Notes from Live Letter XXXVI

This Live Letter was OFFICIALLY translated into English during the livestream by Square Enix.

Stream starting with the Revolutions Music Video/Trailer.

Image of the Stormblood Login Screen

Foxclon lost his voice! Sounds like Darth Vader. Even says “I am your father”.

Talking about their Media Tour. First half in NA already finished, second half in EU is where they currently are.

DISCLAIMERS: We will be utilizing actual in-game footage for this Live Letter. Everything is still subject to change as final preparations for the Expansion are on-going. Numerical values or icons may not be the same in the final version. Things such as damage formulas, sub stats, potencies and how abilities interact especially are still being adjusted.

Final Fantasy XIV Version 4.0 Battle System Change

Current Issues

Overly Complex job rotations
Too many actions, not enough hotbar space.
Overemphasis on status icon management.
Core vs casual player disparity
Lack of synergy between jobs
ITS TIME FOR CHANGE!

Additional Actions

Abolishing Additional Actions
Replacing them with Role Actions

Tank/Healer/Melee DPS/ Ranged DPS/ Caster
Screenshot shown with Tank X-role

Can see Rampart, Convalesence, Reprisal, Low Blow, Provoke, Shirk, Ultimatum, Interject, Anticipation. Internal release not there for any Warrior’s wondering.

You can also see 5 X-role slots, one unlocks every few levels. Level 12 > 28 > 32 > 40 > 48

Go to In-game Footage of Yoshida’s BLM.

Swiftcast, Apoc, Surecast, Addle (Virus changed to something else), remove DoTs, manashift Give 20% MP to party member, Raging Strikes is gone, Quelling Strikes is gone but replaced with Diversion which transfers enmity to target (mini Shadewalker?)

Switching Back to Powerpoint

Paladin Screenshot with UI element on the right showcasing a bar and an icon behind it.
Actions on your hotbar from 3.0 that have changed or been removed in 4.0 will be greyed out when the expansion comes out.

Bloodbath is gone on PLD

New actions won’t make you go back and do quests. You’ll just need to reassign skills when the expansion launches.

Back to gameplay.

Swap to tank to check out Cross-Role

Low Blow is now the cross-role tank stun. Had no Damage on the icon when he hovered over it, only stun duration.
Interject has a silence thing on its icon.
Reprisal 10% for 5s. Doesn’t look like it requires parry anymore.
Hover over Ultimatum. Ranged AoE Provoke

Melee DPS for X-role

Second Wind, Invigorate, Goad, Leg Sweep, Diversion
Bloodbath is melee
New X-role skill that removes directional requirements for skills for 15s.

Ranged PHysical X-Role

Swiftsong, Second Wind, Invigorate, All the MCH CC skills are here.

Healer X-Role

Cleric Stance, Swiftcast, Protect, Surecast, Esuna, Divine Seal but slightly color changed, Shroud of Saints but different color, New Eye for an Eye
Also worth noting no Stoneskin on the hotbar at all.
Healer damage will now be calculated with MIND.

It will always feel like Cleric Stance is on now!
Cleric Stance will change to accommodate. It now buffs 5% damage for 15s. Basically a DPS cooldown. Also worth noting, it doesn’t reduce healing potency.
There is also the option to not select Cleric Stance
Also noticed Stone 1 and 2 not on hot bar. Neither is Stone III. Hotbar #2 space number 7 looks like a new stone icon.

Switched to Monk

UI elements for Greased Lightning and Chakra
Three new abilities on the far right of hotbar #1.
Also no BFB present.
They specifically mention Monks not having any raid support in 3.X, which they wish to remedy.
They mention that changes to major debuffs (assuming slashing and whatnot) will be shifted so that as long as you are doing a somewhat normal rotation they should be automatic.
For the Monk, we’ve added an element that will allow them to raise their party’s physical damage.

While under this buff, if any party member uses weaponskills, you will get Chakra stacks. So you get a LOT of Chakra stacks!
This should please people looking for new Monk utilities.
Shows off the Chakra building UI element real quick.

Switch back to Power Point

Job Gauges (Job HUD)

New Heads up Graphical Displays

To help alleviate issues with people staring at buff icons, these new elements were added.
Specialized for each job’s unique actions.
People in the comments asking about PLD. For the PLD, it will have an “Oath Gauge”, which we will go into detail on later.
Increased visibility regarding current stance.
Emphasis on visual rather than numerical cues. There are still some numerical cues, but more visual ones.

