The information below is a translation of the article which was a digest of information from Part 1 of the Producer Letter LIVE that was held during Niconico Super Conference on 4/25. If there's a summary for the 4/26 letter that gets published, or anything else worth translating, I'll add that on later.
Source: http://www.famitsu.com/news/201504/26077555.html
FFXIV Fighting Game?! Producer Letter LIVE Summary (Part 1) [Niconico Super Conference 2015]
On April 25 and 26, 2015, Final Fantasy XIV was exhibited at Niconico Super Conference 2015 held at Chiba Makuhari Messe. This article will discuss the contents of Part 1 of the Producer Letter LIVE was held as a stage event on April 25 right after the opening announcements that took place earlier.
The FFXIV booth was billed as "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn becoming Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward" with a number of attractions and events that we previously reported on. Prior to the opening of the events, Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, appeared on stage. He loudly proclaimed the opening in front of a full house of fans who were there since the early morning.
New Dragoon Limit Break in the Benchmark Software?!
Immediately after the opening, part 1 of the Producer Letter LIVE was held as a stage event. This is a very popular program in which Yoshida himself talks about previously undisclosed information about FFXIV. At the beginning of this one, a trailer video was unveiled which showed the movie that you can see in the benchmark software for Heavensward.
Here's a summary of the comments that Yoshida reviewed:
- The video was edited and shortened to the current 9 minutes. A lot of the staff was involved with the production, including assistant director Hiroshi Takai.
- The benchmark software will be released on April 27.
- It will be available for download from a special site which will be launched that day.
- It will be both DirectX 9 and DirectX 11, with the ability to switch from one to the other with the click of a button.
- PC scanning algorithms have been updated since the launch of FFXIV. Last time, the emphasis was placed on the framerate, but this time it will measure the comprehensive performance of the PC such as CPU power and memory speed.
- Since the algorithm has changed, your score may fall slightly from the existing benchmark software, but that doesn't mean your PC's performance has deteriorated.
- It will be possible to go through Character Creation for Au Ra. You'll be able to select all of the parts, like face and eye shapes.
Job Quests in Heavensward are no longer in increments of five levels!
After the talk about the release of the benchmark was over, the broadcast moved on to its main theme. Yoshida went to the Niconico live broadcast and directly responded to comments that were being received from players. The new information that was released during these exchanges is summarized below - the speaker is in parentheses.
- In the two months prior to the release of Heavensward, we'll be performing small updates like Hot Fixes. (Yoshida)
- Additional adjustments to the Final Coil of Bahamut are scheduled to be performed. (Yoshida)
- They are currently considering whether they should open the restriction on Allagan Tomestones of Poetics. (Yoshida)
- (The current maximum) Item Level 135 will be too high compared to the item level for Heavensward. (Yoshida) [[I have no idea what this means, I don't know if it was a weird quote out of context or whether they're reducing overall ILs or what.]]
- Work on add-ons has been postponed because priority was given to the development of Heavensward. After things settle down following the release of the expansion, they'll continue work on it. (Yoshida)
- More than two new job actions will be added to each of the existing jobs. (Yoshida)
- New job quests are no longer at five level increments. (Takai)
- There will be changes to the increments for quests for battle, gathering, and crafting classes. Along with these, you'll be able to learn quite a few new actions. (Takai).
- They are reviewing the action rotations for basically all jobs. (Yoshida)
- The black mage skill rotation will be quite different. (Takai)
- Many existing actions will be adjusted. (Yoshida)
- They have begun working on an improvement to displaying TP but this won't be ready in time for the release of Heavensward. (Yoshida)
- There will not be Zodiac weapons for new jobs; however, there will be primal weapons. (Takai)
- They are planning adjustments to ease the existing Saga of the Zodiac Weapons for the release of Heavensward. (Yoshida)
- Battles will change considerably for summoner with the new added actions. (Takai)
- It's still secret at this time, but there will be various changes, like to Tri-something-or-other. (Yoshida) [[Tri-distaster, I would assume]]
- They are aware that the capacity of the current Armoury Chest is too low. Right now, since there's no way to add to this without increasing the write time to the back end servers, it will take a bit more time to work this out. (Yoshida)
- The number of retainers that can be employed will increase. (Takai)
- Additional land will be added for purchase after the release of Heavensward. (Yoshida)
- The number of items you can store in your Armoire will increase. (Yoshida)
- With the increase in level cap for adventurers, the rank cap of companion chocobos will also rise. (Yoshida)
- There will be fishing in the new areas. (Takai)
- It will be possible to start from level 1 with the Au Ra race. However, it will be necessary to have access to the Heavensward expansion pack to do so. (Yoshida)
- You can create an Au Ra even if you have not finished the main quest. (Takai)
- The specifications are already planned for the "practice mode" for raid dungeons. However, the implementation won't be simultaneous with the release of the raid dungeon itself, it will be a little behind. (Yoshida)
- They plan to add two rider flying chocobos after the release of Heavensward. (Yoshida)
- There is still an implementation plan for the summoning system where adventurers can call a primal. Since there's currently a lot of content already planned to be implemented, it's been moved to the back of the list for now.
- For PvP, once they make adjustments to Frontlines, they will continue working on Wolves' Den. (Yoshida)
- They are thinking about whether they should add rewards to or adjust the difficulty of Steps of Faith. Although the clear rate of the battle isn't too low, they realize the battle can be quite long. Once they decide what to do, it'll be added as an adjustment in one of the patches. (Yoshida)
- The new Zodiac Weapon story will kick off in patch 3.1. (Yoshida)
- They are planning for the new weapon story to be somewhat elaborate. (Takai)
- The "Beginner's Hall" facility has become quite a bit larger than they were originally planning for. Since they already began work on the specifications, the implementation time shouldn't be too far off. (Yoshida)
- A new large scale Gold Saucer attraction will gradually begin to be implemented from patch 3.1. New Triple Triad cards will be ready for the release of Heavensward. (Takai)
- The new Crystal Tower type large-scale raid for 24 people will be released in patch 3.1. (Yoshida)
- They aren't currently thinking about any release for DirectX 12, they will be sticking with DirectX 11 for a while. (Yoshida)
[[Rest of the article went into a bunch of unimportant details about the other silly stuff that happened at the live letter like the Ultimate Fight thing and cool stuff that you won't see outside of Japan like the Heavensward edition PS4, and they mentioned they also have plans for a FFXIV design PS Vita and PS Vita TV.]]