Ffxiv monthly sub isn't stretching & response to PCGAMER article

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

I mean, they definitely encouraged people to stay subbed for more then one month at a time by doing things like: Having housing auto-demo, having weekly lockouts on loot, tomestone caps that don't get turned off until like 2 weeks before the next patch, new content is often done in x.x5 patches which are conveniently spaced to be a month to a month and a half after the main line patch, and so on.

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This is an impossible post to respond to because you read none of the context of the post you're quoting and went off on a tangent you wanted to go on. It's not even tangentially related.

This is what we get with the next Patch

Main Scenario Quests - Crossroads = a Handful Quests, more Wuk Lamat = more Skipping

New Alliance Raid - Echoes of Vana'diel - Jeuno: The First Walk = a small piece of the Raid like 3-4 Bosses

New Dungeon - Yuweyawata Field Station = just 1 Dungeon

New Trial - The Minstrel's Ballad: Sphene's Burden = just a Trial

New Ultimate Raid - Futures Rewritten (Ultimate) = Gaia and Ryne again

Chaotic Alliance Raid - Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic) = Cloud of Darkness for the third time

New Unreal Trial - The Jade Stoa (Unreal) = Byakko for the second time

Allied Society Quests - Pelupelu = sounds boring

Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures = yeah no, 100% not funny, 100% skipping

Custom Deliveries - Nitowikwe = sounds boring too

Role Quests = any interessting in these quests? Don't think so.

Wachumeqimeqi Quests = same like the Role Quests

Hall of the Novice Update = Old Content

Housing Update = No content at all, just a small change

Doman Mahjong Update = guess a handful of Players will be happy about this

New PvP Gear = OH, let me guess, the ugly Craftable Gear we have now as a Level 1 Glamour Gear? Or will it be the 690er Gear?

New Mounts, Minions, and Emotes = yes 1-2 Mounts (my guess is from the Unreal + Ultimate Raid) + 1-2 Minions + 1 Emote

...and more! = Hahaha yeah right more next year or so!

* Some content will be made available via patch updates at a later date. <--- Rofl, like this "Content" has so damn much to offer that you have to split it.

I don't see much Casual Stuff in this Patch.

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Originally Posted by Aneshda

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Truncated, this is:

Approx. 15-25 story quests (3 hours of gameplay not counting cutscenes, maybe 4 if you drag your feet)
2 new 20 minute instances
4 hard modes of existing instances
The same crafting grind we've had for 8 years
Better new player experience (only thing in this list that didnt make me want to fall asleep)
Polish for a handful of side content

Great content release schedule, guys.

https://i.imgur.com/sSIAZBG.gif

Yeah...I'm getting tired of the game for all the wrong reasons. The gear grind for me is a big big minus. Yes mmos are all about the grind but in 14 there's no way to speed anything up with 450 weekly cap etc. It's ridiculous in a game that touts you can be all jobs on 1 character. Am I wearing the crafted stuff when I switched back to rpr? Sure but 7 weeks for a weapon, 4 weeks for chest and pants is just stupid. Im in this weird situation where I'm looking forward to 7.1 but am also dreading it....wuk lamat aside it's more about the same old formula and how many weeks it's going to take me because God forbid I decided to switch my main.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/final-...-stacks-value/

Myself and many others can agree all to well with the criticisms of this article
[*]content feels like 1 months worth
[*] gear doesn't retain value
[*]stale repeatable formula across ALL content
[*]dungeons are a predictably laughable conveyor belt
[*]Msq gameplay is 99% [press X]
[*]Grand Companies and older content completely abandoned
[*]Crafted weapons for SHADOWBRINGERS still not released 4 years after their trial
[*]Fates are a mindless brain numbing experience
[*]The WOL loosing story significance

I could go on, but there's no point. This game is mired with gaping wounds that Need adressing NOW. Not in 8.0. NOW otherwise people are just gona jump ship back to wow/gw2/d2/mhwilds or whatever else shinny remotely tops this game. That's the truth square. Most ppl who play ffxiv right now. Are only here until something better releases.

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I already canceled my sub. They clearly want us to play other games...so be it.

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Originally Posted by MonteCristo

I already canceled my sub. They clearly want us to play other games...so be it.

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Same.

Monster Hunter Wilds open beta in a few days.

I am looking forward to it!

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Originally Posted by Tint

Same.

Monster Hunter Wilds open beta in a few days.

I am looking forward to it!

