Are we destroying "our own" game?

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Don't take this personally, but I'm so tired of seeing this argument. ARR set up the ongoing conflicts with the Ascians, Empire, beast tribes(as well as their internal issues), and ongoing political tension between the city-states as well as political tension within them. DT has nothing like that, and by the end of it everyone is completely unified behind Queen Wuk Lamat and peace and love for everyone. The hourglass/key resonating with Azem's crystal means we still haven't moved on from Amaurot and the slate hasn't been wiped clean.

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Of course, no offense taken.

It did, and don't get me wrong it did start a good storyline for them to start from here to now. It did not however mention threats they had no intent or otherwise imagine up in say Endwalker with talking with Metion. But as said, I did not like the introduction of Meteion being that late that we had no inkling or idea that set why it got from ARR to EW.

Could it of done better, of course. I'm not crazy enough to believe DT is peak story telling or did not have its faults cause it did. But I'll say its better than Endwalker for me.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Citation needed. Looking at Steamcharts, really the only place we can get numbers, Endwalker peaked higher than DT on release and DT has not been out long enough to compare to longevity. DT is in all likelihood riding on eth success of ShB and EW. Could the endgame be enough to keep more people? Potentially, but that does not mean that people don't think that the MSQ is utter crap, just means they want to get to the good part.

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“Hello everyone, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV,” started the developer. “I would like to thank you all for your patience and cooperation in dealing with server congestion during the early access for Dawntrail. With your support, we were able to reach a record number of concurrent users we’ve not seen since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013.”

But beyond the official statement from Square Enix, the only reliable numbers we can go off is Steam Data, least of all unless you have a metric that is something we can base performance off? I guess we could wait for 2025 Financial performance to compare the operational revenue, but for right now that is the only metric we have that is open to the public so I will cite it as such.

Endwalker
January 2022 65,565
December 2021 95,102

Dawntrail
June 2024 91,883
July 2024 91,883

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Originally Posted by Nasigno

“Hello everyone, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV,” started the developer. “I would like to thank you all for your patience and cooperation in dealing with server congestion during the early access for Dawntrail. With your support, we were able to reach a record number of concurrent users we’ve not seen since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013.”

But beyond the official statement from Square Enix, the only reliable numbers we can go off is Steam Data, least of all unless you have a metric that is something we can base performance off? I guess we could wait for 2025 Financial performance to compare the operational revenue, but for right now that is the only metric we have that is open to the public so I will cite it as such.

Endwalker
January 2022 65,565
December 2021 95,102

Dawntrail
June 2024 91,883
July 2024 91,883

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To be fair. The great DT numbers could also mean that EW gave some kind of hype push.
If I had to interpret them I would say:

EW had a good start and got additional players a month later.
DT has round about the same initial players as EW had at its "peak" (is it the peak?).
To me it seems mroe people preordered for DT, roughly the amount of EW players.
The "stagnating number" also doesn't have to do with unhappy players neccesarily but could also just mean that most players did early access. The servers were really stable this time.

You sure thats not an error? The numbers are the same for both month for DT.

I'm not denying DT's intial great success mind you. I just find it interesting.

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Originally Posted by Akari-skts

I never checked this froum in the past and just came here recently to look for the "community voice" but.. is it really that bad? Are people that mad about DT or was it always like that in the forum? Maybe someone that observed the forum for a few years can tell me.

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Is it really that bad? No. Not even close. This forum has always been an echo chamber for negativity and ridiculous hyperbole. I've been around here for years, and if you went by the forum, every single xpac in this game's history was the worst ever when it came out. Even ShB, which is routinely ranked as the #1 favorite by players, was trashed here. Please don't think this forum actually reflects the playerbase at large. There's a reason you haven't seen that kind of feedback in your FC and social groups - it's not the norm. There are tons of people thoroughly enjoying this expansion.

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Are here any people that actually enjoy the game? And if not.. where are they? I've heard player counts are looking good, and I tbh can imagine why.

