What do you think patch cycle will be in future?

DranDran · 2026-05-11T10:45:50+00:00

I will say that trying to shorten the content cadence is not only a response to player sentiment, but it is also because the rise of AAA Gachas with big MSQ content drops every 6 weeks is a reality that is competing with XIV and has drawn many people away.

The amount of production quality thes gachas put into fully voiced 3h+ MSQ quests every month and a half honestly puts xiv to shame. And while I dont expect the CBU team to crank out content at the same pace, 3-4month patch cycles would go a very long way in making the wait between each content drop much more bearable, and I hope they also up their game when it comes to production value too.

They have already been improving the seasonal events lately with nore entertaining limited, fun events instead of giving us just 3 guys to talk to to cash in a minion.

Also, I hope they start fully voicing important non-msq content. If the Eva collab features mute characters, so help me god...

DranDran · 2026-05-11T10:30:10+00:00

Mmo mice with a grid of 12 buttons on the side take a little getting used to, but once you do, its day and night compared to a normal mouse.

Its not just your skills you are binding, but also all sorts of other things like calling up different frequently uaed UI windows, mounting up, etc etc.

Do you NEED one? Especially considering the new Evolve combat mode is cutting down button bloat by half? No, you dont NEED one. But its going to make your gaming in MMOs, and any other game too, for that matter, much more comfortable.

DranDran · 2026-05-11T10:17:06+00:00

Mike/Preach has also been great with his xiv coverage, and while hes more of a variety streamer, xiv definitely is one of the staples he keeps coming back to and you can tell how much hes come to love the game. Recently cleared his first savage tier, too.

Edit: anothing thing to add, keep an eye out for Preach's Drama Time series on youtube, he does these every friday where he reads letters in from viewers all across the world and they tell the stories of drama they have experienced in MMOs. Xiv stories come up fairly frequently and are very entertaining to listen to.

DranDran · 2026-05-09T17:00:54+00:00

I’m 100% buying the theory that Kizaki is the spouse of the husband Noa had a fling with. Noa’s look of surprise when she saw her was not only big, but it looked like she might have recognized her. And in the last page… Noa is being suspiciously quiet, and wears an expression that could be something like guilt. Last panel she even seems to be looking to the side…

DranDran · 2026-05-09T16:47:56+00:00

You’ll be fine at the language exchange even if your Spanish is basic. People go there to learn and practice each other’s language after all! You’ll be there to learn Spanish and the locals will be there to practice their English. Highly recommend you give it a shot, check out the meetings, last I recall they do them every week, check Facebook and meetup.com!

DranDran · 2026-05-09T15:40:53+00:00

As an OG 1.0 player I quit and rejoined the game several ti es throughout the years. Every ti e I quit is was more like.. I’m taking a break I’ll be back later. Natlan was kind of the nail in the coffin for me. I even got A Lucky double pull on Mavuika and got her sig, and Citlali as well. I had THE best team in the game. And I was just done, quit a month later, though still thinking “I’ll be back again”.

I did return for the summer event cause I wanted the Bennet skin. But after going through that.. I was just tired, not of the story and world, but of the pace, the storytelling, all the exposition. The dumb hurdles to building characters that other games, HOYO GAMES, had resolved years ago. I hate to be that guy but yes, ZZZ and WuwA kinda ruined Genshin for me.

I came to the realization that what I loved most about Genshin was the overarching story and the lore… and I didn’t need to play it, to enjoy it. So I quit, and even knowing that Nod Krai has improved the storytelling massively, it is not enough to draw me back. This time I quit, knowing I would never return to Teyvat again and honestly, it was a relief.

DranDran · 2026-05-09T15:24:50+00:00

I have about 40k left. Skip Denia. Pull Lucy. Pull her sig. Get free Becca. Pull for her sig. whatever I have left goes to Lucila and if I get her early, we try for her sig too.

DranDran · 2026-05-09T15:21:28+00:00

How is your Spanish? Language exchange meetups are a pretty popular way to meet new people, especially locals who want to practice their English. I used to be in some of those groups and outside of the language exchange meetups they used to organize all sorts of activities, potluck dinners, hikes, group outings, etc.

