When the Lodestone informed players of two new events coming to Final Fantasy XIV, players got excited. That is, until they looked at the dates, and found out that both the Little Ladies' Day and Hatching-tide events are happening concurrently.
The response to the FFXIV tweet announcing the combo was met with a lot of ire from the community. Many have called the developers lazy, while others defended the merge, blaming it on the crunch for Dawntrail, and the Final Fantasy XVI's collaboration event, which is slated for the time period when Hatching-tide typically takes place.
According to the Lodestone page, both events take place from March 14 to April 1. Because the event is happening at the same time, decorations in the major cities will be split between the two themes. Little Ladies' Day decorations will appear in Ul'Dah, while Hatching-tide decorations will pop up in Gridania for the full duration. In Limsa Lominsa, Little Ladies' Day gets March 14 to March 22 while Hatching-tide gets March 22 to April 1.
To players, it sounds like mommy (Little Ladies' Day) and daddy (Hatching-tide) are fighting over Limsa Lominsa and have agreed on a visitation schedule. It's rubbing the community the wrong way, and rightfully so. Many players have been vocal about the quality of Endwalker's patch content, and now they're approaching a few months with little to no content. It's not a surprise players are miffed at one less seasonal event when it's all they have to latch onto until Dawntrail.
Not only that, but many are also upset over the new mount, which is a reskinned goobbue, and the lack any rewards beyond that. Last year, Little Ladies' Day released a new fan dance emote, Orchestrion Roll and housing item, and Hatching-tide got an entire outfit, the Frighten emote, an Orchestrion Roll, and a housing item.
This isn't the first time Square Enix has merged two events. The last time was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Valentione's Day and Little Ladies' Day 2021 were merged. While FFXIV fans are typically sympathetic for things outside of Square Enix's control, and a times, even things that are in their control, the content draught seems to be weighing on many Warriors of Light ahead of Dawntrail.
Players got the last bit of MSQ from Endwalker earlier this year in January, and aside from these events, they don't have much to look forward to. Perhaps that is why many are upset over this decision. If there's a content lull, even the smallest breath of life is grabbed onto and devoured. With two events squished together, there's less time to enjoy the decorations in the cities, less time to complete the quests, and dampers excitement to keep players coming back to the game.
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