SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Aorsian Update, a behind-the-scenes discussion podcast for Final Fantasy XIV online for the HJP Podcast Network.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

I'll be your host, Hoka, a voice and creature with a sweet taste for Ruby Red with behind-the-scenes info.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

And I'm Violet, a totally not feral Viera, sitting comfortably upon my massive pile of mounts and glam.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Today we'll be discussing Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest. As you can probably tell by my voice, uh a little bit at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Just a little bit. North American Fan Fest just happened this Friday and Saturday, which would be April 24th? 23rd, 24th.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

24th, 25th was fanfest. A lot of people flew in either earlier that week or the 23rd, which was a Thursday, which I came in on the 23rd.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Right. Community shout-out. We did actually have a HJP community uh uh meetup. You got to actually meet a lot of HJ members in person. Yes. What was that like?

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Amazing. It was amazing hanging out with everyone there. Um, Team Japan, Buck, Marky Mark, uh, Heather, of course, Tom, Cyrilla, Siri, um, me Miko or Michael, Miko, uh, and Jiro. Jiro was there as well. So, you know, it was nice. Uh, we got to see Pimpy and a bunch of other people um there. We all got to hang out, you know, have fun, create memories. It was amazing. Amazing weekend overall. Um couldn't ask for any any better better uh group of people to hang out and do fan fest with. But wish, but really, really, really wish that you and Freya and everyone else was there as well. Uh sorry, I was choking out my saliva just now.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

I understand. I yeah, we we might need to take a quick break to go and get some water or something because I I was actually reaching over for water myself. Yeah, no, we wish that we could have been to uh logistics did not work out. Um it is not uh it first of all, uh for people who are not aware of the way that it works, there's a lottery system to get in, something that's very, very common apparently in for Japanese conventions and concerts and other live events. Um, so you first have to get through the layer of, you know, did I get picked? And then second, there's always just the normal hotel um, and then uh paying for the tickets, it was they're like what $225 each, not including concerts.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Uh $200, wait, are you talking about the actual convention tickets?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Uh they're $250.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Okay, $250. But regardless, it's one of those things where if you're going by yourself, even, this is not a cheap like prospect. If you are going with a group, which I would have to, um, then it would be even more expensive. So yeah, it would definitely be one of those things where it is cost prohibitive for some people, namely myself. Apparently, I cannot keep hold of my gill. Um, I keep buying people too many things.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Anyway, I um I think most of us are at this point.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Uh so uh I'm I was so excited to see you all there. I know that the hype was real. Like, we had some massive information drops. Like yes, this was this was literally, I would say, probably one of the most information ground shattering. We are at like I don't want to say I called it, I'm not the oracle of Delphi, but um uh I I did in fact see at least some of this coming, you have to admit. Like, we roll the tape.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Um it's all on YouTube right now. It's all on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Go check it out. HJP Podcast Network. Go. We've got 11 episodes up, and this is gonna be 12. So yes, uh, like my wig fully snatched, fully. This this was so surprising to see all of it come out. Um we're not gonna talk about any of the artwork, none of the the the preliminary stuff. We're we're gonna we do have a name for the expansion. It is ever cold.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Um, which you being, you know, from where you're at in the world, you you pretty much from what I hear are ever cold. Um accurate.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

I was very accurate, except for the summertime, but you you know, four months so for that month and a half, everything's great. And then it gets cold again.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

See, I'm in the boiling part of the void. It is it is all hot down here all the time. Um so but we we got uh introduced to Evercold, we know where we're going. I'm not gonna go into any details about that because this is where we just talk about systems, we just talk about those sorts of details. So if you want a breakdown of the story, there are lots of people on YouTube who have lots of predictions and things. Um, I would say this is that I knew they had to be cooking something big when we didn't see a lot of systems changes for 7.0. Yeah. Because we had a massive graphical update, which for those people out there in the audience who are non-technical people, which is probably most people, to be fair, when you have a massive graphical update, and I've had this confirmed to be by multiple actual game developers and many people who do technical work in my life, you really can't do a full game graphical update without also updating the engine. So we we were getting and we now granted because and I understand and I honest honestly, I think it was really smart for them not to sell it as a huge like game engine update, because what I don't think that it was one of those things where like they took the time to completely rewrite the game engine, because of course not, but I do think it is time that they or or it's the time that they took to go back and trim out some of or update a lot of the code because I've been looking into the history of this game, just a very quick aside. Like, you know, it came out on PlayStation 3, yeah, yeah, and we are now on PlayStation 5, and we are well into the production cycle of PlayStation 5. Now I mention the PlayStation as console because Square Enix has been well known to be a uh uh Sony PlayStation first like game developer.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yes, they've they've always done a good majority of their testing on the uh on a PS on a PlayStation console before even trying to release it to any other system.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Right. So even though Final Fantasy 14 has the unique position of not just being available on console, but also being available on um PC and Mac, and now we get a new platform added, Switch 2. Um and of course, it also plays on Steam Deck and Xbox, and like they're trying to get as much universal support for this. Like the only other place they have to go is native Linux support, and quite frankly, I'm here for it. But um, but it's still one of those things where uh this game has been available, and if you if you go back, and it's a whole we can make a whole podcast on the history of the development cycle of uh Final Fantasy XIV and how it came to PlayStation 3. And even though it came to PlayStation 3 very early or somewhere like a few years, I mean it's like midway through the cycle of PlayStation 3, um, it got updated for a Realm Reborn, which by the way was not an engine update, it was a very quick and dirty let's convert systems and get it functional um for PlayStation 4. And of course, big news if you are on PlayStation 4, which support is still going to continue through 8.0, but I would say that if you want to stay on your console and you want to keep going forward with Final Fantasy 14, now might be the time to start putting your pennies in a little pity bank because um 8.3, the way that the files are being written for the size of this game is going to finally outstrip the ability for the PlayStation 4 to process the information.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah, I and at this point, you know, I I know a lot of people will like want to keep hold of their PS4 or whatnot, but it at this point it it might be time to either go with the PS5 or switch over to the Switch 2. So it's gonna be one of those two.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Admittedly, like let's also talk about the the okay, so the switch 2 being announced is great and all if you are a purely switch to environment user and you're thinking about playing Final Fantasy XIV, I would say it's worth it. But if you play Final Fantasy XIV on any other platform, unless you are rolling in cash, don't worry about the Switch 2 because of course Nintendo was determined to get their cut. So you will be paying not only for so if you have a subscription on another platform, you don't get to just port it over to the new platform, you have to pay 50% on top of that for switch to yeah, and Nintendo's gonna Nintendo.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

We all know that. It is an iPhone. They're gonna be a piece of the pie, too. If oh, you want to be on a Switch 2? Well, we want our cut too.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

So the good news is is at least they did negotiate not having to have the Nintendo uh like game network thing. Yeah, Nintendo Online is not required, which that is huge because Nintendo is massive about shoving people into that that system for online gaming, period. Oh, yeah. And it is not a cheap thing to have to invest in. I know because I used to pay for it. Um I I do not anymore because anyway, uh, so now we're we're looking at that. So we're we're in the middle of um, we don't know when new consoles are gonna be coming out. We don't know anything about any of that. But this is weird to me as a person who played other MMOs that were PC first games, and if they got ported to console, it was very definitely a retroactive sort of port. Whereas a lot of Japanese MMOs or you know, games coming out of Southeast Asia tend to be console first, which means they are designing for what is essentially a very set uh hardware specification. Designing software for set hardware specifications is easier than trying to do testing on multiple different types of systems. So the fact that 14 has extended to so many different environments is huge.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

It is, it really is, especially with like we don't know where Xbox will be heading towards when it comes to consoles and what they're gonna their plans are doing. Very true.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Uh so uh Microsoft's making some weird decisions right now, I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Yeah, I mean they certainly are. Um, but you know, we don't know their future. Uh we don't know if Sony is gonna be planning on releasing a uh PlayStation 6 anytime soon. So it's like it's gonna be one of those things where like the the the future for consoles at the moment could be Rocky at best because the future is just so uncertain at the at the current time. Where we know we know Nintendo's gonna be releasing another console, probably not for like another five no, let's see, probably another four years, but they'll probably announce something, but so it won't be released for like another six years at this point. But I it I don't know. PC's gonna always gonna be there. Um we all know people are gonna play on the PC unless somehow we're gonna get over overpriced because RAM is way too much, graphics card is gonna be way too much. So it's right now uh point where everyone's gonna get outpriced.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Yeah. As far as it stands right now, actually, it like I could go into there's big changes back and forth. The AI bubble seems to be a lot closer to popping them, and I cannot be happier. But moving past all of that, um, let's get into uh a lot of the things they actually announced. Like, first of all, we have to kind of do a quick overview. Uh, the on Friday, right before the keynote, the preliminary patch notes for 7.5 were released. There was a massive amount of information that just came out from that. This is probably the biggest download of information, and I am trying very hard from here on out to just give the quickest of if we don't have details about it, I say that what we're gonna do is we're just gonna give our quick opinion because Lord knows there are plenty of of people out there that have like big opinions about a lot of things, but there are a few points I want to have time to hit. So I'm gonna hit the very, very quickest highlights of what they were talking about with um us moving to instead of a game systems-based development to a character-based development cycle. We are going to start seeing a lot of future updates that are focused entirely upon customization options for characters, customization options for character animations, where that basically the name of the game from here on out is going to be making it as accessible as possible for you to create the truest representation of your warrior of light into projected into Final Fantasy XIV.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

You mean I can make a Lalafeld that looks like the incredible hawk?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yes! Oh my god, yes. It's gonna be it's gonna be great. Um, they showed so many, oh my god, I'm so hype about this. Okay, so they showed so many pictures about uh like all of the eye color, the hair color, the skin color, the uh uh all of those sorts of things. And this is all gonna start with, by the way, um some systems that are coming out as of literally uh Tuesday uh April 28th. Uh 7.5 drops. Um 7.50. We are getting uh updates to our die system. We are getting updates to uh furnishings for housing systems. Uh we are going to have uh detailed dis uh depiction of how many characters at a time you can see in a house. That's huge. Um we're getting uh more animations out of our our chocobo companion. The chocobo companion has not been significantly updated since it was released. So this is massive. Okay. Um we're also, I mean, other than that, it's just the usual upgrades here and there. We're of course getting a new dungeon and a new uh trial. Um, we're getting our capstone Allied Society quest. We're getting our capstone uh, which will probably be uh coming in 7.51. And then we've got our uh capstone wings, which will be available um as of 7.5 as soon as the the trial EX you know drops, which will be Tuesday. Um we are not seeing any significant changes to to things for right now. We're also gonna get the 24 man dropped. Like it's gonna be all we we're getting all of this content all dropped on us all at once after probably one of the biggest fan fest like knowledge drops. Like and the reason for this, and I want to just like sum up the reason why the hype is so real, y'all. You if there's one prediction I was happy about, it's this one. I was right. I've I called it, I called it. We are getting it in January 2027, yes, not August, not July, January of 2027. We are getting the ever cold expansion right in the middle of winter. Yes, it's gonna be it's gonna be so great. Um my wife uh has birthday, so she immediately turned to me and she was just like, oh my god, they gave me an FF expansion for my birthday.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Happy birthday. Well, happy early birthday when when January gets a feature.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Exactly. Happy early birthday, Freya. You're gonna get the coolest expansion literally we've had in a while.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Oh no, I when they announced January, I was uh the first thing I thought in my mind was, oh my goodness, Violet called this.

unknown 20:36

Yay!

