We lost 70% of our player base half a year in

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MonsutaMan

Superman 64 sold 10 million units, but it was by no means a great game. Well, it begs the question, why did many of us buy it........? Because it was Superman.......Duh?

---

Wait, did you get Superman mixed up with Super Mario lol. 10m sales would be 1 in 3 owners of Nintendo 64. Mario did it, but Superman wasn't close.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDecay

Perhaps the playerbase has not decreased by 70%, but the number of players actually doing content instead of going to clubs certainly has dropped by 70%, if not more.

---

Aaaand we know this...how?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDecay

Perhaps the playerbase has not decreased by 70%, but the number of players actually doing content instead of going to clubs certainly has dropped by 70%, if not more.

---

This is absolutely true. You and I are quite opposed with our opinions but I will concede facts when I see them. Party finders jam packed full of RP/venue stuff outnumbering actual content by a lot whenever I look. I see people absolutely everywhere, but many queues are now "more than 30 minutes". Few are actually playing the game, compared to living in it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

This is absolutely true. You and I are quite opposed with our opinions but I will concede facts when I see them. Party finders jam packed full of RP/venue stuff outnumbering actual content by a lot whenever I look. I see people absolutely everywhere, but many queues are now "more than 30 minutes". Few are actually playing the game, compared to living in it.

---

Got a picture of this or anything? And what's getting 30 min wait times and also at what time of day? Just curious really.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Got a picture of this or anything? And what's getting 30 min wait times and also at what time of day? Just curious really.

---

Dynamis data center. Alliance raids, normal raids and even sometimes trials are greater than 30 minute waits. PvP is non-existent. Im sure dozens of others from Dyanamis would back this up but I can post pictures tonight. Its not uncommon to see like 15-20 listings for RP stuff in party finder, and 0-1 for actual content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

Dynamis data center. Alliance raids, normal raids and even sometimes trials are greater than 30 minute waits. PvP is non-existent. Im sure dozens of others from Dyanamis would back this up but I can post pictures tonight. Its not uncommon to see like 15-20 listings for RP stuff in party finder, and 0-1 for actual content.

---

You're on the unofficial "official" RP server for Dynamis. A number of players created new users (or moved alts) to this server to take advantage of the "zero housing has been sold yet" phenomenon.

It was populous back in November, and died out by early this year as players went back to their main characters for raids/trials/etc. It also has half the possible population of the other data centers (4 worlds vs 8 worlds), so it is no wonder that there is a delay in queues or a lack of content PFs. Most of the population is playing on their mains on other servers.

I joined an FC on day 1 on Seraph ... by January I was the only FC player online. I became the FC Master by logging into the game in February, because the actual FC Master actually missed logging in on a weekend. The mansion-style FC house had less furniture than one of my current apartments. Seraph is a place where players go to play House, and not much more. I'm entirely unsurprised you can't find a PF and experience longer queues.

Does that mean the game is "dying"? No. Queue times on Gilgamesh are in the 1-5 minute range for DPS, and immediate for healers.

I moved to dynamis day 1 and the queues were never good, not even when it was popular to move there for like a day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

Dynamis data center. Alliance raids, normal raids and even sometimes trials are greater than 30 minute waits. PvP is non-existent. Im sure dozens of others from Dyanamis would back this up but I can post pictures tonight. Its not uncommon to see like 15-20 listings for RP stuff in party finder, and 0-1 for actual content.

---

Yeah, cuz DC travel killed every DC but aether for content. Everyone travels there now.



It's not that the population is just sitting in venues, they all travel to do content now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Yeah, cuz DC travel killed every DC but aether for content. Everyone travels there now.



It's not that the population is just sitting in venues, they all travel to do content now.

---

Honesty that would explain why I see so many travelers

I don't like to tell other people how to play their game. But I'd be lying if I didn't say the number of venues in PF/Shout chat left me feeling a bit depressed at the state of the game.

Literally Second Life: Realm Reborn.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

I don't like to tell other people how to play their game. But I'd be lying if I didn't say the number of venues in PF/Shout chat left me feeling a bit depressed at the state of the game.

