The Great FFXIV Exodus of 2024

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DPZ2

If you want to utilize Steam Charts as your bellwether on how well a video game is doing, World of Warcraft is on its last legs, as there are zero players on Steam.

---

I was just gonna say, these threads are always kind of amusing to me because people will inevitably bring up WoW as if that's a viable alternative, when if you look at the WoW forums it looks like it's the worst game ever developed. And people spend their time over there praising this game.

I don't think the concerns of what people are saying here should be completely discounted, but at the same time, it's the forums. The forums are always the haven of the haters. Of any game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

I know that stories like this are only anecdotal, but I've had similar; most of the people I played with during ShB largely went away by the middle of EW, and few of them came back for DT, even fewer have stayed for 7.1. At this point it's only a handful of FC members that I play with that still log on, the others only come back when there's a free login campaign.

The use of Steam charts can only tell part of the picture since it's only part of the playerbase, but it's still a rather large sample size we can work with, and as such shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because it doesn't include PS4/Xbox/etc. Barring major port issues, if 10% of Steam players up and left the game, there's a good chance that around 10% of the other platforms also lost players (give or take some margin of error) because of similar reasons to those Steam players.

---

The thing with anecdotal evidence is while it is just people recounting what they have experienced, these particular stories are becoming more and more common in the most recent months. It can't take the place of actual metrics, but it can be used as a supplement along with what little we have to work with to help discern trends and patterns, at least among specific parts of the community.

I have to word it the way I did above because what someone experiences is, of course, unique to themselves. Based on current trends in the game, I would expect people who are, for lack of a better term, involved in 'Etheirys' Nightlife (or Eorzea's Nightlife)' scene are not going to experience these things as much as those of us who are not involved with it. I would also contend communities of older players (those of us who have been around for a long time) are more likely to see it for one reason or another.

What is inconsistent is the rate in which groups of people form and fall apart. I am seeing a lot more, well-established, FCs having issues maintaining active membership these days compared to some of the worst times back in the ARR/HW era, suggesting something has changes that is causes FCs that traditionally have above average churn to have even more churn than they had before. FCs that tend to be a bit more transient and are more season-driven are not able to maintain active members beyond a couple months and they are not returning for patch content - suggesting a lack of interest to return to the game for one reason or another.

From my experience as a 2.0 player, my main guesses as to why this is happening is due to poor patch cadence, lackluster story, and uninspired/boring class/job design (particularly healers, which I am one of). Many players I have known for well clear of 6-8 years at that point faded out around that time, while people who were normally extremely active became seasonal players during that same time frame. The patch content in EW didn't give players who wanted to play the game a lot to work with outside of the normal grind, which I believe further increased the rate of players transitioning away from being extremely active to being more seasonal and, in turn, eventually leaving the game now.

I will need to discuss ShB separately for some specific reasons. ShB is a bit of an anomaly due to COVID and the surge of new players that occurred during that time, so it is hard to evaluate ShB properly. With that said, I observed a lot of people were active despite this most likely due to travel restrictions and using MMOs as a means of socializing. Since this isn't going on anymore, I do expect some of the drop-off of players is just due to these players slowly transitioning back to a normal lifestyle, but this reason I think is not as major as the one stated above and some of this drop-off could actually be due to the above reasons as well, since these players would now be entering their 2nd expansion so to speak.

How all of this above plays into the Steam metrics, I really don't know. What I do know is that the Steam metrics are sufficiently large to the point you can use them as a sample size of the population at large, and thus they should not be ignored when trying to evaluate the health of the game. I have stated before the game is going into a period of regression and moving backwards, with the Steam metrics only being one piece of evidence to this argument.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

The irony of this is that I *am* one of those "green players" who started post-Endwalker (December 2022), hadn't even been playing the game for two years before Dawntrail launched, and yet I'm eyeballing that "Cancel Subscription" button as much as any jilted longtime vet because the mobile version pretty much nuked whatever trust and faith I had in Square-Enix when it comes to the PC version.