SPEAKER_02 20:37

And then I started cheering because it was January. I'm like, yes, we didn't have to wait until like August or anything.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

It's January. So that literally means that we're gonna be looking at because we we are October 31st, Jane uh November 1st, we're gonna be getting uh Japan Fan Fest. So after all of the last of the big announcements in Japan Fan Fest, we only have three months or two and a half months, somewhere in there, two and a half to three months to wait for Evercold. Yeah, I'm so excited. Okay. So uh now we're we're getting beyond all that. The first like thing that completely blew my mind once we got past a lot of the like I'll go into detail about some of the other stuff. Of course, we're gonna talk about you know, systems updates and things, but the first system update that I'm gonna be honest with you, I was not entirely certain I heard it right. Cross region party matching through Duty Finder and Party Finder. Thank you, square meters coming in 7.5. So that means we will. Be getting it before the release of uh Evercult.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Yes. Oh my goodness. I popped out I popped out out of my chair so fast and was screaming at the top of my lung.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

I'm like, yes. Oh my god. So testing is apparently gonna begin in in Japan. Uh JP uh region is going to be the first region that gets it. Makes perfect sense. That's close to home. That's where all the testing's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

And then they're gonna be implementing it to other regions when that testing is successfully concluded. Uh the thing that's still blowing my mind is implementation is gonna be before the 8.0 release.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Now, little side about that, by the way. I I was online playing last night. You were, of course, trying to uh get some rest and uh traveling back, yeah, trying to get home back from uh uh the the the Anaheim um location.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

I was uh helping some friends out on uh Lamia, uh which is on the primal data center. Personally, I have my character, much like the rest of HJP, on Kraken. Now, granted, my FC is uh private FC that uh I have kept um for the past like it's the same group of people I've had in in an FC for oh goodness um five years now. Five years something like that. It's been a while. Uh so we are a at this point allied FC to the Kraken's Call FC for HJP on um Kraken. So we were helping out some friends, helping out some HJP members, helping out some associated people, get through the new Arcadian raids. Because I'm sorry, the minute anybody says, hey, you want to go do the Arcadian raids, I'm like, when, where, I'm already there, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Um I'm pretty much the same way. So don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

So we were we were over there as we were trying to make our way back close to 11 o'clock uh Eastern time last night. World transfer had shut down. I was like, I can almost pinpoint the moment when all of the fan festers got home because the movement off of Aether literally shut down home world transfer. Like people were fleeing. They're like, I can get out of this crowded place, housing here I come.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

And here's the here's the interesting part part. While they announced that, right? Two people, two two uh HJP members who left Kraken because because of the queue times are now gonna come back to Kraken.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Good luck trying to get through that queue. I'm just saying, good luck.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

But but it's just it's just a fact that now it's like, oh, we don't have to be in ether anymore. Oh, yes, get me off out of here and and let me go somewhere else where I can actually buy a house or do some of the other stuff and not have to worry about the queue times and what in and everything. So you know this was huge news, and my my only question, and they did not touch base on this, which I'm I'm pretty sure we're here about this in Berlin or Japan. Um since this this works in Party Finder and in everything else, will this include uh cross-world link shells?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Because I think that that's the natural inclination, but I also don't think that that's their focus right now.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

I and I completely understand that, but that was the one question that that popped in my head as soon as they they announced it and they didn't mention that. I'm like, is this gonna work with the link shells as well? Because if it was if it does, that's great. If not, then then I might still have to, you know, we might have to still do some travel just uh communicate with the some of the link shells that we have going on. But if if it does, if the link shell does uh affect regionally, then that's huge. That is massive. And that's the one thing I'm hoping they will answer either in Berlin or in Japan.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

I hope so too. Uh, of course, you can always go to the forums and post questions or requests or any kind of thoughts that you have on Final Fantasy XIV. I do warn anybody who hasn't been to the Final Fantasy XIV forums before. It is it is an unhinged place of both enthusiasm and whatever you would call the opposite, uh cynicism, probably. It is it is a it it is a silly place. Uh be careful. But if you want to make your feelings known, um just understand that our dev team for this game do actually read the forums.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Oh, that's good to know.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Uh a lot of the yeah, the a lot of the changes that we have seen in game have actually come from a lot of requests that have come through the forums. So if you would like to respectfully place a request, ask a question, I make a request for a feature, that's the place to do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Gotcha. We'll have to, I might have to explore that option, possibly. Just uh possibly, I'm not 100% sure if I want to go down that avenue. Uh yeah, I yeah, yeah. Um, I might have to think about that.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Yeah. The the next big things we're talking about. Now we're gonna get into the changes that are gonna be for 8.0. Um one of the things that completely blew my mind is we are now having a total removal of tombstones as currency. I don't know how that's gonna change things for relics or for buying things with tombstones. So we'll see how those currency adjustments happen. We don't have keep in mind, this is the one thing I want to put disclaimer. Disclaimer, just imagine a gigantic, you know, just also kind of maybe imagine a feral bunny with a knife going, if you don't take this disclaimer seriously. Uh disclaimer, this is all in development. We are getting a view behind the screen for what they are actively developing for 8.0. So while some form of these systems that I'm about to discuss, that we're both about to discuss, will be implemented, they will not look exactly the same as they were posted on the screen. They will not be um details that were included will certainly be changed, and there will probably be more to it than was initially given to us. There are two further fanfests where more information will be given. We are looking at a Berlin fan fest in uh July. July, and we are looking at the Japan Fan Fest, which is coming October 31st and November 1st in Japan. And of course, we have live letters in between.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

So we will be here giving you our opinions and our breakdowns and all of those things as they come out. So let's get right into it, as they say. Removal of Tone Stones is currency. We are now going to I'm I'm sorry, I'm just gonna say it. Uh, I know that it's not a quote unquote battle pass system, but it certainly looks like it. It is instead a challenge log system, which I appreciate that. We have a challenge log in the game, but it's something that you have to actively unlock to use. And if you use the challenge log system, we are have already been on a weekly system rather than a purely daily system for a while. Granted, if you've never unlocked your challenge log, and it's just not something that even if you have unlocked it, you've never done much in it, then you're probably still locked into the cycle of daily earning of tombstones through roulettes.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Yeah. Yeah. Which is fine, I guess, but after a while, it's like, okay, uh, I want to do something else now.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

It's um, it is certainly the grindiest part of the game that is the most repetitive. Um there's there's grindier parts that are less repetitive, I would say. Like fates can be repetitive, but you get through them so quickly, and they are literally something that you can just like, I'm engaging with this now. I have now decided I'm not engaging with this anymore, and get your benefits and get out.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Same thing with exploratory content, same thing with a lot of other content. So as far as grindiness comes, and it's not something that actually activates like a fun cycle or anything that's like interesting to do. It's just the repetitive gaining of tombstones for the sake that you need the currency to upgrade gear, to be able to unlock relics, to be able to buy uh crafting materials and things like that. So, removal of that system, at least from the gearing end of things, so would would be a massive improvement. Even if they kind of like soft go back to okay, well, you can still earn tombstones, but now they're just for buying crafted materials and for unlocking relics and things like that. That would actually be fine. That would be fine with me. I would be okay with that.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Oh, yeah, I I'll be fine with that too. Actually, I didn't think about that while while I was out there, but since you mentioned, I'm like, oh, that could work. That would definitely work.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Right? Because right now, I mean, there are phases of getting the the ARR relic that require uh tombstones. There's phases of getting uh all of the relic series right now. There is at least some portion of it that is a tombstone grind. So if they were even to, and and as uh a few people I follow online have referred to it as the hijacking of their poetics or hijacking of their their tomestones for a period of time while they're trying to build up their relics or they're trying to do things you know other than gearing their characters. There's not a lot of tomstones to spread around. They in fact had to implement just like you have a baseline tombstone, which are repo poetics, and then there's two tombstone types that they've had to implement. One is limited and one is un uh which is uh limited in how many you can earn per week. The other is limited only by you know the cap that it has on it that you can carry with you, and then you have to unload the cap constantly. Tomestones are the most awkward and unwieldy part of the system. So personally, I'm excited to see it go away. Granted, the first time that they showed what is referred to as the adventurer activity panel, I my first response was ew, what's that? I'm not an enjoyer of yellow. Oh yellow is not a color scheme that I enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Oh, what are you trying to say about me then, huh?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Oh, well, you know, you can enjoy yellow all you want as a color, but it is just not in my in my palette.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

