Will SE pull a blizzard?

Do i heard 4.0 will be announced at fanfest (oct/nov). Thats great n all but what im worried is after 3.5 will there be a 6+ month dry content gap till the expac hits. I know i could just unsub till then but that seems boring since i cant stand most other MMOs now.

They will probably do what they did with 2.5 and have it broken into 3 patches to spread it out over the course of a couple months so the gap isn't as big.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

They will probably do what they did with 2.5 and have it broken into 3 patches to spread it out over the course of a couple months so the gap isn't as big.

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Except there was still a very large content gap from 2.5 -> 3.0 when it came to the upper levels of content, a large number of players went on hiatus during that time.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

Except there was still a very large content gap from 2.5 -> 3.0 when it came to the upper levels of content, a large number of players went on hiatus during that time.

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And? Its not like it was a year or 2 years. Its a full expansion they don't have to give them to us as quickly as they plan too but they are. I think people can handle a couple months without a major update at the end of a cycle.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

And? Its not like it was a year or 2 years. Its a full expansion they don't have to give them to us as quickly as they plan too but they are. I think people can handle a couple months without a major update at the end of a cycle.

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No, it was roughly 8 months between raids, and regardless of what you think people can handle there was still a rather large population drop. It would be against SE's best interests to repeat the same thing twice.

Seeing as how we've had all of Heavensward plus three patches thus far and not a single WOW content patch has rolled out this entire time: Probably not. SE seems to be better planners than that.

Also they evidently care about the direction FFXIV is taking, unlike the WoW devs, whom I firmly believe desperately wish they were working on anything else at this point.

At least with Overwatch, Blizzard on the whole seems to have gotten it's groove back, but that's a whole 'nother story. :P

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Originally Posted by Ryel

No, it was roughly 8 months between raids, and regardless of what you think people can handle there was still a rather large population drop. It would be against SE's best interests to repeat the same thing twice.

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So rushing an expansion because people can't raid? Thats a great idea! People leave and come back its not an uncommon thing. Does it really matter how many people unsub during that time period, clearly SE was doing perfectly fine during that gap its not like the servers closed or anything. They will be back for the expansion regardless. 2.55 was released 3/31/2015 and 3.0 was released in June that was not a very long wait.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

So rushing an expansion because people can't raid?

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Nobody said this.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Does it really matter how many people unsub during that time period

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For a game that requires a monthly sub? I would imagine so, yes.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

clearly SE was doing perfectly fine during that gap its not like the servers closed or anything. They will be back for the expansion regardless. 2.55 was released 3/31/2015 and 3.0 was released in June that was not a very long wait.

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This isn't entirely true but you're welcome to browse one of the many other threads (some of which are currently on the front page) that are currently talking about this and other things.

If SE was pulling a Blizzard then after 3.1 we would of learned about the next expansion then had 14 months of content drought. With a very substandard rushed 3.2 to try to scramble to bring active subs back during the major drought. Oh and instead of getting 14 dungeons in HW you would of gotten maybe 5. Would not of even gotten class/job quests after 50. You would not even leave your "house" (that you cannot decorate) cause you would of needed to send GC minions out on quests for you and it would be the most efficient way to make money to fund progression. Also crafting and gathering classes would of gone to hell and we would of lost ~50% of the skills on our bars. With the upcoming expansion cutting another ~50% so that we would have 2-4 button rotations. Maybe.

Ah another thing, part 3 of Alexander would be canceled because to release another part of the raid would set the expac back by another 6 months. Deep Dungeon would not of escaped the concept phase, and everyone would be complaining about level 60 DPS/Healers/Tanks that cannot tell the difference between the pointy end, the mobs, circles, or the concept of "mechanics", who jumped to close to max level on their classes by simply opening their wallet further.

Personally, take all the time they need. I'm still way behind on HS content.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

No, it was roughly 8 months between raids, and regardless of what you think people can handle there was still a rather large population drop. It would be against SE's best interests to repeat the same thing twice.

