If the 10% was randomized then that is more then sufficient information to draw conclusions from. It's not like polls survey literally the entire population...Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
We lost 70% of our player base half a year in
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06-25-2022, 12:39 PMRolder50
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06-25-2022, 02:05 PMAlyaNimfaMultiplatform game, not two platforms. Also a minority population on Steam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rolder50
I'm sad to see these hysteric threads infecting here after seeing it elsewhere, where their games are still around. People need to touch grass. -
06-25-2022, 02:58 PMKomarimono
For the longest time, Steam didn't even know when I ran the game until this recent change. The fact I'm forced to now is disappointing.
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06-25-2022, 04:42 PMVelKallor"We surveyed 300 people out of a population of 10 millionQuote:
It's not like polls survey literally the entire population...
Every time I see these polls that say "85% of the population agree" i just sit and laugh myself hoarse..see. NOT ONCE in 50 years have I or anyone I know ever been polled...soo..they dont speak for me as I was never asked.
There are lies.
Damned lies.
And statistics. -
06-25-2022, 06:29 PManhaatoJust out of curiosity, what is an acceptable sample size to you?Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
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06-25-2022, 07:08 PMToutatis
So the Op takes 6 months of the Steam numbers which are incomplete to begin with, choses the release of an expansion in December as the starting point to draw a conclusion to the effect that the “game is dying”? Lol.
It is normal to have a huge peak when something major and new is released. Many go through the story and that’s it. If you look further back , the (incomplete) Steam numbers show an overall increase over the years. It’s pretty hard to draw any conclusions from those numbers as the steam version also had issues. It is doubtful SE would be adding new worlds if the game was dying...
It’s not just the size of the sample that counts. While I am sure that there has been a peak followed by a decrease of the number of players across all platforms/purchase sites in the past six months due to the release of the expansion in December, we don’t know how representative the Steam sample is of the overall game population (though the poster above you clearly does not understand anything to polling methodology, including randomization and weighting, and statistics).Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
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06-25-2022, 08:33 PMVelKallorRealistically speaking?Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
If the survey is to include a population of over 100,000, then an acceptable sample would be at least ONE HALF. Telling me that I am in the group that agrees with some idiotic claim after a sample of 300 people in a population of 300,000 ( the local area I am in ) is absolutely bizarre.
"We sampled a group of 300 people and have concluded that 85% of a population of 300,000 agree with it" is to put it bluntly, idiotic.
Ask 5000 people and you get 5000 DIFFERENT answers.
its like these political polls you see that apparently agree with some asinine government proposal....leading me to ask who did they ask, the members of that particular political party? We never hear who they talked to , or their political affiliation either.
Then again we never know if the questions themselves were loaded to get a predetermined result.
Throw out all the statistics you like, they are all garbage.
Ive never been polled ONCE in over fifty years. No one I know has, no one in my family has been.....so no i dont agree with these "polls"...you want my opinions?
ASK ME.
Most statistics are utter GIGO.
Wrong.Quote:
(though the poster above you clearly does not understand anything to polling methodology, including randomization and weighting, and statistics).
Worked for a statistician on several projects, and am very familiar with the entire system. I dont care what "polling methodology" you use, any survey that gets a sample of 10% and then concludes that those results accurately affects the other 90% is...........delusional.
He thought the "science" was a steaming load of fwe too. -
06-26-2022, 01:02 AMRaoabolicDon't worry about the naysayers, they are just pessimists that notice basic patterns. :^)Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
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06-26-2022, 01:40 AMDPZ2
Statistically speaking (and yes, I do have a degree in a field directly related to statistics: biometry) the only thing one may infer from the Steam numbers is that the average concurrent number of Steam players who play FFXIV at any given time has dropped from a high at Expansion Release to the current low at the current moment.
One cannot use statistics to assert that the observed drop is due to any speculative argument of the OP. The conclusion that "you WILL lose the remaining playerbase" based on Steam numbers is ludicrous ...
And, yes, mmo-population utilizes a methodology that is as speculative as all get-out. I use it as a sort of "buzz counter". The less "buzz" a game gets, the fewer people are interested in talking about that game, which correlates, but does not confirm, the amount of players in the game. If you know of anything closer to reality across a wide swath of games (and no, Steam numbers don't count for anything that is cross-platform), bring it up. I still trust their numbers are closer to reality than the OP's speculation of a 70% drop across all platforms for this game.