---

Idk where I'm at maybe 10-20 out of 100 things up will be rp related. Doesn't really bother me. The notion that if it's not in pf it's not being done (or ones akin to that) is flawed anyways. Many groups n free companys do content often yet don't touch pf because things like discord exist.
Venues don't make me drepressed because I don't use that as an sort of gauge. Different servers n DCs harbor different players. Game has always been casual oriented to this isn't new.

The OP is clearly trolling as we have better ways to acquire some insights about FFXIV population...and isn't declining. However, interestingly, for a game with appeal for the casual population, our clears in extremes/savage/ultimates are pretty high. Look for "achievements" session in ffxivcollect . com.
Unfortunately for some, FFXIV is almost a perfect online experience...just lack some rewards here and there and meaningful open world content.

Nothing to worry about .most wow refugees have gone back to wow which in my honest opinion is good news for ffxiv .

126% of all statistics are made up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elissar

The OP is clearly trolling as we have better ways to acquire some insights about FFXIV population...and isn't declining. However, interestingly, for a game with appeal for the casual population, our clears in extremes/savage/ultimates are pretty high. Look for "achievements" session in ffxivcollect . com.
Unfortunately for some, FFXIV is almost a perfect online experience...just lack some rewards here and there and meaningful open world content.

---

What are these better statistics of which you speak

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

https://i.imgur.com/5GKvYoe.png

I think you got your numbers backwards. 10 - 20 things in this image are content related with almost the entirety of the other tab filled with RP related things. At least on my DC. So yeah, it does get me depressed. Especially when I cannot find a normal FC in that sea of Venue ads to do content with. This isn't really about the game being casual oriented or not. This is about the content within the game. It really speaks volumes about the quality and longevity of the content if more people are RPing than playing content. The fact that self made content is more fun than the content the devs provide, it really says a lot about the state of the game.

PS: I shouldn't have to travel to another Data Center to play the game but that's where we're at.

---

Its because DC travel happened. This is why Gilgamesh became the raiding server btw. Originally every server had a somewhat healthy raid scene, and then Gordias happened so everyone thought you had to go to Gilgamesh in order to clear savage. Raid scenes on other worlds plummted (this was pre cross-world PF).


Now we just have that again. Even though Primal had a healthy PF, not its just "go to Aether"


DC travel was a mistake. Full stop.


There's 144 High-End duties on Aether atm.

Long post sorry

I started in June 2021.

Played on Steam nonstop to experience the game (story and content like Eureka/Bozja, both completed). Endwalker was my first expansion and compared to Shadowbringers it’s a letdown overall. Having to wait 3-4 months for a single dungeon, maybe 3 raid bosses and an alliance raid… I don’t know about you but I’m having trouble to justify the subscription, even with a house.

Don’t get me wrong this game has a lot of potential but content-wise it is indeed lacking. I’ll explain further below.

One of the things I enjoyed was the community. Very nice folks overall, despite the few creeps and MMO tribals such as this fool below (catgirl with white hair couldn’t be more of a stereotype) :

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Surprised

Nothing to worry about .most wow refugees have gone back to wow which in my honest opinion is good news for ffxiv .

---

Imagine getting a flux of new players and instead of welcoming them you piss on them because they came from another game. Fortunately, this type of cringe specimen is rare.

And there we come to a painpoint which ended up making me quit :

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OM3GA-Z3RO

Literally Second Life: Realm Reborn.

---

If you’re mid-casual and you’re not necessarily interested in Extreme, Savage or Ultimate modes… tough luck. There’s pretty much nothing to be done besides the one new dungeon and maybe few raid bosses if you’re in the right patch cycle.

It’s like I left WoW/hardcore games to find the same endgame.

There is 0 exploration. Even WoW or Runescape have that, WoW adds new maps to explore every major patch. Here we have expansion zones rotting as they’re just MSQ backgrounds or FATE-farms for the 1st month of the expansion life-cycle.