I have to live with it. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Hey, you know what? I mean, I wasn't gonna go there. Um I know, I know, I know. But so I yeah, I I really hope that you can change the colors on the uh the panel and everything because the the yellow panel is not my favorite. However, you can make adjustments to things like how your character appears, what their stance is, what their pose is, what background you have, because they did actually show different backgrounds of different like main cities and things like that uh for your character panel. It is completely replacing the you know, when you press C on your keyboard, or you you bring up your character panel through your your console, it is replacing that entirely. So we're we're now gonna be moving off to that. It did have uh three tabs at the top. I don't know how many people were noticing that, but it we have missions, rewards, and savage gear. We didn't get a lot of details about it. We will, and I think in Berlin they're gonna be going over this system in more detail. In general, it does kind of currently appear to be a fairly generic battle pass looking window. That is something that is extremely common in games right now. Immediately you could feel the air being sucked out of the room through the live stream, by the way, which is how I was experiencing the fantasy note.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

When when it looked like a battle pass, everyone was like, it's yeah, no, it was one of those things like nanny, and and then like he they explained that it's not a battle pass. Um, and then you could be like, oh, okay. It's like you don't have to pay for it.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

So they're not implementing any kind of like paid system or anything like that. This is just a different way of keeping track of activity that you are doing in the game to be able to earn points, which can then go towards things like gear upgrades, going towards item upgrades, being able to unlock specific items like mounts and minions and orchestrian roles and things like that in the game. Um, there was something that was showing an activity level. We don't have a lot of details about what that technically is yet or how it works. We'll find that out later. There's also uh showing, you know, gear that was on the character, not on the character. I'm sure that that UI will probably have some changes to it. We'll see how much of it makes its way into 8.0. Um, there's also alerts that will come up. They did show on the panel that uh that'll tell you like when certain things are going to be, you know, changing and so on and so forth. I think it's a good communication panel, basically. I think it's an excellent way to get people involved. The missions tab looks to basically just be the command log or the the uh the challenge log, just broken down into things that will now give points towards your overall activity level.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

I'm very much looking forward to my activity level being insane. Um I'm I'm looking forward to the game. I played this game a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Looking forward to being average on my end, but you know, we'll we'll we'll definitely see.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah, I made the mistake, by the way, as we were going through all of this of doing a slash playtime the next time I logged in after the the keynote. My playtime is 494 days.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Uh hold on, let me find out my real quick slash playtime. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do this live. Uh oh my god, let's do it live. Uh 359 days, 14 hours, and 11 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Yeah, I play this game a lot. We both play this game a lot, and I'm sure there are people in HJP who are just like, oh my god, that little?

SPEAKER_02 39:48

I've been playing this since day one. Right?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Like there we don't oh my goodness, the the slash playtime of the the true veterans is probably insane. There's also rewards. I'm assuming that that pro that tab is probably for rewards that are gained through the system. The Savage Gear tab, I would imagine, because they're trying to come up with a new way of doing things other than tombstones and other than I would I I'm imagining at this point that gear in general, in the way that it's going to be earned, implemented, etc., is getting a massive upgrade, however, or update. I'm gonna be honest with you, we don't have a lot of details, so we're gonna wait for Berlin to actually break that one down. So let's just skip ahead a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Do you understand my my quick first thought on uh the on the overall look, not not the functionality or anything like that, right? Just the overall look. My first thought was that looks like the character screen for Monster Hunter right now.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Doesn't it? Oh my god. I I had the same, I don't play Monster Hunter, I just watch my wife do it. But I was like, that looks familiar.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

That was my first thought. Like, oh, that looks like Monster Hunter, huh? That's interesting. And then they then they touch touch back uh based on some of the functionality. I was like, okay, I like that, but it still felt like a monster hunter screen.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

You know, that's not a bad thing. I actually really like the UI for that that game system. I will admit it gets a little menu deep when we're talking about the the crafting system, but that's a completely different thing.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

So we don't know a whole lot of details. We're gonna wait for Berlin before we really get into all of that. I was really excited though, for the we're gonna get a color picker for all of the colors of our character creation. We talked about that earlier. More eye and lip customization, et cetera, et cetera. But no butt slider? Come on. Uh give the fans what they want, Yoshi P.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Okay, but you you know that was the question though, right? That was talked about the the butt slider, the longer hair. Everyone was like, but Xenos has it.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Oh my god. Okay, so I'm gonna have a little like I'm a neurodivergent person who's been thinking about this way too much uh uh aside. Okay, so I am all for people wanting to call for any kind of customizations that they want in the game. And I think that everybody's jokingly mentioning Xenos. Yes, Xenos was, you know, it is an example of both a booty licious character and a character with long, luscious locks. But I would like to make a point here is also an NPC. This is not a character that wore a lot of different gear sets. This is not a character that was designed to be fitted into every gear set that was available. And as every single character that is a player character has to be then adjustable to every single gear set in the game, it makes a whole big difference. So I that's just not even an accurate or good example to bring up, other than the example of yes, you see that bouteille, that is the bouteille that we would like to boute in the boute. If there is a bouquet of bouteille, that is the bouteille that we would like to bouquet in. Um which is fine. You can express that opinion.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

I do not share that opinion, but this podcast does not endorse the bouteille of the bouquet of the bouteille or the luxous hair of the bouquet of the bouteille.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

But I can also understand wanting those things for your character. Yes. Um, because they are, you know, customization options are great. And let me also just throw out there as a person. Who was blessed in the booté department? I would like to project myself a little bit more cleanly into the game. Right now, the options, they are a little slim.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

A little slim?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

A little slim. I mean, unless you have 100% intended, by the way, Tom.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

But uh calling you out. Yeah, so uh unless uh you have a particular set item from the near raid, that's the only way to showcase your bouteille in the game A. All you want.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

The gluscious bouquet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's there are certain gear items that will provide enhancements, as there were. But yeah, overall, there's not a lot. Um, but that's okay. We are we have apparently made our feelings as a community known, especially if you went to the QA. You can see Yoshi Pag.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

I was dying laughing the entire time he was trying to explain that and the long hair parts of I was he was dying up there.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

He's like, no, that's not a question. It's not it. I will fully, I'm on Yoshi P side. I'm sorry, those were not questions, those were requests.

SPEAKER_02 45:24

So those were definitely requests. But he was like, question? Question? No, not that's a request. That's a request, not a question.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, I agree. I agree, Yoshi P. You're right, you were done dirty, but I still want answers.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Oh well, we we got a we didn't get a no. We didn't get a yes, but he did say he will talk to the team about we gotta we'll think about it.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

And you know what, quite frankly, from from a development team, that is uh that that's what you're gonna get. See, there are a lot of more complications that people want than people want to really think about. He did bring up some of them because yes, we have to now deal with the fact that there would be clipping. And while, yes, we would have to uh and obviously we would expect as players that they would go through the now 3,000 glam items that might come anywhere close to that region of of a character's body. Um that's a huge undertaking. That is a massive undertaking for that.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

It is, and mainly because just because people think, oh, it's just clipping through, it doesn't really matter. Um, it does because coding-wise, if one coding does not does not match up what what you're trying to do, it will break. It will break the game in some sort of fashion.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

3D collision errors are actually a problem.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

And while most of them do not cause cascade effects or cause big issues, if you have enough of those errors happening all at once, it can in fact cause big problems.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

So again, I'm not a developer for the game, so I can't actually speak to specifics of that. Um, and if I were a developer of the game, I couldn't speak to specifics of that. That's what NDAs are for.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Uh so instead, what we're gonna do is we're gonna move past that and we're gonna go into um the the big thing, the thing that I think just like snatched everybody bald was the job action system changes. We are now getting a completely different button layout for all current jobs and future jobs, but we are for the time being, and I know that they didn't say it, but again, I think that the community has like clued in that since the new jobs do not have reborn modes, that obviously what they're trying to do is they're trying to give people a safe place to land to eventually move into evolved mode if it is adopted across the board. So let's talk about what evolved mode is and how it compares to reborn mode. This has probably been rehashed in a thousand different places, but you haven't heard what I have to say about it, so let's lock in.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Well, okay, so so zoo, so before you go into more detail of it, let me let me let me do my my uh simplification brain terminology for me. It's essentially what PvP has been playing for years now, and they're trying to do that in a PvE. All right, your turn.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Okay, I mean you're not wrong. I was gonna touch on that too. Uh uh, we got introduced to a developer, uh, Mr. Prime is how he's being referred to. Mr. Prime, you are the full chin paladin chad of of game design at this point for Final Fantasy XIV.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

And I said out loud, I you probably could not hear me. I'm like, oh, you're the reason. You're the reason for all the death.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

You are the reason. I think that was the reason for the burst of laughter. Yes, everyone was like, oh my god, you're bottom mad awesome. Yeah, when they were going through his resume and I saw Lighthouse and I saw Construct, I'm like, oh, you it's you, you I have a couple of friends in my group who we were we were like on a chat while we were going through the the um the keynote and uh her response as also an equal math hater to me was like, so that's the bastard. I was like, all right. Okay, I understand we all have very strong feelings about math boss, but you know what? At least it wasn't difficult math, and she was like, speak for yourself. It's like okay, so that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna speak for myself. We're gonna go into evolved mode now. Uh reborn mode is basically the same system that we are dealing with with PvE right now. So it's your same rotation, however, they did go in to clarify that a lot of the synergy buttons that we have that are things like raid buffs or our buff windows that we're supposed to be working within that don't just have to do with our personal output of damage or our personal output of healing. Uh, they're basically going away. So Dragoon has um an ability that adds, I think, like a 15%. I I think it's called like battle shout or something like that. Look at me, just such an expert. Anyway, um, so any it's it's purely a synergy button. It exists purely to give a buff to the entire party for a certain window, and it is supposed to be held for your two-minute in the two-minute meta. And here is where we insert a little little song of Ding Dong the Witch is dead. Two-minute meta, dead as a doornail, it's gone. Yeah, say goodbye. Hasta la vista, don't care. Hope that the door hits you where the good lord split you. I did not like your face in the first place. Go away. Uh, two-minute meta is dead. I'm happy about it. Uh, I think there are even a lot of raiders who are super even happy about it. There are some people who enjoyed the aspect of being able to sit down and have a structure that they could work within, who are probably like having the like sweat mop moment of trying to figure out how their life is like you know, gonna be lived without the two-minute meta. But you've got nine months to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Yes. Hopefully, within that within those nine months, you do figure something out because that was um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

