To those that say FF14 is not a big dog in MMO's

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

It's most common among people that migrated from WoW to this game a long time ago; It's kind of like when someone still has feelings for an ex that they have trouble admitting to, and compensate by disparaging their ex or trying to make them jealous..

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https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...g-dog-in-MMO-s
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...because-my-god
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-not-announced
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-at-this-point

Plus
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...rtuned-for-LFR

Personally, I think any MMO which can boast of over a million active players is a "big dog." Trying to say FFXIV isn't is like saying Dr. Pepper isn't big because Coke is bigger.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Personally, I think any MMO which can boast of over a million active players is a "big dog." Trying to say FFXIV isn't is like saying Dr. Pepper isn't big because Coke is bigger.

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Dr. Pepper is king in my eyes.

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Originally Posted by KeshLives

If you're playing FFXIV instead of WoW for the raids...you may be doing it wrong, imo. Just sayin'...

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I find FF14 raids to be far more enjoyable because a MAJOR part of an mmorpg is immersion, the fights often are designed in such a way and with such animations that you feel being part of them, I still remember when Niddhog falls down on the platform and causes a mini earthquake that makes you FEEL his weight or Susano's giant sword. Plus the realistic and non cartoony graphics helps a lot with that aspect.

WoW on the other hand has chosen to abandon everything for the sake of performance, so no cool graphics cuz omg they might obstruct the view of someone D:, WoW raids are just so silly model you are there to kill for loot, it never feels immersive or epic because they chose to design with performance and clarity in mind to pander to their l33t crowed rather than immersion which was always meant to be a core part of mmorpg. (Sadly though since some use the game just to raid log and falsely inflate their egos, of course they wont care about such "casual" aspects)

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Because FF 14 REALLY needs a Raider.io type database to abuse, humiliate and denigrate players along with dps meters.

Thank you, NO.

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Definitely a valid concern, raider.io has turned WoW pugging into suffering, especially for latecomers or casuals who have no hope to join or get geared unless they buy boosts by buying WoW tokens with irl money(Very profitable scheme).

Though like some other said FF14 has a better defense against such systems, a far superior report/GM system since they actually hire Gms to punish ToS violators, a more casual minded community that will not welcome tryhard elitists who might try spreading the io score mentality but more importantly unlike WoW, FF14 has ways for casuals to get gear so they arent forced to do mythic 14-15s/mythic raid for gear else they are 30ilvls behind.

A m+ system could make dungeons feel more fun, especially trash between bosses since many are kinda boring but I do agree that they should be extremely careful, even with the current design it isnt impossible for a raider.io scenario to slowly creep in and ruin the community if left unopposed though I am hopeful that because the devs understand the problems of toxicity they might try to shut down or hide data from such sites so they dont truly pick up much. Also do we know each other, cuz i just read the past few posts xD

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

FFXIV is no where near 700k-1mil. Don't know where you are getting this information. FFXIV is currently sitting around the 2.5mil mark.

https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv/

WoW is currently at about 3.1mil.

https://mmo-population.com/r/wow/

You have to look at the chart of active players. Not the "Estimated" # you see at the top of the page.

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https://mmo-population.com/top/2021

Another important page that can be found is the activity score, with WoW activity being at 3 while FF14 being at 10.

Which makes sense simply by noticing the amount of people who have said they havent played for weeks or months yet still are subbed because they fell for the 6month sub mount trick or because they recently subbed and realized the game is trash so they wasted a month's sub for nothing

As much as people want to clutch to MMO Population for numbers --

That website uses a combo of online social activity, sentiment tracking, public statistics, rankings and more MMO Populations estimates the total subscribers, players and active daily players for the top MMOs.

Basically the number is meaningless and as valuable as Monopoly money. This should also come to the fact that WoW Classic shares a subscription with WoW Retail -- meaning that WoW Classic would share the same active player roster with WoW Retail since players have access to both and a subscription to both. (Which would give classic a score of 10 for having a 13% playerbase to account ratio)

Also the website also highlights games like Wildstar as having an active playerbase -- when the game has no active servers to play and is unplayable.

