Here comes Stormblood!Follow

THANK GOD

Moving right along...



Hmm... hopefully not gated behind the housing system like Diadem is. Potential pitfall here.



Perhaps they can re-design their client-server interactions so they aren't the dumbest thing I can think of... Seriously... full character data transmitted and saved every 15 seconds? Why? That's dumb.

Interesting stuff... light on details unfortunately, but interesting.

Well sending all that data every 15 seconds is just an absurd thing to do. For instance it includes all your retainer data as well.... why.... why do that? The only data that really needs sending is data that changed, and 15 seconds is too short an interval... you could double it to 30 seconds and you'd be perfectly fine and be using half the bandwidth.

Interesting stuff about the budget numbers. I want to see what they do with it.

Yeah, Red Mage was my guess with the shirt hint, too.

So is anyone on board with me thinking that the lady in red, which by the way I have deemed a DNC job class, is quite possibly Yda? It would make sense with the recent storyline mission regarding her Ala Mihgian roots with a small preview of her background. I'm wondering if she is some kind of royalty or a head of a major clan in Ala Mihgo. Maybe Papylamo is a servant or caretaker of hers. It could be why he's so harsh with her.

Edited, Oct 15th 2016 10:28am by TrenchTMK

You'd think, but that trailer just screams Dancer, so I guess we'll see.

Looked like two Monks fighting to me

I think it is hard to tell if the red clothed girl is a dancer or monk, but the former is clearly plausible. If anything, Yda is never officially a monk, and that NPC is not using what is typically monk attire. She was always assumed to be Pugilist and was not in the monk storyline. I do think the Marvel reference is Red Mage and not referring presumed-to-be-Yda NPC. And there are NPCs that job are very Red Mage like (Ilberd and Alisea), so Red Mage fits the storyline.

Edited, Oct 15th 2016 5:20pm by scchan

I guess she looks like a Dancer but she's literally just using Monk moves for most of the trailer with some added flair, and even straight up mirroring the WoL at some points. I'd expect Dancer to be more unique with its magic use and stuff. Unless they make it so it's another split off Job with Pugilist?

But it's just a trailer. Just gotta wait and see.

Waiting for a DF penalty to end, so here are my quick impressions on each topic:

- Stormblood will explore Ala Mihgo
- Main focus is to regain control of Ala Mihgo from the Garlean Empire
- 20 years have passed since Garleans have had control
- Main atagonist to be Zenos Yae Galvus, XIIth Legion Legatus and de facto ruler of Ala Mihgo

Cool stuff. Glad to be getting back to the Garleans.

- Woman depicted in trailer to potentially be revealed in future 3.X patch

I'm not onboard the Yda Train. Yda has the tattoo and appears to have a darker complexion. About the only real similarity I see are the locks of blond hair.

- Warrior of Light's main job in 4.0 is Monk (akin to DRG for 3.0)

Still not touching monk.

- Area shown in teaser trailer is Rhalgr's Reach, the HQ of Ala Migho's main resistance.

Some good opportunities here for SE to have campaign/beseiged/behest content. Will it happen? Probably not, but one can hope.

- Multiple new jobs to be discussed at future date

Red mage or bust.

- Yoshi-P wore a t-shirt of Marvel's Scarlet Witch, said that was the only hint he'd give at this time

!!!!

- New Level Cap: 70 (for all classes)
- More actions for each job to go with new cap
- Revamped battle system to go with new actions
- Additional Skill System to be overhauled, with skills shared by roles instead of jobs, and can choose from shared role ability options
- Reassessment of unused/ineffective actions
- Example used is Dragoon's Blood of the Dragon buff, where in 4.0 an icon/gauge showing how much time is left will be better visible on screen so players aren't just staring at the current icon

Excited to see what the revamped battle system entails. Is it just referencing the other items listed above? Or will combos work differently so the hotbars aren't so crowded?

- New Areas to be introduced, comparable in size to Heavensward areas

Nice. Heavensward zones were perfect.

- Stormblood will be a full standalone game's worth of content

Of course. This is just like HW.

- New Primals to be introduced, including known names and all-new original-to-FF14 ones.

Same old.

- New Dungeons to be introduced with new battle and dungeon concepts to be introduced

Now THIS is interesting. Hoping to see some elements of PoD become more normal.

