6 - Glamazons Unite!

Eorzean Update is a behind the scenes discussion podcast about Final Fantasy XIV Online, hosted by the voidsent creatures Violet Cathdraig and Houka Oza.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hi, I'm Violet, a mildly feral bunny girl from ancient times wandering around in modern times. Not all those who wander are lost, but I am! Can I get a taxi to the nearest Aetherite?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

And I'm Hoka, the Allison foisant of wealth and taste. I may have stolen many a man's soul and faith, but you can't prove anything at all.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Welcome to the AURZN update and discussion podcast for the HJP Podcast Network, breaking down the behind-the-scenes details about Final Fantasy XIV online, the award-winning ML RPG with free trial that goes all the way up through Stormblood, allowing you to play level 70.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Today's discuss this well, today's discussion we'll be talking about the most recent live letter that was uh that talks about 7.38.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

7.4. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

That was uh that was a doozy.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

You want to do a retake on that one?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

No, no, no, no. I I don't mean a retake, I mean I'm talking about the live letter. The live letter wasn't quite as doozy.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Yes, actually, the the live letter was a lot. I stayed up for it. I actually like waded through the whole thing. Um, I had had some notes of stuff that they had been talking about previously, but all right, so um everybody can look forward to at uh 1111. So November 11th, we're gonna get all of our limits on the Savage tier released. So go ham, Raiders. Get your gear on, because it's gonna be about time to get stuff ready for the next uh uh the next tier. There are gonna be some delays though, so take your time. Take your time this time around. Like actually spend time with family. Don't feel like you've gotta neglect the humans in your life for the the the digital pixels this time around.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I mean, unless you want to. But otherwise. I mean if you have no other toys, and you know, you can spend with your digital friends and family, that's in 14, but you know, that's besides the point.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

So that's fair. I'll probably be doing a lot of that. Um but to to explain further, uh the uh normal tier for the next uh raid series is going to be coming for the heavyweight. So Arcadian Heavyweight is coming out on 1216, and that's for the normal raid. Uh that's gonna be four of the normal raids. We're gonna finally have the um this is the third section. Yeah, the third set of four. Yeah, so that means that's the that's the entire set, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah, that should be the entire set. Yeah, cruiserweight, light, and then heavyweight.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah, cruiserweight, light, heavyweight. And um the heavyweights, uh, we're not going to see the savage tier drop, though, until January. So the reason what I mean, honestly, the delay is uh probably gonna irk some people, but I don't see it as a big problem because that means that that's more time for people to enjoy through the holidays. It's more time for people to get prepared for the Savage. All in all, I don't actually see it as too negative because of the time period that we're talking about. Because we are talking about over um, especially in North America, uh, we have we have big holidays going down.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

So oh yeah, most definitely like right around what? Thanksgiving and Christmas and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

So it is literally the six weeks of Thanksgiving through Christmas that they're they're going to be. We're gonna get like right in between that, we'll get the normal drop, but yeah, we're not gonna get it until after the new year, it's gonna be January 6th.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Which is fine. It gives people, you know, people not a lot of people are gonna be logging in. Um I I already can let you know that there's gonna be like a week period where I'm not gonna be here, so I'm not gonna be logged in at all. Which is fair enough, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

And so yeah, like so it's well I have uh I have events that I'm doing because of course, as you know, I am a very small time streamer, so I will be doing some streaming stuff through the solstice with my family. Yeah. So yeah, I won't be logging in for it either, but I'm I'm looking forward to having more time to actually learn the normal fights in the hopes that the savage fights have some similarities, so I might be able to translate it over. Though, from what I've heard, the Savage from this series, I haven't done any of them myself, but I have watched a lot of my friends do them. Um, the Savages have been incorporating a lot of mechanics that are very different in this second tier from their normal raid versions.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

So, um, or at least uh I know that that uh the savage version of the the fourth raid did so I okay, so I have not done the lightweight um portion of the savage, I have only done one of the cruisers, and I can tell you so like it it's the first one, and right mechanic-wise there's they're still um they're they are similar, but there's a lot of uh there's one part of the fight where it still confuses me to this day where I'm supposed to be standing and everything but it's it's completely different than what you see the normal fight, and I absolutely love it. Okay. I really I really want to go to the savage part of the of the of the raid series.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah, I really want to be able to this entire raid series, we're gonna uh story-wise, just touching on it very lightly, not getting into it. Um it is optional content, so I don't consider it to be part of the the MSQ. So if there are a few spoilers here, I apologize, but I'm not going to be repentitent about it, um, if that makes any sense. Like I'm sorry, you're mad. But the the overall theme of it has been very WWE, has been very wrestling, and to be as a person who is not necessarily like a huge fan of wrestling myself, but I grew up around people who took it very seriously. And I grew up during the Hulkamania years. Um so yeah, that that is that has been a wild thing to go through uh this series and and have this raid basic basically dredge up all those childhood memories. Though if I have to do a shout out, my favorite wrestling was the glow wrestling. The gorgeous ladies of wrestling, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So that's awesome. So yeah, I so I I'm like you, I grew up right around the Hokamedia era, uh leading up into the uh the NWO and Stone Cold and the rock era of WWE and even now where I still I still follow WWE but also AEW and a few uh Japanese pro wrestling uh promotions out there.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

So yeah, I'm still so cool how into like the whole wrestling thing is that like um I forget his like full wrestling name, but mankind is huge in Japan.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah, Mick Foley.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah, Mick Foley. That dude. That dude is awesome, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Um there's one match you you need to watch from Japan, is the it's the death match between Mick Foley and Terry Funk. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

You're gonna have to send me a link after, but that's for an after situation.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, I might have to find it and then link it over to you, but but yeah, that that's gonna be one match you might have to find. You have to watch.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Okay, so but if you are into those kind of vibes, if you are into that kind of thing, this raid series will touch on all of those glorious things and get you going. Um, it's been gloriously fun, and it is a welcome break to me from the pandemonium series because I liked the pandemonium series. It was interesting to get a lot of this lore and a lot of the background on uh what happened with stuff, but it was serious, like it was dark, like it was really dark. Um, and then before that we have the Eden Raid series, and Eden was just it was also a lot. Um, we got a big lore drop there on stuff, uh, but it was also just like a really emotional series, again, not going into details, and then like then you have the Omega Raids, which are still like evergreen as a raid series, because it's just a gauntlet. It's just it's it feels almost like a precursor to what we're doing now because it's literally just a gauntlet of bosses from that are all walk-in, walk-on like cameos from other Final Fantasy four uh Final Fantasy games. Um and this one is a little bit different because they're they're literally creating different uh characters, and I love how they even went into in a couple of places that you have heel characters and you have face characters, yeah and it's just their characters. They're they're not actually like they don't hate each other, there's just their characters like do that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

That is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

One of the new things we're also gonna get in now uh in 7.4, which is dropping on 1216. We're uh along with the Arcadian heavyweight normal series, we're also gonna get new tombstones of mnemonics. Say that 10 times fast.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Not going to.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Uh, but we'll also get new craftable raid gear. I'm interested to see what that looks like. Um, we'll also get new MSQ. Not gonna go into that. We'll also get new Hildebrand adventures. I very much encourage people to keep up with what's been going on with Hildebrand and Dawn Trail. It is excellent.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Just a picture of the show in the live letter. Uh-huh. I was at the gym when the live letter was going on, and I saw that picture, and I was and I had a good chuckle. I had a I had a few people looking at me weird, but I had a good chuckle out of it. But it oh my goodness. I the new one is.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

It's gonna be so fun. It's it just looks like it's gonna be so fun.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

It's it's so good. I employ you, if you've not done the Hillibrand questline, and when I I held I held off on it until I was finished and caught up with uh MSQ and everything to go back to do the Hillabrand from like ARR up. It is by far one of my favorite quest uh questline to do. It's so funny. I I love every single moment of it. It's so good.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

It's just such a delightfully goofy thing. It is it's it's just so I I'm gonna be honest with you. One of the things I love about this game, absolutely love about this game, is that it has exactly the right mix of drama, emotional tension, um, goofy, hilarious moments, and just real connection. It's so great. Uh, especially if you get into the the side stories and you learn about all the different little characters everywhere. It's it's wonderful. Um, we are also gonna get a new dungeon. I'm not gonna give the name away because there are some people in our group and others that feel as though that's gonna be a little bit of a spoiler, but we are getting a new dungeon. We are also getting a new trial. They gave up pictures at the live letter of what the new trial is gonna be, and I'm not gonna go into detail, but I am gonna say that if you have any trauma from the the phantom train, you might you might wanna you might want to prepare yourself a little bit for this trial. Because it's gonna be a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

No, I but yeah, when I saw the picture, I was like, what is this?

