Thread: Patch 8.0 - How long is too long to wait?

If they go with another Calamity route and call it the Eighth Umbral Calamity, 5.0 Crystal Exarch would want a word with YoshiP.

Originally Posted by lievaordiea

currently im unsure how they could finish the story in one patch. its all over the place

They're not? DT is basically wrapped up, 7.4-.55 are going to be leading into 8.0, the way X.4-.55 did for every xpac except EW.
Any perceived remaining story isn't tied to DT, just building off building blocks laid out previously.
2.4-.55 set up the Crystal Braves which led to WoL being on the run from Ul'Dah/greater Eorzea (and also later into their involvement leading into Stormblood)
3.4-.55 used Nidhogg's Eyes to ignite the conflict leading into the liberation of Ala Mhigo
4.4-.55 used the Exarch trying to pull the WoL to the First obviously led to Shadowbringers
5.4-.55 had Fandanial causing strife to lead into Endwalker.

Honestly just waiting for info on this game takes to long

Based on the patch schedule, 7.5 should come around late April to early May, July probably for 7.55 and then 7.57 and 7.58 at some point later which will mostly just remove weekly limits for everything except tomestones. Then we enter probably least a year of content drought waiting for 8.0.

They're either going to rush it because Square-Enix keeps wasting their money on stupid shit so they need that money from selling the next expansion, or they're going to take extra time because of how badly 7.0 and 7.1 went.

There's no way that we'd be getting a year between .55 and 8.0, absolutely 0%. Closest I could see is either a 7.6 around the end/new year or 8.0 in that same time frame. At 19 weeks between major patches (which is about what we've gotten with DT at an average of 140 days), counting .55 as another 'major' patch, and allowing for about at most two months before release, I'd expect 8.0 no later than March.

They can't stick with a summer release without going back to the roughly 3.5 month patch cycle. Either they have to have something more significant to tide people over... or they have to let expansion release date will wander around some. Since we're starting a new story arc they can't assume the plot hook from 7.5 and .55 will be enough. It worked for EW because ShB had enough extenuating circumstances around it (covid related delays, and 6.0 release delay due to covering roughly the same amount of story as they would normally cover through the X.3 patch

We used to get an expansion every two years, following a fairly stable model with patches ranging from .1 to .5.

That structure represented the minimum amount of content needed between expansions to keep players from getting bored. During ARR, Heavensward, and Stormblood, the developers also weren’t afraid to experiment. Sometimes it failed and had to be reworked—Diadem being the obvious example. Sometimes it worked very well, like Eureka, which was later refined and improved into Bozja.

What the developers are doing now—and what is already barely acceptable—is this:

Keeping the same overall structure, but with much longer delays between patches.

Avoiding innovation almost entirely in order to stay on the “safe side.”

Take Palace of the Dead as an example. When it first released, many players spent days or even weeks inside it. It was new content with a new concept. While there is still an audience for that type of content, Heaven-on-High and the later deep dungeons feel more like variations of the same formula. For many players, they no longer provide long-term engagement because the “newness” factor is gone.

Playing it safe ultimately causes players to get bored faster, because so much content feels like a remake of something that already exists.

Meanwhile, genuinely new additions—like Beastmaster—are being pushed all the way to the .5 patch, nearly two years after the launch of Dawntrail. I understand the idea of saving content to keep players engaged between the final patch and the next expansion. Historically, the .5 patch has always lasted the longest, often nearly twice as long as other patch cycles. But with Dawntrail, it feels like we’ve been “waiting for new things” for the entire expansion already.

So when people ask, “How long is too long to wait for 8.0?”—the answer is that we’re already at the limit. It’s February 2026, there won’t even be a Fan Festival before April, and there’s no real information about what’s coming next until then. Patch 7.5 will likely release in April or May, meaning we’ll be approaching two full years of Dawntrail under a model that was originally designed for two-year expansions.

Traditionally, .5 patches in a three-month cycle lasted about six months. With the current four-month cycle, they simply can’t afford to stretch that to eight months. The gap between 7.5 and 8.0 shouldn’t exceed six months, which would make November the latest acceptable release window.

But honestly, I’m not confident that will happen. At this point, it doesn’t feel like Square Enix is particularly concerned.

Next January.

Basically pushing into 2027 at all is bad at this point.

I have some hope as Yoshi-P himself said we won't be waiting much after the October Fanfest, so my assumption is for December-January, but I'm already cross that we're likely waiting AT LEAST six months from 7.5's drop, and it it pushes to March or beyond, that could kill FFXIV. We're all too on edge and fed up.