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There's a few of us. Most people who enjoy the game tend to head to other places like YT and Reddit or, you know, are just actually playing the game instead of hanging around here. I'd encourage you to check out some YT videos, not from your "content creators," but just videos of DT. I recommend some of the ones for the OST. Check out the comments. Even though they're OST videos, people will be talking about the in-game story that's associated with the music, and you'll find a lot of people posting about how much they're enjoying the story and finding it meaningful (and compared to the dozens of "likes" negative comments will get around here, you'll see those positive comments getting hundreds of likes in support).

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I have the feeling people are more and more driven into the mindset "Well if everyone says it is bad.. then it must be bad!" until they actually feel that way.

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This can be a real thing. I experienced it with Destiny 2 recently. In the run-up to their own latest expansion, I was active on the forums there, and I have to say...as negative as this place is, these forums look like a paradise compared to the D2 forums. It actually did deflate my anticipation for the new expansion. Then the xpac actually launched, I put the forums in the rear-view mirror, and just...played the game. And let me tell you, I had a blast. It's a very real psychological thing that surrounding yourself with negative people, especially when it's a full-on echo chamber, can impact you negatively as well. Best bet if you start feeling that way is to just get away, go play the game, and have fun enjoying it!

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Originally Posted by Nasigno

“Hello everyone, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV,” started the developer. “I would like to thank you all for your patience and cooperation in dealing with server congestion during the early access for Dawntrail. With your support, we were able to reach a record number of concurrent users we’ve not seen since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013.”

But beyond the official statement from Square Enix, the only reliable numbers we can go off is Steam Data, least of all unless you have a metric that is something we can base performance off? I guess we could wait for 2025 Financial performance to compare the operational revenue, but for right now that is the only metric we have that is open to the public so I will cite it as such.

Endwalker
January 2022 65,565
December 2021 95,102

Dawntrail
June 2024 91,883
July 2024 91,883

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I find his statement hard to believe, because there is no way ARR had as many concurrent users as ShB or EW as it simply did not have the market penetration back then

Steam DB doesn't have Peak numbers for July yet since July is not over. The number you give is for early access which was in June. On July 1st (only two days after early access) it was 77,305, and that will likely be the peak for July as it didn't even spike up at all for release. As of yesterday, not even a month since early access, peak player count per day is down to 49,639. It took until mid January, a month and a half for EW to fall to those numbers. So no, with the numbers we have access to, DT is not out performing EW. That said, if the post expansion content is good, the DT could hold on to more longer since post expansion EW content was quite bad. However, the expansion itself is not out out performing EW.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

This can be a real thing. I experienced it with Destiny 2 recently. In the run-up to their own latest expansion, I was active on the forums there, and I have to say...as negative as this place is, these forums look like a paradise compared to the D2 forums. It actually did deflate my anticipation for the new expansion. Then the xpac actually launched, I put the forums in the rear-view mirror, and just...played the game. And let me tell you, I had a blast. It's a very real psychological thing that surrounding yourself with negative people, especially when it's a full-on echo chamber, can impact you negatively as well. Best bet if you start feeling that way is to just get away, go play the game, and have fun enjoying it!

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100% with you on this. The forums almost killed the game for me at one time. Because you start to doubt your own opinions on whether or not you are enjoying yourself. Distance yourself from the forums. Look and feel for yourself, and understand that yours is just one opinion in a sea of 10s of thousands.

Back then a sizable amount liked stormblood base MSQ more than heavensward
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...?highlight=msq

Interestingly I agree with them, but that's my opinion. I just wanted to bring this up to prove the point that MSQ feedback is hard for any company to really waste a lot of time with. The best they can do is follow trends and "what has worked in the past." MSQ/story feedback seems to boil down to "mixed reception" most times than not, specially for an mmo.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I'm not denying DT's intial great success mind you. I just find it interesting.

