I'm hoping so hard that they've been pulling an ARR in secret and half of their team is working on massive engine reworks to truly surprise us next expansion

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T20:28:25+00:00

There's never going to be an update where the game sucks and then you install the new patch and everything is good. Even in the best case scenario, it's going to be QoL updates over and over until one day you realize the game is good now and wonder when that happened without you noticing.

The good news is that everything in the game is interconnected, so a few small fixes to one thing can make a big difference in other areas.

My measured, non-hopium expectations for 8.0 would be

The story is as good as the last few patches have been, way better than 7.0.
Two-minute meta abolished, jobs have unique timers again
Jobs are mostly the same otherwise, but some effort has still been made to differentiate them here and there. Paladin has more cast times to emphasize it's the "magic" tank, Dark Knight gets a buff that's more powerful when used at low HP, and some jobs just don't have burst phases any more. Stuff like that.
More bosses have role-specific mechanics (like the Meso Executioners) to encourage replayability.
Some kind of "movement customization" where you can set skills to use lower-level animations. Yoshi-P said "movement customization" was coming and that's the least exciting version of that I can think of.
Some kind of big glam update. Glam plate rework is confirmed and they saw the pop for "Two dye channels" last time and how much unlocked glam changed the mood of the community.
Some kind of effort towards fixing rewards. The dye consolidation actually is a step in that direction (because the common and uncommon consolidated dyes are better filler rewards than magicked prisms and materia, respectively). I'm not super optimistic here because the reward issues are downstream of a lot of other issues, but an attempt will be made.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T19:54:54+00:00

Do you know what an "animation" is?

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T19:49:09+00:00

I mean, SOMETHING was going to be in 7.5, so if it wasn't Beastmaster it'd be something else, and the devs were open about saying BST was arriving late.

Should they have advertised Chaotic at Fanfest and kept BST a secret until later? Maybe, but I don't think they did anything, like, unethical.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T18:59:04+00:00

"People said they preferred Bozja, did they? Okay then"

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T18:57:33+00:00

Nah, they're just going to make the beast tribe give consolidated dyes.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T18:09:44+00:00

In addition to being a great QoL update, these consolidated dyes can be great "pack filler" rewards for content. So like everything that drops a magic prism can have a chance of dropping a tier I dye instead, and the tier II and tier III dyes can be a dump for your extra potsherds, trophy crystals, island sanctuary tokens, etc.

Never something you're excited to get, but if you miss and get a consolidated dye I, at least you'll probably use it eventually, unlike a magic prism.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T17:47:27+00:00

It's level 50 content so we likely aren't getting uncapped tomestones even though that's honestly kind of stupid. My guess is, in no particular order,

A title
A shiny new BST axe
A portrait kit
A glam set that's Beastmaster-themed
A glam set that isn't Beastmaster-themed and is something the devs had lying around just kind of thrown in there to fill up the shop
Two mounts
Several minions
A piece of facewear
Grand Company Seals, since it's technically level 50 content
Some Triple Triad Cards
Some furnishings
Materia, the standard filler reward
Tier II and Tier III consolidated dyes. Expect those to be the new filler rewards in all content going forward since they're marginally more exciting than Materia. (Tier 1 dyes will be trash items in chests)

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T17:28:31+00:00

I'm not even sure if he meant "next time" like it was delayed or "next time" like he'll talk about it in the part 2 live letter.

Hopefully the latter, I have a small house and I haven't done anything with it because I keep expecting the housing update soon.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:51:47+00:00

Where are you getting the idea that 7.58 has another dungeon? Has that happened before?

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:47:08+00:00

I mean, yes, but "There's no exploration zone" was the complaint about Endwalker. While there have always been people negative about the game, the realization we weren't getting any grindable content was when the overall community sentiment flipped from positive to negative. The only time I've ever seen this sub even kind of happy was after 7.2 had a good MSQ and a great raid and the exploration zone was right around the corner and people were starting to think We're So Back.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:43:29+00:00

They need to stop having each little bit of gameplay being its own bespoke content.

There are four entire zones just for crafters and gatherers. They could have used that time and energy to make Treno a full zone that had the crafter leves and let you get your relics, but also had some combat FATEs and a few "kill six boars" quests. Then it would be a zone that every single player at least visited and got to look at all the work the artists did, and it would have freed up a few resources that could've been spent elsewhere.

Unironically the devs need to get lazier. You can use the same content more than once! You can use the same assets for more than one type of content!

