How is anyone fine with the 4-month patch delivery schedule?

I wanted 6 months.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

That's how they get you. 2 weeks at a time. 3 months. Then 3.5. Now 4. One day people will ask "why are we getting a patch every 6 months"? And people won't be able to pinpoint the turning point because it comes so gradually people are numb to it.



I mean the fact that you have to go out of your way to find stuff to do to enjoy FF14 says it all really.

The unsub argument is ridiculous considering all the ways the game keeps you hooked: housing, tome caps, Savage loot gates, seasonal events, etc.

I would be fine with the unsub argument if the game actually lets you unsub after a month and still allow you to be ready for Ultimates. As it stands, I have to play this game for three months to get BiS for two to three different roles in time for Ultimate. Even if I only cared about a single role that is still two months, which is 6-7 weeks more than necessary. Despite what Yoshi P says, this game is not unsub-friendly.

Not to mention that they intentionally stagger releases so that it covers 2 months of sub time: .x0, .x1, and .x5 always come out in waves to get maximum sub time out of people.

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yeah the housing is a big one, if you unsub for any length period of time in there because you breeze through the content quickly (no i won't go touch grass i pay for my sub and i want to use it) you lose the house you potentially waited(in my case 3) years for, because they somehow can't figure out how to do housing lol, i know i may get eviscerated for it but oh well, lotro is a wayyy older game with much worse graphics and YES a lower player count, but they have full blown neighborhoods with small medium and kinship houses as well where you can change the literal environment in your yard and music blah blah, slightly smaller neighborhoods and slightly less items per lot total, but probably 5-6 times the amount of overall housing available between all the different housing areas/styles, the game LITERALLY makes like 3% of what ff14 makes and they can figure out housing with significantly more of it on older systems with alot more jank, BS, spaghetti code(seriously.... fixing a class bug made a giant mountain spawn randomly in a starter zone), and WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY less money than square in a game with most of the same type of gameplay systems, i just can't believe that square has to yeeeeeeeet houses after a few weeks because they have so few lavailable and it's such a nightmare to get one, otherwise i'd be alot more inclinced to do as yoshi.p says and take a break -.- sucks paying for 2 mmos at a time but i ain't losing this house i recently won after spending multiple 12 and 2 18 hour days(i have no life) clicking placards before the lottery system and losing, then losing the lotteries every week since lol

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

Theres so much to do in this game, the patch cycle is perfectly fine. And thank god theres no mandatory bs to do like in other mmo's. That stuff kills the enjoyment of the game. In ffxiv you can do what you enjoy.

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unless you have a house that will get destroyed if you're unsubbed for too long because they "can't figure out housing".... or want to reasonably gear yourself so you aren't entirely useless to everyone around you that you may need to run stuff with, and everything that encompasses lol

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Originally Posted by Impishwerth

I just wish we didn't have so much emergency maintenance.

It feels like there has been a lot of it recently.

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yeah rather curious what this one is about since they just vaguely said "hotfixes" and i can't find literally anything anywhere about what those are..... didn't they JUST freaking hotfix crap last week? and release the patch like the week before that???? 24 hour maintenance on top of maintenance on top of 24 hour maintenance on top of maintenance lmaooo

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

People are fine with the 4 month patches because this community is not only fine with but eager to devour literal crap if it came from SE. I wouldn't bother asking where the line is for some people because it seems like there isn't one SE can cross that'll get people to admit that things aren't perfect.

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lmaoooo yeah sometimes when i'm reading some of the stuff people say i swear they have Helga from Hey Arnold! style Yoshi.P-shaped bubblegum shrines in their closet, the "WE HAVE AN AMAZING COMMUNITY AND ILL ACTUALLY HUNT YOU DOWN IF YOU SAY OTHERWISE BECAUSE I'M SO NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!" ones are the most intense lol

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Originally Posted by Zeeningg

lmaoooo yeah sometimes when i'm reading some of the stuff people say i swear they have Helga from Hey Arnold! style Yoshi.P-shaped bubblegum shrines in their closet, the "WE HAVE AN AMAZING COMMUNITY AND ILL ACTUALLY HUNT YOU DOWN IF YOU SAY OTHERWISE BECAUSE I'M SO NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!" ones are the most intense lol

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There are extreme people both ways, but I think most people just don't care about 4 months. I've been playing for almost 10 years, now, and yeah, there's not much to do if you've been playing consistently, but that's still much more than what we got in every patch back then.