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His July DT number is just the June DT number. SteamDB has not release peak July numbers. July first, DT was already down to 77k players, so that will be July's peak since it has only gotten lower since.

our forums are always, always negative tbh. and full of trolls... i've also seen a lot of positive feedback for DT in other places, but here...heh gl finding anything pos

but yes. yes we are. bc positive feedback is rarely given out by the average contended person versus the voluminous negative feedback from ppl who may or may not have legitimate concerns (and many imo are just bored trolls). we also have a lot of people who dont even bother to think for themselves because they follow "big" social media accts who might say thing a or thing b and decide to bandwagon off of that. i say this in general, not ffxiv specific... honestly the internet is the pits for a lot of reasons

anyway ffxiv forums perpetually not a the place to look if you wanna feel good abt anything

Providing feedback on the story because alot of players were unhappy isn't destroying the game. quite the contrary- providing feedback so they can improve is ff14s success story

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Originally Posted by boopadoop

our forums are always, always negative tbh. and full of trolls... i've also seen a lot of positive feedback for DT in other places, but here...heh gl finding anything pos

but yes. yes we are. bc positive feedback is rarely given out by the average contended person versus the voluminous negative feedback from ppl who may or may not have legitimate concerns (and many imo are just bored trolls). we also have a lot of people who dont even bother to think for themselves because they follow "big" social media accts who might say thing a or thing b and decide to bandwagon off of that. i say this in general, not ffxiv specific... honestly the internet is the pits for a lot of reasons

anyway ffxiv forums perpetually not a the place to look if you wanna feel good abt anything

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Twitter is a hugbox, the subreddits are mixed.
my positive feedback is the content is looking way better than endwalker, which tended to make me fall asleep mid fight

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Back then a sizable amount liked stormblood base MSQ more than heavensward
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...?highlight=msq

Interestingly I agree with them, but that's my opinion. I just wanted to bring this up to prove the point that MSQ feedback is hard for any company to really waste a lot of time with. The best they can do is follow trends and "what has worked in the past." MSQ/story feedback seems to boil down to "mixed reception" most times than not, specially for an mmo.

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I'm one of the few who actually enjoyed SB way more than HW. I think for me I loved Zenos and Yotsuyu to a degree (only in post), but I understand that Zenos is a divisive char and I can imagine if you hate him you'd likely not enjoy SB. I only loved it for him and the post SB and the weeb aesthetics. Ala Mhigo remains my fav dungeon because there's so much going in the background that you can miss. It has alot of side content I enjoyed, the dungeons were really amazing, and some had day/night cycle which is awesome imo...My favorite alliance raids, pretty cool normal raids...Ozma mount.

I don't know, I really enjoyed the lore and scenery in SB that I haven't felt in any other expansion imo but this is my personal opinion based on my interests and what I like aesthetically speaking.

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Originally Posted by Akari-skts

Are here any people that actually enjoy the game?

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I do.
While I have my reservations and criticisms (I have these every expansion), the bottom line is that DT is still good fun.

Keep in mind: customers are far more likely to complain than to praise. Also, only a small percentage of the playerbase ever visits external resources like forums.
So, forums are not a representative sample at all, since they are always skewed towards the "unhappy" side.

Thinking about it: I can't remember any expac since the dreaded ARR "cheese-wars" that I disliked. Sure, some stories interested me more, some less but I think that is natural and not indicative of "bad quality" or anything. Just personal preference.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

His July DT number is just the June DT number. SteamDB has not release peak July numbers. July first, DT was already down to 77k players, so that will be July's peak since it has only gotten lower since.

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Apologies, will have to retract back, you are right it is hovering around 75,000 - 76,000 as the peak as of right now. Reviewing the peaks it goes up and down between 26-77K as per your statement. The statement stands, the peak drop is still smaller in Dawntrail than Endwalker. The metric is proven.