Me and the two-minute meta have never clicked.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

I'll be honest with you. I after yeah, after a while, I was like, uh, I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

There's to me, and I understand that this is me speaking purely for myself, possibly for some other people, if you agree with me, but having to time things so tightly for hitting buttons as a person who has arthritis, as a person who plays this game to have fun and have thrills and excitement of getting through battle, having to hit things so tightly in a time period was not adding to my enjoyment. I did not enjoy it. I didn't have fun with it. It was not fun. But now but now, uh so I basically I'll be fully, I'll fully admit, I kinda kinda ignored it. Like I didn't, I didn't spend too much time.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

You know, focus on the other one. You're not the only one, you're not the only one either. I think we're good. I think we're good.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Okay. Whew. Anyway, so uh we are now moving into a system where when Yoshi P said character-based, he meant character-based. So a lot of talk has been going on for the last several years about character homogenization. I don't think that the tales of character homogenization were necessarily that over the top. Like I didn't mind it for the most part, but I had to admit that after a while, one of the things that kept me coming back to PvP is that nothing plays like a warrior in PvP. There's Paladin and Tank have no overlap.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Um the job individuality and how it works and the specifics of whether you can really like I've never really felt like a main of a specific job in this game. Like, I'm an omni crafter, I'm an omni jobber, I have everything at level 100. I know, brag. Anyway, um brag away.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

I mean, you can brag away.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

But uh well, except for Blue Maids, because it doesn't go up that high, glasses, pushed up nose.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Um and Beastmaster, but you know, that's besides the point.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

But I haven't even gotten that yet. Nobody has, so don't even bring that up. We we're not even gonna get to Beastmaster in this, um, because there's just too much to talk about otherwise, I think. Besides, we went in over it in the the live letter. So, you know, Beastmaster's coming. We'll deal with that later. The the point is is that I have for many times kind of talked about how I was more of a tank main, and I think that and and I I realize now, sort of like the big, hilarious, silly dumb dumb I am, that that's what people were talking about. The roles had become very kind of overlapping to the point where they were interchangeable, and the differences weren't distinct enough to feel like if you brought a scholar with you into a fight that it was super, super distinctly different from being bringing a sage in. But the two-minute meta and its very tight structure required jobs to be fairly interchangeable to make sure that everything was viable in the game environment. Because there was a time period, if we go back into the far flowing history books, of uh jobs being seen as out of alignment with the meta, and therefore parties being very restrictive against certain jobs, and this is just people being people.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Yeah, I mean, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

It's not good. I don't encourage that kind of behavior. The I believe in these devs enough, and I have seen with my own eyes that every single bit of content that they have created is clearable with any party comp that you have. You just may need to make adjustments to do so. And that's supposed to be the fun of it. Like the fun of it is supposed to be figuring out like how you may anyway. So we're not gonna be moving into a system whereby we have evolved mode. We're also going to be moving into a new system which gets rid of the two-minute meta, and instead is going to put more reliance upon individual playstyle and individual skill expression in how you solve the puzzles that are presented to you in a fight. And I could not be more excited for it. I don't sound it right now, and it's because I'm trying to hold back, like claw back a little bit, because I would just be one long stream of just excited shouting, and that's pretty much how I have been the entire weekend. So I am my voice is nearly gone with the fact that I am just so hyper for how this system is going to, I think, interject just the pure play style fun of it. Now, I again do not want to get into the specifics of the breakdown of the job as it was present the jobs as they were prevented presented in the development panel. And the reason why I don't is because it's all in development.

SPEAKER_02 58:54

Oh, yeah. And they they even say the the build that they brought with them was a much earlier build than what they wanted to bring at FanFest. So we're we're talking about a build that was way in early, early development at that point. So, like when so, what my excitement is when for Berlin and Japan, we're gonna learn more about this battle system with a much more recent build and and everything. My excitement as even as a tank is the counterpart of it. I'm like, oh, oh, you're gonna make this a little bit more interactive for us, aren't they? Aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 59:35

That's the thing. Is it okay? So let's. I've talked too much. Here we go. Let's back up a second. So evolved mode is going to be the new mode of game style that we have. A few notes about it. It is 16 buttons. And for those who are controller players, 16 buttons should seem not only familiar, but super exciting. I know you're a mouse and keyboard player. Yes. Um, so for you, 16 buttons is nice, but meh. But for me, the con uh controller player, 16 buttons, I could, I'm like, you had me. I'm done. You had me at 16 buttons.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

For for me though, like, yes, I I am a mouse and keyboard player. You know, I I've been like that since the mid-90s. Anyways, uh, but no, it it's just me. It's just me placing the buttons to where it feels comfortable for me. And that's the important part. Because right now I have I have three rows of hot bars where I have it, especially as a tank, I have it, the buttons to where it fits my playstyle and everything. Now you break it down to 16, I can have it in two rows instead of three, and now I can solely depend on everything on my MMO mouse. And not have to use my mouse to click on the third row. And that's the that for me, that's that's the exciting part, is that I can I do not have to worry about moving my mouse that often to hit a an ability or a spell.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

That's that's foreshadowing I would say that the I would say also that the foreshadowing for this has been really heavy since uh the Dawn Trail announcement. Um because as soon as we got a good look in the uh Mediator of what Pictomancer and Viper were gonna actually look like buttons-wise, the fact that both of them have consolidated um rotation buttons, the fact that both of them have consolidated buttons schema, neither one of them came with more than I would say like a hot bar and a half of buttons. They were much more condensed. I was like writing's on the wall with this this button bloat's about to end. Yes. And 6.1 when we changed into the new PvP system off of the the previous PvE base PvP system, quite frankly, was spectacular. I have never been happier. It has been so exciting. And as far as 16 buttons and button consolidation, I'm also I'm gonna take a tactic here that may be unpopular. I don't use mods, however, I know people who do for cosmetic modding, and I so therefore I kind of have a toe in that level of development. And this this mod to consolidate buttons has been in existence for years now.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

So this is not something that has not occurred to people, this is not something that has not been wanted by people. I would say that for a lot of people, the minute that Yoshi P said 16 buttons, a lot of people were like, sign me up, let's go. Um, it's gonna be available for all jobs that are currently in production. And here's where I think the moments of contention are starting to come in. It's also going to be for the two new jobs. By the way, we had a tank was announced, and we are getting a fizz range. So tank and phys range are the two new jobs. We don't have any more specifics on that. If you are a Final Fantasy XIV t-shirt conspiracy theorist, which is a phrase that some people will be like, what? But if you know, you know. Uh Yoshi P was wearing a t-shirt that said, Who is back? And it's uh Ritalin from the ARR solo duty. He was referred to by Lucia, if you know who she is, um, you know, if not, don't tell nobody. Uh uh as the best of us. Um and so uh and it has a picture of him on the on the the t-shirt. Um if you are a person who cares to engage in that sort of thing, I would say, at least for the HJP uh community and for any other communities that you're in, just make sure that everybody in your voice chat or in your chat wants to participate in that kind of thing because it can get kind of spoiler heavy.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Yes. Yes, it can be.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

Right. So now let's talk about like a lot of the things with evolved mode, we're not too scary. Okay. They I think the consolidation of the one, two, three, don't get me wrong, there are some extremely sweaty gamers out there who will get mad about the quote unquote lack of skill expression with being able to hit your one, two, three button. But I would say that quite frankly, if that is your measurement of whether someone is a good or a bad player, I would beg upon you to please go find another game to terrorize with your really bad takes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

Um because the one, two, three combo, it's not as though any, like I would say every single person who's ever played this game has broken that combo. Maybe you don't break it every day, maybe you don't break it constantly, but the flow of that combo will be broken at some point, and it is not a defining factor of whether someone is a good or a bad player. Um the the number of buttons that you need to hit to be able to affect combos isn't always a good indicator of whether a game is easy or hard. And I would say that even when you're talking about MMOs, the measurement of easy and hard is kind of a forgive my French, it's BS.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

It's bull. It's just bull. Because difficulty level is going to come down to so many factors for so many different people that anything that maintains the ability for a good player or for a competent player or for a player who has an understanding of at least the job that they love the most. Maybe not every job, maybe not every class, maybe not everything. But you give some per a person the thing that they click with that they can then do things like, you know, save the party, or, you know, uh rescue a pull, or, you know, uh be able to pull off their spectacular move and be able to express their ability to play at that level is great and is an improvement overall to a system that instead sort of makes everyone be forced to play on the same level of you have to pr pass the barrier of how fast can you press eight buttons in a row before you can even get to the things that are specific for your job.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

And I I agree with that uh wholeheartedly. Uh especially we've recently playing uh mostly Viper. Um playing the job Viper for most of my times uh on my main uh on Hoka and everything, because I do have alts. But when I'm on my main, I play Viper mainly when I do roulette. And it's like it's nice, it's nice to have those series of buttons just so close together where I don't have to think about it. It's just you know, it's either gonna be one or two, sometimes three, but like at least the main part of the skills are right there within those three buttons right there. You know, when I do my you know, my my quote unquote rotation, uh rotation and whatnot, then yeah, you know, I you know, I have to use all the other buttons and you know, and and going and so forth and and whatnot. But overall though, I just love it how condensed it is already for Viper. If they condense it, I don't know how they're gonna condense it even further with the evolve mode.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

I think they're just gonna remove some of the some of the synergy actions, they're gonna rework some things. Uh we're probably gonna see fewer hyper-specific um positional moves are gonna be consolidated into other abilities, that sort of thing. Like it's we're not I that there also is just not as much button bloat with with uh Viper, so you don't have to worry about there being as many buttons um to have to trim out.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

Uh I mean it's really not that it's not that bad right now. I mean, if even if they count it the same or made like a few adjustments, I'm I'm okay with it. I think Viper is fine anyways. Picto, I think Picto is fine the way it is now. I mean, I they could condense it a little bit, but right, just those two classes alone, they're I I think just my you know, minor reworks. Now, let's talk about some of the other jobs, but you know, that that's there's gonna be a whole podcast by itself. We break down every single job and the hot bar uh on on those, but yeah, that it I'm I'm I'm so excited for this when when they announced when they announced it, I went into the death panel. I'm like, okay, show me what this can offer because the way that they started, the first thought in my mind was, oh, they're gonna go with the PvP hotbar method.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

