The Great FFXIV Exodus of 2024

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Originally Posted by Reinha

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.

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Ah okay. I didn't know that. But it still stands why a lot of those people still post regularly on the forums if they wanted to quit the game.
If you really want to quit a game it is propably best if you just move on and don't frequently post on the official forums for a game you already quit.

But we will still see in a few months then if some of those peopel really quit.

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Originally Posted by TimotheusReed

Ah okay. I didn't know that. But it still stands why a lot of those people still post regularly on the forums if they wanted to quit the game.
If you really want to quit a game it is propably best if you just move on and don't frequently post on the official forums for a game you already quit.

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Well that's up to the people in question. I don't really see what the big deal is with airing grievances and giving some final feedback to the devs especially if someone has been playing this one game longer than a lot of marriages last these days. It can be cathartic and maybe even help with the process of moving on.

I can't speak for anyone on that matter or guarantee that they really quit or took a break. This thread isn't a call for a movement but rather an observation of this anomaly where someone says "I'm quitting" and they don't get 29 responses saying "can I have your stuff" or "don't let the door hit you", but instead 29 other people say they are quitting too. It's unprecedented. Players, subscribed or not, are not acting like they used to and it's clear as day to me that this game is at a turning point. Time will tell if people really are leaving or not.

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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.

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Because weeb shit has no place in a nerd game!

FFXIV is a weeb game, WoW is only for nerds. Get that right, jeez!


/s

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

Because weeb shit has no place in a nerd game!

FFXIV is a weeb game, WoW is only for nerds. Get that right, jeez!


/s

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What if you’re a nerd and a weeb. A neeb? Werd?

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Originally Posted by Connor

What if you’re a nerd and a weeb. A neeb? Werd?

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Now these are the real questions one should be asking.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Well that's up to the people in question. I don't really see what the big deal is with airing grievances and giving some final feedback to the devs especially if someone has been playing this one game longer than a lot of marriages last these days. It can be cathartic and maybe even help with the process of moving on.

I can't speak for anyone on that matter or guarantee that they really quit or took a break. This thread isn't a call for a movement but rather an observation of this anomaly where someone says "I'm quitting" and they don't get 29 responses saying "can I have your stuff" or "don't let the door hit you", but instead 29 other people say they are quitting too. It's unprecedented. Players, subscribed or not, are not acting like they used to and it's clear as day to me that this game is at a turning point. Time will tell if people really are leaving or not.

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To be fair even in WoW there always were many people joining in once a person talked about quitting. And I say this as a person who has played WoW on and off since OG Classic WoW in 2004.
The MMO discussions haven't really changed since then.

People always talked about letting their subscription run out, they always talked about the game dying and class balance was always a problem.
These discussions have been the same since the beginning of MMOs. And as someone who has played multiple MMOs I feel like I know when a game really is struggling.

I know the state of MMO communities once a game is REALLY dying. I was there when Warhammer and Wildstar shut down.
And FFXIV is far far away from that point in its current state.

Also WoW was in its most succesful state at the time many people talked about WoW dying.

As long as people discuss FFXIV (even if it is negative) the MMO still is in a healthy state. Because this still shows that people care about a game.

I've been playing since 2020, I'm just going to say that I loved ffxiv the first time I played it and I'm still playing it. Sometimes I give myself my breaks however, this expansion leaves something to be desired. I guess the anger and frustration from the previous expansion finally broke out. and I understand them, I too am angry at yoshida, I join the players who demand a quality msq and casual content.

The pandemic fucked everything up, yes, but that's no reason to take 5 months to deliver a patch with little casual content and to top it all off, extending the life of the patch in a blatant way is the most stupid things ever

Quitting an MMO often means wildly different things to people.

