During the latest Live Letter from the Producer, Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida gave us a better look at the content coming to the game in patch 3.2. Titled “The Gears of Change,” the patch will be arriving on February 23rd.
The live broadcast opened up with Yoshida demonstrating a battle with a dummy in the new “Stone, Sky, Sea” challenge. In Stone, Sky, Sea, players will have three minutes to defeat a specific training dummy, and each dummy corresponds to the difficulty of high-level content. For example, the dummy Yoshida was fighting was a striking dummy for Alexander: Gordias, The Burden of the Father (Savage). Though the challenge will not give a reward, it is a chance for players to better test their skill rotations.
Next, we got a look at the details for the Gnath beast tribe quests that will be coming in Patch 3.2. Like the Vanu Vanu quests, the level adjust system will also be implemented for these quests. They also revealed the new mount that will be available for gaining enough favorable reputation with the Gnath.
The flying mount is used by the Gnath and possesses some reptilian and dragonfly features.
In addition, Yoshida also demonstrated the Adamantoise mount’s newfound ability to fly in 3.2. Though the picture below doesn’t convey it, the airborne mount also spins rapidly as it flies around.
New details for The Feast, the upcoming PvP mode, were revealed. The Feast will require players to be level 60 and have an item level of at least 150. Specific party compositions will be required, as each party, whether it is a 4-person or 8-person, will require both melee and ranged DPS. Parties that don’t meet this requirement will not be able to queue for The Feast.
Additionally, unlike previous Wolves’ Den content, the winning team is not decided by completely wiping out the opposing team. Instead, all players will start the match with 100 medals, and the objective is to steal your opponents’ medals. When defeating an opponent, they will drop their medals. Your team can pick these up, and once you reach a certain number of medals, your team will win.
Next, we got a look at the two new dungeons coming in patch 3.2: The Antitower and The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard).
The Antitower:
The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard):
Patch 3.2 will also bring with it the continuation of Alexander with Alexander: Midas. Unlike the first implementation of Alexander, both Normal and Savage modes of the raids will be released simultaneously, without a period of time between them.
Patch 3.2 will also see the implementation of the Mentor System, which will allow players to assist beginners. However, to become a mentor, you must first meet certain requirements.
The requirements are as follows:
- Must have one job from each role (Tank/DPS/Healer) at level 60.
- Must have completed 1,000 or more instanced dungeons or trials.
- Must have earned over 300 commendations.
Once someone has become a mentor, they can invite beginners to a special chat channel. Duty Roulette: Mentor will also be added to the list of available duty roulettes and completing it a certain number of times will grant you achievements and awards.
Next, Yoshida gave us a look at the new trial, the Containment Bay S1T7, which is the start of the Warring Triad series of trials. In this trial players will face off with Sephirot, The Fiend. We also got a glimpse of some gear obtainable from the trial.
Additionally, Yoshida showed off some new primal-themed gear coming in Patch 3.2.
After a short break, Localization Team Lead Michael-Christopher Koji Fox came out and answered a few questions regarding Patch 3.2, the work the localization team does, and the vast lore of Final Fantasy XIV.
Q: What kind of work does the localization team do? (Are the French and German versions based off of the English or the Japanese version?) Additionally, how long did it take to translate Patch 3.1 and Patch 3.2?
A: Simply put: we translate. However, there is a reason that we call it localization, and this is to translate it so it’s understood by a certain region. Our objective is to make it so westerns feel the same way about the game as Japanese people. While there have been times we failed translating, we learn from this failures and grow after listening to everyone’s feedback.
The translation team is located in the Square Enix office. They are fluent in Japanese, so they translate from Japanese. Everyone can also speak English perfectly, so we also translate from English. There are a lot of times we start based on the English, so there are times we translate based off the English as well.
In regards to the time it takes to translate, there is a huge amount of text for FFXIV, and we release patches globally at the same time, so it’s quite crazy. We receive text from not only the scenario team, but also various other teams, and we’re constantly working to perfect the text right up until the last minute. It’s constantly a fight against time. For the expansion, we translated roughly 15,000,000 words between eight people in 2.5 months. Part way through we were concerned we wouldn’t finish, so we had help from people of other project’s teams.
Q: There are a lot of interesting translations, such as “Ichiban” for the Kirin achievement, but how do you decide on these names when translating?
A: As a rule for naming, in order to not break the lore, for things that characters see in-game, we made sure the naming matches those things that are only available in Eorzea. On the other hand, for things that players see, our rule allows us to use homages in the naming. Achievements are things which players see, so there are many names that have homages. For example there’s a FATE called “Feared Guardian” in Japanese, but in English this is changed to “Smells Like Tree Spirit.”
Q: What purpose does the Garlean third eye serve?
A: The allows them to recognize the surroundings more than other races. For this reason, it is said that they specialize in handling airships and advanced arms.
Q: How are the names of enemy attacks decided?
A: In FFXIV, we work together with Oda from the Lore team for every name. We talk with each other to see what Oda would like the name to be, as well as English naming ideas from Micheal to localize.
Cerberus’s move “Hound Out Of Hell” in is called “Hell Charge” in Japanese. When localizing we make sure there are as little different between Japanese and English, and kept the main focus on the word “Hell.”
For Haukke Manor, in English, this is called “Haukke”; however, in Japanese it’s Haukketa…and this was my mistake.
Also like FATE names, there are those in which we use completely different naming from Japanese and English on purpose.
Q: I’ve heard that the tempered of Leviathan are called “Drowned.” Are there any other names given to those tempered by other primals?
A: Yes. In Japanese they are all called “tempered,” but in English there are differences. There is a reason for this. Internally we had used the word “believer,” but this is lacking in impact, so we used the coined term “tempered.”
However, when it comes to the English, “tempered” is a word related to fire, so having something like that relate to Leviathan felt off. The English names used for other primals are all different.
Q: Isn’t it about time for some more Hildibrand?
A: Hildi will return in Patch 3.2! As to who brings him back home… well, that’s a surprise!
Final Fantasy XIV Patch 3.2, The Gears of Change, will arrive on Tuesday, February 23rd.
Final Fantasy XIV is available for PC, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4.