Yes. And seeing as how he uh is sp the Mr. Prime has been credited with the job changes in PvP, that makes perfect sense as to why they brought him out.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:30

Can I modify his name? Can I call him Mr. Prime VP?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

Prime VP.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

No? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

I don't know if that one's gonna stick. Yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:46

Either about Mr. Prime VP. No? Okay. No, no, no, no. Let's move on.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

We'll go with Mr. Prime. Okay, so now insert sound of can of worms being opened.

unknown 1:11:01

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:01

Here's where I think that there was a massive misstep that was done. Okay, so I've mentioned previously that I see myself as a tank man. The the tank that I play most often is Warrior, and it is specifically for the reason that it requires the least amount of brain cells to be engaged at the same time, at any time. However, I would also like to point out that I do play paladin at the same level of competency and have cleared for many raid groups or with many raid groups in HJP and others as paladin. And in fact, paladin was the first um tank that I got to max level and geared for raiding.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:45

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:48

So, and I have uh I have played all of the tanks enough that I have all of the mounts that are available, and I have most of the achievements.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

Oh, nice. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:03

So my competency in tank is is pretty big. I've also played all of the healers to max, and I have played all of them in raid environments as well. DPS is where I've always fallen down, specifically because of not being able to move my hands fast enough when I because I suffer from arthritis, being able to um hit the buttons in the order fast enough. And so, yeah, my skill expression as a DPS is not as competent as my skill expression or my skill ability as it would be in healer or in uh tank. So we now have the introduction of sub roles for tanks because we are now finally moving to having uh now. This is can I can I just start out with this? Not only is it in develop, it is for evolved mode only. This is a lot of prefacing, but we are now getting main tank tanks and off tank tanks. Now, let me talk about how I find this to be the biggest messaging nightmare of this entire keynote. It has frustrated me no end because it is very clear that what they mean by separating these two groups is that main tank are shield tanks. All right. They are they are tanks that and if you look at the descriptors for for the slides that were put up there, it is reduces incoming damage. Is a basically you're able to take a bigger hit.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

That is part of the kit as it exists currently. Paladins all as it stands are the the job that has the ability to essentially reduce incoming damage to zero on not just one, but multiple abilities.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:12

It is, in fact, I would say the biggest part of their job identity currently is the ability to reduce incoming damage to as low a number as possible. The job identity of the other tanks is to either do a hybrid of that, like the job identity of warrior, okay, is to both put out a good deal of damage, but also there are tons of buttons that are dedicated to support actions for your party. Not just self-healing for yourself, which reduces the amount of healing that you need coming from a healer, but also actions that heal your party and shield them, also actions that increase their damage done and will increase uh the the healing output of the party. So it would be so much more clear if instead we had the breakdown, much like we have barrier healers and direct healers, or as we call them in North America, we have shield healers and we have like pure healers, yeah. Um, which I hate that terminology too. I prefer the barrier versus direct, I think that's more clarified. Um I think that it would be better to think of it as shield tanks versus support tanks because this what a dark knight does with a lot of its secondary abilities is be able to apply heals and uh heals, shields, and support actions to the party. Like that is a good portion of the job identity of the kit for Dark Knight. Okay, yes, and yes, can it output huge amounts of damage? Absolutely freaking lutely. However, the the other thing that's also very well known for is being able to literally put a damage reduction shield on a party member. That is also a part of the kit for a tank for sorry for warrior as a tank. However, it is it just doesn't the functionality currently of it doesn't work as well. Nation Flash is an awkward job ability, and while I have used it many times before, I've saved many a party, uh, a pull with it, it's still awkward to use compared to uh Dark Knight's abilities.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:58

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:59

And you have the same sort of thing with Gunbreaker. Gunbreaker literally has heals, like direct regen heals you can put on a party member. It has shielding that extends to the party, it is a bodyguard identity tank, therefore, it is in a support-like role. Now, again, can those support tanks work as main tanks in the situation of a raid where you would need a main tank that holds aggro and an off tank that deals with ads? Absolutely, you can't. Yeah. It is totally viable across the board. Do I think they're gonna get rid of that viability? No, it would be stupid. They're not a stupid dev team, they're not gonna do it. Do I think that the community is gonna overblow absolutely everything that is coming out about this for views and clicks?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:00

Most definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:02

Maybe. Probably, definitely. I mean, have you seen the memes? I've seen the memes.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

I have.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:07

I've been you've posted the memes.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:11

I have.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:13

Guilty.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:15

Very guilty. Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:19

So, and I've already seen people now. So far, it's jokingly being communicated to the group. And I do think that it is staying in the realms of jokes, but the problem that I would like to point out to people is that when things become joked about to the point where we have like an influx, let's just say this is a very successful expansion. We have another massive influx of players, they're brand new, and they see people joking in chat about, you know, paladins are just the main tank, uh, and that's it. They're gonna take that seriously.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:56

And then that being taken seriously is gonna start floating through the rest of the community to the point where we're gonna start seeing real discrimination against players based on the job that they bring to the party finder or the job that they bring to the party. And we're gonna start seeing people making very off-base comments and complaints about people who play jobs based on their misunderstanding of this main tank off-tank designation. So I think this was a marketing nightmare. I think it was the wrong terminology to use. I don't think that their ideas behind how they're implementing it, however, are bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:41

I'm really hoping that they take some time uh in Berlin to address that because I I also don't think that's how they want it to come across as paladins are the only main tank. I think that role can be uh switched in and out uh between all four of them currently until the fifth one shows up. Um I I really hope that they they they address that. But not like in great lengths, but at least say something along the line like you know, the main tank can be any one of the four slash five um of the tanks in everything and not just Paladin.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:26

Okay, but can I explain to you why I have a problem with even that mentality? Because like I get I get where you're coming from, and I agree. I really do hope they address it, but let's also understand that there is only a small sliver of the community that actually participate, like it's no more than at best, like 40% of the community uh or of the players as a whole who actually engage in things like live letters and fan fests and all of that stuff. We're talking about we as the people who are highly invested in all of the behind-the-scenes stuff, all of the announcements, all of the information that's coming out, but we are specifically seeking it out. Yeah, okay. There are huge amounts of people who play this game who rely entirely upon information that is presented to them purely within the game, because they do not see the point of seeking it out after outside of it. And quite frankly, they're right. They should not have to spend their time sitting in front of a YouTube channel being told how to play their jobs or how to play their game. They shouldn't have to have, like, especially for casual players who are not interested in the extreme intricacies of how the things go. People wanting to just engage with the game as it is and as it is presented to them is not only 100% valid, it should be considered to be the way that default players actually engage with the game.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

Should be.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:14

Should be, should be, but unfortunately, this game does have the very unfortunate sort of like habit of assuming that everyone has gone to YouTube or has gone to Twitch or has you know gone to the live letters or who has like sat down and like read through all of the intricate details of the patch notes and things like that. Yeah. When most people just don't, and that's fine. I of course am, you are, we have this podcast because we are those types of people. But the messaging, right, the a little bit, just a little bit in the best way. Yeah, but the messaging that they're putting out right now is something that's gonna filter through us, the veteran overinvested players, right? And is then going to be filtered through memes and through jokes that become over time serious to people who don't know any better and should not be forced to have to know better.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:25

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:26

And that is that is the thing I am worried about, and that is the thing that I am frustrated by, and I have seen a lot of veteran players who are tank manes, who um, especially players who are warrior mains, gunbreaker mains, and dark knight mains, who have already felt kind of like Warrior got a massive upgrade to its kit in Inwalker. Like, I'll be honest with you. We met Blood Wedding, we made out like bandits. It was great. Um Dawn Trail has been a little kinder to Dark Knight than previous expansions, I would say, but it's also, I mean, it's had its ups and downs. It's really only kind of shaken itself out to be something that is like well-rounded in the last like 10 levels, which kind of sucks, if you're gonna be honest. I have a friend who has recently been leveling their dark knight, and they have only leveled it through this last version of Dark Knight. And even with all of the changes and all of the updates that they've made, it is only really fun to play when you get your full base kit, which by the way, isn't until level 70.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:52

And aren't they changing that to where you get your full base kit at 50 with all the that is the other major change that I'm sorry?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:00

These are the two things that I don't care about the meta. I don't care about as long as the percentages are within the pass veil of clearing and a fight, you will not convince me that evolved mode is not the way to go because of these two most important things. One, 16 buttons is buttons I can hit in the correct amount of time to have good skill expression, even on a bad health day. And that makes me insanely happy. Two, that I will have the majority of my kit, and it will just be upgrades from there by level 50. The huge, overwhelming friendliness towards new players that that is makes this an entire game changer.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:52

And especially for someone like my wife who only recently started playing, you know, she's not a uh an MMO player at all. So for her to be able to have all those buttons in front of her will be way overwhelming. And now with evolve mode, you shrink it down to 16, it will make things so much more easier for her. And I'm so excited for this to come out and have her play again just to make things easier for her.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

The number, like there are there are a lot of people I know who are very dedicated gamers that are very that play games that have similarities to aspects of Final Fantasy XIV, but there have been two massive barriers to entry. One is MSQ, and that's just the role-playing visual novel. But to be perfectly honest, they did mention that they are making overhauls to the MSQ and the the questing system. No details on that. Look forward to Berlin for more details or Japan Fest. So right now we're just getting a general, oh hey, those quests that have been a very we're we're going to be building a more interesting, more dynamic, more fun new player experience now that we have made the quote engine changes, because that's what they really were to the game. And I am so here for it. The amount of absolute other over-the-top hype I have for this is almost uncontainable because I have so many people in my life who I would love to play with who take one look at the no, no, really, it gets good after the like 50th episode anime-ness of Final Fantasy 14 and goes, that is too high a barrier for me to leap over.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:54