SPEAKER_02 13:16

What is this? Oh yeah. Of course, I love that some of the comments were like, oh my god, can we suplex it?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I'm still waiting for the monk to be able to be able to suplex people.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

That would be so awesome. All right, so okay, so the new Arcadian heavyweight is gonna be moving into a little bit of a different flavor. We've been very like, I love how each raid series this has also kind of taken on a little bit of a different flavor for stuff. I do still follow certain wrestling, like there's like British, like indie wrestling, I'm very into because there are a lot of queer members um that do a lot of very interesting, like character goofy moments. It's it's a very sort of like cultural touchstone almost thing for me as a as a queer person. But um, and so I kind of keep up with a little bit. And it's it's been really fun to kind of see the evolution over the the series because we started out with what felt like sort of a simple challenge, and it was a very like cruiserweight, almost indie, like we're just here with the rookies, just trying to prove ourselves type thing. To then moving up to um, we're just now getting through the cruiserweight, so we're getting through um the people who are like, no, this is my job, I take this seriously, this is my life, and even if my life is doing goofy bits in between real actual wrestling, then that's what I've chosen. And to the point of like their own detriment, which is part of the storyline, which is so interesting. And now we're gonna be going into the people for whom this is their entire existence. They are the heavyweights, they are they are the you know uh Roddy Pipers, they're the the people for whom this is their entire existence, and they plan on it being their entire existence for multiple lives.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, so like in in in in pro wrestling term, it's they're pretty much like the the historians of of uh of like the fights and the wrestling and and whatnot. Like if you're they're the superstars. Yeah, they're the superstars. Like if you talk to any like superstar pro wrestler or whatnot, they will tell you about the matches that they watch of like the 60s and 70s of pro wrestling and and whatnot. Because they had gone back and they've gone uh and watched those matches, and that became their identity of I will learn every single inch of this business, and that's what the heavyweight, uh, these heavyweights are gonna be about. Like this is their livelihood. They they they don't know anything but else but this.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

And as an aside, I also love, and I am gonna spoil. I'm sorry, you cover your ears for the next few seconds, guys. I'm gonna spoil this part. To unlock the savages, what you you normally you would go and you would talk to um someone who is uh like a part of the series, um, but is like on the the fringes of it. Like, for instance, to unlock the savages for Omega, um, the Omega Raid series, you would go and talk to one of the Garland Ironworks people at in Ralger's Reach. However, for this series, it's a manga creator. It's literally you're going to the dude who's making the comic series of the wrestlers, which by the way, for people who don't know, is the thing in Japan. Like, if you are big into wrestling, you can also pick up the manga of the wrestling.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

And that is so cool to me as somebody who like used to be in the comic industry, still obsessed with it, still love comics. The fact that you're talking to a guy who's just like, okay, so here's my super special, super saiyan version of like how this fight went down, and then you get to do the fight. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

It's awesome. Uh yeah, I cannot wait. I want one of the fighters to be one of the Easter eggs that's in the game. I don't know if you know about it, but I want them to be in it. That's been my goal ever since ever since the uh we reach a certain area in downtrail, uh, I want this person to be in it. And I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be disappointed if if they're not. Um who is it?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

I can't can I know?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Okay, so if you if anyone uh out there have watched uh Dead of Light, the Netflix series, um a long time ago, it's not on that Netflix anymore because I just checked. Okay, it's not there no more. I'm sad. Anyways, if if you if you ever watch Dead of Light, you know a certain uh Final Fantasy 14 character that's in there. Well, if you know the backstory of Dead of Light, um the the person uh has been playing Final Fantasy XIV since you know 1.0 gone through everything and was there for ARR and all that stuff. Uh unfortunately he had cancer and is no longer with us. But in honor and I think in tribute, his in-game character is in um one of the zones in Dawn Trail.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Oh, that's awesome! Oh, that's such a great history.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

When we go back in game, I will show you where that person is.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Um Yeah, you have to do that. That'd be so great.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

So Because the character played a monk, I want if if if this character is in the new raid series, I would cry in happiness. But I'm not gonna but I will not I'm not gonna be disappointed if they are not.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Right. Okay. Alright, well good.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

It's just one of those things uh one of those uh what what's the word I'm looking for? Hope. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

It it's kind of like that moment when you realize that uh in tribute um to his passing, Robin Williams actually got a genie character uh in World of Warcraft.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

I do remember that.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

It was so that was just such a touching tribute, especially since he was such a big fan of the game. So yeah, that's that is a really cool. I love it when Gabe Debs put e uh Easter eggs like that in it. It's just like a real touch point with both fans and with with the people who've contributed to their success. And I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

And then the the um like you don't even see the character's name over over the head either. Like if you just need to know what they look like.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

And he's Okay, see, that would be why I didn't catch any of that, because this is not something that I necessarily have a connection with, but you definitely have to show me next time we get in game.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Oh, yeah, I definitely will.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Are you a Final Fantasy XIV player tired of AFKing and Limsa all alone? Do you long for a group of adventurers to explore the realms with? HeatherJustplay.org has got you covered. We have our own free company on the Dynamas Data Center, Kraken's Call. No, the FC is called Kraken's Call. That's enough out of you, you squidgy squid! As I was saying, Kraken's Call, a pirate-themed free company headed up by Captain Oliver Benley, our very own Heather of Heather Just Play, welcomes you to join us on Kraken for a round of ale, a good fighter three, and possibly a cannon firing. That's gonna be a mark. Even if you already have a free company, or you love your home server, then join our Discord community. Link on heatherjessplay.org and come play with our active community of helpful warriors of light. Okay, so let's get through the next few things that they were talking about. Okay, so we have a new Unreal that's going to be coming out in 7.4, and that's gonna be Sukiomi's pain. We've already had debates about this in the Discord. Discord, but I am excited for this fight. It is literally my favorite trial from uh Stormblood, and I am so excited to do the Unreal version of it. It's gonna be so great. I don't know how many people, I'm probably gonna have to party finder it because it looks like the that all of our raiders are split on how much they even want to deal with Sukiyomi's pain.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

But uh so I'm like you, I love this fight. This fight was top tier for me. Um main mainly because like not only was the music as good, but like the mechanics and just the fight and everything, because in my head I'm thinking, I'm thinking like she deserved better.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

But and if she really, yeah, but it this yeah, but I mean, I mean, it's what she's such an interesting villain, first of all.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

She is, yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

And and second of all, like the music is an absolute banger from beginning to end. The fact that it starts with like very uh like Chinese strings and orchestral and then just goes into this incredible rock theme. It is amazing. I love that. And then the mechanics themselves, they're not super difficult to figure out actually, they just require a lot of attention and a lot of coordination. So we'll see how well we're gonna get people to coordinate because we had, in my opinion, I just got started on doing Unreals myself recently because uh we we had um right now it's Wreath of Snakes, and Wreath of Snakes is I would honestly say the most formulaic. It's not an uninteresting fight. I like it. It's not bad, but it is a very formulaic fight compared to the other extremes because they did some interesting stuff, like really interesting stuff in Stormblood, um, mechanically speaking.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They did. They most definitely did.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

It was a it that it was really nice to kind of like see them kind of expand beyond because by the time we gotten through ARR and we had gotten through Heaven's Word, things um they were doing some funky stuff back then. It was it was weird in that uh Stormblood did a good job of uh codifying a lot of like indicators and codifying a lot of like uh basic strategies for how to handle certain mechanics and so forth, but it also gave us really interesting things like Suzuku has an entire like DDR dance break in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah, I mean, not wrong.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

That's so cool. Um, and then we have uh there's uh Biaco where you're literally flung into the air and you actually have mid-air mechanics that you have to do. Everybody is annoyed by that. I love it. I think it's actually really cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I love it because every single time we uh you get uh what are they saying, uh push up there and everything, it's it's I pretty much like say in chat, fallen free. Oh, so good. I do it every single time, and people don't get the token. I'm like, oh, I'm too old for this.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Oh no, okay. So um, but yeah, so Kiyomi's pain's gonna be it's gonna be a lot. It's gonna be a lot of fun, though. I am so excited to try and get together a fight club group to go and take this one on. I'm hoping that I can actually get people interested in doing this one because I just love this fight so much. Even if we don't do the unreal, just doing a synced run of the original Sukiyomi's pain is still a lot of fun to me. So uh we'll see how many people get involved in that. If you'd like to join along with us, you can go to heatherjustplay.org and check out our group and then get a link to our Discord. Come join us. I run a group called Fight Club. We also have a bunch of other raid groups, and uh, we all do fun stuff together in Final Fantasy XIV if that's something you're interested in.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Shout out to the Buccaneers.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