Another point: You can look at Most Growth and see different numbers for both games in said areas as well. Apparently FF14 only hovers around 400k in the past 30 days while WoW hangs around 2.11 million.

Their numbers just arent accurate to their other measurements.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

As much as people want to clutch to MMO Population for numbers --

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You seem like you really dont like what that site reveals

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

That website uses a combo of online social activity, sentiment tracking, public statistics, rankings and more MMO Populations estimates the total subscribers, players and active daily players for the top MMOs.

Also the website also highlights games like Wildstar as having an active playerbase -- when the game has no active servers to play and is unplayable.

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You literally described how the online algorithms they use work and then tried to say wildstar shows an active population as somekind of an argument which you literally invalidated by explaining how it works, unless you either dont understand how those algorithms work or you are trying to desperately invalidate the evidence you dont like.

Yes they are both estimates created from algorithms and online bots that scour the internet for a number of things, articles, word combination and sentiment, number of said word combination and sentiment and more, so obviously they are trying to capture through things that suggest popularity, numbers and sentiment, none of which are exact sub numbers because companies dont release those but it is the next best thing, and because all the other data they search through is public. So of course it makes sense that wildstar mentions could result in the algorithms thinking it is an active game, because even if it has died(Because it pandered to elitists), people still to this day talk about it as lessons for devs and what to avoid.


Since they use the same algorithm for FF14 and WoW and everything else, even if the numbers arent extremely accurate, the comparisons between the data and results of those games is very accurate because the same process has been followed for both, and if anything people who know those games know how valid the data is because the algorithm has created what we know in WoW's peaks and valleys which as seen by the community, shadowland's dropoff was enormous and the data also confirms that.

Whenever you like it or not WoW is surviving on addicts, elitists and whales but I wonder how sustainable that is for the future, for now it is absolutely way more profitable than FF14, but profitable=/=good game.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Whenever you like it or not WoW is surviving on addicts, elitists and whales but I wonder how sustainable that is for the future, for now it is absolutely way more profitable than FF14, but profitable=/=good game.

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You made very good points up to here. I don't like WoW anymore and have not for a long time, but this does not mean I don't acknowledge that there are people who genuinely enjoy the game who don't fall into the categories you listed. Sure less enjoy it now, but it doesn't mean all who are left who still do have some manner of problematic behaviour.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Dr. Pepper is king in my eyes.

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Mellow Yellow FTW

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Originally Posted by Penthea

You made very good points up to here. I don't like WoW anymore and have not for a long time, but this does not mean I don't acknowledge that there are people who genuinely enjoy the game who don't fall into the categories you listed. Sure less enjoy it now, but it doesn't mean all who are left who still do have some manner of problematic behaviour.

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Oh there will always be people who like something even if everyone else doesnt, nothing wrong with that, but I am getting the feeling people the amount of people who genuinely like WoW is dwindling leaving mainly people who are too invested/sunk cost fallacy to ever leave no matter how much they despise or hate the game, that behavior is sadly pretty commonplace in WoW these days.

There's also the simple fact that as people grow older, their tastes change. No game is going to hold somebody's attention for all of eternity.

WoW stopped interesting me years ago for various reasons. Rather than be bitter about that, I look back on the good memories I have during the glory days and focus on what I enjoy in the present.

If and when FFXIV reaches a point where it stops engaging me altogether, I'll just find something else to do or play.

Why are people using a page that talks about "invented" numbers when we have been having census for years created by the Japanese community?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...os_5_december/

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Originally Posted by EtherRose

FFXIV is no where near 700k-1mil. Don't know where you are getting this information. FFXIV is currently sitting around the 2.5mil mark.

https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv/

WoW is currently at about 3.1mil.

https://mmo-population.com/r/wow/

You have to look at the chart of active players. Not the "Estimated" # you see at the top of the page.

