Final Fantasy XIV 5.0: Shadowbringers

[Tregarde]

 

Edited November 17, 2018 by Tregarde

[Maril]

I was blown out of the water with hype for this. Like, I didn't really expect much to be revealed, but damn, it's like they're just trying to give us everything we ever wanted. 

[Nebbs]

Almost like they pounced when Blizzard fell?

[Dravus]

I'm excited about the expansion itself...though the news that Balmung and Mateus are being disconnected from Aether has soured things for me. I enjoy role-play, yet I also invest heavily in the game itself. Aether as it is now gives players on Balmung and Mateus ample access to a duty finder and party finder that is active and fairly competent. We're set to be grouped with a number of smaller servers and will lose access to what are the 'go to' servers for PvE/PvP focused players.

 

I'm not particularly pleased about that as someone who dabbles in every aspect of the game. Balmung's cheap pricing is also likely to be negatively affected due to the ability for players from other servers to temporarily visit, buy things from our markets and then head back to their own servers.

[Shion]

I wonder if Balmung will be locked from server crossing too, and not just full on transfers.

 

I'm glad Mateus is grouped with Coeurl though, I have several friends on there.

[Teadrinker]

You know.

The WoL is a DRK now and they announced rebuilding Ishgard. Maybe they'll sneak in more Ishgard as part of the xpac like they snuck in with Hingashi.

.....Look, I can dream, okay? ;_;

[LiadansWhisper]

5 minutes ago, Teadrinker said:

You know.

The WoL is a DRK now and they announced rebuilding Ishgard. Maybe they'll sneak in more Ishgard as part of the xpac like they snuck in with Hingashi.

.....Look, I can dream, okay? ;_;

They're rebuilding Ishgard? Did they explain what they meant by that?

[Teadrinker]

Just now, LiadansWhisper said:

They're rebuilding Ishgard? Did they explain what they meant by that?

Not yet afaik. A lot are assuming it's going to be a more fleshed out version of Doman Enclave donations. But it will basically take Ishgard from the crumbling Masonry everywhere to the glorious bastion it's supposed to be.

I'm not biased. *cough*

Tbh I'm hoping against hope that they'll add in 4.0 design as well in the sense that we'll get access to more of the city. Ishgard was originally created with the PS3 limitations intact. I'm hoping this will lift that and we'll get mooooore.

[LiadansWhisper]

1 minute ago, Teadrinker said:

Not yet afaik. A lot are assuming it's going to be a more fleshed out version of Doman Enclave donations. But it will basically take Ishgard from the crumbling Masonry everywhere to the glorious bastion it's supposed to be.

I'm not biased. *cough*

Tbh I'm hoping against hope that they'll add in 4.0 design as well in the sense that we'll get access to more of the city. Ishgard was originally created with the PS3 limitations intact. I'm hoping this will lift that and we'll get mooooore.

Oh that would be lovely!  It's always made me so sad that Ishgard has such pretty locations, but basically no interior spaces and 85% of the city is inaccessible. 

[Unnamed Mercenary]

8 hours ago, LiadansWhisper said:

They're rebuilding Ishgard? Did they explain what they meant by that?

It's "crafter/gatherer endgame" stuff. My guess currently is it's going to be some form of Custom Delivery on steroids, using some form of collectibility if the current trends continue.

 

21 hours ago, Ryuji said:

We're set to be grouped with a number of smaller servers and will lose access to what are the 'go to' servers for PvE/PvP focused players.

 

I'm not particularly pleased about that as someone who dabbles in every aspect of the game.

But before we had the Party Finder, or Cross-World Party Finder, Balmung wasn't exactly struggling with forming groups of people to do content. It's a bit of a disservice to claim that people who enjoy roleplay are somehow against doing other content. It could be confirmation bias, but the only person I've seen claim to knowingly not progress in the game/refuse to do content is someone I don't think even plays the game any longer. Roleplayers run content just as often as nonroleplayers. Not to mention Balmung's large pve-focussed populations from before the 1.0 server merges, many who've come, gone, and invited other pve-focussed players into the game.