The sad part is though, I don't really have another MMO to go to now. I refuse to return to WoW, I'm sure as hell not going to play Square-Enix's *other* MMO, I'm kinda "eh" about picking up SWTOR again, and I'm not convinced about trying PSO2 or ESO. This isn't just quitting FF14, this might be where I quit the entire genre because there's literally nothing left I want to play anymore.

---

I've been playing LOTRO again. But I'm also a Tokien fan, so your mileage may vary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

The irony of this is that I *am* one of those "green players" who started post-Endwalker (December 2022), hadn't even been playing the game for two years before Dawntrail launched, and yet I'm eyeballing that "Cancel Subscription" button as much as any jilted longtime vet because the mobile version pretty much nuked whatever trust and faith I had in Square-Enix when it comes to the PC version.

The sad part is though, I don't really have another MMO to go to now. I refuse to return to WoW, I'm sure as hell not going to play Square-Enix's *other* MMO, I'm kinda "eh" about picking up SWTOR again, and I'm not convinced about trying PSO2 or ESO. This isn't just quitting FF14, this might be where I quit the entire genre because there's literally nothing left I want to play anymore.

---

Neverwinter is fun but it is extremely grindy

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astronema

The final straw for me was doing the new dungeon and watching the flying rocks overlap with the golem mob to form a floating sperm. I'm there fighting a giant testicle with a tail sticking out...

---

Your avatar looks amazing! :)

Anecdotally:
I'm having fun, my FC is still going, my artist friends still play, and most of my friends list is still active, or rotates in and out as time and their finances allow. Most of the streamers I follow who used to play it still do, though how much varies. None of which is unusual to me. Some have come back to it after an extended break.

A silent majority? Certainly not. Significantly more than have the last few years? Oh absolutely. This is the most displeased i've seen the playerbase at large since i started back in mid HW. Is this a WoW Shadowlands esque moment happening in 14? No. Though I think it's not completely unlike certain smaller exoduses that happened to WoW in Cata, WoD, and BFA.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

The sad part is though, I don't really have another MMO to go to now. I refuse to return to WoW, I'm sure as hell not going to play Square-Enix's *other* MMO, I'm kinda "eh" about picking up SWTOR again, and I'm not convinced about trying PSO2 or ESO. This isn't just quitting FF14, this might be where I quit the entire genre because there's literally nothing left I want to play anymore.

---

I've decided to stay away from MMOs because if WoW and FFXIV can tumble this badly there is a good chance less popular MMOs aren't any better. On the other hand, I picked up Sims 4 again and I've been having more fun messing around with my old saved game for 2 days than I've had in this game since 7.01. I'm leveling, doing achievements, playing with character creation, making outfits and building houses, which were some of the best parts of FFXIV for me when I still liked it. Single player games can offer many of the same things MMO players enjoy, and they let you get straight to the fun part instead of making you wait lockouts and grind filler stuff to access it.

It can't be a Great Exodus because I'm not going anywhere.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reinha

I've decided to stay away from MMOs because if WoW and FFXIV can tumble this badly there is a good chance less popular MMOs aren't any better. On the other hand, I picked up Sims 4 again and I've been having more fun messing around with my old saved game for 2 days than I've had in this game since 7.01. I'm leveling, doing achievements, playing with character creation, making outfits and building houses, which were some of the best parts of FFXIV for me when I still liked it. Single player games can offer many of the same things MMO players enjoy, and they let you get straight to the fun part instead of making you wait lockouts and grind filler stuff to access it.

---

Also playing way more Sims 4 than FFXIV right now. Reaper is a really fun job in Sims 4.

Nah the ultimate is about to come out

Started playing in late SB (character I play on now is a late EW character but I've taken numerous long breaks and finally committed to making 14 my "main game" in early 2023) and while I think calling this a mass exodus is hyperbole I do think DT hasn't really addressed any of the issues people have with FF14 that might lead into a exodus ala Shadowlands if 8.0 doesn't address the issues (and really they need to address them now).

