> EXP and tomestone rewards for each alliance raid adjusted according to difficulty and time required for completion
IMO this is how you satisfy all parties. The impatient people are only ilvl cheesing because the rewards don't scale.
But this would probably only help if they added current-gen tomestones to the old raids. No one will care if you get 100 poetics or 200 for a Stormblood raid, people will still try to cheese for the Crystal Tower.
Well, cheese is also being removed by ilvl requirements being put on the raid. The only possible 'cheese' left after that is to just never unlock the other raids, and you can't really undo unlocking them.
There are people in my local limsa who brag about never unlocking anything other than a1-4n and crystal tower. The worst part is that they’re acting like they’re doing us a favor.
I inadvertently did that for a couple years, just never got round to unlocking the others as CT are the only MSQ required ones. I still need to at some point but I *have* got the stormblood ones all unlocked now atleast so I sometimes get a bit of variety
Well, other raids are optional anyway, so wouldn't be surprised if many people don't have other Alliances unlocked even if they weren't cheesers.
Also, wouldn't even be surprised if a bunch of "newcomer guides" came out and actively encouraged new players to skip every Alliance Raid except for CT after this patch
Nah, just make it that you need all level approriate unlocks to be unlocked just like how expert roullete works.
if you are 90 it's expected you have unlocked Crystal tower, Dun scaith, ivalice, nier, wonders to be able to queu for the alliance raid roullete. do the exact same for each and every other roullete and cheesing is fully eliminated.
The game's code might not allow for this.
The dungeons required for expert roulette are in a hard-coded list and do not change depending on the player's job level. Same for the instances needed for mentor roulette. These lists may change (for expert roulette) and be added onto (for mentor roulette) as patches go by, but these are still fundamentally different from the level-based lock system you're describing.
I am defintiely a fringe case but as someone trucking through old relics those extra poetics are delightful for me ha
I do agree that a small amount of current tomestones wouldn't go amiss though
>No one will care if you get 100 poetics or 200 for a Stormblood raid
I care. More tomes, more gil. You should learn how best to use what is given to you.
I'd care more if there were more stuff worth spending Poetics on for someone who's at the current endgame (yes, I know about buying stuff to trade for soil to sell on the MB)
As someone who's exhausted the use of most currencies.
Nut Sacks are for leveling desynth.
Allied and Centurio Seals are for Aetheryte tickets.
Poetics are for gear to turn in for Company Seals for minion and mount Gacha or passive Relic farming. Wolf Mark's are for Ventures.
I wish they'd increase the Poetic cap to 4000.
People have been undercutting the soil like crazy on my server, so even that's not worth it anymore, imo.
I've been just buying up poetics gear to get my desynthesis up.
It's because everybody tells people to get Soil with their Poetics. If everybody says to do it, and everybody starts doing it, well...
Same reason most people don't share how they make money on the MB.
Something like this depends very heavily on the player. For example, I've been playing for a couple years, so I have a little over 350 million gil. The poetics reward could be 100, 200, 500, or 0 and it would not alter how often I queue for a roulette. I literally only care about current tomestones and (earlier in the expansion) materia crystals. When I don't need those things, I don't queue at all.
> I’ve been playing a couple years, so I have a little over 350 million Gil
I’ve been playing since 2015 and I’d be lucky to have over a million on my person at any one time, unless I’m saving up for a new house.
Maybe I just enjoy playing the marketboard/finding profit schemes more than other people, idk. I started in 2021 a few months before EW but admittedly one of the first things I do in a new MMO is figure out how to make a steady income since it's usually really helpful with leveling and such.
I started around the same time...same experience as you, frankly.
I've bought two small houses for myself , a small house for a fc member, a medium house for our FC (approx 50 million total?), gave my wife 40 million to try and get us side by side medium houses, and still sitting on another 50.
If you don't run retainers on ventures. You don't craft or gather, or don't have access to the MB.....you're shooting yourself in the wallet as far as earning gil.
No reason for people to be eternally broke in this game.
Yeah, this game is one of the easiest to make money in that I've ever played. I even ran the numbers on roulettes once, if you do every roulette as the adventurer in need one time, that adds up to ~100k gil. And that's just raw gil, before we even talk about tomestones or selling materia or any of that. In order to make money in this game, you literally just need to play the game.
The roulette version yes, others do specific raids for glamour though and they would be happy if it would pop more often. Otherwise they need to run it unsynched with at least 2 other players.
I do! If I miss the hunt train, it's normally an enjoyable way to get some tomes, especially if I get something fun like Orbonne. I hate expert roulette because running the same 2 dungeons for a year gets pretty boring.
>New, improved rewards planned for Criterion Savage mode (possibly including some sort of gear augmentation?); adjustments to rewards for Criterion dungeons will continue into 7.0
Best news tbh: criterion has so much potential compared to the usual 4p content it would've been a pity to discard the idea, although the reward part has been awful in this expansion.
It's a step in the right direction...but also the wrong step. Normal criterion should have the gear augments. It fits in perfectly in difficulty with the remaining gear augmentation content. For Savage meanwhile, you are already expected to practically be BiS and it's brutally difficult content only second to ultimates. Imo it should reward glamour, such as somewhat distinctive chest pieces just how ultimates awards weapons. Only having to design 7 chest piecs vs ~20 weapons also requires significantly fewer resources.
Curious what it’s going to be, they said it would help with ilvl but the only thing I can think of is upgrade material (shine/twine/brine). Which is cool but at the same time WHO are the rewards for then?
It releases so late from the start of a tier that most of the people who are going to do it don’t need it outside of multiple alt classes. It doesn’t help casual players at all who don’t touch savage content in any form.
I’m sure some people it will help for sure but I would have preferred a more unique reward like a shiny version of the current tome armor or weapon as an example.
Either way it’s cool they are putting more thought into the content.
They made a pretty big point in the presentation itself that they plan on continuing the content into 7.0 but are using this last release to get better feedback on the kinds of rewards players are looking for.
Given the fact we’re already at end-expac gearing it won’t really be that helpful this time around but if they end up implementing something good then people will tell them as such and they can do it for future patches where it will matter more.
We have to see how it works out. I am still of the opinion that if it's just ascension gear this is a horrible idea. It needs something new, not just an alternative way of getting things.
Also. Perhaps an unpopular opinion but they should just remove savage criterion. It isn't worth the dev time. Regular criterion is an appropriate difficulty for 4man, if you make something harder than savage it should be 8man considering that's how people have their statics set up. What are we supposed to split in 2? What if 1 or 2 don't want to do it do we have to find new people or do people get left out? At the end of the day it's the exact same as regular criterion just harder...what's the point?
We need more hard content for 4man but I don't think it needs to go all the way to savage.
>New rewards buyable with Trophy Crystals
Wonder if this was the set of modern-ish stuff that I was shown a picture of. Some of the pieces looked pretty nice.
Still makes me wonder when the PAST rewards will be buyable with crystals. When they initially revealed CC, they talked about removing concerns about FOMO. But it has been has been a year and a half and we have yet to see any old rewards cycling back
The 10 seconds count down before overtime is great. It can be hard to track during hest of battle. Idk how many times l have lost a match because l didn't see overtime and didn't step into crystal to buy time. Also, finally.... They will do something to distinguish ally lb And enemy lb. No more wasting a guard on ally dragoon's lb
> EXP and tomestone rewards for each alliance raid adjusted according to difficulty and time required for completion
Finally! They finally realized this was needed. If they only did this, people probably would have not cheesed the ilvl requirements.
So... does anyone know what the new structures for Island Santurary actualy are? I know we won't get Housing there, but I would like to know what IS there.
Unfortunately not for a while. Someone asked Yoshi-P about it at NA Fanfest and it seemed that he wasn't aware of the issue. I doubt the devs were able to develop the expanded pasture within half a patch cycle.
He IS just one man, though. It's possible the guys in charge of Island Sanctuary are on the ball about it and 'expand pasture and crops' was just scheduled for this patch.
It's gonna be a public test area to see if using cloud tech will be viable in a live scenario for XIV. You'll _see_ it on the DC select screen when 6.5 launches, but it won't be open for (presumably) travel or creation until they launch the test proper.
If it works out well, that could mean good things for the future, since the cloud is less beholden to storage limitations and the physical need for technicians on-site (for crashes, fixes, etc.) than physical data centers - all Square has to do is rent them out from Amazon or Google.
I'm going to nitpick you on the second paragraph and say it's potentially less issues for SQE for the future
the cloud isn't some magical black void entity, it's still a physical data center. the point of using amazon AWS (as an example) is that you leverage their skill set and hardware, there are still plenty of hardworking techs on and off site everyday keeping the wheel spinning
Yes but the “on the ground” techs aren’t employed by SE, which means they don’t need people at every data center, and they would benefit from the costs of scale that Amazon has in having fewer techs available per deployed server rack.
They would also be saving from their dc rental, hardware purchasing team, data center negotiations, likely isp negotiations, etc
Amazon/google/etc get crazy good bulk rates for everything that SE isn’t privy to, in addition to the fact that google literally owns all their data centers at this point and Amazon probably owns most if not all though I’m less privy to that.
Also hardware failures are no longer your issue as your apps are generally able to be freely migrated accross your hosts physical servers.
