Square Enix held a nearly four hour livestream for the last FFXIV: Letter From The Producer Live before the Stormblood expansion is released next month. In this special Letter From The Producer Live Yoshi-P & friends gave us an overview of how the battle system will change in 4.0, revealed many of the new class specific changes coming to Stormblood as well as releasing new cash shop items for the Mog Station and much more.
If you weren’t able to watch the livestream this morning or don’t have the attention span for a four hour broadcast I’ve summarized the majority of the big reveals in this article. Please remember that some of these reveals come from translated screenshots and an in-development build of Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood – they may not accurately represent the final game.
If I missed anything huge or simply got something wrong please feel free to email pr[at]brokenjoysticks.net and I’ll make sure to issue a correction. With so much new content revealed I’m sure I missed something.
Without further ado here’s all the major reveals:
Battle System Changes
Why Change The Battle System?
- Previous battle system was too complex – Too many actions per job and not enough hot bar slots.
- Too much emphasis on players focusing on status icons.
- Large disparity between the amount of DPS done by “core players” (end game raiders etc) and those who play more casually.
- Lack of synergy between some jobs while other jobs worked well together in group settings.
How The Battle System Will Change In 4.O
- Cross-class skills will no longer be in the game.
- Being replaced with “role actions” with five different types. (Tank, Healer, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Caster)
- Requirements for unlocking jobs will change now that cross class skills have been eliminated.
- Actions on existing players’ hotbars that no longer exist will be greyed out to remind them to swap them out.
- Players may have up to 5 “role actions” active at any given time.
- Slots for role actions unlocked at levels 12, 20, 32, 40 and 48.
- Several discrete abilities have been merged together into new actions where this makes sense (example: raging strikes).
- Most jobs have less actions than they did in 3.0 despite new job actions being added in 4.0.
PVP Changes & Adjustments
Problems With The Old PVP System
- Level restrictions for PVP were too high.
- Too many job actions.
- Takes too long to get thru existing content before PVP becomes available.
Changes Coming In 4.0’s PVP Overhaul
- Removal of unused actions.
- Any jobs over lvl 30 can participate.
- PVP actions determined by role, not by Job.
- Gear affects your character’s look only. Stats from PVE are not carried over.
- PVP Actions are now PVP specific.
- Each job has 9 PVP Actions + 2 selectable actions and adrenaline rush.
- Stuns have been removed.
- For an unspecified time at the launch of Storm Blood PVP will be in a “unranked pre-season” with the start of an official ranked season coming sometime later.
New Mog Station Cash Shop Items
- Scenario Skip items allow players to skip the Main Scenario quests for either A Realm Reborn or Hevansward.
- Scenario Skip consumables only mark the Main Scenario quests as complete and do not affect side quests.
- These items do not affect player Job levels at all.
- Priced at $18 USD for ARR MSQ Skip, $25 for HW MSQ Skip. Buying the Heavansward MSQ Skip also includes ARR Quests – new players do not have to buy both.
- Job boosters will level one single job to level 60 with all actions and gear unlocked.
- Dungeons tied to Main Story Quest will be unlocked but the first time bonus for Story Dungeons will still be available. These items do not automatically unlock optional side quest dungeons.
- Job boosters can only be used once per account.
- Priced at $25 USD.
- All of these new optional items will be available on June 16th when Early Access launches.
Class Changes:
Astrologian
- New job actions have been added that go until LVL 70.
- The rotation for this class hasn’t changed much from the 3.0 iteration even with these new abilities.
Bard
- Now has “music bars” that display the amount of time remaining in the song so that Bard’s know how long active effects have left.
- Cast timers for Wander’s Minute has been removed alongside the damage buff that this provided permanently.
- Removal of cast timers was due to the disparity between core and casual players in terms of the amount of DPS being done. Overall Square saw the adoption of Bard slow after the launch of the last expansion.
- New multi arrow bard abilities.
- New poison animations.
Black Mage
- Fourth level of thunder being introduced with Storm Blood. Thunder IV is an AOE cast.
- Enochian’s recast time is now 30 seconds.
- Once Enochian has been cast Black Mage’s have access to either the Umbral Ice or Astral Fire chains of abilities.
- New spell in Storm Blood called “foul” is being introduced – large damage but can only be used Enochian for at least 30 seconds. Foul can not be stacked together.
Dark Knight
- On screen resource bar is known as the “Blood Gauge”.
- Once the Dark Knight begins collecting “Black Blood” the Blood Gauge will become visible on screen.
Dragoon
- Not a drastic change in regards to the rotation that players will perform.
- Dragoon’s passive ability allows them to build up Blood of the Dragon.
- Using the move Mirage Dive will be able to gain a status from the Brood to open up further abilities while in combat.
- New actions available up until level 70.
Machinist
- Like bard, Machinist no longer has a cast timer.
- Flamethrower ability first shown in the Storm Blood benchmark makes an appearance in the job actions trailer.
- On screen Job UI is a “heat gauge”. Some actions will raise heat while others will lower it, it is the machinists goal to manage the heat resource and make sure it doesn’t fill up all the way.
Ninja
- Has two different job gauges – Scrolls & Hotun.
- Scrolls are raised by performing auto attacks.
- A chance to cast Ninjitsu with no cast timer.
- Burn scroll to summon a giant toad. Looks like toad casts oil.
Paladin
- Shields now block physical and magical attacks.
- An unnamed move was shown where the paladin spins their sword in a circle like Link’s spin attack (from the Legend of Zelda series).
- Yet another unnamed move has the Paladin spread wings behind their back, almost looks similar to a limit break. Party members behind the Paladin will take 15% reduced damage for the duration of the cast. While this ability is being cast the Paladin will take a 100% damage reduction.
Red Mage
- Has two different mana pools: Black & White.
- Players will have to balance between the two different mana types because if they stick to only one of them their DPS will be low.
- One of their main mechanics is the ability to chain spells together.
- Example: First spell will use its’ initial cast timer, the second spell in the chain will be counted as an instant cast with no timer. Players can chain either spells of the same color or different.
- Spellblade – functions almost like an “ultimate ability” if the job actions trailer is accurate. At the end of a rotation, a Red Mage may spend her entire dual mana bar to thrust forward and empower her sword to deal a massive amount of damage. After the attack lands, she jumps back with a flourish.
Summoner
- Third stage added to their rotation after DreadWyrmTrance that allows the summoner to call a representation of Bahamut onto the field.
- Currently not known what the Bahamut summon actually does but the explosion in the Job Actions trailer sure is massive O.O.
Warrior
- Two different on screen gauges depending on their stance.
- With the removal of the wrath resource Warriors will now collect a resource known as “Inner Beast”.
- When the Inner Beast gauge reaches 100% it will begin to glow.