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

[Rufalus]

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

I don't doubt that it could be done faster, but it isn't. At least that's the reason Yoshida gave, that it was only a matter of time before patches slowed down because they are creating a greater number of items than ever before, with more permutations adjusted by hand.

Soon they will add female Hrothgar and increase the number of jobs to 22. Before Hroth and Viera were added they weren't planning on any more jobs because they were already stretched to capacity on the amount they could support in the 3.5 month patch cycle, but demand was enough that they caved in with the concession of skipping hats for those new races. They didn't want to add even more delays by tailoring all headgear to the new shape of those race's heads.

Personally I think it's worth cutting some corners in equipment. Like is it still a big deal to have individual sets for all doh/dol classes each expansion? Most people skip those single class sets to buy the all-classes one. After ARR and 4 expansions, those new designs start to look samey, like the alchemist coats.

[Absurdity]

I don't doubt that it could be done faster, but it isn't. At least that's the reason Yoshida gave, that it was only a matter of time before patches slowed down because they are creating a greater number of items than ever before, with more permutations adjusted by hand.

Soon they will add female Hrothgar and increase the number of jobs to 22. Before Hroth and Viera were added they weren't planning on any more jobs because they were already stretched to capacity on the amount they could support in the 3.5 month patch cycle, but demand was enough that they caved in with the concession of skipping hats for those new races. They didn't want to add even more delays by tailoring all headgear to the new shape of those race's heads.

Personally I think it's worth cutting some corners in equipment. Like is it still a big deal to have individual sets for all doh/dol classes each expansion? Most people skip those single class sets to buy the all-classes one. After ARR and 4 expansions, those new designs start to look samey, like the alchemist coats.

Check my previous post, the excuse that new races create this exponential amount of extra work making armors is complete nonsense. It would've held some water if they actually had to make new headgear for those new races, but they aren't.
The only extra work those races produce is their initial design and their animations, which are a one-and-done job, there is no additional work each patch (unless it requires new animation work for emotes and that has nothing to do with gear).

[Rufalus]

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?[/HB]

At the very least doubling the number of jobs since the game launched means more weapon types to support each patch. I haven't gone and counted patch volume myself to check that total unique designs is going up, just repeating what they said. They need permission just to any small objects, they make 3D modelling resource cost sound very burdensome. I vaguely remember a dev story about adding some little decorative knife to a main scenario quest or something.

[Absurdity]

At the very least doubling the number of jobs since the game launched means more weapon types to support each patch. I haven't gone and counted patch volume myself to check that total unique designs is going up, just repeating what they said. They need permission just to any small objects, they make 3D modelling resource cost sound very burdensome. I vaguely remember a dev story about adding some little decorative knife to a main scenario quest or something.

Sure the new jobs do require a lot more initial work and more work every time they implement new weapons, which is why we already see them not make any weapons for previous content.

But those aren't what we originally talked about and they seem quite happy to keep adding more and more jobs to their own detriment (and the detriment of the 4 people responsible for designing the job gameplay) every expansion.
If it's really that much extra work then maybe they should just...idk, stop adding 2 new jobs every 2 years? But we all know they won't, because new sparkly particle effects sell pre-orders.

[Rufalus]

Yeah you're right, I could've conflated some things in my interpretation. Racial stuff probably isn't a big contributor to the burden of creating patch items.

[Elissar]

There is a reason why every oldschool hardcore mmorpg flatlined...

[Larirawiel]

I don't doubt that it could be done faster, but it isn't. At least that's the reason Yoshida gave, that it was only a matter of time before patches slowed down because they are creating a greater number of items than ever before, with more permutations adjusted by hand.

I am sure, that they have automated tools to solve those permutations. And they could get rid of this problem if their game engine would implement a physics engine. A physics engine would also solve many clipping errors and would provide better clothes- and hair animations.

Soon they will add female Hrothgar and increase the number of jobs to 22. Before Hroth and Viera were added they weren't planning on any more jobs because they were already stretched to capacity on the amount they could support in the 3.5 month patch cycle, but demand was enough that they caved in with the concession of skipping hats for those new races. They didn't want to add even more delays by tailoring all headgear to the new shape of those race's heads.

Yes, female Hrothgar will be an additional efford for them. But additional jobs not really. Because most items are role/class specific and not job specific. So if they do not implement a completely new class, nothing will really change with new jobs.

I guess, the new job specific quests need more effort than the items.



Cheers

[Jojoya]

I'm not defending, but I don't think that Covid and 1 dungeon per patch are even related. I'm fairly sure that 1 dungeon per patch was announced long before Covid. If memory serves me correctly it was actually announced before the launch of 5.0.

Correct. They told us that the resources that in the past would go toward the extra dungeons were being used to create new battle content instead. That content was the Critical Engagements for Bozja, which they described as being more complex to design than dungeon bosses when Bozja was opened.

[Supersnow845]

Correct. They told us that the resources that in the past would go toward the extra dungeons were being used to create new battle content instead. That content was the Critical Engagements for Bozja, which they described as being more complex to design than dungeon bosses when Bozja was opened.

Pls ignore when we did eureka, 2 ultimates and 2 dungeons per patch with more interesting and varied jobs and better raids back in stormblood

[Jojoya]

Pls ignore when we did eureka, 2 ultimates and 2 dungeons per patch with more interesting and varied jobs and better raids back in stormblood

The person I replied was only talking about the number of dungeons in Shadowbringers and why there were fewer compared to Stormblood.

I was confirming what they remembered.

The rest of what you list there is irrelevant to what the two of us were talking about. I'm sorry you couldn't figure that out.

You'd be better off bringing up those grievances in the other threads where you are already talking about them.