Today Square Enix streamed a new Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Letter from the Producer Live directly from E3. This time it was a peculiar one, as it was in English, and instead of Community Manager Toshio Murouchi, Naoki Yoshida was accompanied by Localization Team Lead Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and Community Manager Matt Hilton.

Here's a summary of the information that was shared:

  • First of all, Yoshida revealed that the Scholar Job will evolve from the Arcanist Class. Both Scholar and Summoner will branch off from Arcanist. In the future players can expect multiple jobs to branch off from other classes as well. 
  • Arcanist will use Carbuncle as a pet, Summoners will have Ifrit-egi, Garuda-egi, Titan-egi (like the Egis in Final Fantasy XII) and more. Scholar will also have a pet in the form of a healing fairy. While white mages are focused on big heals on single targets, scholars will be more focused on healing all party members over time. They will have a different role in party play (we won't be needing two white mages anymore for full party content, looks like). 
  • Fairies will change stance depending on the type of battle, and will also change appearence with different roles. 
  • Summoner's Egis will have different roles as well. Titan-egi will be a tank, Ifrit-egi will be a damager, Garuda-egi will be a caster. 
  • We also learn that the team would like to release something in terms of new classes or jobs before the first expansion. They also hope to finish the PS4 version and the DirectX 11 PC client within the first year after launch. 
  • The city state of Ishgard will come with the first expansion, but there will be a questline leading up to the opening of those gates, to let players learn about the city and its inhabitants. 
  • The fisher class will come with beta phase four, and it'll be something that will work in a relaxing way, like communicating with nature. The job will be based on choosing one's rod and bait depending on several factors. While fishes won't be very valuable, there will be achievements and perks for catching large ones.

FFXIV_E3_LiveLetter (1)

  • Between the end of phase four and early access there will be only between one and three days of downtime. 
  • With housing there will be several permission settings to allow entrance to other people. The Free Company chest will also have its own access permission system.
  • At the beginning only free companies will be able to purchase houses, then, if everything goes well that functionality will will be expanded to single players.
  • There will be different versions of dungeon tokens that will allow players to purchase different kind of items, in the case they won't get the drop directly.
  • The team still didn't have the perfect idea to implement a card-based minigame.
  • Between zones and dungeons  there will be about 40 at launch, with the ability to expand to 80 through patches.
  • There will be both instanced primal battles in which a light party or a full party will take on a single primal that will have different modes. There will also be F.A.T.E. primal battles, for instance Odin or Behemoth, in which everyone gets together and fights together. They will also have different phases.
  • Skirmish-type battles will come back, but this time they will feature famous Final Fantasy bosses.
  • In Phase 3 of the beta a lot of effort has been put into creating interesting and challenging quest battles, including the main scenario quests. Don't forget your antidotes! Don't sell them!
  • Chocobo bardings will be craftable, alongside custom parts for Magitek armors as well.
  • The team is thinking about implementing a mentor system within free companies.
  • A system to combat RMT is in the planning phase.
  • The relic quest hasn't changed that much, but it's going to be a lot easier than in 1.0. It'll still be challenging but there won't be any more Hamlet defense to do.

Below you can see the teaser video showcasing Arcanist, Summoner and Scholar in action, and a gallery with the pieces of artwork portraying them.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/QbF3jq04c80