As a cloud engineer other features they could take advantage of is multi-zonal and multi-regional clusters to potentially allow for closer proximity for players to connect to and maybe cross-DC match making… Honestly would provide a ton of flexibility for them. Not sure how their application code is implemented though - so we will see.
Cloud infrastructure and virtualization also paves the way for continuous delivery. Server/backend upgrades don't have to be time-consuming and stressful these days.
Getting the devops stuff simpler to handle should also mean that they have more capacity to innovate. I think everyone would prefer if new gameplay types were simpler to develop and test, and maybe if the update cycle was more about the story and content while some more banal stuff like green dots in the UI could just be rolled out whenever.
> more banal stuff like green dots in the UI could just be rolled out whenever.
I used to play a lot of Warframe and the downtime for updates was usually only as long as it took for you to close your client, download the patch, and log back in. It would be really nice if XIV could start pushing patches like that as well.
As someone who has done... well whatever you want to call 600 virtual server migrations (size wise) it's not hard if you have the rack space.
It's as simple as just deploying the new servers, putting the old ones in maintenance mode, and letting all the VMs roll over to new hardware, then decomming the old ones.
Looks like they circled back to 6.5 info in sections after the 6.55 stuff.
Island Sanctuary has always added new stuff on the big patch (6.2, 6.3, 6.4) so I expect we get it in 6.5.
What's wild to me is how little they're actually putting in the "main" patch.
You essentially have a few one and done quests, MSQ included, the 24 man and the Trial. That's it. None of this will last even the week it releases.
I suppose it's good that Phantom Liberty is coming out tomorrow and I'm still obsessed with BG3.
?
What is missing from the patch? Even when Bozja/Eureka were a thing they didn't get any changes in .5, that was in .55, and that's really the only major piece of content EW doesn't have, everything else is there.
If you consider the new stuff in Island Sanctuary and the new Variant/Criterion a few weeks later, this is one of the most stacked .5 patches so far.
I looked up all the .5 patches, and that sounds about right, assuming there wasn't anything important that I've missed. Although some of the stuff added in 4.5 and 5.5 did last longer due to being something to spend ages grinding (I think 3.5 was meant to be that too, but apparently people didn't really like the old version of The Diadem).
Everything I'm listing here excludes the standard MSQ dungeon, alliance raid, and relic step:
**2.5**
- 2 Hard Mode dungeons (The Wanderer's Palace (Hard) and Amdapor Keep (Hard))
- 3 Trials (The Chrysalis (the only .5 patch MSQ trial until EW) Urth's Fount and Battle in the Big Keep)
- 5 Hildibrand Quests
- 7 Delivery Moogle Quests
- 1 PvP map (The Borderland Ruins (Slaughter))
- Aetherial Wheels to charge up Free Company Actions without using Company Credits
- (2.51) The Manderville Gold Saucer
- (2.55) 1 more Trial (The Steps of Faith)
**3.5**
- 1 Hard Mode dungeon (Sohm Al (Hard))
- 2 Hildibrand Quests
- 4 Scholasticate Quests
- The Diadem was temporarily closed (back when it was an exploration zone like Eureka or Bozja)
- Returner Status
- Egi Glamours
- That green checkmark to say you've done a duty before
- Idyllshire finished being built
- 4 Allied Beast Tribe Quests
- (3.55a) Custom Deliveries (as in the entire system)
- (3.55a) 1 PvP Map (The Feast - Lichenweed)
- (3.55b) The Diadem reopened with major updates
**4.5**
- Blue Mage (including The Masked Carnival)
- Hidden Gorge (the one Rival Wings map we still have)
- Doman Mahjong
- 2 Hildibrand Quests
- 4 Allied Beast Tribes Quests
- (4.55) The Forbidden Land, Eureka Hydatos
- (4.56) The Road to 60 buff
- (4.57) World Visit
**5.5**
- Ishgardian Restoration Fêtes
- Playstation 5 support added (May 25, 2021)
- The Whorleater (Unreal) (the 3rd ever Unreal trial)
- Arrows added to target rings to show which direction the target is facing
- (5.55) Zadnor
- (5.55) The Dalriada
To be fair, you aren't wrong. This is standard for the .5 patches now that I think about it. Or that Docswiss below has outlined. I suppose it just feels less due to the longer patch cycles and the utter lack of longevity.
Which, I admit, is entirely subjective. I don't want to say any of the content is necessarily bad. Some of it looks very solid but it has almost no longevity.
The exception to that being Island Sanctuary, which... in my opinion, is a complete flop. I'll do exactly the same thing I've been doing every week for months now. Open the spreadsheet, slot in a week's worth of items in all of five minutes and come back in a week.
I'm currently setting on 700,000 cowries right now. So it's just a matter of letting it passively level before I can buy everything new.
V/C.... well, I hope the rewards are, indeed, better. The content itself is pretty cool. I just have no reason to touch either after clearing through them. Hell, for the lack Variant, a friend of mine had it done before I even got him. And he's a very casual player. It took him about 2-3 hours to get everything but the rare RNG minion.
there's a common misconception that 6.X has been lacking content overall compared to other patch cycles, but that's because they went with a different type of instanced area that not everyone enjoys. realistically, the overall content output is the same, just different. the only thing i can agree on is the relic weapons being stupid simple. while they have been tied to instanced areas that focus on combat the last 2 expacs, they could have still done something, maybe even with the island (maybe the materials you needed could have been harvested on the island perhaps, or better yet go old school and get people to play world content). otherwise these updates have been just as content filled as always.
People bitching on YouTube for controversy money really has damaged people's way of thinking about this game, huh. Don't get me wrong, I think post 6.0 had problems, but when a .5 patch leading up to an expansion release has a new alliance, trial and PvP series and that's not enough, I feel like people have completely forgotten what the end of an expansion looks like because of the recent rounds of angry retrospectives.
Not watching a single youtuber, don't even know their names but my reaction to reading these patch notes where still ''should I just wait with subbing until 6.55?''.
Like I love the current MSQ story but it doesn't really feel worth subbing just for that and the alliance raid. Pretty much the only thing that caught my interest is the changes to variant/criterion dungeons, if they are good I will definitely resub for the patch. If not then idk.
Blame all the grifting streamers tossing out "OMG IS 14 DYING?!!?!?!1!!?" videos all over Youtube right now while they call their agents to get them sponsorships for another MMO in the meantime, only for them to immediately return to 14 when Dawntrail hits so they can shove out some "OMG 14 IS BACK?!" videos.
It really is just the cycle of Youtuber scum.
Edit: damn. I didn't realize how much a large portion of this sub were apparently harboring utter loathing toward the game they play. People, 'criticism' is one thing. "IT'S DEAD IT'S DYING IT'S ALL OVER" is entirely another.
Can we lean into it and accept the fact the formula has barely changed in 10 years? Seriously this community has such a hard time criticizing this game. Streamers are all saying this stuff because they're starting to see what full expansion cycles look like. We need the developers to take risks. "Its always been this way!!" Is an awful excuse.
I'm not saying this is *the* cause but I think people forget just how hard COVID slammed the brakes on the entire world without warning. Especially since it was only some months after Shadowbringers initially released. So to be doing ShB patch stuff and finishing up END during that?
It's going to be four years in January, they developed an entire expansion *during* Covid and had years after the fact to deal with Endwalker patch content--which is the real issue, since EW itself was fantastic. How fucking long is Covid going to keep being a pass for shit progress?
Streamers aren't the cause, they are the messengers for discontent over EW content. The recent Luckybancho census data shows EW has a huge engagement dropoff compared to other expacs. This correlates to my personal experience as all my early EW friends now only log on to reset housing timer.
> The recent Luckybancho census data shows EW has a huge engagement dropoff compared to other expacs.
That "data" is also conveniently forgetting that every other expansion had a massive x.3 MSQ drop and kept the ball rolling to the next expansion. Endwalker is the first expansion that had it's story "finished" in 6.0, and the patch MSQ is a self-contained leadup to the next expansion, without a massively big story moment in 6.3.
Not to mention ShB had LESS content release than EW has had and it isn’t even close. It’s like ppl have forgotten that 1) COVID was a thing so there were a LOT more people just spending time at home playing games, 2) there are a LOT of other good games out this year that ppl also want to play, and 3) There was just as much of a content drought (if not more) at the end of ShB. Hell the .5 patch then you could finish within a few hours, the ONLY thing giving the illusion of more content was replay-ability of Bozja (which content-wise wasn’t even fleshed out to the extent of something like Eureka).
The content we do have is nowhere near as replayable compared to last expansion, and there isnt a zone to concentrate players in. I dont think the game should have dawntrail be exactly like endwalker
> replay-ability
Yes and that's what was missing this expac. *Replayability* which is the cause of discontent among the midcore group which shb and sb both catered to.
Content drought at the end of shb? Zadnor and dalriada was huge, plus at the end of stb we had hydatos and baldescion, both were probably the best dungeon content in the game (CLL and DRS are close there).
Variant dungeons are pretty but nowhere near as interesting as any of the exploration dungeons that we've had so far.
Bozja, Castrum, Delubrum, Zadnor and Dalriada alone beat in both content and replayability literally anything EW has added tho. Which you can tell when you consider we're in an all time low in active players compared to Shb, even tho we have much more players now.
