Why did blizzard abandon 77 day patch cycles already?

[Video Games]

Legion was paced pretty well, so i dont underatand. We're at 75 days now with nothing new.

[Kyux]

They said in Legion that the first content patch come out too quickly. I think it's fine. I would guess that most guilds are still working on Uldir. It's not like we're in a content drought?

[valky94]

because they planed to release the patch after blizzcon?

[Tradu]

Hopefully because they realized that it was too fast. The Legion patches might've been frequent, but they weren't particularly high quality. BfA launch has also been highly unpolished, so maybe they're taking their time to actually polish the patches instead of just releasing them at a forced pace that sacrifices quality.

[Video Games]

They said in Legion that the first content patch come out too quickly. I think it's fine. I would guess that most guilds are still working on Uldir. It's not like we're in a content drought?

They said that but they were all still 77 days. And im not asking for the new raid already, that would be in another 77 days.

[javierdsv]

BfA was a mess. It's still a mess, if you pay attention to their constant hotfixes.. you can see they are focusing on cleaning the mess.
Their team is not as big as we think it is, they are only humans fixing their... many... mistakes right now.

Plus, I don't think you have all their horse mounts already.

[micwini]

Hopefully because they realized that it was too fast. The Legion patches might've been frequent, but they weren't particularly high quality. BfA launch has also been highly unpolished, so maybe they're taking their time to actually polish the patches instead of just releasing them at a forced pace that sacrifices quality.

Too fast? You misspelled slow. The timing of patches doesn't matter, it's about how much content they add per time period. Legion's content patches were fast, but mostly empty.

[Video Games]

Hopefully because they realized that it was too fast. The Legion patches might've been frequent, but they weren't particularly high quality. BfA launch has also been highly unpolished, so maybe they're taking their time to actually polish the patches instead of just releasing them at a forced pace that sacrifices quality.

I dunno. 7.1 and 7.3 were pretty neat.

[Tradu]

Too fast? You misspelled slow. The timing of patches doesn't matter, it's about how much content they add per time period. Legion's content patches were fast, but mostly empty.

Yeah, which is because they released them too quickly to be able to put a decent amount of content into each.

[Protean]

Legion was paced pretty well, so i dont underatand. We're at 75 days now with nothing new.

There's still plenty of content left in Uldir.

[Wildberry]

BfA was a mess. It's still a mess, if you pay attention to their constant hotfixes.. you can see they are focusing on cleaning the mess.

And yet some of the thing required to even begin cleaning up that mess are in 8.1.

OT:
BfA's launch has been so lackluster, with problems at such a foundational level, they'd be better off adhering to the Legion release schedule, just to move things along as quickly as possible.

I don't think terribly many people will be heartbroken to leave, say, the Azerite system and its upcoming bandaids behind them.

[Video Games]

There's still plenty of content left in Uldir.

And i still do it, but new wqs would be nice right about now.

[Deleted]

In order to reuse assets, they must first exist. In order to expand on existing systems, they must first work and be complete.

For better or worse, when Legion launched they already had the entire Nighthold in the game files(and beta tested) and Trial of Valor was already going through testing(which was easier because they just copy pasted), and classes were much more complete when considering artifacts+legendaries+set bonuses. Additionally, the full island already existed, large part of Karazhan, etc.

[Archibalde]

I'd rather see them take their time and release finished content than try to rush it to fit a schedule. This patch will be an important one. It will be a make or break moment for a lot of the remaining playerbase, and if it's a good one it might also manage to bring back a few of the people who quit because they couldn't stand BFA. Blizzard needs to take their time.

[patrik9321]

They said in Legion that the first content patch come out too quickly. I think it's fine. I would guess that most guilds are still working on Uldir. It's not like we're in a content drought?

We're always in a content drought! Not really but the fact remains that blizzard programmers seem to have forgotten their first class in programming, since there is no loop that determines numbers. I dunno i guess they're being lazy and making a big deal out of releasing "new" old dungeons with all the numbers adjusted, when a loop would just handle all that monkey business for them and allow players to experience the game how they want - without falling behind on their capless azerite grind. Blizzard's design philosophy is always going up and then down, bringing them back to the same place that they started.

[Khallid]

The next raid is already in PTR with boss testing. I don't think they're going to delay the next patch too much.

Still, it doesn't seem to be ready to drop with Blizzcon, so I'd say it's possible that it drops early December, but more likely to be in January.

[javierdsv]

And yet some of the thing required to even begin cleaning up that mess are in 8.1.

For some reason I still can't understand, they are against releasing small patches with fixes. Things like removing or replacing a talent can only be done through patching, so they are just using band aids (hotfixes) and adding real changes to the next big patch. This is a terrible design, but there might be a technical reasoning behind it.

[Tradu]

The next raid is already in PTR with boss testing. I don't think they're going to delay the next patch too much.

Still, it doesn't seem to be ready to drop with Blizzcon, so I'd say it's possible that it drops early December, but more likely to be in January.

NH was tested in beta(and didn't change significantly since) as well as later on PTR, so the next raid is already behind compared to NH.

[Lightforged]

77 days after BfA is tomorrow. Later this week is Blizzcon. They were never going to release 8.1 the week of Blizzcon. Most likely, 8.1 will come out on the 6th or the 13th. They would not release the week of Thanksgiving, so the 27th is the next opportunity. My bet is that they will go to Blizzcon and announce 8.1 on the 6th or 13th, then start ramping up hype for 8.2 and 8.3.

For some reason I still can't understand, they are against releasing small patches with fixes. Things like removing or replacing a talent can only be done through patching, so they are just using band aids (hotfixes) and adding real changes to the next big patch. This is a terrible design, but there might be a technical reasoning behind it.

They want to avoid messing too much with people's classes so that raids don't have to break down and recombine with different groups of classes. Changing too much too quickly is a great way to make people hate you.

[protip]

They said specifically that the 77 day thing wasn't intentional. I don't doubt they have a goal close to that for pacing, but it's not a 77 day cycle specifically. Blizzcon is coming right up, and they surely want to consider major events like that when they determine their release schedule.