As for doubting the official statement from Square Enix? If an official stance from the company that owns the server system says it has done better than prior instances, then what statistic will you believe? So I must ask what would you consider a metric that is valid when you cannot even trust the operator of the server?

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Originally Posted by Akari-skts

Are here any people that actually enjoy the game? And if not.. where are they? I've heard player counts are looking good, and I tbh can imagine why.

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I kinda do.
The dungeons are less sleepy than in EW even if it's not dying hard(I especially like the mob mask ghosts mechanic, very funny).
The raid also looking better than EW i just hope savage will be as fun as Eden.
MSQ tho, was fine to a degree but has too many hiccups that it put me off a bit yet it's still got save by sidequests along the way. It'd be 30% better if they just removed a certain 'element', especially on the last part that it flipped me off so much i have resurrect back to bomb it in the forum after i've never been here since ARR.

I think it is rather hard to determine an answer to the thread's premise since there is a considerable divide in players and what they do inside of FFXIV. I typically am more critical of how the community conducts when it comes to a question like this and, depending on how you view the proliferation of venues and ToS breaking things, will likely determine how one will view the game's state. Some could also argue the devs are listening too much and are designing content around a specific subset of people, which can cause that group to have more blame than others, which at the end of the day is what the devs thought was acceptable inside of the game.

I think the lackluster MSQ is causing people to peel back some of the layers of the game a bit to see other flaws the game has now that the wool has been removed from the eyes, which is why there is an uptick in criticism against the game as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Keep in mind: customers are far more likely to complain than to praise. Also, only a small percentage of the playerbase ever visits external resources like forums.
So, forums are not a representative sample at all, since they are always skewed towards the "unhappy" side.

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I didn't realize StrikerGPT was made available to the public...

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

I didn't realize StrikerGPT was made available to the public...

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I have no clue what that is supposed to mean but it is common knowledge that customers rather utter grievances than compliments, not just in gaming.

If you consider my writing style weird, keep in mind that I am not an English native.

I really don't understand this tendency to rally against negative reactions. People are allowed to dislike something just as much as people are allowed to like it. At the end of the day people post their criticisms because they want the game to be better not because they hate it.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

If you consider my writing style weird, keep in mind that I am not an English native.

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I am not poking any fun at your English (I wouldn't have been able to identify you are not a native English speaker if you didn't tell me), it is more just the content of what I quoted sounds an awful lot like someone else here who tends to be obsessed with majorities and the like. If you thought I was poking fun at your English, I apologize as that was not the intention.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

it is common knowledge that customers rather utter grievances than compliments, not just in gaming.

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Oh I am well aware of this. We are on the forums after all so we all had to buy the game at some point and I have seen it in other media, not exclusive to FFXIV and that I am much more in the mood to leave a bad review on something I paid for versus a good review, regardless of what that thing is.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

I have no clue what that is supposed to mean but it is common knowledge that customers rather utter grievances than compliments, not just in gaming.

If you consider my writing style weird, keep in mind that I am not an English native.

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You're fine, I assume she's implying that your posting resembles Striker44 (sp?) a known poster who generally is positive and doesn't shy away from arguing with people who lean more towards negative opinions.

If someone has to resort to belittling you when you're trying to have a discussion with them, their opinion is generally not worth your time.

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Originally Posted by Akari-skts

Browsing through the forum here and watching Youtube videos I clearly see how people seem super unhappy with the new Expansion.
Playing the game for myself and also in my fc and social groups I did not experience that feedback for quite a while.
I never checked this froum in the past and just came here recently to look for the "community voice" but.. is it really that bad? Are people that mad about DT or was it always like that in the forum? Maybe someone that observed the forum for a few years can tell me.

I personally think DT is fine story wise.. sure it may not be peak epic but I feel like it is quite good. I was entertained especcially for the last part of it.

