Patch 6.2: Buried Memory
Launch date for 6.2 is slated to be in late August (Note: this implies an actual launch date of August 23 or 30)
Gameplay Updates
Further MSQ as usual; new MSQ dungeon is ’The Fell Court of Troia” and looks like it’s in The Void
Next tier of Pandaemonium raids (“Abyssos”); Savage will release one week after Normal (this 1-week delay is being trialed in 6.2 and may or may not be implemented for future raid tiers, based on community feedback)
Continuation of Tataru’s Grand Endeavor sidequests; next Tataru quest will require completion of the Shadows of Mhach (Heavensward alliance raids) quest line to begin
Continuation of Hildibrand quests in 6.25
New relic weapons will start in 6.25 and will be…Manderville Weapons. No, really. They will be unlocked during the “Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures” questline, and will have quest-centric progression throughout 6.x. No field zone(s) will be tied to the relic weapons this time.
New Tribe quests coming in 6.25: the Omicrons. They will be a gathering tribe, similar to the Qitari from ShB (Note: this soft confirms that the Loporrits will be a crafting tribe when they’re added later)
Endwalker’s trial series begins in 6.2, but no information on what the trials will be for now
New Unreal trial: Containment Bay S1T7 (Sephirot)
Glamour dresser capacity will be increased from 400 items to 800
New high-end crafted combat gear
Players can request repairs from other players both outside and inside of duties
More materials can be obtained via Aetherial reduction
The order of certain quests in the Return to Ivalice questline (SB alliance raids) will be adjusted
The Adventurer Plates and Portraits system has been adjusted to be less confusing, and will move to full release in 6.2 (it has technically been in beta release thus far). Of particular note is that you can assign a different portrait to each gear set. Also, current plates and portraits cannot be moved over to the new system and will have to be redone. Sorry.
ETA: A new Tomestone will be introduced to go along with the new raid tier and other content (Tomestones of Causality). What this presumably means based on past expansions: Tomestones of Astronomy will have their weekly cap removed, and Tomestones of Aphorism will no longer be obtainable (you will be able to exchange leftover Aphorism for a lower number of Astronomy). Items currently obtainable with Aphorism will be moved to the hunt vendor, exchangeable for sacks of nuts. Old Shadowbringers tomestones that haven't been exchanged yet will be removed entirely.
Job Adjustments
Some job tweaks coming for both PvE and PvP
The previously announced major adjustments to Dragoon and Astrologian have been postponed
Among the areas being addressed in the 6.2 job tweaks are how buffs and debuffs that affect critical hit/direct hit work with skills that guarantee a crit/DH; more explanation on this and other job tweaks will come in the Part 2 LL
PvP
Crystalline Conflict Season 2 will begin after 6.18 maintenance ends on July 5
CC Season 3 will begin during 6.2 (Note: not sure if this means at 6.2 launch, or in a later minor patch)
PvP Series 2 (with new Series rewards) will begin at 6.2 launch
Rival Wings returns in 6.2 (yay!)
Duty Support and Other MSQ Changes
Further dungeons added to Duty Support system in 6.2: Snowcloak, Keeper of the Lake, Sohm Al, The Aery, and The Vault
It looks like Ysayle, Estinien, and Alphinaud will be Support NPCs
Steps of Faith from 2.5 will be removed as a multiplayer duty; the Vishap fight will be a solo duty now (same as what happened with Cape Westwind/Rhitahtyn)
Thornmarch Hard (King Moggle Mog XII trial from MSQ) will be revamped (Edit: to be more specific, it's being made somewhat easier since this is now the first 8-man content that players will encounter during the MSQ)
Variant/Criterion Dungeons (Edit: these were explicitly mentioned to not be a new version of or replacement for deep dungeons; the new DD is still planned for a later patch)
Variant Dungeons: casual play for level 90 players
can be run with 1 to 4 players, although you will be matched into a party of 4 if you join via the Duty Finder
no role restrictions and you can change jobs once inside
enemy strength is determined by party size
there will be various routes off progression through each dungeon; for the full experience, you’ll want to rerun the dungeon a few times
first Variant Dungeon: The Sil’dih Subterrane (located underneath Ul’Dah); you will run this dungeon with a certain NPC
Criterion Dungeons: visually similar to Variant Dungeons, but with higher difficulty
Criterion Dungeons are 4-player content (with the usual fixed dungeon roles) with two difficulty levels (Yoshi referred to these as being like “Extreme” and “Savage” difficulty)
Raises (called “Revivals” here) will be restricted in Criterion dungeons, with no usage at all in the “Savage” (highest difficulty) version. If someone dies in Savage, you will have to continue without them. If the party wipes, all enemies will revive. And failing to complete the dungeon under a certain time limit will buff all the enemies.
“Savage” difficulty Criterion Dungeons must be run with a premade party
Island Sanctuaries
Will be added in 6.25
Every player will get their own island, for free (island shown in example screenshot looked quite large)
Casual solo play with gathering/crafting (no DoL/DoH experience needed), caring for animals, building “facilities”, and more
Materials gathered on the island are only used for content there and do not go into your regular inventory
Special tools can be crafted to gather resources more efficiently
You can collect creatures on the island and add them to your “farm”; rare and unique variations of these creatures can also be found
You can grow island-specific crops (Note: these are NOT the same as the crops you can grow in estate garden plots)
You can build a base of operations and customize its appearance and functionality to some degree (Note: this does NOT sound like it incorporates full housing decoration, but we more or less knew that already)
Minions can be placed at your base and wander around freely
In taking part in activities on your island, you can earn a currency redeemable for special rewards
Friends can be invited to your island
Flying with mounts can be unlocked eventually on the island (although not via aether currents)
An orchestrion can be added to the base (although it will mainly just be audible at the base itself)
Further details on Island Sanctuaries, including gameplay footage, will be included in the Part 2 LL
Other Information
Maintenance for the launch of patch 6.18 (July 4-5) will be a full 24 hours due to the implementation of DC travel. New JP/EU servers will also be added at this time. This is an unusually long maintenance for a minor patch.
Gameplay footage, patch 6.2 trailer, and additional information on job adjustments, Island Sanctuaries, etc. will come in the Part 2 LL