What would be ideal Patch Cycle? (Long forum post)

[Akamadoshi]

Let's assume they will release the content based on the past release patches. This would mean:
7.3 - Exploration Zone
7.3 - New Deep Dungeon
...HUH?

Not only is content is held back until later- It seems purposeful to make the player Nr go "BOOM" once the cycle 7.3 is thrown with all the hidden endgame content at once and collectively targeting FOMO players to lock them in until 8.0- then consider it a "succes"- I see what you are doing.

DD and Exploration are endgame and in the past were released at the same patch nr but different expansions. So I want to bring up ShB (NOT about MSQ quality- fact they hired writer from "Love Story" with no past FF14 background says enough)

RESTORATION: We had Restoration through the entire explansion of 5.x alongside field exploration. Island Quest said "Garlean restoration is soon upon us, we make preparations" I did not realize I did the MSQ first, then Island quest second. It made more sense to do Island first, then the MSQ, realizing the alliance with Radz was the restoration..


My "ideal" idea of Patch cycle:
Be mindful I put x.1~x.1.5 so whatever comes first or in what order is irrrelevant. (I may be all over the place, so feel free to add your idea of patch cycle). I wish Mr Happy made his own version, he seems experienced what is healthy for the game.

Patch cycle:
x1~1.5: Island Sanctuary & Chaotic ALONGSIDE Savage restriction lift & Deep dungeon As for Island Sanctuary: at least release new items for the BLUE SCRIPT to exchange- don't offend us by using island sanctuary as endgame since it doesn't involve aby gameplay- It's an ingame "Tataru coins" NFT ft."gamepass" by ASSIGNING few NPCs to play the game FOR us and gain some useless coins. (Sigh)

x.2~2.5 Field exploration, Limited job,Variety dungeon (+update blue...)

x.3~3.5 Another Deep Dungeon, Limited jobs updates (I wish 2 Deep dungeons in the future, very much!)

x4~4.5) field updates & (Small or medium) scale Restoration (won't happen anyway) type content idea for in the future... This could be even if it is a sidequest or a small instanced thing.. at this rate we got too many "ruined" zones and the feeling of the game feeling "ruined" is a bit on the nose. So let's restore them.

Every other patch: Please include at least once or twice miscalenious items for exchange PVP crystals... I wish for dye you can only get from ARR tribes.

Anyone could mix and twist these in different orders - which, feel free I'd l ove to see.
If you got new content idea, add it in the cycles too. There is a lot I did not include (such as PVP/ranking/Savage/ultimates/Alliance/Chaotic etc)I am unfamiliar with the actual patch releases, so I did not want to confuse the usual. Thank you.

[Ath192]

I enjoy combat in this game and exploration. I can't list all the forms of content like extremes and etc that are always there, those should stay, but the main dish of each patch should be:

7.0
Expansion
Savage
New PVP season

7.1
Alliance Raid
Exploratory Zone 1
Chaotic 1
Relic Stage 1 - slow grind - Surpasses 7.0 Savage in BIS
Ultimate

7.2
Savage
Criterion 1
Deep dungeon
Relic Stage 2 - slow grind - equal to Savage 7.2 BIS
crafting/Delivery
New PVP season Pass

7.3
Alliance Raid 2
Exploratory Zone 2
Chaotic 2
Relic Stage 3 - slow grind - Surpasses Savage in BIS
Ultimate 2

7.4
Savage
Criterion 2
Deep dungeon 2
Relic Stage 4 - slow grind - equal to Savage 7.4 BIS
crafting/Delivery
New PVP season Pass

7.5
Alliance Raid 3
Exploratory Zone 3
Chaotic 3
Relic Stage 5 - slow grind - Surpasses Savage in BIS
Instead of Ultimate - expand the exploratory Zone 3 to its final conclusion and add an extra raid to it Keep to allow people to play casually and soak in news of new expansion


-------------------------------------------
I am pretty sure this would keep most people busy and from complaining.
You'll notice each patch has something for high end raiders and something for casuals, as while raiders work on Savage they can do Deep dungeons and crafting/delivery AND variant editions of criterion and while raiders work on ultimates they can enjoy exploratory zones and alliance raids.
On top of that, each patch has a time sink in the form of the relic as well.