The content imo is great. It is more entertaining than in the past and we now even can wipe here and there, which is often funny. People are saying it is too hard but idk isnt it exciting to have a look at the boss while doing roulettes? (talking about dungeons)

For the raids it is kind of the same. I dont feel like they are particulary harder than - for example - ShB Normal Raids?

Are here any people that actually enjoy the game? And if not.. where are they? I've heard player counts are looking good, and I tbh can imagine why.

It makes me kind of sad hearing all that stuff about "dungeons too hard for me" "raids too easy for me" "story is bad" "bring back stormblood", I have the feeling people are more and more driven into the mindset "Well if everyone says it is bad.. then it must be bad!" until they actually feel that way.

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I like the expansion, aside from a few minor hiccups. I think there is much room for improvement in many areas, but to me that's just that: room for improvement. For other people some points are a no go or just dislike things I like and vice versa.
Keep in mind the number of players who are actually posting *anywhere* about FFXIV is really small in comparison to the whole playerbase. And among them, people who are fine with it, rarely say so. It's the people who want to complain, who complain, and apparently some love to do this whenever "Dawntrail" is being mentioned, at length, multiple times in multiple places.
Not saying all criticism is invalid, but I wouldn't consider what you read online in any way representative for anything.

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Originally Posted by Akari-skts

Browsing through the forum here and watching Youtube videos I clearly see how people seem super unhappy with the new Expansion.
Playing the game for myself and also in my fc and social groups I did not experience that feedback for quite a while.
I never checked this froum in the past and just came here recently to look for the "community voice" but.. is it really that bad? Are people that mad about DT or was it always like that in the forum? Maybe someone that observed the forum for a few years can tell me.

I personally think DT is fine story wise.. sure it may not be peak epic but I feel like it is quite good. I was entertained especcially for the last part of it.

The content imo is great. It is more entertaining than in the past and we now even can wipe here and there, which is often funny. People are saying it is too hard but idk isnt it exciting to have a look at the boss while doing roulettes? (talking about dungeons)

For the raids it is kind of the same. I dont feel like they are particulary harder than - for example - ShB Normal Raids?

Are here any people that actually enjoy the game? And if not.. where are they? I've heard player counts are looking good, and I tbh can imagine why.

It makes me kind of sad hearing all that stuff about "dungeons too hard for me" "raids too easy for me" "story is bad" "bring back stormblood", I have the feeling people are more and more driven into the mindset "Well if everyone says it is bad.. then it must be bad!" until they actually feel that way.

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For some reason, people on these forums are always very dramatic. Even during Shadowbringers, people went on long rants why "this expansion is the worst", while the objectively worst expansion, Heavensward, is now lauded as acclaimed masterpiece years later. It's a never-ending cycle.

While people may have a point when they criticise something, they often choose the most outrage-inducing language. Maybe media is to blame for this. If someone's news diet comprises sensationalist headlines on the internet, they can't be expected to express themselves in a more appropriate tone.

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Originally Posted by Ruris

False. Preach and Zepla have been straight up laughing at dialogue choices in game, and not out of affection. Before you drag your fingernails down a chalkboard for BGM music when you tell me you don't give a care for streamers, guess who are the ones that the devs will have a better chance of paying attention to between this forum and them?

Steam reviews for Dawntrail are sitting on mixed and are dwindling by the day. This is as simple as checking by simply booting up Steam and looking for yourself. What was that again about all locations sharing the same opinion?

This is gaslighting levels of claim.

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I think the only thing I'd like to add to this thread is that I wouldn't count or trust content creators more than anyone else in game, forum or friend to give an honest opinion about the game. Quite the contrary in fact, they're in the business of keeping conversations open and your eyes on their stream or youtube videos for profit, so if its interesting or provocative to say a game is bad, failing or whatever, they are likely to jump on the trend for views and engagement.