[Biometry: the application of statistical analysis to biological data. Back in the days when I got my degrees, the general path was to go work for a company doing biomedical research, mostly in the pharmaceutical industry. I spent the decade following graduation working as a Research Fellow for a University's Health Informatics department that was operating a research resource for the National Institutes of Health.] -
06-26-2022, 01:49 AMShougunYou do not need that many people to have VERY accurate statistics.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
https://i.imgur.com/5sWlNQq.png
The biggest issue is having biased samples, biased questions (leading to biased results), and of course either really cleverly worded or lying statistics (like you can tie unrelated things together and make them appear strongly related, those fun stories about how you drink coffee and so you're a psycho or whatever lol).
A fun one that isn't lying is good stuff like you could have a 5,000% increase but if you're going from .005 to .25.. It could still be relatively meaningless to people (particularly if you were using smaller % like "50" or "100" lol, then combined with purposeful wording like 50% larger, but forgot to mention there is 30% more air and the tube was already tiny and the box is huge, etc, :3).
Forums for example, if they were a good sample, would very easily represent the game. Of course due to their nature they can't be a perfect sample cause it's all voluntary / away from the game and there are specific biases to why you'd be here then, like to complain because most people don't post to state what they like (data, imo, still VERY useful but you couldn't let the forum, reddit, twitter, etc, blindly lead you).
Steam drop off in and of itself wouldn't help you too much. Like you'd have to see if this drop off happens before, as we know people come and go to games as content is hot / whatever reason (big game comes out, like Elden Ring, etc). If majority players are on steam then the drop would be a bit O_o;; but I assume that's not true (have not bothered to look it up, this is the best form of statistics I tell ya.. lol), so then you'd have to contend with what that means (if that introduces issues, like 'can you pool steam data into all the other data and it doesn't introduce flaws?' perhaps steam does represent the game, maybe it doesn't - I don't think we have the data to really determine it, and even if it did again it could be 'mmo as expected').
If we wanted to determine the health of the game I feel an easier way to do this is just to wait for their financial reports, rather than guess at something that could be business as usual or misleading us given some interesting relationship we're not seeing because we don't have a good full picture. -
06-26-2022, 02:23 AMDPZ2Fiscal Year 2022 for Square Enix (ending 31 March 2022) shows an increase in net sales for their MMO properties of a bit over 150% from FY2021. There were two major expansion pack releases (for FFXIV and Dragon Quest X) in 3rd quarter of FY2021, which will account for some [yet] unknown part of that increase.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shougun
I expect that any great losses due to mass player exodus (as opposed, say, to players simply not playing as much two to three months after a major patch release) would be reflected in the FY2023/Q1 and FY2023/Q2 reports.
Interestingly, there is again reference (slides 28/29) to what Square Enix now calls their "Blockchain Entertainment" domain, including creation of a Blockchain Entertainment Business Division back in February 2022. A second season of Shi-San-Sai Million Arthur is being produced. The company appears to have had a successful first season of that NFT business venture.
(Source: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...22q4slides.pdf)
I would note that most Blockchain experiments in gaming cannot involve the same resources utilized for the Digital Fiat Exchange popularized as "Crypto Coins". Instead, they are in-house properties. Which makes sense since it costs a large amount of virtual coin to actual 'mint' an NFT for the general speculative market. -
06-26-2022, 02:41 AMShougunThanks for looking into!Quote:
Originally Posted by DPZ2
I was like "I think that's where I'd look if I wanted to find out, but I haven't had my morning coffee yet so.. no thanks" lol. I agree we need 2023 for a good idea of what the trend looks like.
Personally not too worried about it. If Blizzard was working hard on their image, which they are not lol . . ., then hearing some of the changes they're making in Dragonflight would have me more concerned (I mean SE should still keep an eye out, but that's just good practice). When I first heard they were doing some even more alt friendly stuff, and refining some of the more unfriendly systems, I was thinking 'they're coming for FFXIV's target audience' but unless Dragonflight is superb my 'vibe' isn't too many will exodus back when that releases. Now if WoW did some superb changes, including making what is akin to a job system out of alts, and Blizzard improves their company narrative... More worrisome. -
06-26-2022, 03:15 AMDPZ2
I'm not so sure that Activision/Blizzard overcoming their current woes by releasing a better updated game is going to be problem for Square Enix. I suspect it will drive other competitors to up their game and bring about another round of gaming companies considering releasing some form of MMORPG, since the top two such companies appear to be doing well.
As always there will be winners and losers. The "losers" still bring in a hefty amount of money, or you wouldn't see older MMORPGs still churning out content releases. Even Ultima Online is still up-and-running as a subscription-based MMORPG. Some games retire after a few years, some continue on for decades. There is no right or wrong game to play, nor is the gaming community stuck in a zero-sum competition for players.
