Patch 6.6?

[Hyperia]

While I was looking at the release schedule and considering that we are not in a traditional patch cycle, I am wondering if SE will have a patch 6.6 to fill in the extra time gap and give them an extra hour of MSQ time to better prep for 7.0.

My estimates:
Patch 6.4 - May 23rd, 2023
Patch 6.5 - Sept 12th, 2023
Patch 6.6 - Jan 16th, 2024
Release 7.0 - May 9th, 2024

I am projecting May 9th as SE's fiscal Q1 for 2024 starts in April and May 9th would be approximately 4 months from my projected 6.5's release date. I know this is all speculation, but the numbers line up and having a patch 6.6 would prevent us from having an 8-month content gap from the last MSQ patch to 7.0 release.

What are your thoughts?

[Kranel_San]

There wasn't a 5.6 between ShB and EW despite the big time gap. I doubt there will be for EW and 7.0

[SieyaM]

There wasn't a 5.6 between ShB and EW despite the big time gap. I doubt there will be for EW and 7.0

I think there is a patch X.55 though, which could take the Jan 16th date, though it will be minimal in content but probably have a lot of data for the upcoming expansion.

[Jeeqbit]

They typically release 6.5 and then 6.5 part 2 up to 4 months later, so part 2 would be around the timing you gave for a "6.6". But they are also taking breaks for holidays.

We have the last Fan Fest in January and it can usually be expected fairly soon after that. How long after January depends on them, how long they need to delay it and what they can manage. But the release is unlikely be longer than June or July at most because these are the most common months that expansions have released in.

At least we should have plenty of trailers, action trailers, interviews, and media tour information to distract us from the content gap.

What is quite clear is it should be somewhere in the first half of 2024.

[Nezerius]

While I was looking at the release schedule and considering that we are not in a traditional patch cycle, I am wondering if SE will have a patch 6.6 to fill in the extra time gap and give them an extra hour of MSQ time to better prep for 7.0.

I'm curious what makes you think that we're not in a traditional patch cycle? If you mean the current story cycle being different from pre-6.0, I don't think that would affect the number of patches in a given expansion.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that SE will stick to their x.0-x.58 patch cycle, with the estimates depending entirely on how closely they stick to their 4-month patch cadence. A good example of this is the speculated release date for 6.4 (23rd of May) which puts it 19 weeks after the release of 6.3 (3 weeks past their 4-month goal).
It'll also depend on the gap between patch 6.55 and 7.0. Looking at the two previous expansions, 5.55 to 6.0 had a gap just over 6 months. Meanwhile, 4.58 to 5.0 had a 4.5 month gap.

My estimates:
Patch 6.4: 23rd or 30th of May (19-20 weeks after 6.3)
Patch 6.5 (Part 1): Between 12th of September and 10th of October (16-19 weeks after 6.4)
Patch 6.55 (Part 2): Between 7th of November and 5th of December (8-11 weeks after 6.5)
Patch 7.0: Between 26th of March and 23rd of April (20 weeks after 6.55, 11-15 weeks after the Tokyo Fan Fest)

[RitsukoSonoda]

Patch 6.66: A new Calamity? lol

[Jeeqbit]

Patch 6.66: A new Calamity? lol

Shadowbringers told us a calamity was on the way and we had to prevent it and unwrite the future. Endwalker told us it was the final days which may as well be a calamity. So at this point, probably.

Or maybe it will just be that we calmly go on a "new adventure" to the new world and everyone waves goodbye on our vacation. But some vacation it ended up being, because as we were setting up our deck chair, someone told us they were tired from delivering pizza and they would like us to deliver it to the final 3 people for 27 gil. And because we are completionists an extremely kind and loving hero, we do it. But it turns out the person's boss was exploiting his workers for a greater deed that involves bending all of Etheirys' resources towards themselves and we spend an entire expansion trying to reach and defeat them.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Patch X.5 and X.55 have generally been the last content and story updates of an expansion.

The only reason I could see them doing any exception is the fact that they might be pushing out towards a new big overarching plot and they might need more time than usual for that... Since it hasn't exactly even started yet as of 6.3.

But we do still have 3 patches (6.4, 6.5 and 6.55), and I assume patch 6.4 with Golbez will reveal the actual plothook for the next story arc through some very intense Exposition Dumping, either before or after we beat him.

[dspguy]

Definitely not a patch 6.6. .0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 are all "major releases, with .0 being the expansion itself. These are MSQ and new gear/savage/tomes tier (even releases) and 24-man (odd releases). If 6.6 comes out, we'd see more MSQ and another gear tier to keep with the release nomenclature they've followed since ARR. That's not to say we won't see 6.55, 6.56, 6.57... 6.59 instead.

SE is very formulaic with their content release. They haven't strayed before and I doubt they will now. If the expansion is released late (by our perception) then it will be released late. That's all their is to it.

[DiaDeem]

We've never had X.6

Next xpac should be announced during FanFest in Vegas and then drop in January.

Or not, we'll see.