Director's Desk Vol. 2
Hello, and thank you for your continued support of NieR Re[in]carnation.
This is Director Daichi Matsukawa.
Since the release of the FINAL FANTASY XIV crossover on May 8, 2022 we've seen a huge influx of new and returning players, and it fills our team's hearts with joy to see so many players enjoying this crossover and the features we released alongside it.
On the other hand, I'm rather regretful that I wasn't able to notify players of our plans for the future and reasons for adding certain features through these director messages.
Director's Desks will happen more frequently from now on, keeping our players up to date on what's coming up, and our thought process behind new additions to the game.
I'd greatly appreciate it if you could take a look at the Director's Desk whenever it is updated in the future.
Of course, our team will also try our best to design and create features whose purpose can be intrinsically understood without these messages.
As for now I'd like to introduce to you what will happen with NieR Re[in]carnation from June and onward.
◆Updating Certain Costumes
This will be a first since the game launched on July 28, 2021, but we will be updating certain costumes to make them stronger.
With the increase of available content and a continuous release of new skills, it has become harder for older costumes to be used effectively.
On the other hand, we believe that a steady stream of new features and skills are required to keep the game fresh and interesting.
Since our Japanese anniversary, we have added Extra Hard mode, revamped Subjugation Battles, and added weekly ranking rewards to give players with a total force of 200,000 or greater a meatier challenge, but that has lead to older costumes not being used as much compared to new ones.
Due to this situation, we will strengthen older costumes periodically from now on.
Please see below for the applicable costumes and details on how we will be strengthening those costumes:
■Criteria for Choosing Costumes to Strengthen and How They Will Be Strengthened
-Costumes that have a low usage reate in Subjugation Battles and the upper ranks of the Arena will be applicable.
-Limited-time and crossover costumes will also be applicable.
-We are planning on strengthening costumes once every three months.
-We will strengthen around five costumes each time.
■Costumes that will be Strengthened in Early June
-Abstract Exile
-Abstract Girl
-Abstract Prisoner
-Divergent Scanner
-Divergent Sister
Future character updates will be announced through in-game notifications rather than the Director's Desk.
◆Regarding the New Chapter
The third chapter to The Sun and the Moon was added in May, and the next chapter will be added in July 2022.
We hear your voices looking forwards to the next chapter, and are working our hardest to bring you the newest chapter as soon as possible.
In addition, new Dark Memory quests will be added in July as well!
◆Streamlining the Release Schedule
NieR Re[in]carnation was released in Japan in February 2021, and the English and Korean versions were released in July of the same year. Ever since the initial release, the Japanese version has been getting content before the other versions, but starting July 2022, the release of new content will be simultaneous across all versions of the game.
This was made possible as the content of the English and Korean versions of the game caught up to the Japanese version, and due to she streamlining of our development process.
Now, players outside of Japan will no longer have to worry about having upcoming content spoiled by the Japanese release! There will be a slight discrepancy on release dates between versions due to differences in times zones, but releases will occur simultaneously.
◆Regarding Skins
We have received a lot of feedback and suggestions regarding the skins feature that was added in May, and want to address some of them.
We have received many requests for skins to be available in Subjugation Battles and the Arena.
The reason we have not implemented skins in Subjugation Battles is because skins change the skill animations for characters, which can affect the score for Subjugation Battles, making loadout optimization too difficult.
For a similar reason, we did not allow skins in the Arena as well, as not being able to distinguish your opponent's team based on the costumes would make the PvP metagame overly complicated.
We also received feedback from users that would prefer the skill animations for characters remain the same as the equipped costume after applying skins.
Special animations for ★4 costumes have been crafted and fine-tuned to look as good as possible for the specific costume they are tied to, and applying these special animations to other costumes may come out looking strange or wrong, so we have opted to use the default animations, as fine tuning all the special animations to look good on every costume would be far too time-consuming and costly.
We apologize for not being able to implement all of your feedback, and appreciate your understanding.
◆Quests 4 and 5 Added to the Extra Hard Difficulty for Event Quests
From now on, certain event quests will have Quests 4 and 5 added to their Extra Hard difficulty.
These quests will be implemented to provide a greater challenge for experienced players who have reached a total force 200,000.
Please see the corresponding event details for further information.
In addition, we have made adjustments to event quests starting with the FINAL FANTASY XIV crossover to make them more accessable, and will be continuing to do so for future event quests as well.
◆Introducing Weekly Campaigns
Previously, campaigns were held sporadically, but we will be holding various campaigns such as drop rate increases and stamina cost reductions every week.
Our concern was that since campaigns up until now were announced irregularly, it was difficult for players to plan ahead to make the most of the various campaigns. From June and onward, campaigns will change weekly, and we will notify players ahead of time of which campaigns will be coming.
Please note that campaigns other than weekly campaigns will still happen as well, and those may be a surprise as they sometimes have been up until now.
We will notify players of weekly campaigns for the month of June in an upcoming notification.
◆Regarding Our Roadmap Beyond July 2022
We will be revealing our roadmap for July and beyond in late June.
This roadmap will include information about the Japanese 1.5 year anniversary celebration.
◆In Conclusion
I apologize for the lack of communication for such as long time, and hope to have another Director's Desk at the end of next month.
A new quest will be added to the FINAL FANTASY XIV crossover in June, so I hope everyone will enjoy that as well.
That's all for this time.
I hope you continue to enjoy your time in The Cage.
NieR Re[in]carnation
Director
Daichi Matsukawa