For the benefit of my Twitter friend @FinalMacstorm, who is contemplating returning to Final Fantasy XIV once he’s done with Final Fantasy XV, here is everything you might want to know about Palace of the Dead, one of Final Fantasy XIV’s newest pieces of content.

What is it?

A 200-floor dungeon with randomly generated layouts. The first 100 floors are its “story mode”; the second 200 floors are intended to be very challenging 4-player content, and as such can only be attempted with a preformed party.

How is it structured?

When Palace of the Dead first launched, there were 50 floors, which you tackled in blocks of 10 at a time. Every 10th floor, there is a boss. Beat the boss and your progress is saved, allowing you to pick up from the following floor either immediately or the next time you want to challenge Palace of the Dead. On floor 50, there’s a final boss — a familiar face who has been well and truly put through the wringer since you first encountered them.

Floors 51-100 of Palace of the Dead were added today and are known as the “Hellsward” floors. They work in mostly the same way. Once you’ve cleared floor 50 once, you can start at floor 51 instead of floor 1 any time you reset your save data. Floor 100, again, has a final boss — this time it’s Nybeth Obdilord from Tactics Ogre.

Floors 101-200 of Palace of the Dead were also added today. They can only be entered if you start from floor 51 with a preformed, fixed party and clear all the way to floor 100 without any full-party wipes.

What are the bosses like?

The bosses gradually ramp up in complexity as you go deeper into the dungeon. The first boss is very simple — essentially fighting a normal Death Gaze that has a few more HP than usual. The second is a heavily simplified version of the Raskovnik fight from Sohm Al, which in turn was a simplified version of the Rafflesia fight from The Second Coil of Bahamut. The third is a slightly simplified version of the Hydra fight. Later bosses incorporate mechanics from Odin, Anchag from Amdapor Keep (Hard) and King Behemoth from Labyrinth of the Ancients. Floor 80’s boss — the aforementioned King Behemoth-inspired fight — features a pretty brutal DPS check against a slowly casting, insta-wipe ultimate ability. This is arguably the most difficult boss in the first 100 floors; Nybeth is a relative walkover by comparison, though his fight does require the DPS to be on their toes to deal with frequently spawning adds.

Is it endgame content?

While the main rewards for Palace of the Dead are level 60 weapons — item level 235 weapons that can subsequently be upgraded to item level 255 — you can actually start it as soon as level 17. It’s best to wait at least until you’ve reached level 50 and have cleared the sidequest dungeon Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard), though, because Palace of the Dead’s storyline follows directly on from that dungeon’s narrative.

How does it work?

Your level inside Palace of the Dead is different to your level outside. Upon entering for the first time, you’re reset to level 1, but the experience required to level up within Palace of the Dead is considerably less than in the main game. You can reach the level cap of 60 by about floor 40 if you’re reasonably diligent about killing enemies on the lower floors. Each block of floors takes about 20-30 minutes to complete depending on how quick you are.

Your level inside Palace of the Dead can exceed your level outside Palace of the Dead, so it’s a good way to “preview” how classes play once they reach level 60. Starting at floor 51 will immediately boost you to level 60 in the class you entered on while you’re inside.

When you clear a block of 10 floors, you receive experience points for your level outside Palace of the Dead, making it quite an efficient way to level classes. If you’re already level 60, you will instead receive Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, Lore and Scripture, the endgame currencies used to purchase high-end equipment and quest items. If you’re level 50-59, you will receive Allagan Tomestones of Poetics and experience points.

What about gear?

Normal gear is irrelevant in Palace of the Dead. Instead, you have an aetherpool weapon and armour, which can be upgraded by collecting silver chests scattered throughout the dungeon. The maximum the gear can be upgraded to is +99, though on the lower floors there is a cap and level sync on upgrades to prevent you being too overpowered.

When your weapon and armour both reach +30 upgrades, you can “spend” these points to acquire an item level 235, level 60 weapon that you can use elsewhere in the game. When your weapon and armour both reach +60 upgrades, you can “spend” these points to upgrade the item level 235 weapon to an item level 255 weapon. If you allow your weapon and armour to upgrade to +90, this means you can get the i235 weapon and immediately upgrade it to i255.

Do I have to play in a party?

No. There are several ways to play. Firstly, entering with a matched party uses Duty Finder to seek out other people who are on the same block of floors as you and put you all together. Note that Palace of the Dead does not adhere to the usual party construction in the rest of the game, meaning it’s entirely possible you may have runs with no healers, no tanks or all DPS classes. Each block is clearable with such a lineup, but you will need to make use of items as well as your abilities.

Alternatively, you can play with a fixed party, which simply takes the party lineup you choose to start with — from going solo to a full light party of four — and registers that as your group on your save data. To continue progressing, you must take the same group of people with you on the same classes, though if you need to disband you can convert fixed party save data to matched party save data at any time.

If you play solo, when you wipe you’ll be presented with a score calculated as a combination of the highest floor you reached and the number of kills you got along with some other bits and pieces behind the scenes. Your high scores are recorded for each class, and you can also record a high score for a fixed party, too. Personal high scores can be reviewed in the game, while global high scores will be available on the Lodestone website from tomorrow.

What items can I use?

You can access your inventory in Palace of the Dead, so you can use any potions, elixirs and ethers that you might have collected, though note that there is a cooldown on these so you can’t just chug them repeatedly. It’s a good idea to hotbar your best potions as well as status-curing formulae.

Besides these items, golden chests inside Palace of the Dead drop single-use items called pomanders, which are collected in a shared party inventory. These have a variety of different functions. Some provide buffs for individual players, others benefit the whole party by revealing the whole map, removing traps on the current floor and others still allow party members to transform into various monsters with unique special abilities.

If you’re playing with a matched party, your pomanders are lost when you clear each block of 10 floors. If you’re playing with a fixed party, however, your pomander inventory is saved along with the rest of the data and will be waiting for you when you challenge the next block of 10 floors.

What do I get out of it?

Besides the weapons, there are hidden treasures called Accursed Hoards scattered throughout the dungeon. These can either be uncovered by chance by standing in the right place, or located using a pomander of intuition. You don’t know what Accursed Hoards are until you appraise them back in Quarrymill, at which point they will be “drawn” and revealed to be whatever they are. Common items available through Accursed Hoards include fireworks and Grade IV materia. Rarer items include Grade V materia and glamour items. Super-rare items include a hairstyle and housing decorations.