FFXIV Patch 6.25: Live Letter Summary, Release Dates, Job Changes and Fan Fest.
We could view the latest Live Letter from the Producer as part of the 14-hour livestream. It covered what’s new in Final Fantasy XIV. Naoki Yoshida, director and Producer, hosted the event along with Toshio Murouchi, community director. They cosplayed as Loporrit and did all the makeup. The Live Letter began with Yoshida reviewing feedback about Patch 6.2 content. He then recapped the content to HTMLFFXIV Patch 6.25, which will be released on October 18.
We summarize everything that was covered in the Live Letter. This includes the story development and writing segment for FFXIV, as well as details about Fan Fest’s return. We relied on the FFXIV Reddit Discord channel for the live translations since the stream was Japanese-only.
Yoshida Reviews HTMLXIV Patch
Yoshida went through Patch 6.2 content, explaining design decisions and players’ feedback in the first half of his Live Letter. He provided some developer insight, including the one-week buffer to the Savage raid Tier and their vision for future Job Changes.
Storm’s Crown Barbariccia Trial
- Identity was kept hidden before release to preserve the mystery and keep playing guessing who would show up in terms of Final Fantasy IV references.
- Storm’s Crown was designed to be fast-paced and high-tempo in terms of mechanics. Recent fights were designed like puzzles to solve, so Barbariccia was a change of pace.
Pandaemonium Abyssos Raids
- Intended to explore Lahabrea since he had an early exit in FFXIV and wasn’t explored in Endwalker MSQ.
- Yoshida was surprised the character had voice lines in the fight and didn’t know until he play-tested the raids.
- Although they run on a tight budget, the recent success of FFXIV let them add more stuff, like extra voice lines.
Savage Raid One-Week Buffer
- Feedback has been very positive about holding off on releasing the Savage versions of the raids until a week after the patch release.
- Concerns about crafted gear not selling as much. There were cases in which some servers sold much more than previous Savage releases.
- They’re still reviewing feedback and player data, but the team is leaning toward doing the same Savage release cadence in the future.
Feedback on Job Changes
- Yoshida and the team have been looking at all the feedback and will continue explaining their design process and reasoning behind future Job changes.
- Yoshida feels some of their reasons have been taken out of context, so that he will offer more detail in the future.
- There are concerns that the dev team and players are looking at different data in the context of Jobs, creating some issues.
- Patch 6.25 and 6.28 Job changes will only include number adjustments (potency, durations, etc.).
- No significant overhauls, action adjustments, or mechanical changes until Patch 6.3.
- Bosses in new fights have larger hitboxes to help melee Jobs with uptime, but this has thrown off balance between ranged and melee Jobs. It is one of the factors they’re considering with future Job changes.
PVP and Crystalline Conflict
- Crystalline Conflict has been prevalent, boosting PVP’s relevance.
- The most significant Job change in Patch 6.25 will be Paladin’s Cover system.
- More extensive Job changes are planned for Patch 6.28.
Island Sanctuary
- Yoshida emphasized the “slow life” design intention for Island Sanctuary, and they’re seeing players min-max their island tasks, especially Japanese players.
- He recognizes feedback for wanting to design individual islands more freely to make them stand out but said it is challenging to implement from a development standpoint.
- The team is working on allowing garden housing items in Island Sanctuary, although there is no timeline for implementing this feature.
Other Matters in Brief
- Emotes with fashion accessories prove challenging to implement. Yoshida mentioned that executing these simultaneously is hard because they use the same system memory, but they are working on improving this.
- The Fae weapons was the gear design team stepping up their game. Yoshida admits that a problem with “stepping up” features is that the player feedback also evolves, leading to more requests.
- He used an example of players asking to be able to enable/disable visual effects on gear but emphasized that it’s not that simple for development.
- Yoshida met with team members about the Patch 7.0 graphical overhaul, discussing new ways to feature visual effects.
- Yoshida says player feedback is always encouraged, but please be nice about it.
- FFXIV Patch 6.28 will release on November 1, just two weeks after Patch 6.25.
FFXIV Patch 6.25 Release Date and Content Summary
We have a definitive release date for FFXIV Patch 6.25: October 18. You can expect a scheduled maintenance period on October 17 for patch implementation, in which the game will go offline. There wasn’t much in terms of new information, however. We did get two screenshot teasers, one showing what happens as you progress in the Omicron Tribal Quests and another revealing contemporary spy-themed glamour.
The main pieces of content in Patch 6.25 are the Omicron Tribal Quests, new Hildibrand Quests, the Manderville relic weapons, the first Variant and Criterion Dungeons. We have all these topics covered from our previous stories, which are linked here.
North American Server Expansion Coming in November
New data centres and servers for North America have been in the works for a while and had to be delayed. But it’s finally happening and has a confirmed date: November 1. Dynamis’s new data centre will house four new servers: Halicarnassus, Maduin, Marilith, and Seraph. Yoshida mentioned that a 24-hour maintenance period (starting October 31) might be necessary.
Yoshida said they’re starting with just four servers but expect to expand on the Dynamis data centre as we approach the next expansion and Patch 7.0 as the playerbase grows.
Player housing has been a pain point for a long time, and the new lottery process introduced a few recent frustrations. Yoshida stated that the team is working on adding new housing plots but didn’t have much to share since they haven’t finalized their plans and schedule yet.
As for the new servers on the upcoming Dynamis data centre, the first housing lottery will begin on November 5. If you’re interested in playing on the new servers and want a house, refer to our summary of how the FFXIV housing lottery works.
Demystifying the Story Writing Process for FFXIV
A significant segment of the Live Letter focused on the development process for the writing and story team. It featured Daichi Hiroi (lead story designer), Banri Oda (senior story designer), and Natsuko Ishikawa (senior story designer). The three oversee and manage FFXIV’s narrative design rather than writing the story itself, which has been the case since Patch 6.1. They also explained the new writing process for the FFXIV dev team.
Although there wasn’t necessarily exciting new information, it highlighted how complex and involved development is for FFXIV’s story creation. They discussed everything from writing dialogue and scripts, implementing quest text, creating cutscenes, getting other teams involved to finish making story content, and the workflow to have it all come together.
They used the Role Quests from Shadowbringers as an example of how complex and intricate the story development process can get. And as a more recent example, they talked about the challenges of making the Pandaemonium raid story up to this point. Hiroi hinted that the upcoming story content for Pandaemonium will be “a rollercoaster of emotions.”
FFXIV Fan Fest Returns Live In-Person
The big announcement during this Live Letter was the return of FFXIV Fan Fest. North America will have its Fan Fest in Las Vegas, NV, on July 28-29, 2023; Europe’s will be in London, the UK, on October 21-22, 2023, and Japan’s will be sometime in 2024. Yoshida said that things are a bit more challenging to plan for in Japan, so they’re still in the process of securing a location. More details are coming soon, as this was just the announcement.
Due to the global pandemic, FFXIV FanFest events in 2020 had to be cancelled. An online version was live-streamed in 2021, but the event will return to an in-person convention starting next year.
