Instead of cutting Ultimate from 5.5 why not cut bozja?

[Sathona]

all the things he said

Working at a Japanese gaming studio/company vs a US based one is like day and night.
Playtesting an Ultimate raid which is the pinnacle of difficulty in the game from distance is also difficult..do people really prefer a rushed out ultimate? only to complain and say its incomplete and it sucks? death threats are already being thrown around in some xiv communities and for what? Also you realise how bad it is to slow down a games development for three whole months? in a game devs world thats a lot.

Also as far as ive heard several US based companies including Blizzardctivision had already plans incase of virus outbreaks, SE probably didnt or wasnt well prepared for something like that seeing the huge time gap for transitioning to work at home. Also WoW and FFXIV focus on entirely different things..
While WoW is very Raid-focused, FFXIV is not. FFXIV focuses on multiple content and mostly casual ones.
I can understand being dissapointed, but blaming SE or saying some things being said, really? Honestly Arthars explained the situation pretty well.

A lot of people that complain will also never do the ultimate, or any before it[heck based on third party sources they havent even done Savage content]. So yeah whatever at this point. Its what it is, it wont change.

[SnowVix]

Furthermore, they had eighteen months to design the second Ultimate, or relay information to the playerbase of its potential delay.

Or, and hear me out here, given that they said they were at 70% completion when they made the decision to delay, they were doing fine for getting it done for 5.5 without affecting Endwalker production until Japan had a severe second wave in January that set them back further.

[Colt47]

The issue with high end raid content is that it is there to check off a checkbox for a very small crowd and the benefits from having it are mostly advertising related. For myself it's mostly just trophy hunting and getting glam that drives me to do any kind of savage, and if they included a mid level upgrade for eden promise gear that brought the 510 to a 520 version that can be dyed, I know I'd stop savage all together unless the weapon at the end really interested me.

[ForteNightshade]

What I would like SE to remember is that combat will always be the meat to the potatoes that is this game's story, both are nice but really they complement each other. Cultivating a robust baseline lets you hedge against unexpected events, because what has happened is they've pared things down to the bare essentials and covid came along and kicked out the last pillar that was holding things up. So speaking for my demographic, I hope this is taken to heart going forward.

A prime example of this would be the relic. Had they released it far earlier, like 5.08 or 5.1, we'd have arguably the most grind oriented content right in the midst of the covid delay. Instead, the content cycle collapsed because the game already stretches itself extremely thin to begin with in terms of the amount of new stuff to tackle per patch.

I've been playing since 1.0,and have never really taken an extended break. I still find things to do I haven't done before.


I guess I just see the game differently than others. Oh well. Blanket statements like "longterm players have nothing to do" is rather silly.

Certain groups of them sure. Others no.

Unless you do literally everything in the game or play for only a short amount of time, you'll inevitably run out of content. Granted, if you just enjoy spamming the same dungeons with friends or gposing, I suppose you have something to do from a technical definition but I wouldn't consider that "content," personally. At least not in the same vein.

Or, and hear me out here, given that they said they were at 70% completion when they made the decision to delay, they were doing fine for getting it done for 5.5 without affecting Endwalker production until Japan had a severe second wave in January that set them back further.

This is only speculation as they never said the second wave impacted development but rather covid itself. Even if that were the case, they likely knew it wouldn't be finalized long before the LL announcement. Hence why I said this should have been conveyed much earlier than literally the last minute. Furthermore, it goes back to my earlier put that shifting Ultimate to 5.51 was already a poor decision to begin with. The whole reason they reneged on three Ultimates is it put too much strain on their development being so close towards the expansion. Prior to covid, they outright admitted to rushing Dragonsong ASAP to focus on new content and work on the expansion. So Ultimate's development was already bogging them down before the pandemic.

Hopefully, lessons have been learned here because it isn't only Ultimate that suffered. Like I mentioned above, the relic taking so long to release put considerably more strain on the content cycle than was necessary.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I have close to 15000 hours. I'd say that's more than a little bit of time. And I do most content. I haven't actually ever used gpose outside of a tiny amount of screenshots when someone was using them for a static group drawing.

