Smash hit MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 is getting a new patch soon with 6.2, named Buried Memories.
In 6.2, players will be able to challenge the next tier of Pandemonium bosses, experience new challenging four-player content in Variant Dungeons, and enjoy a life-sim game mode called Island Sanctuary.
A ton of details were talked about in the latest interview Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida conducted with Japanese gaming publication Famitsu. In the piece, Yoshida goes into deep detail about the major changes we can see coming to the game.
First up is the continuation of the raid storyline “Pandemonium.” Yoshida promises that the story will start to make sense with this tier, with players finally realizing what the dungeons were meant to hold. Yoshida goes on to state that the fights will be “quite challenging” even on normal difficulty.
Savage will unlock one week after the launch of 6.2, instead of the usual two-week delay.
Yoshida explains that there is some impact related to this change — item level, specifically, will be a factor in progressing through the tier.
The example given was that players will not be able to stockpile 900 Allagan Tomestones to purchase a stronger piece of gear before raid unlocks. That factored into their decision when it came time to adjust and readjust the difficulty level. The development team expects that there will be some complaints about the new “optimal” route to obtain gear, but they will look at all feedback when developing future patches.
Some Job adjustments will be coming, but they will be detailed later. Major renovations for Dragoon and Astrologians have been put off, with the originally intended changes to be related to the card mechanics (as always) for Astrologians.
They received a lot of complaints about gameplay being “influenced by luck”, so they are taking those comments into consideration.
Variant Dungeons are launching, and with it, a type of challenge similar in scale to Savage raids, but intended for small parties of four. The new dungeons will have branching paths, which is something that disappeared from level design in Final Fantasy XIV.
The reasoning behind this is that “veteran players will only take the optimal route,” but with the new dungeons Yoshida believes that groups can find value in taking suboptimal routes for the purposes of exploration or challenge.
Finally, Island Sanctuary gets mentioned. The development team wanted to avoid attaching a story to the Island because they felt that if they wrote a story for the side quest, it would force players to do it.
There are simply breadcrumb quests that will lead players around the tutorial areas, but afterwards, they will be on their own. The Island will expand with every patch, and the development team believes they have created the largest player-owned area in any MMORPG. The Island lacks any real connection to the events in Eorzea proper, and the Island is not intended to be a replacement for current housing options.
Yoshida states that he feels 6.2 is the most “omnidirectional” patch ever, such that all players can find something to enjoy in it. The size and scale of the development team continue to grow, and he hopes that you will enjoy everything 6.2 has to offer.
Patch 6.2 launches for all platforms later this month. If you’re curious as to what type of game has players renting real billboards to advertise in-game events, you can try a very lengthy free trial for the game.
Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF
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