Yeah. Just get past like season seven of One Piece and it'll get really, really good. Oh sorry, oh yeah. How many episodes that is? Season seven. Is it exactly? Yeah. I'm not season seven. The seventh arc, because essentially season one of One Piece is over. But like the seventh arc of One Piece is really good. You should watch it. But you know how many episodes that is for me to get to that point? No, I exactly. Like I I I I get it. And like that, I know that's the hurdle that I I need to get my wife uh through is ARR.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:36

Yeah. No, it and I've been recently replaying back through it. So because the problem that also comes in with it is there's a certain amount of what I call veteran amnesia.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:46

You get to a certain point where you've played the top end for so long, you forget what it's like to come up through leveling. And even if all you're doing is just that 10 levels per expansion, it there's a completely different experience when this is brand new. The gearing is weird, the leveling is not very linear. The story, if you I'll be honest with you, even in ARR, the story is good. The music is phenomenal. I love the game. It's easy to fall in love with it, but the game system has needed an overhaul for a very long time. And quite frankly, I'm very excited to see it. I just hate the messaging that we're getting of main tank versus off tank. Um, granted, they're trying to be like, no, no, worry, it's it's just it's just evolved mode, it's just evolved mode. Okay, so I'm gonna refute that point. I don't think it is just evolved mode because what they're talking about with the changes to evolve mode in separate in just the separation into the subgroups of main tank versus off tank, or as I again like to call it in my head and out loud very loudly, is shield tank versus support tank. Is that um the kit, as I mentioned before, it's already there, like it already exists in that format. And they're literally just trying to create descriptors that describe the kit that you're using and how it functions in gameplay so that they can design encounters that allow for more individualistic in expression of uh gameplay in between or it within each one of those roles and things like that. So I don't think it's gonna be in impacting viability, I don't think that it's going to be impacting gameplay negatively. Um, I also would say that if you have an ounce of caution towards this because you're worried that you won't be able to learn the new system and then evolved, looks like it's too complicated or whatever, because even though they are trying to create a simplified system, I'm gonna be the first one to call it. It is not simple. It's not, it's a contextual system. So depending upon what you have targeted, depending upon um where you are in your rotation, depending upon what you are trying to do with whatever power, it's going to be dependent upon what power you're using in the context that you're using it. So that's one thing. We're adding contextualized powers. We're also adding things where uh role actions will become actions that are also uh things that are contextual. We're condensing our buttons, but by condensing buttons, and people who've been playing Viper or even Pictomancer understand this aspect of it, it still means you having to jam the same button very, very quickly to catch it, to cue it up enough to maintain your uh DPS level within the uh global cooldown.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:20

Yes. Yes, you're 100% correct on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:25

So it's still not oh, I just press one button and it does all the things. It is you're pressing that one button very rapidly. Now, currently, because of the queuing system, for those who don't know, I'll clarify. Um, the way that Final Fantasy 14 works is there is uh whether there is a cast bar or not, there is an internal casting time of the global cooldown, which I think at the current moment it's very close to three seconds, it's 2.65 or 2.85 seconds somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:00

Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:02

Um it subtly changes back and forth depending. I don't pay too close of attention to it, to be fair. Um the two-minute meta has been so tightly designed around by this point that there is material in the game that increases your spell speed. There are jobs that have abilities that increase spells or uh increase ability play speed through reducing the global cooldown, and in doing so, they will actually wind up accidentally with a very good, very physically talented player throw their entire rotation out of alignment with the two-minute meta.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:51

Monk players struggle with that a lot. Oh, yeah, they do, but it's also a struggle that you can find within uh Bard. It's a struggle that you can find within anybody who sometimes winds up outside of the two-minute meta because of cast times and things like that, like Black Mage.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:12

So trying to materia or trying to make adjustments so that you can very tightly fit within this two-minute meta has relied upon having to use outside abilities or have or having to use abilities that make adjustments within your rotation, and then having to know when those adjustments are necessary um based on whether or not the way that the fight goes, whether or not that you're gonna wind up clipping a GCD or whether or not you're going to whatever. But there is a queuing system. So once you get through about two-thirds of the tick, as it's called, of the global cooldown, you can hit your next button and it will essentially cue that next action. Action queuing is something that on the normal gameplay level, and I would say even up to like an extreme gameplay level, is used, but isn't strictly necessary to adhere to. Um, it's a good idea to be aware of it, but it's not something that becomes a focus of making sure that you are aligning your queue of abilities, both from your rotation as well as interweaving your weapon skills and abilities, and then also interweaving things like pots, potions, um, and other items that may give you bonuses within those fights.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

Yes, most definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:50

And that is something the ultimate raiders and people who are looking at the very, very highest end of gameplay in this game have to keep in mind. Okay. So being able to get rid of the the uh the two-minute meta, the fact that it is dead as a doornail. I'm serious. I want to throw a party. Can we can we get some people out here? We need a dance floor, we need um we need some hunch punch. We need to get this going. I'm so happy at this. Oh my god, so excited. I I still could not. Oh, I've been wanting to shank the hell out of that damn system since I started learning about it. Okay, but uh enough about that. So, what we actually saw it uh in the development panel, though, we can go over in kind of general detail. But if you want more specifics, they do have the live stream up on the Final Fantasy XIV channel and uh on YouTube, and I would suggest or Twitch, but the Twitch is gonna go away after seven days. I would say go check it out on YouTube. Um, we can put a link in the description to uh the live stream. There's two days of it, it's very long. There are also tons of YouTubers who have made their own shortened videos where they've taken pieces of the keynote and they've gone over it. Um one of the things that I'm also like outside of the game system changes, which were very heavily gone over. And I think it's because, and in an interview right after the keynote, um somebody mentioned, like, well, how about this evolved and reborn system? Like, we why why are we having both? And Yoshi P specifically mentioned a game I used to play way back in the day, Star Wars Galaxies. Uh, Star Wars Galaxies had a very awkward system for a long time, and when they had their development team go through and actually try to create an entire full system up overhaul. Like it was a massive system overhaul. It was so poorly received, and unfortunately, the code was already put in place, there was nothing that could be done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:23

I I remember that. Yeah, I remember that because my uh I had an old friend of mine, he played it, and then when once the new system came into play, I think he only played it for like another week or two, and then he unsubscribed because it was he was not it was not good, it was unplayable for him.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:41

Right, and that's just it. Is it was one of those things where there were a lot of people who found it unplayable. So I would say prepare for the fact that 8.0 is uh the entire expansion and patches and that entire and it may even extend into 9.0. They are dedicated to making big tree-shaking changes to Final Fantasy XIV and as a game that is over a decade old and is considered to be an old MMO.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:15

Whoever thought that, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:18

Hey church, hey, hey, hookah. Yeah, we're old. Ancient, ancient void creatures out here. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:29

Anyway, so if we're a void, but if we're void sensed, then age doesn't really matter, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:36

Sure. Sure. Our time in the void is just a number. Is that what you're trying to tell me?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:42

Gonna toss that one out the trash too, along with Mr. Prime VP. So just do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:49

So okay. So okay. One of the things that we're if we want to go back to things that are less can of worms opening things that I am excited to see uh the entire concept of Evercole, and I could get into all of that. That is another place. The character animation skins. We didn't get a lot of details about it. I am someone who uh identifies as a gender, uh, non-gender, non-binary person in my my personal gender. I mean, you know, I'm a rabbit from the void, what you can expect. I play a female character within Final Fantasy XIV, and I do like most of the animations that female characters have, but let me tell you about how jealous I am about some of the just idle posing uh animations that male characters have. For instance, male samurai, coolest, the coolest just idle animation for holding their sword. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:02

I love it too.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:04

And um I prefer the victory pose animation for male dark knights versus female dark knights.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:15

Yes, but I prefer the the idle animation for female dark knights over male dark knights, which I also like uh which is also true, and I like that a lot, especially yeah, no, I I prefer the female over the male male one on that one, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:34

And so having all of it's nice that there are so many animations and love I love the emote system in this game, it's great. But being able to then apply those animations to different abilities, or even being able to um see different changes to how your character walks, how your character actually physically moves as a differentiation from other characters. I've understood for the longest time why the character creation system, while robust, has to naturally be narrowed down to a certain number of options because otherwise it becomes completely overwhelming and it becomes overwhelming to the system on the back end. But now having everything updated to the point where we can start getting into those like really granular but still big flashy differences, huge.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:33

Oh yeah. Oh sorry, I'm oh no, I'm right here.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:38

I got I I got water over here that I'm constantly sipping on because my throat is so dry.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:44

No, like I I could feel like my voice losing me while I was at fanfest, and like I was trying to not really uh I was I was trying to get it back yesterday because I know I was not gonna do any screaming, but I needed to rest my throat and eat uh eat and drink stuff like throughout the day and and everything. But like I woke up well I when I woke up from from my uh from my sleep on the plane, my voice was like a little scratchy. I'm like, oh boy, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:14

So I've been the the notorious dryness of being on an airplane, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:19

Yeah, and so it's like I'm trying to uh recover, you can say, and you know, as as we're as we're going through this, it's like I want to say more, but at the same time, I don't want to overuse my my voice. Which is like that's fair, that's fair. I but at the same time, it's like we need to talk about FanFast and all the things that came out with it, and you know all the excitement and all the uh what we're looking forward to and everything like that, and like and I know the the whole tanking thing was a huge can of worm for you, and I'm like you know, it it's and and and and and I'll I'll I'll be 100% real with you. I agree with everything you've said about uh about it. So it's like from and and whatnot. It's not like I'm I'm just nodding my head and whatnot, but I I completely agree. Uh completely agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:14

I think in general, a lot of the community also agree, especially the the more thoughtful, more nuanced uh part of the community does agree. But at the same time, there were an awful lot of people who are gunbreaker mains, dark knight mains, and warrior mains who immediately felt sidelined. Oh, yeah, they immediately felt as though they were demoted, as it were, and I don't think that's the intention at all. I don't think that that was um what they were trying to do, but I can also understand the feeling because yeah, the first split second when I saw that, I had to be like, wait, what? What are they doing to me? And I had a think, I've had some time to process it, but it was one of those things where I was like, okay, I can understand why people would come up with that idea. That's not what they were trying to say. It's very obvious when you take the time to go over it and over it, and you realize that they're just trying to find the best way to communicate the ideas, and it is very similar to the ideas of there will be a little bit of a bonus when you take this job as um, and you take this job. So uh rather, and it's very similar, I think, to the same percentage, because there is a percentage bonus that you get when you go into raids and you have uh no overlapping jobs. Uh right now it's more specific to having the same job, right? So you have to have different jobs. Uh, but I can also understand them trying to it, it was fairly obvious that the writing was on the wall for them to try and get a little bit more granular. And I again I can understand why they're trying to do it, because it is also fairly obvious from the dev team panel that there are the that there is a movement towards reactive abilities.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:23

