FFXIV population decline continues

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

Even with the decline it still would take the collapse of SE or some insanely new MMO to actually kill FFXIV. While I do believe our voices are being heard I also believe we wont see any ideal changes to FFXIV anytime soon, I genuinely believe not even by 8.0... their development process is just that bad and that slow...

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The bigger problem is that people keep playing it and paying for it even though they don't enjoy it anymore, because they're so hooked on it and have been playing it for so long that they can't imagine not playing it at this point.

Think about how many messages there are here and on reddit that are basically like "well, I at least want to finish this raid tier," or "well, I'll see what 8.0 is like before I quit for good," or "well, I don't want to lose my house," etc. The only message that sends to SE is "whatever you're doing now is good enough to warrant continued payments from me, so keep it up."

To anyone reading this that fits into one of those buckets: it may be time to cut the cord. If you're not enjoying the game anymore, you're literally just throwing your time in the trash.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Feels like they’ve just given up entirely on this expansion and are just leaving it to rot while they work on their ‘super mind blowing ultimate shake-up 8.0 uniqueness update!!!’

As if we don’t already know it’s going to be some more 120s cooldowns with no interaction and a visual upgrade to 1 pre-existing ability

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Still waiting for my Gunbreaker Quadruple-down ability

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Still waiting for my Gunbreaker Quadruple-down ability

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FFXIV 14.0: PLD's Confiteor chain is now 31 GCDs long

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Originally Posted by TemporalFruitsAndVeggies

FFXIV 14.0: PLD's Confiteor chain is now 31 GCDs long

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Fight or Flight's duration has been increased to 20 minutes.

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Originally Posted by TemporalFruitsAndVeggies

The bigger problem is that people keep playing it and paying for it even though they don't enjoy it anymore, because they're so hooked on it and have been playing it for so long that they can't imagine not playing it at this point.

Think about how many messages there are here and on reddit that are basically like "well, I at least want to finish this raid tier," or "well, I'll see what 8.0 is like before I quit for good," or "well, I don't want to lose my house," etc. The only message that sends to SE is "whatever you're doing now is good enough to warrant continued payments from me, so keep it up."

To anyone reading this that fits into one of those buckets: it may be time to cut the cord. If you're not enjoying the game anymore, you're literally just throwing your time in the trash.

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It's the WoW dilemma. We're currently in BFA. No one is enjoying the game but a lot of people are still hesitant to leave because they've invested a lot of time, effort and in some cases money into the game and it has sentimental value for a lot of players. If 8.0 doesn't fix a lot of the issues then I think a lot of people will just be done. There comes a point where, while you have a lot of memories of good times with the game, clinging to a sinking ship is just preventing you from making new memories somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

It's the WoW dilemma. We're currently in BFA. No one is enjoying the game but a lot of people are still hesitant to leave because they've invested a lot of time, effort and in some cases money into the game and it has sentimental value for a lot of players. If 8.0 doesn't fix a lot of the issues then I think a lot of people will just be done. There comes a point where, while you have a lot of memories of good times with the game, clinging to a sinking ship is just preventing you from making new memories somewhere else.

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I quit before Shadowlands, started in actual vanilla. And I can say, the last 5 years that kept me in? Was pure community, guild members and such. The gameplay loop is much better than FFXIV, but the story was crap and hidden in expensive novels.
You aren't a true WoW player if you don't play WoW and actively hate it too. You stay because its familiar and there is nothing better on offer. Now that I've played 14, and it's the best for RP mechanics. I'm stuck in the same loop of a company that can't dev themselves out of a hole and as a cherry on top, the story sucks now too. So BOTH games' stories suck, woopidooooooo~~

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

I quit before Shadowlands, started in actual vanilla. And I can say, the last 5 years that kept me in? Was pure community, guild members and such. The gameplay loop is much better than FFXIV, but the story was crap and hidden in expensive novels.
You aren't a true WoW player if you don't play WoW and actively hate it too. You stay because its familiar and there is nothing better on offer. Now that I've played 14, and it's the best for RP mechanics. I'm stuck in the same loop of a company that can't dev themselves out of a hole and as a cherry on top, the story sucks now too. So BOTH games' stories suck, woopidooooooo~~

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Shadowlands sucking isn't a secret, but dragonflight and tww have been received quite well. If you haven't played them its disingenuous to say the game sucks.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Shadowlands sucking isn't a secret, but dragonflight and tww have been received quite well. If you haven't played them its disingenuous to say the game sucks.

