The 45th Letter from the Producer Live Part I aired today, with producer/director Naoki Yoshida and global online producer Toshio Murouchi discussing the contents of Final Fantasy XIV’s upcoming patch 4.4 “Prelude in Violet”, as well as detailing some information regarding patch 4.36. Special guest also included Monster Hunter World director, who shared some information regarding the upcoming crossover event.

The Live Letter took place in front of an audience at the FATE event in Kyoto, and was on a tight schedule, so the letter was split into two parts, the first half being a summary of whats to come in future patches, the second half focusing more on Monster Hunter World. The first have of the letter was also a brief summary of what is to come and would be elaborated in a Part II scheduled at a later date.

You can check out our full summary below, courtesy of the Final Fantasy XIV reddit discord for providing translations:

Patch 4.36 Details

• Releases August 7th
• Includes the long awaited The Forbidden Land, Eureka Pagos
• Unfortunately, due to time constraints, there was no live play footage of the Pagos.
• An onsen will be included in Pagos, but with so many monsters around, players might not get to enjoy them much!

Companion App Details

• Coming Late July / early August
  • They’re in final testing, once complete, they’ll be sending it off to Apple and Google
  • It’s not clear how long it will take to be accepted by Apple and Google
• The following functions can be used free of charge:
  • Chat/Scheduler: By registering their character with the app, players can sync their friendlist and communicate with others via the app, as well as you the scheduler to plan events and issue invites. You will be automatically notified the moment the time comes up in your scheduler. It integrates with the calendar on your phone
  • Inventory management: Organize your inventory and armoury chest.
  • Peruse the market board: Put items up for sale and purchase items!
  • An additional location can be registered as a favored destination in game
• Login bonuses: Players will receive a kupo nut everyday. A moogle, when given one, will purchase an item in the market for them
• Moogle coins – Companion app currency
  • While players can enlist the assistance of moogles with kupo nuts, players can also give them moogle coins to request their serveries more often.
• On release moogle coins can be exchanged for the following:
  • Putting items up for sale, revising market listing
  • Purchasing items

Premium service details

• The premium service includes:
  • It is $5, €5, £4.50 for a 30 day subscription
  • This service offers additional features in addition to those provided by the free service
  • Access to an additional retainer
  • Subscribing to the premium service will allow you to employ more than one retainer
  • The ability to organize your saddlebags and retainer inventory.
• Moreover, those who choose the premium option will receive the following benefits:
  • Saddlebag capacity is doubled
  • Login bonus – one additional daily kupo nut, as well as greater maximum capacity

Feast Regional Championships

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Patch 4.4 Details

• Patch 4.4 “Prelude in Violet” is coming Mid-September
  • Will contain New Main Scenario Quests
• New Side Story Quests
  • The Four Lords
  • Event further Hildibrand Adventures
• New Sidequests
  • Doman Reconstruction
• New Instance Dungeons
  • The Burn(Tenative)
  • Stain Mocianne’s Arboretum (Hard)

• New Trials: From the Four Lords Questline
  • Suzaku (Tentative)
  • Suzaku (Extreme) (Tentative)
• New Raids
  • Omega: Alphascape
  • Omega: Alphascape Savage

Battle System update

• Job Adjustments
  • Role Action Slots Increased: Role action slots increased up to 10 as a temporary fix to some problems with the role action system.

PvP Updates

• Timed Attack (Tentative) added to quick chat
• PVP-specific HUD layouts can be adjusted on the Wolves’ Den Pier

The Forbidden Land: Eureka- 3rd Installment

• New Region Added
  • Will release in patch 4.4
  • Currently balancing adjustments
  • The name is decided but they felt it was so fast to reveal, especially since Pagos isn’t out yet
• The Logos System added
  • By doing certain actions, this Logos System will trigger.
  • The Logos system is different depending on the role you play.
  • For Example: There will be actions that will allow for a DPS to build threat like a tank.
• Eureka Weapons – The Challenge Continues!

The Lost Canals of Uznair update

• New Dungeons added.
• It will be randomized, so you may enter the same old Canals, or an entirely new dungeon!