EXTREME DPS DISPARITY. X
Simplified versions are in development and they want feedback.

WHM has lillies. Mentioned being expended to make a barrier for team mates.
Samurai has a Kenki and Sen Gauge. Use these to track how much Kenki you have and what Sens you’ve accumulated.
Warrior undergone some big changes. PLD has Oath Gauges. Astro clearly displays what Royal Road effect you have, what card is saved via spread and some new icon on the right. Oh and what card is currently pulled.

Dragoon has a Blood of the Dragon with Eyes and a second colored gauge.
Ninja has what looks to be a Huton timer and a ninja scroll gauge
Bard has their songs in their own UI, also new elements on them looks like they keep track of some sort of stacks. Worth noting one of the BRD songs there is Wanderer Minuet.
Red Mage has two bars that counter-act. Considering Red Mage history, we can probably figure that out.
BLM Has...just...tons of stuff. It’ll indicate Astral Fire or Umbral Ice and another new element that stacks.
Machinist has a Heat Gauge and ammo gauge. When you use Gauss Barrel, you get a heat gauge.
Summoner they won’t talk about yet because they want to surprise you later!
Lets try out the new job gauges!
Switch to in-game footage.

Yoshi-P is on Black Mage.
He is swimming through the water.
Hes jumping in the water.
Hes riding an Ookami style wolf. Flying with it.

Confirmed to be primal mounts for 4.X.

Black Mage, Enochian is not active right away.

In order to execute, you need to be in Astral Fire or Umbral Ice
As long as you have either one, Enochian is permanent. If you lose Astral Fire/Umbral Ice I’d assume you’d have to reactivate it?
When you start out, you’ll just have AF or UI, so thats phase 1 of the new UI element.
Once you acquire Enochian, another element appears on the UI to note that its enabled.
Blizzard IV will also give Umbral Hearts. You’ll have up to 3 of them.
Once you have them, they appear on the job gauge.

Casts Blizzard III, gauge lights up with a timer for remaining duration on AF/UI.
Enochian is ticking down on the bottom right.
When Enochian is about to run out you it swaps to another stance and resets cooldown.
New spell called Foul. When it lasted for 30s his gauge on the bottom filled, and Foul became available to cast. Foul is not part of AF or UI. As long as you maintain the new effects, you’ll get to use Foul more often. Basically the longer you hold Enochian the more Fouls you cast. Did great damage.
Ley Lines and teleporting. Healer pulled Yoshi-P towards him, was NOT an Aetherial Manipulation. LIFE GRIP BOIZ.

Healer X-Role Action: Rescue. Pulls Party members towards the user.

Fights a FATE boss, uses “Triplecast” to instant cast 3 times back to back.

See WHM casting Stone IV as well as BLM casting an AoE Thunder (Thunder IV?)

Warrior up next!

Upon using Defiance/Deliverance your Gauge appears. Gauge changes appearance based on which you are in.
Wrath and Abandon are both gone. The gauge that keeps track of your resource is called a BEAST GAUGE.
Storm’s Eye gave Yoshida a buff, and Maim put on the slashing debuff.
WAR built in Stun is gone, must use Low Blow for it now.
Charge for Warrior used Beast Gauge.
Did not get pacified after Berserk.
Path did not put on a debuff. It did generate 20 Beast Gauge however.
Yoshi-P just did 5 Fell Cleaves back to back using one of his cooldowns + all of his gauge and Infuriate. Eyes also glowed red.

Monk again

Riddle of Earth and Fire added
Riddle of Earth refreshes Greased Lightning in some way.
Showing building GL stacks. Also GL looks to be lasting 16s now.

Red Mage

Chainspell trait

When you cast one spells, the following spell has no cast time. So every other cast is instant. Only spells with cast times trigger Chainspell.
Cast short spells to activate Chainspell, then instant cast the spells with longer cast times.
Also spells are building the two gauges he has.
Black Mana and White Mana are the two gauges

Different spells fall under the two different categories
You’ll want to raise both of them at a similar rate.
Can also activate a “Spell blade”

Showed the Ninja use their Frog attack. Was building gauge to use it earlier off screen.
Oh RDM still has plain old mana as a resource don’t forget. As the gauge is raising it is getting more red.
Ninja did some sort of new melee ability while hitting an enemy. Was fast so hard to see.

Samurai

When he completes a combo, he builds a Sen Gauge.
He has a skill that looked like Tachi: Yukikaze from FF11 that gave the slashing debuff.
One of his skills kept changing icon as he built Sen.
With 3 Sens, Iaijutsu changes. He uses it on an enemy for a big hit. It did have a cast time.
With two sen, he did the conal strike we saw in the preview from the Benchmark.