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That website is clickbait with bad methodology and has been widely criticized in multiple game communities for their numbers more or less being completely made up. Not a credible source whatsoever. None of the numbers that website supposedly has access to, such as daily logins, are accessible to anyone except SE.

The best census work with a well document methodology we have to go on is via Lucky Bancho. Here's the FFXIV census as of 2/7/2021

https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/luckyban...8/5858889d.png

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

That website is clickbait with bad methodology and has been widely criticized in multiple game communities for their numbers more or less being completely made up. Not a credible source whatsoever. None of the numbers that website supposedly has access to, such as daily logins, are accessible to anyone except SE.

The best census work with a well document methodology we have to go on is via Lucky Bancho. Here's the FFXIV census as of 2/7/2021

https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/luckyban...8/5858889d.png

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If I'm reading it right, that's still a respectable number. FF XIV's population has never been the absolute biggest, but I'd say it's one of the most loyal fan bases.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

You seem like you really dont like what that site reveals

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No, its just you can look at other portions of the site and see different numbers. Top Growth doesnt share the same numbers with Total Active Players? Why?

If the numbers are completely accurate and all based on the same estimations -- then the number for total active players should be the same. So why does FF14 in the Top MMO category boast 2.36M active players on one list then drop to 400k when speaking about month growth (speaking for total population)?

For number sake -- the same growth list has WoW Retail at 2.11M on MMO Growth.

Even if you want to do the "Well its total active sub" -- then that list basically says that while people have active subs that only a fraction of people are actively playing in the previous month. If you do the math that means according to MMO-Population:

FF14's Active Player to Active Sub Ratio: is 19.4%
WoW's Active Player to Active Sub Ratio: is 64.7%

You could make the argument of content drought, but so is WoW currently. 9.1 for WoW is basically unknown currently for a release date and this is prime time to see sub drops from an extended release patch. People have already complained about lack of casual content and lack of will to do hefty grinds.

But -- if you want to tout the numbers of a website as this hierarch of truth: be prepared to use the full website and not only one part to get forum upvotes. We can clap for FF14 having a 10 in total active sub/total sub ever number -- but then have to eat the fact that apparently the game only has less than 1/5 of those active subs playing.

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Originally Posted by Nayout

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...g-dog-in-MMO-s
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...because-my-god
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-not-announced
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-at-this-point

Plus
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...rtuned-for-LFR

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this should've been the last post in the thread

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

No, its just you can look at other portions of the site and see different numbers. Top Growth doesnt share the same numbers with Total Active Players? Why?

If the numbers are completely accurate and all based on the same estimations -- then the number for total active players should be the same. So why does FF14 in the Top MMO category boast 2.36M active players on one list then drop to 400k when speaking about month growth (speaking for total population)?

For number sake -- the same growth list has WoW Retail at 2.11M on MMO Growth.

Even if you want to do the "Well its total active sub" -- then that list basically says that while people have active subs that only a fraction of people are actively playing in the previous month. If you do the math that means according to MMO-Population:

FF14's Active Player to Active Sub Ratio: is 19.4%
WoW's Active Player to Active Sub Ratio: is 64.7%

You could make the argument of content drought, but so is WoW currently. 9.1 for WoW is basically unknown currently for a release date and this is prime time to see sub drops from an extended release patch. People have already complained about lack of casual content and lack of will to do hefty grinds.

But -- if you want to tout the numbers of a website as this hierarch of truth: be prepared to use the full website and not only one part to get forum upvotes. We can clap for FF14 having a 10 in total active sub/total sub ever number -- but then have to eat the fact that apparently the game only has less than 1/5 of those active subs playing.

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One thing to understand about current WoW is that the progression systems are basically holding players' subs hostage with how long things take, and their fear of falling behind is a major factor. Just because they have more subs and a more active player base, doesn't mean their game is actually in a good place. Luckily I saw the most recent expansion for what it was immediately, but it was blatantly obvious what their goal was...and it wasn't fun content.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

One thing to understand about current WoW is that the progression systems are basically holding players' subs hostage with how long things take, and their fear of falling behind is a major factor. Just because they have more subs and a more active player base, doesn't mean their game is actually in a good place. Luckily I saw the most recent expansion for what it was immediately, but it was blatantly obvious what their goal was...and it wasn't fun content.

