Thread by @Nova_Crystallis

Letter from the Producer Live #65 has begun. Topics include an Endwalker info recap, with special guests YOKOTARO & Yosuke Saito.

Starting off with a new trailer with in-game footage. It's from the Endwalker benchmark.

The Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker official benchmark will release on July 11th at 12:00am Pacific.

Transitioning now to the recap, Endwalker will feature conclusion of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga. The main scenario will feature more scenes than previous expansions and more voiced scenes.

Old Sharlayan will function similarly to to The Crystarium/Kugane/Ishgard. Radz-at-Han will be similar to Eulmore/Rhalgr's Reach/Idyllshire.

Sage and Reaper will be added as new Jobs. Alphinaud and Zenos will take on these new jobs respectively.

You'll be able to use Explorer Mode to revisit Endwalker dungeons later on, presumably after the expansion patch.

Pandaemonium is the new 8-man raid, and will be released 2 weeks after the Endwalker launch. The Savage mode difficulty will come 4 weeks after the Endwalker launch.

Myths of the Realm will be the 24-man alliance raid series that will begin in Patch 6.1 after the Endwalker launch.

Endwalker job gear: Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Gunbreaker.

Endwalker job gear: Monk, Dragoon, Ninja, Samurai.

Endwalker job gear: Bard, Machinist, Dancer.

Endwalker job gear: Black Mage, Summoner, Red Mage.

Endwalker job gear: White Mage, Scholar, Astrologian.

A lottery system will be implemented for housing, Requirements will be added to participate, you must deposit the gil, can't use a free trial account, etc. More info to come later.

Data Center will be between DCs in the same region, Japan, North America, Europe, and Oceania.

This segment is in reference to re-balancing the game's battle system's damage formulae over many expansions. Values will be downscaled to prevent a variety of issues, though Yoshida asks that you not think your Warrior of Light getting weaker.

Belts are no longer equippable in Endwalker and will no longer drop. Belts in your inventory will remain there. You can speak with the Calamity Salvager to access currently equipped belts, belts in your Armoury Chest, and any belts your retainers have equipped.

Belts can be sold to vendors, desynthesized. Any affixed materia can be removed but extraction will no longer work

All those belt slots will be re-allocated to weapon and ring slots. They will increase capacity from 35 to 50.

Upcoming in-game events:

The Final Fantasy XV collaboration is coming back -- this time you can participate again if you already completed it previously.

The Endwalker media tour is scheduled for mid-September.

Moogle Treasure Trove returns October 19th.

The Endwalker early access phase and official launch date.

Upcoming seasonal events this autumn and winter. All Saints' Wake had a bit of delay due to the pandemic, so we'll have a spooky November instead.

Showing off the character creator in the official Endwalker benchmark. You can create a male viera here.

Male viera are smaller in stature than female viera.

Additional male viera shots.

The benchmark is out July 11 @ 12:00am Pacific.

Special guests Yosuke Saito and YOKOTARO join the broadcast.

Regarding the end of the YoRHA Dark Apocalypse alliance raid series, it seems all worlds chose Anogg. Would the story have been different if we had chosen Konogg? yokotaro says he thought a game engineer messed with the outcome.

They thought there was a problem with the data, but that wasn't the case. yoko says he thinks everyone just picked the first choice in the list.

Will more glamour based on NieR come to FF14? yoko says that Square Enix is a company that listens to it's fans so they should do it. Yoshida laughs. Maybe the flying unit as a mount? Yoshida wants to know how lalafells will use it.

Why was the series called "Dark Apocalypse?" Turns out Yoshida was the one that chose that name because he's wanted to name something that since he was a kid in school.

yoko-san is refusing to answer story questions. He thinks if the Warrior of Light had lost the final battle that the characters would have all went on a journey together, He doesn't think about it because a hero is supposed to beat the final boss. He loves the question though.

yoko's secret

It was a collaboration where yokotaro worked with the FF14 team on the planning phase, but says he doesn't want to blame them for any mistakes. He can't take full credit either way. yoko also praised the music that was developed by Keiichi Okabe for the collaboration.

For example, the FF14 dev team wanted to make a flying building for a certain section, and yokotaro specified to "make it the Square Enix building."

He says he has been told that twins often appear in his stories and that he likes to kill one of them. He says his motivation is money, because you can make two characters for the price of one.

Will the story continue? yoko-san says yes if he gets money and they can work on it at the bar.

Yoshida says a lot of people on the FF14 team have played yokotaro's games, which influenced a lot of the designs in the alliance raid. If there's the interest and the budget, they might do it again.

yokotaro says that most end on a happy note and wrap up conclusively, but he wanted to tell a story in a MMO which is ongoing and evolving. The weekly quests that followed weren't to build up to a finale, but to show that the story would continue in an everyday sort of way.

Question: I'm struggling with the instant death area during the Red Girl battle in the Tower at Paradigm's Breach. Why did you implement it? The answer is that they thought the fight would be too easy if you could move through the center area.

yokotaro says he is upset they rejected his original idea of having a raid wipe if any player got hit by a red orb...

yokotaro says that he made this content with mysteries that may not be resolved, which NieR fans may be used to but FF14 fans are not.

yokotaro talks about a poem Shuntaro Tanikawa "Nijuoku konen no kodoku" at length.

He jokes he has applied to be a scenario writer for FF16.

Yoshida says they're done with the scenario for FF16 and they're about to wrap English voice acting. yokotaro wants more information.

Yoshida says there won't be an update about FF16 at TGS and that he's already said too much.

Saito says they're working on a new game with yokotaro and Keiichi Okabe. It's not a smartphone game. That's the news. yokotaro jokes it's on flip phones.

Letter from the Producer Live 66 will air in mid-September alonside the media tour. Live Letter 67 will air in early November which will be informational for the early access phase for Endwalker.

The Free Login Campaign returns. The Death Unto Dawn original soundtrack will release September 15th, and includes a Wind-up Lyna minion.

Eorzea Collection 2021 is available for pre-order. It's a catalog of all the equipment and housing items during the Shadowbringers expansion.

Namazu daruma dolls.

The Yoshida Daruma Company is creating these daruma dolls. Pre-orders are limited to Japan only between July 10 and September 6.

Lawson collaboration for Final Fantasy XIV karrage-kun. More info in August. Soken basically lives off karaage-kun btw.

Closing words now, yokotaro says he has seen FF14 players try NieR and vice versa due to the collaboration and he is grateful for that. He also wants to return for the dev team mahjong stream.

yokotaro says NieR Re[in]carnation will get an ending, which isn't the norm for that type of mobile game. He's glad he got to collab with FF14 and that everything he's said today was a lie.

That's a wrap on the Live Letter! Thanks for tuning in. We'll have a summary up soon.