It used to be "One hour and a half of MSQ + 8-man raid/24-man raid, thank your for your subscription", with the relics being "just farm FATEs or something". So yeah, we got it pretty good actually, even though the way they split patches with 6.31 or things like that kinda rubs me the wrong way, but whatever.

Do I still have something to do ? Well, despite all those new things, my main reason to keep my sub going every month is RP, so not really. But nothing prevents you from unsubbing either. You also need to aknowledge that it takes far longer to create content than for people to clear it. I'd like to have a new dungeon every month or so, but that's just not feasible. I don't think people are "fine" with the 4 month patch delivery schedule, they just tolerate it because that's pretty much what you get from MMOs, and we got it pretty good.

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Originally Posted by Zeeningg

yeah rather curious what this one is about since they just vaguely said "hotfixes" and i can't find literally anything anywhere about what those are..... didn't they JUST freaking hotfix crap last week? and release the patch like the week before that???? 24 hour maintenance on top of maintenance on top of 24 hour maintenance on top of maintenance lmaooo

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The notes are out.

What's this about 24 hour maintenances? Looking back through October, it's generally 6-8 hours.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

What's this about 24 hour maintenances? Looking back through October, it's generally 6-8 hours.

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The excessive use of caps and exclamation marks in the last few posts indicates its just rage typing and therefor inflating numbers.

And for EU players, maintenance is barely noticed because its at very early times (sure, those that can game before heading to school will be anoyed, but for those who work or start at normal times, its not noticed except for the client update itself).

Call me a white knight, but I'm freaking relieved they did another maintenance and fixed NIN. Annoys me that they broke it at all, and it was depressing to see it go on for this long.

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Originally Posted by Zeeningg

unless you have a house that will get destroyed if you're unsubbed for too long because they "can't figure out housing".... or want to reasonably gear yourself so you aren't entirely useless to everyone around you that you may need to run stuff with, and everything that encompasses lol

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1 month subbed, 1 month unsubbed. Repeat. Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

Call me a white knight, but I'm freaking relieved they did another maintenance and fixed NIN. Annoys me that they broke it at all, and it was depressing to see it go on for this long.

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Same.

It's still disappointing that such issue went past through their quality check & takes so long to get its fix.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

Theres so much to do in this game, the patch cycle is perfectly fine. And thank god theres no mandatory bs to do like in other mmo's. That stuff kills the enjoyment of the game. In ffxiv you can do what you enjoy.

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Does the concept of optional content not exist in your universe.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

Theres so much to do in this game, the patch cycle is perfectly fine. And thank god theres no mandatory bs to do like in other mmo's. That stuff kills the enjoyment of the game. In ffxiv you can do what you enjoy.

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"please i dont want content, i only want a day of content every 5 months, nothing more, thank you devs"

only in FFXIV will you read something like this lmao

It's the goldilocks principle.

Everyone has their own idea how many hours it should take to get through content, and that usually equals to however long it takes for them to do everything they want to do without having to rush.

And everyone has a different answer.

I think if housing demolition were on a 4 month timer instead of 45 days, more people would be fine with the 4 month patch setup tbh

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

I think if housing demolition were on a 4 month timer instead of 45 days, more people would be fine with the 4 month patch setup tbh

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Wouldn't be a problem at all if they made IS actual instanced housing, since that means there's no demolition at all.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Wouldn't be a problem at all if they made IS actual instanced housing, since that means there's no demolition at all.

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Looks like we're going to get a house there. They are testing the gardens now with 90 outside items even more than a large ward house which only supports 40.

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Originally Posted by Kickwars

Does the concept of optional content not exist in your universe.

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Optional content, what's that? Is it like MSQ?

I only do..

