[Dev] Seekers Of Adoulin (Mar 13)

Mission/Quest-Related
We've received a lot of feedback over the past few years from players who are interested in more detailed story-related quests and new lore. Our team has been striving to develop Adoulin to satisfy these wishes (we actually have a huge set of documents about the new world).

Because of the tremendous amount of translation work that is required, there have been some quests that were, sadly, postponed from this version update. That said, there will still be plenty of quests to take on.

After the release of the version update, we will continue to add to the main story regularly, along with new quests that match the pacing of the story. As the world opens up, we will continue to add new quests to go along with the changes.

Level Design for "Seekers of Adoulin"
The content is designed for players who have already reached 99, so the equipment added will reflect this. By participating in current content and obtaining current equipment, a better level of performance can be achieved in the new higher difficulty content that will be added from which you can obtain even better equipment... the play cycle should be something like that.

In order to come up with a common measure for content and equipment we came up with a universal scale for comparison (sort of a virtual level that we're calling "content level") and we've developed guidelines for implementing content for the strength of monsters and equipment performance so that we can understand in a more objective way. Lastly, I want to be able to publically discuss the specific content level of content that we add. If adjustments need to be made, we will take care of them little by little.

For monsters, we also developed them based on the parameters and guidelines for content level as described above.
For monster special attacks, we have minimized the range of damaging area of effect of techniques as well as negative status effects (with a few exceptions) which will be kept to a maximum of about 60 seconds in duration. Additionally, some negative status effects for which recovery is difficult (i.e. Amnesia) will be of an even further shortened duration.
As the new jobs will increase the total by another two, it will become increasingly difficult to tweak jobs in such a way that all jobs can deal damage in the same way to any enemy or to adjust content so that all jobs can handle the same content with the same strategies. These aren't suitable adjustments for a game with 22 different classes.

Ultimately, job adjustments will have to be handled by adjusting the new content. For example, if all enemies are strong against magic, mage roles will die off.

For group content to be implemented, we will pay close attention to be sure that it is open to all jobs, and we will continue to share information regarding content implementation. While I'm aware that there is a need to look at individual jobs for adjustments, tweaking the parameters of individual jobs is not enough, and this must be coordinated with content adjustments as well.

"Seekers of Adoulin"-related Content
For battle-related content, the first ones to be introduced will be regional battles called "Reive" along with other battle content called "Skirmish."

• About "Reive"
  Reive content is intended to open up the world for exploration. You may be engaged with monsters blocking colonization progress, in battles to remove obstacles within the world; the idea is to increase the overall colonization rate of the world.
  
  As the colonization rate increases, area progression will become easier, and there will be a variety of other material benefits that you can collect.
  
  As a benefit to participating, individual players will receive points called [[insert official term here]], which can be redeemed for equipment.
  
  
• About Skirmish
  Skirmish is a higher difficulty content that was introduced the other day on our YouTube live stream. For the first version update, we have prepared two types of Skirmish battles. These are certainly not intended to be low difficulty in any way, but the rewards we've prepared will be worth it for those who have the confidence to take on the challenge.

About the Mog Garden [[JP, Mog Resort for English I guess]]
At Vana'Fest, we talked about this content to be added. It seems that many players expected that the content would be available at the time of release. The Mog Garden was scheduled to be released slightly later in the development of Adoulin content.

There have been a lot of uncertainties, and it has taken more time than expected to verify the contents, but, as we originally planned, Fujito is working hard so that this content can be delivered to you this summer. (There will be a separate comment from Fujito, so stay tuned for that.)

Play-as-a-Monster
Play-as-a-Monster and Seekers of Adoulin were originally discussed on different time schedules, and in order to match the new player growth curve that will be created with "Seekers of Adoulin," we have slowed down the implementation work on this.

As we continue to work through Seekers of Adoulin, we will also work on technical hurdles for this, and we plan to showcase the new system on the test server.

Storage (from furniture)
We are working to make furniture storage available at all rental mog houses. Depending on the verification of the changes, we hope to implement this in the spring or summer.

Expansion of Area for Party Invitations
We also expect to add this in the spring or summer. This is planned to be added at the same time that we enhance the Chocobo Circuit to support party recruitment and the "/yell" feature.

Fishing
The adjustments to the fishing system are planned to be implemented this summer or autumn. We are planning to conduct a test of the changes on the test server, and we hope that you'll participate at that time.

Synergy and Evoliths
While adjustments to this are a little further off, I think we need to take a look at this to see what we can do to renovate the system and add some value to it. Once we're at a stage where we can discuss what we have planned, we'll let you all know.