August 2023 Version Update

Patch Notes
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/61014

Items
New Items - https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/August_2023_Version_Update_Changes

Changed Items - No changed items.

I totally spaced out the update last night. I was intending to stream too. Next month!

Bg will be updated when I get to work.

Thank you Funk!

So.... they didn't change the stage 4 sortie to a choice for the basements?

That's a 5 second fix that they admitted to needing, had two weeks, and chose not to address.

Guess I missed that. Still. It's a literal 5 second change. Just turn one 1 to a 0.

Detect stage 4 weapon: Off.

Take a month to implement the 5 second change to add a toggle. So difficult, they might have to push it back.

Don't feel bad funk, I totally whiffed on the update night too...

Guess you also didn't read the director commentary on this because this is not what they're doing.

They're making it so that when you enter Aminion there's a dialog where you choose whether you want to fight Hard Mode or not.

That's a toggle and a 10 second change.

The alternate fight is already there, it's just a yes or no.

Changes like that are never as simple as you think they are.

They're not a month of difficult, that's for god damn sure.

7/24 to 8/8 was ample time.

But whatever, just keep letting them slide. It's your 12.95

No offense intended, but if you think a change like that is a 5 or 10 second change in a game like this, you are completely ignorant of what goes into making something like FFXI, especially on a 20+ year old platform. Turn a 1 to a 0? Hardly.

Not really.

You have 5 bosses whose behavior has to be changed and modified, you have to adjust the entry detection, and add the prompt/associated logic. On top of that, you need to make sure it's all tested properly, because we all know how much complaining would exist here if they pushed this out and there was some corner case that caused them to revert to enraged behavior. It's likely changes for these release are tested weeks in advance, not in a matter of 2 weeks. If the entire group (testing, release, dev, etc) burned midnight oil sure, it could happen, but that's not realistic.

This is all assumption on both our part too, because there is no telling how intertwined these behaviors are because we haven't seen the source to be sure. These things tend to require a cascading series of changes, on top of testing, but it's unlikely they designed this to be reverted easily.

Then again, I always default to "this is going to be more work than I think", because nearly every time I start looking into how something works and think "this should be easy", I end up spending a week unraveling the code. Especially when that code is 20 years old, development practices in the late 90s and early 2000s especially for video games were...rough.

Hahaha "tested"

Indeed.

They're literally going to add a hard/normal menu option, that's it. There will be absolutely zero "testing" and a big ol' "sorry" if(WHEN) they manage to *** it up. What game have you been playing the last decade lol.

I love when people who have never written a line of code in their lives talk about development and testing practices.

These people legitimately believe that because bugs get through, there's absolutely no testing.

Oh, and the updates to the AI are a simple toggle.

OK here's the present system: when a party enters, detect if any of them have a stage 4. If they do, set all basement boss + Aminion behavior to hard mode, allow Aminion to drop Meso.

Here's what you need to implement: when a party enters, don't change anything about boss behavior. When they go to enter Aminion, detect whether or not any member has a stage 4, and prompt them to decide if they want to do HM Aminion. Based on that decision, change Aminion drop table and update behavior

Where in the code is the 1 you need to change into a 0 to do that? Will you have it done in 10 seconds, or do you need 30?

Hello. I have written thousands of lines of code for Final Fantasy XI servers.

This is not how it works. Dialogue options and menu options in this game are extremely fickle and hard to work with. If they've only got maybe 1 developer working part-time on this game, I can see it taking a few weeks to get something like this changed, especially since they're also likely their own QA tester.

Writing code for this game sucks.

if we put eiryl in charge of building a nuclear power plant, it'll be like... "Guys its either off, or on. All I need is a single bit and an on/off switch am i rite?"

Says the guy giving SE 20 grand a month for all his RMT characters.

So they added a new scepter: https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Arthro%27s_Scepter

This is the same icon as Ye Olde' Shell Scepter from campaign codes: https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Shell_Scepter

Might be from next month's login campaign or a seasonal event coming up before the next update.

could literally copy paste e-h bosses non enraged version on top of enraged version details, comment out enraged versions (e-h), take out stage 4 check for e-h ect. It prolly wouldn't take long to code.

Let me remind you that last month they fixed broke the Sheol C reward for killing halos to load Scale Boxes instead of Wing Boxes despite no expected changes having been done in Odyssey, or Walk of Echoes in general.

and they were able to fix that the same day why not fix sortie in same timeframe

My guy, I think you missed the point I was trying to make. If they broke something within Odyssey/Walk of Echoes last patch despite making zero changes to Odyssey/Walk of Echoes, then its highly unlikely the change to Sortie bosses with a stage 4 weapon present is as simple as "change a 1 to a 0 lol".

That was just the latest one of the absolutely bonkers "how the *** did they break that" bugs.

You were able to replace my air filter in 10 minutes, why can't you replace my transmission in the same timeframe?
-FFXI player at a mechanic

Its also quite possible they are changing all kinds of stuff in the background or noodling around with it -- and simply not telling us about it. Would explain the Ody/WoE mess up.

i wonder what they did to break port sandy/bastok

Developers threw away the manual on how this game was built and now they are in a constant war between making things work and praying it doesn't break anything in the process...

But, *** SE. They knew this is a mess but lift zero fingers and constantly use it as a crutch as the reason they can't go the distance anymore on anything new

Basically they take our subs, take a bit for server upkeep and use the rest of it to buy fuel for their cars

Because that was beneficial to the player, Instant fix.

Sortie problem is detrimental to the player, they'll get to it when they feel like it. Not like anything will happen to them if they don't.

It's not anyone else fault your not a genius and can't fix a code by erasing a 1 and replacing it with a 0. That's your fault, not anyone else.

Really glad they updated the copyright text. Those are the sort of updates that make giving SE money worthwhile.