Evercold is the kind of expansion that will make or break Final Fantasy 14 going forward. This was the last Fanfest of the Evercold Fanfest media cycle. Let's talk about it.

Predictions

I was fairly cautious on the predictions I made for fanfest. We knew for sure we'd see the release date, final trailer, the trailer and background lore for the Zephyr class (name confirmed _at_ fanfest).

Of course, we also did hear about new areas and new characters. Hearing everyone in voice chat go "Ysayle?!" kicked my ass though. Ysayle was the first storyline in this game that truly made me cry, and it wouldn't be until Shadowbringers that a second storyline would do the same.

I said that we wouldn't see Evolved Jobs at the Keynote, and I was..._mostly_ correct. We do know that all the jobs are fully designed now, with just translations and tweaks/minor changes left to go. I'm willing to bet that we will see the live letter for them in about a month, but there's other content that also needs to be gone over, especially the benchmark.

Speaking of the benchmark, we did get a release date for that. In addition, elements on my "may see" list that happened are:

  • NGE "Final" Trailer - this was way cooler than I was expecting

  • Release windows for cross-DC pf/df - NA/EU and China both got their dates!

  • More information on weekly system - we got a lot of data, even if it seems like we didn't

  • Info on changes to gear acquisition - boy howdy did we get a hell of a reveal.

  • Semi-finalized graphics for new Character Window - yup!

  • More information on new Intermediate Raid Difficulty - yup! It is "Fierce" and will feature Savage mechanics, albeit less difficult.

We did not, of course, see any hints at new Beastmaster content. Also mildly surprising to me was no Reborn Mode actions or trailers, but I may be misremembering them being at a keynote when they may have been exclusively Live Letter content before.

New Midcore Content

We knew that "Fierce" difficulty would be coming to Normal Raids, as it was featured before multiple times. Knowing that it will feature some Savage or Savage-like mechanics is a positive in my book, and despite being a Savage raider at heart I will enjoy going into Duty Finder for these.

Boss Rush. This was a complete surprise - being able to matchmake (or otherwise queue with 3 friends) and complete 5 random bosses in a row is something I actually find incredibly exciting. They did mention that there's no special reward for making it to 5 without quitting, but the fact that jobs level 51-110 can participate without issues is incredible. It'll be nice to see all the old bosses on RNG rotation as well.

New Alliance Raid Difficulty?!

If anything blew my socks all the way off, it was this announcement and the raid gearing announcements.

Something I have wanted in my heart of hearts is to be able to complete raids with only 4-8 people. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get a whole difficulty out of it! This should be amazing.

While it's not coming to non-Evercold alliance raids yet, I would love to see it come to Yiazmat!

... or just a Chaotic version of Yiazmat.

The superboss needs more love. Sue me.

The Gear Treadmill Is Honored And Upended

That title was weird for me to write. Anyways.

The now-named "Item Level Link" feature is going to be very exciting for me as someone who loves to play around with stat builds. I am hopeful that it means my max-level jobs can do some fun Skill/Spell Speed, Piety, or Tenacity stuff without having to equip terrible gear that leaves me ripe for tanking the ground with my face.

But oh my god. oh my GOD.

Raid gear is going to be stat select?! AND YOU CAN UPGRADE IT TO HAVE MAX GRADE MATERIA SLOTS?! That means we can have a ternary sub-stat! We've only been able to have those on relic weapons up until now!

I am going to have the best Paladin on the block. Imagine being able to take Tenacity or Piety without it being a significant loss of damage? Or a full skill speed monk with maxed crit and ternary Dhit?

Takeaways

I am no longer Hopeful for Evercold but Pleasantly Optimistic. Even though the release date is an extra few weeks in the future, cross-datacenter party finder and duty finder will make it easier to enjoy content that is less queued for on my home datacenter. The changes to weekly gearing seem primed to eliminate a number of pain points related to Tomestone acquisition, even if it seems to only be relevant to the current expansion (as of Evercold). Boss Rush coming on launch will give me more to look forward to while leveling as well!

Also, "Far Wanderer" is such a cool title and I will never take it off once I have it.

See you next time, fellow Warriors of Light and Darkness.