I quit WoW, multiple times. The last time a month after Shadowlands launched. I'm currently one good deal on their expansion away from coming back to see what's changed.
I quit The Secret World when they relaunched, despite having a lifetime subscription for it. This is one of the three MMORPGs I've actually, consciously, quit for good.
I quit Warhammer and Wildstar, because the games shut down for good and I didn't have a choice.
I quit a lot of games I never really started like LOTRO (never really clicked with me, stopped 2 months in), Age of Conan (broken mess on launch, came back 6 months after release to find it still broken, stopped bothering) and a lot of F2P titles that didn't click or turned out to be P2W cashgrabs. LotRO and AoC lost me for good when they deleted my characters/accounts.
I simply lost interest in other games and never bothered to come back like DAoC (my first MMO, I hear it's still running somehow?),Rift and SWTOR (which now seem to be some F2P conversion affair?).

I pause a bunch of others I have all intention of getting back to, eventually. I just don't have the time to play everything simultaneously. GW2 is one of those, Warframe was another I recently got back into.

As for FFXIV, I'm now what I see referred to as a seasonal subscription after having been continuously subscribed to it ever since picking the game back up when Stormblood was announced. (I did initially "quit" over Titan Ex when the EU servers were in Narnia, come to think of it)
I come back occasionally for seasonal events if the rewards are interesting or to check out major cotent patches.
7.1 didn't exactly manage to grab my interest so my sub is currently set to expire on the 27th (resubbed for All Saints' Wake) and since Starlight Celebration doesn't look too interesting I'll probably only be back for Heavensturn if we get more than a mascot minion or whatever events we get after that leading up to 7.2
Unless one of the people I used to play with comes back and wants to do something, everyone stopped playing after 7.0 (two are still house-logging but not doing anything besides that) and XIV is not my flavor of longterm solo MMORPG.
I'm not at the point where I'd say I'm quitting the game but my engagement with it is decreasing and they run the risk of losing my interest and the game eventually slipping off my radar.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

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.

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Woah. Dismantling your submarines and prepping your houses for demolition? Are you sure you want to do that? We don't know each other much but I'd be happy to make a character or two on your server to help you save that aspect of your progress if you want while you are away from the game.

We have to wait so many months to get refreshing content. Staggered content releases worked during previous expansions, but it simply doesn't anymore with a 5 month patch cycle. The content is consumed way to fast and it doesnt last long enough.

And I think, CBU3 has to restructure content. It's simply not enough to release 1 dungeon, 1 extreme primal, 1 raid, 1 custom delivery, 1 allied tribe per patch. FFXIV needs new reward structures and a better progression system besides the LEVEL 100 bar.

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Originally Posted by JimCasey_RF6

Woah. Dismantling your submarines and prepping your houses for demolition? Are you sure you want to do that? We don't know each other much but I'd be happy to make a character or two on your server to help you save that aspect of your progress if you want while you are away from the game.

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Thank you for the kind offer, but my submarines are gone already. The plots will get demolished when auto-demo is turned back on and if I get lucky with the timing maybe I will receive some gil for those when the next callback campaign happens. And someone else will get lucky in the lottery. I've given up houses before and each time I've bought one or spent days decorating it I did so with the understanding that one day I would need to let it go.

I also considered giving the subs away, but in the end I didn't want to contribute to SE getting another guaranteed subscription from a new housing hostage or for a fellow player to feel like they are compelled to keep playing because of something I made. I kept my fleet going for almost two years because I really liked building it from scratch and being rewarded for it, but when the game as a whole stopped being enjoyable it became a chore to click through the menus every day. I would look at the game on my pc desktop and not want to log in even for the free gil, and yet I was always keeping a mental record of the demolition timer. It's a relief to not have to deal with it anymore.

That one about having no friends left and the game leaving a bad taste in ones mouth sounds like the endgame experience in a nutshell.

You can't really do PF prog outside of an increasingly narrow window due to people just lying about where they are at and wasting peoples time for days. It got to the point I had to spend an entire weekend and 146 gemdroughts to finally clear m4s, because so many people didn't understand mechanics that the PF description clearly states the group expects people to know.

To make matters worse, I'm seeing the same behavior happen with rather increasing frequency in the latest extreme, which is incredibly problematic since once person messing up the meteors or ice bridge wipes the group.