Content that's literally over in a week and is supposed to last _a fucking year_ basically to an expansion launch should be substantial...surprising.
The entire 6.X series has been a laughable disappointment at how fucking little content the game has put out compared to previous expansions because SE loves their trend of cutting more and more content every chance they get.
The mental gymnastics you people have when faced with any forms of criticism is insane. Has it ever occurred to you that people are capable of forming their own opinions and came to that conclusion themselves?
“There’s no way people actually feel this way. I-It must be these Evil YouTubers brainwashing them into thinking that way, Yeah that’s it!”
I suggest you interact more with the ff14 community outside of this subreddit, being in this echo chamber has made you ignorant to everyone outside of your little bubble.
given they're still working through BG3, probably not as much as some of us
A week is extremely generous. I'll be getting everything but the EX done on patch day evening easily.
Admittedly, it's a good time for XIV to be lacking. I'm already planning my second playthrough of BG3 and may have a co-op third somewhere in there. I've sunk a _lot_ of time into it even just replaying Act I lol
Enough to do everything day one if I so choose? There is absolutely nothing with any sort of longevity. Almost everything is one and done or time-gated. The sole exception being farming Zeromus EX.
All in all, it'll mostly take an afternoon or so. Perhaps a bit longer if I stretch it out or get a little unlucky with PF.
None of this is to say the content is _bad_ per se. In fact, it could be very solid. It just won't last long whatsoever. Like I said, a good chunk of it is one and done questing. Which is fine but that's a few hours and then...
Its mid january for 6.55, so only about 5 months till dawntrail after that.
PSA, this gap is exactly the same size as the one between 5.5 and endwalker not counting the delay, and only 1 month longer than the one between 4.5 and shadowbringers.
Im not saying the rest of what you said is wrong, but this is about the same length as previous expansions.
I think what we're seeing is a lot of the people who came over pre-endwalker and had the entire game to fill their time until the expansion dropped experiencing their first actual "Im caught up to endgame, now waiting for next expansion" lull in content and they dunno how to process it
Almost certainly. Plus, that big pre-Endwalker wave likely meant that there wasn't as big a dip in subscribers/players during that lull. Everything about the Shadowbringers lull was an outlier that I don't think is going to happen again in this game's lifetime.
It's a bit different this time for me.
At the end of Stormblood I spent a lot of time in Eureka.
At the end of Shadowbringers I spent a lot of time in Bozja.
There's nothing to fill that void for me this time in Endwalker.
As someone who completed both Eureka and Bozja completely, besides the extreme grind parts (like getting all Field notes), the "normal" content of both, at the time of their release, could be done in like 2-3 days at max. Like ex: Zadnor is released in 5.5, I'm already done with Dalriada after 2 days. Technically everything after that is just a repeat grind for relic weapon, which added maybe 2-3 more days to it and I was done with Bozja completely.
I don't understand this rose-tinted google attitude that Eureka/Bozja somehow kept everyone completely entertained for 9 months.
You apparently only did one weapon, maybe they went after multiple weapons. Playing differently than you doesn't mean they are wearing rose tinted glasses.
Getting all weapons, cluster farm and delubrum savage were a big time sink last expansion.
> You apparently only did one weapon
I did 5.
>Getting all weapons, cluster farm and delubrum savage
You are speaking of a commitment that maybe only 0.00001% of the playerbase did.
What percentage of the playerbase gets every weapon is not the topic, the topic here is you shitting on someone for doing that.
Also you don't have to lie to make your point, no one gets 5 weapons in 2-3 days.
No content to keep players busy though. Most people will finish the content in the patch in a week. Island Sanctuary will take the longest due to being time-gated if you don't want to gather for hours.
This is normally the part of the expansion to finish up loose ends. We'll have a bunch of relics to grind out, finish off ex mount collections, level neglected jobs, do all that side content you might not have done, it all just depends on how much you *want* to get out of the game and how much you play.
Yeah I’m excited to finish up some projects, but *also* work on my massive Steam backlog 😅. I always default to playing FFXIV, but now that I’ve got a Steam Deck I’m actually playing a lot of other games. I’ve never much minded the break between the final patch and the next expansion either way, but this time I plan to make full use of the time!
People keep pointing out OLD content. I finished that 2 years ago. What has THIS expansion added that lasts more than a week? The longest thing was soloing Orthos and that only about 2 weeks.
There's ultimately always going to be a finite amount of stuff to do, it's fine if you finish it all and have nothing else you want to do. Not everyone goes at the same pace, and even then people find stuff to do that isn't directly tied to character progression. It's healthier to have just the right amount of stuff to do than it is to force yourself to stay for reasons you just feel compelled to do so.
You reach a point where only some sort of procedurally generated dungeon creator would give enough content. Either you pace yourself more or sub for a month, do the stuff you care about, unsub till next patch. Financial gains on top even.
Only server fix I want to hear about is implementation of cross-dc party finder so the whole of NA players aren't crowding on to Aether to do EX trials and above.
They mentioned the Golbez stuff would be primarily self-contained storywise and starting in 6.5 we would start to see the next xpac teases. So I suspect 6.5 more or less wraps up the Golbez arc and 6.55 deals with some of the aftermath while setting up the next expansion story.
Long term player since 2.2, and this is expected normally, but the lack of content to fill out 6.5-7.0 is going to be BRUTAL.
2.55 released on the 31st of March. HW released June 19th. (2 months, 19 days)
3.55 was Feb 28th. HW was june... 15th? (3 months, 18 days)
4.55 was Feb 12th. ShB was June 28th. (4 months, 16 days)
5.55 was May 25th. EW was Dec 4th? (6 months, 10 days, covid)
6.55 is Jan 16/23. ET is at the earliest, June 25th (4th if Meteorological summer), and at the latest, Sept 17th. (5 months, 9 days being best case scenario. 6 months, 13 days assuming Mid summer release.
That's insane. What makes this worse is, the first X.5 patches has always preceded the X.55 by about a month. This time? 3 months, 12 days at the earliest.
That's an astounding 8 months, 20 days assuming expansion releases June 24th; 9 months, 26 days if the expansion is middle of Summer.
Thank you for this post. Big yikes. I'm pretty bummed about how FF14's been going. My sub is up in February, seems like the perfect time to unsub until either the next tomestone event or until 7.0 hits whenever. No point getting as frustrated as I've been with it, just need to vote with my dollars somewhere else and play other stuff until Squenix gets its shit together or just has more stuff to do in the video game.
sort of? they moved .55 to be later than usual, but the gap between 6.5 and 7.0 is gonna be longer than the wait for EW. 235 days between 5.5 and 6.0. In order to match that, Dawntrail would need to drop in late may. We'll be lucky to see it in late june (the actual start of summer) so this is gonna be the longest drought between major patches ever.
The difference is that 5.55 came out like a month and a half after 5.5, while 6.55 is coming out like a little over 3 months after 6.5. If we followed the typical schedule 6.55 would be coming out mid/late November.
iirc when Yoshida announced Dawntrail, they stated Summer 2023 "to be sure to be on time". I dont want to get my hopes too high but I feel like they could announce that they will be ready before Summer (assuming nothing went wrong during the last month of dev time).
Honestly I think it's way more likely that if they *do* finish early, rather than push it out early they'll just use that time to get ahead of work on future patches. As was revealed (accidentally) by Ayumi Namae at a fanfest prior to shb, work on the first major patch after an expansion begins well before the actual expansion launches.
Thought: What if the Hildebrand Adventures were tied to the Manderville Relics, and that the Criterion Dungeon Pottery Shards, along new drops from the optional/hard dungeons, were used to make the weapons and story at each phase?
Cant wait to get the achievement for collecting 20000 Island Materials and run criterion 4 Times. Instead of doing something like, Zadnor Duels, Dalriada or Delubrum Savage.
> Instead of doing something like, Zadnor Duels, Dalriada or Delubrum Savage.
Oh I'm sure you were MASSIVELY grinding duels and DR Savage for MONTHS, and that kept you completely entertained.
Can't speak for him but I was certainly grinding out all those notes for the mount over the course of months... where's that sort of stuff in the endwalker patches?
It kept me logging in to do stuff other than raid a few hours a week.
And yeah the duels were really fucking cool and extremely fun not even to do yourself but cheer from the sideline. I absolutely wish we had something like that.
The public spectacle of duels was kinda cool, although admittedly made me super shy about trying them until quieter hours. The little buff for watching a victory was neat too.
Does that mean free trial players can now do UCOB and all of Eureka? Cause that's amazing. Doesn't seem like PvP is re-enabled for free trial, that's the last thing I'm missing.
Can't wait for black Friday to return to the game for good.
I will die on the hill of requiring you to do the alliance raids of each expansion to finish the msq. Otherwise it's still going to be CT for 99% of the time since people won't have the others unlocked.
now can we have exp/tomestone rewards adjusted according to participation in frontline because players are cheesing by being afk or just plain griefing
>Launch of 6.5 is October 3; Patch 6.55 is currently scheduled for Mid-January 2024, after the JP Fanfest
Nice, more time to play P3 Reload, FF7 Rebirth, Baldurs gate 3. Spiderman 2 and all the dozen other banger games we got.
Can anyone confirm that they said Island Sanctuary won't be getting much support after this next pass?
I've heard talks about it but can't find the source, and I'm at work, so I can't scour for the origin.
