Quote Originally Posted by ForteNightshade View Post
As for the frustration. Some definitely thought XIV was just a WoW clone still, but others genuinely liked XIV. They simply became bored because XIV takes forever and a day to add new content.
I think that - that is the truth of it. Well said.

In 6.0 or was it... earlier half way through Shadowbringers they moved to a 4 month patch release cycle.
I think that's too long.

Things were comfier at a 3-month time window releasing content.

While I think we can all agree the content cadence needs to shift some boxes of content further left down the pipeline as in (more to do in the .1)

They extended the patch cycles the idea being to work on content but then they are releasing the same content they did in a 3 month window and stretching it for 4 months.

That's probably the issue here. Also, I think it's fair to say that when EW decided to forgo a fieldop, relic grind and Variant/Criterion while fun didn't have rewards it left people in this space where majority of what a patch had on offer you could get done in a weeks time if that.

So once we entered into DT. The reason 7.1 was so bad is it was operating as if we had just come off the heels of a Field op and a relic grind.
It makes sense in a universe where after an expansion grinding things you don't want to go into an expansion and immediately grind things.
The issue is... We didn't just leave a big grind. We left EW having nothing much to do... and while DT will have the relic grinds, Field ops content they moved it 10 months away from a year of no grinding.

That's why it feels so long and drawn out.
If we stuck with the 3 month schedule granted it still would have sucked but we wouldn't probably have as many people going feral on the forums. This expansion I think was important then. It highlights the flaws in their release schedule.
Difference is the sentiment. I'm confident things will adapt and change as far as content is concerned. I can't mitigate the gripes people have about job design. I don't have much a problem with it - but I think what we've seen with Picto and Black Mage we should consider a baseline for what 8.0 is gonna look like ... unless 8.0 changes things SUPER drastically. Which in that case might be perceived as worse even if the changes do something completely different.