The content was not built to be some big attrition battle against other players ignorance, it was built to be a group challenge against a puzzle. And without alternatives to this end game loop, it just reinforces this exact behavior in all the other content as well.

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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.

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Sure, but SE literally lied about making changes to PCT and not homogenizing jobs anymore, they also have no idea how to balance their game, does WoW have problems? yes absolutely, the community can be really toxic, the balance is wonky, but the game is fun, there is a bunch of content to do and that keeps making me logging in weekly, in XIV there is nothing, i did the savage and even then i literally logged in each week for 2 hours to clear it then i logged out, maybe i did 2-3 expert roulettes to cap my tomestones but that it, so the fact that they charge me 20 goddamn euros (sub + additional retainers) is insane, yet they keep lying and breaking their promises and the community is not good either, they literally white knight the game to oblivion, bunch of "yes-mans" that refuse to believe the truth that SE does not care anymore

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Originally Posted by Astronema

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.

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Its funny, people always say that Blizzard is money hungry company and while i do not deny their questionable choices when bobby was still CEO, SE is really money hungry aswell, 13€ sub for barely any reason to log in except once a week, they literally charge you for bank space (and when you think about just how bad the glamour system is and if you like glamour hoarding then it gets expensive and doing crafting on top of that) so you literally pay around 20€ each month for sub and retainers, XIV also has the mogstation shop, sure its a bit cheaper than blizzards store but they also add stuff there twice as often.

But yeah, its true what you said, there is a lot of bugs, i actually like the anniversary event but i can understand why many dont like it, but the gameplay is fun, the classes and specs are fun an unique, gear is fun and feels impactful and they have the guts to try new stuff and make unique new fights etc. meanwhile XIV has bland jobs, gear that does not matter or doesnt have any cool effect and stuff, fights are repetitive and barely changing, while i do have good memories from XIV, its just not in good state

We'll see if it was worth it all, at the end of the road. Dawntrail, for me, has been the most lackluster out of all of the story content and it has given me the opportunity to pursue other games and return to hobbies that I left collecting dust when I began my journey.
There is no shame in venting your frustrations about the pacing of the game, its content and its hinted direction by SE; if the game has failed your expectations, then come and go as you please and find what makes you happiest. Your time is more valuable than SE's intentions for its customers and the products the customers fell in love with, so use it in whatever means is best to you. If you return, do it with a heart full of intrigue and adventure. If you don't, find your journey out there and be glad in it.

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Originally Posted by TomsYoungerBro

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

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But they ain't wrong, i like XIV raids but they are getting boring, every fight is literally: Do this mech perfectly or you wipe, there is barely any RNG that affects how the fight goes, healing is boring since incoming damage is so low, predictable or just one shots you or your group and tanking is boring since the boss almost always dashes middle of the arena for any mech, the tank busters are boring, tank swapping is boring (there is little point to even having a second tank except for 5 second buster swaps then its back for the MT to tank), meanwhile in WoW the fights have really fun and unique mechs, like the current raid there is a boss where 4 or 5 players will leave a mirage that will become a black hole at one point, starting to suck them in, the mirages need to be put in a circle or square spots and the raid needs to stand in the middle of them so they dont get sucked into them since standing between the black holes neutralize their suck but if they are all on 1 side then you just get sucked in really fast, its really cool and fun mech, something that XIV will never have since all they do is: circle AOE, donut AOE, side sweep 1 and 2, light party/healer stacks, partner stacks, spread etc. same thing every damn time