All right, so here's where we're gonna we're gonna get off the raid series and off the other stuff. We're gonna start talking about like just some update stuff, like duty support. Duty support's gonna be updated for Xamuel Darkhold and Orim Vale. Hopefully, that means that we will not see those in roulettes as often as we have. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's the thing because of how complicated Xamel Darkhold and Aurum Vale are, and they are mechanically speaking, if you've done them, they're not that bad. But they are very awkward. I think awkward is probably the best way to describe them. Because now, once you've kind of figured out the basic strategies that people have developed over time, it's not that bad. It's just it's just not as neatly formulaic, I suppose, as a lot of other uh dungeons around that same time. Like Xanial Dark Hold uh has a very awkward period in it where you don't know how far you're really supposed to pull, and you're supposed to kind of like use your judgment as to how how far to pull because there's no wall. There's no wall. You are just going and going and going and going and going, and you can pick up a ton of mobs that do massive damage for the level that it's at, and it will absolutely annihilate a team that is not prepared for how how hard it's going to hit. Now, if you know how that pole goes and you know how to mit through it, you know how to heal through it, you know, you know the deal, as it were, it's very doable and it's not that big a deal. But it's it's it can come up and surprise people with how big that pole can be.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Oh, yeah, most definitely. Like you like, like you said, there's no wall. So you can just keep on going and pull as many mobs as you as you uh as you can see, but at the same time, it's like you have to be careful in in there because your timing is wrong, there's explosion mechanics from crystals on the sides, and if you don't time your your movement through them correctly, then you can wind up getting hit for that, and that does a ton of damage.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

If uh the tank isn't really good at picking up all of the the AoE or all of the the um mobs with their AoE, and they don't go through fast enough that they can be hit the entire time while that they're running through. Um, several of the mobs actually have pull-in mechanics and then have a massive AoE right after. So that's having to realize that how you have to deal with that is you either have to knock back resist or you have to just run out as fast as possible. And sometimes that's not possible based on the the geography of the space. It's again, it's one of those things where once you have experience with it, it's fine, you know how to deal with this. But if you're a new person and you are going in with people you don't know who can explain this to you, it can become a lot really fast.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yeah, exactly. I remember my first time in there, and I'm like, what is going on? I mean, luckily I had my my buddy with me, but at the same time, I was like, whoo.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

And then Orimvale. Orim Vale is basically the bane of like it makes the top of so many people's worst dungeon list. Now, if once you're used to Orimvale and how to deal with it, because it's a little janky, like it's very awkward. In particular, if you are used to that sostasha, like first few dungeons where you're you have a pathway, it's not a very clear pathway, but you have a pathway, and you run through that pathway, you you gather as many mobs as possible, and you all just like kill them as best you can. Um, Aurumvale has the awkward position of being just shy of getting all of your top tier level 50 stuff, because you're it it's a level 47, which even when you sink down, you only sink down to 49, 48, I think. Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

It's like just shy of actually getting for a lot of jobs your first OG C D or your first AoE or your first like big hitting uh uh ability, and you have to go into this thing where the first room is basically death. If you try to take that first room and clear it out, I'm not saying it is impossible, and I'm not by any means saying that nobody has done it. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have, but the prevailing strategy for it is to hug the left hand side, run through as fast as possible, and then the tank basically runs around the corner into the boss room with the healer hopefully on their heels, and as they get behind, they basically have to heel bot the tank while the DPS take everything out, hopefully without starting the boss fight.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

That is the prevailing strategy. However, it is very easy if you are a brand new person to tanking and you get thrown into Aurum Vale as one of your first tanking dungeons, that it will basically turn you off from ever wanting to tank ever again.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Oh boy, that was uh fun.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Question mark? Something like that. Okay, so uh it was really funny on the live letter. Uh apparently Yoshi P told a story about a friend who recently started playing the game, and he plays healer, and he went into Aura and Vale, and he actually like called him up and was like, What am I supposed to do as a healer in Aura and Vale? What is this? And he had to kind of like explain the whole mechanic with the the fruit and the everything else, and it just became like it, it's it is a really weird, complicated thing. So, by the way, because of that, duty support is getting a new mechanic added onto it. Now, here's uh an interesting backstory. A lot of people complain about how terrible the duty support is because you can't really control the NPCs, and I kind of agree. Uh the original form of duty support was actually the um what do you call it? Uh when you get to a certain point with your grand company, you get access to a squadron. The squadron was supposed to help you with um being able to do like low-level fights and and uh or or just being able to to level them up through your different jobs up through um level 50. Yeah, um, and then eventually to level 60, I think. Somewhere in there. Anyway, I don't know. I haven't done it in a long time. Something like that. Anyway, um the the problem was is that there was a macro command that you could use that would essentially uh increase the damage from your entire NPC group, but the thing is is it wound up being bugged, okay? And that bug actually allowed people to get that same massive damage buff outside of those dungeons, and people were using it to try and cheese mechanics in ultimate fights that had just come out.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Yeah. So, um, because of that, that is the reason why we do not have control over our NPCs, and we've had to rely on a system that uses a fairly basic AI, right? It's not really an artificial intelligence in the way that we think of it because it actually works. Um sorry. Uh anyway, so um, but they are adding a new feature in with it now, and what it does is uh if you are using the NPC duty support, okay, and you're going into these fights, excuse my cat yelling in the background. I I promise they have been fed and taken care of. They're just loud. Um so uh what it they're gonna give us is essentially it's like an echo stack. So if you take enough damage that you would normally die in then while you're using the NPC duty support, then what they will do, uh what it will do is it will add a stack onto you that uh essentially allows you to keep going without having to restart all over again. So you get three tries of this. So um, but after the third, you do have to start over and restrategize. All right.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, I mean, you can't be just going there forever. I'm like, oh yeah, I have walk out with a hundred stacks. I'm fine. This is fine.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Um, but yeah, no, so the new echo uh system is basically gonna give people a little bit more because the idea is that if you're somebody who's serious about really learning how to play this game in its like nuts and bolts, that you're going to be playing with other people and therefore going to be creating strategies with other people. Whereas they want very badly to give you the Final Fantasy experience, even with Final Fantasy XIV, um, where you can play it like a single player game. Um, and I'm be honest with you, as a person who is a lover of MMO RPGs, that's a little weird to me, but at the same time, I think that it's still uh it's nice to have it because there are people in our community um who very much relied upon because they have anxiety issues or because they are just someone who can't communicate very well about the game because they just don't have a lot of experience. Um, or like there's lots of different reasons why someone would prefer to play by themselves than to have to play with other people because of just anxiety or um just not even knowing how to explain the problems or the issues that they're having, or even understanding what people or they just had a really bad experience and they just don't want to duplicate it, which is fine. And I think that that's uh absolutely admirable that they are providing that because I will admit there are a lot of games where even positive games with positive people, you can wind up taking things really poorly because in the moment you're feeling very self-conscious, and somebody could say something that's just very terse, but it's it's because they're using a chat system. They're not meaning necessarily to be mean to you, it just comes off very judgy and mean because they're just incredibly terse, very short, and it's because they're probably on a PlayStation typing with a keyboard barely balanced on their knees on a couch, like pretty much, or they're using like a little thumb pad. Like I it's I've kind of learned over the age that you have to just kind of take a deep breath and maybe it'll be all right. But sometimes people are just assholes. I mean, it's just true. Sometimes people are just jerks.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

I mean, when when I go into into a dungeon trial raid series and whatnot, and like we wipe or whatnot, I laugh it off and be like, you know, it it's fine. And like I I've had I have groups where like the healer apologized or the tank apologize, and I just type up like you have nothing to be apologizing for. I mean, we're all in this together, and then we just keep on going and and so on and so forth. I mean, it's it's it's it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