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Yes I am so starving for new RPG game

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

Yes I am so starving for new RPG game

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Metaphor is a great one

I've been looking into wow : war within and tbh I will prolly quit ffxiv to move to wow after 7.1 lul kicks in. Then I will bimonthly subflick until 14 is anything like as good.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

I've been looking into wow : war within and tbh I will prolly quit ffxiv to move to wow after 7.1 lul kicks in. Then I will bimonthly subflick until 14 is anything like as good.

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I don't know if you have any experience with WoW but it has alot going on- both good & bad as with most games- there's a timewalking event going on atm to get past released cool stuff and experience old content - mind you, it can all be overwhelming at once
but one of the more unique races, Dracthyr now has access to several more classes
WoW has gotten really good about the drop-in-and out when it comes to gearing. The only thing I feel is fomo are the elite pvp set colors but luckily half of the raid stuff looks better

There's much yoshi-p could look at from WoW and adapt into xiv but I think they're too proud & it feels like they believe force feeding us wuk lamat will make us change our minds.
I'm waiting for 7.1 & intend to unsub until things get better in the challenging content area & casual content.
I'm tired of 8-player only hard content being the only real rewarding content in the game as far as real gear progression goes.
We need 4-player hard content that's also just as rewarding as 8-player when it comes to gearing our characters.
I'd like something like WoW's Delves into xiv - which can reward mounts, bis gear, crafting materials and gear upgrade materials. While the loot pool is abit random, you're guaranteed a single piece of high ilvl gear in Delves & the delves become very challenging- something worth repeating. Criterion's in xiv are a faint shadow of wow's delves because while criterions are 4-player hard content with a few scenarios, they're not worth repeating once completed. They do not offer any means to gear your character (unless you want a shiny weapon cosmetic)
Fates in xiv need a change and should reward high ilvl gear, crafting materials, mounts, cosmetics etc as well as bicolor gemstones.

Don't forget, WoW has a 3 month patch cycle. Lots of new stuff every 3 months. And thanks to the weekly quests, world quests and events there is always something to do.

I believe they are hard set on the formula is because all of the original decision makers are working other games and now it’s just a maintenance staff doing work.

Yoshi-P and Co. needs to go back to copying other MMOs. It's clear they're incapable of creating a RPG(MMO).

At the very least the need to change the pace they're dropping the content even if there is no plan of increasing the quality. I said it before but playing the more modern games make me realize just how date every aspect of FF14 is, and one of the aspect stood out is the pacing. For example, dropping a new EX for a month, then a new PvP season for 1.5 month, then 24men raid the month after 1.5 month, then a new savage for 2.5 months (with some small event/content during), than another EX ...etc... so on and so forth. This way for once, people don't feel rush with multiple thing at once when a big patch drop, for two they don't feel having to wait too long in between for something "new", plus it helps varies the kind of activities we do.

Modern games know how to drip feed the small stuffs every 1/2 weeks, while making sure the larger stuff is usually only 1.5-2months in between and I feel this facilitates much better player engagements.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

I definitely feel what they're saying as a primarily casual player. There is minimal casual content being dropped while it feels like most of the new stuff is either extremely niche to high end raiders like savage, chaos, and ultimate or it's niche to ff11 or foray fans.
We used to get trials and dungeons in new patches, it wasn't just loading in, do 2 hours of story, do 1 dungeon, and then log out and that's your content for 5 months.

I have to assume this is an overcorrection from endwalker where raiders were complaining there was a lack of rewards and "midcore" raider content, so SE overcorrected and frontloaded this expansion with their stuff. Still feels absolutely terrible to have minimal things to do, and I can't even justify having this game installed anymore with how slow they are to drip feed things to do for casuals.

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Are you sure though?
Patch 6.1:
-24man alliance raid
-extreme version of the last MSQ trial (Endsinger)
-1 new dungeon
-ultimate (DSR)
-1 "new" unreal trial
-PvP update
-2 side quest stories
-Hildibrand quest
-1 beast tribe
-1 new custom delivery
-Some system updates

If you check the upcoming content for 7.1 it is almost identical, this has been the formula for basically forever, it has always been mediocre.
People had just been entirely blinded by the Endwalker MSQ hype to see how anemic the content at the time was.

Content in patches is definitely about the same as any other expansion, except a bit extra (Chaos Raid new to DT, Variant/Criterions new to EW, Lifestyle content/Firmament new to SHB, Ultimates new to SB, Deep Dungeons and areas like Diadem with NMs/raids new to HW).

First patch literally never contained a trial because they were making the extreme of the final trial from the .0 patch.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Content in patches is definitely about the same as any other expansion [...]

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But in other expansions it was fun to simply play the game because the jobs were fun.

Endwalker changed that. Now we need content to keep us entertained because the gameplay itself has become boring.

