Everyone is praising the 5.5-month patch cycle!

[sindriiisgaming]

where has it been stated the patch cycyle was 5 months?
dec 3 - ENDWALKER
April 12 - 6.1 (4 months 1 week)
august 23 - 6.2 (4 months 1 week)
Jan 10 - 6.3 (4 months 2 weeks)
may 23 - 6.4 (4 months 1 week)
Oct 3 - 6.5 (4 months 1 week)

JUNE 28th - Dawntrail (8 months 3 weeks)

[genuine_stranger]

Ah yes. I too enjoyed "optimizing the fun" out of a mammet factoryworker foreman simulator in Island sanctuary. Another halfbaked unfinished product.

It wouldve been so easy to just upgrade it into instanced housing and getting rid of the mammets. But I guess you gotta keep those subs running.

I honestly don't know what they were thinking when they introduced the workshop is IS. This was bound to happen since there are rewards tied to it which allowed players to gain power / money.

IS is also kind of a missed opportunity to have a playground to level crafters and a farming sim settled in the FFXIV world coupled with instanced housing.
But we would need to get rid of the mammets, they kill the whole vibe.

[Hanayumi]

Always a lull post launch, they should really drop something long term like old relic grind at launch... But yeah Yoshi P usually gives devs a couple weeks after launch, pretty sure its been mentioned a few time, its whatever though been hoping back into Helldivers 2 with friends and were prolly gonna give Throne and Liberty a shot. Time and time again, FFXIV is just not ment for the gamer that has like 1/2 the day everyday to play. It very much caters to those that can just hop it every once in while. Prolly better to skip launch and hop in at the end of the expansion, like x.5, get all the content and you still have like 6+ months to do it all before next expansion...

[Raikai]

Always a lull post launch, they should really drop something long term like old relic grind at launch... But yeah Yoshi P usually gives devs a couple weeks after launch, pretty sure its been mentioned a few time, its whatever though been hoping back into Helldivers 2 with friends and were prolly gonna give Throne and Liberty a shot. Time and time again, FFXIV is just not ment for the gamer that has like 1/2 the day everyday to play. It very much caters to those that can just hop it every once in while. Prolly better to skip launch and hop in at the end of the expansion, like x.5, get all the content and you still have like 6+ months to do it all before next expansion...

Which is wild to me that they don't seem to care about player retention versus what the beginning of an expansion offers, especially now that the wait time for the first patch is longer. I know the launch can't (and probably shouldn't) be packed with everything they have planned, but I do agree that launch NEEDS an activity with a big shelf life, engagement potential and replayability, and one that ideally isn't just a boring grind.

XIV is the only game I play, and the only one I'm interested in - I'm not a fan of single player games, and I can only devote mental energy to one MMORPG at a time. I do have a very casual playing schedule (around 2h a day), and I want to have a good reason to log in and play.

[Hallarem]

Honestly if this game didnt have a sub, I wouldnt be complaining. Then they could serve whatever slop they wanted. But an MMO needs NEW things to keep it fresh and innovation. You can get away with serving the same ol' for a few cycles if everything works.

They need to stop this and make the open world matter, make gearing matter, make criterion matter and tune it for an actual dungeon experience, open up ALL the houses in the open world to make it feel alive. Different quest types.. hats... the list goes on and on and on and on.

[Khryseis_Astra]

XIV is the only game I play, and the only one I'm interested in - I'm not a fan of single player games, and I can only devote mental energy to one MMORPG at a time. I do have a very casual playing schedule (around 2h a day), and I want to have a good reason to log in and play.

XIV is my main game… every now and then I’ll try something else, but it never really holds my attention for long. That said, I did pick up XVI and as someone who hasn’t really been thrilled with the stand-alone games for awhile, I’m really enjoying it! It’s only “problem” is that I know if I start another big chunk of the story I’m going to want to finish it and I can’t stay up til 3 am every night, so I’ve been saving it for the weekends.