It's it's yeah, and I think that most of the people serious most of the people in the Final Fantasy uh community I have found have pretty much got the same attitude, and it's fine, it's great. Yeah, but there are people who take things a little too seriously, and I have to admit, every now and then I am one of those people who likes to turn that back on myself of you should have been perfect, you should, you shouldn't have made that mistake, like very quietly to myself when I'm not on a voice call. Um but uh anyway, so now we're gonna have that for duty support, and I think that's great for especially for new people and for people who like to play by themselves. Um, PvP series 10 is going to begin. I'm excited for that because I've been done with PvP for a while, and I want my new rewards. Um, we're gonna get a few action adjustments. PvP is gonna be one of those things where you're continually trying to um tweak it, and it's never gonna get to the point where it's completely left alone. And here's my theory on why. And it is because it is something that people take entirely too seriously, uh, because there are just way too many people who use way too many add-ons um and bot procedures specifically for playing the PvP. And it's it un unmoors the entire system and it makes it so that it's not entirely fair. And I'll be honest with you, I don't personally care because mostly what I play is frontline, and frontline is one of those things where even if people are botting, people are doing crazy stuff, I don't care because I'm just there to get my pity points and get my my cool plan.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Which I still need to work on. I'm I'm almost there, but I I I I just still need to go through some PvP uh for some front.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Okay, well, you got a few more weeks, but not too many more weeks, so you better get on it. All right. Now here's the cool stuff. We've got a new frontline map coming out. This is about time. We've only we've got four right now, but having a new frontline map, um, and it's called uh it's one that's actually based on Dawn Trail area, so that's very cool. Warcore Chirte. Um, I'm very excited for this because they're adding some new mechanics in. Um, I like Ansall Hakar, and I really like Um Shatter. Uh, I know that that Shatter has some haters, but I like it. And I also like Seal Rock. There's only one frontline I'm not a fan of, and that is borderline uh border secure. Yeah. Uh the one where you have to go up and deal with the nodes and all of that. They made it better. They did. They did in the last update. I feel they made it better, but it's still not the back and forthing frustrates me. I don't like it as much.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Yeah, it doesn't. I don't mind that one either, but it's like, no, I agree with you. Like everyone's fighting on the outside, and then you you're then you're asking everyone to meet in the middle, and it's like where I'm at at the map, is like I'm nowhere close to a node or anything, and I have to slow my way up there. Right. And if it's it it's it's frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

The problem with it comes down to well, they've now added nodes where you can go and you can like platform hop uh through elevators, um, which is nice because it means that you can you can center up much faster than you used to be able to. However, um, even with that, it's still supposed to be a capture the flag with extras type setup, which I like the the gameplay in the center of the map. I don't like the gameplay. Gameplay around the edges of the map because the other problem that you have with that one in frontline in general is that um it's it's all becoming it's supposed to be a game mode where you don't need a lot of coordination, right? True, but at this, but at the same time, it requires a lot of coordination to actually effectively do. So like everybody underestimates the amount of coordination that successful strategy requires. Um but all right, so but the cool thing is about this new one is that we're also gonna have weather conditions that are gonna affect gameplay. That's gonna be cool.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

That's gonna be so exciting because it's like, okay, finally the weather is going to affect uh how the how frontline is gonna be played and everything. And so it's it adds a nice little wrinkle to to frontline, and I'm excited to see how they implement it because I would like to see it implemented more maybe in the dungeons, maybe, as opposed to just clear sky and all that stuff. Like, give me a little little bit of wrinkle, like, oh, it's snowing in the dungeons and whatnot, and just it it could be just client-based. It doesn't have to be server, just make it client-based where like it's snowing or whatnot, and I'd be happy with it.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

I do like weather effects. I don't know if I would like them in dungeons, to be perfectly honest. I think I'm I'm gonna disagree with you there. I I'm not I'm I like my door my dungeons a little bit more formulaic, uh, because it it anything that gives me a chance of of a failure point on something that's supposed to be fairly routine for me, I will get frustrated with. However, I like it when it's added the idea of it being added to the frontline map because it's bringing a mechanic that's very similar to stuff that we have to deal with in crystalline conflict into frontlines. Because crystalline conflict is not just a 5v5 capture the flag sort of situation. Um, it also has other mechanics on the board that you have to work around. Um, like there's one map where you have lava um and and bombs that go off. You have another where there are push and pull mechanics. There's um another where you have everybody can get uh like wind and air mechanics where they get knocked up in the air. Um and that sort of thing adds interest, especially in like a PvP type setup. Um, and having to deal with that actually, I'm I'm excited for that. I think it's gonna add some really good interest to a frontlines campaign campaign.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Yeah, because I've never done I've never done the uh that mode for uh for PvP. Like, so I don't know what it's like because I'm like, I'm just too afraid to even Oh, Crystalline Conflict is so fun though. Ah and especially yeah hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

We have done it as a group for HJP. And in fact, one of the things I was gonna suggest um here in the next uh little bit, because I know that people had brought it up, is uh because crystalline conflict is one of those where if you have a pre-made group, you can actually do a 5v5 pre-made um crystalline conflict. Doesn't contribute towards your PvP scores or anything like that, but it's just a fun thing you can do with friends. It is a great way to just sort of like experience the different modes and just kind of play around with it. Um, I suggest if we get that together, go try it. It's actually a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

I mean, I'll I'll do it with the group. Uh I'm not gonna I'm not going to cue for it for myself though.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

I'm just fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Just being honest with that, because it's like uh yeah, I was never been a big fan of PvP, especially in my in my WoW days, uh, unless I log in and my guild uh masters were like, get to Saul Shore right now. And I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

And just the whole thing. Well, okay. So WoW's a little bit different because it doesn't only have organized PvP, it also has world PvP. So that's a that's a different flavor from what we're talking about. Final Fantasy. Yeah, is very, very centered up on uh we're just doing organized PvP, which um I personally prefer Crystalline Conflict over frontline sometimes, depending on the map, um, because it's faster and uh because you get a chance to do things where you're not necessarily overwhelmed, where it's it's a little bit closer to just a 1v1 or like a 1v2 type situation or 2v1 sort sort of like thing. Uh whereas in cr in front lines, unless you are very familiar with the job that you are going in, you have a very high chance of just getting mobbed, just absolutely getting obliterated by 10 people.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

I have experienced that. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Which again, I think is fun, but again, I also recognize that other people may not find that fun.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

No, I mean, for for me though, uh, like is especially in frontline, it's like my mistake is like, okay, I'm trying to take this one person down and not realizing the group has already moved on, and I'm still sitting there and I'm like, oh, it's too late for me to retreat.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

Yeah, retreat not being called. The retreat not being called gets me every time. I get locked in and I don't disengage. All right, so let's move on to gold saucer updates because we do actually have a big one, and this one is very near and dear to my heart. I'm so, so excited about this. Air Force One is probably my favorite like gate game at uh the Gold Saucer, and it is getting a massive update. We're getting a whole new map for it. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

I'm so excited for this too.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

It's called the Ciela Days. So uh it's basically the it's pirate themed. If you are into the whole Linosia like experience, this is going to be that in Air Force One shooter game form. I saw some pictures from the live letter, very excited about it. There are pirates. I'm sold.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Yep. It's gonna be so uh it's gonna be so good. Like, don't get me wrong. I I like the current uh Air Force One right now. But like okay, give me I I I need another map.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

Yeah, I mean, don't be wrong. Let's be fair. Both there are two different versions currently. They're both you fly through the gold saucer, they're they're kind of um compared to a lot of other gates because it's based entirely upon your own skill. Yeah, it is um it's relatively easier, particularly if you use a mouse, um, or if you're just insanely good with a controller. Uh, it is um a little bit easier than jump puzzles to me. I hate jump puzzles. Uh have a bad time with them. Um, so Air Force One is like my jam. I love it. But this update is is gonna be exciting because I like anything where I get to see something new. And also pirates.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

And also pirates. It fits with our it fits with the HJP theme to the T.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

So Yeah, as soon as soon as that's announced, honestly, we should get everybody in HJP together in Pirate Glam and go do Pirate Air Force One. I think that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

That'd be so good.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

All right, so we're also gonna get a Phantom Weapon update, uh, where I level is gonna go up to 775. Um, we're probably gonna be ending this this set uh this series of eye levels on around 800, I'm guessing. Um we're uh there's also gonna be an occult crescent update. Um, I'm gonna be honest with you at this point, and maybe this is me being kind of a downer, but uh I'm a little over Occult Crescent. I I feel as though personally that Bajia was the exploratory zone pinnacle.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