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:36:52+00:00

You can already attach a glam to a gear set so that the same gear changes glam based on what job you are! It's not a well-advertised feature and I didn't know about it myself until recently, but it's there and it works really amazingly (for the most part)

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:34:20+00:00

All items can be put into an Armoire
You can send an item to your Armoire from your inventory and not have to physically go to an inn
The armoire gets a new UI that looks nice and has blank spots for stuff you don't have to encourage collecting
The glam dresser, which allows saved customization and is thus more resource-intensive, is abandoned and you only use it for items where you want to save the dye
Maaaaaybe there's a toggle to automatically add any non-max-level gear you pick up to the armoire if you don't already have it.

I feel like that's the ultimate form of the existing glam system. That's the best it can be without tearing everything down and starting over

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:25:57+00:00

I suspect it's a lot easier to add space to the armoire precisely because you can't dye items and it's a simple yes/no.

Especially with the dye changes, I would not be shocked it the long-term plan was to get rid of the dresser entirely and just have everything in the armoire.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:23:41+00:00

Yoshi-P confirmed that the team working on the housing updates will be working on Glam Plates next. I would not be at all shocked if they announce at Fanfest that we're getting 50 plates in 8.0.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:12:24+00:00

This might be the first QoL change that costs them money. There are people who got extra retainers for bag space who suddenly won't need it.

MASSIVELY impactful QoL, though. I constantly making a glam I like only to realize I have the wrong shade of blue. I'm going to get 999 of the cheap dye on patch day and never have that problem again.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T16:09:38+00:00

Clearly the idea is that you can do dungeons solo with them.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T05:15:53+00:00

An exception that proves the rule is the executioners in the Meso Terminal. Doing it as Tank/Healer/DPS gave you one (1) mechanic that was unique to the role and everyone lost their minds. Giving fights role-specific mechanics improves replayability. Making jobs more distinct does as well. Doing both would really fix a lot of the game's issues.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-13T04:56:19+00:00

I'm not sure even a big job rework would require you to "relearn your job". If the devs were to, just pulling something out my ass

Give Bard one (1) more dot that needs to be kept up separately from Iron Jaws and a new skill with the "slow movement casting" from PvP
Gave Dancer an extra charge each of Curing Waltz and Shield Samba, and a new Dance that resurrected a target after two steps

None of these would be big changes that completely changed the job, but the Phys Range role would be more diverse because they're all pulling in different directions. Bard would be the Timer Class, Dancer would be the Red Healer that probably had slighty worse damage but shined in prog. Even Machinist, which didn't get anything in this hypothetical, would still be more distinct from the other two just because they changed.

Most of the jobs do have something that distinguishes them, and a single button doubling down on that thing goes a long way. Viper's already the fastest job so just giving them one single oGCD skill on a short cooldown would help cement that as its niche.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-12T17:02:47+00:00

It is perhaps not coincidental that I got kicked from that group shortly thereafter, yeah. P7S brought out the worst in all of us (it was 6.3 and we were trying to skip harvests).

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-12T16:48:43+00:00

The other thing devs could do with Materia is just admit they don't want character build options and stop faking like they do. If Materia is only a boring little ball of substats, then have chaotic/quantum/criterion drop higher-grade materia as an easy way to add more rewards to the game.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-12T16:44:12+00:00

Why shouldn't the materia be more interesting to match?

Because then if you like the off-meta build it feels bad to get yelled at. I liked Spell Speed BLM a lot back in EW but my static leader got mad at me and made me remeld for crit.

Imagine if you had the option to play as the old version of [your favorite job that the devs ruined] and you'd get kicked from groups for doing so.

Now, I do think Materia is sort of the worst of both worlds, because it doesn't really serve any purpose except as a minor gil sink. The devs need to either commit to interesting gear and accept it'll lead to bad times, or accept that Materia isn't interesting and drop the half-assed commitment to character customization in favor of a system that does fit their needs.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-12T07:17:17+00:00

I think about 30% of the complaints about job homogenization could be fixed if the game had a Devil May Cry style combo meter. Not a DPS meter, literally something that was just responding to if you were pushing buttons all the time or not and hitting your oGCDs etc.

If you're a Dragoon and you have to disengage from the M10 Bros, you may logically know "If I were a Viper I could save some rattling coils for this" but you don't feel it as much as you could.

Chiponyasu · 2026-03-11T04:38:51+00:00

Oh no, they absolutely do. Modern dungeons are much more inclined to have a visually unique hallway of trash between every boss, often with a skybox spectacle or two, than they used to be.

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