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Originally Posted by Sebs

But they ain't wrong, i like XIV raids but they are getting boring, every fight is literally: Do this mech perfectly or you wipe, there is barely any RNG that affects how the fight goes, healing is boring since incoming damage is so low, predictable or just one shots you or your group and tanking is boring since the boss almost always dashes middle of the arena for any mech, the tank busters are boring, tank swapping is boring (there is little point to even having a second tank except for 5 second buster swaps then its back for the MT to tank), meanwhile in WoW the fights have really fun and unique mechs, like the current raid there is a boss where 4 or 5 players will leave a mirage that will become a black hole at one point, starting to suck them in, the mirages need to be put in a circle or square spots and the raid needs to stand in the middle of them so they dont get sucked into them since standing between the black holes neutralize their suck but if they are all on 1 side then you just get sucked in really fast, its really cool and fun mech, something that XIV will never have since all they do is: circle AOE, donut AOE, side sweep 1 and 2, light party/healer stacks, partner stacks, spread etc. same thing every damn time

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Healing and tanking died the day the game decided that there was only 3 places your health bar could ever be

100%- you haven’t done the mechanic yet
10%- you did the mechanic correctly
0%- you did the mechanic incorrectly or you didn’t mitigate enough

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Originally Posted by Sebs

Its funny, people always say that Blizzard is money hungry company and while i do not deny their questionable choices when bobby was still CEO, SE is really money hungry aswell, 13€ sub for barely any reason to log in except once a week, they literally charge you for bank space (and when you think about just how bad the glamour system is and if you like glamour hoarding then it gets expensive and doing crafting on top of that) so you literally pay around 20€ each month for sub and retainers, XIV also has the mogstation shop, sure its a bit cheaper than blizzards store but they also add stuff there twice as often.

But yeah, its true what you said, there is a lot of bugs, i actually like the anniversary event but i can understand why many dont like it, but the gameplay is fun, the classes and specs are fun an unique, gear is fun and feels impactful and they have the guts to try new stuff and make unique new fights etc. meanwhile XIV has bland jobs, gear that does not matter or doesnt have any cool effect and stuff, fights are repetitive and barely changing, while i do have good memories from XIV, its just not in good state

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The retainer greed of SE really is evil. We should of gotten an extra retainer for free with each expansion. I have like 7 inactive locked away filled into deep storage to the max at 175 with collected glamour items. The failure to give us proper storage for things like materia and dye and tackle seems like a tactic to give them money for the extra retainer space just to keep basic necessities.

Can I have all your stuff?

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Originally Posted by Sebs

Its funny, people always say that Blizzard is money hungry company and while i do not deny their questionable choices when bobby was still CEO, SE is really money hungry aswell

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That's what every company is. CAPCOM, FromSoft, KONAMI, Bethesda, they're all money hungry, they will all do microtransactions, and the only difference between SE and AB is a matter of PR.

Why is the game dying?

No content? No really; their TONS and TONS of side content. FF14 prioritized minority end game part-time elitist rewards for raiders/ultimate players. Meanwhile the majority of the MMO players grinding get joke rewards. + TOS anti-community pro troll system has silenced the community with highly censorship speech. Trolls going around just talking with no real power do not ruin the game for anyone. Trolls in charge of WHO gets to talk and play because of the TOS and report system DESTROY the community in the game.

#1. FF14 priorities are minority part-time raid players that come back for raids/ultimate then leave. The raid and ultimate mounts/glams/weapons like heads and heels above better than the causal content.

#2. FF14 just does not care about their majority long term mmo players who CONSTANTLY play the game for longer term rewards. NOT related to ultimate's or raids.

#3. The TOS is anti-community system of censorship that let a minority of troll players control who gets to talk and play in the community. Anyone who has been a victim of the TOS troll system knows this. Anyone who has not been a victim of this will "quote" some repeated SE line until they become a victim of troll reporters. Trolls just troll talking do NOT run a MMO community. Trolls CONTROLLING who gets to talk based upon a auto-suspension TOS report system with HIGH censorship of speech RUINS a community.

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Originally Posted by King_Rhys_Pendraig

Why is the game dying?

No content? No really; their TONS and TONS of side content. FF14 prioritized minority end game part-time elitist rewards for raiders/ultimate players. Meanwhile the majority of the MMO players grinding get joke rewards. + TOS anti-community pro troll system has silenced the community with highly censorship speech. Trolls going around just talking with no real power do not ruin the game for anyone. Trolls in charge of WHO gets to talk and play because of the TOS and report system DESTROY the community in the game.