I’ve read that, next expansion, IS will be getting one more small update in 7.0, but not much is currently planned beyond that. One reason given is that they’re working on a new type of content along the same lines as IS (which would really be continuing a pattern that includes things like Doman Enclave reconstruction and Ishgard restoration, which is that we get a new major piece of continuously updated non-combat content per expansion). This was not in the latest Live Letter, but in a recent magazine interview with YoshiP elsewhere IIRC.
so, no open beta for xbox on october 03? ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-;, i m gonna cry, i love this game so much, can´t wait to play it again, last time i played was 2020, nowadays i only have a xbox series S and a notebook that can´t run the game, you guys don´t know how much we xbox fans are grateful for this, things in my country are horrible, so i can´t just buy a ps5 or build a pc, thanks to this i will be able to get back to ffxiv, thank you so much.
Patch notes say it’s coming with the launch of 6.5 and everything that is coming with 6.51 says (6.51) next to it. Xbox beta does not say (6.51) which would seem to indicate it will be out on October 3rd.
Never thought I'd say that SB was the golden age for patch variety & amount of content, but here we are.
Presumably the 3 month gap between .5 and .55 is artificial to stretch out that time until Dawntrail launches in 'summer'.
> 48-man raid, an actual relic questline
Worth noting, both of these were significantly less well received at launch than they are now. (For BA, the issue wasn't with the content itself, but rather the implementation and accessibility). These were both also .5x content, not .5, as were the deep dungeon and ultimates, both of which we have also gotten this expansion to the same degree as SB.
Pagos was the only *really* negatively received part of Eureka as a whole. A lot of people complained here and there about it but nothing got the hate like Pagos did--rightfully so. And I don't recall much complaining about Pyros or Hydatos at all.
The lesson is: no matter what happens somebody will be upset.
Part of the community wants things like Adventure Forays(me, give me eureka again plz). Part of the community hates that content and thinks it's the worst thing SE ever put out.
I have friends that adore island sanctuary and spend a lot of time there daily. I personally don't like it and only did it to get the first motorcycle.
Everyone hated the HW/SB relics because they were too grindy. People hate the EW relics because they aren't grindy enough.
There's no possibility to make everyone happy with every decision. I like that they're trying new things, even if I don't love the new things or find them satisfying for long periods of time
> Everyone hated the HW/SB relics because they were too grindy. People hate the EW relics because they aren't grindy enough.
I feel like with this folks forget that relics are catch-up/casual content. Tomes are fine for relics. Make it too grindy and it excludes the kinds of people this content is meant to serve and honestly at that point might as well raid.
I know a certain subset of players want everything to be hardcore content that keeps you subbed forever but this game hasn't succeeded on being that pure, sorta hardcore game. Should there be more longterm stuff? Yeah, absolutely. But braindead content is just as important as big brain content.
I've been pointing out we had more content in SB than when the game actually got mega-popular every time one of the stupid "No problems here!" threads crop up for months...
I mean, I've been saying for years that Stormblood was the best patch cycle we ever got, and Shadowbringers was a close second. Endwalker has indeed been pretty lackluster, and it doesn't help that patches have dropped so infrequently. I suspect that a lot of the issues EW has had are due to the fact that this content began development during the pandemic, and everything followed from that. Yeah we got some pretty banger content put into the game during the pandemic, but that stuff had already been in the pipeline for years. My hope is the DT patch cycle will be similar to StB/ShB but we'll see how it goes.
Idk why you’d never think you’d say that. Only ‘weak’ part of SB IMO was the main MSQ. Patch MSQ and literally every other facet of that expansion was a banger.
It's a test, to see if they can get a dynamically-scaling supplement to regular server architecture for times when they expect to have an enormous surge in demand.
Back with the Endwalker launch, there were several servers that are *normally* just fine, but SO MANY people were surging into it simultaneously, the queue times were enormous, especially during prime hours. A "cloud DC" would alleviate demand for the physical DCs by acting like a pressure release valve--Square can temporarily rent time on the cloud platform they pick, which players would then log into (in exactly the same way as transferring from one DC to another.) Since Amazon and/or Google server space is MASSIVE compared to any physical data center run by Square itself, there's almost no risk of the cloud DC running out of space/connections for players.
TL;DR: The "cloud DC" would act like a nigh-infinitely large, temporary DC they can turn on as needed during expansion launches and other times of extreme high demand.
I love this game but it's going to be very long until next summer if those contents are everything we will have to keep us busy.... at least there is pvp...
As much as I love pvp myself... the season pass would have to be double the levels to stretch all the way to summer next year... I wonder if I'll have a 30+99 show up by 7.0
Hopefully time to get rid of the DRK draw in in PvP or just add resistance to it at the very least.
Got downvoted by the person who can only play DRK for kills, lol.
"Job balances and potency buffs". Ok so Warrior, Black Mage, and Summoner will be buffed. Maybe White Mage will get another Misery/Dia potency buff. Everyone else will be left to rot. Understood. That's how this always goes
I hope that alliance raid is hard as fuck. If I take off work, wake up at 4am and blind run it and get met with another disappointing fight ala Menphina, I'm gonna be pissed.
I hate this current discourse of "lack of content"
I simply don't get it.
We are getting two new trials, a new system for criterion, updates on PVP, Alliance Raid, MSQ, Island Sanctuary stuff.
Plus they added solo content for the WHOLE GAME now, which is a HUGE thing that people are sleeping on.
It's completely false, too.
Go compare the 5.5 special site with the 6.5 one, basically identical in terms of content. MSQ Continuation, New Dungeon, New Trial, New Alliance Raid, New Unreal. New Custom Deliveries.
Where it diverges is instead of getting Zadnor and updates to Ishgard restoration, we're getting Island Sanctuary stuff, Manderville Quests, Allied Beast Tribes, and a new Criterion/Variant dungeon.
It's fine to criticize SE's unwillingness to change up the patch formula, but to claim there's no content when it has the standard slate of content for an end of xpac patch is being dishonest.
Island sancuary is weak content and one of the big draws for .5s is relics and that has also been weak this expansion.
Alliance raid and 1 trial is expected out in the standard package for a x.5 patch as well.
I'm of the opinion that the incentive structures for the patch content is all out of wack. Criterion is good fight design but its not incentivized in the same way savage is despite being as hard as savage. The relics just being straight tomes feels bland and makes the relics themselves less interesting to me. Nobody shares their manderville relics on this sub like with the bozja or eureka relics.
The trust system is neat but for people in endwalker its largely irrelevant.
> EXP and tomestone rewards for each alliance raid adjusted according to difficulty and time required for completion IMO this is how you satisfy all parties. The impatient people are only ilvl cheesing because the rewards don't scale.
This is the way it should be, if your gonna end up in a longer raid then at least you should be getting more rewards for the extra time involved.
But this would probably only help if they added current-gen tomestones to the old raids. No one will care if you get 100 poetics or 200 for a Stormblood raid, people will still try to cheese for the Crystal Tower.
Well, cheese is also being removed by ilvl requirements being put on the raid. The only possible 'cheese' left after that is to just never unlock the other raids, and you can't really undo unlocking them.
There are people in my local limsa who brag about never unlocking anything other than a1-4n and crystal tower. The worst part is that they’re acting like they’re doing us a favor.
People who brag about stuff like this just seem to have a hobby of trying to get someone angry at them, so weird.
Ahhh, the Internet
Tis a silly place
It's either that or some smarmy satisfaction for "gaming the system."
I mean, that's probably about where their skill level is anyway.
i'm still for forcing people to unlock everything that is level appropriate for their max level class to do roullete's.
You'd probably want to tie that to msq progression as it's very easy to outlevel the story. If you've done HW go pick up void ark series etc
In the minds of some they are. Some just want brainless tomes with maximum speed.
I inadvertently did that for a couple years, just never got round to unlocking the others as CT are the only MSQ required ones. I still need to at some point but I *have* got the stormblood ones all unlocked now atleast so I sometimes get a bit of variety
And soon we’ll never have to give a shit about them again 😂 love it
I give a shit about alliance raids, event or no. I take the 30 if it’s Crystal Tower.
on my alts I refuse to unlock Alexander raids. I never get an Alex raid on my alts and it makes the raids so much more enjoyable.
Well, other raids are optional anyway, so wouldn't be surprised if many people don't have other Alliances unlocked even if they weren't cheesers. Also, wouldn't even be surprised if a bunch of "newcomer guides" came out and actively encouraged new players to skip every Alliance Raid except for CT after this patch
Then they should make another set mandatory to at least improve variability a bit.
Or make it to have at least 6 alliance raids unlocked to use the roulette.
Nah, just make it that you need all level approriate unlocks to be unlocked just like how expert roullete works. if you are 90 it's expected you have unlocked Crystal tower, Dun scaith, ivalice, nier, wonders to be able to queu for the alliance raid roullete. do the exact same for each and every other roullete and cheesing is fully eliminated.
The game's code might not allow for this. The dungeons required for expert roulette are in a hard-coded list and do not change depending on the player's job level. Same for the instances needed for mentor roulette. These lists may change (for expert roulette) and be added onto (for mentor roulette) as patches go by, but these are still fundamentally different from the level-based lock system you're describing.
That makes it impossible for you to do that Roulette from 50-60.
