Final Fantasy XIV will be introducing a drastic change to the gear progression system with the release of Patch 8.0’s Evercold. We briefly touched upon it in our keynote recap and we’re here to give a closer look at the details.
Want to listen along to Yoshi-P and Koji’s wonderful English translations? Check out the timestamped section from the keynote below!
The Adventurer Activity
Say wasshoi to the Adventurer Activity, a snazzy new menu! Along with its introduction, they plan to change from a daily to a weekly-based system. You will be able to manage your character growth and gear upgrades, as well as see your duty and weekly progress. Everything is still in early development so don’t get too attached to what you see above (are those UCoB totems!?).
They recognized that the current system with a limit of 450 tomestones per week has long overstayed its welcome. Instead, they’d like to remove the monotony of speedrunning daily roulettes and will instead allow players more freedom in both their free time and choice of activities. For example, you may choose to complete your weekly progress over the weekend without worrying about logging in on weekdays.
Collect Weekly Activity Points
It’s somewhat reminiscent of a battle pass system where you complete a selection of missions to amass weekly activity points. Players will be able to pick and choose which activities to complete, accommodating every type of player. Pick your poison with dungeons, PvP, crafting, GATEs, and more! Certain missions are one-time (like completing the MSQ) while other tasks are repeatable.
In addition, they’re playing with the idea of allowing players to catch up on unearned points from the previous week. They’re really doing everything they can to abolish that 450 weekly cap we’ve been stuck with for ages!
New Ways to Raise Item Level
As it currently stands, we have two main ways to raise our item level:
- Collecting gear from Savage Raids
- Exchanging tomestones for gear
This forces players to participate in content they may not be interested in. Alternatively, it may lead to lower motivation to play during content gaps. Since the weekly system will contribute to gear progression, a wider variety of players will have access to stronger equipment. However, we will need to wait for the Fan Fest in Tokyo for more details!
What Are Seasons?
What comes to mind when you read that the new changes are somewhat like a battle pass system? Rest assured, there will be no such thing as F2P or paid rewards with the weekly system. There will be no extra fees, no season pass, or anything like that at all!
Instead, the word ‘season’ is meant to group together patches that are one unit. For example, patches 8.0 and 8.1 will be considered one season. Another way to think about it is that each season corresponds to the increase to item level.
Keep your ears open during future fan festivals! We’re hoping we hear more details about the shortening of patch cycles.
Yesterday’s keynote dropped some pretty crazy reveals. With so many new changes coming with Evercold, read up on the different deep dives on Icy Veins! Side note, the Moogle Treasure Trove event is coming to an end soon! Make sure to grab that Fat Cat Parasol before Patch 7.5’s maintenance!
