Hello again, to all of you continuing to enjoy FINAL FANTASY XIV.

Your devoted Yoshi-P is here, back for my third letter, despite some stiff shoulders that have been giving me trouble lately. What are you gonna do, right?

Patch 1.15a went live with all of the intended content (resulting in a bit of behest-induced fever on some forums, hehe), and the dev team is now on the next step in improving the game. After balancing skill and experience point awards in 1.15a, I logged in and clandestinely took part in a few behests. I was left with the impression that everyone seemed to be having a good time. And it reinforced my conviction that MMORPGs are all about people getting together and having a good time.

Of course, we're still on the fence a bit about balancing the degree of difficulty for fifteen-member parties, but I personally am of the opinion that everyone playing together is what makes the game fun. And so that is the direction in which I would like to take the game, and take it as quickly as possible. It was for that reason that I opted to balance the skill and experience points rewards first, with the intention of later tackling the difficulty level, rather than vice versa. Further balancing adjustments are ongoing, and are being based on the new designs in place for a maximum party size of eight members, as well as the smaller four-member party, both of which I've added to our list of intended changes.

I kept a close eye on how things went for the week or so following the release of 1.15a. Not surprisingly, the maximum number of members and levels of difficulty for behests were less than ideal. Therefore, in the coming days we'll be looking into further improvements to bonuses awarded when participating in groups of nine or more. For now, I'd be happy to think that we've already taken care of some balancing issues that relate directly to future content. Also, the amount of experience points awarded to Disciples of the Hand is a bit on the large side, and will be balanced to be more akin to those awarded to Disciples of War and Magic.

A bit wordy for a lead-in, I know, but now we can move on to what many of you no doubt are waiting to hear about. As I mentioned in my last letter, our FINAL FANTASY Players' Poll the Second begins today, focusing primarily on the battle system. I've set the deadline at one week from today. I apologise for shortening the submission period from last time, but quick responses will lend themselves to quick results. I hope you all take the time to submit your answers and have your voices heard!

Next, I'd like to post the updated list of planned changes. There have been a number of changes to the list since 1.15a was released, both new additions as well as progress updates. Items marked as –NEW– have either been added or updated. Those tasks that are in grey have been completed, and will be removed from the chart as of my next post. Consider yourselves warned! (I apologise for my chart being a bit artless... It isn't the easiest thing in the world to read, I know.)

We've received a lot of feedback from players regarding collision detection issues hampering player movement, and are working on resolving these now. Unfortunately, fixing all of them in one fell swoop would pose too great a risk, and so we'll be addressing them in stages. We've also completed our examination of the balancing and placement of freely roaming enemies, and are in the midst of holding meetings now to begin implementing the planned changes. Also, the routes players take when travelling through areas must also be adjusted so as not to have a negative influence on quest balance. All told, we'll be making changes of this sort up until the onset of spring.

We are also in the process of putting together a new workflow to handle the development of new quests and sidequests. Though we will begin releasing these in the next patch, it will be difficult to release a large number of them at once. It is certainly possible to continue developing quests until we reach a target number, and then release them simultaneously, but this would slow the rate at which this new content would become available. I prefer to release fewer quests regularly as part of the monthly patches instead. This may give the impression of less content per patch, but I'd like to try it this way for a span of about two months or so and see how it goes. At the same time, we'll gradually be implementing system-side changes related to quests as well, aimed at improving user-friendliness.

I’d now like to speak about the battle system and its forthcoming changes. The tasks laid out for the overhaul of the battle system are being divided up and divvied out, and the office is a maelstrom as we try to settle upon the final specs for the system itself. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t have a battle-related meeting of some sort, and it is my strong hope that we finalise a direction to take as soon as possible after receiving your feedback and opinions from the second poll.

We are also looking into players using death warps (or blood warps, or whatever other name you wish to give them). We will be making a decision on how to address this following the release of quests. After all, having a bunch of adventurers committing suicide isn't very FINAL FANTASY-esque, now, is it?

And finally, a few words on the large-scale PvE content I tacked onto the end of the list last time. Our current thinking is that this will be content aimed at high-ranked or endgame players, and are now looking into design aspects and costs, as well as viability for middle-ranked players, together with NMs. Hopefully, we'll be able to get all of our ducks in a row, hammer out an engaging battle system, and bring a slew of new and exciting challenges to all of you soon!

I suppose that just about does it for this Yoshi-P letter. For those interested, in my next letter, I am hoping to talk about items and the in-game economy. The more astute observers among you may have already noticed that a few changes pertaining to these topics have already been added to the list... ^^;

How about this weather, huh? Cold enough for you? Well, I suppose that depends entirely on where you are... But it’s cold in Tokyo. It looks like influenza is popping up all over the place, regardless, so take care of yourselves lest you miss out on your adventures in Eorzea!

Until next time, keep your hopes high and your noses to the gri—bad choice of words. Just keep having fun!

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director, Naoki Yoshida