As the user above said, we have a lot of RPers but now it’s even more apparent since if you’re like me, you got nothing engaging to do and I’m just not into RP/ERP.

I started playing ESO with their new expansion and class, have to say, despite its flaws it has a genuinely nice exploration part. Something that is simply non-existent in FFXIV. World bosses, every NPC and quest is voiced, the game doesn’t feel like a railroad (especially the dungeons, like our 2 packs > boss > 2 packs > boss…).

Housing is better by miles and no need for addons to have a proper furniture placement tool. Housing not tied to your sub.

Main gripe is that ESO has a dogshit PvP and even FF does it better (and that’s saying something since FF’s PvP isn’t great either but more fair and entertaining). Community is overall more nice too, in ESO getting some hellos/his in random parties can be rare. Zone chat is very funny though.

All in all, I’m having way more fun Elsweyr, I wish the FF devs tried something different for once, instead of the same railroaded crap from dungeons to quests. Their new dungeon type (forgot the name) was abysmal since it’s oneshot railroads with no promised randomness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by True-to-Caesar

Their new dungeon type (forgot the name) was abysmal since it’s oneshot railroads with no promised randomness.

---

The variant dungeon had some "randomness" which wasn't really random it just determined slight alterations to the dungeon depending on what actions you took (like draining the water or not draining it) but it was still a massive step up from the corridor simulator that is normal dungeons and I wish we could get Sil'dihn Subterrane and whatever the new one will be called in Expert roulette.

Unfortunately the same does not apply to the harder version which is really just 3 extreme trial bosses strung together.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elissar

The OP is clearly trolling as we have better ways to acquire some insights about FFXIV population...and isn't declining. However, interestingly, for a game with appeal for the casual population, our clears in extremes/savage/ultimates are pretty high. Look for "achievements" session in ffxivcollect . com.
Unfortunately for some, FFXIV is almost a perfect online experience...just lack some rewards here and there and meaningful open world content.

---

You do realize that ffxivcollect and lalachievement statistics are opt-in? Meaning that it's a percentage of the people who registered on ffxivcollect/lalachievement?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rolder50

What are these better statistics of which you speak

---

They don't have any because they fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the very statistics they're quoting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by True-to-Caesar

If you’re mid-casual and you’re not necessarily interested in Extreme, Savage or Ultimate modes… tough luck. There’s pretty much nothing to be done besides the one new dungeon and maybe few raid bosses if you’re in the right patch cycle.

It’s like I left WoW/hardcore games to find the same endgame.

There is 0 exploration.

---

This is why I think things like Eureka and Bozja are so important. They really tick that box. Like I'm probably a mid-casual as you say (though I do Extremes and occasionally dip a toe into Savage), but I find things like Eureka and Bozja good diversions. The problem is, there needs to be a new one with each expansion, and for whatever reason, after cutting Bozja (due to Covid, they had to cut out one of the zones, originally they planned three with the second one going with DR instead of just the two we have today; this was totally understandable, pandemic and all, so I'm not harping on THAT), they just didn't make one this expansion.

I feel like they underestimated how important content like that is, and Island Sanctuary doesn't scratch that itch as it's more akin to housing type of stuff.

While Variant is trying to do that, there's far less replay to it. Deep Dungeons and Eureka/Bozja allow you to grind stuff for achievements, titles, pets, mounts, and Eureka/Bozja you have a lot of replay value for leveling up weapons/armor for different Jobs. Variant is just doing all the paths once for the mount, maybe running it a few times if you want the single set of cosmetic gear...and that's it. There's just not enough replay value to it, and very little exploration. The hints for the different paths were so cryptic, most people just looked up a guide, and it wasn't as pick-up-group friendly as Eureka/Bozja, so most people doing it were still just wanting to do their run, not spend hours grinding and poking about.

It was a good try, but just didn't hit the mark of Eureka/Bozja. We need another Eureka/Bozja.

Honestly I personally think ending the main story arc in 6.0 was a mistake. The patch story has been boring as all hell for me and I stopped doing it at 6.2. Job design has gone to hell and most of them aren't fun at all anymore. I'm hoping 7.0 saves the game for me but honestly can't see it. This game is being designed to be a bi-yearly release single player game now.