M S Q

M S Q

M S Q

M S Q

M S Q



https://i.imgur.com/eqdDk4k.png

"I rather play WoW Shadowlands than play a minute longer of FFXIV"

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Wouldn't be a problem at all if they made IS actual instanced housing, since that means there's no demolition at all.

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You're right. My original post was being glib tbh; just meant if people could actually take breaks without losing their shit, then we'd all just unsub for 4 months straight. But of course the system is designed to anchor people on purpose. In my ideal world we'd have some form of instanced housing just like most games with a housing option, but le critically acclaimed bigtime mmo can't handle it.

I'm enjoying this little bit of down time, I got Tactics Ogre not too long ago and I'm able to really put the time in and enjoy it without having to worry about falling behind.

It's 4 months for the content we're getting which is annoying. 4 months for shit like V&C dungeons, Island Sanctuary, A Deep Dungeon, and another PVP mode they can neglect later on down the road when it's no longer new. I have spent more time in Bozja/Zadnor and Eureka than I have in anything that EW has to offer. Speaking of which why is Bozja/Zadnor still the best leveling method? Why does a skirmish in Bozja give more EXP than a FATE in EW?

I have no complaints. SE has been fairly consistent with content for over 20 yrs. I cannot say the same about companies like SEGA. At least we know patches are coming in 4 months and not 4 years heh.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

I'm enjoying this little bit of down time, I got Tactics Ogre not too long ago and I'm able to really put the time in and enjoy it without having to worry about falling behind.

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This guy gets it.
FFXIV doesnt need to be your Life. Other games exist. Go play them for abit and come back to FFXIV later
Its not going anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

This guy gets it.
FFXIV doesnt need to be your Life. Other games exist. Go play them for abit and come back to FFXIV later
Its not going anywhere.

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"I pay $65 for a patch so that I can play other games".

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Originally Posted by hunkygladiator

"I pay $65 for a patch so that I can play other games".

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It's called unsubscribe... Jesus Christ...

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Originally Posted by hunkygladiator

"I pay $65 for a patch so that I can play other games".

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You pay $65 for a Patch?
Are you admitting to being a bunch of Alts that spam the forums?

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Originally Posted by Dzonathan

It's called unsubscribe... Jesus Christ...

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Oh is that why housing demolition and tome loot caps exist

I go through cycles. I stayed subscribed and active for all of Endwalker so far. However, in all of the previous expansions, I take a break, unsubscribe (and I've lost my house). Honestly, it is refreshing to come back after a year long break and clear the content I care about in a few weeks at my own pace. I know break has been long enough when I forget hotkeys like "U" for the list of dungeons.

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Originally Posted by hunkygladiator

Oh is that why housing demolition and tome loot caps exist

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let the house be gone then

also idk, i dont do things on patch so im doing catch up stuff right now , like the slow chip grind at DSR. .3 series is always catch up anyways

top world race is over, people are either still progging it, in that case keeping to themselves, or cleared, twiddling thumbs. My friends that did clear are taking time off and doign things in game to make money, or just unsubbed till .4.

Taking things easy is nice too on occasion, if i had more time id be attempting deep solos, but oh well.

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

You pay $65 for a Patch?
Are you admitting to being a bunch of Alts that spam the forums?

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One dollar would be too much money to play other games. You can do that for free you know? So yeah, I think we should get some replayable content to last the 4 months at least those with houses are going to be forced to be subbed for. And as far as I know the Wards keep groing so it's going to be more and more people.


There should be three lines of content going on in FFXIV, one line focusing on the casual short bursts of fun for people without the time, one should focus on hard core raiders that want complex fights (we also have this one) and one midcore content line for the long term players, that stayed subbed year round. Why is this opposed? And grind or content that comes out for them isn't targeted at people who don't have the time. People complaining about this shouldn't be rewarded for it.

I would call the three lines of content a reasonable approach. And lets not pretend there isn't a market for it. There absolutely is. The intolerance to it is baffling.

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Originally Posted by 4clubbedace

let the house be gone then

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Yeah lemme just demolish the FC house. Also lemme demolish the thing that took me years to get. Imagine if you lost all your glam because you unsubbed for 2 months. lol

"But just let someone else stay subbed"

Yeah, lemme also force someone else to stay subbed so the FC house doesn't get demolished, and make the FC feel uneasy about who owns what and why.