Switch back to Live Cam

Video footage
Job Action Trailer incoming BOIZ

Not every single action is covered here and some role actions will be present.

All of the job gauges will be active.
RDM

Shows some new single target/AoE skills.
Dash in, super fast combo, dash out, giant holy flare
Physical attacks use meter
Does not require crit for synergy, was a mistake from Yoshida

Dragoon

Was able to use both 4 part finishers back to back.
Built eyes up and changed to a new form with a new dragon dive thing.
Jumps gave them a gauge, that the new skill built up an eye with.
When the eye glowed and they used Gierskogul the gauge changed color.
Gaze of the First Brood

Dark Knight

Blood Gauge
New Skill using the gauge. Dark Arts doesn’t use gauge necessarily.
Used half of gauge with Dark Arts for big hit.
Use skills to generate Black Blood

Bard

New animations for Venomous Bite and Wind Bite?
Song cast on target, was Ballad, so its a targeted skill now.
Also did Paeon and changed to a different stance building stacks
Minuet was another stance
Did some sort of giant AoE buff. Used procs to do a super attack under Minuet
NO CAST TIMES IN THE VIDEO

Scholar

Tether uses gauge every few seconds. Also tracks Aetherpool
Some sort of analyze skill.
Using Aetherflow built fairy gauge.
Some sort of new nuke also

Ninja

Used Huton for gauge
Shukuchi
Used Raiton and Frog
Shukuchi again very fast.
Building Gauge
Dropped a Leylines looking circle
Did > Fuma > > katon > > Suiton all back to back instant cast pretty much. Only used one Mudra between each.
Shadowfang was part of a 3 part combo.

Used flamethrower to build heat with Gauss Barrel
Executed a giant AoE and an analyze skill.
New animations on their GCDs
Summoning lots of gadgets to do lots of blowing up.
Only 3 ammo now
NO CAST TIMES

Warrior

Switching stance dropped Gauge by 50%
4x Fell Cleaves
Punched the training dummy

Summoner

Goes Dreadwyrm and expends it immediately.
New DoT animation it looked like.
Using Aetherflow.
Goes Dreadwyrm again.
Expends Animation
Turns Garuda Egi into a giant Bahamut after gauge is completely filled (took two dreadwyrm trances to fill). Lasted 20s
New Ruin animation when bahamut was out.

White Mage

Building Lillies
Role as a Pure Healer bolstered.
Stone IV.
Some sort of buff on allies.
Some sort of self buff.
Expended Lillies for some sort of effect.
Make other actions available or shorten recast times on skills.

Black Mage

New Thunder animation
Triplecast
When Enochian finished got a stack.
AoE Thunder
Tier IV spells were using Umbral Hearts from Bliz IV. Not clear what it did to them. Was able to use Fire IV WITHOUT expending Umbral Hearts.

Astro

Card UI is very easy to keep track of.
Pulled the Lady and healed an ally it looked likle
PLaced a galaxy on the ground that is growing.
Pulled the Lord and did damage.
The star exploded.
Also instantly pulled all their cards.

Monk

You can see the nearby Monk giving Chakra stacks by using Weaponskills.

Samurai

Building Sens like earlier.
Uses two sen stacks
Just used all their combo finishers back to back after self buff for instant 3 Sens (Meiko Shusui?)

Paladin

Oath Gauge

Shield Oath Level 30

Block now works on both physical and magical damage.
Royal Authority was off of Riot Blade
Shelltron used 50 gauge to activate
Gauge stopped going up in Shield Oath? Might have just not used any skills that built it.
New single target Nuke spells
Oath gauge dropped by half
New AoE weapon skills.
Passage of Arms

100% Block
15% damage reduction to party behind Paladin.

They’re back

Commentary over the Job Action video from Yoshida
Made adjustments to above notes based on commentary

Job Action Adjustments

Removal of Unused/Underused Actions

Merging/Creating New Role Actions

Automatic Replacement of Upgraded Spells

Ex > Stone 1 > Stone 2 > Stone III > Stone IV
Will automatically update as you level and when you level sync
Only 1 slot.
Thunder 1 and Thunder 3 are together.
Thunder 2 and 4 are together (AoE Thunder).
Ruin upgraded similarly

LESS STRESS FOR GAMEPAD USERS

Sub Attributes

Parry is gone

Replaced by Tenacity

Raises Damage dealt and reduces damage received.
Only applied to tank gear.

