Patch 7.3: The Promise of Tomorrow (August 5th, 2025)

[arus2001]

I had a much longer reply but even though you got ahead of the argument at the end, you are still asking for an entirely different game. A game that SE has never shown an inkling of making. As far as character customization, as much as I would like to have infinite options, SE is in charge of the rules and lore of the races in-game. And those rules are obviously decided on a gameplay level as well since the greater amount of customization, the more data is being transferred and at a certain point, gameplay takes a hit. Mare proved this very succinctly as it wasn't a rare occurrence for people's PCs to lag like crazy or blow up whenever they entered a venue and loaded 10+ people's customized characters, often times the fault of one person that decided their personal identity was a 7 ft female au ra with neon scales, a sharingan, full body tattoo, fiery hair that covered their back, and a 4k eyepatch.

The last is more a problem of the wild west element mods allowed. If you think people bothered to optimize file sizes or consider that 4k textures weren't required, I'd have a bridge to sell. Again, this could've been something mechanically enforced by insisting certain X slot couldn't go above Y MB and so on down the list. Character display culling is otherwise something that already exists in game and it's possible to have 20+ unmodded people around you wearing completely different things. The only difference is SE at least took the QA step to keep things workable for those with lower end systems. The alternative would be insisting Mare or equivalent devs curate all mods to approve whether or not they could work with the program and we know that'll never happen. So, yeah, you kinda have to trust users will be idiots and idiot-proof your code to the best of your ability. Someone with a 4gb VRAM card thinking they can handle a big synchshell on top of base game requirements is on them. It's no different than some moron thinking they can run Cyberpunk at 4k on an RTX 1080. You're not. And that all circles back to the process being voluntary. Being voluntarily dumb isn't the fault of the people using it responsibly.

As for whether or not this isn't the game for it or if it was ever implied for such, if that's the stance you really want to take, then I'd insist every MMO drop the RPG portion of the genre tag and just start calling themselves Instanced Raid Simulators or whatever the fuck we've degenerated into. As much as players are trying to make lemonade out of the lemons of media out there, there is no real alternative and for decades RPers have been told to GTFO where asking for more always gets this kind of response. I tried to RP in XI, for example, but places like this when it was more HNM-minded did the process no favors. It was just seen as a waste of time and/or brought on assumptions RPers wouldn't know how to play. Playing FF games way back in the 90s is why I even got into RP with AOL to begin with. I wanted to make my own fantasies. I'm not alone in this, otherwise this wouldn't have even been a blip on social media or the forums. SE could stop being lazy and a WoW clone and instead attempt to innovate, or we could just keep status quo'ing this motherfucker until some other game comes out that bleeds subs away. That's a type of game, too, I guess.

[Anoat]

Yoshi P gamescom interview highlights saying 7.4 and 7.5 will feature exploration of the Ninth. Adventures in Tural are done. 8.0 will see the player character come back into the spotlight. Fan fest announcement will be coming soon, but he promised they will NOT do Las Vegas in August again.

[Gokulo]

https://twitter.com/FF_XIV_EN/status...00668877807896

[Anoat]

That puts 8.0 probably in spring or summer of 2027, fucking OUCH

[arus2001]

I could see a holiday release if they're all hands on deck and being ambitious, but yeah, I'd be surprised if anything hits before April.

[Lokus]

7.4 is due mid-Dec/early Jan, which puts 7.5 around May. I can see an early spring release which would be April/May 2027. This means the final pieces of content to hold us for a year is Forked Tower: Magic and the second foray zone, Beastmaster, Blu updates, second DT Ultimate, and the final Unreal Ex trial.

[Ragns]

Yoshi-P answered to the mods and 8.0 delay drama: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5eb456d2183251

[Gokulo]

That puts 8.0 probably in spring or summer of 2027, fucking OUCH

Yoshi-P said in an interview:
"(And one more thing: for those wondering what comes after the Japan Fan Fest...while I can't give any details just yet, rest assured you won't have to wait long.)"

People are starting to think that maybe 8.0 will come sooner then

[Lokus]

Sorta makes sense. The fests are starting later than usual so going off of the final fest isn't as concrete. Maybe a Jan '27 launch?

[Lucavi]

Very nuanced take by Yoshi. These are dangers waters to navigate, and he's not even the owner of his own ship he captains.

[Anoat]

New Yoshi P interview where he was specifically asked if 8.0 was going to feature Meracydia and he says no. He says he has already decided when the story will go there but says it will be a long while before we get there but wants to assure people he knows we want to go there and it will happen eventually.

[Eragon]

New Yoshi P interview where he was specifically asked if 8.0 was going to feature Meracydia and he says no. He says he has already decided when the story will go there but says it will be a long while before we get there but wants to assure people he knows we want to go there and it will happen eventually.

Please look forward to it.

[arus2001]

Kinda feeling like it's a given the plan is to restore other shards or at least get them to a point where they can start doing it on their own. Not much of a reason for so much emphasis to have been given to the key, otherwise. Also gives Calyx somewhere to hole up for a while to recover and build up for revenge assuming he doesn't just last minute betrayal the ascians or they take advantage of him instead.

[Athas]

Wasn't Covid the given reason for the Endwalker relics just being tome grinds? There's an exploration zone this time and they're just not tying it to the relics?

[Gokulo]

Wasn't Covid the given reason for the Endwalker relics just being tome grinds?

I don't think I remember anything like that being said. Afair they took the complaints about exploration zone and gave a bad solution to it, lol

[Shenrien]

The complaints were the relics were too grindy and people didn't want to put in all the effort to do all the mindless grinds. Then people realized how shitty it is that its just a flat tome grind and there isn't any substance to it so now we are back to grind.

[Anoat]

With the new relic step you could in theory grind it out if you no life it, but just doing the daily bonuses looks to make maybe 12-14 days? Honestly not the worst way to passively farm a relic.

[Gokulo]

With the new relic step you could in theory grind it out if you no life it, but just doing the daily bonuses looks to make maybe 12-14 days? Honestly not the worst way to passively farm a relic.

Especially since you're getting tomes for additional relics too at the same time

[Gokulo]

MH collab site is up with gear screens etc:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...erhunterwilds/

[Ragns]

MH collab site is up with gear screens etc:
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...erhunterwilds/

LOL these requirements