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To be honest I do enjoy this current expansion though the progression aspect is annoying, and does ruin what I would say is an enjoyable experience for the most part personally.

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Originally Posted by Awha

To be honest I do enjoy this current expansion though the progression aspect is annoying, and does ruin what I would say is an enjoyable experience for the most part personally.

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To each their own. I just wanted no part in the current state of things.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

To each their own. I just wanted no part in the current state of things.

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I get that many of the systems are annoying and damaging to the players. Granted these systems also do not help the fact they are really behind in terms of putting out content. That is my major beef with the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

One thing to understand about current WoW is that the progression systems are basically holding players' subs hostage with how long things take, and their fear of falling behind is a major factor. Just because they have more subs and a more active player base, doesn't mean their game is actually in a good place. Luckily I saw the most recent expansion for what it was immediately, but it was blatantly obvious what their goal was...and it wasn't fun content.

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You may have had a point with this when AP was more actively a role in: but the only thing that is holding people hostage is their will to continuously grind out gear.

What exactly are you falling behind in? There isnt this rush-rush to grind Azerite Power or else be behind in levels for when you needed the ilvl or the level floor to use powers. Anima just unlocks cosmetics. Renown isnt hard to grind and the covenant campaign is over -- meaning all that remains is cosmetic worth. Soul Ash is completely useless after one max legendary. Maw doesnt really matter unless you are at your top gear and serves as a Stygia dump.

To me, this is probably been the most relaxed I've been in WoW ever to where I dont have to log in every day or else I am behind in some system.

But to me -- if people are honestly claiming that 2 million players are actively grinding out M+, raiding, and PvP at the same time to be on the loot treadmill for Great Vault, then that sounds suspicious simply because being progress in all three areas would require to be a hardcore player (upon which even hardcore players tend to not do all three areas in progressive format). Are we honestly going to dishonestly claim that 2 million+ players are whale, hardcore players just actively pushing content? It makes us no better than the hardcore WoW players that say "All people who play FF14 are just super-casual players who want to sit around Limsa and ERP all day" -- and considering the fact of the issues with Group Finder being purged of brothels for gil; wouldnt that strengthen the argument?

Regardless: The argument is MMO-Populations are projections based upon monopoly money things. Again any website that touts that dead games with no servers have a playerbase have no reason to be taken seriously. If one of their statistics is "how popular is their subreddit/forums" -- it might as well be considered troll.

So to me its down to this:
1) MMO-Population's metric make no sense and shouldnt be used by anything other than measuring trends.

OR

2) MMO-Population's numbers are correct -- but FF14 somehow has worse player retention per active sub than a WoW that has been touted to be worse than WoD/BFA and is entering in a content drought after its initial patch; but also that FF14 has a smaller active playerbase than both WoW Classic and Old School Runescape via MMO-P's MMO Growth page.

I know which one is probably the easiest one to choose here.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

"All people who play FF14 are just super-casual players who want to sit around Limsa and ERP all day"

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And you are not without reason, it is a matter of seeing how the OP spends more praising FFXIV and throwing shit at Wow in the forums than playing FFXIV. it is a recurring profile in all the people with the same narrative of FFXIV good / Wow Bad. People who do not complete or attempt to complete content on FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

To me, this is probably been the most relaxed I've been in WoW ever to where I dont have to log in every day or else I am behind in some system.

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Yeah, this should've been a good time to play WoW for me. But whereas I made to endgame and at least completed all the LFR tiers up to Azshara in BfA with at least one character and had multiple level 120 characters overall, I couldn't even get past level 55 and the second leveling zone on one character in Shadowlands. I ended up unsubscribing from WoW recently and will just wait and see if anything will interest me enough to pick it back up and get through the leveling or if I'll just skip this expansion altogether.

