Producer's Live Letter 88

Many of the things in this letter are mentioned in passing as there is no further information to provide over what was already introduced in the previous letter.

You can find more details, specially images, about these here: Producer's Live Letter 87

Overview of introductions from the last live letter without further details on this one

• New MSQ
• New Dungeon - The Meso Terminal
• New Trial (No additional info, they're keeping this one in spoiler territory)
• New Allied Society Quests - Yok Huy (Not 7.3 content, this will be coming in at 7.35)
• Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures (Another piece of content that will be coming in later, at 7.35)
• New Unreal rotation - The Wreath of Snakes
• Duty Support - Cutter's Cry (Nothing to see here, just more revamping of old content into the new support systems)
• New Cosmic Exploration Star - Phaenna (This one will not be coming right away on 7.3, this will release later on in 7.31)
• Weapon Enhancement Quests - Phantom Weapons (Relic quests, again, this will be coming in later on 7.31)
• Expanded headgear support for Hrothgar and Viera
• Hair bangs display while wearing hoods

The finale of the 7.0 story, following on the steps of the previous patch, the focus is now turning back towards the Warrior of Light.

Possible hints of further direction at the end of this MSQ, but that will probably be more clear as the patches progress and pace into the next expansion's arc.

This time around, it seems they have focused a ton of the live letter on the new Deep Dungeon as it seems like a massive overhaul of the old systems from previous deep dungeons, making this new one much more robust as content in the game.

Sadly, the deep dungeon content will not be coming in at the 7.3 release, but is instead scheduled for release on the 7.35 patch.

Any other content not mentioned above, will be covered in more details below, as it was the depth of this live letter and is the expected 7.3 patch content, namely: New Alliance Raid, new map dungeon (Vault Oneiron) and the PvP updates.

Here's the image gallery of the slides providing a summary of this live letter, there's some other non-mentioned additions, specially on the system upgrades and changes, check out further down this page.

PvE

Occult Crescent Updates

As promised in the last Live Letter, they list out the updates that they were working on in regards to the Occult Crescent following the community's backlash-y feedback.

• Entering the Occult Crescent as a 24-man or more group will now always spawn a new fresh exclusive instance.
  • If the conditions of the group spawning the new instance, meet the requirements for Forked Tower entry, the Auroral Mirage weather pattern will occur five minutes later.
  • This instance will remain exclusive to this alliance raid group until the Auroral Mirage expires this first time, this means that this instance will be restricted to the pre-made group for the first 10 minutes until everyone had the chance to go inside the raid without external people disruption.
• The minimum number of players required to submit ciphers in order to open the Forked Tower will be increased from 16 players to 24 players.
• It will be possible to check the ciphers that you submitted and your personal selection status for entry (i.e. entry confirmed / eligible for selection / ineligible for selection).
  • The initial idea was to show a table of everyone's submissions, however this idea was scrapped as it could lead to toxic behaviour between players scrutinising other's submissions.
• Players will no longer be able to enter without submitting any ciphers, at least one cipher must be submitted by every person that wishes to go inside.
• Auroral Mirage weather patterns will now be put on hold from spawning if a Critical Encounter is currently active, instead this weather pattern will be held on hold until the CE is over and will then initiate.
• Treasure coffers from persistent pots and happy bunnies will have their loot adjusted to always contain Enlightenment gold or silver pieces. This does not affect the other spawning treasures, only the two mentioned here.

Echoes of Vana'diel Part 2 - San d'Oria: The Second Walk

Mostly images on this one, however, there's a new small UI addition that they glossed over - cast bars under the bosses nameplates.

They mentioned that this will only occur on bosses that they have enabled it for, so not sure if this will be retrofitted to older content (e.g. past dungeons/raids) or if it will be present in future content like savage raids.

The idea behind this system is allowing easier read of what monster is doing what, which before required players to look at the enmity list or have the monster/boss marked as a focus target.

There will be the option to turn it off in the settings should you want to remove it.

They had introduced a token system for orchestrion rolls on the first alliance raid of this series, it seems they decided to skip using this system and went back to the old format, no mention if this will be a permanent change going forward or just their decision on this one in particular.

This means that Orchestrion rolls will now be back to dropping on the bosse's treasure chests themselves as usual.

• Three orchestrion rolls from the second boss
• Three orchestrion rolls from the third boss
• Six orchestrion rolls from the fourth boss

Without further ado, here is the image gallery of the new Alliance raid, looks pretty!

Gear

Treasure Dungeon - Vault Oneiron

This is the new map, this will function as usual, with a chance of opening a portal after killing the initial mobs.

Entering the portal, you will be granted access to Vault Oneiron, the new dungeon.

