The Next Live Letter is on October 31st, which means 7.4 is likely mid December..

[CCheshire]

Emphasis on blind prog, which quickly dwindles in popularity in PF past week 1.

I know, but you can always make a blind prog static or your own PF listing for it in week 2. I've even seen blind prog parties for old Arcadian Raid Tier 1 on PF during the evening.

[caffe_macchiato]

Christmas is not as important as New Year Eve in Japan, heck Christmas is basically their Valentine's day.
It's a Japanese game first and foremost.

As far as I know, Japanese people visit KFC around Christmas, and that's basically their entire celebration of the holiday. It means little to them, so I could see it.

As others have said Christmas isn't as big of a deal as New Years is to Japan, so if they were going to pick one to interrupt it would be Christmas. Not to mention MANY people don't even celebrate Christmas too so it makes sense. The only ones that are going to retaliate are likely the NA crowd and some of the EU crowd.

Japan literally treats Christmas as mearly a day for people to give their loved ones sweets and treats and maybe have a small party while continuing to work.

Sony is Japanese.
SEGA is Japanese.
Nintendo is Japanese.
Stop infantilizing Japanese people. This is not a Japan problem. This is a Square Enix problem. You know, the same company that uses your sub fee to sell you remakes of games you already own? Square Enix is a laughing stock among its own investors.

Fact #1: the non-Japanese player base accounts for 2/3rds of this game’s subscriber count. Other directors know this. Yoshi-P knows this, which is why he wrote FF16. You do not need to submit to Glorious Nippon. You ARE important.

Fact #2: a raid on the evening of the 23rd in Japan time will cut in to plans on the 24th, which is an important day. For everyone including them. This is not disputable. It’s important for every other Japanese company.

If the patch schedule are not as described in the OP, it would be even more shameful for us as people are actively yearning for it to happen. I will be here next week to remind you all about how much you desperately wanted to raid on Christmas.

[Vrankyl]

Sony is Japanese.
SEGA is Japanese.
Nintendo is Japanese.
Stop infantilizing Japanese people. This is not a Japan problem. This is a Square Enix problem. You know, the same company that uses your sub fee to sell you remakes of games you already own? Square Enix is a laughing stock among its own investors.

Fact #1: the non-Japanese player base accounts for 2/3rds of this game’s subscriber count. Other directors know this. Yoshi-P knows this, which is why he wrote FF16. You do not need to submit to Glorious Nippon. You ARE important.

Fact #2: a raid on the evening of the 23rd in Japan time will cut in to plans on the 24th, which is an important day. For everyone including them. This is not disputable. It’s important for every other Japanese company.

If the patch schedule are not as described in the OP, it would be even more shameful for us as people are actively yearning for it to happen. I will be here next week to remind you all about how much you desperately wanted to raid on Christmas.

Have fun with that. I honestly don't care about Savage and don't want the rest of the stuff held because some people can't be bothered to wait because they have to go go go. I'm also not Christian so it being around Christmas wouldn't bother me if it did. And while the 24th is important in Japan it doesn't have the same meaning and doesn't result in the same level of celebration as it does here in the US. I should know. Lived there through a few Christmas celebrations.

Honestly, even bigger take? Regional and Religious holidays should not have an impact at all in determining services meant for world wide audiences so Christmas shouldn't even be a factor in determining the schedule beyond what days the devs are actually going to be working to be able to deploy things.

[Deedlit]

They've done it before.

[Asari5]

wont there be enough people who also miss the christmas days to raid?
you are not alone.

means there are still people who wanna do it blind after christmas

[Stasya]

Have fun with that. I honestly don't care about Savage and don't want the rest of the stuff held because some people can't be bothered to wait because they have to go go go. I'm also not Christian so it being around Christmas wouldn't bother me if it did. And while the 24th is important in Japan it doesn't have the same meaning and doesn't result in the same level of celebration as it does here in the US. I should know. Lived there through a few Christmas celebrations.

Honestly, even bigger take? Regional and Religious holidays should not have an impact at all in determining services meant for world wide audiences so Christmas shouldn't even be a factor in determining the schedule beyond what days the devs are actually going to be working to be able to deploy things.

Even bigger take? You go to blacklist and i suggest others to do same. Probably someone doesn't want their 30 minute story quest being delayed because christmas/new year....

[YumieYumiki]

Honestly whenever they release 7.4 it will set the date for 8.0

My guess is early January to help push 8.0 to the same window that Endwalker had.

I don't think it works like that. There's (probably) no rule carved in a stone tablet somewhere that says that the time between patches must be fixed. They probably aim for a consistent time frame (just like they aim for a major patch every 4 month) but if they need some more weeks for it to be ready or if they need to move it to avoid clashing with the release of some other major game they will probably adjust the release week accordingly.

[Jason_Ashford]

I’m betting that Patch 7.4 releases EARLY December. It’s more logical because they wouldn’t want the patch to coincide with a major holiday, regardless of whatever countries do or do not celebrate Christmas.

It would be nice if they released it earlier than anticipated, but history suggests they won't, if only because they are such sticklers for a release schedule that puts them at odds with major holidays

[Jason_Ashford]

Snip

it doesn't though. the entire reason why the schedule was shifted from 4 months exactly to 4.5 months was because Yoshi-p wanted the devs to have time to unwind during the summer and at Christmas, so having Savage drop 2 days before Christmas where there could be a major bug that could potentially go unaddressed for days is something i think they'd want to avoid.

[Jason_Ashford]

I have no idea why so many people seem to believe i suggested that they delay the 7.4 patch, but that is incorrect. I said If i were in Yoshi-P's place, i would either release 7.4 a week earlier than expected, or delay enabling savage by an extra week, so savage would become available on December 30th and people who want to blind prog savage week 1 can do so. Delaying savage by a week will not impact the release schedule because Savage already comes bundled with 7.4, it's just not enabled, much like how they add holiday content with a patch, but it's not enabled until a specific time. Yoshi-p decided to start doing that for the benefit of people who want to take their time doing the story content on patch day instead of rushing through it as fast as possible to start savage.