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Originally Posted by Nayout

And you are not without reason, it is a matter of seeing how the OP spends more praising FFXIV and throwing shit at Wow in the forums than playing FFXIV. it is a recurring profile in all the people with the same narrative of FFXIV good / Wow Bad. People who do not complete or attempt to complete content on FFXIV.

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How would you even substantiate that claim? Can you even tell how long a person spends on the forum vs the game?

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Originally Posted by linayar

How would you even substantiate that claim? Can you even tell how long a person spends on the forum vs the game?

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Mounts, forum registration, fflogs, etc.
You can investigate people with these things

In any case it was simply an exaggeration, do not take it so literally.

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Originally Posted by Nayout

Mounts, forum registration, fflogs, etc.
You can investigate people with these things

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Well, joined November of 2019 with 303 posts (not counting deleted posts). That's not a lot of forum activity.

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In any case it was simply an exaggeration, do not take it so literally.

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I sure hope so, but in that case, not sure what the point is.

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Originally Posted by Nayout

And you are not without reason, it is a matter of seeing how the OP spends more praising FFXIV and throwing shit at Wow in the forums than playing FFXIV. it is a recurring profile in all the people with the same narrative of FFXIV good / Wow Bad. People who do not complete or attempt to complete content on FFXIV.

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No its just the biggest joke is literally the MMO Growth tab for player growth just literally keeps track of the FF14 subreddit as some calculation of player population.

So according to the website: The MMO Growth page shows the change in players in an MMO over the last 30 days. This is useful to see spikes in popularity, to see if an MMO is trending downwards, etc.

So according to todays numbers:
1) FF14 has 459.27k active players
2) WoW has 2.11 active players

Scroll over to Reddit and look at the population tabs:
1) FF14 subreddit has 459k members
2) WoW subreddit has 2.1m members.

Summary -- MMO-Population is garbage. Dont use it.

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Originally Posted by Nayout

And you are not without reason, it is a matter of seeing how the OP spends more praising FFXIV and throwing shit at Wow in the forums than playing FFXIV. it is a recurring profile in all the people with the same narrative of FFXIV good / Wow Bad. People who do not complete or attempt to complete content on FFXIV.

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I have completed a lot of content in FF 14, i am also an ex WOW players of eight years, the gaping holes in WOWs gameplay and dev strategies, coupled with their appalling service and non functional community communication speak for themselves.

God alone knows we sent messages, emails, forum posts, begging for a response, an acknowledgement.

What we got was total and absolute silence.

I do not need to have done savage in FF 14 to not see in disbelief Blizzards ongoing litany of total, abject and at times utterly INEXCUSABLE failures.

Any one of a DOZEN major issues they have had since MOP were, are, and always have been avoidable. Each and every one of them, had the Blizzard team LISTENED to those who warned them repeatedly of the massive disconnect between their "vision" and what their playerbase actually WANTED, need never have happened.

Each and every trainwreck, each and every disaster, from Garrisons to the continuing spell prunes that players begged them not to go through with, could be seen coming fifty miles away. Everyone and their dog knew it, everyone warned them again and again...all of that feedback, theory crafting, went in one ear...

..and out the other.

I did not "leave" WOW.

I quit in total and complete disgust.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Each and every trainwreck, each and every disaster, from Garrisons to the continuing spell prunes that players begged them not to go through with, could be seen coming fifty miles away. Everyone and their dog knew it, everyone warned them again and again...all of that feedback, theory crafting, went in one ear...

..and out the other.

I did not "leave" WOW.

I quit in total and complete disgust.

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Yep. I didn't leave WoW either. WoW left me. It's not a game for players like myself anymore. I was a casual player there too, though I occasionally dabbled in normal mode raiding while it was current. I did that ALOT during Legion. BfA was a dumpster fire so I didn't really bother with much of anything. Shadowlands...I was gone less than 2 weeks in. I don't raid hardcore here or take part in Extremes often, but I always feel like I'm progressing my character in some meaningful way, which is something WoW hasn't allowed me to do for 2-3 years. I don't feel insulted just by playing this game, so...not a hard decision to make there.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

I did not "leave" WOW.