#1. FF14 priorities are minority part-time raid players that come back for raids/ultimate then leave. The raid and ultimate mounts/glams/weapons like heads and heels above better than the causal content.

#2. FF14 just does not care about their majority long term mmo players who CONSTANTLY play the game for longer term rewards. NOT related to ultimate's or raids.

#3. The TOS is anti-community system of censorship that let a minority of troll players control who gets to talk and play in the community. Anyone who has been a victim of the TOS troll system knows this. Anyone who has not been a victim of this will "quote" some repeated SE line until they become a victim of troll reporters. Trolls just troll talking do NOT run a MMO community. Trolls CONTROLLING who gets to talk based upon a auto-suspension TOS report system with HIGH censorship of speech RUINS a community.

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Please consider taking your meds. Everything you just said is a delusion.

On and off but consistent player since ARR and I have canceled my sub for the foreseeable future. It would take a massive change in the game content formula in 8.0 for me to comeback. SE refuses to innovate or try new things at all making the game feel incredibly stale. They have the goodwill to try new things but instead just copy paste the exact same expansion with ancient feeling gameplay systems.

-Open world is pointless
-Beast tribe dailies are still talk -> Shiny thing -> Talk
-Duties are literally the same aoe hallways with different coats of paint.
-Cinematics have no effort put into them with more /nod emotes than I can take now
-Patch cycle feels forever with little content added

I could keep naming stuff if needed. I'll give the lackluster story a pass but there is nothing keeping me in the game except raiding and that is not enough to justify a sub. They could do literally anything to try and keep me interested at this point but they don't. Hoyoverse games have way more content on a much faster patch cycle than this and I'm not held hostage there by a sub fee to keep my house.
7.1 was really a right mess and finally convinced me SE has no idea what they are doing.

Just thought I would drop my 2 cents in here before shoving off for good. Farewell o7

I can't unsubscribe because I want to keep my house still. I've had it since subdivisions came out and it's been a long time with sentimental value. I'd love to unsubscribe outside of that. For now though I dropped all my account services down. I used to have max retainers + mobile app sub for additional space, but now I'm not buying any extras. So I guess thats some kind of vote with my wallet sentiment.

Maybe someday I'll be willing to part with my house but we're not quite there yet, even though I barely log in anymore.

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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.

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EQ Emu may have a server for you ^_^

I like the Project 1999 servers. I currently concentrate on Green.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

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

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It's late-stage capitalism. There isn't a single industry, into which I have put money as a customer, that is not falling into this trap.

It's been 20 years since I told myself, "If you like thing from Company, and Company gets bought, then say goodbye to thing."

Coders care about making good games. Investors care about making good money.

I've been wanting to unsub for a while for the direction of where the game's just been going of late and it being a slog sometimes waiting in High End duty 2-3 hrs. for a full party but then they put chaos alliance end of December.

I'm less angry about where the game is but sourly disappointed as it's become less of an MMO and more in spirit of a limited story buy 2 play in spirit. Game feels like it fell off a cliff in some ways.

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Originally Posted by Titor

I can't unsubscribe because I want to keep my house still. I've had it since subdivisions came out and it's been a long time with sentimental value. I'd love to unsubscribe outside of that. For now though I dropped all my account services down. I used to have max retainers + mobile app sub for additional space, but now I'm not buying any extras. So I guess thats some kind of vote with my wallet sentiment.

Maybe someday I'll be willing to part with my house but we're not quite there yet, even though I barely log in anymore.

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Well considering because of recent indoor changes and future housing change the TARDIS feature most at of us with houses have to rebuild the interior from scratch, makes it easier to part with the house. Having someplace to store all the expensive furniture is more of a problem.