At least that's what I see, based on about 40 years of playing multiplayer RPGs. (Circa 1983: Scepter of Goth: a text-based multiplayer RPG with 16 maximum concurrent players with a subscription to play). -
06-26-2022, 03:22 AMShougunEh I don't think FFXIV would fail even if WoW did AMAZING. I just like if we can keep a lot of the people who left lol. :3Quote:
Originally Posted by DPZ2
Yet I feel if WoW was able to take some of the best features of FFXIV, fix some of their major issues, and they've already have that massive gravity - would be like 'aw man'. Since I'm rooting for FFXIV lol.
Of course FFXIV could take that as a hint to do better, so it's not entirely bad for us. For me personally Blizzard needs to put work into their image before I bother with them again, so many things happened that were big jokes (and I even tried to give them some benefit of the doubt during their initial investigations).
Before all the moral drama, and diablo immoral, I was seriously bothered by how dirty they did WC3 (which was like a teenage years defining game for me). -
06-26-2022, 03:30 AManhaato"Realistically speaking" and "a survey should include at least half of a large population" don't belong in the same sentence. Good luck getting more than a couple thousand responses on any voluntary survey. Have you also considered that maybe you're part of the 15%? Like, how are you offended by something inferred from a survey? No one is telling you you're part of the majority, but it seems that the simple notion that you might not be absolutely grates on you.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
And all of this has very little to do with the matter at hand; these Steam numbers may be a representative cross section of the playerbase. Steam numbers are a minority of the players, yes, but this minority may be enough to be statistically reliable. Unless you can provide other reasons why the sample would be unreliable without creating some made up cutoff as to what qualifies as a "true representative sample?" -
06-26-2022, 03:35 AMLaurontSource: trust this guy I know bruh.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
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06-26-2022, 03:38 AMIscahAsk 5000 people a "yes or no" question and you will get two answers: yes and no.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
The proportion of yesses and noes is what gives you your statistic, and at no point is it ever claiming that you are in the group that gives the opposite answer to what you personally think.
If you would answer "no", and the statistic is "70% say yes and 30% say no", that means you are (theoretically) in the 30%. -
06-26-2022, 04:59 AMKolsykolFFXIV has increased in players with every expansion even way back before peoples views on Blizzard and WoW changed so drastically.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shougun
So even when WoW was doing amazing it didn't seem to negatively affect FFXIV in this regard.
It's pretty crazy to think that Blizzard actually lost players even during the peak of Covid tho.
It does feel kinda absurd tho with a lot of the doomsaying about FFXIV ( which has been happening since ARR ) in contrast to that. -
06-26-2022, 05:19 AMHyperiaThe numbers sound real to me based upon FC activity. We have a totally new dynamic right now taking place in the game so all past numbers can have their weight reduced.Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
The game officially ended the 10 year story arc and from what I have seen so far in 6.1, the “new start” has been lackluster. I normally play every day but even I have had trouble playing due to the sheer amount of despair in the 6.0 content.
At this point, I think it was a mistake to end everything in 6.0 as we basically have to wait two years for major new content. Few hours of MSQ and a few new dungeons is not going to feel like a good relaunch.
I have a bad feeling that they lost interest in XIV and have been focusing on XVI instead.
Players want to have fun playing a game and the sheer magnitude of despair from 6.0 is probably making them leave, had it not been for my friends, I probably would have too. -
06-26-2022, 05:37 AManhaatoI can kinda attest. My fc tried to pick itself back up recently for stuff like maps and reclears, but there was a good few months where I was the only one online whenever I logged in for some gposing because there's not much otherwise content I haven't already done. My non fc friends, though, have been radio silent after the first couple weeks of 6.1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperia
The issue with them "ending" the story in 6.0 and starting a new story in the following patches is they're still beholding themselves to the patch schedule, and that affects how much story drops at once. And if it turns out that 6.1's story is only relevant for the trial series and not the next expansion, that'll make it seem even worse. If it's just a lead in that doesn't actually start anything new, then why couldn't they hold out until 6.4 after concluding the story in 6.3? They really shot themselves in the foot with this one. And 6.0's story has had more mixed reviews than any other expansion I've seen.
Most of the notable talent from the XIV team has been dropped off at XVI since 2017. That includes Maehiro (HW writer) and Koji. It's starting to become painfully obvious that the game is run on a skeleton crew, and even if people are saying they still enjoy the game and find something to do, the enthusiasm just isn't there like it was a couple years ago.