And reactive abilities are going to require certain placement within the raid to be able to pull off those reactive abilities. Honestly, it all looks really fun to me. It all looks like they're trying so hard to inject more actual play, playing around, finding new strategies. I think that they want very much for people who create guides and who are like first timers who like to come up with their own things to also have fun being able to create those guides. But I also like that they are trying to interject more flexibility in not just the gameplay, but also their ability to create the arenas and the bosses and the fights and the fight design. Because it means we have more options at that point for strategizing and creating new ways of dealing with what gets thrown at us.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:27

Oh, yeah, most definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:29

To that, I'm gonna then go into something they put a little bit earlier, but I think this flows in a little bit better here, is that now we're getting evolving battle systems. Okay. So they have heard our calls for mid-core content, and we are getting more mid-core core content, and that there is now going to be a third tier for raids, especially for eight-person raids, and that is uh we're gonna have normal, whatever the second tier, new tier is gonna be, and then savage. Because right now, the step up from normal to savage is pretty severe.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:13

Yeah, it's it's bad. Like the gap between the two is um, how can I put this without sounding really, really mean in a way. Um what's the word I'm looking for? Unattainable attainable for the casuals, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:36

I wouldn't say unattainable for casuals. Here's the way I would phrase it is that savage rating is such a high step up from normal that if you were someone who could very competently, quickly, and efficiently clear in normal, you could potentially convince yourself, oh no big deal, I'll step into Savage. It's what a little bit harder, a little bit longer, it's fine. It is not that that gulf is such that, yes, some people it will be fine. It it in fact, they're probably itching like crazy for a bigger challenge than they're getting. But for the vast majority of players, the playstyle that you experience in normal and the playstyle that you will experience in Savage, there is a gulf between those two experiences. And having something to bridge that is gonna be nice. I do think that the intention was to put extremes, which is that is trial extremes, as a a way that was supposed to be like a third tier, it was kind of supposed to be mid mid core. But the problem is that as it is something that is sort of siloed off on its own, separate from the raid tiers, um. Um it doesn't wind up being like a natural flow of you go do a normal raid, go do an extreme trial, go do a savage raid, you know, like that, and even between extreme and savage, there's a gulf between those two things, too. Um so it it the step up system, I really do hope that they are able to find their middle ground um really easily, but I also think that people need to temper things by realizing that there are certain mechanics that people will find difficult regardless of what the overall difficulty of a raid is.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:46

I see.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:48

So, for instance, I have been in Savage Raids where the mechanics may have been difficult to describe at first, however, I found them very easy to adapt to, I learned them very quickly, and I had no problems. But you then take that exact same raid and go into the normal version, and for some reason, whether it is because you had to move very quickly between left and right, or you had to identify or use spatial awareness to identify something on the other side of the arena, um, I did not recognize that as easily, and it was became a very difficult mechanic for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:28

Huh. I've I've gone through, yeah, I there were whatever extremes or savages I have done. Um there are certain points where especially as a red mage raider, um knowing where to stand at what time when to go do my melee part of it and and and and everything. It it it becomes it becomes not really difficult, but there are times where I forget what the next mechanic's gonna be, and I am completely on a different rotation where I need to be, and like, oh no, I can't be right here right now. I need to like back up and run away, and then at that point it's way too late.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:18

Right, right, and and the thing is, is it's also just down to like certain things will be difficult regardless, yes, other things. So just keep in mind that these are in general just sort of like overall statements. They're not there's no s way to judge objectively all the time what is or isn't easy for a majority of people. Yeah, it's just not possible.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:46

I I feel I feel uh I feel when they announced this, this was for more like uh they're pretty much saying, we know our fan base are we are getting way older, they don't have much time to play, so we need to find something where you know they're not you know, they want something harder than normal, but not in a savage mode. So we need to find something.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:08

Right, not where you have to sit there and you have to prog over many, many, many hours. It's like something that's closer to the extreme experience, but maybe has a little bit more difficulty to it. Like I I'm on board with that. Also, anything that can spread out your ability to um build a savage raider kit without having to uh either spend a ton of gill or have to uh build up a ton of of turn-ins or or anything else. Anything that can help alleviate that is always going to be huge. Um, they're also going to be making adjustments for 24-person raids, um, but we're not going to find out about that really in detail until Japan.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:56

So they've acknowledged that 24-person raids are a time sink. They are, in general, much longer than uh single boss raids. They are not a huge time sink, I would say, like, but but they'd still average around 20 to 25 minutes. Which is just a bad dungeon run. Let's be honest here. It's not, it's not, I mean, you really should just be like setting, like the minute you cue into something, just go, okay, do I have the 20 minutes to do this? Um, and just be okay with it. Uh, but we're gonna wait until JP Fan Fest uh to find out what that means. There's also gonna be an addition of all new types of battle content. We've already seen that with Endwalker with Variant Dungeons, Variant Dungeons came out in Dawn Trail. Quite frankly, I have been very excited about a lot of this game, it has a ton of different game modes. We've got deep dungeons, we've got exploratory zones, we've got um variant dungeons, and quite frankly, seeing more and more battle content, especially how that's going to flow into um their overhaul of overworld zones and making them more engaging. Yes, but we don't have any details on it, so we can't talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:19

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:21

We can we can make supposition, but I would rather not make assumptions because I, you know, um I'm I'm already ASEAN enough. And we all know about assumption, it makes uh uh a makessians of us all, and we've been fighting those those jerks forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:43

Um I'm gonna toss that one away too.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:50

Boom. But uh so we've had a lot of those the like big splashy things, uh, or or it it felt like a whole lot of stones were just thrown into the pool, the reflecting pool that has been uh Final Fantasy XIV. And I'm personally very here for it. Uh the PvP championship. I don't know if you got to see that. Um, the regional championship was so fun to watch. It was so fun to watch. And HJP uh Discord server member Brian Ricardo was actually one of the announcers.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:31

Yes. Yeah, we we we watched him work and that was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:36

It was so great, so great. I love that his co-host, Frosty, was actually cosplaying Matem, if you know you know. If you know, you know. If you know, you know. Uh that was great. Uh the um, of course, we had concerts, there was lots of fan activity. I haven't even gotten to see the cosplay stuff yet because I've been struggling with writing notes and everything for the podcast and trying to keep track of all the stuff that's going on. Um, so I'm gonna go take a break and go watch all the cosplay wall because I heard phenomenal things about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:13

There was a lot of good ones. Uh yeah. There was okay, so there was a lot of good ones that that appeared on stage, and there was a lot of good ones that did not appear on stage. So I have I have I don't have a lot of pictures, but I I I took quite a picture, uh, a lot of uh cosplayers uh pictures and and that that I met and stuff like that. So you know thank you for letting me uh take a selfie with you and everything like that. I I did I did do the etiquette of asking them first and not just walk up there and just take and snap a picture. I I've learned that etiquette for about about 15 years ago. So always ask first when you're approaching a cosplayer. Always uh always, always, always.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:04

Um conventions are great and people who cosplay want to be seen, but catching someone, period, I would say, uh, especially from a public photography standpoint. Yes, you are legally allowed to do so in the United States, however, uh in most states. However, it is still polite to ask because catching someone with like their ears off or their their you know cosplay not completely in line is well, it's a little rude, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:36

Or them waiting in line to get food or you know, they're talking to someone about something important and everything, it's always polite to ask.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:44

Oh, absolutely. People like to be able to pose in their beautiful cosplays rather than just being caught with like you know, the sandwich in your mouth, sort of situation.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:56

Yeah. And just remember, they always have the right to say no. So if they say no, just politely say thank you and walk away. And maybe cat if you catch them the next time, ask them, ask them then.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:10

In that time, just stay polite, stay respectful. Exactly. That's the important part. Um, I do want to go over some. Oh, I'm not gonna go into the buttons because we know that the builds that they showed were not um done. Like they're not even close to done.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:28

I will say the design philosophy of removing synergy actions can seem a little strange and a little scary to people who are very married to the two-minute meta, but I like the individuality more. What they showed of healers, I know has got people shook. Oh because even more so than the tanks, because everything they showed for paladin, I'm gonna be so for real with you right now. I almost like immediately declared myself a paladin main. It looks awesome, it just looks so awesome. I'm so excited for it. But white mage actually has me tingling a little bit too. I play a lot of white mage, and um the idea that the management that I'm gonna have to do is going to be taken off of dot management, which you know what? I'm sure there are people out there that can argue with me. I am not a spreadsheet numbers type person. Dot management is the least fun part of the game when it comes to rotation. I don't hate it. I mean, obviously I do it and I'm fine with it, but it is not something that I'm like, ooh, dot management. Woo! Um, I if you're a bard, I'm sure you're wanting to approach me with intent right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:54

Uh don't do it, Maple. Don't do it. Maple, don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:01

But uh dot management as a part of your job identity makes sense to me. Dot management as a tacked on, we couldn't figure out how else to give you damage buttons feels bad, in my opinion. I I don't like that as much. It's not as much fun as just give me the pure damage buttons. Like, I would purely just prefer to be able to build up some gauge and actually like blast them, you know, just like give me debt. That's what I want. That's that's the stuff that feels good, that like gives me all the dopamine and all the happy juices in the brain. Like, that's the thing that's fun. Every single time in a flautus misery goes off, I'm like, yeah. You know, every time I get uh, you know, but I will admit I can understand why. Like, for instance, my wife is a scholar man, so she's like, okay, already sitting, swimming in buttons. If you've never played Scholar before, I recommend it.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:11