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2.5: January 20
3.0: June 19
There was a 5 month gap between these patches, not an 8 month gap. Add another 2.5 weeks to it if you want to exact time between World of Darkness and Gordias (Normal)

This is hardly Blizzard-levels of 12-14 months between last patch and next expansion.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

There was a 5 month gap between these patches, not an 8 month gap.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

it was roughly 8 months between raids

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FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

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If I remember correctly, the gap between first coil and second coil and the gap between second coil and final coil was roughly 6 months.(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) 2 extra months for an expension doesn't seem so long putting it that way.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

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As much as high end raiders seem to deny it, the 24-man alliance raids are still considered raid content, and World of Darkness just happens to be one of them.
Though, I can already assume that you'll reply with "WoD wasn't a raid" so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering.

Sorry, but it's still a 5 month gap.

EDIT: To add to the poster above, you'd also have to take into account that Heavensward was hit with an unexpected 1 month delay.
If it hadn't, that'd have made the months between Coil content almost roughly the same as the time between SCoB and FCoB.

I mean blizzard goes 12 to 18 months without so much as an update at times, I don't think this game will ever get that bad.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

As much as high end raiders seem to deny it, the 24-man alliance raids are still considered raid content, and World of Darkness just happens to be one of them.
Though, I can already assume that you'll reply with "WoD wasn't a raid" so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering.

Sorry, but it's still a 5 month gap.

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While 24 man raids may be named as such in their classification, they do not fulfill the same role in the content hierarchy as the 8 man raids do. Sure they may be called "raid content" but their ilvl rewards and difficulty do not provide progression on the content ladder which is what remained stagnant up until the expansion release.

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Originally Posted by MerleSirlos

If I remember correctly, the gap between first coil and second coil and the gap between second coil and final coil was roughly 6 months.(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) 2 extra months for an expension doesn't seem so long putting it that way.

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To many players the fact that raids are released every 6 months but are usually cleared in less than a quarter of the time is already seen as an issue, catch up patches and 24 man content does very little to entice players who are already at the higher ends of the game as by that point many of them are gearing alternate classes through the same raid that they did for their primary.

An extra 2 months for a playerbase that has been bored for 3 is still a long time.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

EDIT: To add to the poster above, you'd also have to take into account that Heavensward was hit with an unexpected 1 month delay.
If it hadn't, that'd have made the months between Coil content almost roughly the same as the time between SCoB and FCoB.

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I did take this into account and if we go further and account for the delay to 3.1 as well as diadem's quick content decay this means that from 2.4-3.2 we saw what was effectively two 8-man raid releases in well over a 14 month period, something that sounds suspiciously close to the same issue players had raised with Blizzard.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

While 24 man raids may be named as such in their classification, they do not fulfill the same role in the content hierarchy as the 8 man raids do. Sure they may be called "raid content" but their ilvl rewards and difficulty do not provide progression on the content ladder which is what remained stagnant up until the expansion release.

To many players the fact that raids are released every 6 months but are usually cleared in less than a quarter of the time is already seen as an issue, catch up patches and 24 man content does very little to entice players who are already at the higher ends of the game as by that point many of them are gearing alternate classes through the same raid that they did for their primary.

An extra 2 months for a playerbase that has been bored for 3 is still a long time.

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It could be argued that the 24-man raids help raiders with a few extra pieces of gear to further progress in the current 8-man raid, since it's the minority that clears the 8-man raid in less than a quarter of it's lifespan.
That said, high end raiders are a small minority to begin with, so that part getting bored doesn't necessarily mean that half the playerbase will drop the game.

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I did take this into account and if we go further and account for the delay to 3.1 as well as diadem's quick content decay this means that from 2.4-3.2 we saw what was effectively two 8-man raid releases in well over a 14 month period, something that sounds suspiciously close to the same issue players had raised with Blizzard.

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Perhaps raidwise, but unlike Blizzard, SE doesn't completely focus on hardcore raid content tailored towards a small minority, and has released other content in that 14 month timeframe of yours.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

It could be argued that the 24-man raids help raiders with a few extra pieces of gear to further progress in the current 8-man raid, since it's the minority that clears the 8-man raid in less than a quarter of it's lifespan.
That said, high end raiders are a small minority to begin with, so that part getting bored doesn't necessarily mean that half the playerbase will drop the game.

