Final Fantasy 14 Addresses Players’ Cosmic Exploration Concerns

On April 24, Final Fantasy 14 posted an update to address some players’ concerns over the newly released Cosmic Exploration feature and focused on addressing some known issues. Final Fantasy 14 acknowledged that the text for gatherer missions that called for using Aetherial Reduction to obtain some items was unclear and stated that some changes would be considered.

As the headline feature of Final Fantasy 14’s 7.21 content update, Cosmic Exploration allows crafters and gatherers to gather resources and establish a lunar base for future space operations. Cosmic Exploration can only be accessed after completing the main story quest “Endwalker” from Patch 6.0. Although Cosmic Exploration can only be accessed on a player’s home server, completing stellar missions as part of a cooperative effort will unlock lunar base upgrades. In future Dawntrail patches, more planets will be added over time. Players with a crafter or gatherer at level 10 or above can participate in the ongoing effort.

Although some known issues were mentioned in the Final Fantasy 14 Patch 7.21 notes, more issues with Cosmic Exploration were brought up. In a Lodestone post, Square Enix added to the list of known issues with Cosmic Exploration and stated that each would be addressed in future patches and hotfixes. Stellar missions that require aetherial reduction currently have a bug that can cause players to be unable to close the respective menus after completing an objective. However, Square Enix stated that a workaround for this bug would be to use Stellar Return or Teleport to force the area to reload, which also forces most menus to close. Additional issues related to the mech ops that occur periodically included timers that were shorter than what was shown on screen. The synthesis of items unrelated to Cosmic Exploration during a stellar mission was also considered a bug.

Final Fantasy 14 Addresses Known Cosmic Exploration Issues

Final Fantasy 14 also discussed some inquiries that were brought up concerning miners and botanists. When participating in a mech op, sometimes the actions Prospect and Triangulate will be disabled, which is possibly due to a hotbar swapping issue. Final Fantasy 14 players can also get around this by swapping classes and then going back to miner or botanist, which should cause Prospect and Triangulate to automatically reactivate. Prospect and Triangulate are necessary in locating gathering points and subsequently earning Cosmic Exploration rewards from completing missions.

No timetable was given by Square Enix for when these issues would be resolved. With Cosmic Exploration and the Callback Campaign serving as a window for Final Fantasy 14 players to return to the game, only time will tell how quickly Square Enix can deploy a fix.