And I feel as though that not only is the story not really connecting with this one, um, which sucks because it there's so much potential there, and it's just it's just not hitting right. There are a lot of quality of life things that I do appreciate about the zone, but it's missing all of the innovation that we had with um Bajia because like we had uh critical engagements, and that's really kind of where we got the idea of the serial critical engagements, is from Bajia. But the fact that they seem to pop up in semi-random order, although I think we've determined at this point that it is down to certain mobs uh being attacked, do actually get you your um your critical engagements popping up in the right order, and then fates are just on a timer. Uh but the rewards that you get dropped from those things are not consistent, and they're not uh, I don't know, like there are a lot of quality of life things that I really don't like that that are necessary for me to like I like that you can move around the map a little bit better, but I actually kind of agree with some of the people who complained that maybe being able to unlock all of the movement all at once is kind of a mistake. But at the same time, the way that they set up the critical engagement system, it was kind of necessary. I like the treasure chest addition. That's cool, and it does kind of give you a break from the constant C E fate, C E fate, C E fate like uh cycle that you get on. But everything to do with getting into Fort Tower was a mistake. Everything about dealing with Fort Tower was a mistake, everything about um the fact that they kept in the difficulty with um instead of just automatically organizing people into what are essentially alliance raids setups, because they gave us a number that was very similar to alliance raids for um for doing uh the the critical engagements and so forth, right? Yeah, but they don't automatically just sort you into uh that sort of thing for the purposes of healing and for the purposes of being able to, you know, uh have status effects affect people. So you've got people who are in these critical engagements, if they don't happen to be in a party, they're using party buffs that are helping no one except themselves, which is great, but at the same time, like I singular monk out there like by themselves, I could have really used that brotherhood. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Yeah, no, I I get you. My frustration right now, currently, because you know, people have gotten their relic weapons and whatnot. Yay, congrats. Ooh, I'm not jealous or anything. I am still collecting stones.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

Uh yeah, the Diddy Etna was something that should have stayed in ARR and it should have died there because the or at the very least, they should have increased the drop rate to the point where because it's it's already like at this point, it's already enough of a difficulty or a pain point. We have 21 jobs, 21 jobs that people want to get relics for, and you're basically saying, Okay, great, but we're gonna make this one step something where you have to be completely obsessed with getting this one thing to drop, and then you have to get a lot of them, and they have to be the right composition of them to just get through this one step. Yeah, and then we're gonna hold your tombstones hostage. What?

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Yeah, I my my frustration is like, okay, I can go to OC all day long if I want and not see a single thing drop. I can do fates all day and not see a single thing drop. At this point, I'm like, you know, I I pretty much have given up on it. And I, you know, and and I've seen the relic weapons, and I'm like, I want them so badly.

SPEAKER_02 57:54

It is sadly one of those things where you have to, it's like I said, you have to lock in on it and you have to obsess over it just to get through this one step. The rest of the steps are fine. To be honest, the rest of the steps are not that big a deal. It's just that one step. If they had just increased the drop rate to 20% or 25 or 30%, I think it's supposed to be 20% in a cult crescent. Um, but it's and or but I or no, it's only 10%, isn't it? It's 10% in a cult crescent, and it's like 5% outside of a cult crescent or something like that. Um it's supposed to be higher, but it's still brutal. It's a one in five chance that's not a lot. Um, if if it was again one of those things where it's like a 50% chance, um, because that one and I understand that relics are supposed to be something that you invest time in, but this is not a skill thing, this is a grinding for luck thing, which is not fun.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

No, not at all. And it's it's fr it's so frustrating at this point, and I've gotten to a point where I've I've almost completely given up on it and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 59:12

So it really sucks, and it really sucks because it could have been so great, and there are still things that I do enjoy about it, and I know that there are people who are in our group who have spent a huge amount of time in Occult Crescent because they do enjoy it so much, and the actual gameplay cycle is pretty fun. All I would say that especially if you're someone who gets into like raiding or you really enjoy doing um high-end content, a cult crescent is a great boot camp to go in and do some of those uh critical engagements because they are fast, they are fun, they're easy to figure out once you figure out your patterns, once you get where you're supposed to stand, but then it's just building up that muscle memory of getting into them. And I'm sure at this point we've got a few friends that are 100% experts, they they are the people to follow, but it is still one of those things where it goes fast enough that it's fun. However, the other problems with a cult crescent do keep me from really enjoying my time in there, and I don't like that. Uh, but for the the upgrade, the updates, let's get through this really fast because um, again, it's just they didn't really have a lot of information on it. We are getting three new uh phantom jobs. We're getting Mystic Knight, Dancer, and Gladiator. They are gonna be a little bit closer to the other Final Fantasy games. I think Final Fantasy, this is all based on what is it, Final Fantasy VI?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Uh no, I think see Mystic Knight would have been five.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

Oh, okay. So, yeah, that's right. It's all five or something like that. I'll be honest with you, I am a Final Fantasy XIV fan. I am not a Final Fantasy fan. However, recently I did download the mobile version of Final Fantasy, the original game, and I'm going through that. So nice. Who knows? I might become a convert. We'll see. Uh we they have added more stuff that you need for your full kit of outfit from Occult Crescent. Yay, we get accessories. So there's gonna be four pieces for a disciple of war and four pieces for a disciple of magic. Um, it will increase your your attributes while you're in OC. Another gear set for us to have. Hooray! Um, you're also going to get those pieces. Um, they will be obtained from critical engagements, treasure chests, magic pots, and happy bunnies. We are also going to see in 7.4 the drop of a new zone for Occult Crescent. So essentially, we're going to the next island sort of thing. And we're going to see the exact same thing with the cosmic exploration. Again, they didn't have a huge amount of information. Um, and it's kind of interesting because at this point, from what I was I was reading, there are a lot of servers and data uh that don't even have the finished end of the latest drop. So, like we're gonna get this new drop of new content, and there are gonna be a lot of servers that aren't even gonna be able to access it um until several weeks into uh the or several weeks after 7.4 drops. Um, of course, of course, uh we're gonna it's gonna call uh oisius or or osius. Um I don't know. Uh or something. Something. Uh and we're gonna get, of course, additions to cosmic tools that are gonna get upgraded. The eye level is gonna go to 765. Uh there are, of course, gonna be tons of new rewards. Some of them are gonna be things that you can buy, and some of them are gonna be a part of the gotcha system. Um, they didn't specifically talk about any of it. Uh, there is a new mission completion bonus that they've decided to add to it, which is sequential missions will now give you a further completion bonus, which is very nice. Um, also, you're gonna have ruins in this next zone. Um, so there's gonna be an exploratory end, which is good of everything's ruin exploration. It's gonna be fun. That sounds good. I actually I'm excited for that. That sounds fun. Um, there's also going to be uh an uncovering of like ancient records. So this feels again very borrowed from like the OC Bajia type like um notes that you get that are downloaded from from events. That actually sounds kind of fun uh to put together, get it get a nice lure drop for that. Um, and of course, there's a new space outfit. And this okay, so they they they showed the picture of the new mounts, and the new mount from this um the cosmic exploration is gonna be wild. So for those people who have done the um uh optional dungeon, uh I'm trying to remember what the actual name of it is because I'm so bad with names. It's it's the one where you help the Loperate uh with the fact that their apartments that they were building for all of a theorists have gone wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:50

Um what is it called?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

Um I can't remember. Um and and uh and I'm gonna remember it after we're done recording, and I'm gonna be so mad at myself because that's how my brain works. But uh anyway, uh in that dungeon, the second boss is it the first or the second? I think it's the first one. I think so. Yeah, it's the first boss, it's first boss. So first boss, which is the the face that turns upside down, um happy, sad face with the the the ones on the side. Yeah, that uh that's gonna become the new the new mount.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

I saw that out like no way that they're making that into a mount. Yeah, there's no way that you there was one oh god uh raid series. Wow, my mind is drawing a blank right now. The Edwalker raid series and whatnot in the Panemorium, yeah. No, no, no, no, not uh Edwalker one, not Panamorium, it's the uh the one.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Panemonium is Endwalker.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

No, and Panemonium is uh Shadowbringers.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Oh no. No, it's not. No, Eden Raids. Eden Raids is Shadowbringer. Panemonium is Endwalker. So what?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

I am thinking about. What am I thinking about? I'm thinking about It's the Alliance Raid ones. Not the normal. The Alliance Raid for Endwalker. The ones that deals with the uh the zodiac signs and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

