Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 - ¡Release date confirmada!

Battle Mechanics
The most important revelation in this interview is the changes to the global cooldown mechanic. “Up until now everything was controlled by GCD,” Yoshida told GameWatch, “but abilities will now move on their own (timer). Weapon skills will have GCD but you can use abilities now in between so you’re going to be busy.”

This is big news for those that complained that the global cooldown timer was too long. According to Yoshida, it isn’t something that you’d see the benefits from right away. In the beginning you start with one skill, after all. But as you gain more skills, it becomes vital to take note of your positioning and what kind of combos to use. Abilities, which now all have their own cool down timer, become important as they augment things like weapon skill damage.

Astral Fire and Astral Blizzard
A more surprising revelation is a change in mechanics for Conjurer and Thaumaturge, particularly Blizzard and Fire spells. Yoshida mentioned two new aspects to a caster job called Astral Fire and Astral Blizzard. It works like this:

• If you continue using Blizzard type spells your element becomes Blizard-based. Similarily, the more Fire spells you use, the more Fire-based you become.

• Being under Astral Blizzard has the added benefit of increasing your MP regen. It’s unclear from the interview as to what being Fire-based will do for you. It’s possible it generates more damage.

• There seems to be three levels of both Astral elements. You can tell when you’re under the effect of this status because colored orbs will begin circling around your character.
  There also seems to be a Stance Change mechanic, that allows you to switch freely between the two elements, while still maintaining the same number of glowing orbs.

So what does all this mean? Yoshida laid out a scenario in which all these elements come together. You could start by spamming Fire spells until you’re out of MP. At this point, you’re still under the effect of Astral Fire. Then, by using Stance Change, you can go into Astral Blizzard mode and start regaining MP quickly. You can continue to hit it with Blizzard spells, toss some thunder for DoT, and once your MP has fully recovered, you can switch back to fire.

Does this mean you can regain MP faster than you can deplete it under Astral Blizzard status? It seems like a very odd mechanic for a Final Fantasy game. But mechanics like these are not unheard of for other MMOS, and could offer a layer of complexity that some players are looking for in the battle system.

Dragoon and Monk
Yoshida went on to talk more about how Dragoon and Monk would work after their adjustments. Her explained that Monks have something called Styles. With this mechanic there are actions that can only be performed while the Monk is using a specific “style”, and using certain actions would automatically switch the monk into another style in order to use that action. Monks would be required to chain together certain techniques and positions in order to increase their fighting capability. “By doing that correctly the DPS and attack speed will increase,” Yoshida says. “So in the beginning it will be slow, but if you can keep it going it will be amazing.”

Dragoon, by contrast, is a much more standard DPS class than Monk. This time around they’ll be relying more on jumps and positional attacks, as well as positional jumps. “You stand in specific position to deal big damage with combo’s but if you do too much you’ll take hate easily,” Yoshida warns.

The Release Date
Further along in the interview Yoshida was asked why he announced a release date so soon before E3. There was concern that he was taking very big risks, since who knows what problems could occur between now and then.

“This was decided with those risks in mind,” Yoshida told GameWatch. “For example, for mass PR, printing, and ordering if it’s done after the E3’s SCEA’s press conference, the PS4 will come first and people will say, ‘You’re going to bring up PS3 now!?’ and feel negative about it. Also, if we don’t announce the release date we can’t make major/final decisions.”

“Lots of distributors around the world are worried about when it’s going to be released,” Yoshida continued, “or if it’s the real deal, or when it’s going to be announced. If the release date isn’t decided, no one will make orders, so it all depends on this release date announcement. But if we make this announcement right after the E3, we won’t know how much it will attract, so that was another big point.”

When asked what would he do if a serious problem turned up that couldn’t be fixed before the release date, Yoshida answered “I’ll bow down and delay the release. This is same for any games, not only this game.”

Good News is Still Good News
There was a lot more in the interview. Yoshida talked about how Chocobo partner system would work, the quality of the music for the game, the content finder feature, and what’s going to happen from here on out in terms of production and development. The interview was done back on May 30th and was released only recently, so some of the information there talks about preparations for E3. Keep in mind also that some of the direct quotes from his translation were edited for clarity. If you want to check out the rest of the interview with Reinheart’s original translations, you can follow the links below. What do you guys think of the changes talked about here? Let us know in the comments.