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And even Shadowlands had fun enough gameplay and mainstay combat content. The issue was just the extra bloat, similar to if you'd been forced to run PotD to floor 200 and do Eureka weeklies on the regular in order to be competitive in raid.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

And even Shadowlands had fun enough gameplay and mainstay combat content. The issue was just the extra bloat, similar to if you'd been forced to run PotD to floor 200 and do Eureka weeklies on the regular in order to be competitive in raid.

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Also had one of the longest gaps between patches for 9.0 to 9.1 because of the pandemic which certainly made their situation worse when it came to content.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Shadowlands sucking isn't a secret, but dragonflight and tww have been received quite well. If you haven't played them its disingenuous to say the game sucks.

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Oh I'm fairly certain the gameplay loop is still somewhat entertaining. Dragonflying seems fun, but the story is the same. Just because its better than Shadowlands doesnt mean its quality. Buttonbloat is probably still a thing no doubt.

The lore, worldbuilding and story was destroyed though. So I have no reason to go back. FFXIV is doing its best to nuke all of those too in their end.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Dragonflying seems fun, but the story is the same. Just because its better than Shadowlands doesnt mean its quality. Buttonbloat is probably still a thing no doubt.

The lore, worldbuilding and story was destroyed though. So I have no reason to go back. FFXIV is doing its best to nuke all of those too in their end.

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I mean, has WoW ever had anything particularly approaching an MSQ outside of the expansion- and zone-introduction quests? Even in the few cases they've existed, they've only ever really been a way to give bonus exp for familiarizing yourself with the open world that quickly becomes irrelevant. Sidequests simply take the place of FATEs since each job is on a separate character and therefore has the full bank of sidequests available again.

Meanwhile, button-bloat there is nothing compared to here (see our rigid "combos"). It's limited mostly to 1-hr buffs that, yes, may as well be auras (persisting for 1 hr)... if not for how much some like buffing every stranger they come across for that bit of extra social element. Apart from that, they just have more for-fun utility actions that you don't need to put on your hotbars at all if you don't want to bother with the open world (Eyes of the Beast, Eagle Eye, etc.).

Lore and worldbuilding are likewise the same as ever. Each expansion quickly devalued the one before it as the ultimate big bad then became a steppingstone for something new but not necessarily any more threatening per lore than the one before. As per... virtually every MMO, so I'm not sure why that'd be uniquely "destroyed".

/shrug

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I mean, has WoW ever had anything particularly approaching an MSQ outside of the expansion- and zone-introduction quests? Even in the few cases they've existed, they've only ever really been a way to give bonus exp for familiarizing yourself with the open world that quickly becomes irrelevant. Sidequests simply take the place of FATEs since each job is on a separate character and therefore has the full bank of sidequests available again.

Meanwhile, button-bloat there is nothing compared to here (see our rigid "combos"). It's limited mostly to 1-hr buffs that, yes, may as well be auras (persisting for 1 hr)... if not for how much some like buffing every stranger they come across for that bit of extra social element. Apart from that, they just have more for-fun utility actions that you don't need to put on your hotbars at all if you don't want to bother with the open world (Eyes of the Beast, Eagle Eye, etc.).

Lore and worldbuilding are likewise the same as ever. Each expansion quickly devalued the one before it as the ultimate big bad then became a steppingstone for something new but not necessarily any more threatening per lore than the one before. As per... virtually every MMO, so I'm not sure why that'd be uniquely "destroyed".

/shrug

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In WoW I mean in a sense of the less they touched it, the better it was. Aside from emotional cutscenes they mastered, much like all the Overwatch stuff, but like those they never really lead into anything. I think in terms of cinematics I was most offended by the Dawntrail one. It was like this weird unearned victory lap with their boomer band playing on the backround. They should keep the primals as a memeband in game and out of game in events, not IN THE GAME. I mean hot take, but I mean it devalues the whole story, it's like inserting Hildibrand in MSQ it robs all seriousness out of it.
WoW will always have superior gameplay until FFXIV gets some class identity, opens up their world and dungeons. But I doubt it will happen.

WoW still is the reigning champion of retcons, lore inconsistency and worldbuilding destruction compared to FFXIV, but it's going towards the end of happy happy joy joy and insert whatever the devs feel like is cool instead of respecting their older worldbuilding and storyline in FFXIV.