Yoshi-P's main lesson from Dawntrail: tempo. Yoshi-P called the slow story pacing a fault in his own direction. He takes responsibility for the writing not being well received as he was more interested in exploring the continent and wanted the story to focus on that.
Slower world-building in Evercold moves into side quests so the main story keeps momentum. He also wanted Evercold to give players greater interest in what the future of XIV will look like
No required ‘homework/study’, though revisiting the Hydaelyn saga’s explanation of the mirror worlds and the Sundering may help, since the story centres on the reflections again.
The familiar for Zephyr is a raptor type in 8.0; more types (I believe he is referring to types of birds) and colour customisation left deliberately open .
Hanging from the familiar to travel is voluntary and has gameplay benefits (details withheld), similar in spirit to Dragoon’s new aerial move for Evolved mode.
Rhitahtyn predates the Bastion concept, but Zephyr’s roots in northwestern Ilsabard link to him, with hints in the job quest.
Gauntlet of Power:
Quick 3 to 5 minute runs, chain or stop whenever you like
Random past dungeon bosses, with each new dungeon adding its bosses to the pool
Old one-off boss mechanics reworked to fit
Balance-adjust system lets low- and high-level players play together at their own levels
Duty roulettes stay but consolidate into fewer categories, as the game shifts to a weekly mission and activity-point structure.
Crafted gear continues, sitting between season gear and raid gear.
PvP tutorial teaches Guard, Recuperate and breaking line of sight, ending with team fights alongside NPCs against realistic NPC opponents.
per-job PvE tutorials planned for new players and level-skip users; PvP versions to follow later.
New Fierce tier:
Bridges Normal raids and Extremes, attempted after a Normal clear
Lots of individual mechanics; tuned so a party can recover from a near-wipe
May be eased further if still too hard
Savage and Ultimate unchanged; nothing harder than Ultimate planned, as he sees it as the mechanical ceiling.
Alliance Raid Savage:
For players who upgraded gear in even-numbered patches
Exclusive mechanics and surprise forms
Should feel roughly like Savage floor three
Crossovers: Evercold’s own trials carry a fully original storyline, and the crossovers are tied into FFXIV’s world. He specifically addressed that he knows people were concerned about both the Alliance and Normal raids being crossover content, and wanted fans to know they won't be self-contained from the world of XIV.
Side-content characters in the main story: he sees it as impractical due to branching dialogue and the loss of narrative risk. He wants writers of individual stories within FFXIV to feel emboldened to do whatever they want within their story e.g. they can kill a character without worrying about it needing to tie into the larger plot.
Rolling on loot reduced wherever possible, with some dice-roll excitement kept for rare drops; final details in a pre-launch Live Letter.
Au Ra horns, face types and racial markings (such as Miqo’te war paint) become optional from 8.1
Outfit detail customisation covers most 8.0 gear; older items retrofitted gradually, popular ones first.
No new regions for housing wards planned.
Necessary server infrastructure to improve the number of housing plots already purchased
