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Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker |OT|

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
Next gen grass confirmed
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Whoa
 

YukiOnna

Member
Island Sanctuary is 6.2! Yoshi-P says its quite big content wise.
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Criterion Dungeon is a new type of gameplay which has variable difficulty depending on the amount of people participating (1, 2, 3, or 4). A New type of challenge.
 
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YukiOnna

Member
Scenario/Lore Q&A answers:
- It's a secret what Azem was doing during the Final Days. You are the WoL, what would you do?
- Zenos has memories of the Final Days because he is a direct descendant of Emet-Selch. Also read Tales from the Shadows
- Zenos's "ultimate fate" is depicted at length and he stops breathing.
- As for why Zenos became a Reaper and his Avatar... that is a secret and he is sworn to silence right now
- Emet living when Hydaelyn sundered the world was not a guarantee.
- During the sundering, Emet was Lahabrea and the Elidibus of the time escapted into a Rift and escaped the sundering
- There are still sundered Ascians around but he can't say anything else.
- The masks Gaius had belonged to Ultima and Deudalaphon. They may not be vanquished
- Yoshi-P can't say much about how much time has passed. The trailers work on a 2-2.5 years have passed but they dont reflect the game
- Emet and Hythlodaeus completed their role so there is no reason for them to reincarnate from the Aetherial Sea
- Only those close to WoL are familiar with the planets name Etheirys
- life became incomplete and that allowed races to develop differing traits and continued to diverge after the sundering
- All places Emet name dropped will someday be visited.
- They name drop a lot of locations that players eventually went to and they plan to continue doing that so expect it
- Ancients appear larger than humans in Elpis but when summoned with Azem's magic they appear smaller
- Ultima Thule is governed by dynamis so it matches the WoL experience
- Hydaelyn was completely destroyed and Fandaniel killed Zordiark for good
- Zordiark's parts in the Reflections faded when Fandaniel killed Zordiark
- Why WoL didnt create an alternate timeline in Elpis is up to speculation. But it would play out the same no matter what
- Meeting Argos was proof that the timelines would converge like Venat hoped
- Probably wont age the other main cast but doing a what if drawing or something is OK
- Hydaelyn used her soul as Venat completely to fight the WoL so its completely dissipated.
- Hydaelyn and Zordiark had a different summoning and Venat's was weaker
- WoL's Blessing of Light will never disappear and nor would Yoshi-P want it to
- The red sigils over the Ancients faces are the limiter to grand magic for the Convocation
- each one relates to the seat
- All convocation members names and true identities are set. Whether they reveal them later on depends on the story's direction
- The Dead Ends final boss was the fate they envisioned for the Ancients had they kept going
- The Reflections' moons have story significance and it will be revealed in the story later on

General Q&A details:
- Yoshi-P was particular about the solo duties, cutscenes, dialogue timing etc.
- Amano designed the final trial boss
- In addition to DRK, a whole bunch of jobs are getting adjusted for 6.1
- They monitor feedback and are aiming to fulfill as many requests in 6.1
- 6.1 will have more glamour plates
- Yoshi-P has had enough of Housing questions "We can't keep up. Live in Ishgard first"
- (Asked about whether Zenos, Emet/Hades will get minions )Yoshi-P holds back putting out minions for characters whose role in the story has not ended yet... but he will consider it for those two so maybe during Endwalker 6.x
- Female Hrothgar is still in the works. They haven't forgotten
- Yoshi-P reminds you that these are the last races we'll add and FemHrothgar is the last one he wants to do.
 
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NahaNago

Member
Finally got back into the game, hadn't played since a little bit after the reboot. I've been mostly enjoying myself and chuckling at how empty gridania and the desert city is( forgot the name). I was debating if I should just create a new build but I put too many hours into my old character to just drop him.
 

