Ultimate hiatus feedback

[Remedi]

* This would be the last patch. Even among people who attempt, unless you're part of the elite few, it would take you several months to clear it at normal schedule. By the time, the new expansion would be out, and most people would likely just focus on expansion content then. Essentially, this fight being released on last path would be dead on arrival due to the hardcore nature of it.
* Last patch has historically been where most people quit the game. If they just focus on Ultimate, sure it will ensure that a few hardore players don't quit, but for 99.9% of players there will be nothing to do, so this doesn't solve the problem at all. I'd rather see them focus this patch on putting something out that all can enjoy to decrease the drop out rate.

This 2 points are why ppl are arguing for an ultimate in 4.5. Since the x.5 patches have been usually patches of nothing for the raiding ppl it would give them SOMETHING to do

[shibeouya]

This 2 points are why ppl are arguing for an ultimate in 4.5. Since the x.5 patches have been usually patches of nothing for the raiding ppl it would give them SOMETHING to do

Wrong. x.5 patches have been patches of nothing FOR EVERYONE, not just for raiding ppl. If they just add something for raiding ppl, it still leaves the 99.9% with nothing to do. If they're actually going to put out something in 4.5, I'd rather have it be something most people can enjoy. Retaining some of 99.9% is more valuable than retaining a few from the < 1% that would even try the next Ultimate.

[Akava]

Wrong. x.5 patches have been patches of nothing FOR EVERYONE, not just for raiding ppl. If they just add something for raiding ppl, it still leaves the 99.9% with nothing to do. If they're actually going to put out something in 4.5, I'd rather have it be something most people can enjoy. Retaining some of 99.9% is more valuable than retaining a few from the < 1% that would even try the next Ultimate.

That's not true. X.5 is usually when the new 24 man comes out. That content is mainly focused on helping people catch up or bridge the gap for people struggling to complete the X.4 raid tier. If you've had that raid tier on farm when the 24 man comes out, chances are high that you're not seeing any upgrades from that content.

[shibeouya]

That's not true. X.5 is usually when the new 24 man comes out. That content is mainly focused on helping people catch up or bridge the gap for people struggling to complete the X.4 raid tier. If you've had that raid tier on farm when the 24 man comes out, chances are high that you're not seeing any upgrades from that content.

Are you saying that hardcore raiders never run 24 man raids? That has not been my experience, even the people I know who can be considered hardcore, still do Ridorana to get their weekly token right now. This is content that both hardcore and not hardcore people run usually.

With that in mind, I think we both agree that this content is not enough to satiate players (hardcore and non) for a whole patch, which is what I was referring to when saying "nothing for everyone".

If they add Ultimate, it means that non hardcore players are still left with nothing. I'd rather see them add "something else" that can benefit everyone.

[Emileigh]

Wrong. x.5 patches have been patches of nothing FOR EVERYONE, not just for raiding ppl. If they just add something for raiding ppl, it still leaves the 99.9% with nothing to do. If they're actually going to put out something in 4.5, I'd rather have it be something most people can enjoy. Retaining some of 99.9% is more valuable than retaining a few from the < 1% that would even try the next Ultimate.

except you're assuming that with cutting the last ultimate they are going to release something meaningful for the rest of the playerbase. what makes you think that they would suddenly switch gears to turn out some new system or content at the end of the expansion with minimal time to be able to play through it?
It would be far more resource intensive to create something new from scratch than it is to reuse past assets to make a fight. There is no president for such a thing and far less available resources and time to create said content.

[shibeouya]

except you're assuming that with cutting the last ultimate they are going to release something meaningful for the rest of the playerbase. what makes you think that they would suddenly switch gears to turn out some new system or content at the end of the expansion with minimal time to be able to play through it?

Nothing. But at least it gives them the resources to do so. Whereas if they were to release Ultimate, we know with almost 100% guarantee that would be the only "extra" we would get this patch and everyone except hardcore will quit again like at the end of HW. They might still not release anything else with Ultimate gone, but they also might. And if they don't it's certainly to divert the resources to some expansion content, which I'd still rather see more than a new Ultimate fight.

I agree they should clarify their plans on this so we know what's going to happen here.

[jameseoakes]

except you're assuming that with cutting the last ultimate they are going to release something meaningful for the rest of the playerbase. what makes you think that they would suddenly switch gears to turn out some new system or content at the end of the expansion with minimal time to be able to play through it?
It would be far more resource intensive to create something new from scratch than it is to reuse past assets to make a fight. There is no president for such a thing and far less available resources and time to create said content.

As an example they could make a second extreme primal, it would take as much if not less effort and be something for a lot more people. Give it it's own mount and it will still be farm come the next expansion.
Though if it was really a choice between ultimate and nothing then yeah they should do ultimate.

