I think there is one huge, all encompassing, glaring problem with patch 1.18, and that is....

wait for it....


That an alarming number of people don't seem to understand/grasp what it is.


People seem to be under the impression it was the end all fix all for the big problems with the game. That after this patch, the sky would be rose colored and they would be sucking ambrosia during the time they spent playing.


People seem to be in the mindset that patch 1.18 was supposed to the the goal of a long wait.


It wasn't.

It was never ment to be.

They never said it would be.

Hell they didn't even imply it would be.


Patch 1.18 is first and formost the BEGINING of the BEGINING.

Every patch previous to this one was pretty much a bunch of bandaids to keep the game together. Sure there were some nice gems in there. Tweaks to make things easier, changes to add basic needed functionality, even a few new monster models but not a whole lot of really substantial additions.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...st-Patch-Notes

Read those changes up.

Patch 1.18 is THE FIRST of the actual changes to the core of the game. Changes that they started planning for after the player polls were finished.

Q: Why is patch 1.18 not polished?
A: Because it ISN'T polish. It's foundation. They said that. How many of you have looked at the foundation of your houses? Is "polish" the first word that comes to mind?
Q: Why does patch 1.18 feel rushed?
A: If you are feeling this way, then you were expecting everything to be working perfectly. You were probably expecting all the changes they have been talking about to be in this one patch. Could they have done it all in one patch? Sure, maybe. That patch would have been in the end of September or so, but hey, no one would have minded the wait right? If they did rush, it's because we told them to.

It feels "rushed" because it's not "everything". Again, BEGINING
Q: Why is "X,Y,Z" class harder, weaker, different then it was?
A: Classes are not the final state of your character. Jobs are, and they are not in yet. Sure Jobs are built for parties, and Classes better for soloing, but until the job system is fully in place expect a large number of tweaks to classes in the mean time.
Q: Why is system "A,B,C" not working as smoothly as it can?
A: Auto Attack, Dungeons, Companies, New Levequest Rewards, Local Levequest skillpoints, Actionbar, Enmity, Weapon Delay, Quest Hubs, etc? Well that's because each of those things is either 1) brand new, or 2) gutted and re-designed. If you read the producers letters, you would notice that every time they talk about something being added or "introduced", they follow that up with saying that it will be enhanced, fleshed out, or adjusted in future patches. It was never promised to be all here right now.
Q: Why don't they just spend more money, add more people, etc. to do things faster?
A: Honestly I don't understand this question, and it makes it hard to answer. The only thing I can think of when I keep hearing this question is that the people asking it have never worked in a production environment. There is a point of saturation that you can hit when it come to creation. Sure one person isn't as fast as two when it come to making your meal at a fast food resturant, but if you add 50 people in there, you are not going to get super snappy service either.

Production/Development/Creation of complicated products require skill, understanding, and communication. Adding more people in there does not mean you are adding more skill. It does not mean those people are going to understand what is going on, and it definatly doesn't make communication between the whole team work better. Sure there are other things that go into it, but team communication is key. If you let that get congested by adding more bodies, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

If someone has some finacial briefs where it shows the FFXIV team is getting a throttled budget, please do share. Until then, saying that they don't have the backing to get the job done is 100% speculation that has no foundation.

The talent saturization point is something only the FFXIV team leads know when they have hit. Going over that not only is a waste of money, but more importantly time. Going over that slows things down, it doesn't speed things up.
Q: Why is/does/doesn't "Insert your other concerns here"?
A: It all comes back to this :

Patch 1.18 is the starting point, it was never the goal.
Did SE screw up with the game release? Yes

Did they admit it? Yes

Did they commit to making it enjoyable? Yes

Did they say it would be free until they felt it was at, or on it's way to being enjoyable? Yes

Have they started charging for it? NO

You may say they still took your money for the game, so they still owe you for it, but if they didn't release the game until it was at the point they are trying to get it to, then you would have paid that same amount then.

You can call it the post release beta if you want, but the fact remains that they are not finished yet. They are just getting started.