 

I do agree that opening the markets to other servers' players may not have been SE's wisest decision, even if it's some form of wanting to "standardize" prices. The first few weeks will likely be quite tumultuous while things try to balance out. It's also likely going to mean that Balmung's minions and crafted gear are going to skyrocket in prices as all our cheaper ones are bought up. As a crafter though, I'm looking forwards to the increased profits so long as the botters are kept in check.

[Valence]

11 hours ago, LiadansWhisper said:

They're rebuilding Ishgard? Did they explain what they meant by that?

 

They spoke about an endgame crafter/gatherer reconstruction similar to Doma, but on a server/world scale. 

 

They also briefly mentioned "we know you want to go back and live in Ishgard" and what they really meant by that is left to speculation..

[Valence]

That datacenter move is a godsent for roleplay communities when combined with the world visit system. This essentially means that Crystal will be a roleplay datacenter in itself. There is still the little problem of not being able to visit Balmung correctly if Balmung remains congested. We don't really know if the world will stay hard locked (congested) or just go back to a busy status where you have very small windows to get into it, and how the world visit will exactly prevent people to visit it if it's too congested (that's what they said though, the world visit system WILL check if the destination world is congested when trying to access it).

 

It is however, a little nuke to the raiding communities here. My static got wrecked by it, and most of the people already on those dead servers that have not much to do with RP overall are thinking to move out. Balmung and Mateus in themselves have never been exactly striving with raiders as well. This is really not good.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

48 minutes ago, Valence said:

Balmung and Mateus in themselves have never been exactly striving with raiders as well.

Have we been playing the same game all these years?

 

Balmung has multiple Free Companies with a focus on raiding. And plenty more casual ones that do it too. People had plenty of an easy time finding groups before the Party Finder went Cross-World. And it still wasn't hard before we even had the Party Finder in general. I think a lot of people are forgetting that RPers want those clears and glamour just as much as the other players. We might lose access to a good portion of the Duty Finder, but given just our server's population, I don't think there's going to be a situation in which a tank doesn't nearly instantly queue for most content.

[Dravus]

5 hours ago, Unnamed Mercenary said:

But before we had the Party Finder, or Cross-World Party Finder, Balmung wasn't exactly struggling with forming groups of people to do content. It's a bit of a disservice to claim that people who enjoy roleplay are somehow against doing other content. It could be confirmation bias, but the only person I've seen claim to knowingly not progress in the game/refuse to do content is someone I don't think even plays the game any longer. Roleplayers run content just as often as nonroleplayers. Not to mention Balmung's large pve-focussed populations from before the 1.0 server merges, many who've come, gone, and invited other pve-focussed players into the game.

My concern is that there's been a notable rise in the amount of role-players who don't tackle content to any large degree...and of those who do, it isn't unusual for them to flake out for various reasons. If it happened once or twice, that'd be one thing - but some of us end up experiencing it more often than not despite frequent attempts to set things up. Even accounting for being a large server, many have been forced to look to the cross server system to secure contacts for PvE/PvP and now we're set to be cut off from the servers we leaned upon for that. That aside, I've spent a lot of time in Eureka and couldn't help but note that I rarely encountered players there from Balmung. 

 

I wasn't implying that there aren't any role-players who tackle the PvE and PvP side of the game - because there are. I figured that went without saying. Yet right after the announcement that Aether was set to be cut loose from Balmung and Mateus a number of people decided to transfer. More will likely do so in the coming months. There's also serious talk about establishing Jenova as the replacement Balmung on Aether. How that plays out remains to be seen, though in my experience people tend to take the path of least resistance.

 

Balmung isn't going to die out. Mateus isn't going to die out. Though at this point only time will tell how much of an impact the move is going to have and whether the better choice for some is to head to Jenova or some other Aether server set to not be sent to Crystal. Which obviously comes at the cost of cutting ties completely with Balmung/Mateus...but getting ready access to the servers with a large number of PvE/PvP focused players.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Ryuji

[Teadrinker]

I've only ever really noticed a skill cutoff when I want to proceed with Savage content. If you want to take it seriously (Read: repping people if they simply can't perform) you're generally better off branching away from RPers. I know a handful that are fine with that kind of environment but most aren't. The loss of Gilg players in the PF will make a dent in this department. However, even taking this into account, Turns 1-3 are generally farmable in party finder at the end of patch cycles regardless. If you want to pursue Savage casually then you're still in a good spot.

