Hydaelyn Role-Players

Triple Triad BreakdownA: Just as I introduced to you all in the walkthrough video, there is a competition located in the Manderville Gold Saucer where it will be possible to face-off against other players in FINAL FANTASY XIV’s Triple Triad. However, there are people who are new to the FF series and many people of a younger generation who started out with FINAL FANTASY X, so I’ll give a brief overview of Triple Triad.



Triple Triad is a card-based mini-game that was introduced in FINAL FANTASY VIII.



Triple Triad is a simple game, where players decide who goes first and then place a card on any open space of a 3x3 board. The goal of the game is to obtain your opponent's cards. There are four numbers—arranged in a square—on the upper-left of the card that correspond to the sides of the card. When you play a card next to your opponent's, the value of the touching sides is compared. If your number is higher, you'll obtain your opponent's card. For example, let's say Yoshida plays a card with "3" on the left side at the center of the board. His opponent then places a card to the left of his, with a "4" on its right side. In that case, Yoshida's number is lower, so he loses his card. This process is repeated until the match ends, when the player with the most cards at the end wins. The rules are simple, but a lot of strategy is involved.



We’ve prepared all sorts of methods of obtaining cards for FINAL FANTASY XIV’s Triple Triad. In fact, various NPCs around Eorzea play Triple Triad, and by challenging them to a match and winning, players will obtain cards. However, they possess a large number of cards, so it won’t be very easy to get rare cards from them. Players can also obtain cards in exchange for Gold Saucer points. Roughly two-thirds of the cards can be obtained by playing matches with NPCs and trading Gold Saucer points, but there will also be cards that drop from dungeons and other battles. At the start of Patch 2.51, there will be a total of eighty cards that are available. As new patches are released, new cards will be added, including cards with the same design as those that already exist in-game, but have different numbers in the upper-left corner. 

Additionally, cards featuring the “Legendary” FF series characters from “Dissidia FINAL FANTASY” that were designed by Tetsuya Nomura will be obtainable in various places. A particular icon will be displayed over the heads of NPCs that can be challenged to a Triple Triad match, so one quick look will allow players to identify them. If an NPC has already been beaten by a player, the icon will change to a “defeated” icon, so players will know whether or not they have beaten a certain NPC before. There is an achievement that can be received by defeating every NPC that has this specific icon, but there are a few hidden NPCs above which the icon will not be displayed.



FINAL FANTASY VIII was an offline game, so players could only have matches with NPCs. However, now it will be possible for players to have matches with each other. With that said, players will not be able to take cards away from one another. Players will simply be competing to see who is stronger. Tournaments will also be held at the Gold Saucer, and there will be cards that are awarded to players who win a certain number of matches each week.

Additionally, since players will be able to challenge each other, the rules can be customized to a very high degree. There were many people who expressed their desire to see a card mini-game so we really put our all into fine tuning it. We hope you enjoy it!