Went too much into the RPG, forgot about the MMO.

The relic quest had a very important function, in ARR-HW it made players to interact with several other system it had in place: You had to quest, dungeon, raid, trials, craft, FATEs. Yes grindy, but the promise, the reward was there. The grind in XIV is another topic.
In SB and ShB it got it's own areas, full of lore, theming, and whats more important a feeling of progression. Grindy, but the promise.

EW doesn't offer anything.

In this and many other areas it's shown how EW is LESS than it's predecesors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Went too much into the RPG, forgot about the MMO.

The relic quest had a very important function, in ARR-HW it made players to interact with several other system it had in place: You had to quest, dungeon, raid, trials, craft, FATEs. Yes grindy, but the promise, the reward was there. The grind in XIV is another topic.
In SB and ShB it got it's own areas, full of lore, theming, and whats more important a feeling of progression. Grindy, but the promise.

EW doesn't offer anything.

In this and many other areas it's shown how EW is LESS than it's predecesors.

---

One could say a game forcing you to interact with certain systems isn't good. I hear no one say the ARR relic grind was good or fun. The only really difference is current relics let you do whatever you want to get your relic. I'll take that over the God awful books/light farming of ARR. I'll take that over the eventual boring tedium of Eureka style Zones. I personally can't call EW a lesser in that regard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

One could say a game forcing you to interact with certain systems isn't good. I hear no one say the ARR relic grind was good or fun. The only really difference is current relics let you do whatever you want to get your relic. I'll take that over the God awful books/light farming of ARR. I'll take that over the eventual boring tedium of Eureka style Zones. I personally can't call EW a lesser in that regard.

---

Without a doubt, I grew to hate the previous relic grinds. It just made you feel like such an asshole because of the completely obvious unfun padding design for a lot of them.

But here's the kicker, I do like the ideas behind collecting the materials or objectives for the steps. I just hated the grinding process and I wish there was a way where they can apply those differing objectives into EW's relics so that it doesnt feel awful to do, but also has something substantial for it. I get the tomestone grinds (boy is EW gonna be the easiest relic grinds after 7.0 once the tome turn ins become poetics) but I also wish they made different objectives.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Without a doubt, I grew to hate the previous relic grinds. It just made you feel like such an asshole because of the completely obvious unfun padding design for a lot of them.

But here's the kicker, I do like the ideas behind collecting the materials or objectives for the steps. I just hated the grinding process and I wish there was a way where they can apply those differing objectives into EW's relics so that it doesnt feel awful to do, but also has something substantial for it. I get the tomestone grinds (boy is EW gonna be the easiest relic grinds after 7.0 once the tome turn ins become poetics) but I also wish they made different objectives.

---

Yeah see I would 100% get behind a nice balance of both. And naturally folks with different wants n playstyles prefer different methods. Ik I've seen the point where folks say easy relics make them feel less rewarding but imo simply seeing everyone have them, hard/long grinds or not already makes them feel that way.

I wish there was more people to play with! It's very lonely when all of my friends quit and theres nobody to play with anymore! My FC master and I are the only two people who are active anymore!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

I'll take that over the eventual boring tedium of Eureka style Zones.

---

That's the grind. And the grind in this game is another topic entirely.
If you could reasonably do 3 relics at the same time instead of being constantly locked into one, and that being least 3 times as faster. The tedium i bet would give away to more interest.

Why? Because of the Armoire System. The ignored basis of XIV.

In this MMORPG your character can be any between a bunch of classes. The armoire system allows for it. And the nature of combat and progresion of high end characters one might say -requieres- you to know at least something about the 3 roles which you so easily can play.
A faster gearing is what this game needs. At least 3 times as to consider a player might want to gear at a minimun one class in each role. That would be 3 times cheaper tomes, or 3 times higher caps. Instead of 12 memories of the lamentation of the children suffering warcrimes, you just need 4.

