Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Laerune]

It'll probably drop after FanFest. Too many people would be upset if it dropped before.

We would've had a trailer for 3.4 by now if the patch was going to be released before October.

But untill now the patch was always released 1 or 2 weeks after the trailer was released, since we are getting 1 big patch every 3/4 months, it makes sense to expect the patch end of September, after the Tokyo Game Show and the trailer released middle of September in the same week as the Tokyo Game Show, which would be around the 16th of September.

[Kai_Lee]

Fanfest is oct 14,15 and if 3.4 drops after that is way to far. Plus dont we get some load down on 4.0 in fanfest. Be a bit much to drop 3.4 info and 4.0 info plus trailers for both in oct fanfest.

[Claymore65]

Very likely. Just saying that an October release would have generated a trailer a while ago to build up the hype.

There is going to be a live letter on August 26th, so we'll probably learn more information then: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...7efa7b8e37618c

The 14 Hour Anniversary broadcast will have a live letter concerning patch 3.4. It was described by the schedule as "Catch a glimpse of what's to come in the next patch with Patch 3.4 Preview Part 1". Like most Live Letters, it's supposed to last around an hour and a half. I don't know if we'll get a confirmed release date there, but we'll definitely get some closer hints as to its release.

My personal guess is 3.4 will be out before the FanFest, but that's only my best guess. Patches typically come out around every 3-4 months. 3.3 came out in early-mid June, so that puts 3.4 at approximately mid-late September. Once again though, that's only a guess.

[Ibi]

Here we go again...

We would've had a trailer for 3.4 by now if the patch was going to be released before October.

What?

• 3.1 Trailer released on 10/29/15, 3.1 went live on 11/9/15, ten days later.
• 3.2 Trailer released on 2/12/16, 3.2 went live on 2/22/16, ten days later.
• 3.3 Trailer released on 5/27/16, 3.3 went live on 6/6/16, ten days later.

If 3.4 was going to be an October release, we shouldn't be expecting a trailer any time in the next month.

It'll probably drop after FanFest. Too many people would be upset if it dropped before.

Not according to Yoshi-P:

We'll have patch 3.4, then announcements at the United States fan festival, then at the Tokyo fan festival.

Even setting that statement aside, here's the time frames of each patch:

• 2.0 > 2.1: 109 days / 15.6 weeks / 3.6 months
• 2.1 > 2.2: 102 days / 14.6 weeks / 3.4 months
• 2.2 > 2.3: 104 days / 14.9 weeks / 3.4 months
• 2.3 > 2.4: 112 days / 16 weeks / 3.7 months
• 2.4 > 2.5: 84 days / 12 weeks / 2.8 months
• 2.5 > 3.0: 154 days / 22 weeks / 5.1 months
• 3.0 > 3.1: 140 days / 20 weeks / 4.7 months
• 3.1 > 3.2: 105 days / 15 weeks / 3.5 months
• 3.2 > 3.3: 105 days / 15 weeks / 3.5 months

Even if you include the extended delay between 3.0 and 3.1 in the numbers (which was due to the staggered release of Alexander and the Development Team taking a vacation after the expansion's launch), we should anticipate 3.4 coming 15 or 16 weeks after 3.3, which would put it on either September 20th or 27th.

[Remus]

snip.

That would be perfect. FF15 isn't near there anymore

[Duelle]

I see this as the game's biggest problem -- endgame is too focused on eight-man raiding, which just isn't accessible to the masses.

I'll admit there's not much to be done on that end without scrapping the entire method of progression they current have set. You'd need to design all raids for 8 and 24-man teams, which in itself would not be hard. The problem comes with reward design and pacing. Should the 8-man version give better loot than the 24-man version? Should the 24-man version be the better version? Should both versions run under separate lockouts? This is the problem Blizzard ran into, since they eventually made both versions of a raid share the same lockout, and combined with unified rewards essentially killed 25-man raid teams.

This game has a great FC system, but there's really nothing you can actually do with your FC. There needs to be a greater connection between endgame events and FC participation. We need events that are accommodating to groups of variable sizes and abilities, where newer/more casual players can still participate in battles that still require skillful play by the more experienced players.

Something to consider would be FC bonuses for doing raids as an FC.

Raiding is so prohibitive because everyone must be perfect. For most people, the rapid-succession death train just isn't fun, and actually learning the fight scripts is incredibly difficult without a static (which many players don't have the time for).

This all depends on how the raid is tuned. This is largely why people have been asking for a middle ground in difficulty for stuff like Alexander instead of just Story Mode on one end of the spectrum and Savage on the other.

I'd love for SE to rethink it's approach to endgame and de-emphasize raiding. We need an endgame that is overall more inclusive.

Raiding works when the designs foster a raiding community. The problem is less about emphasis on raiding and more about how the devs have implemented raiding and the elements around it.

I'm not against a story mode at all. But when we compare current savage with Coil, the old system was ways better than what we have now.

Beside "we down it, because we want do down it" it had unique gear and an epic story you could only see, when you do the raid as it was. There is to much missing in Alexander Savage.

On Coil's story: The story was built up throughout the course of the whole leveling experience in ARR since everyone and their mother talked about the Calamity and Bahamut. This is a really big point in Coil's design because the story segues into Coil cleanly without quick introductions of new characters nor the raid popping out of nowhere. This is the major weakness of Alexander and why some people feel unimpressed by it, as the raid appears out of nowhere and sort of have to do it.

[Istaru]

I see this as the game's biggest problem -- endgame is too focused on eight-man raiding, which just isn't accessible to the masses.

This game has a great FC system, but there's really nothing you can actually do with your FC. There needs to be a greater connection between endgame events and FC participation. We need events that are accommodating to groups of variable sizes and abilities, where newer/more casual players can still participate in battles that still require skillful play by the more experienced players.

I would like to see something like Hamlet Defense return, even if they made it into something instanced to fit the current mode.

[Remus]

snip

That bothered me a bit how they hardly built up Alexander. If they don't do that it sort of hard to see him as a threat instead of another generic primal you need to beat.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

...
Raiding fails because players don't want to join a static imo... We need to be able to join those fights without being in a static, Raid finder was a good idea but nobody uses it.. i hope a datacenter-wide party finder function will help once its implemented

I, personally, don't feel like I'd want to join a static.
I feel it'd fit me better to just fill in when I'm available.

The idea of a static feels too much like a job to me.



That said, I'd like to try out these raids eventually.

[Duelle]

That bothered me a bit how they hardly built up Alexander. If they don't do that it sort of hard to see him as a threat instead of another generic primal you need to beat.

With the dragon vs man theme leading into the expansion, I half expected them to do dravanian strongholds or something as your raid tiers.