Parrying will still be possible, there just won’t be a sub stat to increase it on gear.

Anything with Parry on it currently will be replaced by Tenacity.

Will also affect attacks that aren’t just in front of you. (Same for Block)

Accuracy is gone

If you are fighting an enemy the same level or lower as you your hit rate is 100%

Specifically noted to be from the front.
Hits from the flank or rear have 110/120% accuracy modifiers.
If you are blinded you may miss a hit or some kind of accuracy debuff is applied, you might miss.

Replaced by Direct Hit Rate

Only applied to equipment for DPS jobs
Rate at which Direct Hit applies is higher than Critical, but isn’t as high of damage.
So basically its like a mini-crit that happens more frequently.
You can deal critical and direct damage at the same time for a super crit. (Direct Crit).

Piety no longer a main attribute

Sub attribute instead.
Only affect healers
Piety no longer affected by character creation racial stats.

Damage calculations changing

Accessories have role restrictions. So tanks can only wear VIT, Melee DPS STR, etc.

Ground Mount Speed

Still not intending on doing Cloud Motorcycle
Showing off new ground mount speeds
New mount (PLD tank mount for 4.0?)
Fastest speed possible side by side showcase.
THATS FAST LIKE SANIC.
Tank mounts can fly.
When you clear the main quest of an area, the mount speeds up slightly.
To raise it to the maximum you have to do a certain “thing” within the game.

PVP Changes

Current Issues

Level restrictions too high
Too many job actions
PVP is not equal to PvE
Action Point Disparity
Overly Complex Controls
ITS TIME FOR CHANGE

PVP Change

Level Restrictions Removal

Any jobs over level 30 can participate

PVP Attributes Determined by Role and Equalized

Tank, Healer, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Caster

Gear affects appearance only. Otherwise stats are completely equalized.
PVP Hotbars for each job

Showing HP equalization
When teleporting to Wolves’ Den Pier, the hotbar switched to PVP mode and HP was set to static values.
Both his DRG and the WHM have equal HP.

RDM has less HP

PVP Action Changes

All PVP Actions are now PVP-specific

9-10 Actions per job + 2 selectable actions + Adrenaline Rush
This doesn’t include their combo skills.
Allows for adjustment without affecting PvE balance

Direction requirements for Melee DPS have been removed.
Consolidated combos to free up hotbar space.
Less complexity = more maneuverability

One button will do an entire combo, so each “Combo” has a button you press repeatedly. (PVP Only)
Combos aren’t costing TP in PVP either, seems your utilities utilize it instead. Notice Jump costs 400 TP and Weapon Throw costs 200
2 Additional actions out of a set of several.
Because you only get two additional skills per player, coordinating which ones you use will be important. For example, a tank can take a stun while a melee DPS takes some other utility.
You also get to select 3 traits out of a list of 9-10.
BLM is described as entirely different from PvE
Major adjustment periods for PVP actions when 4.0 launches. Likely to do a pre-season.

Scenario Shortcut & Job Level-boost Items

WILL be implemented
Alleviates playtime disparity between new and veteran players
Lessens time required to reach end-game content
Increases opportunities to play with friends and family
Scenario Shortcut Items

Main Scenario Only
Tales of the Adventure: A Realm Reborn
Tales of the Adventure: Heavensward (Includes ARR)
No Job level restrictions (Will not level your jobs at all)
Available on the Mog Station June 16th
$18 for ARR Skip, $25 for HW skip
Features:

Chocobo Acquisition with random name
GC Enrollment set to starting city-state.
Completion of MSQ
Completion of Select Side quests

This helps unlock dungeons and other key features.

The Unending Journey will have all viewable cutscenes

Job Level-boost items

Raises the level of a single-job to 60

A different “Tales of Adventure” for each job.

Not available for RDM/SAM

Available June 16th
$25 per job
Only 1 job-specific Potion available per account until 4.1.
Cannot be used on crafters/gatherers
Features

Full set of level 60 gear including weapon
All Job Quests complete
All Actions learned
Hall of Novice access granted
Also remember this potion does not complete the MSQ.

Announcements

Reminder of Pre-order bonuses
Reminders of Far Edge of FATE original soundtrack.
Reminder of the Bahamut escape game.
FF14 Heading to E3. Letter From the Producer Live

Battle challenge with a 4.0 Primal

New Merchandise

Fat Chocobo Head Pillow

Reminder of Projection Mapping
Reminder of the Symphony