YukiOnna

Member
Better translation on the bit regarding Zenos from @aitaikimochi since some of the translation and implications was missed by Kate
ya3SAjE.jpg

Correction for 3rd answer: "it's just NOT something that I CAN delve into at the moment"
 

YukiOnna

Member
He's left in a separate dimension that is not bound by the same laws.... which implies that him "dying" might not actually mean he's dead.
Animated GIF
He's the only one Yoshi-P remains inconclusive on unlike Emet and Hythlo where he explicitly says those two are done... and his comment about the Reaper/Avatar or the minion thing... Best friend!!
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
The utter lack of Blue Mage info tells me to unsub until 7.0 which is probably a smart decision since I'll have a truckload of content and easy catch up gear through poetics. And maybe a new race.

Not a fan of how to me the xpac has effectively broken the classes in half. I feel really bad for healers especially with his answer of you want to heal go play Ultimate and suffer.

Just oof.
 

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
Made it to Endwalker tonight. Almost there. I've been playing this game nonstop since August. I have 6 games on backlog because of this monster and I know now I won't enjoy any of them 1/4th as much as I've enjoyed this game.

are my ears deceiving me or is Emet Selch the narrator
 

YukiOnna

Member
Made it to Endwalker tonight. Almost there. I've been playing this game nonstop since August. I have 6 games on backlog because of this monster and I know now I won't enjoy any of them 1/4th as much as I've enjoyed this game.

are my ears deceiving me or is Emet Selch the narrator
Nice. Have fun. I hope you find fulfilment by the end...

And yes it is.
 

YukiOnna

Member
Post Live Letter Interview summary from iluna minori on the discord and MKillerby of reddit. It was conducted by 4Gamer, Game Watch and Gamer.

On the new story chapters post Hydaelyn-Zodiark arc
  • The concept returns to "adventure", the WoL, once again take the helm of a normal adventurer and head towards solving new mysteries and adventure
  • Yoshi-P says the 1st story arc was only called the “Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc” from around 5.0, it wasn't thought of like that in 2.0 or 3.0
  • He’s not sure yet if the next story arc will be as long as the first one
  • While Endwalker resolved most of the foreshadowing, there are still mysteries about the world of FF14 to be discovered
  • The storyboard for the next trailer expansion (for 7.0) is now underway
  • Patch 6.1 will make players go "Wait what?" in various places, and that may make players get more and more confused and wondering where 7.0 will be heading

Regarding an Intermediate Hall or helping with more advanced mechanics...
  • Devs do think it's a task to tackle on. They do however think that the instance dungeons you'll tackle throughout the main story can serve as a venue for self-learning. They do acknowledge that there isn't something that is more akin to a learning venue that's available for players and think it's something to address on and they're discussing with the staff right now to see if that can be tackled
Regarding Dungeons, 4-man Trials, and Squadrons for 6.1 onwards
  • The Trust AIs are very much upgraded.
  • Aurum Vale is an optional dungeon in the main story portion of the game so it will NOT be converted.
  • Trust system will not be referred to as "Trust system" anymore coming Patch 6.1
  • You CANNOT level the dungeon specific supporters. But they do have special interactions. Nameless adventurers will not actually have that many dialogues.
  • Main Story Roulette will be gone, Yoshida thinks.
  • It will be consolidated as part of the dungeons available for Duty Roulette: Leveling
  • Ultima Weapon will be similar to the ones with Titan and Ifrit back in the story mode of ARR
  • Gaius will not be given much information since he’s the key character of ARR therefore is somewhat a spoiler
  • Magitek Armor gimmick will be entirely changed
  • That 2 Instance Dungeons that was made in a hurry and ignored the usual content format will no longer be played in the future. So do your farewells or something.
  • Squadron System might be overhauled to utilize the same exact system as the Trusts after everything is updated
Other
  • There will be various levels of optimization applied to the PS4 version of the game throughout the 6.x series
  • they aim to make sure the game runs smoothly, more so than before and from there, apply the first graphical updates to PS4 as well
  • Regarding character creation expansion: This is a completely separate problem altogether. At this level they can't really disclose whether to do it or not.
  • The request for the graphics update came from Yoshi-P
 
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Faust

Perpetually Tired
So are we going to start seeing graphical upgrades in these patches or is it only from 7.0 onwards?
 