And after a content lull basically since EW release people are simply fed up. They waited for the next expansion and now they leave.

YoshiP can say the whole "just unsubscribe!" thing all he wants, but if people actually did it, he'd be panicking and begging for us all back. It's an empty platitude at this point and a copout to avoid criticism.

SquareEnix as a whole would actually go bankrupt if people only subscribed 2-3 months a year. Especially seeing as this game is increasingly the only thing keeping the company afloat.

Basically, you have people who want something worthwhile to do in the game, but the devs are either unable or unwilling to make content that will actually keep those folks around. The fact we might not even really get anything substantial until March or July is insane.

The article is a good one because it does point out what I think is the core of the issue here: CBU3 seems completely unable to adapt to any feedback in a timely manner. They just completely abandon stuff for years and maybe, possibly look into it at that point. It's genuinely hurting the game and needs to change.

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

YoshiP can say the whole "just unsubscribe!" thing all he wants, but if people actually did it, he'd be panicking and begging for us all back. It's an empty platitude at this point and a copout to avoid criticism.

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Considering his "It'll get better, please don't retire" comment in a recent interview, people probably have started unsubscribing. We probably won't know the damage until the new fiscal year at the earliest, but I'm definitely curious.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Considering his "It'll get better, please don't retire" comment in a recent interview, people probably have started unsubscribing. We probably won't know the damage until the new fiscal year at the earliest, but I'm definitely curious.

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I agree. It's definitely a sudden change of tone. I suspect we're starting to hit the point that's making them uncomfortable. Until they actually address it though, it won't matter. From the sounds of things, we aren't going to see any feedback being considered until 7.2 or 7.3.

Honestly, it all points to a poorly run operation to me. This is almost always a management issue. Modern software development basically demands this sort of flexibility and SE is unable to keep up for whatever reason.

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

SquareEnix as a whole would actually go bankrupt if people only subscribed 2-3 months a year.

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If you think that, then you don't understand how it works.

The "30 million adventurers" marketing is, of course, the total amount of characters ever made. Most of them are not subscribed right now. It is a pool, from which only 1-2 million are estimated to be subscribed at a given moment.

So let's say those "30 million adventurers" took it in turns to subscribe to the game for 1 month per year. On average, 2.5 million people would be subscribed at a given time.

It seems we are at somewhere over 1 million active characters, which is a lot lower, but the same logic applies. More than that are probably subscribed going by their finances but let their subscription linger (subscribed without actually playing, like a lot of people do with netflix).

How do we know this logic applies to any degree whatsoever? The returner (flower) icon and the sheer statistical evidence that Lucky Bancho regularly finds of returning players being a big factor. It's also a factor for a lot of long-running MMORPGs like WoW and Runescape and even old popular games in general.

Now should the content keep people there longer than a month? I wouldn't mind if it did, I'm just saying that they are settling for this strategy at the moment instead of endlessly chasing more profit.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

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Someone here on the forum once posted the earnings report of Square Enix from before DT, which showed that FFXIV as a whole counts for (iirc) 68.5% of the revenue of the company. You are underestimating how much FFXIV carries Square Enix, losing a huge amount of players would hurt them quite a lot.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I'm just saying that they are settling for this strategy at the moment instead of endlessly chasing more profit.

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This is the strategy that brings the most profit. You can't possibly believe they'd choose anything other than making the most money.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Someone here on the forum once posted the fiscal report of Square Enix from before DT, which showed that FFXIV as a whole counts for 68.5% of the revenue of the company. You are underestimating how much FFXIV carries Square Enix, losing a huge amount of players would hurt them quite a lot.

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What I'm trying to say is that people don't need to be subscribed year round for them to make the profits they are currently making, due to the concept of returners.

If they lost those players permanently, sure, it would hurt them, I agree completely. But a lot of evidence shows that people eventually return for at least 1 month, and so long as they do, SE profits.

I agree that if they make such a bad impression that people don't return, that it would be bad, and maybe they are doing that, but it could take a while to be reflected because - consider that even if lots of current players quit, lots of others will return who last played in SB, SHB, EW, etc. who haven't been through Dawntrail and gained these negative feelings yet and it will take time for all potential returners to, well, not want to return again.

Now of course, the people who play for more than 1 month - the kinds that run events and communities and websites and FCs. These people are important, of course, and could affect the impression returners get as well, if long time players are not around to help them settle back in. But it'd still likely take a while before returners stop returning, if they do.

I'm not disputing that it's what brings in most of their revenue.

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Originally Posted by Moqi

This is the strategy that brings the most profit. You can't possibly believe they'd choose anything other than making the most money.