At first Mao was exciteds to be with Lady Fuzzy Cat. Then story gots bogged down into lots "go here, then go there, then come backs and start all overs again" quests and Mao started getting boreds. But waits! Mao still has excitings new job abilitys to looks forwards to! NOPES! Mao favorites job, BLMs gots WRECKED! But waits! If Mao can't has funs with MSQs or job, Mao can still has funs with new glam changes! NOPES! Is VERY FEW gears whats can be double dyed and even thems pretty lacklusters. But waits! If Mao can't has funs with MSQs or job or glams, Mao can still has funs with changes to housings. NOPES! No changes coming to housings yets. Maybe laters. Maybe nots at all. So can anyones tell Mao WHY Mao should care ATS ALL abouts this horribles expansion?

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Originally Posted by FuwafuwaMii

For some reason, people on these forums are always very dramatic. Even during Shadowbringers, people went on long rants why "this expansion is the worst", while the objectively worst expansion, Heavensward, is now lauded as acclaimed masterpiece years later. It's a never-ending cycle.

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What in the revisionist history? The "worst" expansion? There's a reason that the meme was about the free trial with the "award winning expansion, Heavensward." It was damn good, and accepted as such even then. Yes, people hated Bowmage and Gunmage, and people got filtered by Faust, but the rest of the expansion was widely praised even then.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I think the only thing I'd like to add to this thread is that I wouldn't count or trust content creators more than anyone else in game, forum or friend to give an honest opinion about the game. Quite the contrary in fact, they're in the business of keeping conversations open and your eyes on their stream or youtube videos for profit, so if its interesting or provocative to say a game is bad, failing or whatever, they are likely to jump on the trend for views and engagement.

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Bullcrap. Content Creators that actively play the game have a vested interest in the game being good, so they keep an audience, especially Preach, who had to find other things to do, because WoW was so crap that he was losing his audience, because nobody wanted to watch the game.

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Originally Posted by Isala

What in the revisionist history? The "worst" expansion? There's a reason that the meme was about the free trial with the "award winning expansion, Heavensward." It was damn good, and accepted as such even then. Yes, people hated Bowmage and Gunmage, and people got filtered by Faust, but the rest of the expansion was widely praised even then.

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Nah. Heavensward had terrible raids, terrible encounters and terrible class balance. Some classes were considered griefing if you brought them to a PF team. HW was definitely the worst expansion they brought, but it was also the first one, and they learned from their mistakes. Go back to those times on this forum, and you'll see some dramatic wails from people.

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Originally Posted by Isala

Bullcrap. Content Creators that actively play the game have a vested interest in the game being good, so they keep an audience, especially Preach, who had to find other things to do, because WoW was so crap that he was losing his audience, because nobody wanted to watch the game.

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No, they have a vested interested in keeping themselves relevant, they have as much interest in keeping the game good as anyone who has been a fan of this game for years.

I am not saying they are disingenous or lying to you, but always keep in mind that their business is keeping you engaged for profit.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

At first Mao was exciteds to be with Lady Fuzzy Cat. Then story gots bogged down into lots "go here, then go there, then come backs and start all overs again" quests and Mao started getting boreds. But waits! Mao still has excitings new job abilitys to looks forwards to! NOPES! Mao favorites job, BLMs gots WRECKED! But waits! If Mao can't has funs with MSQs or job, Mao can still has funs with new glam changes! NOPES! Is VERY FEW gears whats can be double dyed and even thems pretty lacklusters. But waits! If Mao can't has funs with MSQs or job or glams, Mao can still has funs with changes to housings. NOPES! No changes coming to housings yets. Maybe laters. Maybe nots at all. So can anyones tell Mao WHY Mao should care ATS ALL abouts this horribles expansion?

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Well Yoshi-P, you might have a problem now..

https://i.imgflip.com/8xzydo.jpg

(what about the crafting/gathering Mao??)

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

Well Yoshi-P, you might have a problem now..

https://i.imgflip.com/8xzydo.jpg

(what about the crafting/gathering Mao??)

