On Ultimate Off Ultimate

[HiroesX81]

Ultimate has been a good addition imo to odd numbered patches but today according to the Dengeki Interview they said that itd be on hiatus for the remainder of the expansion. Reasoning being and I quote:

Yoshida: We were originally planning to have an ultimate fight for each "odd numbered patch", but after observing the reactions from the community, there were a lot of opinions saying "Having an ultimate fight every 2 patches is too rough", so we changed our minds and thought 2 ultimate fights per expansion might be better, so i think the ultimate series will be on hiatus for now.

YoshiP, devs. is this really the case? for the past 2 weeks ive heard nothing but praise for this content. Can you clarify is it really community response? Now I understand that having an Ultimate before expac would be rough but surely there could be some content for HC raiders to do. I for one got really excited watching Ultimate prog and seeing people get hyped for it. This cant be the answer can it?

This is basically a fight that gets recycled assets and crafted in a way that makes it enjoyable for a portion of the playerbase looking for a better challenge. One that doesn't affect the game like Gordias and Midas did.

Do you, the community feel this is necessary? Can we offer some suggestions to compensate for this? Should Ultimate really be placed on Hiatus? I dont feel its right to do this but at the same time I want to know what the community thinks. Voice your opinion. Please be civil so that the devs will take this seriously.

I personally think either keep Ultimate for the odd numbered patch thats ( possibly ) left or add content that can offer that kind of difficulty but will also not take as many resources. I may not raid but I do enjoy the fact that theres content that can offer a challenge. I personally find Savage to be quite dull in comparison. Please excuse if my post has not been worded correctly and thank you for you time.

Edit1: I see a few posts that look like they are derailing a bit from the presented topic. If you dont agree that Ultimate is necessary then id like to ask people if they have any suggestions for HC content at 4.5 that might better replace it. The subject on Mythic style dungeons has come up alot in interviews before and also giving achievements for performing fights or dungeons with different ways or different skills. Are there any other ideas? Or perhaps if we do need to stick to 2 ultimates every expansion should they be given in the .1 and .5 patches or the .3 and .5? All suggestions are welcome. Please continue to be civil to eachother. Thank you!

[RiyahArp]

...does it matter? How many raiders have even beaten the first one, if not both?

[Elamys]

I think what they were trying to get at is that so few raiders even cleared Bahamut that there's no point pushing so many Ultimate fights each expansion.

[JunseiKei]

Community including every region. This section of the board houses a very small voice of the English speakers. SE has access to all feedback being sent in from them, even in game through statistics. Apparently, there's enough there to put Ultimate on pause.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

Theres finite resources and those fights take a lot I'd imagine. Making everyone cut back for a flashy fight 1% of players see and even less beat.

We are like what 2-3 dungeons short yea eureka apperently also caused delay but i feel like ultimate should happen in the middle of the expansion and just once.

Maybe ppl enjoy prog, its not for me tho. And im tired of all the drama ppl dig out over it.

Tl:dr why have 95% of players cut back so 1% can play it and 4% care to watch.

[RiyahArp]

Heh, you focus on that, but you missed this?

Certain 3rd party tools allowed players to capture and show the packets sent from the servers, earlier than they should be shown. (note: They are talking about 3rd party tools calling out Gaol targets in Ultimate before they even show up on the screen). However, they don't think it was that crucial of a problem, because that phase takes place early on in the battle.

To counter this in future content, they will need to add another layer of protection. They want to change the timing and how they send the packets, and also improve how the effects/animations allow you to detect the mechanics, in order to confuse those 3rd party tools.

You should be worried they are going to break all the third party stuff due to ultimate raiders. Hopefully it wont be all content.

[Nezerius]

...does it matter? How many raiders have even beaten the first one, if not both?

Yes, it matters, while the amount of players that have cleared the fight does not.

These fights were specifically designed for the most skilled players in the game, without using too many resources. For example, most of the animations from the Ultima Weapon transition in UWU are actually taken from the ARR MSQ cutscene, after defeating Garuda.

[AppleJinx]

2 ultimate per expansion is a good number. If we are following the current trend, there's nothing else from arr that can top bahamut and ultima and I'd rather they save the HW stuff for 5.0

[Voidedge_Ragna]

Perhaps they had the animation but fine tuning a ultimate fight is likely a nightmare, yet alone figuring out mechanics that only work if players stand on the right centimeter

[Elamys]

Yes, it matters, while the amount of players that have cleared the fight does not.

These fights were specifically designed for the most skilled players in the game, without using too many resources. For example, most of the animations from the Ultima Weapon transition in UWU are actually taken from the ARR MSQ cutscene, after defeating Garuda.

The thing is, an Ultimate fight really is a hell of a lot of work for them to put in every other patch for a fight such a minuscule amount of the players see. The fights may re-use a lot of visual assets, but designing the fight, doing the numbers balancing, all of that, takes a long time. It's time and resources they can invest in content that a lot more players will participate in. 2 fights per expansion for something that's essentially nothing more than bragging rights seems fine.