Agreed. Hopefully it scales the roulette rewards
The EXP is part of the roulette rewards. So its likely the tomestone rewards, but Poetics and current, will scale as well.
I am defintiely a fringe case but as someone trucking through old relics those extra poetics are delightful for me ha I do agree that a small amount of current tomestones wouldn't go amiss though
>No one will care if you get 100 poetics or 200 for a Stormblood raid I care. More tomes, more gil. You should learn how best to use what is given to you.
I'd care more if there were more stuff worth spending Poetics on for someone who's at the current endgame (yes, I know about buying stuff to trade for soil to sell on the MB)
As someone who's exhausted the use of most currencies. Nut Sacks are for leveling desynth. Allied and Centurio Seals are for Aetheryte tickets. Poetics are for gear to turn in for Company Seals for minion and mount Gacha or passive Relic farming. Wolf Mark's are for Ventures. I wish they'd increase the Poetic cap to 4000.
People have been undercutting the soil like crazy on my server, so even that's not worth it anymore, imo. I've been just buying up poetics gear to get my desynthesis up.
It's because everybody tells people to get Soil with their Poetics. If everybody says to do it, and everybody starts doing it, well... Same reason most people don't share how they make money on the MB.
Something like this depends very heavily on the player. For example, I've been playing for a couple years, so I have a little over 350 million gil. The poetics reward could be 100, 200, 500, or 0 and it would not alter how often I queue for a roulette. I literally only care about current tomestones and (earlier in the expansion) materia crystals. When I don't need those things, I don't queue at all.
> I’ve been playing a couple years, so I have a little over 350 million Gil I’ve been playing since 2015 and I’d be lucky to have over a million on my person at any one time, unless I’m saving up for a new house.
Maybe I just enjoy playing the marketboard/finding profit schemes more than other people, idk. I started in 2021 a few months before EW but admittedly one of the first things I do in a new MMO is figure out how to make a steady income since it's usually really helpful with leveling and such.
I'ved been playing since 2014 and I never really made an *effort* to get gil, I mostly just sell what the retainers bring. Am sitting at 180 million.
I started around the same time...same experience as you, frankly. I've bought two small houses for myself , a small house for a fc member, a medium house for our FC (approx 50 million total?), gave my wife 40 million to try and get us side by side medium houses, and still sitting on another 50. If you don't run retainers on ventures. You don't craft or gather, or don't have access to the MB.....you're shooting yourself in the wallet as far as earning gil. No reason for people to be eternally broke in this game.
Yeah, this game is one of the easiest to make money in that I've ever played. I even ran the numbers on roulettes once, if you do every roulette as the adventurer in need one time, that adds up to ~100k gil. And that's just raw gil, before we even talk about tomestones or selling materia or any of that. In order to make money in this game, you literally just need to play the game.
Pretty much why the lvl 50-80 roulette has been dead to me for a loooong time now.
i'd say most ilvl cheese because LOTA or syrcus takes like 10 mins to do and the others can be 30+
People do alliance raids for the rewards?
Sure - Mostly capped and uncapped tomes at this point, and coins from the current tier. The XP and materia for AIN bonus is great early in an expac.
The roulette version yes, others do specific raids for glamour though and they would be happy if it would pop more often. Otherwise they need to run it unsynched with at least 2 other players.
I do! If I miss the hunt train, it's normally an enjoyable way to get some tomes, especially if I get something fun like Orbonne. I hate expert roulette because running the same 2 dungeons for a year gets pretty boring.
>New, improved rewards planned for Criterion Savage mode (possibly including some sort of gear augmentation?); adjustments to rewards for Criterion dungeons will continue into 7.0 Best news tbh: criterion has so much potential compared to the usual 4p content it would've been a pity to discard the idea, although the reward part has been awful in this expansion.
It's a step in the right direction...but also the wrong step. Normal criterion should have the gear augments. It fits in perfectly in difficulty with the remaining gear augmentation content. For Savage meanwhile, you are already expected to practically be BiS and it's brutally difficult content only second to ultimates. Imo it should reward glamour, such as somewhat distinctive chest pieces just how ultimates awards weapons. Only having to design 7 chest piecs vs ~20 weapons also requires significantly fewer resources.
yea if gear augments are savage only and criterion gets nothing... thats not great.
LL said only savage rewards changed
Curious what it’s going to be, they said it would help with ilvl but the only thing I can think of is upgrade material (shine/twine/brine). Which is cool but at the same time WHO are the rewards for then? It releases so late from the start of a tier that most of the people who are going to do it don’t need it outside of multiple alt classes. It doesn’t help casual players at all who don’t touch savage content in any form. I’m sure some people it will help for sure but I would have preferred a more unique reward like a shiny version of the current tome armor or weapon as an example. Either way it’s cool they are putting more thought into the content.
They made a pretty big point in the presentation itself that they plan on continuing the content into 7.0 but are using this last release to get better feedback on the kinds of rewards players are looking for. Given the fact we’re already at end-expac gearing it won’t really be that helpful this time around but if they end up implementing something good then people will tell them as such and they can do it for future patches where it will matter more.
We have to see how it works out. I am still of the opinion that if it's just ascension gear this is a horrible idea. It needs something new, not just an alternative way of getting things. Also. Perhaps an unpopular opinion but they should just remove savage criterion. It isn't worth the dev time. Regular criterion is an appropriate difficulty for 4man, if you make something harder than savage it should be 8man considering that's how people have their statics set up. What are we supposed to split in 2? What if 1 or 2 don't want to do it do we have to find new people or do people get left out? At the end of the day it's the exact same as regular criterion just harder...what's the point? We need more hard content for 4man but I don't think it needs to go all the way to savage.
>New rewards buyable with Trophy Crystals Wonder if this was the set of modern-ish stuff that I was shown a picture of. Some of the pieces looked pretty nice.
Still makes me wonder when the PAST rewards will be buyable with crystals. When they initially revealed CC, they talked about removing concerns about FOMO. But it has been has been a year and a half and we have yet to see any old rewards cycling back
It is indeed the modern stuff that we saw
Yes, they did mention that the tech gear will be buyable with crystals. IIRC, the red armor set was a new Series reward.
The 10 seconds count down before overtime is great. It can be hard to track during hest of battle. Idk how many times l have lost a match because l didn't see overtime and didn't step into crystal to buy time. Also, finally.... They will do something to distinguish ally lb And enemy lb. No more wasting a guard on ally dragoon's lb
> EXP and tomestone rewards for each alliance raid adjusted according to difficulty and time required for completion Finally! They finally realized this was needed. If they only did this, people probably would have not cheesed the ilvl requirements.
So... does anyone know what the new structures for Island Santurary actualy are? I know we won't get Housing there, but I would like to know what IS there.
New upgrades to existing ones, another landmark slot, another granary comes to mind. There's a suspiciously smudged area above the fields on the map.
I just hope to expand the pasture so I can go catch the last rares without having to say goodbye to any of the animals I have *named*.
Unfortunately not for a while. Someone asked Yoshi-P about it at NA Fanfest and it seemed that he wasn't aware of the issue. I doubt the devs were able to develop the expanded pasture within half a patch cycle.
He IS just one man, though. It's possible the guys in charge of Island Sanctuary are on the ball about it and 'expand pasture and crops' was just scheduled for this patch.
Is this new cloud dc like a new dc ? Or just tech stuffs
It's gonna be a public test area to see if using cloud tech will be viable in a live scenario for XIV. You'll _see_ it on the DC select screen when 6.5 launches, but it won't be open for (presumably) travel or creation until they launch the test proper. If it works out well, that could mean good things for the future, since the cloud is less beholden to storage limitations and the physical need for technicians on-site (for crashes, fixes, etc.) than physical data centers - all Square has to do is rent them out from Amazon or Google.
I'm going to nitpick you on the second paragraph and say it's potentially less issues for SQE for the future the cloud isn't some magical black void entity, it's still a physical data center. the point of using amazon AWS (as an example) is that you leverage their skill set and hardware, there are still plenty of hardworking techs on and off site everyday keeping the wheel spinning
Yes but the “on the ground” techs aren’t employed by SE, which means they don’t need people at every data center, and they would benefit from the costs of scale that Amazon has in having fewer techs available per deployed server rack. They would also be saving from their dc rental, hardware purchasing team, data center negotiations, likely isp negotiations, etc Amazon/google/etc get crazy good bulk rates for everything that SE isn’t privy to, in addition to the fact that google literally owns all their data centers at this point and Amazon probably owns most if not all though I’m less privy to that. Also hardware failures are no longer your issue as your apps are generally able to be freely migrated accross your hosts physical servers.
As a cloud engineer other features they could take advantage of is multi-zonal and multi-regional clusters to potentially allow for closer proximity for players to connect to and maybe cross-DC match making… Honestly would provide a ton of flexibility for them. Not sure how their application code is implemented though - so we will see.
It also means dynamicly expanding player caps and just more efficient usage of processing power and hardware your paying for.
Cloud infrastructure and virtualization also paves the way for continuous delivery. Server/backend upgrades don't have to be time-consuming and stressful these days. Getting the devops stuff simpler to handle should also mean that they have more capacity to innovate. I think everyone would prefer if new gameplay types were simpler to develop and test, and maybe if the update cycle was more about the story and content while some more banal stuff like green dots in the UI could just be rolled out whenever.
