Reminder that SE lied about 4 month (16 week) patch cycles.

[TaleraRistain]

What we've seen more recently is 4 month and a couple extra weeks cycles based on month-to-month and not weeks

Just in the last couple, 7.1 was November 12th. 7.2 was March 25th. 7.3 will most likely be August 5th. That's 4 months and a couple extra weeks in both cases.

If every month had 4 weeks then that could be used as a measurement, but we've already had 3 months this year that had 5 (not counting very small partials like February 1st being on a Saturday). So when you look at it on the month cycle, it's much more regular minus an extra week or two here and there.

Also I work as a software developer and sprints are governed usually by when we need to release something but I wouldn't use those as gospel in regards to actual release dates. That's usually Marketing's territory.

[Jeeqbit]

If every month had 4 weeks then that could be used as a measurement, but we've already had 3 months this year that had 5

One thing I know all too well is that if you divide 52 weeks by 4, you get 13 months. Obviously, there are not 13 months. That's because the extra 3 days of some months accumulate to create an extra "28 day month" and that's something worth considering.

They also mentioned an extra week for testing purposes which I think gets overlooked due to the "4 month" headline they created. It would have probably worked better if they put 4.2 months in their slide at least.

[OlafQuintessa]

I think the over-extended patch cycles is a valid complaint. Patch 7.2 was March 25th, so 4 months on from that we should be getting 7.3 on July 25th, except it's not going to release then (unless they give us a nice surprise during the live letter and say "surprise! you can download it now!"). It'll be 1-2 weeks later in August. That wouldn't matter if the DT story had been fantastic and everyone was excited for the game, but the writing was poor, player numbers have dropped rapidly, and the recent content has had a fairly lukewarm response. Even Yoshi has said they need to earn back players' trust, and the CEO has acknowledged a drop in quality. So now's not the time to keep everyone waiting even longer between patch cycles. And a year's wait from 7.55 to 8.0 with player numbers possibly dropping to ARR levels would be abysmal! Surely they won't let that happen. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but they've fallen into a hole and unfortunately it's going to take a lot of work for them to get out of it. I am cheering for them though. I'd love for ffxiv's star to rise again and I hope the people running Square Enix do too.

If I had any suggestions it would be to do fewer things but do them very well, and get someone like George RR Martin to consult on the next story like they did for Elden Ring (or someone else who knows how to write and can give an external perspective). Somehow I feel like they left the writing of DT entirely to chance which was a big mistake. And there's no need to add any more jobs or races. Honestly I think there's plenty. I guess they might make the jobs more distinctive although that would be a low priority for me. Instead they could revisit old content but add scaling difficulty - faster cast times, larger health pools, more damage, more debuffs, an extra mechanic or two. Heck they could even go the other way and make baby ultimates with a tenth of the mechanics and let you scale up to full in 10 steps (assuming they could come up with some sort of modular fight design). I think I'd be okay with less stuff but better, with a shorter patch cycle.

[CapaxInfiniti]

Somehow I feel like they left the writing of DT entirely to chance which was a big mistake.

The writing in Dawntrail feels like it was outsourced entirely to people on Twitter/Bluesky.

[Catwho]

So coming from this from a software developer perspective:

For every one change made, you have to do two tests: what you changed, and anything that the thing that was changed interacts with. Thus, the more stuff they add to the system, the more testing they have to do with each patch cycle.

In practicality, this means a QA team member has to go through and recheck the OLD stuff too, not just the new stuff.

A lot of this can be done through automated testing - oh except every automated test still has to be manually coded for the new software development. (AI can't do it. It can help to some extent, but you still need someone trained in Selenium or Katalon or whatever automated test solution they are using to write out the test cases prior to the final QA check for go-live. (It fucking sucks and I hate it. So painful.)

When they only had ARR they could speed run through the MSQ as a functional test, and have their automated tests check every quest, every piece of gear, every NPC, etc, and probably knock out the automated tests in a few hours while the functional tests could be done in 1-2 days.

Today, with all the expansions, it probably takes four or five times as long for the automated tests, and a full friggin week for the functional tests. And that's for all the OLD things in the system!

You know what happens when they start skimping on functional testing with a dedicated QA department? Forked Tower happens. (Although their big failure on that was not from QA, but from the systems thinking people who failed to extrapolate that not all 48 people who wanted to do the content would be in the same instance together.)

ANYWAY, the solution to this is to either increase the amount of time QA takes (what they're doing now) - or to beg SE to let them expand the QA department, which it's pretty obvious to me needs to happen at this point.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Wow, didn't realize the pre-expansion wait times skyrocketed through the years.

What's going to be for 8.0... 45 weeks?

I was going to comment something similar. 39 week wait, and what we got was DawnTrail (ROFL!)

[Hallarem]

The writing in Dawntrail feels like it was outsourced entirely to people on Twitter/Bluesky.

It was just bad writers, following modern trends of "Everyone needs to be at peace and peaceful, together and happy" Same happened to World of WARCRAFT.

[yesnt]

The patch cycle isn't the problem.

You only notice the patch cycle length because you are bored. It doesn't even take a month after patchday to feel like "Okay, what now?"

Three months would feel better with the content they provide at the moment, but it would still be too long. People are bored, that is the problem.

Besides, Dawntrail was just not that good, so most of us can't wait to move on. They really baked a recipe for disaster here.

[Connor]

Dawntrail patches these days honestly have less of a shelf life than a fresh-caught fish lol. After just a few hours the lustre is gone, and all you’re left with is something dry and decayed.

[All_Nonsense]

It was just bad writers, following modern trends of "Everyone needs to be at peace and peaceful, together and happy" Same happened to World of WARCRAFT.

Did they ever end up fixing that or is WoW story still like that? Maybe FF14 is going through its WoW era