Yeah, that stuff. We're not gonna talk about that in much detail.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

But there's the second raid, last boss. I want that. Uh I want the wolf S demo. Give me that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

I mean, we got close with with the 16 crossover, but yeah, I understand.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

I know. I don't want that one below.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

Um, I guess we have to fight the moon again for her her uh why are we always fighting the moon? I mean, come on. All the things it's funny. We're always fighting the moon somewhere, but why it's always balls in the moon with this game. I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:22

Just a lot of balls to juggle and on it. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

Something I don't know anyway. Okay, let's get into let's get into some cool stuff. All right, the Variant Dungeon and Criterion. Okay, so for those people who did not get into Variant Dungeons, they were added in in Walker. Um, variant dungeons are basically like a choose your own adventure type story. Um that uh you go into the dungeon, you get to choose different pathways. Each pathway ends in a different boss, and each one of the pathways, the mechanics for the second boss will change, and the third boss, depending on what uh objects uh or different things you interact with. Okay. Fairly straightforward. There's 12 of them per the three different variant dungeons, and if you complete all of those pathways and all of their different variations, there's amount reward that you get as a part of your achievement. Um the criterion in the current version is essentially a much more difficult, much higher level version of the fight that do include having to go through very heavy hitting um uh trash mobs. So it's it's just like the dungeon. It's just that rather than having several different variations, there's just one direct pathway through mobs to get to the three different bosses. Okay, and then there's the savage, uh, where the savage version is that, but even harder and much more complicated, which sounds exciting, and I'm looking forward to doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:27

I think what I need to do is like I need to spend a good week on the variant dungeons and the criterion once.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:35

Well, here's the thing. Here's what I will say about it. I criterion's actually fairly complicated. There are some people who've been able to um the thing about the criterion currently is that it does uh require you to have four people.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:50

Um, whereas the variant dungeon, you can do it as scalable between one and four people. Okay. So you can go solo all of the variant dungeons and just do all the different pathways yourself. In fact, uh one of my friends has been doing that recently and has been gathering all of the you know basic rewards that you get from that. There's also some very cool things that you can buy. But the rewards are a little thin on the ground and the drop rates are not awesome, I will fully admit. Um, so that and that was a complaint that a lot of people had with it. So now they have taken a lot of the commentary that has been made about the prior variant dungeon, and they've taken it on board. And the new system that they're proposing sounds very interesting to me. So basically, we're gonna get uh the new variant dungeon is called The Merchant's Tale. Um, because it is side content, I'm gonna go into at least the concept behind it because I I personally think it's so cool. Um, I won't go into the story because I don't know anything about the story. But what I do know is that, like, for instance, uh the variant dungeons in Endwalker, uh, the first one is you are helping um a certain city leader go through the underbelly of her city and fight all of the monsters that have nested underneath it uh to find out about the shared history of her lands. Okay. And then the next one is you are going to what is known to be a haunted mountaintop uh in the um uh uh with an NPC Hancock, if you're familiar, you know him from uh Stormblood. If not, you'll meet him. I'm not gonna go into any detail about who he is or what his his whole deal is, but he does employ you essentially as an adventurer to come and help him clear out the relics from this, you know, lost mountaintop uh that was uh where many you know spiritual people resided at one time, and it is known to be haunted. All right. Um, and then the third one is that you wind up talking to uh one of the um uh elephant people from uh Endwalker, and he talks about how he has fallen madly in love with some woman, and he wants help finding the perfect fish. And so he found this island where apparently the perfect fish comes from. And weird things happen. Just go do the island, it's crazy talk. It's great though, and I enjoyed all of that, but this new one seems like it's gonna be even more fun because essentially you get brought in on um learning about a magic book, and then the magic book sucks you into the story.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

I yeah, I've I'm so excited for this. The picture alone reminds me.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

The artist they were making so many jokes about the art. We might have to post some of those pictures.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

Or actually, I I might just post some pictures above me and right next to Violet, uh the empty space and whatnot. And so just check them out uh real quick. They're gonna be right up there and everything. But just it is it's so far from anything else that we have experienced in 14. And it reminds me of a certain map in oh god, in in Overwatch, where is it's so bright and so colorful and you know, clear day and everything, and like it's so far removed from anything, and I was so excited for this because it's completely different, it looks different, it's gonna probably gonna feel different, and I'm I'm ready for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:57

It's it's literally like walking around in a painting, and I love it so like the art style, it just speaks to me in a lot of like really deep ways, and honestly, I'm so excited for it. So, of course, kind of going along with the choose your own adventure type story thing. Um, the variant dungeons are gonna be based on that. So we're gonna get 12 different like you know, pathways, and it's gonna be really cool. Um, the the adjustments that they've made to the overall system. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Let me let me tell you about this. This is this is gonna be so awesome. Okay, so we get our basic variant dungeon with our usual rewards and drops and things like that. Okay, okay, so get this. We're now going to have Variant Dungeon Advanced. So if you want exploratory scalable content, go do the normal variant dungeon. Okay, you get to see all your cool country sake, you get to see all the cool art and everything. It's gonna be so awesome. Okay. But if you just want to go in and you want to take on the bosses at a little bit higher level and be able to just get their drops and rewards, oh my god, you get to go in and just do the bosses. You don't have to do them in order. You get a reward if you do all of them, but you only you can go in and just do one and get the drops from it and just like get out, and it's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

And good.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:39

I know. All right, so the other thing is is again with the scalable content idea, is that now you can't do it solo, but you can do it as a duo. So yay! I am so happy to have more content that I can just do with like me and my wife when we have a few minutes, we just want to go do stuff together. And um just being able to go in, take out a boss, get the rewards, or do all three of them, which they're all the same bosses from the variant dungeon, you just don't have the exploratory angle in it, and then we have criterion, okay? So criterion is now going to basically take the um place of Savage. So rather than having to have an even further difficulty for Savage, it's going to be variant advanced, where you get the you just go do the bosses and you can do them in any order. Um, or you can just do one or two bosses, get the rewards, and get out. And then you've got criterion. So the changes to criterion are again, they decided to remove all the exploratory. It's just the bosses. Okay. It is the bosses retooled for savage difficulty. What yep? Yup. And then, but they've added in the difficulty level also of you have to do them in order.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:24

Can't stop. So it is essentially they have turned criterion into a slightly lesser version of doing like ooh.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:37

Oh, that's gonna be so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:39

I know, right? It's gonna be it's gonna be so cool. I am so excited to prog through this because it's gonna be so much easier to prog through this and learn the fights and actually be able to get through everything as opposed to before when you had to do that and then get through the the the trash mops and then prog through the the whole fight again. And it's just it's gonna be so awesome. I I really am looking forward to that so much. Uh, just so that you kind of get an idea of how they're tooling things, variant dungeons are again one, two, a maximum of four players, much like deep dungeons. Um, but the very uh variant advanced, you have to have a minimum of two players up to four players. So a little bit scalable there. And then for the criterion, you have to have four players. Like you have to have four. Um, and the way that uh matching is going to work if you use the raid finder for the variant or for the criterion dungeon is that you are going to be required to have one tank, one healer, and two DPS. However, if you do a pre-forum party, you can do goofy stuff, like you can take four tanks, four healers, four DPS, whatever you want to do. Um, if if that's what you how you want to deal with it. Also, Criterion is not only going to be high difficulty, no trash mobs, just boss to boss to boss to boss. You're also going to be limited in how many revivals you can do.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:19

Ooh, yup. That's uh that's gonna make things fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:27

Oh, it's gonna be spicy. Yeah, it's gonna be spicy, and I love it. I'm so excited for it. All right. So now that we've talked about like all the like big changes for all of that, let's go into the UI. Normally the UI section and the make like you know, functionary section is not the exciting part. Spoiler alert, you're gonna want to pay attention to this part. Here we go. Okay, so we'll start off easy. We get a few new color schemes for those people who are used to using your standard, like, you know, dark color scheme, light color scheme, which is like more of a beige, and then the blue color scheme, which is like classic Final Fantasy. We get a couple more, which is uh, I think it's like green clear and white clear or something like that. Um uh basically they're translucent themes, and for those people who have a hard time being able to see blue, um, particularly people who have perhaps like blue-green colorblindness or red-green colorblindness, sometimes blues wind up being difficult to discern in contrast. So being able to use the white might be better because it's more of a white-black contrast. And then there's green for people who prefer the yellows from green to be able to see things. So, yay, great, whatever, more stuff. Here's a big thing for all of our raiders in the group. Strategy board is coming out. It is right now slated for 7.4. Here's the the big thing that people need to like one of the things they have been going back and forth about is whether or not it was gonna be something that would be accessible while you're in raid. This is a tool that, according to where the the way that we're talking about it, they specifically had console players in mind. So this is not just gonna be something that's like a lot of the web-based strategy board systems. This is gonna be something where it is uh usable while in raid and can actually be used like pieces on a board to show everyone movement and to show everyone placement. So there's lots of like I'm really hoping that this works out for people. I'm really hoping it's not glitchy because I know that for raiders, this is gonna be like the gods end of raiding planning.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:07