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You're kinda right, because Yoshi-P knows what happens if you endlessly chase profit: people start to hate the company, and that reputation can be hard to recover from, resulting in potentially less profit.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

If you think that, then you don't understand how it works.

The "30 million adventurers" marketing is, of course, the total amount of characters ever made. Most of them are not subscribed right now. It is a pool, from which only 1-2 million are estimated to be subscribed at a given moment.

So let's say those "30 million adventurers" took it in turns to subscribe to the game for 1 month per year. On average, 2.5 million people would be subscribed at a given time.

It seems we are at somewhere over 1 million active characters, which is a lot lower, but the same logic applies. More than that are probably subscribed going by their finances but let their subscription linger (subscribed without actually playing, like a lot of people do with netflix).

How do we know this logic applies to any degree whatsoever? The returner (flower) icon and the sheer statistical evidence that Lucky Bancho regularly finds of returning players being a big factor. It's also a factor for a lot of long-running MMORPGs like WoW and Runescape and even old popular games in general.

Now should the content keep people there longer than a month? I wouldn't mind if it did, I'm just saying that they are settling for this strategy at the moment instead of endlessly chasing more profit.

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This is all very weird logic.

But to the main point: Yes, right now some people clearly stay subbed. My actual argument was that if enough people don't stay subbed between patches, the game and the company would be in huge financial trouble. So the argument telling people to "just unsub" isn't actually something YoshiP wants.

That's not at all what I'm saying but you keep believing that, it's alright.

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

This is all very weird logic.

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Weird or not, it's how long-time MMORPGs work. They benefit from returning players heavily.

WoW just had a huge guild bank item loss issue where a very, very, large amount of guild's lost everything in their banks. Blizzard claims it is a small number. It is not. Our guild bank got wiped. All of it gone. Out guild started in 2006. No compensation. Nothing. I seriously doubt that those peolpe whom they ticked off will be paying them anything to play that dumpster fire of a game.

They lost more people in just the last few days when they put in their cash shop a mount that costs more than 2x the last expansion price that just came out a month or so ago. That is on top of the 80 euros they want for 4 additional new mounts. And they are pushing the one year prepaid subscription hard as well. They are anticipating a lot of players leaving now. World first is over. M+ is a mess with scaling issues beyond belief, the game is buggy as heck, still.

If people want to play that game they can but dont complain that you are only treated as a cash cow.

I gave blizzard enough money over the years, started in 2010, and so far ive not gotten much but being slapped and abused for playing it. So i stopped playing it last week and tried this instead. I like it. Blizzard can frankly go to hell. Seriously. I am not ever touching that game again. P-servers, yes. Not retail. I am not payign them to get abused like that with no compensation. There are people that lost 20 years worth of stuff and there are people who lost WoW tokens bought with real life cash. No refunds. Your loss. Tough crap is the message. Dont liek it? You know what to do....play another game. So i dod. THis game.

All games have issues. It is time i give somebody else some money and see what they do with it.

And the wow value stacking that article talked about? I could not even start wow's MoP remix event since i had a bug at the start that prevented me from getting off of the boat. I was on the ground doing the first few quests there and got sucked up to the boat in the air when i stepped onto the ground below it. Then i could not get off of the boat again and go bacl down.

Blizzards retail wow is a freaking buggy mess from start to finish. 2 months into the expansion and they still have no fixed fundamental game breaking bugs in some of the dungeons. Game breaking bugs that brick your keys. 2 months in and still not fixed. But they drop nearly 200 dollars in mounts thsi week. They have dopamine addicts even defendign them.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

You're kinda right, because Yoshi-P knows what happens if you endlessly chase profit: people start to hate the company, and that reputation can be hard to recover from, resulting in potentially less profit.

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People already hated SE for countless boneheaded decisions over the years. CS3/CBU3 were considered the exception until EW(mainly the patch content), XVI, and DT destroyed the good will they'd built up over a decade.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

What I'm trying to say is that people don't need to be subscribed year round for them to make the profits they are currently making, due to the concept of returners.

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Sure, but at the same time - sometimes people don't return. Yoshi P asking people not to retire from the game shows that Square Enix is afraid of the churn rate of their customer base. Sure, not everyone has to be subscribed, but the more people are subscribed the better, its calculatable revenue which is worth much more than single time purchases, and helps cover operative cost of an MMO project. That is the point people are trying to make here. More money is the goal of every company.

Or, in Twintania Titania words: "Bigger is Better".

"pLeAsE dO nOt rEtIrE" do I want my money to be wasted on another NFT project? side project?