The lives of lot of communities would be expanded, most statics disband cause of rolechanges and people simply not having the time to gear YET another class.


Ofc you would leave the NEETs feeling like everything is "meaningless". Well, with a game in it's 4th expansion... How the Manderville Relic is up to now... Yeah, we kinda there already.
The relic will always be replaced by 10 item levels next expansion anyway.

I say the grind needs to go in a game that revolves arround all-classing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LukaRoselia

Honestly I personally think ending the main story arc in 6.0 was a mistake. The patch story has been boring as all hell for me and I stopped doing it at 6.2. Job design has gone to hell and most of them aren't fun at all anymore. I'm hoping 7.0 saves the game for me but honestly can't see it. This game is being designed to be a bi-yearly release single player game now.

---

They planned to have an expansion in between SB and Shb but they cut it due to pacing. It was supposed to be about Garlemald and what not and what we ended up getting was our trip to the First instead of dealing with the Garleans. Regardless this is semi-assumption since they did mention the intention before but I fully disagree with this opinion that they shouldnt have ended the main story with EW. The Zodiark and Hydaelyn drama was beginning to drag at this point and I feel EW ended it pretty nicely.

The only reason you find the Void story boring is because where at the point where the game needs an interlude before the next major arc. A good story doesnt deliver, rising action after rising action after rising action and its hilarious how you and most other people who criticize 6.1- above fail to understand this and makes me think you also failed at basic literature 101 because I also see this excuse thrown with some of ARR's story telling, which had some pacing issues for sure but the build up to the events of Praetorium, then the build up to HW was needed for us to give a shit of the characters, world and situation at that point.. The truth is, you and a bunch of other people reeally should never ever write a story if the main criticism is that the plot isnt hinged on melodrama and climaxes. This isnt how good storytelling works.

I also wouldnt fully count on 7.0 to be back to the levels of hype as in Shb or EW. I rather want 7.0 to be a bit more a fresh start like ARR in terms of world building. But I doubt this might be the case, at least fully.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

They planned to have an expansion in between SB and Shb but they cut it due to pacing. It was supposed to be about Garlemald and what not and what we ended up getting was our trip to the First instead of dealing with the Garleans. Regardless this is semi-assumption since they did mention the intention before but I fully disagree with this opinion that they shouldnt have ended the main story with EW. The Zodiark and Hydaelyn drama was beginning to drag at this point and I feel EW ended it pretty nicely.

The only reason you find the Void story boring is because where at the point where the game needs an interlude before the next major arc. A good story doesnt deliver, rising action after rising action after rising action and its hilarious how you and most other people who criticize 6.1- above fail to understand this and makes me think you also failed at basic literature 101 because I also see this excuse thrown with some of ARR's story telling, which had some pacing issues for sure but the build up to the events of Praetorium, then the build up to HW was needed for us to give a shit of the characters, world and situation at that point.. The truth is, you and a bunch of other people reeally should never ever write a story if the main criticism is that the plot isnt hinged on melodrama and climaxes. This isnt how good storytelling works.

I also wouldnt fully count on 7.0 to be back to the levels of hype as in Shb or EW. I rather want 7.0 to be a bit more a fresh start like ARR in terms of world building. But I doubt this might be the case, at least fully.

---

You pretty much sum up my thoughts, the story so far is fine its setting up groundwork for something bigger to happen. I imagine 7.0s story to be a far more smaller scale contained piece maybe something akin to Stormblood and I can see it being controversial but as you say starting a new arc will always be slow to begin with and I still have a lot of appreciation to ARR and I mean even the ARR that is there now isn't the one I played completely as they cut a small chunk out and have redesigned dungeons etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Its because DC travel happened. This is why Gilgamesh became the raiding server btw. Originally every server had a somewhat healthy raid scene, and then Gordias happened so everyone thought you had to go to Gilgamesh in order to clear savage. Raid scenes on other worlds plummted (this was pre cross-world PF).


Now we just have that again. Even though Primal had a healthy PF, not its just "go to Aether"


DC travel was a mistake. Full stop.