[Remedi]

As an example they could make a second extreme primal, it would take as much if not less effort and be something for a lot more people. Give it it's own mount and it will still be farm come the next expansion.
Though if it was really a choice between ultimate and nothing then yeah they should do ultimate.

A new primal requires new art, new music, new story. which is the most amount of work for a content.

The whole reason we got Ultimate in the first place is because they could reuse the assets they add to do so, note how they don't need to redo most of enemies models, sound, the zones and the complete lack of story. Even rewards are reskins of rpexisting weapons with a new glow on it.

This was the deal on ultimate as such another primal would require much more work to be effectively done

[Sebazy]

There's a tremendous amount of work that goes in the Ultimate fights for balancing it "just right". I don't think it's just a matter of reused assets or not, there's other stuff like this that comes into play. You're acting like creating a Ultimate fight takes no effort, which I can't agree to. In software development it's always a matter of switching resources around, so take from one place to give to another. Ultimate is no different.

Already covered this one:

Lets say that in both cases, we start with our beloved Sudo who will brainstorm and storyboard out concepts, perhaps with the hand of a concept artist or two. At this stage, an Ultimate and Dungeon would be pretty similar with the dungeon having more of an artistic focus whilst Ultimate would lean more towards rougher concepts focusing on how Sudo envisions a party would tackle his mechanics.

From there, things branch out massively. Dungeon design is primarily art, both 2D and 3D. Modern game content requires very substantial teams of artists to get done at any real pace. Meanwhile, Ultimate isn't art heavy at all, you'll get a few new animations and effects with the bulk of the work being a drag and drop away via the CVS. That's not to say that it's free content though as it just isn't. Rather, it needs very significant amounts of QA due to the extensive tuning required to get the balance and difficulty right.

TLDR = Yes, creating an ultimate encounter takes significant resources, but it's resources that are almost entirely separate and non transferable to other content. You simply do not have world builders and artists sitting there doing QA for hours on end. Meanwhile, SE will 100% have a QA team on hand for this sort of task. Thus it is by far the most labour efficient means of keeping raiders occupied and subbed that we've seen from SE so far. Want a time sink that gives similar value for about as little content creation work? Let's have another Atma fate grind yay

As is with no 4.5 ultimate lined up, my FC has got BFA pre orders in for something to do. Barf =(

Wrong. x.5 patches have been patches of nothing FOR EVERYONE, not just for raiding ppl. If they just add something for raiding ppl, it still leaves the 99.9% with nothing to do. If they're actually going to put out something in 4.5, I'd rather have it be something most people can enjoy. Retaining some of 99.9% is more valuable than retaining a few from the < 1% that would even try the next Ultimate.

Got this one too, but here's a refresher:

You do understand that 4.5 will likely bring a good amount of casual content right?

Going by 3.5 and previous trends we will see something like the following:

Eureka update
PotD/HoH update
Multiple additional relic steps over the subsequent mini patches that follow
Several staggered MSQ updates
Additions to crafting side content via deliveries, scrips etc
Likely another significant side quest chain (Hildy/Schol) or beast tribe.
Aquapolis/Canal thinger additions
1 additional expert dungeon
A number of additional squadron dungeons

You'll also get the following content that falls somewhere in the middle:

24 man raid
8 man primal

Meanwhile, you'll also get the following high end content:

.


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the resources they said they are saving are not effected by the ultimate fights. The battle design and balancing teams obviously have more free time than the art, music, and story questing teams. And those are the teams most heavily effected by the upcoming expansion as well. It was an attempt to utilize their resources most effectively while producing more content.

Anything else would be far more work for a team that yoship has constantly said is at its limits.

My theory behind Ultimate 3 getting canceled isn't quite a case of them reshuffling development hours to other content, so I'm mostly with you on this one (I'll be very surprised if we magically get 2 roulette dungeons for 4.5).

Rather I think it's a case of them not having enough experienced battle designers to avoid the format going stale. Sure they can throw the task to Sudo again and I'm sure lot will relish another meat grinder to throw themselves into, but as mentioned already, we've been there before and the fatigue will likely set in in a big way. They could give the task to someone new, but lets not forget that the last time Yoshida did that, we got Alte Roite.

I honestly don't think anyone wins regardless of the outcome. All the QA hours that got freed up aren't going to make Eureka good. Mind you, the salt we could see from a Sudo designed Eureka fate would be pretty amazing

[Ceasaria]

They could give the task to someone new, but lets not forget that the last time Yoshida did that, we got Alte Roite.

Alte Roite was cool (maybe my prefered fight in delta) even if it's too easy.
Don't forget the designer of Sunanoo, was the one who did the chocobo races. He was new in the design of battles and he succeeded in my opinion.
So maybe, let him do the next Ultimate ?