Oh, it's gonna be fantastic. Are you are you kidding me? Especially especially like for for example, like fight club, right? You know, people are learning something new and whatnot. Instead of just standing there and like try to explain it and like have some sort of like movement like within uh a small area before you know trying not to pull the mob or anything like that. You can actually pull this up and you can actually showcase what you mean by here's this mechanic, and you need to stand over here or and whatnot. This is gonna help a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:44

I'm really hoping it's something that like you can set up beforehand, yes, and then like you go in and you're just like, okay, so on page three, you can see we get to this mechanic, and this is how this is gonna work. I genuinely hope so, because if that's how it works, I may be out of a job. Like, I may not even have to run fight club anymore. Like, we'll already have all the explanations there. Nobody's gonna need me. Like, you can see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:15

Yeah, but it's still fun for you. Uh fun uh with you explaining it and whatnot, too.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:20

So it is you don't have to butter me up this that much, hookah. I like I get it. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:27

I'm not I'm not gonna butter you up. Um I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:34

Anyway, um I I will share my candy with you anyway, because you're my friend. Um all right, so the next thing they were talking about is the command panel. So for all of those people who have spent so much time working on their their flyout window uh like uh hot bars and all of their their things to keep their UI compact. Here is the new UI system they're putting in place. They're actually trying to make it even more compact, and they're giving us 100 slots on a page system that allows us uh it's 25 per page, 25 slots per page, that allow uh will all collapse down to a single button.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:26

I saw this and instantly got super excited, and I'm like, I know I can put all my emotes there and just go through and I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:40

I'm so I'm so excited about this. I mean, and it's silly too, because but I've also spent huge amounts of time trying to get all my hot bars there. I'm I'm a big UI nerd. Like I love it, love it, love it, love it. Can't wait for it. Uh they said that, of course, like right now it's still a little buggy, but they're working on it. And I cannot wait to see it come out. Now, here we go. Dun dun, the big alert. I want everybody to know that the way that they'd announced this was hilarious to me because they showed someone in the Endwalker White Mage, uh, or yeah, Endwalker, I don't or no, Dawn Trail. It was the Dawn Trail White Mage dress carrying a uh Dark Knight double-handed relic sword.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:38

And they're like, can you tell what's weird about this? And all of us went, um, yeah, but we don't know what it means. Please explain it, Yoshi P.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

Yeah, I saw this and I'm like, wait, that's not right. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:57

Not correct. Okay, so for further explanation, as of 7.4, all of your restrictions on Glam will be removed. That means that essentially everything is now being tagged with all classes. Um, now this excludes weapons and tools. Okay, so just so you know, weapons and tools, because that is the system by which we change from job to job, they are excluded. However, um, all of the time that you've sat there and wanted a okay, so here's my brain, just like immediately went to in uh endwalker or not endwalker, shadowbringer. There is a crafter set which shares the exact same model with the um Plague Bringer uh set from the uh St. Moshe's Arboretum.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:05

Um, it's basically the really fancy like military style coat with tails and uh that whole like dress setup. Love it, love, love, love from the level 60 dungeon. However, it's not dyable. And then we got another version of that set um that was also not dyable. However, however, in Shadowbringer, there is a crafting set that is dable, but you can't put it, obviously, on any of your battle jobs. So it's like gosh darn it. Um, well, guess what? Now you can take that crafting set and you can Now get your Diable Saint Moshane's gear that everybody has been clamoring for on your warrior of light on any job you want. Glory on high as the angels sing.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:21

No, like when I first read this, I'm like, I can actually make my Viper and uh Rogue set the same. And now I can make him whatever I want for any particular set. And I'm so excited for this. Like he's like you have no idea how badly I want you know my uh my paladin to look different to my warrior, to to look to look different to my uh gunbreaker and whatnot, because it's like once you reach once you reach all the uh all your jobs to like a one level 100, whatnot, essentially they're all gonna look the same, blah blah blah blah blah. You can you know do different way different ways to make them all live look different, whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:08

Yeah, there's like five different sets basically. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:12

But like I I I'm too lazy to do all that. Anyways, now I can essentially make them all look different, and oh, I'm so excited for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:22

Oh, yeah. No, the the crazy part about it is when you sit there and you start thinking through things, okay. So though for those who know, the alliance raid from level 80, the gear out of there, one of the biggest problems that people have had, especially for trying to get it to fit different, you know, setups. Now keep in mind, this is just job locking and level locking. So one of the things that's great now, okay, so currently, when uh let's just say you have a level 100 job and you go and you you earn up all of this gear, but maybe you get some drops that are for a job that is currently sitting at level 50, and it's from a level 80 uh raid series. You cannot put that level 80 gear and glam it to your level 50 because there's level matching, you have to be either at or above the level of the gear, or it just won't work. The glamour system just will not apply it. However, as of 7.4, gone. No more level restrictions. You can put that level 80 gland that you picked up that you can't apply to the job you were playing at the time, you can slap it on another job. So no longer having to sit around, wait also means that you can take all of that gear and all of the different models that come out of it and rematch it to all different kinds of jobs. I'm beyond like the creativity is going to explode.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:09

Oh, oh, the the glamour of community are just ecstatic for this. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:18

Just oh yeah. I I cannot wait to see the we are we are like, oh, I can't wait for it. I'm so I'm so I'm so excited. It's so great. It's gonna be so great. I'm so I can't. And of course, immediately his response immediately Goshi Pant and Foxconn were immediately like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We know you want more glamour plates and you want more slots in your your glam chest. Like, we're aware of where this is going to go. However, however, at this point, we are still working on the item system to get it to where it's not as buggy, and we can actually work within it. So just enjoy the unlocked glam for now, and please just work within what we what you have, and we'll we'll get the rest of those updated later. Don't don't you worry, don't you worry. But I want it now. I want it meowed. Of course, and that that was of course the entire chat like went nuts with but now all right. We want a meow. But let me tell you about why. Okay, so here's the thing he also emphasized is that they have a priority that they built. Uh, years and years and years and years and years ago at this point, housing, as soon as it entered the game, um, was a pretty massive hit. But housing is currently undergoing massive optimization. And because this is a promise that was made to the player base years ago, it is taking priority over the item system for Glam. So right now they're trying to work on expanding the item system for items that are available interior and exterior to your house and for your housing. And once they figure that out, because it is a very similar um item system, databasing system, uh, they should be able to work it out for Glam as well. So I am very excited to see how this is all gonna shake out because it's looking like customization is finally getting optimized in Final Fantasy XIV in a really intense way, and I I am so excited about it. Um, however, however, and here's the bad news. Because there's always gonna be some bad news. Of course. The housing optimization is being pushed back to 7.5.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:59

I mean, we've waited this long, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:03

I know, but still, it's oh, how dare you tease us with this? But at least we're getting the glamour set up at 7.4, supposedly, and then 7.5, they'll supposedly have the optimization for they say they're they're close, they've got it nearly there. All right, so whatever. Uh, looks like we'll get maybe housing 7.5. But by that point, uh, we're gonna be so close to the 8.0.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:39

Maybe we'll learn more about it at FanFest. Well, we'll we'll hopefully.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:43

Hey, speaking of Fan Fest, the lottery for Fan Fest is open. If you are a current subscriber of Final Fantasy 14, you can go and get logged in to uh to sign up to potentially be able to get the privilege of buying a ticket.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:02

Uh yeah. I yeah. This is like um the last fan fest where I I did the whole lottery system and I'm waiting, waiting, waiting, and never got picked. I'm like I still went to Vegas though. Stay to Vegas and met with my uh my FC at the time and uh had fun. I had a blast.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:28

It was uh very that is so cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:33

