After Dawntrail’s reception of "good game, mixed story," players are probably eager to hear more of what Final Fantasy 14 will be bringing players in the patches to come. After all, players are loving the gameplay and side content, and have remained loyal to past mainstays such as Custom Deliveries, Hildibrand, and the high-end content.
On Saturday night—or rather, Sunday during Tokyo Game Show—Naoki Yoshida and Toshio “Foxcon” Murouchi presented the latest Live Letter from the Producer, which was the first look at what’s coming in Patch 7.1. We’re sure you’re eager to see what’s coming, so let’s get right into it.
The title of the patch in English is “Crossroads.” As always, 7.1 will include some new Main Scenario Quest content, which likely will include a new dungeon called Yuweyawata Field Station that appears to take place around the Heritage Found and Solution Nine areas. The story seems like it’ll return to some loose ends about Dawntrail, including about Zoraal Ja, as it features him and one of his relatives.
To the likely excitement of high-end raiders, we’re getting not one, but two new high-difficulty raids. Patch 7.1 brings the first-ever 24-man high-tier Alliance Raid featuring the Cloud of Darkness, which brings a new reward system and difficulty not quite at “end-of-tier Savage” level. Plus, the new Shadowbringers Ultimate, titled “Futures Rewritten (Ultimate),” arrives as well. In past instances, the Ultimate tier usually drops two weeks after the primary patch, so please look forward to it.
There’ll also be the usual standard endgame combat content. The highly-anticipated Final Fantasy 11 Alliance Raid arrives in 7.1, starting with “Jeuno: The First Walk.” The final boss of Dawntrail will finally make its Extreme appearance, so be prepared to get some more wings, and the new Unreal trial is Stormblood’s The Jade Stoa featuring Byakko.
Patch 7.1 finally sees the return and extension of prior endgame systems. We see our first new Alliance Society Quests (formerly [Beast] Tribe Quests) with the Pelupelu, which will be a Disciple of War/Magic series. For Crafting and Gathering, a new Custom Delivery will be for the train engineering department led by Nitowikwe, and there’ll be a “finale” series of quotes for Wachumeqimeqi deliveries. Plus, if you did all the Role Quests, new quests will expand on that.
Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures. End of paragraph.
Plus, there’s a lot of back-work being done to further improve the new player experience. Most notably, the Hall of the Novice will have a new level 49 training for specific mechanic markers, including stacks, AoE drops, and that “get the goddamned heck out of the way” tank blast. Work has also started on implementing NPC bots into optional dungeons, starting with Halatali.
Also, there’ll be more housing changes coming—not all in 7.1, but soon. Interior sizes can be upgraded (with a ton of gil), and the styling can be changed (probably with less gil. This isn’t for 7.1, but maybe in a year, you can finally have Shirogane mansion interiors in the Goblet without the bloodbath of a lottery.
Other announcements included in this Live Letter include PvP changes, Doman Majong voice lines for NPCs, and New Game+ support for Dawntrail content, including Role Quests.
We’ll probably be hearing more about these, and seeing in-game footage, once the next Live Letter from the Producer drops. “Crossroads” arrives officially “mid-November,” but with no official date. Still, the team trusts that based on the fourteen-week cadences of prior patches, we can make an educated guess—meaning likely November 12, barring any delays.