1. Story Quality is the same or worst then Post-EW (and I thought 6.0 wasn't the best either just really good highs and really bad lows after doing it again on this character after playing 6.0 at launch) and a lot of the experience that gets people to play is being invested in the story and I can't bring myself to care about pretty much any of the DT cast save Bakool personally. I'm aware 7.1-7.3 is probably already largely written and set in stone but I do hope they at least try and either communicate they're changing stuff going forward or course correct the patches

2.I don't know what old players are suppose to do for content if you don't like raiding (and even then I was done with the tier by week 12 and was basically only raid logging by week 4 unless I wanted to level a alt job) I'm already done with 7.1 save MSQ because I'm procrastinating more Wuk Lamat Adventures and besides the AR which is really fucking good, I don't get what someone who isn't A. Grind for the Sphene EX mount or B. Is doing FRU like I am is suppose to do for this patch. It's been said a bunch already but "midcore" players basically have nothing to do till the relic comes out in 7.25 with the new bozja like content and this was already after 6.x had basically no content of that front either. Relic should have been at worst this patch and I'd argue its first step should have been 7.08 or something. For all the content they promised and know is coming from fan fest their is no actual timeline of when its coming really.

3. Job design is this game is boring save a few examples and while promising it get better come 8.0 they're actively on some jobs making it worst? Why did DRG lose 2 nastrond charges? Why can't we start fixing the jobs up a bit for their rework sooner when SAM this very expansion got a semi-rework that is largely accepted as positive. Those changes were great and helped make the job a bit more unique and added some cool skill expression. I'm fine with stuff like the TCJ change which imo was more frustrating to adapt around then skillful especially under bad ping. But the DRG changes to me especially felt like changing it for the sake of change.

Think the biggest thing the SE could do to at least stop the bleeding a bit which at least for now is small is just say something. Give me a roadmap for the rest of DT and ideas of change for 8.0. because if you aren't a Savage/Ult raider you probably could have waited to buy DT and sub till 7.25/7.3 with the new relic and zone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carbon20XX

1. Story Quality

2.I don't know what old players are suppose to do for content

Think the biggest thing the SE could do to at least stop the bleeding a bit which at least for now is small is just say something. Give me a roadmap for the rest of DT and ideas of change for 8.0. because if you aren't a Savage/Ult raider you probably could have waited to buy DT and sub till 7.25/7.3 with the new relic and zone.

---

1- they keep changing writers is the problem instead of improving upon the skills an knowledge that has worked best for them an their audience. this needs to stop an instead bring all the writers together to brainstorm ideas not just the main ones i feel they could learn alot from eachother instead of being so closed minded.

2- they expect the casuals to endure the same rinse and repeat content ad naseum is the issue an even then even the more experienced(mid/hard core) are getting sick an tired of the same tune and same dance when it comes to the content that they receive with the only thing now for them to look forward too is ultimate and the savage raid for cloud of darkness etc. its pretty sad to be honest an they wonder why so many people cheat or resort to using banned software an modifications etc.

last point- the have already stated everything they plan i hate to be the one to tell you though but someone has to reply to it basically we're getting more of the usual mind numbing stuff with the newer additions being: Cosmic Exploration, Beast Master limited job, more quality of life tuning/pruning, and minor adjustments to combat gameplay and sadly thats it unless they somehow pull some suprises on us but i rather doubt they will all the while the consumers for this game keep getting stupider an blinder by the day ignoring all the problems an complications everyone has nicely an neatly put out for them on a silver platter to be served to the devs so that THEY KNOW what players are concerned with etc.
but idk really does feel like NA and EU feedback is grossly ignored so might be time to pack our bags an just leave to show them our discontent by not paying anymore etc.

How can cosmic exploration and beast master be "the usual mind numbing stuff" when we literally know nothing about either of them and the lessons they learned from previous iterations?
Reading comments like that just makes it obvious that people will just never be happy with what they get.
Quality of life stuff are also probably the most requested thing from the community the last few years (mainly improvements to glamour, of which we had a first step in 7.1).
And even if they added a relic grind in 7.0X already people would still not be happy about it because "meh I played this new map for 500h and got all the weapons and now I have nothing left to do".