In the end, we still need to stay responsible to our communities that AFK for 10 months out of the year because there's nothing to do. It's a burden, and we basically sit and wait for actual content to do with our communities. There's no unsubbing, Yoshi made sure of that. I stay subbed so my community can unsub and AFK with ease.

Sounds like you have an addiction problem and need to break it ASAP. Drop the house, free yourself of this Sunk Cost Fallacy you're stuck in. I say that as somebody who has had to stop gambling addictions from family members.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Sounds like you have an addiction problem and need to break it ASAP. Drop the house, free yourself of this Sunk Cost Fallacy you're stuck in. I say that as somebody who has had to stop gambling addictions from family members.

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What does having a house in a video game have anything to do with addiction ? How do you even make that link between the two ? Lmao, he's simply saying he doesnt want to lose the house and the game forces people to stay subbed so they keep it, else if they come back, they can wait multiple years to get another one, where is the addiction in there ?

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Sounds like you have an addiction problem and need to break it ASAP. Drop the house, free yourself of this Sunk Cost Fallacy you're stuck in. I say that as somebody who has had to stop gambling addictions from family members.

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Housing aside, you know that even without them some people would still want to play year round. There are creatures of habit out there who feel comfortable playing a single game and find playing others a hassle. It's an easy market to capitalize on. And those not into it gain an option to do some more things if they so choose to. Everyone wins. When people advocate against it, and nothing gets offered, everyone loses, even those that win the argument, they lose choice because they advocated for less.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Sounds like you have an addiction problem and need to break it ASAP. Drop the house, free yourself of this Sunk Cost Fallacy you're stuck in. I say that as somebody who has had to stop gambling addictions from family members.

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If it runs in the family..

https://i.imgur.com/cD2zAQP.png
https://i.imgur.com/1Cay7ce.png

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Originally Posted by Irenia

It's the goldilocks principle.

Everyone has their own idea how many hours it should take to get through content, and that usually equals to however long it takes for them to do everything they want to do without having to rush.

And everyone has a different answer.

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Hence why my argument has always been patches should be reasonably expected to have half their length worth of content. A four month patch cycle should enjoy two months worth of longevity and two months of a gradual slow down before the next batch of content releases. I think it's perfectly fair to criticise patches with content that barely makes it through a weekend or needs arbitrary time gates (Island Sanctuary) to keep itself alive for longer.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

What does having a house in a video game have anything to do with addiction ? How do you even make that link between the two ? Lmao, he's simply saying he doesnt want to lose the house and the game forces people to stay subbed so they keep it, else if they come back, they can wait multiple years to get another one, where is the addiction in there ?

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Because it's actually a sensible link to make. Video games, like almost anything else, are something that someone can be addicted to. When you claim that you hate everything about a game, yet cannot let yourself just break away from it, there very well may be a real addiction present.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Because it's actually a sensible link to make. Video games, like almost anything else, are something that someone can be addicted to. When you claim that you hate everything about a game, yet cannot let yourself just break away from it, there very well may be a real addiction present.

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https://i.ibb.co/vBrfVPN/1682643814210267.jpg

We kneel before the wisdom of a full-time job haver.

I don't think that it is a sensible link to make at all, especially when other MMO's exist with a housing system that is not only more intricate compared to FFXIV's equivalent but also doesn't strip players of their hard earned house/furniture if they take a break for months or even years.

One of the main ways that any business improves is by looking at what rival competitors are doing well and actively learning from that. FFXIV would do very well to get rid of the demolition system, allow every player to own a house and then they can unsubscribe and return at whichever pace they so wish.

I have a strong hunch that both the development team and many players are well aware of how effective a tactic it is to hang the potential loss of a house over the head of those looking to take a break. Let's not pretend as if it is likely that someone owning a medium or large house is going to be able to replace it readily if they happen to lose it.

It also strikes me as being in poor taste to default to assuming that someone has an 'addiction' when they're pointing at a dubious system with flaws.