The Letter is up

[VydarrTyr]

How can people be dissapointed when they were never givin a date to begin with "Mid June" is pretty broad and they even stated that it was "At the earliest mid june" So anyone who is dissapointed needs to learn how to read.

It would appear that one of the people who have to "learn how to read" is Yoshi-P:

We just need to secure enough time for testing and optimizing balance…which, I’m afraid, will push the patch behind schedule.

[VydarrTyr]

2 weeks to wait for the patch is really not that bad of a delay and he gave us a lot of good information in that small letter.

Confirmed for 1.18

2 Endgame Dungeons
Auto Attack
Proper Enmity Calculations
New Weaponskill Animations
Active/Passive Mode switch while Moving
Stamina Gauge Gone

Then he added there is still more to come on top of that, so again why all the hate because truly this is shaping up to be one hellva patch just on what he confirmed today not including other things to be added into the patch. 1.18/1.19 are going to be fantastic patches of hopefully many more fantastic patches, and this is the first true update from the new development team so i would think a little more gratitude would be in order.

I've seen this said a couple of times by different people in this thread. So I wanted to correct it.

Patch 1.18 will include auto-attack, and (probably) 2 dungeons. One of the dungeons will be end-game, one will be mid-level content.

New Weaponskill animations will NOT be included in 1.18. Those will be included in 1.19. Here's the quote from the letter:

Attack motion diversification and fine-tuning are planned for 1.19.

Given their history of content-related patches, that will probably come a month after 1.18. So August, at the earliest (if there are no further delays).

We don't know when active-passive mode switch while moving will be added. I'm hopeful it will be in 1.18, but the letter doesn't say that.

He did not say that there would be "more to come on top of that" in 1.18. In fact, there's probably less. For example, auto-attack will be implemented in 1.18, but not fully implemented. You know how most classes have more than one kind of basic attack? Like "Heavy Strike" and "Broad Swing"? Well, those will probably not be implemented in 1.18. Here's the pertinent quote:

Multiple attacks during auto-attack is also being planned for the future.

So that probably won't be included in either 1.18 or 1.19.

I think this patch will actually be smaller than you're suggesting here. And I wanted to see if I could avoid further belly-aching by people ramping up expectations despite what the letter itself actually says.

[Tempestmoon]

I think everyone needs to just settle down, relax and be a litte more patient. There are alot of other things in the works that will probably be attached to this patch, like all the encampments, remember those? companies? remember those? along with more quests... This patch is going to be packed and I can't wait! In a couple months time you're going to be complaining because you don't know what to do first.

and always remember, You know you love the game, you know you're going to keep playing, quit your bitching because it's still FREE!

Go Square go!

[Jynx]

It would appear that one of the people who have to "learn how to read" is Yoshi-P:

I would imagine that comment is because he knows people are going to "Expect" the patch tomorrow even when he stated "At the earliest"

[Rentahamster]

And this is the example set by id Software and Blizzard. A game isn't ready until it's ready. Most software developers haven't caught onto this fact. Hopefully, SE learns its lesson from this situation, as it's the path to releasing consistently high quality games.

The problem with Square Enix's management right now, though, is while the development times are crazy long, the teams are so horribly managed disconnected that they end up with bad quality regardless.

They're experts at long dev times this generation. Now they gotta figure out how to be experts at making good games.

[Rentahamster]

Secondly, There was an article on these very boards that SE lowered there financial forecast due to the recent earthquake. They either have already written it off, which is common practice for a company that KNOWS its taking a huge loss, or have PLANNED to write it off.

The earthquake was only a small factor in their losses.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ings_revision/

The revision is due to extraordinary losses, in part from a "tightened selection standard" for games. This will result in 4.5 billion yen in losses related to development cancellations. A press release announcing the revision did not share specifics beyond this.
The company will also incur a "loss on disaster" of approximately 0.6 billion yen related to the Tohoku earthquake. This is for closures and restoration of amusement facilities.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ada_on_losses/

Speaking at an investor's briefing on the 13th (via Nikkei), Wada explained that of the 12 billion loss, about 4.5 billion came from such things as Final Fantasy XIV's reworking and the cancelation of multiple titles. Most of the 4.5 billion was related to domestic development, he said.

[Dreadnought]

The earthquake was only a small factor in their losses.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ings_revision/


http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ada_on_losses/

im glad you pointed this out, thank you.

[Jericho]

Two endgame dungeons, almost forced from all the yelling and whining, even though we are not at the "end of the game". Two endgame dungeons that will be useless and abandoned as soon as the level cap is raised up to where it will remain for the game's duration.

[Biggs]

I would imagine that comment is because he knows people are going to "Expect" the patch tomorrow even when he stated "At the earliest"

Hold the f*ck up. You just got done telling me that people that expect stuff in june need to learn how to read (implying they are idiots). Now your saying that even though Yoshi specifically uses the words "behind schedule", the "schedule" itself is an imaginary one created by the players and not one that is trying to be upheld by the developers. And you have a problem with MY logic? We could walk through the holes in yours dude.

[Jynx]

Hold the f*ck up. You just got done telling me that people that expect stuff in june need to learn how to read (implying they are idiots). Now your saying that even though Yoshi specifically uses the words "behind schedule", the "schedule" itself is an imaginary one created by the players and not one that is trying to be upheld by the developers. And you have a problem with MY logic? We could walk through the holes in yours dude.

Whats wrong with Yoshi-P pandering to the forums? He understands people thought he meant "Expect patch by the 15th" once the coments had been relayed to his team by the community reps. Why wouldn't he adress it in that manner?

What did you expect Yoshi to say? "Yeah were not actually delayed because we didn't promise you anything...idiots" No he has to be respectfull to the community no matter how daft it is. If people thought he meant "Patch on the 15th" he has to run on what the community is assuming, people would cry if he called people out for acting like babies because of a delay that he told us was probable from the get-go.

Nothing wrong with my logic.

*edit*

I'm not overtly calling people idiots, but people need to not take things out of context such as "Well he said mid june...maybe so it's obviously mid-june" and totally ignore the whole "As early as" part.