YukiOnna

Member
So are we going to start seeing graphical upgrades in these patches or is it only from 7.0 onwards?
From my understanding they will work on it during 6.x and drop it with 7.0. Since he said they were 5 weeks in and the spec requirements will be bumped with the next expansion. Looks like PS4 optimization might come during 6.x though
 

Faust

Perpetually Tired
From my understanding they will work on it during 6.x and drop it with 7.0. Since he said they were 5 weeks in and the spec requirements will be bumped with the next expansion. Looks like PS4 optimization might come during 6.x though
Awesome! The game looks amazing as is, but I do hope they fix some of the super low textures like Doma Bros clothes.
 

YukiOnna

Member
Yoshi-P's full response regarding the story going forward is pretty interesting. I put it through DeepL:

Yoshida: In terms of the concept, I would say it is [Adventure]. Currently, players have the title of "Hero" or "Warrior of Light" attached to them. But I'd like to deliver new adventures where you are just the sole Adventurer again facing various mysteries just as you did at the start of 2.0. The so-called Hydaelyn and Zordiark Saga was something I suddenly started talking about around 5.0. But I'm not sure if I was thinking about that back around the production of 2.0 or 3.0. In the future, I don't know if we'll write another saga of the same length.

And to be honest, most of the story foreshadowing has been resolved in Endwalker. However, of course I still have many ideas for the mysteries that still lie in the world and in the process of writing them, If we feel the desire to make a bigger story out of each adventure that the players are excited about, we will steer the story in that direction again. So right now, I'm not sure if we'll be writing the saga of the same length or not.

In the first half, we are returning to the concept of delivering each separate story to the best of our ability. I think the impact of Shadowbringers and Endwalker was partly due to the cost of revealing the parts of the story that we had been working towards for years. So I'm not sure if 7.0 will have the same level of impact and that's why it's necessary for things to be built up again.

That said, our goal is to make the game as satisfying as possible, so our current feeling is to work together with the players to pile up stones one by one on the riverbank and see how high we can go.


Awesome! The game looks amazing as is, but I do hope they fix some of the super low textures like Doma Bros clothes.
Yep all clothing/equipment and NPC are planned to be updated. Unfortunately, since they are doing it in phases due to the sheer amount of assets, it will be rolled out where all 7.0 gear will have it and then priority to popular glamour and then the rest. NPC's will be the same where some NPC's will be done first and others in 7.x.

RTX ON/RTX OFF memes will be going on for a bit. But at least it's a long term process.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Hopefully next xpac has better pacing. Endwalker pacing and sense of urgency was hot garbage. Shadowbringers was so much better.
 
Hopefully next xpac has better pacing. Endwalker pacing and sense of urgency was hot garbage. Shadowbringers was so much better.
I'm still of the opinion that Shadowbringers had the worst pacing of the expansions, but I've only gone through Endwalker once so that opinion may change on my alt playthrough. The highs in ShB are high, but the lows are LOW.

That's why I still think Heavensward is the best. IMO, the only lows in HW are when it's quickly wrapping up dangling ARR plotlines.
 
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MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
I'm still of the opinion that Shadowbringers had the worst pacing of the expansions, but I've only gone through Endwalker once so that opinion may change on my alt playthrough. The highs in ShB are high, but the lows are LOW.

That's why I still think Heavensward is the best. IMO, the only lows in HW are when it's quickly wrapping up dangling ARR plotlines.
Heavensward was probably the best expansion storywise and battle system wise. Stormblood was the beginning of the end. They really started to screw jobs in ShB and the trend continues in EW. Where in my opinion Tanks are OP, Healers unneeded and DPS have classes that do things better then everyone else in proper Warframe fashion.

Oh well maybe 7.0 will be better.
 