Yeah, I still had a blast. Um even if I don't get a ticket again for this next one, I'm hoping I do. Uh I'm still gonna go to uh Anaheim. I plan on going. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:46

So we do actually currently have a plan for the HJP community to meet up in Anaheim. Um, it is we have uh a bunch of members who are all Californians, so and not terribly, terribly far away. So that's gonna be fun for them. I am on the other side of the country. You're more like Midland, so I mean, I'm not that far from you, but yeah. Uh okay. Well, whatever. Um, yeah. I mean, I do have the advantage of being closer to one of the largest airports in uh North America, which is helpful, but it's still it's still trying to to figure that out. I would like to be able to to make the um uh the the fan festival meetup. I think that would be super cool. But if nothing else, what I might do is just have somebody carry me around as a uh as a um iPad or something like that. Uh just have like my little my my my little violet hanging out through FaceTime.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:59

I'm sure we can make that happen. I'm sure we can make that happen somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:03

That'd be cool. All right. Um that seems to be pretty much the the uh extent of everything through this particular patch update. We uh like I said, the the so highlights are 1111. We're 7.38, we're gonna get limits released, so you know, look forward to that. And then 7.4 is when we have a huge raid drop. Oh my god, raid, PvP, Occult Crescent, even Gold Saucer, and of course Glam gets the most massive update it's probably had in oh man, this entire decade of Final Fantasy 14. It's it's wild. Speaking of which, just as an aside, so people understand like where we're we where we came from and where we're at. When a realm reborn dropped, it did not have a glamour system at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:10

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:12

There was no glamour prism system. There was no, there was none of that. Um, and it has gone through massive changes over time. There have been tons and tons of updates. We went through the glamour chest uh years where once you put it in your glamour chest, that's where it lived, and you could never pull it back out again. We went through the now we're trying to get things set up into an armoire, and that wound up being two completely separate systems because the armoire you could both put things in and pull things out. Um, then eventually they finally got the glam chest updated. It's been a long journey um of experimentation, and it's it's kind of interesting to see where where this game started and where it has wound up, and now it is one of the most adaptable, fun games to play because of all the customization options and the artwork that people are in. To kind of give a background on that, one of the things I got to do for Halloween after I did my streaming and I I hung out with my family is I got invited to go and hang out with other HJP uh community members who had gone to an entire ward of um uh uh a Reflesia goblet location where a nightclub had set up not just one nightclub, four different nightclubs, um, six different like loc like the entire ward. It was basically an amusement park. It was an online amusement park that we got to go to where these houses were so creatively set up. We had G pose locations where we could take some of the coolest pictures. We had um DJs set up in actual clubs where you could listen online while you went and danced with people in the game. There were people hanging out, it was literally so packed full of people that we would get locked in houses, and it was so funny because they were a Halloween themed. So, of course, we're like getting locked into murder houses. Um because it wasn't just that they had made it hard for you to to get to the exit, which that's a choice. Um, it was that the the instanced area outside of the instanced areas, which are the houses, was so full of people that you literally could not get in. Like it would not let you out. It was it was packed, it was packed, and there were people wearing in-game cosplays, it was incredible, and that's what we have with the system that we're working with currently, and this release on the glamour system is just going to we're gonna see a lot of questionable choices, but that's okay. That's just gonna be a phase. We're gonna get we're also gonna see some of the most incredible like glamour artwork, and I am here for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:32

Sorry, I was there last night. Uh, unfortunately, I was dealing some uh stomach issues or whatnot, but when I was there and I was actually moving around and everything, it was there were so many people.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:44

I don't think I don't think I saw the same person twice because there were so many people like we were in a party and it was so impossible to find each other because we were like constantly going in and out of do things and seeing all the stuff. And okay, so my favorite thing from last night is I found a pizzeria. So one of one of the houses is a small house that uh was set up like a pizzeria. But if you kind of slipped into the back of the pizzeria to just explore around, you could go downstairs, and when you went downstairs, it was a giant bubbling cheese monster that had people locked in jails, and you had like a retainer set up where they were basically feeding people to the cheese monster. Oh my goodness. Was so awesome. Just the way that they had set it up, the the items that they used that actually created not just a visual escape, but a sound escape. Because when you walked on them, they actually made the splortch, splortch, splort, splurt noise.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:01

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:04

It was unhinged. I loved it so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:08

No, the one house that I I remember going in there uh with you guys, they said they had three photo booths set up. And I'm like, that is the most creative thing I've seen in this game so far. Aside from like people, you know, having like stage with the uh dancer pole and whatnot. Otherwise, you know, the photo, the three photo booths. I will oh, I need to go back there and try to find that pizzeria now.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:37

I was really five different locations. There were five of them set up for G posing. One of them was uh was only three photo booths, but they were so intensely packed with items that it was like an entirely like that you should see some of our friends' like screenshots and g poses from last night. They were incredible. Quite frankly, the the creativity, the artistry that people exhibit in this game keeps me coming back every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:11

Oh, every day. It's amazing, absolutely amazing and whatnot. So it it's so much if if you even can tell, like we have so much fun in this game, like aside from the main story, the fighting, there's so much to do in this game, and I absolutely love it. Like I like I finally got to a point with my house that I'm really, really happy how it turned out, and I have not done any changes to it for about a good two to three weeks now, and I don't plan on making any changes, changes to it because I'm really, really happy with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:49

So I gotta come check that out then because the last time I saw it was looking really, really good. But I know that you were still like, it's still a little in control under construction. Just come wait, wait, it's not done yet. I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:01

So since the the housing tour event that we did uh and whatnot, I did a complete rework on it. I completely tore everything down, started from scratch. It took me about a week and a half to uh get to get it to uh where it is now. So wow. I'm really happy with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:22

Yeah, that's I I'm I will come and check that out. I I still have to I'm still very proud of like the the um uh what is it the cantina at the end of the universe that I created for for Luna. And then um I'm I'm big into housing. I actually have like two whole alts that exist for nothing more than just like um transporting uh my my housing items around. I have a problem, all right? Like I'm aware, I'm aware of my problems. I'm I'm not interested in fixing them. Um but uh if you want to go check out uh Weird Witches, we are plot five uh ward 10, I think. I don't I don't know. Either way, uh the uh we've got our our um house set up in uh the lavender beds because of course for my FC, which is separate from Kraken's Call, because of course we're inclusive of all people at HJP, even those who don't join the FC. Um I I decided to go with a more like witchy theme. In fact, uh the FC's called the Weird Witches, so that makes sense. Um for Kraken's Call, it's actually a really incredible, both practical, like photo booth type setup, um, as well as like nautical themed. Um, one of the the members of our group just completely redid the entirety of the basement for the glam contest that we're gonna have um very soon. And it is incredible. Honestly, the amazing things that can be done with housing. And I will say, okay, okay, so here's my moment. The housing system. Let's talk about it for just one second. It's not great, okay? It's not great, Yoshi P. It is it is in need of some real help. The placement system's janky, trying to get things lined up, glitches, the fact that you're relying on people basically taking the way that your system is broken and taking the broken to make okay, yeah. No, fix it, fix it, fix it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:48

Just add it like just add it to the game. Like I'm I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure it's a whole coding issue, bugs and and all that stuff to try to do what a lot of the housing community do to glitch to get certain furnishes to uh place be placed to where they're at and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:13

Oh my god, they don't have to rely on that stuff. It's just it's ridiculous. I don't like it. Fix it, get make it better.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:19

I tried doing I I tried doing that uh at my house and whatnot, and I I would sit there so incredibly frustrated, and I I commend a lot of the housing community who has to pay uh a much bigger patient than I do to be able to do stuff like that because it's it's ridiculous, it's ridiculous. Please just add it to the game. We want it, we need it, just do it, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:53

Yeah, I'm I'm hoping that that's part of the the upgrades and the the the changes they're gonna be making. But anyway, all right, so that's everything for 7.4, and this wound up being way longer than we thought it was gonna be. Uh apparently we have a lot of opinions.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:12

I thought it was gonna be quick. Uh, I was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:16

Um but thanks so much, everybody, for listening. Um, and just to kind of uh put the the end cap on this, we would uh really appreciate anybody who has in been enjoying our um podcast and has any interest in Final Fantasy XIV. If you want to uh experience a fun group of people, please check out heatherjustplay.org. Um, there are links to our Discord there. Come meet us, hang out with us. We'd love to meet you. It would be so fun if you could come play with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:52

Oh, most definitely. Uh come join us and make sure all your etherite travels are free.