Most of my internet friends from the forums and discords I am in have unsubbed from FF14. Almost all of them joined by Stormblood or earlier, a few as far back as 1.0 and were former WoW players. They soured during the ShB patches and jumped ship during Endwalker. Most did not return to check out Dawntrail. They have since either returned to WoW, switched to those new 3D Chinese gacha games, or have stopped playing MMOs altogether. The main issues they all have in common:

- Decline in content over the years. Less content per patch and more time in between patchea. They loved long relic questlines and Eureka, and now the game doesn't have that.

- Disappointment and frustration with the story's unsatisfying payoff of longterm storylines such as Garlemald and the Ascians, and narrative swerve circa ShB when it went from a grounded geopolitical conflict with stakes to a simplistic light vs dark narrative where nobody dies.

- General dislike of FF14's rabid cult like fandom (I and my friends have been targets on the MMO Champion forums). Does not help that my friends were civil on these forums and got inexplicably perma banned. They also dislike Yoshi-P's dismissive/ignorant attitude towards the Western fans and his seeming hypocrisy and broken promises. They were frustrated by how FF16 turned out.

I am still subbed, though I hardly play. I don't want to lose my house and all the hours spent meticulously placing items. Over the past two years I have spent more time playing GW2 and retail WoW, the latter I am not subbed to year round.

Exodus ? Nah but in my circly we lost all players except 2 of initial 12 people to DT. The remaining people are my guild lead and me. The rest fled the crime scene that is DT. Crime scence because DT murdered the story in cold blood and most of them could not stand that massacre.

I don't believe an exodus will happen, most casual players are of the opinion that the game is fine, and this is the player base that doesn't visit the forums or engage too much with communities built outside of the game itself.
There's definitely room for improvement with upcoming patches, but this is by no means will kill FFXIV.

One thing I will say is that the game really feels empty at the times I play. Like you barely ever see other players online anymore. Even Solution Nine and Tuliyollal are close to ghost towns lol. Queues are abysmal even as a healer because it feels like there’s just so few people actually playing anymore. I tried queueing for the XI raid recently, every role including healer had a wait time of 30 minutes+ lol. PvP? Good luck finding the 71 other players to get a match.

Exodus or not it feels like a bunch of people have stopped played and it’s becoming more and more noticeable

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Originally Posted by Connor

One thing I will say is that the game really feels empty at the times I play. Like you barely ever see other players online anymore. Even Solution Nine and Tuliyollal are close to ghost towns lol. Queues are abysmal even as a healer because it feels like there’s just so few people actually playing anymore. I tried queueing for the XI raid recently, every role including healer had a wait time of 30 minutes+ lol. PvP? Good luck finding the 71 other players to get a match.

Exodus or not it feels like a bunch of people have stopped played and it’s becoming more and more noticeable

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I made a character during late EW on a US server and I was blown away by the sheer amount of people everywhere.

Mind you when I did my NA Character EU was also very alive but it doesn't even come close to the population I've seen there. I did contemplate moving there despite some of the drawbacks. I rather have a higher ping but have PF fill faster.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

I made a character during late EW on a US server and I was blown away by the sheer amount of people everywhere.

Mind you when I did my NA Character EU was also very alive but it doesn't even come close to the population I've seen there. I did contemplate moving there despite some of the drawbacks. I rather have a higher ping but have PF fill faster.

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My experience of Endwalker was mostly the same on EU, it felt like there was a much more steady stream of active players doing content. Dawntrail was the same for the first few weeks, but it feels like there’s been a huge drop-off of players recently.

And before anyone gives me shit I’m saying feels like and not literally is , because I don’t have the actual statistics to determine such.

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Originally Posted by Connor

My experience of Endwalker was mostly the same on EU, it felt like there was a much more steady stream of active players doing content. Dawntrail was the same for the first few weeks, but it feels like there’s been a huge drop-off of players recently.

And before anyone gives me shit I’m saying feels like and not literally is , because I don’t have the actual statistics to determine such.

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Fair enough and you are right with significant drop off recently.