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
I can only comment on the game as it exists today, but I don't think any of the expansions have particularly bad pacing (Endwalker not included since I just started). Weakest is probably Stormblood but that is because its more grounded and less fantastical than Heavensward or Shadowbringers. The lowest low point for me was probably Heavenswards Western Coerthas and Dravanian Hinterlands because they're hard to get around. But that's about it
 

YukiOnna

Member
I don't think I really have a major issue with pacing in any of the expansions. Just each has their many highs and a couple of lows. Thankfully, Stormblood addressed the Ul'dah subplot stuff, but it can't fix things like how Haurchefant was handled or how Estinien and Ysayle never really worked for me as a party. For Shadowbringers, it was the Fae of Il Mheg and parts of Rak'tika. For Stormblood it was the very beginning.

Endwalker is really hard to judge. I'm too emotionally attached so even the smallest moments hit hard for me so maybe in a few years or something I'll notice, lol.

Battle system wise, I don't really have any complaints 4.0 onwards. It works and the jobs I played never felt hurt that much, but that is a selfish look at it as I don't care about looking at it broadly outside of the ones I play. My issue more so lied with Shadowbringers dungeons, they had a weird structure and I didn't enjoy any of the 5.x ones outside of the final one.
 

YukiOnna

Member
Yoshi-P and Soken's Liner Notes from the Endwalker OST

Liner Notes
Producer & Director
Naoki Yoshida


How...how can this be? I could've sworn I wrote liner notes just a few days ago! (For 5.x series, anyway)

The days and months have gone by in a flash. 6.0 has been released, and now the soundtrack is on its way as well. To be honest, it's hard for me to muster up the energy to be excited. Like its name suggests, Endwalker is the culmination of FFXIV up to this point, and I likewise worked on it as a culmination of my career. However, not only was the release delayed by two weeks -- a bending of policy at my whim -- we also had to suspend sales due to unprecedented congestion. I've never been so exhausted...

And so, this time I'm going to be less hands-on and more "delegatory"!

I'm sure that Soken had a great many things to say about what he strove for in this soundtrack, and I'm sure that he worded it beautifully. He is the sound director, after all.

If I had to guess, his comments probably include:

"Putting this soundtrack together was a nightmare!"
"What the hell is this project!?"
"And it's not ending with Endwalker!?"
"I don't have time to write liner notes!"

...Yes, something along those lines. How do I know this? Because it's what he always writes.

While Endwalker has brought the Warrior of Light's "first journey" to its conclusion, more adventures await on the horizon. These adventures aren't going to make themselves, so I'm going to roll up my sleeves and get back to work. Suffice it to say, wherever the journey leads, it will be accompanied by breathtaking music (so let's get to it, Soken!).

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida, listening to "Close in the Distance"

Liner Notes
Sound Director
Masayoshi Soken


Hello, Warriors of Light!
I'm Soken -- Sound Director at Square Enix and provider of music, sound effects, audio engineering, and live broadcast hype for Final Fantasy XIV.

It's the day after the launch of early access for Endwalker, and I've been working through the night with a team of programmers to sort and resolve a slew of reported sound issues. With this expansion, the sound team faced a healthy share of new challenges -- from sound engine improvements to the implementation of Immerse (middleware that allows players to enjoy surround sound in their existing stereo sound setup) -- and with the number of Warriors of light that have amassed on the shores of Eorzea, we had to be extra thorough in debugging these sound updates by testing across numerous environments. We racked our brains day in and day out trying to come up with solutions to the many issues that occur in Windows's sound environment -- an array as infinite as the starts in the sky. As a developer, it's been a hellish experience, but a previous learning opportunity all the same.

All of which begs the question: why on earth is today the deadline for these liner notes?!

Anyhow, can you believe it's already been eight and a half years since FFXIV was reborn -- and eleven and a half years since the original release? I'm coming up on my 24th year working int he games industry, which means I've devoted nearly half of my career to working on this game. Back when I was a snot-nosed kid, never in a million years did I think I'd grow up like this. The Famicon was in its heyday, and the lifespan of a game was about three months...but now, I've somehow worked on a single game for eleven and a half years! What!?