I quit in total and complete disgust.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Yep. I didn't leave WoW either. WoW left me. It's not a game for players like myself anymore. I was a casual player there too, though I occasionally dabbled in normal mode raiding while it was current. I did that ALOT during Legion. BfA was a dumpster fire so I didn't really bother with much of anything. Shadowlands...I was gone less than 2 weeks in. I don't raid hardcore here or take part in Extremes often, but I always feel like I'm progressing my character in some way, which is something WoW hasn't allowed me to do for 2-3 years. I don't feel insulted just by playing this game, so...not a hard decision to make there.

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These posts hit very close to home for me. I did raid hardcore in WoW for a long time but even during that point I was frustrated that for so long the only good content was raids. When I wasn't raiding I had so little to do that was fun. Challenge modes were great but when you got gold in everything you had no reason to go back. Mythic + looks great on paper, but the WoW community's obsession with the meta has made getting involved very difficult and frankly toxic at times. And the community's obsession with the meta directly goes back to Blizzard treating the game as if raiding is the only worthy goal to have.

I didn't even consciously leave retail WoW. For a time I played WoW and FFXIV at the same time. As the months passed I was playing WoW less and less and one day I realised I had not logged in to that game in several months. I just didn't miss it. I finally found FFXIV, a mmo that has excellent content that isn't aimed at only high end pve, and the community wasn't obsessed with the meta. It's actually that mindset the WoW community has that ruined Classic WoW for me. I was playing a meta healer, but that was because I liked the spec not because I wanted to follow the meta. I hated watching all the crap non meta classes and specs were getting. I didn't leave retail in disgust, but I did leave Classic in disgust. What I miss about WoW is an era that is long gone and will never be seen again with the current decision makers in power.

I came back for Shadowlands and while the questing was really good, I enjoyed it a lot, I once again found the game to be lacking in engaging content when I got max lvl. The only goals presented to me were: high end pve, pvp, or do braindead world quests for cosmetic stuff. The first requires engaging with a community I have no interest in spending time with as I know too well how awful they can be, I have no interest in pvp, and the last one is just a mindless grind. Once again I found myself playing WoW less and less just like before and when I realised this was happening again I unsubbed. I'm actually still salty about this. WoW has so much potential, and it did once live up to it. But as it is now it's not the game for me. I'm happy for those who still enjoy it, but I know most of them would enjoy it even more if it went back to the quality Blizzard became known for.

Well at least Diablo 4 looks like it will be really good.

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I came back for Shadowlands and while the questing was really good, I enjoyed it a lot, I once again found the game to be lacking in engaging content when I got max lvl.

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The same was true of WOD.

Do we see a pattern here?

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

I have completed a lot of content in FF 14, i am also an ex WOW players of eight years, the gaping holes in WOWs gameplay and dev strategies, coupled with their appalling service and non functional community communication speak for themselves.

God alone knows we sent messages, emails, forum posts, begging for a response, an acknowledgement.

What we got was total and absolute silence..

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Tbf, SE ain’t exactly that much better with their communication between things like housing and genderlocks/races lol.

As far as I'm concerned, both WoW and FFXIV have perks and flaws. Though neither is likely to entertain most people on a long term basis. Tastes and habits change over time.

I'm personally in favour of game developers being given free reign to create the game that they want to create without too much input from the community. After all, it's more common than not for game developers to priortise engagement with the likes of Twitter and Reddit these days which are both exceptionally shady platforms with a strong track record of being echo chambers, making an issue out of every tiny little thing and actively discriminating against anyone with a different opinion to fashionable 'group think'.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Tbf, SE ain’t exactly that much better with their communication between things like housing and genderlocks/races lol.

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To say nothing of the response to the suggestion for stubble as a character customisation for male characters. A commonly requested feature that the development team were wholly unaware about...despite actively marketing the Warrior of Darkness as of Shadowbringers as having custom made stubble in promotional footage in-game and in cinematics...

