered patches, where your item level has the opportunity to significantly go up, we will have the same number of two instanced dungeons added to those patches. The off patches, where your item level stays relatively the same, we will implement one new instanced dungeon.
So with the odd numbered numbered patches where you’re only having one instanced dungeon added, it might be stemming from people worrying “oh will we not be able to utilize the roulette” but we’re actually going to make it so the two instanced dungeons that are added in the even numbered patches and the one dungeon that are added in the odd numbered patches are all usable within the roulette.
First and foremost, there are just way too many instanced dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV. We have a whopping 49 of them.
We’ve also noticed a trend that there are fewer and fewer people actually going out to do these instanced dungeons on the roulette to go and collect the Allagan Tomestones.
Back when it was A Realm Reborn, the only way to get Allagan Tomestones was to go on the roulettes and do those instanced dungeon content. But nowadays, you can obtain Allagan Tomestones through PvP, through Wondrous Tails (yes this is spelled right in this context), many different methods; looking at the data for our player trends, during these odd numbered patches, we’ve seen that there are less and less people just going through the expert roulette.
Instead of allocating resources and forcing us to try and have two instanced dungeons implemented in our odd numbered patches, since we’re seeing this trend of less people going through the roulettes, we felt it would be more effective to utilize that resource to provide something that is a new challenge, so to speak. Rather than allocating the full resources to create two full dungeons, maybe perhaps offer a hardcore content that you can challenge with four players in your party instead.
Writer’s note: I clarified after this answer that during the even numbered patches there will be two dungeons in the roulette. The one that is added in the odd numbered patch will bring the expert roulette to three dungeons in total. And when the next even numbered patch rolls around, the expert roulette would be cleared out and return to containing just the two dungeons that were just added.
Twinfinite: FFXIV Content with Free Companies coordination in mind is an issue that comes up a lot. Heavensward has definitely given FCs more content to work together on. How might this continue to evolve in Stormblood?
We do have plans. Of course it won’t start at the launch of Stormblood, 4.0, but we do have plans in place for 4.1 and 4.2. So the subsequent 4.X patch series will see more updates within the free company activities.
Ivalice inspired content will be present in Stormblood. What about the worlds of FF12 and FF Tactics do you enjoy the most and are particularly excited about potentially touching in FFXIV’s take on Ivalice?
First and foremost, the Ivalice alliance saga, that has been referenced within Final Fantasy Tactics or Final Fantasy 12, and the Ivalice we’re introducing in Return to Ivalice; how they are related is actually the biggest mystery of the content. So we can’t say anything at the time but we do want to mention that Final Fantasy Tactics is celebrating its 20th anniversary. So it might be worth it to dig it up and try playing it again. If asked whether FF12 versus Final Fantasy Tactics [would be more worth catching up on], we would encourage to get a refresher on Final Fantasy Tactics. BUT! We are releasing the HD remaster, The Zodiac Age!!! [laughter]
Twinfinite: So far in FFXIV, major cities have been underutilized as player hubs, at least in comparison to smaller towns such as Mor Dhona and Idyllshire. Is this by design, or something you think develops organically from the players? Do you anticipate this will be the case again in Stormblood?
Yoshida: To answer the latter part of your question, I think the team has made the effort to change it so it’s not like that. If he (Yoshida) says too much about it, we’re worried that he will be leaving too much of an impression potentially. Plus it ties very strongly into the main story, so we’re not going reveal too much but we want to reiterate that we believe that we have changed it up for Stormblood.
But with Kugane though the development team tried to make it so it’s just fun be in, to enjoy the town itself. There are different attractions, things to do within the town that you can enjoy, so we’re hoping that a lot of players will gather to our sort of main town of Kugane.
Twinfinite: This last question is a selfish one for me since I’m a Summoner. Is there any update to when Summoners can expect additional Egi Glamours.
Yoshida: Ah well then we’ll have to take away Bahamut then! [everyone laughs] We brought you Bahamut, why can’t you be satisfied with that?! [laughter] But yeah we’ll continue to update glamour for your Egi. I think we were able to do the Carbuncles and next up we’ll probably look into some of the other summons perhaps.