In other news, Yoshida stepped down from the board of directors 2 days ago. Maybe the game isn't doing as hot as they would have us believe. -
06-26-2022, 11:38 AMIscahAs covered in the specific thread, this is incorrect and looking at the wrong list.Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
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06-26-2022, 11:53 AMVelKallorOr simply he had too much work to do, and wants to focus on the games itself.Quote:
In other news, Yoshida stepped down from the board of directors 2 days ago. Maybe the game isn't doing as hot as they would have us believe.
You can read that announcement any number of ways, yours being just one of them. Did it ever occur to you that he stepped down in order to concentrate on making the game as best possible? -
06-26-2022, 12:17 PMVelKallorA year or so ago, a local community in my area was told about a new developement in the area, they were told it was going ahead because their "polls and statistics" said that a large percentage of people wanted said developement.Quote:
You do not need that many people to have VERY accurate statistics.
The resulting outrage, fury and MASSIVE objections from people WHEN THEY HAD ACTUALLY BEEN ASKED if they wanted it or not was enough to cancel said project. Their "statistical polls" said it would be a welcome addition to the area.
They got the shock of their lives when said community, once they knew of this little concept and its intended implementation, stood up and said HELL NO get this out of here, we refuse and we will protest and fight you on it.
Statistics ( and yes I do know the concepts and the ideas of margins, polling levels, sample sizes etc ) can be useful. They can also be an avenue for a huge mistake when you take a miniscule number of peoples opinions as gospel.
The matter was then quietly and VERY quickly dropped. They polled maybe 100 people out of a community of several thousand, and took said poll results as proof that the majority approved of the idea.
THEY. WERE. WRONG.
Statistics, when done properly, are a useful and at times essential tool for gauging the probability of success or in determining trends in a specific area. Their major weakness is that said figures can then be manipulated or misused or misread....in the end what you get is, guess what. GIGO.
On this we agree, with a caveat. I refer back to WOW, and their trumpeting of their "record sales" and their "successful expac"...leaving out the fact that a few months in , all those new customers walked out the door in disgust.Quote:
If we wanted to determine the health of the game I feel an easier way to do this is just to wait for their financial reports, rather than guess at something that could be business as usual or misleading us given some interesting relationship we're not seeing because we don't have a good full picture.
Their "statistics" said the game was a success. Their horrendous attrition rate, was, however, glossed over or conveniently omitted.
An MMO lives on money, agreed, at the same time is it just as valid an evalulation of said MMO when they consistently and pathologically fail to retain said customers. Acquisition of customers is a "loss leader" as it costs far more to gain new customers than it is to retain them.
I stand by my previous comments on sample sizes, and from my POV, polling 0.2% of a large population is idiotic. 0.2% does not in any way accurately reflect reality. A local council and a specific construction company lost 2.1 million dollars as a result.....which then bled over into the next local council elections, which resulted in those responsible being turfed out on their ear.
Yeah. Ouch. -
06-26-2022, 12:55 PMShurrikhanSo you're using an example of purposely biased selection and deliberate misrepresentation to deny any and all use, also, of unbiased, randomized sampling? The numbers at play here aren't a mere hundred, but rather in the six digits.Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
That is size enough for a plenty representative sample unless the choice of launcher itself --double-clicking a link from one's Library instead of starting the standalone launcher, entering the password, and pressing Enter-- would significantly affect one's perception of the game.
These, too, are two separate issues.Quote:
and their trumpeting of their "record sales" and their "successful expac"...leaving out the fact that a few months in , all those new customers walked out the door in disgust.
Many people can be sold on the idea of a product only to realize soon after that the product is shit or has little to no longevity. That the honeymoon ended quickly doesn't mean initial sales were extremely high and the product's success therefore at first seemed fairly likely.
Case in point: Most expansion drops... into relatively little at-release or near-release endgame content. -
06-26-2022, 12:58 PMRaoabolicHe's right, he was butting heads with SE for a long while. The pop up mogstation ad when you went into an inn was the comprise Yoshida and SE had when it came to showing the mogstation in game. I wonder how SE will handle Yoshida since he stepped down and is effectively another employee that answers to SE and their board of directors. I can't wait to see what happens, I bet it will be funny!Quote:
Originally Posted by VelKallor
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06-26-2022, 01:01 PMVelKallorIm saying that treating statistics as accurate or gospel can lead to major errors.Quote:
So you're using an example of purposely biased selection and deliberate misrepresentation to deny any and all use, also, of unbiased, randomized sampling? The numbers at play here aren't a mere hundred, but rather in the six digits.
Possibly.Quote:
That is size enough for a plenty representative sample unless the choice of launcher itself --double-clicking a link from one's Library instead of starting the standalone launcher, entering the password, and pressing Enter-- would significantly affect one's perception of the game.
