Okay, big changes take time. However.

[Gramul]

You can only ask your customers to be patient for so long before they just absolutely don't care anymore.

The good thing about games like this is that you can come back later. Whenever the game does update, it won't really matter so much how long it took because it will be done.

If you're bored with the game, leave. It will help to encourage them to work faster and smarter. Come back when the game has something to interest you. Vote with your attendance.

[Rentahamster]

Because most of the "content" that can be added require the "battle" changes to be made first? And that new armor, gear, etc. may come from battle related content as well.

The OP is talking about stuff that can be improved on that doesn't have to wait for the battle changes.

Why on earth is there not about 25 different new hairstyles for every race, a female highland hyur, "Final Fantasy" looking armor and clothing, new spell art, etc etc etc? None of this has anything to do with their precious battle system. IMO the least they could do is throw us a pretty graphical bone every once in awhile, and I'm not referring to the "99 cent discount stickers" they consider to be aggro markers.

Don't need a new battle system for new haristyles or armor colors or spell effects.

Let's take those high teir NM's for example. Remember how many party members were initially able to fight against them? And then some of the "battle" changes turned the max party members to 8 instead of 15. Guess what? They had to re-do the stats to the NM's, amount of mobs that pop with Dodore, etc.

Actually, the game would be better off if they hadn't nerfed the NMs and just left them alone. 8-man parties pre-patch could take out all the NMs, and some could even be soloed. Now, they're even easier to kill.

[RedFox]

The good thing about games like this is that you can come back later. Whenever the game does update, it won't really matter so much how long it took because it will be done.

If you're bored with the game, leave. It will help to encourage them to work faster and smarter. Come back when the game has something to interest you. Vote with your attendance.

I'm pretty sure my comment has nothing to do with how fast they work. I didn't once say I was going to quit.. all I did was say i'm tired of hearing excuses. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would agree.

[Joe_Cool]

The OP is talking about stuff that can be improved on that doesn't have to wait for the battle changes.

I was referring to the OP's "what I don't understand is why we have had to sit here for three months without anything truly substancial happening in the game." statement.

I understand about the art work and such, but OP said "truly substancial happening in the game" in the above statement so I kind of took that to mean beefy content in the game. My apologies if I just misunderstood.

[Kiara]

Where the heck is the art department? Busy re-sizing fireballs and rodents? Why on earth is there not about 25 different new hairstyles for every race, a female highland hyur, "Final Fantasy" looking armor and clothing, new spell art, etc etc etc? None of this has anything to do with their precious battle system. IMO the least they could do is throw us a pretty graphical bone every once in awhile, and I'm not referring to the "99 cent discount stickers" they consider to be aggro markers.

Hi Alexis,

Sure it may seem frustrating, but it absolutely is possible that every sub-team is working on Patch 1.18, 1.19 and the major overhaul happening.

You ask "where the heck is the art department?"

How about making the R30 Thousand Maws of Toto-rak Dungeon and the R50 The Dzemael Darkhold Dungeon?

How about making the Bosses and additional creatures for these 2 new Raids?

How about making the new Rewards that come from the Dungeons and the Grand Companies?

How about working on the Frontier Quest Hubs that Yoshida-san talked about in his previous Letters?

How about working on the Beastmen Strongholds he's been talking about?

How about working on the Ifrit Boss Battle / Quest?

How about the planning and starting concepts and building the Major Map Reorganizations already mentioned in the "1 to 50 Zone" Thread?

These are only some of the items the Art Department could be working on.

The Programming Sub-Team is probably working on the actual Battle System Overhaul, along with Server Side stuff (as we hear so often about), and numerous other items.

The Animation Sub-Team is working on those revised Weaponskills mentioned (e.g., the new Chaos Thrust) and animating the Bosses (and possibly other new creatures). But even if that was all they were working on, they can't blindly Animate without the Battle System being finalized; knowing the pace of the new Combat System. How many Frames should each Attack take? What Skills are being adjusted / changed / removed / etc.

The Design Team, well they're buried at the heart of all these major changes, from the fundamental overhaul and redesign of pretty much everything about FF XIV (from Combat Systems to Grand Companies, to how Mounts are going to work, to planning the major Map Revamp as promised in the "1 to 50 Zone" Thread) and much more.