Your definition of content just seems limited to savage and ultimate.

I also don't sit around in limsa all day like a lot of people seem to.

My favorite thing to do in this game is battle content. Just because it doesn't reward bis, or have the most challenging fight doesn't mean it's not fun.

People seem to get stuck way too much on character progression, or the difficulty of a fight being fun. I just play differently. You can see what I've done. My achievements aren't hidden.

[Vahlnir]

A prime example of this would be the relic. Had they released it far earlier, like 5.08 or 5.1, we'd have arguably the most grind oriented content right in the midst of the covid delay. Instead, the content cycle collapsed because the game already stretches itself extremely thin to begin with in terms of the amount of new stuff to tackle per patch.

Yeah, this I can agree with. When the pandemic hit (officially at least) they had just released an Ishgard Restoration phase. That was great and all, but that lasted a couple weeks tops for some but maybe a few days at most for the rest. They would have benefitted from releasing the relic grinds much, much sooner, and the player base would have too as a result. At most, a new relic chain should start in an x.1 patch. Their priorities have seemed...off to me in Shadowbringers. More so than any expansion before. There are multiple areas of the game that need addressing, but clearly that means we need more gpose stickers and perform options which we really don't need more of.

[ForteNightshade]

Your definition of content just seems limited to savage and ultimate.

You'd be mistaken.

I have done everything from relic grinds, crafting, Yokai to yes, Ultimate. I do a ton in this game, but it simply doesn't have much to offer unless you're spamming the same easy content endlessly. At least for me. I like Normal mode well enough, but it's not exactly engaging to beat E11N for 20+ times where I have virtually no chance of dying as a tank unless I'm blown off. Hell, I can ignore a good chunk of mechanics as a DPS or healer. That isn't to say they aren't enjoyable because I do have fun with casual content otherwise I wouldn't be playing. But you can only do the same handful of things for so long before it gets stall. Frankly, one of the reasons I enjoyed Weeping city way back when is it was moderately threatening.

And before you mention taking a break, I'd actually like more reasons to play. When a new patch drops and I can finish nearly everything in a week... I'm going to run out fast.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

You'd be mistaken.

I have done everything from relic grinds, crafting, Yokai to yes, Ultimate. I do a ton in this game, but it simply doesn't have much to offer unless you're spamming the same easy content endlessly. At least for me. I like Normal mode well enough, but it's not exactly engaging to beat E11N for 20+ times where I have virtually no chance of dying as a tank unless I'm blown off. Hell, I can ignore a good chunk of mechanics as a DPS or healer. That isn't to say they aren't enjoyable because I do have fun with casual content otherwise I wouldn't be playing. But you can only do the same handful of things for so long before it gets stall. Frankly, one of the reasons I enjoyed Weeping city way back when is it was moderately threatening.

And before you mention taking a break, I'd actually like more reasons to play. When a new patch drops and I can finish nearly everything in a week... I'm going to run out fast.

You don't have to take a break, but you can do other things between xiv sessions. I spent most of the early part of this year building various Lego sets.

I also spend a lot of time reading. Sometimes I raid log, other times I spend hours doing whatever old content I feel like. It's easy to find something to do in this game.

[Payadopa]

No ultimate is a much bigger balloon pop to the economy than many causals realize.

4-star food and pots, RIP. Lost a ton of worth from this point on. Less people to do savage, re-clears, for raid groups, etc. It's pretty massive hit.

Oh nooooo....
Never mind. I can't even pretend I'm shocked. lol

Also, since I'm stupid, I always assumed Ultimate was [cancelled] hence the echo chamber shit storm, but it got only delayed. Like wtf LOL This many pages for something you'll get anyway.

[Y2K21]

Also, since I'm stupid, I always assumed Ultimate was [cancelled] hence the echo chamber shit storm, but it got only delayed. Like wtf LOL This many pages for something you'll get anyway.

If Endwalker only has two ultimates and not three (because of the delay putting the 5.5 Ultimate to 6.1), then a piece of content got cancelled in retrospect.

Even if the content is very specialized and for only a specific portion of the playerbase: the loss of content is the loss of content.