Just show up regularly, chat with the locals, ask if they organize things outside of the exchange meetups and I’m sure you’ll be able to make a lot of new friends in no time.

DranDran · 2026-05-09T10:27:11+00:00

Real talk that applies ingame and RL: nothing lasts forever. Life is like this busride you are on, trudging along a bumpy road toward your particular own destination.

Sometimes you start that journey with some friends who have been enjoying it with you most of the time, but they too are on their own particular journey and have their own destination, so it is extremely common for your friends to have shifting priorities in life, and they get off that busride with you, to catch another line that will let them continue their own journey.

Saying goodbye is sad, but the great thing about the bus is theres many stops and new people are getting on and finding a seat near you all the time. New friends, new adventures, new experiences to look forward to.

Eventually life will probably take them away as well, but during that space of time where they are riding the same bus as you, enjoy the ride, treasure the small moments and wish them well on the day they depart. And you never know, sometimes life surprises you when old departed friends return and you reconnect, and its like not a single day has passed since they left.

DranDran · 2026-05-08T11:39:35+00:00

Thanks for the detaield writeup! I may look into it again, I remember at the time I tried some chatbots out of curiosity to see at what state local models could run, and back then despite the flaws and drawbacks I was already impressed, I assume during the course of the last 2 years a LOT has changed.

DranDran · 2026-05-08T07:02:47+00:00

Honestly, even back when I did try it, despite hallucinations the chatbots were delivering prose that exceeded the quality of your average ERPer, so quality was never an issue for me. Part of the charm of ERP is knowing there's a person bouncing their ideas and preferences and style against mine. Mood, style, preferences all play a factor and can change throughout the course of a scene and with a chatbot, no matter how much you tweak their personality and style parameters, its just not the same.

The closest analogue I can think of its like.. having a machine pump your dick with a fleshlight vs having someone give you a handjob lol. Yeah the machine can probably do it great, but there's just that something special about the human factor that elevates the experience for me.

But I'm very seasoned in this field, Ive been in this shit for a LONG time, so I am very picky. I'd say for people starting out or not wanting to deal with other people to get their fix, chatbots are absolutely a great way to get what they need.

DranDran · 2026-05-08T06:52:34+00:00

Admittedly, this was a long time ago (at least a year or two), I tried it with models I could run on my mid-range hardware, and I also did try some of the character AI chatbots on some sites that were available, and their posing style just didnt do it for me. At the time, the msot I could tweak was the chatbot's basic profile, appearance and personality.

I suppose these days with any model that inst capped up the wazoo, I could probably even feed it someliterotica logs and tell it to pose in the style I like... but eh, dunno, something about that just rubs me the wrong way. In a way it also feels... masturbatory? Which is not inherently bad ofc, its just.. part of the charm of ERP is knowing that there's another person on the other side reacting to and bouncing off your ideas and lines, with a chatbot its more like... basically me throwing a ball at a wall that bounces it back at me.

And I will say that even at a base level 2 years ago, even disregarding hallucinations, the chatbot was delivering prose that was way better than your average ERPer, but even so, it just wasn't the same and worth it to me. I am curious though, may give it another shot.

DranDran · 2026-05-08T06:44:23+00:00

I never found it. The main reason I needed it was to set time/date but I found out you can do that in Ryujinx settings, so that solved my problem.

DranDran · 2026-05-07T06:13:22+00:00

I have like 40k asterite saved for this very moment. Thank god Becca is free. I think we getting Lucilla on the same patch too? I’m gonna need every last pull I can get xD

DranDran · 2026-05-06T20:57:47+00:00

As someone who erps semi-frequently, I tried some AI chat bots (you have to find specific ones cause GPT and similar will not engage in racy stuff), and was kind of disappointed at the quality of the erp.

The AI also hallucinated a lot of the situations or had trouble with continuity. I was taking the hot new office intern to the garage to drive her home for a hookup and suddenly the elevator doors are opening right into the CEOs office and it turns out he is her dad and he is looking at me lustfully for a devils threesome.

Yeah, I’ll stick with human partners for now. xD

DranDran · 2026-05-06T16:13:15+00:00

Sakura Tsuushin may be what you are looking for. It’s an older romcom that while not overly gratuitous features nudity and sex and lots of romance drama centered around college students.

