Thread: Patch 3.2 Trailer is Up

Originally Posted by Pomelo

The feast is the content swapped for a dungeon this time, as well as PVP ranking system and so on.

No it's not. PvP has its own development team, the PvE team gave us Diadem instead of 5 dungeons, or 2 dungeons, if 3.3 has something equally "ambitious". The PvP team working on Feast would not have taken away from any PvE content, if that were the case, 2.1 would have had 2 instead of 3, because that's when they added Wolves' Den, same thing for Secure and Slaughter. The guys working on PvP content were never working on PvE stuff and the team has been around since the start.

If anything, Stone, Sky, Sea, the Hall of the Novice, and the Mentor System are what's costing us our precious third pretty corridor to run through and do the exact same things in. If Diadem wasn't so bad, or they were at least making some significant changes to it, I could easily see it costing several dungeons; It is definitely large enough, and has plenty of unique enemies. If Diadem was getting a serious adjustment this patch, which it really should given how bad it is, then that would easily justify the cost of 2 dungeons.

The Feast absolutely isn't costing us that dungeon though. They added Wolves' Den, Secure, Slaughter and Seize, all without taking away a dungeon.

Originally Posted by Nalien

No it's not. PvP has its own development team.

I'm curious, has the Dev team discussed how they're structured? Some of their teams I've heard mention of before (like Localization), but I haven't heard anything about a dedicated PvP team. Do you have any references for this? I'd love to look it over.

Originally Posted by WellFooled

I'm curious, has the Dev team discussed how they're structured?

There have been some off hand comments over the years, but I'm far too lazy to go digging for them. From what I've gathered, we've got;

PvE team, which itself has some sub-teams (we've got specific references, like the people making Sephirot are the same who worked on Thordan and Titan).
PvP team, I believe this was mentioned around 2.1 when we were first getting PvP. Yoshida mentioned they had a whole separate team working on PvP.
Housing/Gold Saucer. This is more of an assumption, but there was a comment that Housing content was delayed because "the team was busy working on Gold Saucer" around 2.5.

I think we also have a team that makes Minions. Don't think that is their only role, but I recall a comment from Yoshida about how they just keep churning them out faster than they can find a way to put them in the game.

As far as PvP goes, I recall the comment being specifically aimed at concerns that SE can't do PvP. Yoshida assured players they had a whole team dedicated to making the content and working on balancing (where as FFXI was guilty of no such thing, they just allowed PvP with no attempt at balance, heck PvE in XI was horribly balanced). Still, given we got Wolves' Den, Secure, Slaughter and Seize with no cost to dungeons, one can assume the Feast would be no different. I believe Yoshida specifically said we'd only be getting two dungeons from now on so they can try new things. Feast is not a new thing, it is a continuation of what we've been getting since 2.1, something that was promised at 2.1 in fact (as far as Seasons/Leaderboards go). Diadem, Stone, Sky, Sea, Hall of the Novice, and Mentors are new things.

Originally Posted by Nalien

From what I've gathered, we've got;

I appreciate the answer, but without references it seems like there's too much guess work involved. There might be a team who's only job is PvP or maybe that team is the only one who works on PvP, but its one of their many jobs. Your recollection of Yoshi's statements seem like it could go either way, you know?

On another note, regardless of how they're structured you can be sure no one is doing nothing. The Development time that would have gone into a third dungeon is going into something, either in this patch, or upcoming updates. For example, its safe to assume the Devs are already working on the next expansion and probably have been since Heavensward launched, but all that work is something we won't even catch a glimpse of for months. I imagine they have people working on features in the next few patches and the next expansion all at the same time, so its hard for us on the outside to gauge where that Development time is going.