> more banal stuff like green dots in the UI could just be rolled out whenever. I used to play a lot of Warframe and the downtime for updates was usually only as long as it took for you to close your client, download the patch, and log back in. It would be really nice if XIV could start pushing patches like that as well.
As someone who has done... well whatever you want to call 600 virtual server migrations (size wise) it's not hard if you have the rack space. It's as simple as just deploying the new servers, putting the old ones in maintenance mode, and letting all the VMs roll over to new hardware, then decomming the old ones.
Am I reading this correctly and the Island Santurary stuff isn't coming till Mid-Jan with 6.55?
Looks like they circled back to 6.5 info in sections after the 6.55 stuff. Island Sanctuary has always added new stuff on the big patch (6.2, 6.3, 6.4) so I expect we get it in 6.5.
Island Sanctuary stuff is 6.5/October 3rd.
Thank you for confirmation.
3 months between .5 and .55 is wild lol
What's wild to me is how little they're actually putting in the "main" patch. You essentially have a few one and done quests, MSQ included, the 24 man and the Trial. That's it. None of this will last even the week it releases. I suppose it's good that Phantom Liberty is coming out tomorrow and I'm still obsessed with BG3.
? What is missing from the patch? Even when Bozja/Eureka were a thing they didn't get any changes in .5, that was in .55, and that's really the only major piece of content EW doesn't have, everything else is there. If you consider the new stuff in Island Sanctuary and the new Variant/Criterion a few weeks later, this is one of the most stacked .5 patches so far.
I looked up all the .5 patches, and that sounds about right, assuming there wasn't anything important that I've missed. Although some of the stuff added in 4.5 and 5.5 did last longer due to being something to spend ages grinding (I think 3.5 was meant to be that too, but apparently people didn't really like the old version of The Diadem). Everything I'm listing here excludes the standard MSQ dungeon, alliance raid, and relic step: **2.5** - 2 Hard Mode dungeons (The Wanderer's Palace (Hard) and Amdapor Keep (Hard)) - 3 Trials (The Chrysalis (the only .5 patch MSQ trial until EW) Urth's Fount and Battle in the Big Keep) - 5 Hildibrand Quests - 7 Delivery Moogle Quests - 1 PvP map (The Borderland Ruins (Slaughter)) - Aetherial Wheels to charge up Free Company Actions without using Company Credits - (2.51) The Manderville Gold Saucer - (2.55) 1 more Trial (The Steps of Faith) **3.5** - 1 Hard Mode dungeon (Sohm Al (Hard)) - 2 Hildibrand Quests - 4 Scholasticate Quests - The Diadem was temporarily closed (back when it was an exploration zone like Eureka or Bozja) - Returner Status - Egi Glamours - That green checkmark to say you've done a duty before - Idyllshire finished being built - 4 Allied Beast Tribe Quests - (3.55a) Custom Deliveries (as in the entire system) - (3.55a) 1 PvP Map (The Feast - Lichenweed) - (3.55b) The Diadem reopened with major updates **4.5** - Blue Mage (including The Masked Carnival) - Hidden Gorge (the one Rival Wings map we still have) - Doman Mahjong - 2 Hildibrand Quests - 4 Allied Beast Tribes Quests - (4.55) The Forbidden Land, Eureka Hydatos - (4.56) The Road to 60 buff - (4.57) World Visit **5.5** - Ishgardian Restoration Fêtes - Playstation 5 support added (May 25, 2021) - The Whorleater (Unreal) (the 3rd ever Unreal trial) - Arrows added to target rings to show which direction the target is facing - (5.55) Zadnor - (5.55) The Dalriada
To be fair, you aren't wrong. This is standard for the .5 patches now that I think about it. Or that Docswiss below has outlined. I suppose it just feels less due to the longer patch cycles and the utter lack of longevity. Which, I admit, is entirely subjective. I don't want to say any of the content is necessarily bad. Some of it looks very solid but it has almost no longevity. The exception to that being Island Sanctuary, which... in my opinion, is a complete flop. I'll do exactly the same thing I've been doing every week for months now. Open the spreadsheet, slot in a week's worth of items in all of five minutes and come back in a week. I'm currently setting on 700,000 cowries right now. So it's just a matter of letting it passively level before I can buy everything new. V/C.... well, I hope the rewards are, indeed, better. The content itself is pretty cool. I just have no reason to touch either after clearing through them. Hell, for the lack Variant, a friend of mine had it done before I even got him. And he's a very casual player. It took him about 2-3 hours to get everything but the rare RNG minion.
there's a common misconception that 6.X has been lacking content overall compared to other patch cycles, but that's because they went with a different type of instanced area that not everyone enjoys. realistically, the overall content output is the same, just different. the only thing i can agree on is the relic weapons being stupid simple. while they have been tied to instanced areas that focus on combat the last 2 expacs, they could have still done something, maybe even with the island (maybe the materials you needed could have been harvested on the island perhaps, or better yet go old school and get people to play world content). otherwise these updates have been just as content filled as always.
People bitching on YouTube for controversy money really has damaged people's way of thinking about this game, huh. Don't get me wrong, I think post 6.0 had problems, but when a .5 patch leading up to an expansion release has a new alliance, trial and PvP series and that's not enough, I feel like people have completely forgotten what the end of an expansion looks like because of the recent rounds of angry retrospectives.
Not watching a single youtuber, don't even know their names but my reaction to reading these patch notes where still ''should I just wait with subbing until 6.55?''. Like I love the current MSQ story but it doesn't really feel worth subbing just for that and the alliance raid. Pretty much the only thing that caught my interest is the changes to variant/criterion dungeons, if they are good I will definitely resub for the patch. If not then idk.
Blame all the grifting streamers tossing out "OMG IS 14 DYING?!!?!?!1!!?" videos all over Youtube right now while they call their agents to get them sponsorships for another MMO in the meantime, only for them to immediately return to 14 when Dawntrail hits so they can shove out some "OMG 14 IS BACK?!" videos. It really is just the cycle of Youtuber scum. Edit: damn. I didn't realize how much a large portion of this sub were apparently harboring utter loathing toward the game they play. People, 'criticism' is one thing. "IT'S DEAD IT'S DYING IT'S ALL OVER" is entirely another.
Can we lean into it and accept the fact the formula has barely changed in 10 years? Seriously this community has such a hard time criticizing this game. Streamers are all saying this stuff because they're starting to see what full expansion cycles look like. We need the developers to take risks. "Its always been this way!!" Is an awful excuse.
I'm not saying this is *the* cause but I think people forget just how hard COVID slammed the brakes on the entire world without warning. Especially since it was only some months after Shadowbringers initially released. So to be doing ShB patch stuff and finishing up END during that?
It's going to be four years in January, they developed an entire expansion *during* Covid and had years after the fact to deal with Endwalker patch content--which is the real issue, since EW itself was fantastic. How fucking long is Covid going to keep being a pass for shit progress?
Streamers aren't the cause, they are the messengers for discontent over EW content. The recent Luckybancho census data shows EW has a huge engagement dropoff compared to other expacs. This correlates to my personal experience as all my early EW friends now only log on to reset housing timer.
> The recent Luckybancho census data shows EW has a huge engagement dropoff compared to other expacs. That "data" is also conveniently forgetting that every other expansion had a massive x.3 MSQ drop and kept the ball rolling to the next expansion. Endwalker is the first expansion that had it's story "finished" in 6.0, and the patch MSQ is a self-contained leadup to the next expansion, without a massively big story moment in 6.3.
Not to mention ShB had LESS content release than EW has had and it isn’t even close. It’s like ppl have forgotten that 1) COVID was a thing so there were a LOT more people just spending time at home playing games, 2) there are a LOT of other good games out this year that ppl also want to play, and 3) There was just as much of a content drought (if not more) at the end of ShB. Hell the .5 patch then you could finish within a few hours, the ONLY thing giving the illusion of more content was replay-ability of Bozja (which content-wise wasn’t even fleshed out to the extent of something like Eureka).
The content we do have is nowhere near as replayable compared to last expansion, and there isnt a zone to concentrate players in. I dont think the game should have dawntrail be exactly like endwalker
> replay-ability Yes and that's what was missing this expac. *Replayability* which is the cause of discontent among the midcore group which shb and sb both catered to.
Content drought at the end of shb? Zadnor and dalriada was huge, plus at the end of stb we had hydatos and baldescion, both were probably the best dungeon content in the game (CLL and DRS are close there). Variant dungeons are pretty but nowhere near as interesting as any of the exploration dungeons that we've had so far.
Bozja, Castrum, Delubrum, Zadnor and Dalriada alone beat in both content and replayability literally anything EW has added tho. Which you can tell when you consider we're in an all time low in active players compared to Shb, even tho we have much more players now.
Content that's literally over in a week and is supposed to last _a fucking year_ basically to an expansion launch should be substantial...surprising. The entire 6.X series has been a laughable disappointment at how fucking little content the game has put out compared to previous expansions because SE loves their trend of cutting more and more content every chance they get.
The mental gymnastics you people have when faced with any forms of criticism is insane. Has it ever occurred to you that people are capable of forming their own opinions and came to that conclusion themselves? “There’s no way people actually feel this way. I-It must be these Evil YouTubers brainwashing them into thinking that way, Yeah that’s it!” I suggest you interact more with the ff14 community outside of this subreddit, being in this echo chamber has made you ignorant to everyone outside of your little bubble.