NO.. we know 12$ isn't worth it for FFXIV but we do because we know that it is an investment for the future expansions,

like why do I keep subbing? absolute no reason

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

Wow is just in a better position at the moment. Ironically, messing up their 20th anniversary event and selling a $90 mount hasn't slowed them down.

There's absolutely nothing to do in the game right now. We are getting announcements about what is coming, but in the here and now, there is nothing. Meanwhile, Wow is bursting at the seams.

Also delves. They're so good. Please steal them Yoshi P. Steal them wholesale. The FF version would suck. Just keep the Wow version. It's so good.

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Any game that craps on it's paying customers by losing all items in guild banks is not "in a better position".

I am sick and tired of blizzards arrogant, we know better than you and you will do as i say even if we make mistakes attittude. And they want me to give them money after losing all in our guild bank?

Played The Dawnbreaker dungeon? 2 months in and still not fixed the game breaking bugs. Half the time you land on the ship you get sucked into the insides and are staring out through the wireframe, or you get portaled out of the dungeons as if you arew kicked, complete with loading screen, staring at the summoning stone. You are not kicked. Their spaghettice code booted you out to the start from some reason.

I even died in mid air on a taxi flight. A first for me.

How people can defend blizzard at this time is beyond me. THey must be so seriously addictded to dopamine hits that they cant see when they are in an abusive relationship.

This game has it faults i am sure. But does SE treat you liek blizzard does?

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Originally Posted by Thistles_Leaf

How people can defend blizzard at this time is beyond me. THey must be so seriously addictded to dopamine hits that they cant see when they are in an abusive relationship.

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The grass is always greener on the other side, I suppose? Also, people have very short attention spans. Every little scandal that Blizzard did was forgotten the second they pumped out another trailer for Diablo.

That does not mean however that you can't make comparisons to the other big player on the MMO market. And from what I read from the outside (I personally boycott Blizz games and don't touch them with a 10 foot pole anymore), the latest WoW addon is full of content you can play and interact with.

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Originally Posted by Thistles_Leaf

Any game that craps on it's paying customers by losing all items in guild banks is not "in a better position".

I am sick and tired of blizzards arrogant, we know better than you and you will do as i say even if we make mistakes attittude. And they want me to give them money after losing all in our guild bank?

Played The Dawnbreaker dungeon? 2 months in and still not fixed the game breaking bugs. Half the time you land on the ship you get sucked into the insides and are staring out through the wireframe, or you get portaled out of the dungeons as if you arew kicked, complete with loading screen, staring at the summoning stone. You are not kicked. Their spaghettice code booted you out to the start from some reason.

I even died in mid air on a taxi flight. A first for me.

How people can defend blizzard at this time is beyond me. THey must be so seriously addictded to dopamine hits that they cant see when they are in an abusive relationship.

This game has it faults i am sure. But does SE treat you liek blizzard does?

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not now but they kinda turn into a direction we saw from blizzard. Hope they will get the turn around and remember the roots

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Or, in Twintanias words: "Bigger is Better".

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Titania, you are thinking Titania, Twintania is a dragon and one of Bahamut's children, fought as a boss in both T5 and UCOB, Titania is the title of the King of the Fae, with the previous Titania being fought in the level 73 Trial "The Dancing Plague".

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

Titania, you are thinking Titania, Twintania is a dragon and one of Bahamut's children, fought as a boss in both T5 and UCOB, Titania is the title of the King of the Fae, with the previous Titania being fought in the level 73 Trial "The Dancing Plague".

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shit, you are right. thanks for the correction, I'm going to bury my head in shame now.
/playdead

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Originally Posted by ovIm

Sure, but at the same time - sometimes people don't return. Yoshi P asking people not to retire from the game shows that Square Enix is afraid of the churn rate of their customer base.

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For sure, and I am sure Yoshi-P wants to address it. I'm not so confident that he will address it to the satisfaction of most people here nor at their desired pace, but at least he wants to address it.

I spent the most time playing XIV in a long while the other day . . . but that time was spent clearing out my house, working out storage on my retainers and moving all my stuff to an apartment.

I just unsubscribed from the game and won't be coming back unless they turn this game around.

In the past I'd stay subbed because I believed it would help make the end product better but that's clearly not the case.

Shame on SE for squandering every opportunity to make their cash cow better.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

For sure, and I am sure Yoshi-P wants to address it. I'm not so confident that he will address it to the satisfaction of most people here nor at their desired pace, but at least he wants to address it.

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A commitment to “we might address it just not at a rate you seem fast enough” is a bit rich when they’re sat behind their army of white knights telling people to go play other games for nigh on 3 expansions now

How many players have they already churned from their glacial pace and their stream of bad decisions