Gathering and Crafting Updates

• New Recipes Added
• New Fishing Holes added: The Doman Enclave
• Zhloe Aliapoh – Custom Deliveries Rewards Adjusted

Grand Company Updates

• Captain Rank Unlocked
• Squadron Updates
• New Command Missions Added
• New Squadron Missions Added (To Attain the rank of Captain)

Housing Updates

• Mannequin Indoor Furnishing added
  • Gear equipped to mannequins can be put up for sale as a bundle, this will be linked to the market board.
  • You can compile all the glamours you want to buy and place on the mannequin immediately and buy it
• New customization features added
  • You can set roleplaying status to your house now
  • So if you want to make your house a shop, you can use the feature to make it look like a cafe.

Gold Saucer updates

• New GATE added – Platforming Puzzles
  • The jumping puzzles return, test your skills on a new jumping challenge!

Ceremony of Eternal Bonding Features Expanded

• New Ceremonies Added
• Anniversary ceremonies added, which allows you to reenact the ceremony you had during the Eternal Bond, you can invite your friends to an open party

Group Pose Settings Updated

• Minion actions, player walking/running motions added
• Lock time/weather setting added
• New Screen Effects Added

Additional Updates

• New Allagan Tomestones added
• Crystal Tower requirement revised
  • Yoshida has complained that entering Crystal Tower is very tiring and ridiculous and prompted Yoshida to adjust it. No more FATEs!
• Duty Recorder – recordable duties increased, features revised
• The Unending Journey features expanded
  • You can now view multiple choice scenes
• Configuration Data now saved to Server (Except display settings)
  • Player UI and layouts now saved to a server, no more having to set up your hotbars on a new PC!
  • However, Yoshida warns to be careful overwriting your settings

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This concludes the Part 1 of the 45th live letter, next, the Special Guest segment! Welcome to the stage, Executive Director Kaname Fujioka and Art Director Tokuda Yuuda for Monster Hunter World!

• They talk briefly about their history working on the first Monter Hunter and up to now. Fojioka has been director since the first Monster Hunter!
• Tokuda has been creating monsters constantly.
• First they discuss the Capcom side of the crossover event, looking back at the newly released trailer.

• Yoshida mentions its so mean of them to reenact the opening cutscene from Heavensward with the Dragoon segment. It’s just missing the snow!
• Yoshida also joked that the devs wanted to bully an Estinien-like character with that little piggy at the end!

• The event for the Capcom side launches August 2nd for free!
• There is no time limit for the collab, so don’t worry about missing it!
• The event includes:
  • Behemoth fight (Requires: HR 16 or higher)
  • Special collaboration armor: Drachen set of the Dragoon, a Moogle outfit for Palico
  • And much more collaborative content!

And now the Square Enix side…

• Releases August 7th, the same day as patch 4.36! The hunt begins!
• Face the dreaded Rathalos, King of the Skies, in two new trials!
  • The Great Hunt
  • The Great Hunt (Extreme)
• The MHW devs don’t understand the two modes, Yoshida has to explain it.
• Rathalos will ignore threat, meaning everyone is a tank! (Uh-oh!)
  • Meaning it’s not going to play like standard FFXIV content, rather, it will play like Monster Hunter! There is no role limitations and everyone will have a fair share of baiting the monsters to deal with the aggro.
• You have to use potions, 10 potions will be the max you can carry.
  • You can get a debuff that prevents healing by magic as well.
• Normal mode is 8-man, while the Extreme mode is only… 4-man?!
• Extreme mode will have auto-raises, but you can only “faint” up to three times.
  • Failing to kill him up to three times, and your party wipes, will result in an automatic duty fail.
• They attempted to add a “monster parts break off” mechanic, however they couldn’t get it approved for the game rating. They also couldn’t get the game re-rated except for releasing an expansion pack. So alas, no blood or scale breaking.
• Yoshida-san regrets not being able to get that passed!

