Phase 4 Patch Notes Analysis

Today in the morning on the beta forums a new set of patch notes going into phase 4 were posted by Community Rep Lastygalle. Over the large amount of changes to the game I will be going over the signficant and interesting ones for Phase 4 specifically. Let's start with how levequests, and dungeons have changed.

  As you all may or may not know, levequests are basically sidequests for any of your classes to gain some quick and valuable exp on in exchange for using one of your allotment points which generate every 12 hours. Players have often said that spamming these outside the story quest for characters of appropriate levels is one of the fastest ways to get to that next level, however that may change depending on the outcome of these lines in the patch notes.

• Adjustments have been made to the frequency of treasure chests appearing in battlecraft leves
• Adjustments have been made to the content of certain guildleves.
• Adjustments have been made to gil, experience, and items received from guildleves.

  Until we get into the game and see for ourselves everything is left to speculation wether or not the rewards for completing levequests are increased or nerfed presumably making it harder to level crafting/gathering classes along with subclasses that you choose to use your leve allotment points on. A reason I believe the rewards for levequests being nerfed is this certain line in the patch notes.

• Additional sidequest up to level 20 have been added.

  Why would new sidequests be added when levequests should be more than enough to boost you to that next level? Our next minor change is all four of the first dungeons have had their highest level requirement upped by one which means that you get to run more dungeons with your friends which is always a good thing! Another change not specifically dungeon but what you can recieve from them is loot drops can only be needed on by classes/jobs that can use them which is a huge improvement to the duty finder almost eliminating ninjas that disregard if they can use an item or not and spam the need button.

• The following changes have been made to instanced dungeon level restrictions:
  
  

  Dungeon	Level Cap
  	Phase 3		Phase 4
  Sastasha Seagrot	Level 15-17	→	Level 15-18
  Tam-Tara Deepcroft	Level 16-18	→	Level 16-19
  Copperbell Mines	Level 17-19	→	Level 17-20
  Halatali	Level 20-22	→	Level 20-23

Onto the next big thing that is entirely up to speculation, PvP being available at level 20 and in the Phase 4 Beta for all servers

  In order to facilitate testing of PvP environments, the Wolves' Den has been made available during phase 4.
*During phase 4, players can access the Wolves' Den through the Duty Finder after completing the main scenario quest "Lord of the Inferno."

  Previously only higher leveled legacy players had access to the wolves den however it seems that after completing the Ifrit Primal battle all of us will have access which is a good thing with the level 20 level cap after the hardcore players level their main class/subclass and DoH/DoL class. I myself am highly interested in testing the PvP side of the game and will bring further documentation and some video footage when available.

  The last thing I'll be talking about is changes to the crafting/gathering system and character customization, one of the major changes to the gathering system is the addition of the fisher class not previously available in any other beta instances. Yoshi-P has gone on record stating that fishing will not be the most important gathering role as it was in FFXI because he does not want botters to thrive in his game, fishing will be more of a relaxing mini game that players can leisurely do however I for one am certain that master level fishers will still be necessary for endgame food buffs and can even make a decent amount of gil from it. Other changes to the DoL classes from the patch notes are making it less forgiving to miss a gathering attempt at a node, decreased exp in the form of no longer being able to use food buffs/medicine while gathering and everything else we will not know until the changes are tested in game.

• The following changes have been made to gathering classes:
  • New actions have been added allowing gathers to find "unspoiled" gathering locations.
  • New items obtainable through gathering have been added.
  • The level of items obtained while gathering and their locations are now displayed in the Gathering Log.
  • The number of gathering attempts for a single point have been reduced from six to four.
  • Players can no longer use food or medicine while gathering.
  • Adjustments have been made to bonuses granted by gathering points.
  • Adjustments have been made to the attributes, GP cost, and level requirement of certain actions.
  • Adjustments have been made to gathering rates and the rate of obtaining HQ items.
  • Dark matter can no longer be obtained through gathering.

  The only notable changes to DoH classes adjustments of CP necessary to use certain actions, experience for crafting adjustments(increased or lowered), the adition of quick synthesis to make many items at once, and possibly the biggest change to them is the ability to request materia melding from another player. Which uses your gear and materia and their crafting level to affix the said materia to your item. After melding you can also issue a reward to the crafter make sure to always be a generous tipper!

    The final part of the patch notes have to deal with character customization such as macros, customizing your retainer, removable visors on helmet pieces, new dyes in the game, and various console commands guaranteed to make your time in Eorzea easier make sure to check out the full patch notes here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ARR-Test/threads/98689?p=1211640#post1211640 make sure to check back regularly for video guides and how-to videos for FFXIV: ARR!