Theres no point in crippling the relic either, it just makes it irrelevant. No high end raider will complain of a grindy form to get a BIS weapon outside of Savage.

It REALLY is that easy to keep people from being unhappy.

[Akamadoshi]

Everything

You are Godssent... T_T Thank you. As foreigner it took me 3 hours to write, you summed it perfectly AND added 2 deep dungeons.

[ThaCa]

I'm not sure how I would improve the PvE side, but I think side content could use a separate team to develope and have it injected during some of the worse downtimes.

For example PvP Seasons should be slightly disjointed from patch releases so raiders don't have to pick between pushing the new tier or ultimate and pushing rank. It would also allow more PvP focused players like myself to take it easy with the new PvE content knowing that the season starts bit later and maybe squeeze in some games during final days before new one starts.

Having more player centric evergreen content would be great during downtime too, imagine if someone remade the chocobo racing up to modern standards and you would get something closer to Mario Kart rather than the clunky old one. There's so many player focused stuff they could try.

Utilizing already existing stuff would also give more value for replaying content and collecting, like if you could use minions, orchestrions, TT cards etc. for more side games for example, they could even make sightseeing log stuff link to something.

All of this stuff is practically unbound from most current developement and could be made at its own pace and added as it gets done so the overall patch cycle would be less rigid and boring.

[MrMordio]

Relic Stage 1 - slow grind - Surpasses 7.0 Savage in BIS
Ultimate

I agree that we should be able to start building our relics alongside savage raid gear, but I don't agree that it'd be a good idea to make a relic that exceeds on-patch savage raid gear at the same time as an ultimate fight. I think doing this would put an unhealthy level of stress on hardcore players who'd seek to complete the ultimate in a timely manner; they may feel required to complete the relic grind before trying the ultimate raid. I think they should be comparable in strength to raid gear. Other than that, I think it's a good write-up!

[sindriiisgaming]

if we getting content like this? 1 month.
if we get content like we got before EW, 3 month.
the quality of the content is the deciding factor here

[sindriiisgaming]

snip

while these ideas are nice, slow grinds arent going to fix the content being LQ and ppl will STILL burn out
so here is my advise to xiv based on the years ive played and what patches were my fav
Everything here doesnt need to be released ON the patch, on the day the patch goes live.. however any harder or longer term content MUST be released at the start, to ensure proper time for feedback can be given

7.0
serval massive system overhauls including new housing revamps, gender unlocks on gear, dye improvements, graphics TLC and a visible sign of power growth
Expansion MSQ (needs to be as long as have as much Voice acting as endwalker) (needs to have serval times more instanced dutys)
Normal and Savage raid
alliance raid part 1 (unlock the gear already.. if your really meant to gear up alt jobs then why CANT WE)
New PVP series rewards
Unreal 1
The New housing rewards
Hildibrand 1
Role quests
Chaotic 1

7.1
MSQ + 1 dungeon AND one trial
Exploratory Zone part 1 with castrum style mini raid
Relic Stage 1 Equal to 7.0 Savage in BIS
Ultimate 1
criterion dungeon 1
Trial series part 1
Blue mage addition
a new unreal
Hildibrand 2
Final role quest after clearing all 5
Hall of the novice update
Job balancing
Beast tribe 1
7.1 is the most important first patch. it determines if leveling up was worth it, so this patch needs to keep people hooked

7.2
MSQ 2 + 1 dungeon and +2 instanced duty
Savage part 2
Deep dungeon
Relic Stage 2 equal to Savage 7.2 BIS
new crafting/Delivery
New PVP season Pass
Lifestyle content
Trail mini series part 2
Chaotic 2 (if its meant to be for casual gearing then it should sit beside savage)
a new unreal
hildibrand 3
Job balancing