But that ignores the fact STEAM and the launcher are two separate platforms, so sure take STEAM details as data sure...wheres the data on launcher clients? Absent that, that "statistic"
is utterly false. GIGO error.Quote:
" We lost 70% of our player base half a year in "
I also note that the VERY SAME topic was posted on the WOW forums a while back. This comment says it all
andQuote:
Also most of the FFXIV playerbase isn’t on steam. Steam has its own codes etc, and doesn’t have the sales that the Mog Station has.
The vast majority of FFXIV use the client launcher.
Makes as much sense as another poster over there saying FF 14 is "dead" because of Twitch viewers.Quote:
They fail to make it clear that the -13% of the players are those who play the game thru Steam (the smallest group of players), according to the other thread. They’ve disregarded the numbers who play thru the launcher directly from Squenix, as well as console players, as they were told numerous times. My best guess is that Steam is about 2%-3% of the player base…so 13% of that 2-3% - barely a blip.
My point stands.
STEAM as a metric is not in any way representative of the playerbase as a whole. -
06-26-2022, 01:12 PMStriker44Except Steam users is not an example of unbiased, randomized sampling. Steam users are skewed to a certain demographic that more likely has different general interests than those using the SE launcher, which in turn is a different demographic than console users. Steam data is not reliably representative of anything except Steam users. Period.Quote:
So you're using an example of purposely biased selection and deliberate misrepresentation to deny any and all use, also, of unbiased, randomized sampling?
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06-26-2022, 01:24 PMShurrikhanBy all means, name a factor from choosing to double-click A instead of B just to enter the game that would skew their perception of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Striker44
What is it about using one launcher over another that'd make a given launcher-derived "group" uniquely less appeasable? -
06-26-2022, 01:26 PMVahlnirI mean, Yoshi P didn't step down at all. The person who provided a list of board members in that other thread had a list of the wrong board. So, you're just...misinformed here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoabolic
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06-26-2022, 04:38 PMhagareyou really should edit this out.Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
Since it's been proven false and all -
06-26-2022, 07:05 PManhaatoDon't tell me what to doQuote:
Originally Posted by hagare
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06-26-2022, 07:13 PMAlyaNimfaI’m telling mom!Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
Also it’s hillarious (and sad) this thread is still going. -
06-26-2022, 11:02 PMPaduduYou'd think it would be bigger news if that actually happened, there's no stepping down quietly for something like that :pQuote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
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06-26-2022, 11:40 PMVahlnirHonestly, it's strange that they haven't yet. That's basically their MO. Make a post, get proven wrong, delete contents of post. I had a feeling that they seemed familiar. Their handling of their other thread all but confirms it.Quote:
Originally Posted by hagare
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06-27-2022, 12:47 AMRaoabolicThen I guess i'm.... just misinformed here. Serves me right for believing everything I read on the internet, lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vahlnir
*continues to read stuff from the AP* -
06-27-2022, 02:11 AManhaatoI made the post in this thread, then made the new thread, then found out it was false and edited the thread. But you seem to know me better than I know myself, so do please let me know what my goal is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vahlnir
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06-27-2022, 02:19 AMJohaandryeah and we used to say the raid community is 2% lolQuote:
Originally Posted by ryouma17
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06-27-2022, 02:51 AMShougunUsually I hear that about ultimate, which it is on average a lower end single digit %, though I've not seen that on raid community. General raid is also minority (but a pretty decent size, at least double digit %).Quote:
Originally Posted by Johaandr
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06-27-2022, 03:12 AMAbsurdityThe single digit % occasionally get thrown around by people who have no clue what they're talking about and usually come with arguments along the lines ofQuote:
Originally Posted by Shougun
Depending on the data center the savage clear rate is up to 30% of the population, iirc this only counts the people who have cleared the entire tier and not the people still progging or only doing 1 or 2 fights.Quote:
Savage is content for elitists that nobody is doing and should be removed from the game. SE should instead cater to ME and my desire for more XYZ casual content.
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06-27-2022, 03:28 AMShougunOf course that % will be smaller when we're talking as a whole, since the peak of a raid focused space wont represent the most casual group and it would be manipulating statistics unethically to remove them to represent the general interest in that content.. yet it's still definitely in the double digits (for savage). It was like 2-4 years ago when I last bothered but I felt like it was 15-25% when averaging. And Ultimate was like 2-5%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Absurdity
Given that a lot of content probably doesn't have majority clear, 20-30 range is not bad at all (and probably an obvious reason why they still make quite a few of them). Too bad we don't have in game polls that also are open publicly.. Would be interesting to know more about these things for sure.