What happened to Beastmaster?

[Jeeqbit]

They meant within the patch cycle of the expansion. Currently, these span 2 and a half years.

Blue Mage released in 4.5 for example. It then received updates in X.15 and X.45 patches. Once it was almost max level, they only updated it once per expansion at X.45.

Thus, the precedents we have for Limited Job updates are: 7.15, 7.45 and 7.5. I assumed we would get the Blue Mage update at 7.15 this time so that we could get Beast Master's in 7.45 or 7.5, but it seems they will probably do them both together now. Or some different scheduling.

[ZXN]

Beastmaster was said to be coming in late 7.X, so it's most likely coming during patches 7.4-7.55 when the "content drought" portion of Dawntrail hits so players have something more to do until the launch of 8.0

[Kemiko]

Beastmaster was said to be coming in late 7.X, so it's most likely coming during patches 7.4-7.55 when the "content drought" portion of Dawntrail hits so players have something more to do until the launch of 8.0

When it was announced to come late in Dawntrail's patch cycle, it was also stated that the Blue Mage update would be released before it, around the middle of Dawntrail's patch cycle and we haven't even gotten that yet (I'm expecting that to be around 7.3).

[ZXN]

When it was announced to come late in Dawntrail's patch cycle, it was also stated that the Blue Mage update would be released before it, around the middle of Dawntrail's patch cycle and we haven't even gotten that yet (I'm expecting that to be around 7.3).

This is correct yes, they did announce Blue Mage would receive updates during the patches. If it's like the past updates though: Blue Mage should receive it's Dawntrail update in patch 7.45, aka the level 90 cap / more spells / more duties it can complete [Which should be Endwalker's Extreme Trials / Pandemonium Savage fights]. Don't know if/how this will clash with the Beastmaster job when it releases though until later down the road with live letters. While they did say that Beastmaster/Blue Mage will be able to do duties together, we still don't know what state Beastmaster will actually release in. Will it release with a low-ish level cap, like 60 or 70, to ease players into learning how the job functions and how you'll get your "stuff" to actually fight with, or will they just go fuck it and release it with the level 90 cap immediately so it can do the Endwalker EX/Savage content right alongside the Blue Mages?

Also while the Blue Mage updates happened on patches 5.45 and 6.45: Blue mage itself first released on patch 4.5, so I can somewhat see the potential of them making Patch 7.45 the Blue Mage update for this expansion, and then Patch 7.5 being Beastmaster's actual release. There is of course always the possibility they plan to have Blue Mage / Beastmaster be "synced" with one another going forward, and do both the Beastmaster job release AND Blue Mage update both on patch 7.45.

[TaleraRistain]

Still coming, probably not for another patch or two.

[Buttobi]

They need to stop announcing "end of expansion" features before the expansion is even out. At most they should show us stuff up until .3 patches. The rest they can announce later. All they do with these early announcements is frustrate the playerbase cause they are wondering where that content is.

[YumieYumiki]

They need to stop announcing "end of expansion" features before the expansion is even out. At most they should show us stuff up until .3 patches. The rest they can announce later. All they do with these early announcements is frustrate the playerbase cause they are wondering where that content is.

Yeah, it's very disingenuous to inflate the expansion bullet points by including stuff planned to be released 6 month to a year after the expansion itself. I mean, I'm used to marketing campaigns to be shitty and disingenuous but still...

[Menriq]

Yeah, it's very disingenuous to inflate the expansion bullet points by including stuff planned to be released 6 month to a year after the expansion itself. I mean, I'm used to marketing campaigns to be shitty and disingenuous but still...

I find this interesting, because there are calls for them not having a roadmap, they provide information in advance, and then people are saying to not announce it so far in advance. I guess this is one of those situations where no matter what, people are going to be upset.

[Daralii]

I find this interesting, because there are calls for them not having a roadmap, they provide information in advance, and then people are saying to not announce it so far in advance. I guess this is one of those situations where no matter what, people are going to be upset.

I would argue that there's a difference between having a roadmap for the expansion and saying "The expansion will have [X]!" with no elaboration on when it's coming out, sometimes as far down the road as the last patch of that expansion. It frequently boils down to guessing off of when comparable content released in previous patch cycles or people repeatedly asking Yoshida or senior devs if it's in the next patch until the answer is yes.

[Menriq]

I would argue that there's a difference between having a roadmap for the expansion and saying "The expansion will have [X]!" with no elaboration on when it's coming out, sometimes as far down the road as the last patch of that expansion. It frequently boils down to guessing off of when comparable content released in previous patch cycles or people repeatedly asking Yoshida or senior devs if it's in the next patch until the answer is yes.

That's a fair take. However, by putting a roadmap for an expansion, they have now timeboxed themselves. Let's say for example Cosmic Exploration was on the roadmap for 7.2. Any number of things caused it to slip, and now they are getting heat if they don't release it 7.2 because they "promised" it would be 7.2. However, if they never said when it would release, just that it would release in the expansion, then even if they didn't hit their internal goal, they can still meet the "promise" of delivering it during the expansion.

As a developer, I would really like to understand the MMO's reason for still doing "waterfall" deployments. I'd much rather have smaller iterations of releases (i.e. 7.0-7.98) and deliver content when it's done. This keeps people engaged with quicker releases, and let's them iterate on feedback much sooner. I know there are a lot of factors that go into content (artists, VA, designers, etc.), but I still think this is something that can be overcome at a quicker cadence.