7.3
MSQ 1 dungeon and 1 trial (final expansion MSQ before 7.4 moves into the new expansion)
Alliance Raid 2 (everything unlocked)
Exploratory Zone phase 2 with dalriada style mini raid
Relic Stage 3 - EQUAL to Savage in BIS
Ultimate 2
Trail series part 3
a new unreal
lifestyle content stage 2
beastmaster (look this patch is gone be a slow 1, and BST being years away is ridiculous.. get it in now)
criterion 2 (take away these cheesy weapons and give us some really good rewards, we don't need more power, we need glams, hairstyles, emotes and furnishings)
Housing TLC (if new wards are needed add them, otherwise add more interior skins
Job Balancing
Beasties 2

7.4
MSQ with a dungeon and a new zone (bit like zero's abode)
Savage stage 3
Chaotic 3
Relic Stage 4 - - Equal to Savage 7.4 BIS
crafting/Delivery expanded
New PVP season Pass
New beastmaster challenges
hildibrand 4
new unreal
Trail series part 4
Job Balancing

7.5
Intense hype train MSQ with a trial and dungeon.
Alliance Raid 3 (unlocked)
Exploratory Zone 3 + 60 man raid
Criterion 3
Relic Stage 5 Surpasses Savage in BIS
New Bst content
a new unreal
Trail series conclusion (mostly just quests with an instanced duty)
Post savage raid quest (give us the orchestrion and a little closure)
Housing update 2
Lifestyle final update (this content better have a story on it)
Final hildibrand and a trail (it better be with greg!)
Role quests extra questline (like shadow walk with me)
Job balancing
beasties 3 (including extra quests)
Gold saucer update
Collaboration quest


additional notes. trial mounts unlocked from vendor immediately.
Hildibrand is voiced
Trial mini series is voiced
Savage gear unlocked immediately. lets be real... people already use alts or lootmaster to get around this out dated system.. who is it for...
all alliance raid loot unlocked (the orchestrion is a great way to keep people doing it)


these are just my ideas based on what players want. in this setup, you dont need to increase patch time. but the workload gets heavier. however this way you will simply never run out of things to do

But sugar, we here at se cant afford to fund this much content? what do we do?

Increase the sub by 5USD, 3GBP and 4EUR. i can easily afford it and if it means they can hire more staff then i don't care

[Chasingstars]

for me at least it would somewhat resemble:
X.0 to X.05: Expansion MSQ, Role Quests as feature complete, Normal+Savage Raid
X.1 to X.15: Alliance Raid, Blue Mage, Beast Master, Relic Weapon grind, Treasure Maps, Hildibrand, Tribal quests
X.2 to X.25: Normal Raid, Hildibrand, Exploratory Zone, Deep Dungeon

[Dzian]

Patch cycle doesn't really matter. The issue is content longevity /relevance. Even a 1 month patch cycle wouldn't be seen as enough if the patch content could all be done and dusted in an hour or 2 of game play..

This games issue is that it has an absolute ton of content. But at the same time it has next to none. Because 99.9999% (half sarcasm) of it isn't worth doing or has been brutally trivialise by the unsanctioned system allowing players to smash years of content in minutes.

Then everyone says there bored and there's nothing to do..

The other issue is patches contain so little content that players grind the hell out of it because it's the only thing worth doing... which makes it get super old and tedious super quickly.

[Kaurhz]

Omitted for brevity

This is probably the best list that one could come up with. It satisfies the bigger player-bases and gives them something to do. This also gives plenty of content that the gap between 7.5 and 8.1 would still give people plenty to do, regardless of how active they might be. Which is what made HW/SB/ShB good.. It gave bleed-over content into next expansion.

I can see people being concerned with burnout in relation to the relic release, but I think the best way to address this is to do ongoing updates and rebalancing around what is required, so that there is still that catch-up mechanic for the relic of the previous patch.