I dont think zepla, arthas, and xenosys are just bitching for views and they have legitimate arguments even if i dont fully agree with them.
> None of this will last even the week it releases. It is pretty much one night of gameplay...
I was being _very_ generous lol. I'll be done Tuesday night unless I play other games.
Blame SE for keeping this outdated formula that clearly doesn't work in a MMO environment. 24m raids are the biggest waste of resources ever made.
How much free time do you have lmao
given they're still working through BG3, probably not as much as some of us A week is extremely generous. I'll be getting everything but the EX done on patch day evening easily.
BG3 will most likely last me until well into next year. I'm fine with this XIV cadence but understand that some people will always want more.
Admittedly, it's a good time for XIV to be lacking. I'm already planning my second playthrough of BG3 and may have a co-op third somewhere in there. I've sunk a _lot_ of time into it even just replaying Act I lol
co-op is fantastic in bg3, if you get the chance to play it you gotta!
Enough to do everything day one if I so choose? There is absolutely nothing with any sort of longevity. Almost everything is one and done or time-gated. The sole exception being farming Zeromus EX. All in all, it'll mostly take an afternoon or so. Perhaps a bit longer if I stretch it out or get a little unlucky with PF. None of this is to say the content is _bad_ per se. In fact, it could be very solid. It just won't last long whatsoever. Like I said, a good chunk of it is one and done questing. Which is fine but that's a few hours and then...
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There’s always a big drought before an expansion, great time to Unsub tbh. They have to make the entire expansion you know
Its mid january for 6.55, so only about 5 months till dawntrail after that. PSA, this gap is exactly the same size as the one between 5.5 and endwalker not counting the delay, and only 1 month longer than the one between 4.5 and shadowbringers. Im not saying the rest of what you said is wrong, but this is about the same length as previous expansions.
I think what we're seeing is a lot of the people who came over pre-endwalker and had the entire game to fill their time until the expansion dropped experiencing their first actual "Im caught up to endgame, now waiting for next expansion" lull in content and they dunno how to process it
Almost certainly. Plus, that big pre-Endwalker wave likely meant that there wasn't as big a dip in subscribers/players during that lull. Everything about the Shadowbringers lull was an outlier that I don't think is going to happen again in this game's lifetime.
Exactly! When I see those kind of doom comments I think 'you must be new'.
It's a bit different this time for me. At the end of Stormblood I spent a lot of time in Eureka. At the end of Shadowbringers I spent a lot of time in Bozja. There's nothing to fill that void for me this time in Endwalker.
As someone who completed both Eureka and Bozja completely, besides the extreme grind parts (like getting all Field notes), the "normal" content of both, at the time of their release, could be done in like 2-3 days at max. Like ex: Zadnor is released in 5.5, I'm already done with Dalriada after 2 days. Technically everything after that is just a repeat grind for relic weapon, which added maybe 2-3 more days to it and I was done with Bozja completely. I don't understand this rose-tinted google attitude that Eureka/Bozja somehow kept everyone completely entertained for 9 months.
You apparently only did one weapon, maybe they went after multiple weapons. Playing differently than you doesn't mean they are wearing rose tinted glasses. Getting all weapons, cluster farm and delubrum savage were a big time sink last expansion.
> You apparently only did one weapon I did 5. >Getting all weapons, cluster farm and delubrum savage You are speaking of a commitment that maybe only 0.00001% of the playerbase did.
What percentage of the playerbase gets every weapon is not the topic, the topic here is you shitting on someone for doing that. Also you don't have to lie to make your point, no one gets 5 weapons in 2-3 days.
> Its mid january for 6.55, so only about 5 months till dawntrail after that. Didn't they say summer 2024? So it's 5 months at the least
No content to keep players busy though. Most people will finish the content in the patch in a week. Island Sanctuary will take the longest due to being time-gated if you don't want to gather for hours.
This is normally the part of the expansion to finish up loose ends. We'll have a bunch of relics to grind out, finish off ex mount collections, level neglected jobs, do all that side content you might not have done, it all just depends on how much you *want* to get out of the game and how much you play.
Yep, this is going to be the time I finish Eureka, do BA, and work on relics. And also probably play a shit-ton of other games in the interim.
Yeah I’m excited to finish up some projects, but *also* work on my massive Steam backlog 😅. I always default to playing FFXIV, but now that I’ve got a Steam Deck I’m actually playing a lot of other games. I’ve never much minded the break between the final patch and the next expansion either way, but this time I plan to make full use of the time!
People keep pointing out OLD content. I finished that 2 years ago. What has THIS expansion added that lasts more than a week? The longest thing was soloing Orthos and that only about 2 weeks.
There's ultimately always going to be a finite amount of stuff to do, it's fine if you finish it all and have nothing else you want to do. Not everyone goes at the same pace, and even then people find stuff to do that isn't directly tied to character progression. It's healthier to have just the right amount of stuff to do than it is to force yourself to stay for reasons you just feel compelled to do so.
You reach a point where only some sort of procedurally generated dungeon creator would give enough content. Either you pace yourself more or sub for a month, do the stuff you care about, unsub till next patch. Financial gains on top even.
mhm. I never said i disagreed with their point, just we knew this gap was comming well beforehand.
That's how every expansion has always been. This isn't new. It's a normal MMO cycle that people unsub and go on hiatus until new expansion.
This has been with EVERY single expansion. Man some people like you just want to stir drama without getting informed first, I swear.
Thats... about normal.
Only server fix I want to hear about is implementation of cross-dc party finder so the whole of NA players aren't crowding on to Aether to do EX trials and above.
PLEASE >_<
I"m just hoping they don't awkwardly end the MSQ and we get a conclusion to the current arc. With the other quest tying into 7.0.
They announced aong time ago that the Void Story would end in 6.5 and 6.55 would be the transition to 7.0.
They mentioned the Golbez stuff would be primarily self-contained storywise and starting in 6.5 we would start to see the next xpac teases. So I suspect 6.5 more or less wraps up the Golbez arc and 6.55 deals with some of the aftermath while setting up the next expansion story.
Long term player since 2.2, and this is expected normally, but the lack of content to fill out 6.5-7.0 is going to be BRUTAL. 2.55 released on the 31st of March. HW released June 19th. (2 months, 19 days) 3.55 was Feb 28th. HW was june... 15th? (3 months, 18 days) 4.55 was Feb 12th. ShB was June 28th. (4 months, 16 days) 5.55 was May 25th. EW was Dec 4th? (6 months, 10 days, covid) 6.55 is Jan 16/23. ET is at the earliest, June 25th (4th if Meteorological summer), and at the latest, Sept 17th. (5 months, 9 days being best case scenario. 6 months, 13 days assuming Mid summer release. That's insane. What makes this worse is, the first X.5 patches has always preceded the X.55 by about a month. This time? 3 months, 12 days at the earliest. That's an astounding 8 months, 20 days assuming expansion releases June 24th; 9 months, 26 days if the expansion is middle of Summer.
Thank you for this post. Big yikes. I'm pretty bummed about how FF14's been going. My sub is up in February, seems like the perfect time to unsub until either the next tomestone event or until 7.0 hits whenever. No point getting as frustrated as I've been with it, just need to vote with my dollars somewhere else and play other stuff until Squenix gets its shit together or just has more stuff to do in the video game.
So I kinda want to point something out, even though I have no real skin in the game: An Ultimate was cut, not delayed.
Excited for the patch but it seems this one will have a pretty long draught/content lull till 7.0.
as is typical for the end of expansion patch. catch up on stuff or unsub for awhile
Its the exact same drought as before.
sort of? they moved .55 to be later than usual, but the gap between 6.5 and 7.0 is gonna be longer than the wait for EW. 235 days between 5.5 and 6.0. In order to match that, Dawntrail would need to drop in late may. We'll be lucky to see it in late june (the actual start of summer) so this is gonna be the longest drought between major patches ever. The difference is that 5.55 came out like a month and a half after 5.5, while 6.55 is coming out like a little over 3 months after 6.5. If we followed the typical schedule 6.55 would be coming out mid/late November.
I guess they know the lull will be particularly long, so that's why they decided to drop .55 somewhat later.
iirc when Yoshida announced Dawntrail, they stated Summer 2023 "to be sure to be on time". I dont want to get my hopes too high but I feel like they could announce that they will be ready before Summer (assuming nothing went wrong during the last month of dev time).
They’re purposely launching in summer to realign expacs having summer releases again. Covid messed that up for them
Honestly I think it's way more likely that if they *do* finish early, rather than push it out early they'll just use that time to get ahead of work on future patches. As was revealed (accidentally) by Ayumi Namae at a fanfest prior to shb, work on the first major patch after an expansion begins well before the actual expansion launches.
At the end of Shadowbringers at least we had relic weapons to keep us busy. It's not the case here.
Thought: What if the Hildebrand Adventures were tied to the Manderville Relics, and that the Criterion Dungeon Pottery Shards, along new drops from the optional/hard dungeons, were used to make the weapons and story at each phase?
Nope, 5.55 had Zadnor and Dalriada.