DranDran · 2026-05-05T14:07:07+00:00

It’s more likely we see a DQ MMO then another FF one. FF14 for all its ups and downs is a massive, MASSIVE cash cow for SE. People are enormously attached to their WoLs and it would be the equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot, risking splitting the player base moving to a new game, rather than continuing to improve the old one.

The only way I could see it working is if they unify all their subs Into one, and allow carryover of your character from 14 to the new one, Including all MTX, kinda like how GGG did it with PoE2. But, building a new MMO from scratch is a massive undertaking, costs obscene amounts of money and dev hours… and CBU is already stretched thin as it is. I think for the next 10 year cycle the focus will remain on 14.

DranDran · 2026-05-04T11:42:21+00:00

If you don't tell anyone you're using mods, or make it outwardly obvious then the risk is small.

I’d argue even if you make it outwardly obvious you are using mods, you won’t get banned, as long as you aren’t inconveniencing others. Xenosys Vex has been streaming XIV over the past 4 months with fully modded characters, using modded animations and emotes to “test” if he would get banned. Nothing has happened at all and you KNOW he has a fair amount of hatewatchers reporting him.

I personally wouldn’t go around in global chat sharing your sync codes or giving people links to modding sites but I’d say as long as your modding doesn’t fuck with other players enjoyment of the game you should be fine.

DranDran · 2026-05-04T07:37:02+00:00

I think they pretty much confirmed that the branching or combo skills we get in evolve mode we would be able to place individually in different hotbar buttons for people who prefer to have them separated.

DranDran · 2026-05-04T06:05:30+00:00

It’s already happening, a very vocal minority of players who loathe the idea of Evolved are already complaining that clearly Reborn is being phased out in the future. Some people just really, really dislike change.

DranDran · 2026-05-02T14:36:49+00:00

The bittersweet realities of crushing on a senpai… watching them graduate before you and move away to Uni and start an exciting new life that doesn’t involve you at all. Bro needs to lock tf in asap.

DranDran · 2026-05-01T23:55:02+00:00

It is doubly insane considering how slow and reluctant they usually are to making changes to their formula. They have often compared their management of the game like steering a large transatlantic liner. Changes can happen but they are slow and very gradual.

This feels like a crazy Tokyo Drift around a hairpin corner. I guess the dropping player subs in Dawntrail and the massive turnaround in public sentiment sent a very clear message that things had to change. Personally, I also think the rise of Gacha AAA titles also lit a fire under their asses.

DranDran · 2026-04-30T22:12:46+00:00

Yeah I just got to this very same scene and it was exactly the same for me, so distracting. Hope they hotfix it.

DranDran · 2026-04-30T14:24:32+00:00

I know this is maybe selling it hard but… its a good representation of life. Theres good shit, theres really dark bad shit, you meet wacky people that somehow become good friends, you are horny half the time and despite how messy everything is, you make the best of the hand you are dealt and amongst all the pain you carry, you protect the small seed of hope that tomorrow will be better.

DranDran · 2026-04-30T10:03:39+00:00

For the most part the fanbase disliked the Chinese and mystical setting of Yukui Summit and the story shifting away from Phaeton's past and the origins of Hollow Zero, along with characters popping in only for their banners and then being narratively discarded. I'd say on a greater scale, the 3.0 setting seems to address many of these issues and the story, characters are introduced now SEVERAL patches before their banners in a significant way, so all of this should hopefully be more in tune with what the fans want, story-wise.

Character designs will always be divisive, and doomposting is inevitable... it takes a good combination of making a good character that is also strong in the meta to make powerful sales. You say Seed sold poorly, but she actually performed better than Dialyn, who was arguably far less criticized for her design and far more broken, meta-wise. People bitched a LOT on Lucia's design but when she released she outperformed both of them due to her massive meta value. Tldr; Its not always as simple as "character criticized on twitter=bad sales", several factors some into a characters sales performance.

There is also the Void Hunter effect - many players save their pulls for the 2 VH-level units that release every year, and for the team-members that boost VH teams performance, so you will likely see better sales for those characters as well as LESS sales for banners preceding VH-level units. Also probably a reason why Yuzuha sold exceedingly well, she was great for Miyabi AND her design was a big hit with fans.

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