I recommend it, but just being level summoner to level scholar. Uh, I looked at it as, um, yeah. All right. I don't know what I'm looking at.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:25

Look, I and I know I may be controversial in this point, but I call Sage Scholar for Dummies. And I do that because the Sage Kit is actually, in essence, very similar to the Scholar kit.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:40

But Scholar uses three buttons to do what you can do in like two or one on Sage. Now the difference is it has more uh add-on ability or add-on utility to what Scholar can do versus what you can do with Sage.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:02

So but at the same time, for pure healing output, it can be more of a struggle as a scholar because so much of your your kit is surrounding being able to do all of those support actions, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:22

Things like uh chain stratagem for reducing the amount of output that uh damage output the boss can do, or increasing the amount of damage that it takes. Sorry. Um the uh the basically the it's the same thing with Astrologian. There winds up being a certain amount of button blow, and I will admit the one I was worried about is something that has become one of my more recent favorites is Astrologian, because Astrologian's card kit has been messed with very heavily from its initial iteration, and I'm not saying that that is a bad thing. In fact, I rather like the current iteration, it's more playable than the previous one to me. Although I know a lot of people would argue with me about that, and that's fine. We can have that argument. Uh catch me outside the void sometime, and we'll have it.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:18

Uh catch me outside the void.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:21

Catch me outside the void, catch me outside the void. Anyway, uh, so yeah. I I've been really enjoying it, but it has a lot of buttons, like it has even more buttons than you would find on a white mage or uh Sage. Sage, I think, has one of the more condensed kits. Um, but even it has a lot of things that are just sort of overlapping with other things. The design philosophy, though, that I want to talk about that was interesting is it looks to be with the one and only healer we got to see. And again, it's in development, so we don't know if this is gonna stick.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:03

Especially that was an early belt development. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:06

This was an early, early build, so all of this could change, but I will admit I am truly fascinated by the concept of we make damage fast, we make healing slow.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:21

Yeah, that that one was intriguing to to watch. I was I remember watching and I was like huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:31

Oh yeah. The fact that we're having to use Swiftcast to to throw heals, huh? Yeah, that's I don't know, I don't know how I feel about that quite yet. I will admit it interests me because from my personal experience of playing a healer, now I know there's been a lot of controversy in the community. There are a lot of people who can bring up a lot of that. Um personally, I have felt that a lot of the controversy was largely overblown. But I also know as someone who is, I would say, a healer secondary, and there are a lot of healer mains I know, whose attitude has largely been I love this game, I love playing this game, but playing healer in this game feels like a tacked-on add-on sometimes. Yeah. Rather than feeling like we actually get to step into the limelight or step into focus. And it's like we only get to shine if things go wrong. And that's not really fair to healers as a job. Like you should get to feel not only contributory, but also as though your job has a shining part of every fight rather than feeling like you're just there as the emergency button for when people do everything wrong.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:59

That's not fair. That's not it's it that's not a good feeling to be walking into with something that's like you are the you know, oh shit button of the party.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:11

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:13

It's it's kind of um, and I would say it's a little bit different for like Red Mage, although Res Mage has become the the new moniker for that entire job, uh, which is really disappointing to a lot of people to realize that you don't get to become a res mage, which until like level 64. So that's that's that's a little irritating for a lot of low-level you there's a huge amount of Heavensworth content that comes up in roulettes because it's right there in that that in line for leveling. And there are a ton of people who forget entirely that for two whole expansions, red mage cannot raise people. And watching those interactions of the red mages that are basically like fall to their knees screaming, no, the whole purpose of my being.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:22

For me as a red mage main, I don't mind it. If I have to be third in the res order, so be it. I can keep on doing damage.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:34

You know, that's true. Uh, but it I think also moving to fights where we're going. I honestly what I would like we're gonna get into the speculative portion of this. We've talked about all the things that came out. I think we've hit all the high points. Let's get into the speculative portion real quick so that this does not become a five-hour podcast. It was also the longest keynote that has ever been done. Yeah, so there's just way too much to talk about. So um, the speculation that I have on this is that judging by what they showed us, even though it's very early in development, I could very well be wrong, and I will cop to it immediately if I am. But it looks to me as if what they are trying to do is remove the shackles from the battle development team. Currently, the battle team has had to formulate all of their fights, formulate all of their puzzles, all of their visual everything, and their their fight design overall within an incredibly strict meta, within um what is essentially very homogenized, synergistic systems. None of this is bad. It's it's fine. It we enjoy it. We've been playing it, people still continue to play it. However, I think that in this like improved, like something's been sitting in my head for a while. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:14

Somebody had mentioned the other day, who was in a game development like group, and also they make videos and stuff that I've watched recently. There's only so much realism you can get out of a graphical system. Yes, eventually, you will hit the wall of this is a movie, it's just a movie, and we're there's not much further that we can go past this. And we have been so focused in games in general, in trying to create or recreate realism that sometimes games have fallen away from putting their emphasis entirely on being able to create good games, like just really design more around the the aspect of creating an engaging, fun and experience as opposed to thinking that the entirety of gameplay is giving people the ability to project their avatar into a 3D space that is a mock-up of reality.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:28

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:29

And don't be wrong, like I understand, especially in RPGs, the the wanting to feel like you're in the game and like that immersion and that that true like you know, you're you're here, you're in that place, you're in that moment. But eventually it's gonna get to the point where just because the game development team has spent so much time on making you feel like you're in the middle of uh A cyber tech revolution, or you're in the middle of, you know, uh a 1862 West, you know, California. Like eventually we're also gonna have to get to the point where we are building games focused entirely upon building the good game.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:23

And I think that a lot of developers had uh, and especially Final Fantasy XIV, has done a really good job of navigating that space and they've created a really great game, and I super enjoy playing it. It is it is something that I'm dedicated to, but we create chains for ourselves and finally being able to break through those chains and being able to break the cycle as they they put it, and instead create a system where not just the players, but the developers get to have fun creating things means that we're gonna be moving to a system, I believe, where we are not gonna be completely disconnected from DPS, as it were, but we might see a lot more pass-fail mechanics. We might see a lot more puzzle mechanics, a lot more um, yeah, gimmicks, but also things where we have to actually be more reactive and we have to feel like we're we're actually contributing in our own individual way. We're we're moving around arenas, we have to maintain situational awareness and and also be in some environments more forgiving of that, and in others maybe more strict. But being able to create bosses that do fun and interesting things, and I won't go into details, but there are some dungeons that have come out recently that quite frankly, near the end of Dawn Trail, these expansions that are these patch expansions that we've been given, the the dungeon design has been so good.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:03

Oh, 100%. I like the the like I was about to say, like um I I agree with you um in everything. Like I I think what really caught people's attention, and I don't I don't and I don't think it gets talked about uh from what I've read so far is that the CEO literally came out and said that yeah, we're gonna be giving Yoshi P and the team uh almost not all the resources, but like a lot more resources than they were giving in the past. So like this gives them almost like creative uh freedom to not I mean I don't want to say almost anything, but at least you know, do what they need need to do that's necessary to make the game fun, and not only for the players, but for themselves to create the game and everything.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:04

And I think that's huge. Uh having the support of the CEO, even though um I have some disagreements with some of his decisions, but the decision to back this dev team is a good one, and I think I've I've I have a lot of trust in this dev team, even with the mistakes that they have made and the missteps, it doesn't matter because in the end I still have trust that they care about creating a game that is fun for people to play.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:38

So I think we've probably come up on the wall of stuff that we at this point. We could go on and on about uh other things that came up at Fan Fest. The primals concert was from what I hear absolutely spectacular.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:55

I got to see at least through the live stream, I wasn't able to make it to uh um I wasn't able to work things out for being able to see the primals concert myself. Uh hopefully I will be able to buy that after the fact. We'll find out. Uh the Iron Mouse, being able to see Iron Mouse at Fan Fest was spec. I love our Iron Mouse. Her voice is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:20

Oh, that was that was a nice surprise. Like, I didn't expect that. I'm like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:25

This is what's going on here. It's it was great. It was so great. I still have yet to see the um the lyrics panel, the lyrics and writing panel that they did. I didn't get a chance to see that one yet. I'm gonna go back and watch that today. I was of course a lot more focused on trying to like break down a lot of the systems and things that they were talking about, uh gameplay-wise. Um, we're going to be seeing a lot of like the the tree has been shook. I am shooketh.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:55

And and can I can I add a little something about your little um CEO comment or whatnot? I I think uh uh Takashi uh that he he's been the CEO, he replaced the old CEO in like 2023. So like I think whatever uh feelings you had on uh the the CEO wasn't he the guy though that that that supported NFTs or was that the previous that was the previous one.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:25

Oh, okay. All right. I never mind.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:31

No, that was the yeah, that was the previous one that wanted to be able to do all that.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:34

So the square leadership was a little too over involved in NFTs and it blew up spectacularly in their face. Um, but I I suppose I should have been paying more attention to who the uh the the CEO was. Um I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:53

No, I just yeah, I just wanted to say that's all.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:56

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. No, thank you for the correct correction. I appreciate that. Um uh I it I won't say I'm the NFT's number one hater, but I will say that uh um I'm probably number two. Uh it's hard out here being an artist, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:19

I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:18:22

Okay. Well, I honestly the end result, my end comments purely come down to I wish they had put out better terms for the tanking changes that they're making. I don't disagree with the tanking changes. I think that it's gonna be exciting. I think it's gonna be fun. I'm interested to see how it comes down. I am in general extremely excited for the new expansion. I cannot wait to spend so much fun time with all of the HJP group crew doing spectacular fun events in um 7.5 through 8.0 and further into the future. And if you would like to join me and hookah in our adventures in Aorzia, you can go to H uh Heatherjustplay.org. And that's H-E-A-T-H-E-R justplay uh.org. And you can join the Discord, I'll be there. Uh hookah will be there. We spend a lot of time there. Uh get to know the crew and come play games with us.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:41

Yes, and not just 14, but some of the other games that we play along as well. So um, well yeah, come join us and everything. It it's a fun time. Fun people, you will not forget.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:55

In the end, may all your Aetherite travels be free.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:02

Bye.