In their latest Letter from the Producer live, the producers of Final Fantasy XIV revealed some exciting new content coming up for the game. The biggest content news concerns The Forbidden Land, Eureka Anemos.
“The Forbidden Land of Eureka is an unexplored, untamed wild where the very elements are constantly in flux. While exploring Eureka and growing in strength, players will have the opportunity to obtain and enhance Eureka gear and weapons,” explained director and producer Naoki Yoshida along with Global Community Producer Toshio Morouchi.
Up to 144 players can occupy a single Eureka instance, and strengthening the Eureka weapons is not required in order to keep exploring. Players are encouraged to cooperate in order to make progress by using player search, which is available inside Eureka, turning on a “looking for party” status to group up with players of similar elemental levels, or even just shouting.
Players progress using a new feature known as the Magia Board. Eureka will keep expanding during the 4.x patch series, with the level cap for the elemental levels also increasing. Players begin at elemental level 1 and attain a maximum elemental level of 20. Players do not lose elemental EXP or level when they depart Eureka.
The Magia Board and Magicite are like adding elemental properties to yourself for battle. Enemies encountered in Eureka are imbued with powers aspected to a certain element, so for example, by strengthening the thunder element, your damage against water-based enemies will increase.
Monster attributes are confirmed by targeting them, so choose the best attributes for yourself based on that. You select attributes by rotating the Magia board a pre-determined number of times. Rotating the board has a cost, which recovers over time. You can also recover the cost by touching the Magia Melder at base. You can decide whether to assign a certain element heavily or assign all elements equally.
When players are KO’d and their time runs out, causing them to be warped back, they lose elemental EXP. If they are revived by another player before this happens, they don’t suffer the elemental EXP penalty.
You enter Eureka by talking to Rodney in Kugane, which is also where you can check the Magia board. There is also an Aetheryte in Eureka and familiar NPCs like Gerolt and Krile, along with repair shops and shops that sell useful Eureka consumable items. The weather shifts rapidly in Eureka due to the untamed wild elementals. You cannot use mounts in Eureka until the exploration is completed.
Monsters in Eureka follow you for much longer than regular monsters. You receive a lot of damage from enemies with an elemental level higher than yourself, making them tough to shake off. Also, notorious monsters appear under certain conditions and drop rare items you’ll need in order to fully upgrade Eureka weapons. These notorious monsters work like FATEs do, so don’t worry about landing your attack before others.
Rewards in Eureka include gear and weapons which may be obtained through the use of protean crystals, which players receive while exploring Eureka. The play style in Eureka will change as later versions of Eureka are added. Players will receive AF3 (job-specific equipment) weapons with special effects and dyeable gear as a reward, as well as gear that will have role restrictions removed.
Eureka will release in Patch 4.25 so everyone has time to defeat the new raids and gather token gear.
Elemental EXP is a type of EXP that can only be earned inside Eureka. The bigger your party, the less EXP you will earn, but in exchange you’ll be able to get chain bonus. You can also earn EXP solo as well.
You can check out some more notable bits in this weekend’s Letter From the Producer Live below (via the official forums ).
Gameplay adjustments:
They’re still weighing adjustments to Dark Knight
They’re still discussing whether to adjust stats on the accessories obtained from the new tokens and Savage raid
There is no plan to adjust red mage at this time
They may adjust samurai DPS
They are not adding support abilities to Black Mage in the 4.x series
“There won’t be any major disadvantage or advantage no matter what [raid] setup you have”
They’re developing a system that will allow glamouring directly using items stored inside the glamour armoire
Converted gear can still be used as glamour, but they may change or adjust whether or not it can be used as normal gear
The team is currently leaning towards increasing the number of glamour plates available (rather than increasing the areas in which plates can be applied)
Fishers are not getting a secondary tool
They’re looking to add optional items such as Yda or Aymeric’s outfit to the armoire
They are not able to store dye information when storing items inside the armoire
Castrum Meridanum and Praetorium are the only dungeons where you will not be able to skip cutscenes, and rewards for running these dungeons will be increased as a result
The next beast tribe will be Disciples of Land/Hand specific and will involve popular characters as well as some main scenario characters
They’re discussing making adjustments to Triple Triad limitations for rare card use
They’re having the UI team look into making an adjustment to the minions screen to make it easier to find the right minion
They’re going to adjust the strength of large-scale FATEs because the number of participants has decreased, but won’t be adjusting the rewards
Future:
We “may” get a mount that seats four to eight players in the future
Susano and Lakshmi extreme mounts for 99 totems will be available by Patch 4.25
The mobile app will be released by Patch 4.3
“We’ll make adjustments so you can fish up more octopus”
The producers plan to implement dressable mannequins as a furnishing
There may be Alpha merchandise… “please look forward to it”
The producers would like to add locations you can only visit once as backgrounds to gpose, but have no plans to introduce other past locations
The producers plan to look into the ability to play old Final Fantasy games from the toy box. They specifically named “Return to Ivalice” ( Final Fantasy Tactics ) as one they’re considering
The Stormblood soundtrack is due hopefully this summer; the team is trying hard to fit the game’s giant soundtrack onto one disc
They will restock on piano scores for Final Fantasy XIV due to the demand increase caused by the Performance feature. The sheets are easy for beginners and on to read
The Primals are getting their very own CD album and tour
The Eorzean Symphony orchestra concert is headed to the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on June 15 and 16. Look forward to ticket info soon
What do you think of the new and upcoming content? What changes do you hope the producers make? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