Requirements overview:

• Level 70, and completed the Stormblood MSQ
  • ILVL, normal: 320, 1-8man
  • ILVL Extreme: 350, 1-4man

Rewards:

• Due to lore reasons, these are not drops, rather “craftable” like in Monster Hunter World. You take the drops from Rathalos to an NPC to forge.
• hey tried to imagine how Eorzean crafters could come up with the gear if they had access to Rathalos parts without just copying over Rathalos gear.
• There will be two versions: Non-dyeable and dyeable.
• Housing items will be available too.
• Minions: A Poggie and Palico
• Mounts: Rathalos
  • The mount will play a Monster Hunter song, exclusive to this mount only!
• This event has no end period, its a permanent trial!
• The content will be added to the duty finder.

Special Attention paid to the collaboration events.

• The art director paid special attention on how the behemoth moves, how it acts, how the creature works and tried to recreate the movements faithfully, but adding a Monster Hunter World flair to it.
• Sometimes Yoshida will chime in to the Monster Hunter World devs on how Rathalos would look more natural in Eorzea if the monster was adjusted further, and some of the features are adjusted like the color of the monster.
• Yoshida asked to make Rathalos redder when bringing it to FFXIV, the Capcom devs allowed the request.
• In return, Behemoth was also adjusted to suit Monster Hunter World.

Difficulties encountered with the crossover.

• One of the difficulties encountered was how Monster Hunter World felt limited on certain data because t hey can only make educated guesses when it comes to certain model data while working on it.
• They also struggled with setting Behemoth’s difficulty.
• There will also be a Behemoth Extreme in MHW in a future release apparently! Because making Behemoth hard will make it fun!
• Yoshida jokes they may have to make a Behemoth Ultimate.

How many warriors of light are on the MHW development team?

• About 20 developers in the MHW division play FFXIV, and some are even leaders of their own Freecompanies and would dismiss themselves early from work, or even take days off, for FFXIV patch days.
• Executive Director said there was lots of work to be done, but since they found the collaboration interesting, he felt a sense of obligation to make it super satisfiying and put a lot of effort into it
• Yoshida has a co-worker who is considered a world class hunter, and would vinvest a lot of time playing MHW and is a huge fan.
• Yoshida was then commented on his playstyle during the Behemoth encounter in MHW, and that he was “too soft!”
• More announcements from Capcom to come.
• And now an advertisement for Monster Hunter, at a new price!

The special guests then said a few parting words before leaving the stage, they thank all who had tuned in!

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Announcements

First, before the announcements, Yoshida and Foxclon addressed the issue regarding the North American Fanfest tickets selling out in a matter of moments. Foxclon spoke in English and translated for Yoshida:

“Back in 2016 last time fan festival it took 10 hours to sell out the NA fan fest tickets so we are expecting similar, but we sold more than that but what happened was in 2 minutes we had 6,000 people in the virtual queue to purchase tickets. So actually because so many people rushed into the queue, the system became unstable and there was a risk to that would crash the whole queue, so they disabled the code for approximately 500 people to prevent this.
So it is a fact that people purchased without the code, it was only 500 people. People on the forums said as well they purchased without. We checked the ticket purchase and there was no proof of invalid ticket sales. In any case, this should not have happened.
Ultimate we understand with the demand we didn’t have enough tickets. If we decide to plan another fan festival in the future we will need to take this into account. Tickets in Japan use a lottery system, but for NA and EU it’s first come first serve. We need to revisit the most suitable way to sell tickets going forward based on this.”

And now onward to announcements:

• Fan Festival tickets for Paris will be going on sale on July 23rd. They will be providing an exclusive pre-sale period for active players on July 2rd, and a whole week before tickets become available for everyone else on July 30th.

• The 5th anniversary for Final Fantasy XIV is soon! They’re hosting another 14-hour broadcast this year, tune in for a Letter from the Producer Live, talk sessions with special guests and other shows! (The special challenge will also return!)
  • It’s scheduled on Friday, August 31st at 8:00pm to Saturday, September 1st at 10:00am (PDT)
• Final Fantasy XIV is going to appear in the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri with its very own float!
• Final Fantasy XIV is coming to Gamescom.
• Eorzean Cafe celebrates its fourth anniversary.
• Eorzean Symphony in Germany will be on Friday, August 24th and Saturday August 25th
• Another free-login campaign was announced.
• Cute little Spriggan plush, comes with an in-game item code!
• A new Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume II announced!
• Comes with an in-game Mayota hat!