You saw the detailed Table of upcoming items in the last last Producer Letter.

Asking them to throw you a "bone" and give you "25 different new hairstyles for every race"... Really?! You think the Art Department is just sitting around doing nothing? (see above.)

And let's say they *did* give you your 25 New Hairstyles. Guess what? We'd get about ~20 new Threads on the Forums with people flaming Team Yoshida for that:

Angry Player A, "Uh, WTH?! are they doing? We want REAL CONTENT, not 25 New Hairstyles?! This is dumber than scaling up the monsters in the world! What a waste of time!" (~_~)

Yes, we all want New Content NOW!!!, but it's not ready. Overhauling a game is more than just making content, it requires a period of seeming no-activity, where they have to plan, design, and vette all the major system changes; see how all of that works together; and then start to do concepts for them, and then dive into actual implementation, and revisions and testing and more revisions to make sure it's done right.

Time will tell if it was worth the wait, but for now the best we can do is wait until it's ready.

[Joe_Cool]

Nice post Kiara

[Physic]

Hi Alexis,

Sure it may seem frustrating, but it absolutely is possible that every sub-team is working on Patch 1.18, 1.19 and the major overhaul happening.

You ask "where the heck is the art department?"

How about making the R30 Thousand Maws of Toto-rak Dungeon and the R50 The Dzemael Darkhold Dungeon?

How about making the Bosses and additional creatures for these 2 new Raids?

How about making the new Rewards that come from the Dungeons and the Grand Companies?

How about working on the Frontier Quest Hubs that Yoshida-san talked about in his previous Letters?

How about working on the Beastmen Strongholds he's been talking about?

How about working on the Ifrit Boss Battle / Quest?

How about the planning and starting concepts and building the Major Map Reorganizations already mentioned in the "1 to 50 Zone" Thread?

These are only some of the items the Art Department could be working on.

The Programming Sub-Team is probably working on the actual Battle System Overhaul, along with Server Side stuff (as we hear so often about), and numerous other items.

The Animation Sub-Team is working on those revised Weaponskills mentioned (e.g., the new Chaos Thrust) and animating the Bosses (and possibly other new creatures). But even if that was all they were working on, they can't blindly Animate without the Battle System being finalized; knowing the pace of the new Combat System. How many Frames should each Attack take? What Skills are being adjusted / changed / removed / etc.

The Design Team, well they're buried at the heart of all these major changes, from the fundamental overhaul and redesign of pretty much everything about FF XIV (from Combat Systems to Grand Companies, to how Mounts are going to work, to planning the major Map Revamp as promised in the "1 to 50 Zone" Thread) and much more.

You saw the detailed Table of upcoming items in the last last Producer Letter.

Asking them to throw you a "bone" and give you "25 different new hairstyles for every race"... Really?! You think the Art Department is just sitting around doing nothing? (see above.)

And let's say they *did* give you your 25 New Hairstyles. Guess what? We'd get about ~20 new Threads on the Forums with people flaming Team Yoshida for that:

Angry Player A, "Uh, WTH?! are they doing? We want REAL CONTENT, not 25 New Hairstyles?! This is dumber than scaling up the monsters in the world! What a waste of time!" (~_~)

Yes, we all want New Content NOW!!!, but it's not ready. Overhauling a game is more than just making content, it requires a period of seeming no-activity, where they have to plan, design, and vette all the major system changes; see how all of that works together; and then start to do concepts for them, and then dive into actual implementation, and revisions and testing and more revisions to make sure it's done right.

Time will tell if it was worth the wait, but for now the best we can do is wait until it's ready.

in all honesty i think the art team is either not there, working on this project, or the stuff they are working on is being saved for the official rerelease, because they had new hairstyles modeled the day the game came out. They have chocobos already, and they have animations for them running/walking etc. They have armor sets in game they have never used, or use only for testing. I doubt anything that we have gotten since the game came out is newly designed. They already have so much stuff they havent even used. So what is the art department doing now? we will probably never know.

[Seif]

I'd love to work at SE's art department. Log in for work -->twiddle thumbs for a year until the battle system is half-finished.

Actually that would be as boring as hell and I wouldn't change my "These 3 levels need to be DONE by the end of the week I don't care if your granny died get it DONE!"-days for just sitting around.