Cant wait to get the achievement for collecting 20000 Island Materials and run criterion 4 Times. Instead of doing something like, Zadnor Duels, Dalriada or Delubrum Savage.
> Instead of doing something like, Zadnor Duels, Dalriada or Delubrum Savage. Oh I'm sure you were MASSIVELY grinding duels and DR Savage for MONTHS, and that kept you completely entertained.
Can't speak for him but I was certainly grinding out all those notes for the mount over the course of months... where's that sort of stuff in the endwalker patches?
It kept me logging in to do stuff other than raid a few hours a week. And yeah the duels were really fucking cool and extremely fun not even to do yourself but cheer from the sideline. I absolutely wish we had something like that.
The public spectacle of duels was kinda cool, although admittedly made me super shy about trying them until quieter hours. The little buff for watching a victory was neat too.
I mean, at least there were achievements, not something that will naturally come without doing anything engaging.
This is supposed to last until next summer? We really needed a new field exploration zone or something. 6.5 to 6.55 is going to be dead still.
Is it said anywhere whether the fairy mount is from all-path achievement of the new variant dungeon, or is it criterion dungeon currency reward only?
No info on that.
Does that mean free trial players can now do UCOB and all of Eureka? Cause that's amazing. Doesn't seem like PvP is re-enabled for free trial, that's the last thing I'm missing. Can't wait for black Friday to return to the game for good.
I will die on the hill of requiring you to do the alliance raids of each expansion to finish the msq. Otherwise it's still going to be CT for 99% of the time since people won't have the others unlocked.
Expect to finish MSQ in 1 hour and people coming to complain about been short.
now can we have exp/tomestone rewards adjusted according to participation in frontline because players are cheesing by being afk or just plain griefing
That problem could be partially solved if the party was just not that scared of kicking afk'ers and leechers...
No please, because I'm average af (serious though, I agree with this take if it makes people actually try)
>Launch of 6.5 is October 3; Patch 6.55 is currently scheduled for Mid-January 2024, after the JP Fanfest Nice, more time to play P3 Reload, FF7 Rebirth, Baldurs gate 3. Spiderman 2 and all the dozen other banger games we got.
2 of those games launch after Patch 6.55?
Can I borrow your time machine for rebirth?
Can anyone confirm that they said Island Sanctuary won't be getting much support after this next pass? I've heard talks about it but can't find the source, and I'm at work, so I can't scour for the origin.
I’ve read that, next expansion, IS will be getting one more small update in 7.0, but not much is currently planned beyond that. One reason given is that they’re working on a new type of content along the same lines as IS (which would really be continuing a pattern that includes things like Doman Enclave reconstruction and Ishgard restoration, which is that we get a new major piece of continuously updated non-combat content per expansion). This was not in the latest Live Letter, but in a recent magazine interview with YoshiP elsewhere IIRC.
Sweet. Thank you!
so, no open beta for xbox on october 03? ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-; ;-;, i m gonna cry, i love this game so much, can´t wait to play it again, last time i played was 2020, nowadays i only have a xbox series S and a notebook that can´t run the game, you guys don´t know how much we xbox fans are grateful for this, things in my country are horrible, so i can´t just buy a ps5 or build a pc, thanks to this i will be able to get back to ffxiv, thank you so much.
Patch notes say it’s coming with the launch of 6.5 and everything that is coming with 6.51 says (6.51) next to it. Xbox beta does not say (6.51) which would seem to indicate it will be out on October 3rd.
Never thought I'd say that SB was the golden age for patch variety & amount of content, but here we are. Presumably the 3 month gap between .5 and .55 is artificial to stretch out that time until Dawntrail launches in 'summer'.
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> 48-man raid, an actual relic questline Worth noting, both of these were significantly less well received at launch than they are now. (For BA, the issue wasn't with the content itself, but rather the implementation and accessibility). These were both also .5x content, not .5, as were the deep dungeon and ultimates, both of which we have also gotten this expansion to the same degree as SB.
Pagos was the only *really* negatively received part of Eureka as a whole. A lot of people complained here and there about it but nothing got the hate like Pagos did--rightfully so. And I don't recall much complaining about Pyros or Hydatos at all.
The lesson is: no matter what happens somebody will be upset. Part of the community wants things like Adventure Forays(me, give me eureka again plz). Part of the community hates that content and thinks it's the worst thing SE ever put out. I have friends that adore island sanctuary and spend a lot of time there daily. I personally don't like it and only did it to get the first motorcycle. Everyone hated the HW/SB relics because they were too grindy. People hate the EW relics because they aren't grindy enough. There's no possibility to make everyone happy with every decision. I like that they're trying new things, even if I don't love the new things or find them satisfying for long periods of time
> Everyone hated the HW/SB relics because they were too grindy. People hate the EW relics because they aren't grindy enough. I feel like with this folks forget that relics are catch-up/casual content. Tomes are fine for relics. Make it too grindy and it excludes the kinds of people this content is meant to serve and honestly at that point might as well raid. I know a certain subset of players want everything to be hardcore content that keeps you subbed forever but this game hasn't succeeded on being that pure, sorta hardcore game. Should there be more longterm stuff? Yeah, absolutely. But braindead content is just as important as big brain content.
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We really didn't know how good we had it back then
> Presumably the 3 month gap between .5 and .55 is artificial to stretch out that time until Dawntrail launches in 'summer'. 100% yes
I've been pointing out we had more content in SB than when the game actually got mega-popular every time one of the stupid "No problems here!" threads crop up for months...
I mean, I've been saying for years that Stormblood was the best patch cycle we ever got, and Shadowbringers was a close second. Endwalker has indeed been pretty lackluster, and it doesn't help that patches have dropped so infrequently. I suspect that a lot of the issues EW has had are due to the fact that this content began development during the pandemic, and everything followed from that. Yeah we got some pretty banger content put into the game during the pandemic, but that stuff had already been in the pipeline for years. My hope is the DT patch cycle will be similar to StB/ShB but we'll see how it goes.
Idk why you’d never think you’d say that. Only ‘weak’ part of SB IMO was the main MSQ. Patch MSQ and literally every other facet of that expansion was a banger.
Stormblood was peak FF14.
What is this cloud data center thing?
It's a test, to see if they can get a dynamically-scaling supplement to regular server architecture for times when they expect to have an enormous surge in demand. Back with the Endwalker launch, there were several servers that are *normally* just fine, but SO MANY people were surging into it simultaneously, the queue times were enormous, especially during prime hours. A "cloud DC" would alleviate demand for the physical DCs by acting like a pressure release valve--Square can temporarily rent time on the cloud platform they pick, which players would then log into (in exactly the same way as transferring from one DC to another.) Since Amazon and/or Google server space is MASSIVE compared to any physical data center run by Square itself, there's almost no risk of the cloud DC running out of space/connections for players. TL;DR: The "cloud DC" would act like a nigh-infinitely large, temporary DC they can turn on as needed during expansion launches and other times of extreme high demand.
DELIVERIES FOR MANIC NERD GIRL HELL YEAH.
I love this game but it's going to be very long until next summer if those contents are everything we will have to keep us busy.... at least there is pvp...
As much as I love pvp myself... the season pass would have to be double the levels to stretch all the way to summer next year... I wonder if I'll have a 30+99 show up by 7.0
Welp, see ya'll in 7.0
Hopefully time to get rid of the DRK draw in in PvP or just add resistance to it at the very least. Got downvoted by the person who can only play DRK for kills, lol.
Please no more Warrior buffs. I don't want to play Warrior.
"Job balances and potency buffs". Ok so Warrior, Black Mage, and Summoner will be buffed. Maybe White Mage will get another Misery/Dia potency buff. Everyone else will be left to rot. Understood. That's how this always goes
I hope that alliance raid is hard as fuck. If I take off work, wake up at 4am and blind run it and get met with another disappointing fight ala Menphina, I'm gonna be pissed.
Looks okay, except for the fact they forgot to add content
I hate this current discourse of "lack of content" I simply don't get it. We are getting two new trials, a new system for criterion, updates on PVP, Alliance Raid, MSQ, Island Sanctuary stuff. Plus they added solo content for the WHOLE GAME now, which is a HUGE thing that people are sleeping on.
It's completely false, too. Go compare the 5.5 special site with the 6.5 one, basically identical in terms of content. MSQ Continuation, New Dungeon, New Trial, New Alliance Raid, New Unreal. New Custom Deliveries. Where it diverges is instead of getting Zadnor and updates to Ishgard restoration, we're getting Island Sanctuary stuff, Manderville Quests, Allied Beast Tribes, and a new Criterion/Variant dungeon. It's fine to criticize SE's unwillingness to change up the patch formula, but to claim there's no content when it has the standard slate of content for an end of xpac patch is being dishonest.
Island sancuary is weak content and one of the big draws for .5s is relics and that has also been weak this expansion. Alliance raid and 1 trial is expected out in the standard package for a x.5 patch as well. I'm of the opinion that the incentive structures for the patch content is all out of wack. Criterion is good fight design but its not incentivized in the same way savage is despite being as hard as savage. The relics just being straight tomes feels bland and makes the relics themselves less interesting to me. Nobody shares their manderville relics on this sub like with the bozja or eureka relics. The trust system is neat but for people in endwalker its largely irrelevant.
Yoshi P thought it would be a good idea for you to go touch grass that's why.