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

[Striker44]

Critique: FFXVI's production has negatively impacted XIV.
Typical Response: No, it hasn't! XVI has no impact on XIV!

Critique: FFXIV isn't making as much content as it should be.
Typical Response: But they are/were busy working on XVI! Of course they can't make as much as they used to!

Which one is it?

(Just to clarify, I'm not calling you specifically a hypocrite, I'm pointing out how no one can seem to consistently agree whether FFXVI impacted XIV development)

Depends, is it the same people making both responses? That's like saying they make exploratory zones for the relic, and people complain and want it simpler. Then they do tomestones for the relic, and people still complain and want it more complex. But...it's two completely different sets of people making the complaints in each case.

[Syln]

what would be the new excuse when 7.x is 5-month-per-patch i wonder

"So since the addition of the female Hrotgar, we decided to create a new technology called the "furry ears spatial sound" to simulate how cat experience sound, since it added a tremendous amount of work, "major" patch will be every 5 months from now on and even after we'll be done with it, please look forward to it !

or

We decided to move part of our team to different project (mogstation) to diversify our income venue (mogstation) and having more resources to further develop (the mOgSTatIon) the game, thus, we had to make the hard decision to switch our patch schedule to a 5 months cycle (eventually 5.5 months before the end of current expansion) you're welcome please look forward to it and don't forget to buy that pumpkin mount we will release 2 week before the "not Halloween at all" event o/

[Naraku_Diabolos]

All of you do realize that putting Dawntrail as a summer 2024 release is a hard reset for their expansion launches, right? Past expansions came out in the summer. The Pandemic had delayed everything. Then we had patches getting delays along with Endwalker being released in the beginning of September. Plus Dawntrail is packed with more content than past expansions (this includes Dawntrail’s patches), also including the graphical upgrades.

This is just a troll thread by Koros and should never be taken seriously. He’s an RMT person who just spams the forums to rile people up and bait them.

[ThaCa]

It wouldn't be so bad if the game had more replayable pvp content like CC and Mahjong. They are at least decent despite issues but heavily lack rewards.

[Jojoya]

Critique: FFXVI's production has negatively impacted XIV.
Typical Response: No, it hasn't! XVI has no impact on XIV!

Critique: FFXIV isn't making as much content as it should be.
Typical Response: But they are/were busy working on XVI! Of course they can't make as much as they used to!

Which one is it?

(Just to clarify, I'm not calling you specifically a hypocrite, I'm pointing out how no one can seem to consistently agree whether FFXVI impacted XIV development)

Everyone is playing a guessing game about how CBU III is structured. There are obviously shared elements (YoshiP, Soken) but most of the developers assigned to the unit seem to be working on only one of the two games.

I don't think overall quantity of content has been impacted though players preferring certain content might have felt an impact as resources were reallocated to other content.

Quality? That probably depends on how one felt about HW game design since many of the HW devs were moved to work on XVI.

Personally I don't think current issues with XIV have anything to do with XVI. Job design aside (it's own problem), I think a lot of what's falling flat is because they've smashed 2 expansions worth story and content related to that story into a single expansion at the same time they're trying to remake the game for 7.0 with new story and new design philosophy (not MMORPG but RPG to be played solo or with friends).

what would be the new excuse when 7.x is 5-month-per-patch i wonder

Like my grandmother used to say, don't borrow trouble. Let's wait to see what actually happens.

I don't have a problem with a 5 month cycle. Still a lot better than many WoW patch cycles were like when I was playing it (and they had a lot more developers working on WoW than XIV has). Good ol' patch 6.1 - a 6 month wait to get the selfie-cam with Twitter integration and a jukebox for the Garrison.

[Absurdity]

All of you do realize that putting Dawntrail as a summer 2024 release is a hard reset for their expansion launches, right? Past expansions came out in the summer. The Pandemic had delayed everything. Then we had patches getting delays along with Endwalker being released in the beginning of September. Plus Dawntrail is packed with more content than past expansions (this includes Dawntrail’s patches), also including the graphical upgrades.

This is just a troll thread by Koros and should never be taken seriously. He’s an RMT person who just spams the forums to rile people up and bait them.

That expansion which we know basically nothing about yet will totally have more content than every previous expansion, when nothing so far even remotely indicates that they will change their usual content delivery.

-Source: Trust me bro


Whether Koros is another TitanMen alt or just here to rile people up doesn't even matter.
The sentiment that Endwalker has not only had longer delays between patches (with no pandemic excuse this time) but those patches have also been disappointing is evidently shared by more people.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

-Source: Trust me bro

Many streamers and articles online have gathered information from Yoshida’s interviews at Fan Fest that have stated so.

[Absurdity]

Many streamers and articles online have gathered information from Yoshida’s interviews at Fan Fest that have stated so.

You mean like how they hyped up Island Sanctuary, which turned out to just be Farmville but with more Excel spreadsheets?

[Nizzi]

Many streamers and articles online have gathered information from Yoshida’s interviews at Fan Fest that have stated so.

The same guy who said "going forward, no expenses spared for Final Fantasy XIV" right before Endwalker came out is telling you that this is the biggest expansion yet and is totally going to have more content than ever before? It must be true!

His job in interviews is to build hype and sell a product, not tell the truth, as we've seen many times before.

[Renathras]

We had 2 Ultimates, Trial series being integrated into the MSQ, a new Deep Dungeon, 2 new pieces of content that's constantly getting updated, PvP rework, old msq dungeons being Duty Supported for new players.

Tell me where the mediocrity is? Oh the fact that Bozja and the Shb relic had you waste so much of your time...

I was with you until exactly here. I don't disagree with your overall point that ShB gets treated with more deference than it should, but I've always liked Eureka and Bozja content precisely BECAUSE I can spend a while on it. It makes it good "fallback" content late in patches when I've gone through all the other patch content. That's why I think such things are valuable.

