Patch 7.1: Crossroads (November 12th, 2024)

[Ragns]

TIL the English VA for G’raha Tia, Johnathan Bailey, is the male lead actor in Wicked and is probably about to be one of the biggest pop culture icons of the next year because that movie is doing super good so far

[Kaslo]

lol that video opens with "A Viera?"

[Anoat]

If you have finished the Jeuno raid and return to Lower Jeuno during the Starlight Celebration, it’s playing the Jeuno Christmas music. Nice touch.

[Anoat]

Finished the battle role quest capstone job. The main villain is pretty cute and the emote is funny. The quest itself is pretty lame. Crafter/gatherer role quests were sooooo much better, but that’s not saying a lot.

Outside of my nostalgia goggles for the FFXI alliance raid and some fun and interesting dungeon bosses, this expansion has been a total miss.

[Lucavi]

They have their work cut out for them, but I don't see that happening. The game is settling into a nice little theme park attraction, and that ain't enough for me after 10 years.

Real grateful for the FFXI stuff, though. Was nice to see the Ark Angels back in their full glory.

[Madeline]

My issue so far is that we've had nothing but raiding for a grind. Savage > Ultimate > Chaotic. I am burned the fuck out and we're just getting started.

[Kaslo]

My issue so far is that we've had nothing but raiding for a grind. Savage > Ultimate > Chaotic. I am burned the fuck out and we're just getting started.

I mean, isn't that every expansion at the .1 stage?

[Madeline]

Chaotic isn't usually there, no. And while I'd love to ignore it, the nature of content now is you either do it on release when the good players are doing it or you suffer horribly with the remainder.

[Lokus]

They have their work cut out for them, but I don't see that happening. The game is settling into a nice little theme park attraction, and that ain't enough for me after 10 years.

Real grateful for the FFXI stuff, though. Was nice to see the Ark Angels back in their full glory.

The game is settling? Bro, that's been the game since ARR. They've kept the same release schedule since then with maybe an oddball addition here and there. The only thing missing from EW was a field op zone. Other than that, barely nothing has changed with this game's content release schedule. Even the relic grind has been neutered and, unfortunately, to loud applause, as most of the takes I've read have been happy it was a simple tomestone "grind" for every step in EW.

This game really suffers from not having any long-term goals but I wouldn't even blame the devs 100% for that either. People bitching that they have to clear the new Chaotic raid 50 times (max) for the cloud mount when the content has been out for a month tops. That's 9 hrs of battle time. That ain't shit, especially for an MMO.

Major difference is that they had a plot people were interested in; a plot that kept them going until it was finished and they had their resolutions. That plot is now over, and the new one - for now - ain't hitting at all. If you aren't getting better, you're getting worse - in life, and in games, no doubt. The game is drifting backwards, showing its age and hilarious limitations with each new decent release that comes out. Rolling all of its profits into other pet projects ain't helping.

Oh well.

[Anoat]

Long term content if the reward is worthwhile is one thing. But the nature of FFXIV is if you want a long term grind, like a relic, it’s going to be your best weapon for what, two to three months before the next expansion and a random grey vendor weapon is better than your BIS from the last expansion.

Long term grinds for pure cosmetics like glam, mounts, or titles is cool and all but only appeals to a certain playerbase. There are players that see a glam or cosmetic item and have no desire for something without utilitarian application.

I still think Bozja was their best content. Grindy but not TOO grindy, you could make progress inside OR outside Bozja doing different content, future weapons had the grind lessened, and as patches went on Bozja raids were made more accessible for low-man groups. And they even had a savage tier with a fun mount reward. They just haven’t hit those heights since.

[Anoat]

Next live letter is February 7th which probably has 7.2 dropping in late March. Woof.

[Kaslo]

Next live letter is February 7th which probably has 7.2 dropping in late March. Woof.

I mean, that's the normal timeline.

[Madeline]

4.5 month patch cycles are something we settled into during covid, so not necessarily lol

this kinda shows how it's just steadily increased and the product isn't really changing for the better

[Lokus]

There is nothing surprising of when patches drop. We know the general timeline of the whole expansion from the get-go. This puts 7.25 at around late April/early May.

[Kaslo]

4.5 month patch cycles are something we settled into during covid, so not necessarily lol

this kinda shows how it's just steadily increased and the product isn't really changing for the better

I don't think you understand, this patch cycle (17 weeks) has been the norm for a few years. The only times its not is on expansion launch and leading into an expansion.

[arus2001]

With XIV being like the #2 MMO, I've always been a bit vexed at the community's general acceptance of less over time. The past six months have pretty much been miserable for anyone not into raiding and even when the exploration shit drops it's still not really a solution to the complete lack of casual grind content with meaningful progression that isn't locked to roulettes or timers. Of course, that's not a DT problem and one of the reasons I maybe only sub 2-3 months per expansion cycle. Just a whole ass open world out there they don't use outside of limited MSQ progress with players trying to make lemonade out of the lemon that is the Hunt system, maps, FATEs, and other features.

If they had the balls, the 8.0 job revamps would bring with it a more robust and varied equipment system with, dare I say, jobs having multiple builds including materia being way more interesting than generic stat slop. I don't buy the general excuse that players are too dumb for that kind of thing when you can also include handholding tutorials/guides within the game itself if you were really that untrusting.

Then again, I just need to resign myself to the likelihood of FF never having a RDM incarnation where melee isn't an afterthought. :/

[Ragns]

4.5 month patch cycles are something we settled into during covid, so not necessarily lol

this kinda shows how it's just steadily increased and the product isn't really changing for the better

I wonder how a chart like that would compare against the amount of content we receive per patch because back in my olde days we used to get 3 dungeons per .X patch.

[Athas]

I don't know if I'd call some hard mode reskins new dungeons.

[Gokulo]

I mean, the location was more or less the same, but mechanically this was new, "relevant" content