Also, some of the things they did in 7.1 were steps in the right direction. New hunt mount, New scrips mount. Adding stuff like this is what the game needs. Incentives running the old/existing content.
Like IMO instead of adding the new relic earlier they should add old relics for new jobs. (The fact that going in Eureka with any job that came out in 5.0 or later is a debuff is incredibly stupid to me)
They should also make the 2.0-4.0 areas have the shared FATE system to bring more life there. They should have a way to incentivize people to go in the old deep dungeons more often. Also same for old treasure maps.
They should re-enable the Ishgard restoration ranking with a weekly reset. They should add new rewards to buy over there in Ishgard as well.
There should be a weekly/daily bonus for going on an ocean fishing trip.
They should have added PvP rewards (there is a thread complaining about that).
Rival wings should get some love.
Rolling the unreal fights out of the game also makes no sense.
They should figure out what they want to do with Grand Company and add rewards to buy with seals.
Etc

most of the stuff that has been added in DT should be added in EW instead,

they moved things from EW to DT when someone say "we got more things than ever" it is because they didn't add it in EW.

We want 8.0 stuff in 7.0 they keep saying we are changing things in game but I don't see that it is enough of a change, SHB was harder than DT in many cases specially raids, the point that yoshi p is mentioning "we increase the difficulty" yes if you compare it to DT but that wasn't the case in SHB. you changed things and now you call it a feature.

how petty

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Garnix

How can cosmic exploration and beast master be "the usual mind numbing stuff" when we literally know nothing about either of them and the lessons they learned from previous iterations?
Reading comments like that just makes it obvious that people will just never be happy with what they get.
Quality of life stuff are also probably the most requested thing from the community the last few years (mainly improvements to glamour, of which we had a first step in 7.1).
And even if they added a relic grind in 7.0X already people would still not be happy about it because "meh I played this new map for 500h and got all the weapons and now I have nothing left to do".

Also, some of the things they did in 7.1 were steps in the right direction. New hunt mount, New scrips mount. Adding stuff like this is what the game needs. Incentives running the old/existing content.
Like IMO instead of adding the new relic earlier they should add old relics for new jobs. (The fact that going in Eureka with any job that came out in 5.0 or later is a debuff is incredibly stupid to me)
They should also make the 2.0-4.0 areas have the shared FATE system to bring more life there. They should have a way to incentivize people to go in the old deep dungeons more often. Also same for old treasure maps.
They should re-enable the Ishgard restoration ranking with a weekly reset. They should add new rewards to buy over there in Ishgard as well.
There should be a weekly/daily bonus for going on an ocean fishing trip.
They should have added PvP rewards (there is a thread complaining about that).
Rival wings should get some love.
Rolling the unreal fights out of the game also makes no sense.
They should figure out what they want to do with Grand Company and add rewards to buy with seals.
Etc

---

I really like your post and agree with everything you mentioned. Shared Fates would be nice to have in the earlier areas. It wouldn’t solve the problem, in fact it would be a drop in the bucket… but it would be something

Returning player here, queue is instantaneous with my white mage, server usually is congested by ~20 players.
It doesn't mean there's no such exodus, but the game is still very healthy.

I have no "reason" to come back, I was bored and thought "hey, that was a fun game".
I'm newbie too so that may be a factor in my perception of the community's health

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yoyoyako

Returning player here, queue is instantaneous with my white mage, server usually is congested by ~20 players.
It doesn't mean there's no such exodus, but the game is still very healthy.

I have no "reason" to come back, I was bored and thought "hey, that was a fun game".
I'm newbie too so that may be a factor in my perception of the community's health

---

There is always a "congestion queue", since the implement of the new connection method after the catastrophic Endwalker lauch. You can connect at 4 in the morning and still get a "congestion queue". So that tells nothing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yoyoyako

Returning player here, queue is instantaneous with my white mage, server usually is congested by ~20 players.
It doesn't mean there's no such exodus, but the game is still very healthy.

---

That is a anti-DDOS measure to slowly funnel logged in players into the server. You have to be on absolute dead dead times to potentially not run into one of those.

