So are we *ever* getting the planned list of Class/Ability changes?

[Wolfie]

There's two things that we can provide feedback on.

One is design changes that don't require fine grained details; like "actions can no longer be queued" or some other major change that visibly and greatly affects the dynamic of a class.

The other is balance changes that do require numbers and greater detail. This is something that we COULD damn well provide feedback on, if the devs started including that detail both in-game (how damage is calculated) and out side of the game in planned changes to damage/healing/whatever (i.e. 'CON spells cost 10% less mana' versus 'CON spells MP cost has been reduced').

Not only that, but having your players test a patch after it has gone live is the absolute worst way to develop any MMO and it's a precedent that died back in 2004 when WOW came out. This is why PTR's have been created and why patch notes for any serious MMO are constantly discussed and revealed as early as possible.

[Jennestia]

Not only that, but having your players test a patch after it has gone live is the absolute worst way to develop any MMO and it's a precedent that died back in 2004 when WOW came out.

Sarcasm? Because every MMO incorporates hotfixes after major patches goes live, which in essence, means everyone play tested them and still found bugs and glitches, therefore the need for hotfixes, which Blizzard does as well.

@Jennestia

So your argument is that the devs have no obligation to maintain their promises on timely delivery of information to the customers who will be supporting this game with actual cash for the next year?

What is "timely"? This is subjective from person to person, therefore it's a bit hard to say when they're "slacking", especially when you take into consideration the amount of work that's being done with this game.

[Wolfie]

Sarcasm? Because every MMO incorporates hotfixes after major patches goes live, which in essence, means everyone play tested them and still found bugs and glitches, therefore the need for hotfixes, which Blizzard does as well.

Nice try, but hotfixes are never balance changes or broad design changes. They are small fixes for critical bugs that escaped through the testing phase.

[Jennestia]

Nice try, but hotfixes are never balance changes or broad design changes. They are small fixes for critical bugs that escaped through the testing phase.

Based on what you said, you essentially stated WoW releases perfect patches which means there's no need for hotfixes, which means WoW should be free of hotfixes, as well as any MMORPG that was released after 2004, yet I'm pretty sure every MMO I've played since 2004 (WoW included) utilizes hotfix patching. Otherwise, it's not something that died out in 2004, players of any MMO are still the biggest "testers" when it comes to patches because players almost always find bugs and glitches that QA can miss.

[Wolfie]

Based on what you said, you essentially stated WoW releases perfect patches which means there's no need for hotfixes, which means WoW should be free of hotfixes, as well as any MMORPG that was released after 2004, yet I'm pretty sure every MMO I've played since 2004 (WoW included) utilizes hotfix patching. Otherwise, it's not something that died out in 2004, players of any MMO are still the biggest "testers" when it comes to patches because players almost always find bugs and glitches that QA can miss.

Now you're putting words in my mouth. I said that you should never let your players test a patch after it goes live, not that PTRs will produce perfect patches. You have your players test a patch on a separate server and work with them to iron out balance changes, design changes, and bugs that your own internal QA team has missed. You can never get a 100% guarantee that a patch will please everyone in terms of changes and being bug free, but using a PTR you roll out a much more robust and higher quality patch.

Hotfixes are small patches that are applied directly to live systems with no testing in order to fix a critical bug or issue. These will still exist with PTRs, but the amount of non-critical bugs and stupid design choices that your patch rolls out with is dramatically reduced.

[Ronik]

Sarcasm? Because every MMO incorporates hotfixes after major patches goes live, which in essence, means everyone play tested them and still found bugs and glitches, therefore the need for hotfixes, which Blizzard does as well.

So you're honestly saying that PTR's are useless because there are still bugs to be found after the official patch releases? You're really making absolutely no sense here. I don't think you understand exactly how much crap is found in PTRs and fixed before live releases. I'm not saying FFXIV should have PTR servers for patches (not yet, anyway - maybe down the line with 2.0), but to argue that PTR's are useless is flat-out ignorance.

[Betelgeuzah]

Not only that, but having your players test a patch after it has gone live is the absolute worst way to develop any MMO and it's a precedent that died back in 2004 when WOW came out. This is why PTR's have been created and why patch notes for any serious MMO are constantly discussed and revealed as early as possible.

Yes, but do you understand that there is no PTR for this game, no comprehensive stat calculation information and most importantly we have nothing to base the action change notes on even if they were comprehensive. Even the largest of MMO's tend to tweak their actions (not replace them) and only some at time, so you have something to compare the changes to. Plus, they can be actually tested on the test realm, and all stat calculations have been long since figured out.

We can not compare the changes to anything because no feature or mechanic currently exists in-game that we could use to make any informed assumptions. All we have is the action list with descriptions and stat mechanics we haven't figured out to make sense of any of it.

I will say it again. We can't provide any valuable feedback based on the information provided if we can't experience the changes by ourselves. Your "bu- bu- but in other games" speech really does not mean anything in the context of action change patch notes in FFXIV with the information we have available to us as of November 2011. Unless you think that they will suddenly spill the beans on stat calculations in the same post while announcing the opening of test realm the day after.