Final Fantasy XIV – Live Letter 75 Summary

Final Fantasy XIV's next Patch: 6.3 Gods Revel, Lands Tremble is right around the corner. Here is our detailed summary of the most recent Letter from the Producer Live.

Gods Revel, Lands Tremble Releases January 10, 2023

Final Fantasy XIV's most recent Live Letter (Letter from the Producer Live 75) has just wrapped, and director and producer Naoki Yoshida shared all there is to expect for the highly anticipated 6.3 Patch of the Endwalker Expansion: Gods Tremble, Lands Revel. As you've probably guessed from the heading of this section, the patch is expected to release on January 10, 2023, at the usual time but have a look at the trailer:

This patch marks the midpoint of the current expansion, and it seems like the current storyline of the main quest scenario will probably wrap up with the 6.4 patch in May/June of 2023.

New Quests!

Let's cover the quests first. Patch 6.3 will as always, progress the main quest scenario, through its course, it seems like we're heading back to the frozen wastes of Garlemald to catch up with some of our old friends. The main scenario will also introduce the new level 90 dungeon ‘Lapis Manalis' that seems to be tied thematically to the Reaper job introduced with Endwalker. And like the last patch, there's also going to be a new trial included with the main scenario, which is, as of now, a secret. But we can assume that we're probably going up against one of the remaining fiends introduced in 6.2.

There's also going to be another entry in the Tataru's Grand Endeavor questline. Continuing the trend of reintroducing characters from various sidequests, this chapter will be tied to the Four Lords storyline from the Stormblood expansion. Similar to previous entries in this questline, you're required to finish all the Four Lords trials that were introduced in the 3.2 patch. If you haven't finished the questline yet, it begins with speaking to Soroban in the Ruby Sea.

The Newfound Adventure storyline, unlocked after completing the 6.2 main scenario quest, will also get another entry. Not started it yet? You can pick it up in Raz-At-Han by speaking to the Radiant Scout.

Middle of the Expansion patch, also means we're getting the first step to upgrading our newly acquired relict weapons. Dubbed ‘Further Manderville Weapons' will release with patch 6.35 (about 6-8 weeks after patch 6.3) and will give you the opportunity to refine your relict weapons. We don't know yet how it will be tied to the next set of Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures that'll also release with patch 6.35, but we'll keep you up to date as soon as we have new information.

New Alliance Raid: Euphrosyne

The second chapter of the Myths of the Realm is the main attraction of the 6.3 patch: Gods Revel, Lands Tremble. It'll continue the side story we started with patch 6.1. After braving the Heavens of Lighting and Flame, it seems that this next chapter will take us to the Heavens of Earth and Ice. In the trailer, we can already see Ishgard's patron deity Halone who looks like she's straight out of a From Software title. If we go by the lore, that means we'll also encounter Gridania's patron Nophica, the goddess of love, Menphina, and the Keeper Althyk.

Hopefully, the storyline will continue to dig deeper into Final Fantasy XIVs creation myths and finally answer questions player's have had since the release of 1.0.

New Ultimate: The Omega Protocol

No one's surprised, but everyone is still happy that the next ultimate is themed around Stormbloods Omega raids. It's going to be especially interesting now that we've revealed the secrets of its origins and even made friends with its creators. Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida stated that they didn't aim to make this Ultimate encounter harder than the Dragon Song Reprise and that players should expect a similar level of challenge.

For those not in the know, Ultimate encounters are tightly packed reenvisioning of previous content. While the Omega Raids spanned 12 encounters, many of them playing homage to other Final Fantasy titles, the Ultimate will compress the entire experience into one 15-20 minute long encounter with the difficulty dialed up to 11. We were also warned that everyone's favorite mechanic, ‘Hello, World' will make a glorious return and that we should better prepare for the reinvention of the ‘Patch' mechanic. The Ultimate encounter will go live 2 weeks after patch 6.3. So you still have time till January 24, 2023, to prepare.

New Deep Dungeon: Eureka Orthos

Planned for patch 6.35 is the new Deep Dungeon, Eureka Orthos, which will see our descent into the Labarynth beneath the Crystal Tower on Mor Dhona. Similar to its counterparts, the Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High, deep dungeons are a number of randomly generated floors that are topped off with a boss fight every 10 floors. As players venture deeper into the deep dungeons, the challenge picks up and it becomes more about knowing how to pick off enemies one by one and manage your resources.