It seems this time the dungeon will not have doors to pick but instead it will be slot machine based on the robots?

The robots will show different icons starting different tiers of fights that will have different rewards.

Hitting three "misses" on the slot machine will kick you out, same as hitting the wrong door in the previous maps.

Usual gimmicks of previous maps are still present.

New Crafter and Gatherer gear sets

Not much on these, they look so pretty! _

Correction: There was no context on the stream, now that it's live in the game, this is the correct categories.

Crafted glams

Crafter & Gatherer sets

New Deep Dungeon

This will be the biggest part of this live letter, with a deep dive into the new Deep Dungeon and all of it's systems - new and old - as well as some of the rewards.

What is a Deep Dungeon?

They went over some of the hallmarks of what defines a Deep Dungeon in FFXIV, namely:

• A dungeon where the architecture changes each time players enter to explore.
• Players begin at a designated level for each deep dungeon and gain experience as they progress towards the deepest floor.
• Deep Dungeons have specific arms and gear, separate from the outside world's gear, that will get enhanced via playing in the dungeon.
• Deep Dungeons feature sets of tools that can be used within to make your way past the enemies and traps.
• There are hidden treasures that can be unearthed for rewards.
• Playing within the Deep Dungeon will provide you experience to the job you use within.
• Every 10 floors there is a buffer floor that enables a quick rest or a complete pause in the progress should you choose.

Pilgrim's Traverse

Petitioned by the faerie king, the Warrior of Darkness undertakes a survey of architectural remnants on the First - the Church of the First Light in Il Mheg.

Discover what ties the fallen church to the fae folk, and a hidden truth regarding the faerie king...

The overarching goal of the dev team when creating this deep dungeon was creating a Deep Dungeon that caters to everyone in the game, from casuals to hardcore players, both in solo scenarios as well as in groups.

This was already sort of how previous Deep Dungeons functioned, except the experience would be classified by difficulty by either trying to go at it as a group for an easier time, or just diving in solo, trying to reach the end and receive some of the most sought-after achievements in the game.

This paradigm shift from the dev team is explained as they walk back to memory lane going back to FFXIV 2.0.

The patch cycles used to bring casual content on odd patches and more hardcore-leaning content on even patches, with them eventually starting to add hardcore content to odd patches as well.

This mean that there was a pendulum that was swinging between casual and hardcore content, however, while a hardcore player will not be excluded from enjoying the casual content of the odd patches, casual players would end up having large gaps of content as even patches would often bring 0 content to their liking.

This was the guiding light for this content rework, finding a way to provide the same piece of content in a way that can be adjusted and enjoyed by the entire spectrum of players, their own way.

Requirements

To access this new Deep Dungeon, you must meet the following requirements:

• Clear floor 50 of the Palace of the Dead (the first Deep Dungeon in the game)
• Complete the main scenario quest "Endwalker"

Structure

As is typical of previous Deep Dungeons, you start at the first floor and will go, in this one, down to floor 100 (the only exception to this format is Palace of the Dead that goes up to 200).

The dungeon is sectioned into small 10 floor parts and every 9 floors, you'll be faced with a boss that you must overcome to reach the buffer floor (e.g. 10, 20, etc) of that section.

Deep Dungeon gear - Aetherpool Gear

While inside, you will be equipped with aetherpool gear, a special set of Arms and Armor within the Deep Dungeon  that will have a random chance to upgrade when players open treasure chests.

This gear can be converted to outside dungeon gear (mostly for glam) once it's been upgraded enough.

Very pretty, check it out!

Accessibility

Beating the floor 30 boss, will reach the end of the initial quest for the deep dungeon, as is usual.

In the previous Deep Dungeons, the access to the floors used to be split between matchmaking and fixed parties.

This meant that if you wanted to use matchmaking to progress in any of the previous Deep Dungeons, you'd be restricted in progress only until the end of the initial quest at floor 30, any progression on further floors was restricted and you'd have to go in from floor 1 with a fixed party that would stick with you until the final floor.

The devs have now ditched this restriction and have opened the entirety of the dungeon to matchmaking progress!

This means it's no longer mandatory that you regroup with the same fixed party to continue your progress!

For achievement hunting, you will still be required to complete the full Deep Dungeon, without deaths, starting from floor 1.

They will try to allocate resources of the dev team to retroactively make this change to every previous Deep Dungeon, which is a massive win for accessibility of content.

Another accessibility change they made on this one is regarding party KOs.

In the past, if your party was killed during progress, you would have to restart either from floor 1 or floor 21.

They have now added further checkpoints where you can restart your progression in case of a party KO.

The furthest checkpoint in will be at floor 70, which means that a wipe to the final boss at floor 99 will put you back at floor 71 if you want to retry.