I left WoW just into MoP. I dipped my toes into it a bit each expansion but left within a week barring WOD, where it was a bit longer. I used to raid in it, whereas I haven't really had the time to do that in FF14, although we'll see how it shapes up in 6.0. I'd leave WoW even if 14 had no end game content at all, because I just grew tired of the game and its direction. There's still lots of things in it I miss, like its races, their zones, the class abilities and flavour, BG PVP, the spec system, and so on, but it just isn't the game I started when I began in WOTLK. It's less to do with how marvelous 14 is and more to do with the fact that WoW feels hollow. I don't want to play a game I have a love/hate relationship with; likewise, if it were to get to that point with 14, I'd make the same decision.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Mythic + looks great on paper, but the WoW community's obsession with the meta has made getting involved very difficult and frankly toxic at times. And the community's obsession with the meta directly goes back to Blizzard treating the game as if raiding is the only worthy goal to have.

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Except, Higher keys in M+ actually require meta a lot more often to deal with increasingly more damaging mechanics while maintaining an under-clock timing. The issue with obsession becomes where people try to enforce it below 10+ and think it doesnt make public key running not completely toxic.

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It's actually that mindset the WoW community has that ruined Classic WoW for me. I was playing a meta healer, but that was because I liked the spec not because I wanted to follow the meta. I hated watching all the crap non meta classes and specs were getting. I didn't leave retail in disgust, but I did leave Classic in disgust. What I miss about WoW is an era that is long gone and will never be seen again with the current decision makers in power.

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As much as people want to say that the players ruined Classic, the nostalgia of Classic remains with your own personal journey that you had when you first experience. You will not have that same experience now 16+ years later.

That being said: people who didnt expect that people were going to optimize Classic were going to be in for a rude awakening regardless -- because the private Classic servers had many people doing optimized Classic runs. Classic WoW was also massively easier but more tedious compared to retail. Molten Core being completely finished in HOURS after being open was bound to happen since MC was a rushed raid that barely had mechanics.

I never played WoW when it was actually in Classic -- but bought into my friends who talked about its fancies and nostalgia. I tried it, and just stopped playing after reaching level 30 -- its boring and tedious as hell. I never had that connection and nostalgia playing it back 16 years ago and to me it felt like a poorly optimized MMO that was moonlighting as an RPG.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As far as I'm concerned, both WoW and FFXIV have perks and flaws. Though neither is likely to entertain most people on a long term basis. Tastes and habits change over time.

I'm personally in favour of game developers being given free reign to create the game that they want to create without too much input from the community. After all, it's more common than not for game developers to priortise engagement with the likes of Twitter and Reddit these days which are both exceptionally shady platforms with a strong track record of being echo chambers, making an issue out of every tiny little thing and actively discriminating against anyone with a different opinion to fashionable 'group think'.

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The reason they use Twitter is just because how good Twitter is both as a mobile platform and for advertisement and spreading very fast. If those users love your product they will RT the crap out of it. Unless another platform that doesn't end up being ruled by echochambers comes up and surpasses Twitter this probably won't change anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

The reason they use Twitter is just because how good Twitter is both as a mobile platform and for advertisement and spreading very fast. If those users love your product they will RT the crap out of it. Unless another platform that doesn't end up being ruled by echochambers comes up and surpasses Twitter this probably won't change anytime soon.

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I'd consider the invasion of privacy, risk of harassment, cancel culture, potential exposure to unwanted material and various other factors to outweigh any benefits. The company has a pretty solid base to work with here on this very website that could see more investment, improvement and engagement. We even have a team of community representatives who could benefit from spending more time gathering feedback and engaging us here rather than on Twitter.

At the end of the day, Twitter is in itself a pretty narrow window into the FFXIV community. The players there mostly just share screenshots of their character and discuss the lore - they're not really commenting on the actual PvE and PvP content itself - which is leading to a lot of people, myself included, to feel as though both elements are being sidelined in favour of more and more fluff. Not due to a lack of player interest but because some loud voices are being seen as more prominent than they actually are.