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Gatherings is all Mao has left to has funs with. Is Gatherings and friends whats only things left keepings Mao here.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Dawntrail was like Stormblood; "mixed" reception in north america mostly but overall a high quality msq with great story and narrative objectively.

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First of all, you may want to look up what the word "objectively" means because you clearly have no idea. A story being good is most definitely not something objective because people will have subjective opinions on it.

Also, the reception hasn't been tepid just on NA. I play on EU and there has been maybe one person in my FC who really enjoyed the MSQ. The rest fall between "meh" and "that was bad". The zone chats, at least on Zodiark, during early access were full of people complaining about how bad the story was and mocking the really ridiculous plot holes.

I can't speak for other regions, but I think it might be time to stop trying to blame NA for everything.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

First of all, you may want to look up what the word "objectively" means because you clearly have no idea. A story being good is most definitely not something objective because people will have subjective opinions on it.

Also, the reception hasn't been tepid just on NA. I play on EU and there has been maybe one person in my FC who really enjoyed the MSQ. The rest fall between "meh" and "that was bad". The zone chats, at least on Zodiark, during early access were full of people complaining about how bad the story was and mocking the really ridiculous plot holes.

I can't speak for other regions, but I think it might be time to stop trying to blame NA for everything.

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Correction.
When I say NA I mean EU as well; there's barely any difference in opinion between the two regions when it comes to anything related to xiv. I'm just applying square enix practice, the same way they forget about eu when doing campaigns and other things for non-japanese audiences.

No need to get your butt all twisted, it's all standard practice.

I'm having a great time, and, it actually kind of bums me out to say that I'm having a great time in spite of the story. I've never done EX or whatever content before Dawntrail, and the story is what got me hooked and kept me pumped and excited. Dawntrail is the worst time I've ever had playing through the game's story. The post ARR, pre HW content isn't fun either, but it's only guilty of being long and boring—if you wanted to argue that being boring is worse, I respect where you're coming from, but, I was having an actual just not fun time. There were a lot of little moments where I felt like my optimism was going to pay off, and I stayed hopeful right up until the end.

There's plenty of things that are bad that I love; I love cheesy analog horror, bad donut shop coffee, weird cutscenes from games I'll never play, walking in the rain in the fall with an umbrella but no jacket, and star trek fan films. Likewise, there's plenty of things that I recognize are good, that I can't stand, be it food or a story. And as far as my personal experience goes, this falls in the "It's bad, and also, I don't like it" category. When you write Dawntrail's plot beats down as a synopsis, it kind of kicks ass, but the execution is so upside down to me that I had to wonder what the heck decisions lead to it. I registered to use the forum to talk about it, only to find out there were so many people in my camp already.

It feels like it's written by someone that only watches anime, does venue RP, and never got out of fanfiction culture. You need people that are reading books, watching films, nurturing their minds, and then write like they do that. This doesn't feel that way. In the past I've loved when XIV talks about compassion, community building, mutual understanding, resolving differences, and gets even a little cheesy. Dawntrail feels like it lacks self awareness, using "lighthearted" as a crutch to talk to me like I'm a kid. u.u

But like I said, now that I've seen how EX fights, at least Everkeep and WLD, are like beefed up Undertale fights, I'm honestly having a blast trying to get my wings. Hard content stopped being scary. This is the best time I've had in PvE ever!

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

Final Fantasy XIV is no longer at its peak and Square Enix is taking the revenue to recoup their 70% loss in profits last year. It also "promoted" Naoki Yoshida and Natsuko Ishikawa to non-FFXIV projects to fix the company. So no, "we" aren't destroying FFXIV, Square Enix is. Just like so many other companies, it cut corners in its core product to save money and please shareholders. Fortunately, every other company is also in a race to the bottom and FFXIV is a tad slower than the others in its decline, so it's still worth playing. It'll soon become apparent though that the story will fail to draw new people and players won't stay excited about the new content due to floor-tanking and being clipped by lag. It's okay to enjoy the game as-is but people need realistic expectations and not to deify the devs.