Eureka Orthos will be available at level 81 in Mor Dhona for players who have finished the Endwalker main scenario and reached at least floor 50 in Palace of the Dead. The Deep Dungeon can be entered with up to 4 other players, but do note that the difficulty does not scale with the number of players entering. While exploring, players can find all kinds of treasure that can be turned into rewards like cosmetics, materials, and valuable collectibles. It is also a great alternative way to level up alternative jobs from 81 to 90.

Job Adjustments and Paladin Changes

A new patch and a new Ultimate means that we're getting some job adjustments. Besides the massive change coming to Paladin, there will be the usual slew of adjustments that you'll be able to see in the official patch notes the day before the patch lands. The big question is if the announced changes to the balance of Ranged Jobs are coming in this patch or if it's delayed until the next raid tier.

Paladin mains have to be strong now because Paladin is getting a major rework for patch 6.3. Currently, the job revolves around cycling two damage over time effects in and out. We've seen in the last raid tier that this makes it rather difficult to keep being lined up with the 2-minute buff window meta that Endwalker has introduced. To mitigate the issue, the damage over time effects of Goring Blade and Blade of Valor will be removed; instead, Divine Might is now applied after a weapon skill combo and will probably serve as a buff similar to Warrior's Surging Tempest. Potencies will, of course, be adjusted for this.

There'll also be some adjustments to Paladin's defensive kit. Bulwark, which had been removed with Shadowbringers will be reintroduced with reworked abilities and Holy Sheltron will also see an overhaul. All of this is probably to boost Paladin's defensive options, as it currently lacks a little behind the other tanks, which are supposed to be balanced out by the ability of the job to heal in combat.

PvP New Map and New Season

With the usual adjustments to the overall job balance in PvP, the next patch does also mark the start of the next Series. Final Fantasy XIV's battle pass players can level up by engaging in PvP regularly. The new patch will also kick off season five of the Crystalline Conflict.

More importantly, however, patch 6.3 will introduce a new map, The Clockwork Castletown, which seems to be based on Kugane and introduces some of the mechanics from the Kugane Castle dungeon. Throughout the match, players can collect piles of coins to increase their limit break gauge. There are also doors that can teleport players across the map, as well as ticky floor panels that will regularly flip. And there's also a big robot patrolling the streets of the Clockwork Castletown, regularly casting big AoE attacks that will knock players back.

New Treasure Hunts

The Treasure Hunts are getting a little upgrade with patch 6.3. Now every Endwalker treasure map in Elpis has the chance to open a portal to The Shifting Gymnasium of Agonon. Like previous extra Treasures Hunts, this one will include a roulette wheel on which players will roll for higher rewards and more dangerous enemies. While we haven't seen any on stream, you can also expect one or the other gambling minigame to return, maybe even a new one.

New Gold Saucer Jumping Puzzle

Finally a new addition to the Gold Saucer. Sadly its not the Blitzball minigame all of us have been begging for or even more game modes for Mahjong. But we're getting a new map for Leap of Faith. This time it's set in the Sylphlands of the Shroud. Here, players have to ascend to dizzying heights to claim their prize.

Gathering and Crafting Updates

Since we're getting started with the relict weapons, there is also the return of the relict tools. That's right, Skysteel Hell returns. This time they're called Splendorous Tool's which are unlocked in the Crystalline Mean in the Crystarium. The quest initiating this content will be made available with patch 6.35 and requires the completion of the Endwalker quest, The Crystalline Mean from Shadowbringers, and the turn-in for the Boutique of Splendors in Eulmore.

There'll also be a new Custom Delivery in Ill Mheg for the character of Anden. We're not exactly sure if it'll also be delayed to patch 6.35 or not.

What will however be included in patch 6.35 are the Lopporite Tribal Quest, which is this time centered around crafters. The Questline should be great to level your crafters from 80 to 90 and will reward all sorts of materials, mounts, and the highly desired Lopporit minion.

There's also going to be a slight overhaul of the Fishing Log, now, each entry will display preferred bait, primary locations and additional conditions like weather or time of day. The area around the Wanderers Palace in Upper La Noscea will also be divable and will include new spearfishing locations, there are also several locations in older zones that are being considered for changes like this in upcoming patches.