I’m usually in XIV for 4-5 hours a day, and most of the weekend. I enjoy the level grind of all the jobs each expansion. I do all the side quests as I’m leveling too, so I already have those completed, along with all my battle role quests. And there’s the new crafting role quests I haven’t gotten around to yet. But I’ve already done the sightseeing log, I have most of the TT cards except for a few stubborn ones that refuse to drop…

I do think it would be better to start the more repeatable content a bit earlier though, like maybe the exploratory zone, Cosmic Exploration or the variant dungeons. For the first two, maybe roll out the intro quests on expansion launch and then add the new content each patch. After MSQ and before the new Alliance raids come out, leveling jobs or Savage is really all there is to do until 7.1, and not everyone does that. And the 2 Extremes, but you either get your wings in a lucky roll or grind to get your 99 totems that you can’t even spend yet! (Which is ridiculous, but that’s another topic…)

Another thing would be to add more “lifestyle” content to do while you’re waiting for each patch… some suggestions for that would be some sort of popular NPC activities (example: meet up with each of the Scions for a different set of hang-out type activities), add a new housing district each expansion or finally add an instanced housing system so everyone who wants a home to decorate can have one, more mini games, etc.

My biggest issue lately has been the DDOS and its impact on queue times, as I finish up my last 2 dps. I don’t want to wait 20+ minutes for a roulette and then have myself or half my party DC, or lag so bad we have multiple wipes! Most people will experience that once and be done for the night, which is totally understandable.

Even so, I do find myself approaching the end of my to-do list earlier than I have in past expansions though… for me, once the new Alliance raids come out and I have new glam to grind for, it’ll start feeling better. But I’m all for adding more content. This is my favorite game so I’d love to have even more to do!

[Mapleine]

Feels like most of the budget for the game lately goes to Yoshi P traveling around, giving interviews that have no information or discussion in them. After XVI and Dawntrail I think the studio would be better served with a period of introspection.

XIV is starting to give off that vibe XI had after WoW had been out for a few years and the devs didn't have enough resources to compete so they gave up and just maintained what existed. I really hope we don't keep going down the same path of slow decay.

[Sotaris]

As they like to do 4 content patches and a lite 5th, it would not surprise me to see them go ahead and move it to 6 months for each patch as the game is 2.5 years between major updates. They would say that they need more time to do quality assurance, etc. Then they would put the x.x5 patch at the halfway point so they can say that they returned to the 3 month patch cycle of content release.

Will this really happen? Not sure, but it would address the gap of 9 months of no content between major updates at the end of the patch cycle. This would really suck for raiders as each raid would come out every year and maintaining a static over such time periods would be difficult.

Hypothetical Calendar
7.0 - Releases in July 2024
7.05 - Releases in October 2024
7.1 - Releases in January 2025
7.15 - Releases in April 2025
7.2 - Releases in July 2025
7.25 - Releases in October 2025
7.3 - Releases in January 2026
7.35 - Releases in April 2026
7.4 - Releases in July 2026
7.45 - Releases in September 2026
7.5 - Releases November 2026
8.0 - Releases in January of 2027

The smaller gaps in the patches at the end is to hype up things to get things alive again prior to the major release.

I hope 7.1 is released much earlier than january. That'd be 6 months + since 7.0 release.

I'm currently subbed and expires in Oct, but I haven't played since august, if 7.1 isn't slated for a release soon I will probably not renew it and just continue playing FF11.

[Maltothoris]

Correction on the patch release, 7.05 came out 4 weeks after the release date of 7.0 which was the 30th. However, I think the longer patch cycle rears its ugly head in x.5 which is double the time of the normal launch schedule before the next expansion. Ideally this next patch should be coming out late October at this point but that would make it 4.5 comparatively speaking.

[Jeeqbit]

Can you explain to me a single piece of content that’s not savage or harder that was introduced in EW that was meant to take weeks or months

Victor grind, FATE mount grind, potentially Eureka Orthos solo, treasure map reward farm, Island Sanctuary mount grinds (literally still doing the vouchers), leveling all jobs to 90 (usually takes me several days of roulettes at least per job), Series PvP rewards.