I can't say I expect to have any issues whatsoever with anything below that level and I don't think anyone else should either. Your normal Omega turns, 24 man content, maps etc should proceed apace.

[Mermaid]

11 hours ago, Teadrinker said:

I've only ever really noticed a skill cutoff when I want to proceed with Savage content. If you want to take it seriously (Read: repping people if they simply can't perform) you're generally better off branching away from RPers.

That's going to be the problem. Balmung has everything which means that relative to it's size it's raid scene is small but still has a good presence in the raid scene overall. Aether's raid scene won't be hurt by this but all the Crystal raiders are being cut off from the larger portion. There's numbers floating around somewhere with the distribution of o8s clears across the new data centers and, from what I remember, Crystal has only half of what the other two do.

 

I've also heard this is cutting Aether's PVP scene in half. Apparently half the PVPers were on Balmung and the other half was on Gilg (with a chunk moving to Cactuar?).

 

Basically, the server changes are great for people who want to RP and do content casually and bad for everyone else.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Mermaid
major word derpage

[Valence]

14 hours ago, Unnamed Mercenary said:

Have we been playing the same game all these years?

 

Balmung has multiple Free Companies with a focus on raiding. And plenty more casual ones that do it too. People had plenty of an easy time finding groups before the Party Finder went Cross-World. And it still wasn't hard before we even had the Party Finder in general. I think a lot of people are forgetting that RPers want those clears and glamour just as much as the other players. We might lose access to a good portion of the Duty Finder, but given just our server's population, I don't think there's going to be a situation in which a tank doesn't nearly instantly queue for most content.

 

Are we speaking about serious raiders, or just duty finder (normal mode and raiding)?

 

I mean, all the few big groups like enrage are already leaving. What do you think will happen when new players will show up, ask where there is the biggest raiding community, and be pointed the way to Aether?

 

Same thing like when they ask where is the place for RP.

 

 

 

Edit: also no, not half the raiders are on Balmung. Most of the Aether raiding comes from Gilgamesh, Sarg, and Midgard.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Valence

[Mermaid]

42 minutes ago, Valence said:

Edit: also no, not half the raiders are on Balmung. Most of the Aether raiding comes from Gilgamesh, Sarg, and Midgard.

Derp. That last line was meant to be PVP not raid.

 

Also Middy isn't that big try Cactuar or Faerie.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Mermaid

[Koti Nexus]

While I am in the process of moving from Mateus to Lamia to aid the RP scene there, I am-- feeling 50/50 about the whole Data Center thing. Balmung, since Besaid, has always been my home. I may not currently be there, but it will forever hold a close place in my heart. However, I don't think people should see it as a massive negative either. Balmung, or should say, Besaid had the fear of having problems when we had our first merger in 1.0, it survived.

 

It will survive and thrive, as it always has even with this new shift in Data Centers, if anything it means aiding further the smaller servers, pulling more RP communities together, since I think Goblin was trying to start one, and it will eventually all equalize out. The only big flag that worries me is a possible up tick in trolls on Crystal because they always see RPers as easy pickings for their trolldom... and with no means to now keep folks out, there could be some heavy troll traffic to try and impact events.

 

Do I think that will last? Probably not given how seriously Yoshi-P's team handles harassment, but that is something that could also come from this. However, Crystal will have 2 of the strongest RP, nicest, and new player friendly communities together. Also those who are really darn strong in content and raiding. If anything, when these smaller servers come in, its a good time to make maybe a dedicated Crystal Discord server, get together Hunt and Raid Linkshells and start building a even tighter community even ahead of the merger.

 

Its a big under taking, but if someone is willing to step up to do that, several in fact, it could become perhaps one of the best things to ever happen.

[Tregarde]

A friend compiled a list of what the new servers and visiting means. These are from notes taken during the announcements. So while they may not be 100% correct, they are pretty close (and, of course, things may change between announcement and when they go up).