More Duty Support

In the ongoing effort to make all of Final Fantasy XIV playable with little to no problem, Duty Support will be added to the rest of Heavensward's Main Scenario Dungeons, which include The Great Gubal Libary, The Aetherochemical Research Facility, The Antitower, Sohr Khai, Xelphatol, and Baelsar's Wall. This leaves only the Stromblood dungeons which will be available for Duty Support with patches 6.4 and 6.5.

Island Sanctuary Updates

The Island Sanctuary was a huge success in the last patch, and the team behind Final Fantasy XIV is now hard at work to expand the content. In this patch, there'll be a minor update, while the next one should include a larger one. Probably one of the biggest updates is the ability to filter through workshop orders more efficiently instead of tapping in and out of menus all the time. Now everything will be conveniently in one spot, and you'll also be able to collect all products from animals and farm plots in one go.

There'll also be new ranks to obtain, new visions to fulfill, and a few more improvements to the system overall, including the ability to save the settings of your orchestrion, so that visitors can actually hear your orchestrion and notifications for visitors. More details will be on the official patch notes.

The Housing Update

As previously announced, there'll be a massive increase in available housing across all servers. Six wards and subdivisions will be made available on every server for every district, which means a total of 1800 new plots will be free for the taking. Like the last time, those will only be available with the housing lottery system. The newer servers that have been created over the past six months won't have these additional wards available for now, as there are still plenty of plots available.

On top of that, automatic demolition will be reinstated as of patch 6.3. This means that houses that haven't been entered for longer than 40 days will be made available for purchase.

For the way these districts will be divided between private buyers and Free Companies, please refer to an upcoming post on the Loadstone.

Updates to the UI

Also previously announced was that the team will finally add a visual indicator for damage types. Now enemy attacks will have an icon for their damage type. This will make defensive timing buffs on tanks a lot less complicated. Because they had to retroactively apply this to all content, Yoshida asks players to report any bugs they might find with the system.

And after the drama that came with the modding debacle of the Dragonsong Ultimate race, the team has finally chosen to implement individual buff timers on the party list. This option will however be togglable, so if the constantly ticking numbers are too distracting or cause performance issues, you can just turn them off.

As promised, there is also a new UI theme. It's called Clear Blue and is clearly inspired by the recent Final Fantasy VII Remake and other new Final Fantasy titles. The team is also thinking about implementing other color schemes of this UI theme in the near future.

Miscellaneous Updates

With the portrait feature becoming so popular, the team has decided to go ahead with the implementation of it in more content. Now similar to Crystalline Conflict, you'll get a quick view of all portraits of your party when you join a duty. But in Alliance raids, it'll only show members of your own party.

The most important feature, perhaps, of the entire patch is that there'll not only be more available actions for fashion accessories. There will also be an option to automatically equip an umbrella when it rains. The team is also currently debating if they should add the same option to snow as well.

Retainers will also get a few quality-of-life enhancements. Now you'll be able to add glamours to retainers and dye directly from your inventory, as well as glamour items from their inventory over yourself.

You'll also be able to directly filter stackable items from your inventory into your retainer's inventory if they're already holding that item for you. It only took them 10 years to add, but finally, retainers can be the ultimate bank storage for heavy-duty crafters.

Special Announcement

At the end of the Live Letter, Yoshida showed himself a little sentimental as Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn is about to enter 10 years of service. So we'd like to share this quote with you:

“With the Christmas holidays, the new year soon, and then we're also entering the 10th anniversary year for FFXIV. It makes me think a lot. I said back then that I want to do this for 10 years, actually reaching that as an MMO is amazing and we have plans for the next 10 years now. There are announcements I would love to share with you, but can't yet at this point. Thanks for spending this year with us and I am looking forward to the next year with you guys. I hope you have nice and healthy holidays, merry Christmas and a happy new year.” -Naoki Yoshida

With Fanfest coming up next year and the next expansion quickly approaching, there is no doubt that 2023 will be a big year for Final Fantasy XIV. We'll, of course, cover all of it! Special thanks go out to the Final Fantasy XIV Discord for translating the Live Letter.