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It's not my intention to turn this into a doom and gloom thread so I'll try to keep this part short.

There's a major flaw in trying to compare subscription losses between WoW and FFXIV, while XIV certainly isnt going to drop half it's player-base over a patch or two it also did not have the nearly 10 year period of growth and success that WoW has had.

As much as many players loved WoW over the years the reality is that they very well can afford to lose massive numbers of players over the course of time (though as a business blizzard certainly doesn't want to) as by MMO standards the game is getting on in years and Blizzard is working on other projects.

Every unofficial census that has been posted to these forums has shown a significant drop-off in player numbers with each consecutive patch delay or period of downtime (the last being around 3.1 if i recall), additionally the current endgame scene is no where near as active as it was during the ARR period and less players are returning after unsubscribing each patch.

However you will never see the same sort of subscription dropoff in XIV as WoW no matter how long the content dries up between patches if for no other reason than the fact that FFXIV's numbers have yet to reach WoW's in it's prime so it's not an apt comparison to make.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Perhaps raidwise, but unlike Blizzard, SE doesn't completely focus on hardcore raid content tailored towards a small minority, and has released other content in that 14 month time frame of yours.

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The issue is not the release of content itself but content with enough staying power, there's a 31 page debate on this very topic on the front page of this sub-forum if you haven't taken a look at it i suggest you give it a read as it's far from the first one posted.

Personaly, I dont mind the 4 months downtime that got like with 2.55, I used that time to level all my classes and go on a hiatus to enjoy other games. I came back a week before the expansion was released, with a fresh mindset.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

There's a major flaw in trying to compare subscription losses between WoW and FFXIV, while XIV certainly isnt going to drop half it's player-base over a patch or two it also did not have the nearly 10 year period of growth and success that WoW has had.

As much as many players loved WoW over the years the reality is that they very well can afford to lose massive numbers of players over the course of time (though as a business blizzard certainly doesn't want to) as by MMO standards the game is getting on in years and Blizzard is working on other projects.

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Blizzard did not lose subscribers because it is 10 years old. The reason that Blizzard is losing subscribers, losing 5 million subscribers in only 3 months into Warlords of Draenor and driving blizzard to release a game time token you can buy from other players for gold to stabilize the bleeding, was a massive drop in the quality of the content they put out and the long droughts between content releases. After making the game raid or die and swinging between extremes with knee jerk reactionary expansions. As well as a shift towards trying to shove out an expansion every year, which leads to them heavily cutting promised content from the expansion to get it out faster, in addition to them heavily simplifying the game because they sell character boosts with every expansion.

In WoW either you raid... or you wait till the next expac for more dungeon/world content. Which is going to be 14-18 months away.

Despite the fact that Blizzards WoW team is considerably larger then SE's FFXIV team it takes them considerably longer to make content.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

To many players the fact that raids are released every 6 months but are usually cleared in less than a quarter of the time is already seen as an issue, catch up patches and 24 man content does very little to entice players who are already at the higher ends of the game as by that point many of them are gearing alternate classes through the same raid that they did for their primary.

An extra 2 months for a playerbase that has been bored for 3 is still a long time.

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This is then a completly different problem. The focus of the discussion was dry content on a long gap between last patch and first patch of the following extension. Which is not true. If the content added doesn't suit your taste you cannot complain there is no content. (but you can complain you don't like it.)

And now we are moving the discussion to the time lenght between two high end raids. 6 months might be too long for players like you who finish a raid tier in a month or two, farm it for the following month and are left with nothing to do for 3 months. But for players like me who finish it maybe one week or two before the next raid tier arrives, it's totally fine, it suits my pace. (don't take this personally, I don't know how you play, this is just an exemple to illustrate the situation.)