 

Quote

 

World Visit System
Players can move freely between worlds on the same Data center via aetherytes in Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, and Ul'dah.
-- Go to aetheryte
-- Right click or target and open subcommand
-- Prompt that says transfer or visit other world
-- Once you select that you can choose which world to visit
-- Select and then a prompt comes up asking if you want to teleport or not
-- Once you click yes, you get a Duty Finder like window that lets you know you're teleporting to the destination world.
-- During that time, they make sure that the destination world isn't too congested to teleport over, after confirmation, you're teleported over, and you get the loading moogle.
-- You appear in the same locale, but in the destination world.
-- It’s actually a simple system, should cut down on confusion.

Other Details
-Your current world will be considered your 'Home World'.
-Whatever world you'll pick will be your Destination World.
-While you're visiting the Destination World, there's no time limit, you could even stay there permanently if you wanted.
-Some may have gotten the impression that there's a time limit after teleporting, or if you log out while in the Destination World.
-There's no time limit, you won't get kicked out of the Destination World, you'll log back into the Destination World if you log out while within it.
-Almost think of it as living in another world.
-You can leap around worlds however you want to do so.

Restrictions
-Retainers cannot be hired or summoned.
-Items cannot be put up for sale in the markets.
-Estate plots and apartments cannot be purchased on a Destination World (housing areas are accessible).
-Most free company features cannot be accessed (chat is available).
-Linkshells are not available (cross-world linkshells unaffected).
-Eternal Bonding ceremonies cannot be scheduled or attended (looking to change it so people from other home worlds can attend in the future, but unavailable at feature launch).
-The Moogle Delivery System cannot be accessed.
-Unspoiled and legendary gathering points cannot be utilized.
-Tickets for the Jumbo Cactpot cannot be purchased.
-Lord of Verminion and Triple Triad tournaments cannot be entered.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Tregarde

[Tregarde]

EXTENDED TRAILER

 

[Tregarde]

Keynote Address, Paris Fanfest 2019
Official Release Date: July 2, 2019
Pre-Order Date: February 6, 2019

 

New Class: Gunbreaker
Job Characteristics
-Role: Tank
-Main Arm: Gunblade
-Associated Class: None
-Starting Level: 60 (Tentative/Maybe)

 

Battle Design
-Use your gunblade to engage targets directly.
-Deal slashing damage enhanced with magicked ammunition
-Abilities executed by spending magicked ammunition
-Job quest begins in Gridania (Tentative/Maybe)

 

Coming 5.0 Content

 

Sprawling New Areas
-The Rak'tika Greatwood (Home to some 'Unique' residents)
-IL Mheg (Home of the Pixies, Very fantasy feel to the zone: Pixies implied to be Moogles 2.0, but less bad. ... maybe.)

 

Thrilling New Dungeons
-9 Dungeons at Shadowbringers Launch
-Challenging New High-End Raids

 

Restoration of the Holy See of Ishgard
-Disciples of the Land & Hand End-game Content, (meant to go on throughout all of 5.x content. Will have Storyline attached, not just a grind.)

 

Included A Recap of Features from Las Vegas Fan Fest Announcements

--Battle System Maintenance
--Trust System
--New Game+
--World Visit System (Due in patch 4.5.7)

 

Pixies
-Reside in Il Mheg
-Proficient in the Arcane Arts
-Tricksters
-Speak a unique language known as "Fae"
(Koji and Yoshi both joke that they're going to give you a Bad Time.)
New Primal: Titania, Regent of the Pixies

 

New Alliance Raid: YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse
-NeiR coming to XIV
-Two Special Guest Creators:
---Yosuke Saito: worked on NieR & Dragon Quest
---Yoko Taro: worked on NeiR & Drakengard Series

 

New Race: Viera

 

Preorder Items
--Baby Gremlin Minion
--Aetheryte Earring

 

Early Access: June 28th, 2019 (Tentative)

More New Information On Saturday, March 23rd, at Fanfest Tokyo

[Tregarde]

New full trailer:

 

 

[Larson]

Well... I was interested in coming back over the Viera hype but seeing the gender lock I'm not sure I will anymore. I get the budgeting issues when it comes to character models but I would have preferred an entire race than two halves. I'm not going to hold out any hope that they'll develop the other gender models either... so I'm just really disappointed. All the other stuff looks good but this was what would have brought me back.

[Tregarde]