So many games, so little time.

No need to lock yourself down to one game.

it's kind of the cycle of life for corporate run stuff

has something special that builds a following
higher ups take notice of popularity and get involved
slowly over time everything special gets replaced with the generic to aim for more mass appeal
people lose interest because everything has become so generic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Garnix

How can cosmic exploration and beast master be "the usual mind numbing stuff" when we literally know nothing about either of them and the lessons they learned from previous iterations?

---

Cosmic is Ishguard Restoeation but on the moon. It’s crafter / gatherer content.

If BLU is any indication, BST will be a grind to 100 job and idle till next level increase unless it can be used for Moogle tomes.

Im still subscribed to the game but ONLY for the ultimate, i dont care about the game anymore, its going to shit, devs dont care and people still support this dumpster fire of a game, story is bad, dungeons are still boring etc.

everything the devs say is just lip service, they don't actually mean any of it, remember when they said theyre not gonna homogenize the jobs further? yet look what they did to DRG in 7.1 or how the devs said they gonna adjust PCT for FRU? well 7.1 dropped aaaaaand absolutely nothiiiiing, who coudlve thought? people need to wake up and stop defending this shit

after i have cleared the FRU im quitting the game and im not coming back, just too tired to try and support devs that dont give 2 shits about you, started playing WoW recently and enjoying it a lot

Players have been unhappy with any MMO I have played. This one isn't perfect, but seems better than most.

I am still climbing the ranks, so I don't see the end game issues, but I have plenty to do. I would also rather build in an MMO than in a game like the SIMS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebs

Im still subscribed to the game but ONLY for the ultimate, i dont care about the game anymore, its going to shit, devs dont care and people still support this dumpster fire of a game, story is bad, dungeons are still boring etc.

everything the devs say is just lip service, they don't actually mean any of it, remember when they said theyre not gonna homogenize the jobs further? yet look what they did to DRG in 7.1 or how the devs said they gonna adjust PCT for FRU? well 7.1 dropped aaaaaand absolutely nothiiiiing, who coudlve thought? people need to wake up and stop defending this shit

after i have cleared the FRU im quitting the game and im not coming back, just too tired to try and support devs that dont give 2 shits about you, started playing WoW recently and enjoying it a lot

---

WoW will have the same problems you note (for you) almost certainly at some point.

No game can keep everything perfect.

don't really care
i just play when i want to
also, if only the ones that compete with housing quit, that would be great, theres still hundreds of bids in a single freaking small

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JimCasey_RF6

It can't be a Great Exodus because I'm not going anywhere.

---

Dammit this post got me

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FlopsyPrince

WoW will have the same problems you note (for you) almost certainly at some point.

No game can keep everything perfect.

---

Wow has its own problems. I made a thread here about it but it vanished. They made a horrible anniversary event and have horrible bugs. Portals would dump you to die in the ocean. Imagine dozens players swimming to shore after being dumped for shark food. Not to mention the greed of their online store when it comes to mounts.
That being said, surprisingly hunter has been very fun to play there. I have been making alts there of every job.

the best thing they can for this game is get the beastmaster job done and released. It would give players something to do and it's very fun collecting the pokemon. Collecting spirit beasts in wow has been very enjoyable.

People ain't leaving in mass because content is still good to great story might be trash & content still spread out thin but that content is still pretty great like for me I like XI but I personally wish XI was big more harder on Rabanastre level since we're already skipping/pushing past some mechanics unlike Rab which we weren't skipping dragons/towers/blue red faces later phases until 3 - 4 weeks later versus XI skipping mechanics week 2.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

So many games, so little time.

No need to lock yourself down to one game.

---

Then don't ask for a subscription if you're not going to deliver updates/events often.

Remove it and then we can talk.

If you want to raid/dungeon then why would you even play this over WoW? Even Vanilla WoW (2004) has better raids and much….much better dungeons. And an actual game world.

I always was under the impression that the whole catch of XIV was the side content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kandraxx

If you want to raid/dungeon then why would you even play this over WoW? Even Vanilla WoW (2004) has better raids and much….much better dungeons. And an actual game world.