There's 144 High-End duties on Aether atm.

---

Wouldn't say DC travel is a mistake. I'd say not having global/regional party finder is the issue. Being able to travel DCs to run around the open world with my friends there is good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alleluia

Wouldn't say DC travel is a mistake. I'd say not having global/regional party finder is the issue. Being able to travel DCs to run around the open world with my friends there is good.

---

I don't think it would work that way. The DCs are physically separated and not interlinked like servers within the DC are. That's why you have to log out to DC travel, so your char data can be transferred over.



Sure, being able to do open world stuff with friends is great. Most don't use it for that tho, as evidenced by the death of PF on every NA DC but aether.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't think it would work that way. The DCs are physically separated and not interlinked like servers within the DC are. That's why you have to log out to DC travel, so your char data can be transferred over.



Sure, being able to do open world stuff with friends is great. Most don't use it for that tho, as evidenced by the death of PF on every NA DC but aether.

---

Wait I'm confused. What do you mean by PF being dead on every NA server but Aether? Define dead cause there's upward of 100 PFs at peak times where I'm at.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Wait I'm confused. What do you mean by PF being dead on every NA server but Aether? Define dead cause there's upward of 100 PFs at peak times where I'm at.

---

Midgardsormr is on Aether....

I don't think I've ever used the PF. Well no...that's a lie. I used it to bribe someone out of an apartment and then another as a joke I would charge people 50K an hour to be topless and do sit-ups at their apartment/home.

Three people answered in 30 minutes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Wait I'm confused. What do you mean by PF being dead on every NA server but Aether? Define dead cause there's upward of 100 PFs at peak times where I'm at.

---

Not server, but Data Center (DC). The server you're on (Midgardsormr) is part of the Aether DC, which has become the "go to" DC for most PF activities. As you noted, it's absolutely hopping with groups at pretty much any time of the day. It's the other DC's that aren't.

Before EW launch, i'll already predicted it will not be as good as ShB & series which is a finale of the ARR (reborn).

ShB sets the bar too high in terms of lore for the XI/XIV fan base.

EW & series might get better (or worst) down the road, if it isn't good, I wouldn't have sub for 10years since ARR.

On expansion launch queues in the thousands, two months later no queue. IMHO most people play expansion launches. Get back before launch to finish X.1-X.5, then do Y.0 and quit until Y.55 before Z.0 :)

The game is 100% Rinse & Repeat with new visuals.

Adding Haircut, or other graphical stuff, won't make it last longer. The gameplay, new mechanics, new way of playing is what could change the breeze of the game !
I just came back into the game, and I'm already tired of playing it. The Cut-scene are boring, the character animations are stuck in emote motions, they can do better on this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Sure, being able to do open world stuff with friends is great. Most don't use it for that tho, as evidenced by the death of PF on every NA DC but aether.

---

Friends doing open world content together most likely wouldn't be listing anything in PF so that's not an indicator of how players are using dc travel. They also aren't likely to be using it to run group content since chances are they're doing it unsynced so they don't have to meet normal duty requirements, or they're bringing in friends of friends to fill out their parties rather than using PF.

That the Aether PF is far more busy than the PFs on other data centers just shows that players looking for (or organizing) parties willing to accept random players for group content prefer to go where they know there are a large number of other players doing the same. That is a problem but not indicative of whether friends are playing with friends.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nexxus

The game is 100% Rinse & Repeat with new visuals.

Adding Haircut, or other graphical stuff, won't make it last longer. The gameplay, new mechanics, new way of playing is what could change the breeze of the game !
I just came back into the game, and I'm already tired of playing it. The Cut-scene are boring, the character animations are stuck in emote motions, they can do better on this.

---

They are doing better than that. Sounds like you haven't made it past 5.0 on the MSQ, where mo-cap for cutscenes becomes much more common (though the emotes are still used as well).

As for changing up game play, there have been other discussions about that. Once a game is known for delivering a certain content style, deviating from that style is more likely to lose players than retain them or attract new ones. It may be true that you personally are looking for something new and different but not everyone will be.