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The game is some of the most fun it's ever been and is matching it's Endwalker numbers in terms of players meaning its tying for most players it's ever had, and from the looks of things it's actually losing Expansion launch-day numbers at a slower rate than Endwalker did, which means the game is, objectively speaking, the healthiest it has ever been player-wise in the history of its existence.

People can whine about their WoL being on a beach vacation and letting Wuk Lamat do her thing for the first half of Dawntrail and claim that makes the story the worst thing ever made and a bunch of culture warriors can go give Dawntrail a negative steam review filled with transphobic slurs directed at Wuk Lamat's VA all they want, in terms of actual player retention and engagement FF14 is the best it's ever been right now.

I'd say YoshiP and the team are doing just fine, and if this is the quality of content they're going to continue putting out, then I'm very excited for the future of the game.

Y'all just need to stop with this doom-prophesying. Every expansion there's another round of "IS FF14 DYING????????" threads and the game continues to thrive.

Yup, that would be kino so SE can make MMO FF17.

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Originally Posted by Oku-1

and from the looks of things it's actually losing Expansion launch-day numbers at a slower rate than Endwalker did

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Source? I wouldnt expect there to be anything out there to go off atm. (Since its not even been a billing cycle yet)

Honestly, the moment I was finished with the MSQ, I entirely disengaged with current content and decided it was time to devote myself to becoming an omnicrafter.

MSQ burnt me out on the current expansion so much, I figured a dozen-day grindfest would be a better use of my time.

Dunno if that was an appropriate reaction, but... I've probably made a million gil so far, and I didn't even need to Speak with Wuk Lamat a single time!

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Originally Posted by Xellith

Source? I wouldnt expect there to be anything out there to go off atm. (Since its not even been a billing cycle yet)

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Steam Charts has stayed consistently representative of the wider playerbase in terms of growth and fall-off trends and updates every few minutes off of the steam concurrent player counter. We can't get true full-playerbase numbers and likely never will but for getting an idea of what the growth trends are you can't get much better without having access to Square Enix data directly.

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Originally Posted by Oku-1

and from the looks of things it's actually losing Expansion launch-day numbers at a slower rate than Endwalker did,

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It took Endwalker 1 and a half months to lose as much player base as DT has in less than a month according to steamdb (the only source of numbers we have). By official release, DT had already lost almost 20k players peak. By week 2 it was almost 40k player peak lost. So roughly 2 weeks and it lost as many player as Endwalker did in 1 and a half months.

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Originally Posted by Xellith

Source? I wouldnt expect there to be anything out there to go off atm. (Since its not even been a billing cycle yet)

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Only thing to go off of is Steamdb and it proves the statement they made wrong.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

It took Endwalker 1 and a half months to lose as much player base as DT has in less than a month according to steamdb (the only source of number we have. By official release), DT had already lost almost 20k players peak. By week 2 it was almost 40k player peak lost. So roughly 2 weeks and it lost as many player as Endwalker did in 1 and a half months.



Only thing to go off of is Steamdb and it prove the statement they made wrong.

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Wrong on literally both counts lol

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Originally Posted by Oku-1

Steam Charts has stayed consistently representative of the wider playerbase in terms of growth and fall-off trends and updates every few minutes off of the steam concurrent player counter. We can't get true full-playerbase numbers and likely never will but for getting an idea of what the growth trends are you can't get much better without having access to Square Enix data directly.

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During the Endwalker decline, everyone said that Steam charts didn't matter. Now they do. Ultimately, though, you might be right: terrible games can in fact sell many copies. But that requires the franchise to be extremely popular. And despite common knowledge, I don't think Final Fantasy is like Madden or FIFA in terms of popularity. I don't think FFXIV will continue being the world's most-played MMO (source: forums) when the story is utter dog water.

Oh, and Wuk's English acting is pretty bad and you can do whatever you want with that information.