Midlife crises aside, in this expansion we find the truth at the heart of our tale of Hydaelyn, making it a finale of sorts -- it even has "End" in the name! As part of the team trying to make that finale satisfying, I can tell you firsthand that the pressure was no joke. "Hey, just create the perfect culmination of this ten-year journey real quick," right? Whatever constraints I've had, I still put my all into every release thus far -- so how can I sum that all up? How much should I pour into Endwalker, so that its' a worthy climax to this saga? My heart's been racing every day from the scale of this undertaking...

Not that FFXIV is going anywhere -- we aren't finished with you yet! This is the end to a massive tale, though, and the culmination of a musical journey that reaches all the way back to 1.0 and has continued through A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers. I crammed as much from those titles as I could into the soundtrack for Endwalker, so I hope it moves you Warriors of Light to reflect on the journeys you've made, as well as those to come. (I'd really like to delve into how we used sound design to capture the story beats, but to save you from spoilers I'll leave it at that, haha.)

When the subject of sound in games comes up, people tend to think of music, but there's so much more to it than that. I hate to sound like a broken record, but aside from music, there are moving 360-degree sound effects linked to polyphonic objects producing 200 or even 300 sounds at the same time, not to mention ambient sounds that have been composed in surround sound to provide a deeper sense of immersion. Then there's voices, for which we prepare scripts, call in voice actors, and record scenes countless times until we get it just right, and our sound engine that provides extremely versatile sound processing and playback without burdensome rendering.

Now, if you came out of my ramblings thinking, "They're sure doing some complex and mysterious things behind the scenes in FFXIV," then you're right, and it's nice to be appreciated. But the real point here is that everything I do, I do because I want as many of you as possible to enjoy your time int eh game and think, "Wow, that's cool!"

Everyone has to start somewhere, so if this soundtrack is what inspires you to take note of the myriad aspects of sound design, I couldn't be happier. I'll continue to do my best to create sound that sparks that interest!

It goes without saying that the tech used to create games is constantly advancing at breakneck speed, which is why the games industry is so exciting, and why it's so hard to leave. Help, I'm in too deep! Anyway, if seeing me go on and on about sound production has somehow garnered your interest in this line of work, then by all means, please contact Square Enix's Sound Division so we can work together! (Let's march through the gates of hell, baby! Haha!)

FINAL FANTASY XIV Sound Director Masayoshi Soken
 

Dr. Claus

Banned
Heavensward was probably the best expansion storywise and battle system wise. Stormblood was the beginning of the end. They really started to screw jobs in ShB and the trend continues in EW. Where in my opinion Tanks are OP, Healers unneeded and DPS have classes that do things better then everyone else in proper Warframe fashion.

Oh well maybe 7.0 will be better.

Beginning of the end? ROFL. That is some planet-sized hyperbole.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Beginning of the end? ROFL. That is some planet-sized hyperbole.
When it comes to skill floor and ceiling very much so. I am not expecting much to change in 6.1 or 7.0 given their need to appeal to more casual audiences.

We are getting pretty close to reaching Healer levels of one button rotations.

This stuff is pretty entertaining to me.

SMN 1 button macro -






Dragon Kick Monk(hug rear and skip positionals, peak Dark Souls gameplay) -



As I've mentioned in previous posts half the classes are effectively broken where other classes are much more engaging and rewarding to play while Healers are largely unneeded. And the Phys ranged classes are just terrible in relation to everyone else. SMN great in dungeons but terrible in Raids.

Dark Knight, Machinist and Healers are going to be looked at they say but I really only expect potency adjustments when DRK needs it's skills/abilities reallocated primarily Stalwart Soul and Dark Missionary being usable by at least 70.

Blood Weapon and Living Dead are also pretty bad.

