Frontload casual & midcore content.

[AstreaLove]

They really need to frontload the casual & midcore content, after all that is the vast majority of the playerbase.

But for some reason that's always the content that either gets pushed to the side, delayed or scrapped entirely. It's quite horrible that they're choosing to neglect such a large portion of the playerbase.

At times you have to wait close to a year for casual content to even come out. Shouldn't that be the first content that players get?

For instance what happened with the Eureka-like zone that was supposed to come? It's nowhere to be seen. Where's the Dawntrail relic weapons? Also nowhere to be seen.

It's not alright. The casual & midcore playerbase need their content, you need to keep them engaged, and you also need to improve the rewards for casual & midcore content. Stop pushing back the casual/midcore content, and instead release it much earlier, it's important for the game to have players, and since this is the largest portion of the game's population, you really should focus on them more, and let them have more content quicker.

TLDR: Frontload the content for casuals & midcore players.

[Kaurhz]

Honestly, I don't think it matters if you frontload it or backload it.

We should be asking for them to develop both hardcore and casual/midcore content in tandem and for it to be released in tandem. Just because hardcore as a minority I don't think it's OK.

Like the developers probably don't understand just how much they would resolve if they released the relics much sooner in the patch cycle, so that it is like this...

7.05 - Complete a checklist of certain dungeons, trials FATEs, have it similar to a much more lightweight book stage from the Zodiac weapons questline.
7.15 - Obtain items/loot from Grand Company, perhaps 125,000 Company Seals per relic (in equivalent loot), incentivizes people looting, and using the Grand Company System. They are so bounteous.
7.25 - Complete a checklist of dungeons, trials, FATEs and obtain a specific piece of loot from each of them. Or it could serve as a log of sorts. Lightweight book step from Zodiac
7.35 - Deviate into the exploratory content for future steps, and alternatives outside of exploratory.

I would personally like for the exploratory zone to be much sooner, but I don't think it's practical unless they added something barebones. This at the very least gives players something to do without infringing on the playerbase, as the development cost should be pretty low, minus actually developing the weapons themselves.

I do also want to say it isn't inherently bad to do relics at the same time as raid tiers. They did it in ARR, and frankly the content won't go anywhere if you do it a couple of days later.

[Evergrey]

Considering how people have been quite vocal with the quality of the game as of late I'm not surprised if SE pushes the release of content even further to ensure that they put enough time and effort to make it "better".

[Lilapop]

Honestly, I don't think it matters if you frontload it or backload it.

We should be asking for them to develop both hardcore and casual/midcore content in tandem and for it to be released in tandem. Just because hardcore as a minority I don't think it's OK.

Like the developers probably don't understand just how much they would resolve if they released the relics much sooner in the patch cycle, so that it is like this...

7.05 - Complete a checklist of certain dungeons, trials FATEs, have it similar to a much more lightweight book stage from the Zodiac weapons questline.
7.15 - Obtain items/loot from Grand Company, perhaps 125,000 Company Seals per relic (in equivalent loot), incentivizes people looting, and using the Grand Company System. They are so bounteous.
7.25 - Complete a checklist of dungeons, trials, FATEs and obtain a specific piece of loot from each of them. Or it could serve as a log of sorts. Lightweight book step from Zodiac
7.35 - Deviate into the exploratory content for future steps, and alternatives outside of exploratory.

I would personally like for the exploratory zone to be much sooner, but I don't think it's practical unless they added something barebones. This at the very least gives players something to do without infringing on the playerbase, as the development cost should be pretty low, minus actually developing the weapons themselves.

I do also want to say it isn't inherently bad to do relics at the same time as raid tiers. They did it in ARR, and frankly the content won't go anywhere if you do it a couple of days later.

Exploratory zone isn't the end all be all, there'll be probably a Savage tacked on to it anyway.

[Jeeqbit]

They really need to frontload

Of course, development takes time (unless you'd like them to use AI which is very controversial in this community). You could just subscribe when the content you want comes out, then from your perspective it will feel frontloaded.

For example, if people who want Field Operations resubscribe at the .25 patch always, then they could treat that as the start of the expansion for them and do the MSQ then as well.

They could perhaps try what they did in 4.55 and 5.55. In those patches, they developed the respective final Field Operation areas (Hydatos and Zadnor respectively). If instead they develop the 8.0 field operation for 7.55 but delay it until 8.0, then it would feel frontloaded perhaps.

the casual & midcore content, after all that is the vast majority of the playerbase.

We should be clear that it's frontloaded with loads of casual stuff: Dungeons, trials, normal raids, leveling all jobs (and its mount), new Triple Triad cards and minions to collect, beast tribes, custom deliveries, PvP Series and their rewards, an alliance raid, the usual crafting/gathering cycle to make gear/food/pots/glam for people, new housing furniture, glam to farm, loads of sidequests (including role/collectable quests).

And it depends how casual you mean because for someone extremely casual, they will barely get through all of that, if they even get through the MSQ in the first place. As such, I think you just mean the stuff a lot of us would regard as midcore (Field Operations).

For instance what happened with the Eureka-like zone that was supposed to come?

Always has been released at the .25 patch. So probably around June 2025.

For what it's worth, they seemed to indicate they are working on 7.3 at the moment, so 7.2 is most likely just being bug tested for several months.