I always was under the impression that the whole catch of XIV was the side content.

---

One word Catgirls

I never understood from a business standpoint why wow doesn't have cat girls yet... Cat girl should be default in every mmo.Dragon freak Dracthyr are ugly as hell. All the new horde allied races are just as ugly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astronema

I never understood from a business standpoint why wow doesn't have cat girls yet... Cat girl should be default in every mmo.Dragon freak Dracthyr are ugly as hell. All the new horde allied races are just as ugly.

---

BOOOO! Dragons in WoW is pretty! GROWF!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astronema

I never understood from a business standpoint why wow doesn't have cat girls yet... Cat girl should be default in every mmo.Dragon freak Dracthyr are ugly as hell. All the new horde allied races are just as ugly.

---

I don't play WoW but it's certainly a lot more creative than XIV and other anime-design games where almost every race is a human with animal parts tackled on because the character designer is too afraid of making playable characters that aren't otaku bait.

Then again when they tried to make a Ronso inspired race it turned out a goofy temu version because they wanted to re-use Roe bodies and gave them postures nobody asked for...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kandraxx

If you want to raid/dungeon then why would you even play this over WoW? Even Vanilla WoW (2004) has better raids and much….much better dungeons. And an actual game world.

I always was under the impression that the whole catch of XIV was the side content.

---

How would you know though? You dont do any of the raiding content in this game. You are just a troll lmao.

weebos will always win, goofy will lose.

even lion girls in FFXIV looks anime

I wouldn't worry about a great exodus, because I looked at the posts you credited in the beginning and looked at the people comments etc., their post history and how far back the post about them "quitting" was.
I would advise everyone else here to look those people up yourself and even look at the people saying they will quit in several weeks or months and look again sometime later if they really did it.

Funnily a lot of them still comment in the forums even after their "supposed quitting". Also a lot of them apparently posted about quitting multiple times and didn't really do it.

I stopped looking at the comments you quoted in your original post, because after some time I saw that a lot of them are still fairly active and it doesn't seem like they really quit FFXIV at all.

Also aren't you blocked from posting here if you have no active subscription? I am personally not sure if this is true.
I also haven't really looked at the post history of everyone of those people, so maybe there are some who really did quit. But apparently none of those i looked at really quit.
I mostly looked at the people who should've quit until now. Not really at the people who said they will quit when their sub runs out in Decembre for example.

But there were some people who said they will quit directly or their sub runs out in 2-3 days.
Even though they said their sub will end in 2-3 days, they were still posting several weeks after they did this post or are still actively posting right now.

You all can check the post history of many people yourself.
If anyone of them will still frequent these forums after their supposed "quitting" you already know it was all a farce to begin with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Astronema

I never understood from a business standpoint why wow doesn't have cat girls yet... Cat girl should be default in every mmo.Dragon freak Dracthyr are ugly as hell. All the new horde allied races are just as ugly.

---

Because WoW is more a Western fantasy game, so it has elves instead. Night Elves, Blood Elves, Nightborne, Void Elves, and customization to look like Undead Elves or High Elves. The most requested new allied race from the new expansion, yet another elf looking thing in Harronir. Seriously elves in WoW are basically eevee's from pokemon, put them at a power source too long and they change into a new kind of elf.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TimotheusReed

Also aren't you blocked from posting here if you have no active subscription? I am personally not sure if this is true.

---

People can post if their forum character has been logged in the game in the past 2-3 weeks, and usually you need a subscription to log in. That gives people 2-3 weeks to post until the forum logs them out. However, if you login during a free-to-play campaign weekend (which we had at the end of October, 3½ weeks ago) you can also post for a while after that.

My end date is in my signature and you can see for yourself that I will not be able to post in around 3 weeks. I've already dismantled my submarines and emptied my houses for demolition, and the only reason I'm logging in is to sell stuff to empty my inventory so I don't have to deal with it if I use those free weekend campaigns in the future. So the last login will be on my last day and should give you an accurate estimate of how long people can post.