My sour points has to do with how the jobs play. The content and story despite it's shit pacing is still fantastic. FFXIV is probably going to be around as long as FFXI has been around but over time the combat just gets easier and easier.
 
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Dr. Claus

Banned
When it comes to skill floor and ceiling very much so. I am not expecting much to change in 6.1 or 7.0 given their need to appeal to more casual audiences.

We are getting pretty close to reaching Healer levels of one button rotations.

This stuff is pretty entertaining to me.

SMN 1 button macro -






Dragon Kick Monk(hug rear and skip positionals, peak Dark Souls gameplay) -



As I've mentioned in previous posts half the classes are effectively broken where other classes are much more engaging and rewarding to play while Healers are largely unneeded. And the Phys ranged classes are just terrible in relation to everyone else. SMN great in dungeons but terrible in Raids.

Dark Knight, Machinist and Healers are going to be looked at they say but I really only expect potency adjustments when DRK needs it's skills/abilities reallocated primarily Stalwart Soul and Dark Missionary being usable by at least 70.

Blood Weapon and Living Dead are also pretty bad.

My sour points has to do with how the jobs play. The content and story despite it's shit pacing is still fantastic. FFXIV is probably going to be around as long as FFXI has been around but over time the combat just gets easier and easier.


Makes sense. Sorry thought you were trying to say the entire game was going downhill. Personally I don’t agree with all your points, but I do get where you are coming from.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Despite my criticisms(mainly because I love the game and want it to be the best) FFXIV is one of the best MMOs out there to date. Very few can compare. Game isn't going anywhere for a long long time. Which is good because most MMOS are Korean P2W trash.
 

YukiOnna

Member
Some interviews and Behind the Scenes commentary with Yoshi-P and Ishikawa not posted here yet:

Definitely good reads.
 

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan

Kumomeme

Member
Gabe Newell is on the press tour for Steam Deck (which runs FFXIV btw), and he dropped this quote in regards to metaverse:
FMeAS2JXwAUpB6f


Translation: Gabe Newell may be that catgirl in 2B leggings idling in Limsa Lominsa
“I’m playing Final Fantasy XIV,” said Newell. “One of my sons was playing a bunch of Final Fantasy and he wanted me to play. He wanted to be mad about stuff, like he’d be pentamelding some piece of gear, and it would break 10 times in a row and he’d come in and try to complain [to] me about it. And I’d like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ And that’s a pretty good game, it has great controller support and so on, so that’s what I’ve been playing.”

he playing healer though..

"Be my healer who doesn’t let me die when I’m tanking."-GabeN Son
 
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Valonquar

Member
How am I supposed to cap tomes while playing both Horizon AND Elden Ring? I guess there's still months to go before anyting remotely looking like higher ilvl gear either way.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
How am I supposed to cap tomes while playing both Horizon AND Elden Ring? I guess there's still months to go before anyting remotely looking like higher ilvl gear either way.
Cap poetics. Unsub. Resub for 7.0. You can now buy new gear and a lot of it. And if you don't have enough poepoe you can farm it up in a couple hours as opposed to weeks(one class) to months(multiple classes). Giving you plenty of time to play other cool games.

Play smarter not harder.
 
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Cap poetics. Unsub. Resub for 7.0. You can now buy new gear and a lot of it. And if you don't have enough poepoe you can farm it up in a couple hours as opposed to weeks(one class) to months(multiple classes). Giving you plenty of time to play other cool games.

Play smarter not harder.
I wish I could unsub for more than 45 days, but the damn demolition timer for housing exists so I'm essentially forced to sub every other month.

Im sure everyone is well aware by now, but the housing system is so stupid. LOTRO has a very similar housing system but instead of having to resub every 45 days, you just pay upkeep with in-game currency. Yoshi-P often laments the lack of gil sinks in this game - housing upkeep with gil would be a perfect gil sink. But if they implemented that, then there would be less money coming from subs so it's easy to see why they're dragging their feet on such an obvious solution.
 
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