So which kind of player should the game support more? Obviously the majority, or else the game sinks. the game is a mmo with a lot of different kind of players (that the community liikes to categorize in harcore, midcore and casuals but meh). the content might be too much for some, not enough for others, but the game needs to find a balance where the majority is ok with. If you try to move this balance (for exemple by making more hardcore content which will lead to less midcore and/or casual content) then you are pretty much asking for the game to die.

Square Enix decided to go for a 3 months gap between major patches and high end raid tier every two major patch. that's the pace they decided would be balanced for the majority of players they were aiming for. It's up to the players that are on each extreme to adapt their pace to the game's pace. if it's too fast, you either skip some content or stay behind, if it's too slow, do other content or play something else. In the end it's up to each player to decide how they want to manage their time in the game taking patch content pace into consideration.

Well FFXV will finally be realed by then, if the rumors a true, a part of the money FFXIV makes goes to the promotion of it so we might hope that they'll get more funds, resulting in more people and bigger patches ^^

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

Blizzard did not lose subscribers because it is 10 years old.

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I don't recall saying this.

In fact in the very post you quoted I don't see myself even listing a specific reason for the subscription drops in WoW at all, other posters have alluded to them instead.

What i did say is that WoW can afford to lose massive numbers of subs even if Blizzard as a company would prefer they didn't because the game has had roughly 10 years of growth and as it is 10 years is also a long time for an MMO to survive, especially for a company that is working on other projects.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

And? Its not like it was a year or 2 years. Its a full expansion they don't have to give them to us as quickly as they plan too but they are. I think people can handle a couple months without a major update at the end of a cycle.

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Not with this kinda game, dailies get old, fast. Amusement park type games need content churned out due to the burn out many players experience. Especially with linear designed content like the dungeons and 24man raids we have. Mechanics is nice, but bee lines in each dungeon I've played so far? Lame.

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Originally Posted by MerleSirlos

This is then a completly different problem. The focus of the discussion was dry content on a long gap between last patch and first patch of the following extension. Which is not true. If the content added doesn't suit your taste you cannot complain there is no content. (but you can complain you don't like it.)

And now we are moving the discussion to the time lenght between two high end raids. 6 months might be too long for players like you who finish a raid tier in a month or two, farm it for the following month and are left with nothing to do for 3 months. But for players like me who finish it maybe one week or two before the next raid tier arrives, it's totally fine, it suits my pace. (don't take this personally, I don't know how you play, this is just an exemple to illustrate the situation.)

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Except the question that started the thread was in concern to content gaps leading up to the expansion.

If the same content schedule follows suit up to the next expansion we will go through a very similar content drought to the period between 2.5 - 3.0 because of where it falls on the patch schedule. There was a very large gap in content for any player that remained current in content, there is even a poster saying they were thankful for the break because they were able to play other games the opposite of what a subscription based MMO relies on to make it's revenue.

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Originally Posted by MerleSirlos

So which kind of player should the game support more? Obviously the majority, or else the game sinks. the game is a mmo with a lot of different kind of players (that the community liikes to categorize in harcore, midcore and casuals but meh). the content might be too much for some, not enough for others, but the game needs to find a balance where the majority is ok with. If you try to move this balance (for exemple by making more hardcore content which will lead to less midcore and/or casual content) then you are pretty much asking for the game to die.

Square Enix decided to go for a 3 months gap between major patches and high end raid tier every two major patch. that's the pace they decided would be balanced for the majority of players they were aiming for. It's up to the players that are on each extreme to adapt their pace to the game's pace. if it's too fast, you either skip some content or stay behind, if it's too slow, do other content or play something else. In the end it's up to each player to decide how they want to manage their time in the game taking patch content pace into consideration.

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This is a debate for another thread, my initial comment was to illustrate the drought timeline and express that It would be against SE's best interest to have a similar content drought as so far unofficial records have shown a drop in player subscriptions after each occurrence. For some reason however players wish to debate this when it has very much been the case regardless of any individual feelings on SE's delivery of content as a whole.

There have been droughts and we have lost players who have not returned during them, therefore in the future it would be best for them to reconsider the types of content they release in the long period leading up to an expansion release.

But there wasn't any content droughts. There is more than enough content in each patch to last until the next patch and more.