- High-End Raids to also be added, with possibility of different story depending on difficulty, with normal on odd patches, savage on even (NOTE: I may have transcribed this backwards. Please look forward to more information on it).

I might be excited about this once we learn more about how these raids are tuned.

- New Alliance Raids to be added. Big news, but will wait until Tokyo Fan Fest, but will be, "very, very Final Fantasy"

I get the feeling these won't be "same old."

- Expanded form of Exploration to be introduced: The Forbidden Land of Eureka (they really like FF3!), something different from Diadem and will expand its own entire area, unique to Stormblood. There might even be Notorious Monsters that only appear once every 72 hours.
- Eureka may also be used for next set of high-end weapons, akin to Relic/Anima, rather than upgrades in "normal areas."

And THIS has promise. Could SE finally be delivering what Diadem should have been?

- New Gear and Recipes, including winners of Fan's Gear Design Contest

OK.

- Item Inventory Exansion (this got the biggest cheers so far), looking to increase "as much as humanly possible." There is uncertainty in how this will be implemented due to the server needs, and it will be addressed in a future Live Letter

Why can't people just throw things away?

- A 4th Residential Area to be added. Where? "Sorry, can't tell ya."

Doesn't really matter anymore, now that we apartments.

- In-game footage of new areas shown
- Screenshots now being shown of new areas
- Indications are that Ala Mihgo is crossed via a wall in The Black Shroud, which will be shown in Patch 3.5. Yoshi joked that Dragoon Jump won't work to scale the wall, but that The Warrior of Light has a lot of practice falling off of things.
- Ala Mihgo will not be just deserts and wasteland. Forests are also part of it.
- All areas of 4.0 will be accessible by flying mounts, but there was an indication that it will again by quest-based like in 3.0. At groans from the audience, Yoshi said it will be easier than Moogle Quests.

Will be fun to have new areas to explore. Heavensward was awesome to explore during the first month. That's always a rush to get out there and see new places.


- Two final announcements:
1) Changes to Windows version Minimum Specs requirements. Current minimum specs are geared towards components you can't even buy anymore. So, for the best gaming experience possible, they've decided to raise their minimum specs. "If possible, maybe upgrade to 64-bit OS" but they will still support 32-bit. They just suggest 64-bit will be best gaming experience.
2) End of PlayStation 3 support. This got the second biggest cheers. They've been examining numbers and have seen a large migration of PS3 to PS4 so they have decided it is the right time to end PS3 support. To show appreciation to their PS3 fans that helped them get to where they are now, there will be a special FREE PS3 to PS4 upgrade campaign.

BOO-YA!

- Keynote ends with Yoshi saying, in English, "Please look forward to it."

Totally am.

And excited to see what this dev team does with more streamlined development goals and a tripled budget. That's awesome news. SE wouldn't be pumping up the game's budget if the game wasn't making good money. Hopefully, they finally understand they need to solve the retention issue while they're still able to capitalize on roping in so many new players.

Yeah, doesn't bother me either. My static still hasn't touched Sephy Ex or Nidhogg Ex, and we haven't been able to do Sophia Ex yet because one member isn't up to snuff on her iLevels. So really, we should have plenty to work on over those six months. I wish we could get to content faster, but synchronized adulting is way harder than XIV's dance routines.

It just occurred to me I have like 9 classes I need to get to 60 before this expansion hits.

I'm in the same boat, but I feel the last expansion was worth it alone, even though it only kept me around for 3-4 months. I'll probably spend the 30-40$ on this one, play the crap out of it for 2-3 months and take big hiatus again. Hopefully the revamping of abilities and what not leads to bigger and better things. This EX fight, dungeon with mundane bosses, and bland steps for relics thing is getting beyond boring. Most things are fun for one run through and that's it.

You've got a big player base, you've got a base just waiting to come back to try new things. So give it a go. If it doesn't work out, you revert back to your old ways and move on. Abyssea in XI strayed from the norm, and for me personally it was the best time I had in that game in a LONG time. I know not everyone agrees and some feel it chased them out. That's always going to be the case though, you can't please everyone.

Maybe... they need to prune pretty hardcore especially if they're planning to add even more buttons to these jobs.