I pretty much exclusively raid so I am not sure how populated the towns are or finding people for other stuff but, in Abyssos it was split with Chaos vs Light, then for the most part Anabeseios felt very healthy to me, from 6.4 into Echo. There were a LOT of PFs with different prog points. In DT it was really lively the first 3 weeks and then the prog points were extremely divided, either from the start or clear parties that took hours to fill.

I un-subbed because I'm tired of seeing the same mechanics, PF being so dead, awful fight designs, and im just bored when I log on.

Tired of seeing the same mechanics reused, tired of invisible last second mechs, it's lazy and uninspired. Raiding has become a joke and EX trials are just so blahhh I'm like yea don't wanna be here anymore.

I'll play another game instead and move on I'm beyond disappointed the direction of this game with wanting to hold hands, and do stupid light party mechs I want individual responsibility back.

Imma just hope AoC or Chrono Odyssey or maybe Archeage chronicles can bring back the love of MMOs instead of a waiting lobby for content that doesn't matter.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

Fair enough and you are right with significant drop off recently.

I pretty much exclusively raid so I am not sure how populated the towns are or finding people for other stuff but, in Abyssos it was split with Chaos vs Light, then for the most part Anabeseios felt very healthy to me, from 6.4 into Echo. There were a LOT of PFs with different prog points. In DT it was really lively the first 3 weeks and then the prog points were extremely divided, either from the start or clear parties that took hours to fill.

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End game this time around was the worst it has been possibly ever. This is the easiest savage has ever been but it also has been the worst in terms of progression for the less dedicated. The same thing kind of comes across with the latest EX trial with the meteor drops and the ice bridges. From what I have been able to figure out, people have been jumping into groups that are farther than their established prog points since they either can't find enough people to prog at the point they are at or don't know what prog point they are at. That issue of finding people at the right prog point cut both ways which doesn't help things.

Additionally, we lost the ability to gather on Aether from other world servers, which has changed the culture of the servers again. Primal is a dumpster fire for PF progging now...

The decline of this games population is VERY noticeable from my perspective. If my characters being in dead FC's wasn't a big enough sign, items on the marketboard simply are not selling at a pace that would even match Endwalker 6.5 numbers. I've had to expand onto my alts retainers where previously everything I got from quick ventures would sell faster than I could accumulate it. Naturally this consisting of leveling gear, housing items, and certain valuable crafter items would suggest a bleed off is occuring at least as far as people currently leveling jobs is concerned, and I've noticed more houses being auto demolished on even the populated data centres.

The numbers likely aren't pretty. I wouldn't call it a mass exodus, but more of a continued bleed off that started after 6.0 (Yes, Endwalker). Honestly Yoshi P only has so much goodwill, and it's quickly running out. The people I speak to ingame regularily are frustrated with how little content comes with each patch. Yoshi P overpromises, under-delivers. People are getting sick of it. It feels like Yoshi P/CBU 3 has specifically pandered to all the raiders, and ignored the rest of his community. An expansion coming out and being controversial is one thing, but to also have it come out and be lacking any content capable of player retention is inexcusable for a subscription MMO. I expect the downward trend to continue until at least 8.0.

The other thing is that there are other MMO patches and expansions coming out again right now. LotR online just had an expansion, Wow has a patch, Brighter Shores is coming out in beta, and some other stuff.

I think it's okay to fall out of love with a game, and to go try new things. People can try the new stuff, put their subs on pause for a patch cycle, and if they decide they don't like the new MMOs, they can always come back.

You'll lose your house, but if you are unsubbing, you're giving that up anyway. (Psssst apartments are permanent.)

Add in the holidays and.... yeah? Seems like a perfect time to take a break. Either you'll miss the game or miss your friends enough to come back, or you won't.

In my opinion this is by far the worse state the game has been in since 2.0, and it is time they make changes, to the story direction which at the moment is bad with WoL being made an npc, to the patch formula which does not work when there is 4-5 months between each patch, to the speed at which the real casual content is rolled out since 1 year from an expansions launch is just insane.

As for playing other games. That is what I have been doing.