Also LOL at people thinking new haircuts need to be optimized for new game mechanics XD

Also I don't know if anybody here cares for reasoning based on facts but those hair movements are automatic and require no other work than IK restraints in their bone rig. I assume the whole thing takes about 4 to 5 hrs from even a mediocre 3d modeler to finish. I'm not trying to discredit their artistic value here personally I think these hairstyles visually look absolutely spectacular and they truly look like they were modeled precisely the way A. Yoshida usually draws hair. His environment work might be bland (ok it's really bland) but the character designs are amazing.

I just wish there was more of that goodness to look at and with dynamic color options only a few more hairstyles would greatly vary the looks of the population.

I know it's a lot to ask but does every new piece of gear they announce have to be a palette swap of old stuff? Also if it absolutely has to be that way due to the artist's busy thumb-twiddling schedule can they at the very least be something else than 10289 shades of brown? I'm not asking for a 90's disco outfit here just a little bit of color.

[LateReg]

Hi Alexis,

Sure it may seem frustrating, but it absolutely is possible that every sub-team is working on Patch 1.18, 1.19 and the major overhaul happening.

You ask "where the heck is the art department?"

How about making the R30 Thousand Maws of Toto-rak Dungeon and the R50 The Dzemael Darkhold Dungeon?

How about making the Bosses and additional creatures for these 2 new Raids?

How about making the new Rewards that come from the Dungeons and the Grand Companies?

How about working on the Frontier Quest Hubs that Yoshida-san talked about in his previous Letters?

How about working on the Beastmen Strongholds he's been talking about?

How about working on the Ifrit Boss Battle / Quest?

How about the planning and starting concepts and building the Major Map Reorganizations already mentioned in the "1 to 50 Zone" Thread?

These are only some of the items the Art Department could be working on.

The Programming Sub-Team is probably working on the actual Battle System Overhaul, along with Server Side stuff (as we hear so often about), and numerous other items.

The Animation Sub-Team is working on those revised Weaponskills mentioned (e.g., the new Chaos Thrust) and animating the Bosses (and possibly other new creatures). But even if that was all they were working on, they can't blindly Animate without the Battle System being finalized; knowing the pace of the new Combat System. How many Frames should each Attack take? What Skills are being adjusted / changed / removed / etc.

The Design Team, well they're buried at the heart of all these major changes, from the fundamental overhaul and redesign of pretty much everything about FF XIV (from Combat Systems to Grand Companies, to how Mounts are going to work, to planning the major Map Revamp as promised in the "1 to 50 Zone" Thread) and much more.

You saw the detailed Table of upcoming items in the last last Producer Letter.

Asking them to throw you a "bone" and give you "25 different new hairstyles for every race"... Really?! You think the Art Department is just sitting around doing nothing? (see above.)

And let's say they *did* give you your 25 New Hairstyles. Guess what? We'd get about ~20 new Threads on the Forums with people flaming Team Yoshida for that:

Angry Player A, "Uh, WTH?! are they doing? We want REAL CONTENT, not 25 New Hairstyles?! This is dumber than scaling up the monsters in the world! What a waste of time!" (~_~)

Yes, we all want New Content NOW!!!, but it's not ready. Overhauling a game is more than just making content, it requires a period of seeming no-activity, where they have to plan, design, and vette all the major system changes; see how all of that works together; and then start to do concepts for them, and then dive into actual implementation, and revisions and testing and more revisions to make sure it's done right.

Time will tell if it was worth the wait, but for now the best we can do is wait until it's ready.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

For starters, 80% of the things you mentioned they could be doing have been in the game's data (on your computer) since release, and you can hack your way into them now if you wanted.

As for the other 20%, you really think it takes 7 months to make some smallish maps for a boss battle and to revise some weapon skill effects?

Come on...

[Gramul]

I'm pretty sure my comment has nothing to do with how fast they work. I didn't once say I was going to quit.. all I did was say I'm tired of hearing excuses. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would agree.

It's just a suggestion. Not meant to sound mean spirited, so I'm sorry if I come off that way.
I mean, if you're tired of waiting, why worry about it? Just take a break, do something else till they get to the good stuff.