This afternoon, Naoki Yoshida (affectionately known as Yoshi-P) took to the stage to host a virtual event which would detail the future of his passion project, Final Fantasy XIV. Yoshida has been a part of the FFXIV team since the massive A Realm Reborn overhaul back in 2013 which shifted the game from a drab attempt at an MMO to a unique MMO which is a wonderful blend of classic Final Fantasy themes and ideas with new and creative ideas. The current expansion, Shadowbringers, is the highest-rated expansion for the game to date and it looks like the FFXIV wish to continue their growing success with the newly announced expansion, Endwalker.
Endwalker marks the beginning of 6.0 for FFXIV, a new era in terms of story for the Japanese MMO. According to Yoshi-P, Endwalker will finally close the Hydaelyn and Zodiark chapter of Eorzea, a chapter which has been open since 2013. This isn’t the first time that the team has closed a long-standing story, with patch 5.3 closing the Ascian War, a saga in the game which had been going from 2013 as well. It looks like the FFXIV team are finally ready to take the game into a new direction with Endwalker; even going as far as taking the Warrior of Light to the moon.
Watch the trailer below
or click here
Naturally, this expansion will also bring with it a number of additions, so let’s have a look at them.
- Level cap increased from 80 to 90
- Sage is the new healer class found in Endwalker and the only prerequisites for this class are to have reached level 70 on any other class.
- From the current description, it almost seems as if this class is planned to be the replacement for the Scholar, as it is primarily focused around shielding players and mitigating damage. Additionally, Sages can channel aether to either damage, heal or shield players, behaviour which is already found in the Scholar (just without pet actions that ghost themselves all the time). However, there could be more planned for this class, only time will tell.
- The Sage’s weapon is the Nouliths, a bunch of floating guns which can form protective barriers around players or deal flash attacks to opponents.
- A new unnamed melee class which will be officially revealed during the Final Fantasy XIV Digital Fan Festival 2021 (May 15-16 2021)
- A new beast tribe in the Arkasodara (elephant people)
- New dungeons
- A new raid series titled Pandæmonium
- A new alliance raid series
- A new small-scale PvP mode (don’t ask me why)
- Estinien Wyrmblood being added as a Trust ally
- The Ishgard Residential District finally being released
- Updates to the Gold Saucer (for those of you with gambling addictions)
- A new, low-intensity, relaxing activity called Island Sanctuary
- New gear and crafting recipes
- A Data Centre travel system, allowing you to visit friends that play on entirely different data centres
(can’t wait for Party Finder to be ruined) - New role quests for Tanks, Healers, Melee DPS, Ranged Physical DPS, Ranged Magic DPS and Crafters & Gatherers
- New areas including Garlemald, Thavnair and the city of Radz-at-Han
Check out the trailer for the Sage below
or click here
There are also a few notable changes coming with this expansion:
- Value downscaling – the values of damage, armour and health have gotten to an unreasonable level. An example given by Yoshi-P was that a boss’ health value in patch 5.5 (yet to be released) was around 440,000,000 health, which is absurdly large (we’ll talk more about this at the end). The example given was with Yoshi-P’s Black Mage, who is currently at the max item level of 530. Without any assistance from buffs, critical hits or direct hits, his average hit has a value of around 50,000 damage. With the downscaled values, this would be around 10,000 damage but still do as much to the boss, proportionally speaking. The lower values also stop the engine from falling apart.
- Belts will be removed as a piece of equipment from the release of Endwalker. Any belts you have equipped and/or in your inventory will be automatically transferred to the calamity salvager. HOWEVER, you are still advised to remove any melded materia you may have in these belts prior to the release of Endwalker (not right now, obviously)
- As a result of the Sage being a more defensive style of healer, the Astrologian is being reworked to become more in-line with the White Healer Mage – coined a “pure” healer
- With these healer changes, the Raid Finder within FFXIV will be updated to allow player to determine whether they want Pure healers or Barrier healers come the release of Endwalker.
Back to the health value thing, 440,000,000 is ludicrously high for anything in the current content structure. The highest level raid in the current tier, Eden’s Promise: Eternity (Savage) has a boss with around 62 million health. Not even an Alliance Raid boss would have this much health, but what would have this much health is an Ultimate Raid boss, where the total health is pooled for the entire 18-minute raid. Square Enix has been pretty quiet about the next Ultimate Raid, with the last one we received being The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate) back in patch 5.11 and the next one has been due for quite some time. There is still no word on what it will be, but if previous ultimates are anything to go by, it will probably be something like Thordan from the Heavensward Main Scenario Quest (MSQ).
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker has been given a release window of Spring 2021 (Fall for those in the Northern Hemisphere). One last note, Final Fantasy XIV will be receiving a PS5 upgrade, with a beta for this launching on April 13, 2021 – existing owners of the PS4 version will receive a free upgrade.
Jordan lives and breathes Dark Souls, even though his favourite game is Bloodborne. He takes pride in bashing his face on walls and praising the sun. Hailing from the land of tacos, he is the token minority for WellPlayed.
