4-month patch cycle was a lie. It's almost 4.5 months now.

[Rufalus]

The reason given for the widening of the patch cycle is there being more jobs and races than when the game started; they have more equipment to tailor for different body types.
I feel like why should gameplay content be held up for fashion? Just reuse old gear designs with slight alterations more often to keep things moving. The fashion choices are huge at this point anyway.

I'll use PSO2:NGS again as an example of different design philosophies. They just dropped a new content type with no fanfare on a minor patch, made completely out of old assets with old enemies, but it's a totally new kind of endgame activity that's good enough to be our new daily routine.

You spawn into an area divided into many different rooms, each one assigned a different buff reward. You need to decide which buffs you want to prioritize and clear those rooms before the time runs out. Some rooms have waves of enemies, some have puzzles, some have bosses. Once the timer is over, you carry over any buffs you managed to bank into the next phase where you fight a challenging boss under certain conditions, again with a strict time limit.

Each day the boss cycles to a different one and different restrictions on players like -75% max HP. You earn a new kind of gear upgrade item, and a rare chance of a powerful weapon drop. It's interesting and put together with low resource cost, a new gameplay type made of old assets.

It's the polar opposite of FF XIV dungeons that have a high resource cost with beautiful new art, new enemies, new music, but completely cookie-cutter gameplay that adds nothing new, basically a high effort reskin of the last 50 dungeons we got.

[Larirawiel]

The reason given for the widening of the patch cycle is there being more jobs and races than when the game started; they have more equipment to tailor for different body types.

I highly doubt, that more jobs and races is so time consuming, that it slows down the patch cycles significantly. Because the development tools are also getting better und many things can be done automaticly.



Cheers

[Absurdity]

I find it hard to believe EW has way more content than SB. SB had hard mode dungeons, 2 Ultimates, 4 relic zones, a relic dungeon, 2 extra trials(yojimbo and rathalos), a new housing district, relic armor, primal weapons for the new jobs(Both ShB and EW didn’t even give the new jobs previous primal weapons), diving, spear fishing, the list goes on.

Don't forget that they introduced Bluemage and the Glamour Dresser in Stormblood as well.

The reason given for the widening of the patch cycle is there being more jobs and races than when the game started; they have more equipment to tailor for different body types.
I feel like why should gameplay content be held up for fashion? Just reuse old gear designs with slight alterations more often to keep things moving. The fashion choices are huge at this point anyway.

This is also complete nonsense that needs correction every time I see it.

We know that all gear is designed for roughly 5 different body types (in extremely rare cases for more), those being Lalafell, male Midlander, male Highlander, female Midlander and male Roegadyn, the rest is done through bone scaling.
Every female character, except Lalafell, uses the female midlander body.
Lalafell use the...well, Lalafell body. Sometimes it's split into male and female but those two are pretty much identical.
Male Roegadyn and Hrothgar use the male Roegadyn body.
Every other male uses either the Midlander or Highlander body.


Outside of very few exceptions they are not making any hats or helmets for Hrothgar or Viera, so I ask you, where is this extra work on equipment coming from when everything is made for the exact same races we've had since Heavensward?

I highly doubt, that more jobs and races is so time consuming, that it slows down the patch cycles significantly. Because the development tools are also getting better und many things can be done automaticly.



Cheers

Refer to my spoilered post.