Defeating the last boss on floor 99 will unlock a new addition to Deep Dungeons.

This is in the form of a dedicated dungeon that can be queued in separately and challenged as many times as you'd like.

Pomanders

This is the same as previous deep dungeons.

These will be items that can be used at will, that can provide various benefits such as displaying the entire map of the current floor, revealing the accursed hoard, reducing the number of enemies in the next floor, etc.

Votives

A new system within the Pilgrim's Traverse that can cause a variety of effects to be produced in the subsequent floor, both positive if you're lucky, or negative if you're unlucky.

Players may be transformed into powerful monster, regen may be applied to all party members, the map may be hidden completely, the number of traps may be increased, and more.

Treasure coffers

These will be scattered randomly across the floors, and will provide various rewards such as enhancements to aetherpool arms and armor, pomanders, juniper incense or illumed aetherpool glass fragments.

Accursed Hoard

One of the rewards that you can get within the Pilgrim's traverse, these will also be obtained occasionally by defeating the final boss.

When doing the dungeon The Final Verse (Quantum) you will be guaranteed accursed hoard drops, varying in proportion to the number of offerings made (more info on the offerings system below).

Awarded on the weekly rewards by reaching specific areas.

Juniper Incense

Similar to powerful items in previous deep dungeons that could be used at will.

In this deep dungeon, you can use these to receive aid from Feo Ul such as powerful attacks or support throughout the current floor.

Illumed Aetherpool Glass Fragments

This is the generic currency from this deep dungeon, which can be exchanged for various items outside, including medical supplies (very very useful if you're attempting to solo this) and framer's kits.

Weekly rewards

They will also add weekly challenge log rewards for those that complete the full tower, giving them something for returning to the tower, giving players an incentive to queue into the new matchmaking system.

Many rewards await, with some of them being sellable on the market board as well.

Here's an example of some rewards that you can receive in this deep dungeon.

Mounts

Minion

Glamour

Going in Solo

As is traditional with previous Deep Dungeons, players have the option of braving the dungeon alone.

Reaching the end will award you with an achievement and a title to show-off your feat.

This will still be as difficult to achieve as any previous deep dungeons.

Gallery

Pilgrim's Traverse - The Final Verse (Quantum)

As a standalone dungeon, this will be it's own section here.

So what is The Final Verse(Quantum)?

This is a dungeon that will unlock by speaking to an NPC after defeating the floor 99 boss.

It can be challenged by a party of 1 up to 4 players, and it leans into the High-midcore to Hardcore side of the spectrum.

This is because the dungeon as well as the rewards will have their own dedicated system of tweaks you can do to increase it's difficulty

How to enter?

Use the "offerings" rewarded from the quest unlocked by reaching floor 100, to enter this dungeon.

Completing the quest, will award players with 40 offerings.

At least 15 offerings are required to challenge this dungeon.

More offerings can be found by unearthing pieces of the Accursed Hoard in the Deep Dungeon, and these offerings will be marketboard enabled, meaning that if you have no interest in either fighting the boss, or wanting to fight the boss without doing the Accursed Hoard hunting, there will be an option to line your wallet with gil or bypass the grind.

Offerings will be consumed upon successfully defeating the boss Eminent Grief and opening the treasure chest that appears.

Party finder can be used to queue for this.

Offerings

There are five types of offerings:

1. Sacramental spirits
2. Sacramental spices
3. Sacramental grain
4. Sacramental light
5. Sacramental lilies

Up to 8 of each type can be used for a total of 40 at once.

Depending on the types and number of offerings used, the boss's stats will increase.

This will allow you to tune the difficulty of the fight depending on what kind of challenge you're after.

One example provided was, if you feel like your dps is weak, you will be able to avoid increasing the boss's HP but instead focus on increasing it's light damage and make it stronger.

However (!!), this change will not only be limited to tuning stats, mechanics of the fight will also change and become harder depending on the number of offerings made.

It's mentioned in the live letter that, at 40 offerings this boss will be more difficult than the fourth fight in a savage tier, and it's possible to turn this 4-man boss's mechanics into something very close to an ultimate fight difficulty.

Everyone will get the initial 40 offerings from completing the quest, and these will not be consumed until you defeat the boss and claim it's reward coffer, so everyone is invited to try and experiment around as many times as you want!

Even if you kill the boss with as little as 15 offerings, you might want to give it a try with a higher difficulty right away - as long as you don't claim the treasure chest, the offerings will not be consumed and you can keep retrying with higher difficulties.

PvP

Now on to PvP stuffs!

Some small highlights:

• PvP Series 8 will end and PvP Series 9 will begin.
• PvP action adjustments
• New items available for exchange with Trophy Crystals