Thread: Concerns about Content Patch 2.1

Originally Posted by Camate

Hello,

We’ve been seeing comments asking why we cannot make certain changes or fixes quicker as opposed to waiting for 2.1.

When it comes to bug fixes that have been reported and replicated by the QA team as well as changes and adjustments that are requested, the development team makes these change or fixes which are then tested by QA for stability. For each change and bug fix that is made, the team confirms that the rest of the game is unaffected and that server crashes or other issues do not take place.

FFXIV is being developed by a branch-development method, where there is a group working on patch 2.1 while 2.0 is running. Critical bugs that severely affect play, which have been confirmed and replicated, are addressed in the shortest amount of time as possible. Changes designed off of feedback, that also have large effects on the entire game, are ultimately implemented on a schedule decided by the Producer/Director Yoshi-P.

Additionally, the QA team checks and ensures all fixes and changes are stable on both the Windows and PS3 versions. These checks are consolidated and performed when major updates are scheduled.

To thoroughly address each concern, we are unable to perform fixes and changes for everything immediately, and as a result some changes are addressed with major patches and updates. We appreciate your understanding in regards to this.

Hence why doing smaller more consistent patches are better to help retain players and faster to bug test.

While the 2.1 patch looks good and the player housing that will follow likely in 2.2 looks good too, you are relying on this constant grind mentality to retain your player base. Hence why I said:

Originally Posted by Taemek

I would like to suggest that they release the smaller content upgrades i.e. Extreme Primals, Hard mode Dungeons & their Daily Quest Factions (Wolves Den, Beast Tribe and Treasure Hunt) before the release of 2.1 and then focus all their attention on 2.1 and maybe even putting housing in to 2.1 to replace these from being added to the game earlier.

Your extreme Primals are copy/paste of the orginal primals with some new abilities thrown in and a different damage scale which is automatically calculated upon a set parameter which is predetermined by your Dev team. These bug tests are able to be in isolated instances in house and have no direct effect once applied as the primal fights themselves are housed on separate servers, again, isolating any issues of *breaking* things.

Hard Mode Dungeons, yet again as above, isolated to separate servers.

The only remote thing in my suggestion that might break something is the implementation of the Factions as I am assuming this will be done in the persistent world and not instanced or maybe a mixture of both.

All in all, bug testing is part and parcel of releasing new content. You can't use this as an excuse or as smoke and mirrors routine to cover up the fact that people are starting to get bored of the current content that is very limited once you have even 2 level 50 Job roles or 1 level 50 crafter and 1 level 50 gatherer.

Your post, while I appreciate you posting here, has nothing really directly related to what I am addressing in the OP. We are not talking about fixes or changes that effect us immediately. We are talking about separating large content based patches down to a more executable size in a more trivial timeframe and using your exact example, how are you so sure that your bug testing teams will have successfully cleared the 2.1 patch before the New Year with a launch date of mid December like has been said by Yoshi? If bugs still exists as you pointed out, content will be pushed back and the bigger the patch the longer it takes to bug test.

Let me point out one last thing here:

Yoshi said Player housing would be in 2.1, got pushed back to 2.2 and you went with FC housing in 2.1 instead, with a limited amount of building lots, which makes no sense.
Yoshi said Warriors were fine and people needed more time to learn how to play them, then realized there was an issue and they are getting addressed in 2.1.
Yoshi said less then 100 people would have cleared Coil by time 2.1 is out, my last check on guilds who have done it coupled with the achievement count on the database indicates a lot more then 100 people have cleared Coil now.

Anyone else seeing a trend with Yoshi's predictions? Granted not everything always goes to plan, I can accept that. What I can't accept is watching people quit the game daily while nothing gets done when there can damn well something be done to retain them simply because they are bored of the same grind mentality.



Now for those who think they are all high and mighty, I did not level my first two job roles of Fates, why? Because I had two different characters which required the story line to be run on each one. Secondly, how many times do you expect people to re-run Dungeons? Please enlighten us on what you think a good figure is that justifies the grind on dungeons as seeing content? I have farmed 4 DL sets now across 2 characters, how much CM, Praet, WP and AK do I have to do? Do the math on how many dungeons this is.

Crafting is unfortunately, not for everyone and I for one would rather do something more constructive with my time then sit down and spam 1 or 2 buttons for hours on end while at the mercy of range that determines my success rate. If they had a more in-depth and intuitive crafting system that required skill to perform, sure I would be all over it. However, I am not a fan of the drone based crafting system, sorry. Gathering is a little bit more enjoyable, at least it requires interaction with mobs and other variables that come along the way, you even get to see the scenery of the game which is quite nice to look at.

Just to finish here, again, this is not an argument of casual vs. hardcore. It effects both players alike, some just more then others. Anyone who tries to justify peoples intentions here based off the notion that ethier people *rushed* to 50 have no idea what they are talking about, casual players have multiple 50's now, did they rush to 50 too? Or people still have content to do because they have 2 or 3 job roles at level 50 and no crafting class roles need to take a step back and think outside the box, people might have alts, not everyone wanted to level everything on one character.

I have to agree with the OP on this. These giant lump patches are no reason to withhold EVERY major change created for the game.

As several people have already posted there's no reason a right-click blist option couldn't have been added in the 2.05 hotfix or one of the many planned Monday night maintenances.

Then there's the thought: if the dev make some big breakthrough on a major bug like that nasty 0.3 lag or get some high coveted QoL feature like Vanity Slots 100% up and running, will they really just leave them digitally shelved for months until the "next big patch"? That just doesn't make any sense.