There's new interviews on Japanese gaming sites this morning about 6.2. Here's the main points (mainly from the Famitsu interview):
- The story of 6.x will end with a certain event, this will completely change the story and 7.0 will be based on this.
- 6.x will change somewhat from the usual pattern of .1-.3 wrapping up the old storyline and .4-.5 setting up the next expansion. He says we can expect to start seeing signs of the direction of 7.0 in 6.5.
- The word "memory" in the patch title is linked both to the main story and the Pandaemonium raids. For example, the memories and feelings of the inhabitants of the 13th who have now become monsters, and whether the WOL and party will reawaken those memories by stepping into their world. With Pandaemonium he mentions "memories you want to seal and forget".
- The "weakest" of the FF4 fiends will appear first.
- Regarding the new trial, he confirms it is a part of the MSQ this time, helped by the fact Savage is releasing 1 week later this time. He says it will not be revealed until the day of the patch who the trial will be against, and whether it will be part of a series. He says the trial is a bit more difficult than usual, even on Normal.
- The 2nd part of Pandaemonium will dive further into the Ancients' ways of thinking. One question to watch out for is "what are we trying to seal in the depths of Pandaemonium?"
- The second Savage tier will be harder than the first. The designers are aware that people are familiar with their level 90 rotations by now, and have made adjustments based on this. At the time of interview Yoshida has only playtested Normal difficulty, but like the new trial he believes it is relatively challenging.
- Based on feedback from the first tier that some fights [ie Phonix] were hard to see, they've paid more attention to the visuals and visibility this time. He also implies the new tier will be flashier, since some felt the last one was a bit plain compared to Eden.
- For Sephirot Unreal, the middle phase will be a weak point for many groups. If you don't pay attention to the order of buffs, heals, and then damaging the enemy, the tank can melt at an incredible rate.
- Regarding the planned changes to Dragoon and Astrologian, the changes shouldn't be simply compared to Summoner. Instead he mentions Ninja, the changes to that job during 5.x were considered a major overhaul by the devs though the play feel was still similiar. Regarding Dragoon, the discussions have been about reducing the number of actions that need to be used by merging actions, though he says he would like to avoid changing what Dragoon has to do as much as possible. For Astrologian, the changes are related to the cards. It is difficult to decide on adjustments to the cards since there are voices for and against the RNG element to them.
- The changes to Direct Hit and Critical Hits will be explained at length in the 6.2 part 2 Live Letter.
- On the new Variant dungeons: Most dungeons in FF14 are designed to be linear, since in a multiplayer game veteran players will eventually decide on a most optimal route through a non-linear dungeon, which could also cause friction with new players. There will be ways of changing things on the routes through the Variant dungeons, such as pressing a switch to change the next boss' mechanics, but it might not always be a good idea to press the switch. By playing multiple times you collect information on the lore of the dungeon, and this can include hints to hidden routes. There are 2 bosses per route.
- There will be unique "Variant actions" in the dungeons, such as recovering HP or increasing defenses. This can help to make up for a missing role, since the normal difficulty version can have any party composition.
- For the higher difficulty Criterion dungeons, via PF you can enter with any composition, but duty finder will match you with 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Melee, 1 Phys or Magical ranged. The difficulty level is too high for the Savage version so there won't be matching for that.
- Island Sanctuary doesn't have a storyline attached to it, other than some simple quests leading the player to the island.
- The weather will change on the island, but it will not snow, since it is located in an area of the world where it doesn't snow.
- Mostly Island Sanctuary will not connect to the rest of the game's systems eg being able to get tokens to exchange for items outside the island, but when you "explore to the limit" you will find some elements that connect to the outside world.
- He implies some elements of the island's development will be on a weekly timer, namely cultivating crops.
- I think this may have already been confirmed in the last LL, but for further confirmation: Housing items cannot be used on the island. The island is not intended as a replacement for housing, instead its about developing an uninhabited island.
- There will be rewards such as mounts for making progress with developing the island. The interviewer asks if mounts can also freeroam on the island, Yoshida says first of all he wants people to enjoy the free roaming minions, but doesn't rule out the possibility of mounts.
- You can queue up for Duty Finder while on the island (the interviewer jokes this gives people another excuse never to leave.)
- On the relic weapon, for the past two expansions these have been tied to the large-scale content of Bozja and Eureka, but this has both its good and bad sides. This time, since the team are working on a lot of other content for the expansion, it was decided to return to the ARR and HW model of relic weapons. In discussions with both the scenario and battle team, it was decided it would be a lot of fun to make Manderville Weapons related to Hildy. "Look forward to what happens when Godbert and Gerolt stand side by side". There will be a simple progression to the 6.25 quest, and he hopes people can play it casually, like with Anima weapons.
- On CC, the devs plan to improve the Season ranking rewards since there was feedback that these have been underwhelming. There are also plans for an official tournament. The devs are currently fairly pleased with the job balance based on Season 2 data.
- At the end of the interview he mentions new UI features coming in 6.2.