And I understand that you and more people felt that there was a content drough because I did too. But it wasn't because a lack of content, it was because a lack of interesting content for me.
I don't do crafting, it's not interesting for me. Should I ask for all crafting content to be scraped out for the dev team to only do what I like? All the crafters would say no.
This is what I wanted to point out.

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Originally Posted by MerleSirlos

But there wasn't any content droughts. There is more than enough content in each patch to last until the next patch and more.

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There are many players that would disagree with this statement, in fact it's currently being debated right now.

Perhaps "drought" is too strong of a word, however the nature of the game's vertical progression does render a large amount of content obsolete by design and in some cases it happens not long after it's released, Bismark Ex, The Diadem, and Lords of Verminion if not most of the Gold Saucer content releases are some of the biggest examples of this, it's especially an issue if a player is staying current with content releases.

The game is designed on a strict ladder. Once you've reached the highest available rung anything added below that even if it's enjoyable doesn't contribute further to the progression of your character and more often than not isn't even needed to be done more than a handful of times before it is rendered near useless for a large number of players, It obviously doesn't feel this way to anyone still progressing from the ground up however as they'll feel they have plenty to do.

Whether you want to refer to the long periods where this happens as a "drought" is up to you, but players are unsubscribing from the game during these periods and the majority of them aren't coming back.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

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And yet, we had T6S-T9S which have kept us busy.

I remember Yoshida said the period between the end of Heavensward and 4.0 will be shorter than Real Reborn - 3.0 (and i hope it will be true)
I think we will have 4.0 around april, and i don't see 3.5 in three parts but just one part (or two in the worst case) (maybe bigger than a single patch).

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

And yet, we had T6S-T9S which have kept us busy.

I remember Yoshida said the period between the end of Heavensward and 4.0 will be shorter than Real Reborn - 3.0 (and i hope it will be true)
I think we will have 4.0 around april, and i don't see 3.5 in three parts but just one part (or two in the worst case) (maybe bigger than a single patch).

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Yea, if they do Septemeber, then December/January, they could potentially release by March/April since as you mentioned they don't want to make following expansions as big as 3.0 release. Since it was them packing so much into the opening that delayed it to June.

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Personaly, I dont mind the 4 months downtime that got like with 2.55, I used that time to level all my classes and go on a hiatus to enjoy other games. I came back a week before the expansion was released, with a fresh mindset.

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Waiting for Heavensward was my favorite part of the game. Wait! I know that sounds weird, but since people were mostly hanging out at the same place in Mor Dhona. I managed to make lots of friends and catch up on coils and such, felt like people were afking less and getting along with players not in their FC or LS was fantastic!

then 3.0 came out and people isolated themselves again, even that one guy who's always afk and never moves vanished! hope to see them again though!

increased bird mount drop rates is the only thing I need to keep myself active.

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Originally Posted by Ryel

To many players the fact that raids are released every 6 months but are usually cleared in less than a quarter of the time is already seen as an issue, catch up patches and 24 man content does very little to entice players who are already at the higher ends of the game as by that point many of them are gearing alternate classes through the same raid that they did for their primary.

An extra 2 months for a playerbase that has been bored for 3 is still a long time.

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I thought it was common knowledge that raiders make up a minority of the game. I personally think if Yoshida decides to rush the expansion just so Raiders have content to do, it will be an absolute disaster. Sure Yoshida can cater to Raiders and let them have something exciting to do every 3 months, but for the vast majority of players that also enjoy the other things in the game will just straight up leave. If the only thing you care about is raids, then subscribe to the game for the raids and leave afterwards. The vast majority of the game will still enjoy all the other things there is to do in this game as they always have.

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Originally Posted by Elky

Not with this kinda game, dailies get old, fast. Amusement park type games need content churned out due to the burn out many players experience. Especially with linear designed content like the dungeons and 24man raids we have. Mechanics is nice, but bee lines in each dungeon I've played so far? Lame.

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Plenty of other aspects of the game to do during the downtime just because people 1. Cant be asked or 2. Don't like those aspects, thats a personal issue.