Contrary to you, I think grinds are the joy of this content, especially when it happens in the Exploration Zone so people can hang out and vibe together. It's OPTIONAL content, so it's okay if it takes a page from old school MMOs. The point is to have something shiny to glam with (and usually other things you can get along the way) that you can waste time in just chillin' and working at your own pace or falling back on when you've done everything else the latest patch has to offer. For people that don't want to grind...well...you aren't the target audience? If you're the type to run Savage and then raidlog in Limsa or cancel your sub until the next patch, the content is probably not made for you.

Not all content in the game is for everyone. I don't run Ultimates. I RARELY run Savages. I run Extremes fairly often, but this expansion haven't done that many of those.

...and that's fine. That content is for the people that want it, just as Exploration Zones are for the people that want IT. I don't get this idea that Exploration Zones aren't allowed because some people don't like them. If "everyone has to like it" is the rule, there'd literally be no content because even MSQ, the thing most done by the playerbase (something like 70%), isn't liked by everyone. There's literally NO content that could pass that "standard".

The only real issue I had with it is that it was often more efficient to gather the parts outside of Bozja. I think it should be possible to get the Relic outside of the Exploration Zones (for people that don't like EZs [heh, ironically counter-reality abbreviation...]), but I don't think it should be FAR MORE EFFICIENT to do so. Though I'd also like to note 6 Antitower runs takes less time and is less grindy than getting 1500 tomes is now. So of all the steps to complain about, you complained about the least grindy one that is arguably the least grindy single step of any Relic in FFXIV's history INCLUDING the current one?

It always had separate story, so instead of trial + MSQ we get MSQ only.

I'm a bit confused about this. We never got MORE Trials. So we're getting the same amount of battle content, making this an odd critique to me.

If you mean "more story", a lot of the "more story" has been hit and miss.

Notwithstanding that at least one Trial in each tended to be part of the MSQ post-X.0 (Shiva I believe, Nidhogg, Tsuyu, and Warrior of Light were)...

ARR: You're sent to kill more Primals by Urianger in the Waking Sands...and that's it. There's no additional story to any of the base ones, with Leviathan and Ramuh and Moogle Mog basically being extensions of the MSQ storybeat of Beast Tribes summoning. Shiva kind of set up HW, but I think her story WAS part of the MSQ. It's been a while so I don't remember. Odin was just kinda...there, and reused some assets from the existing FATE anyway. Because there was literally a FATE of him. I'd be like if Ixion was the last Trial in SB. Oh, and a couple of extras from Hilde. 3, to be exact, Big Bridge, Dragon's Neck, and Big Keep. Oh, and the Relic related Chimera and Hydra.

HW: Waring Triad was an interesting enough story, but pretty thin gruel considering. We got to hang out with Krile some and meet Unu, so that was cool, but we learned RELATIVELY little information and there were no long-term lore implications. Nidhogg was not only part of the MSQ but was the culmination of the entire Dragonsong story. Don't remember if Hilde had another Trail for us in HW. For some reason I don't THINK that it did...but I'd have to check.

SB: The one where the extra Trials were never interesting to me. At no point did I find the Four Lords story interesting. Maybe if I was more versed in Eastern/Oriental lore, but I'm not. So there are these animals that somehow awaken and then live for thousands of years, but become beasts if they succumb to their emotions, so the answer is...to have them succumb to their emotions and then beat them senseless. Okay, fine. Oh, and one of them thinks we're hear ancient lover who died a thousand years ago. In fact, BECAUSE these were so disconnected from the MSQ is probably the reason this is my single least favorite Trial series. There were no real stakes in terms of the story. Maybe they'd go on a rampage - eventually - and someone else - probably a small army of Samurai - would put them down. Wooooo. No story connection, no lore expansion (Warring Triad at least went into some lore about Merycidia, the Echo, and even the Thirteenth). There was nothing interesting about them, and I more felt relief at having the checkbox once they were done than anything. The fights were okay, it was just I had no real INTEREST in them. And of course we have a rematch with Gil-er, "Yojimbo". Also had The Great Hunt, though that was weird and not like...normal...Trials/Extremes.

ShB: Again we have a MSQ Trial in 5.3 in WoL. While not the culmination of the story in the way Nidhogg was, it was kind of the "Scouring of the Shire" epilogue that tied everything together after the main events that preceded it. We got two bonus Trials, one of which was tied directly to the Exploration Zone (Varis as Cid's suppressed memory mechanism stand-in of his father) and the Sorrows of Wyrlyt story, which is the first time that a completely stand-alone Trial series actually had a REALLY GOOD story that had a pretty satisfying ending (and touching epilogue with Tataru's Grand Endeavor in EW) that COULD also have future lore implications as well. No Hilde, no Hilde Trial(s).

EW: This is the first time not just one post-X.0 Trail has had story involvement, rather all of them have done so (though...I think I heard something about a bonus Trail at Fanfest that I guess may come in 4.5? Possibly as part of Hilde...). With no exploration zone, there have been no Exploration Zone related Trials, and with not being ARR, no Relic related Trials, and despite heavily featuring Hildebrand, no Hilde related Trials. So...yeah.

I think it's less "no independent story" (as ShB was literally the only one to do that really well) and more a far lesser number of total Trials to date. In 6.5 we'll probably get ZerEx, and in 6.55, we MAY get whatever that mystery Trial is, but that will probably be it. Man, Island Sanctuary and Criterion REALLY taxed the budget. I mean, I guess you could call some of those fights up there, but...different audience, I think. Criterion Savage is more for Savage people that want smaller group content, not for the midcore types that typically do Extremes.

It's like EW has been "the expansion without midcore content".