It's about balance.

In the end, it's hard to not to ponder whether FFXIV is fated to make the same mistakes that WoW did.

And even if you use Twitter for advertisement, and engage for that purpose, it's a separate thing to using it as much of a barometer of player opinion... something which their forum should weigh more heavily towards.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

The same was true of WOD.

Do we see a pattern here?

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No, WoD literally had no content. Open world was dead. Garrisons provided all you needed so players rarely left them. Ashran sucked. Raid-logging was super prevalent. Only thing WoD had going was classes -- but if you had no content to do, class design basically meant nothing.

SL just doesnt have continuous rewarding content after loot changes. Lessened loot means less drive to do rewarding content. Maw and Torghast offer no long term rewards for actively doing them. Blizzard just doesnt actively make their systems with the same improvements provided in previous expansions -- and it does piss off a playerbase who wants to play but has no reason to and feels unrewarded for their time spent.

Sure, WoW sucks right now and isnt good -- but going "DAE SL = WoD" is just so tiresome.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

No, WoD literally had no content. Open world was dead. Garrisons provided all you needed so players rarely left them. Ashran sucked. Raid-logging was super prevalent. Only thing WoD had going was classes -- but if you had no content to do, class design basically meant nothing.

SL just doesnt have continuous rewarding content after loot changes. Lessened loot means less drive to do rewarding content. Maw and Torghast offer no long term rewards for actively doing them. Blizzard just doesnt actively make their systems with the same improvements provided in previous expansions -- and it does piss off a playerbase who wants to play but has no reason to and feels unrewarded for their time spent.

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Part of what keeps a lot of players going in WoW is running old content for transmog items (glamour) and mounts/minions. Even when everything in the current expansion feels awful, players can go back and get things that they want. That's how I got through WoD and BfA, really. lol Unfortunately, their recent stat/level squish messed with old content scaling hard, so those who would normally solo farm old raids (and therefore prolonging how long they stay subbed) are having a difficult time doing so in Legion raids, which is what many were looking forward to farming. Legion is a major point of contention here, because by now players would usually be able to run into these raids and solo them for the most part with the Legacy buff. There is no legacy buff in these raids despite meeting the criteria (11+ levels over the content in question). And the dev team only admitted to messing this up after being caught red handed and have yet to fix it to my knowledge.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Legion is a major point of contention here, because by now players would usually be able to run into these raids and solo them for the most part with the Legacy buff. And the dev team only admitted to messing this up after being caught red handed and have yet to fix it to my knowledge. I might have left WoW, but I still keep myself updated every now and then just in case things do improve.

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To be honest, I've never had this issue -- but this may be based upon the class I play and the gear I have. The only real issues I have is Mythic Guldan (because his final phase is a DPS race with a one-shot mechanic), Mythic Avatar/Kil, and then Mythic Antorus I havent tried (simply because it has too many bosses that require more than 1 person to do; which need to be fixed since its antiquated content.)

I do agree that Blizzard SHOULD IMMEDIATELY fix the older content -- but the content is also based upon what gear you have as well. Blizzard itself just doesnt have good track record on that (Mythic Hellfire was impossible due to Ramparts being broken and requiring two people to do).

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I do agree that Blizzard SHOULD IMMEDIATELY fix the older content -- but the content is also based upon what gear you have as well. Blizzard itself just doesnt have good track record on that (Mythic Hellfire was impossible due to Ramparts being broken and requiring two people to do).

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Oh, it most certainly is. And I tested normal/heroic raids prior to bowing out and had very little problems with them in Legion content. Mythic was a little chaotic at points even before the changes but some bosses were doable. This was largely before we were even able to start leveling again though. After gaining 10 more levels my characters felt weaker which shouldn't happen. My gear was better. My level was higher. So...where was the increased strength? We were told that nothing would change after the stat/level squishes and that players could do everything they could do prior. This was a lie, and they got caught. Admittedly, this is why I'm skeptical of the changes this dev team is making with Endwalker.