We lost 70% of our player base half a year in

Ah yes, Endwalker's launch, when we had queues in the several thousands, compared to now, where I STILL have to queue unless it's 3am.

Game's fine, if a bit dry for content at the moment.

Not sure if it's been said already, but specifically for FFXIV, it's extremely common for the overall server population to drop massively in-between patches. Especially since we're now towards the end of the raid tier. Just wait until the next set of raid content comes out, and you'll see a boost again.

Some people literally just come back to do the recent content, and then go on a break again until the next patch. So if you're going to say we're "losing players", make sure you factor these things in.

I hate to break it to you, but FFXIV is not "dying and on its way out". Hyperbole much? o.O

Healing has been this way since ShB, and WHM has been this way arguably since SB. People complained about Healers being too complex in HW and some of SB, and too easy since ShB, yet the Healer population seems to be higher now than it was in HW and SB. The people that prefer DPS have swapped to DPS Jobs and the Healer Jobs have been filled in their absence. Many people play Healers that want more complexity (many swap to SCH and AST) and would like more, but many like it the way it is, too, and at least for now, it's pretty stable. Tanks are still most often AiN, and generally the last slots to fill in PF groups.

The endgame has been this way since SB, if not HW. They've been very consistent with this formula for over half a decade now, and it has seen the game have consistent and sustainable growth.

They're working on the hairstyles and headgear for the new races (as well as Fem Hrothgars), but that isn't a major driving factor for most of the playerbase. The people that care about it REALLY care about it, that's true, and I don't mean to make light of their plight, but the amount of people that will quit over not having bunny ears and a hat are a REALLY small sliver of the player base. Most just kinda put up with it (or race change) and grudgingly wait for the Devs to get around to it.

An ENTIRE year of...what? Lots of complaining, but most feedback has been taken and the game continues to be stable. The housing lottery bug is a big deal, but keep in mind the amount of players engaged with housing (while more than with hairstyles and helms) is still RELATIVELY small, and they seem to have gotten it fixed at this point.

And no, they WILL NOT be losing "the remaining player base".

What you have to understand is a ton of people came to FFXIV when WoW imploded. So FFXIV got a massive bounce. Now we're in a mid-expansion, late patch content lull and a lot of people have backed off. The people that MSQ only have unsubbed until the next patch adds more MSQ, the raiders done with P4S and DSR have backed off as well until the next raid releases, and everyone else is vibing and alright.

Is the game PERFECT?

No, not at all.

But stow the hyperbole, it isn't "dying" or on the verge of losing "the remaining player base". And as others have said, your statistic is based entirely on Steam, which is both a small portion of the overall player base AND probably weighted more heavily by those new/temporary entrants to the game post-WoW.

FFXIV has grown over the years by being stable and consistent, and so it remains. Making big, sweeping changes "FAST" in response to complaints from a tiny sliver of the community (people on forums complaining are NOT a large majority of the player base) are the exact opposite of the formula that FFXIV has used for 8+ years that has led to it being the big successful juggernaut that it is today.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

And no, they WILL NOT be losing "the remaining player base".

What you have to understand is a ton of people came to FFXIV when WoW imploded. So FFXIV got a massive bounce. Now we're in a mid-expansion, late patch content lull and a lot of people have backed off. The people that MSQ only have unsubbed until the next patch adds more MSQ, the raiders done with P4S and DSR have backed off as well until the next raid releases, and everyone else is vibing and alright.

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Yeah. I've got more than my fair share of bones to pick with the game currently, and I am VERY unhappy about some things, but the game is still pretty active despite being in a bit of lull. A quick trip to Limsa and most other places shows that they still has a lot of people running around and/or hanging out. Queues aren't bad either. What FF XIV has a problem with handling though is content longevity (among other things, but I digress), so we will have to see how many people stick around for the long haul and make a more accurate judgement then. After leaving WoW, some may still be in the honeymoon period. Once that fades, we'll see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

After leaving WoW, some may still be in the honeymoon period. Once that fades, we'll see what happens.

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If every WoW refugee leaves this game, it will still be popular enough to make money for Square Enix. There have been, and continue to be, content producers on social media for the game. The Reddit and Twitter communities will still include players who both create and read and remark on the game. There will still be an active FFXIV forum, five years from now, complete with posters who will complain about this-and-that and other posters who will make suggestions to "make the game better so that the entire player community does not abandon the game".

Heck, there are still active players for Lord of the Rings Online now celebrating 15 years of play, even in the face of a final shutdown of the servers in January of next year. Even Old School Runescape is still attracting new players.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If every WoW refugee leaves this game, it will still be popular enough to make money for Square Enix. There have been, and continue to be, content producers on social media for the game. The Reddit and Twitter communities will still include players who both create and read and remark on the game. There will still be an active FFXIV forum, five years from now, complete with posters who will complain about this-and-that and other posters who will make suggestions to "make the game better so that the entire player community does not abandon the game".

Heck, there are still active players for Lord of the Rings Online now celebrating 15 years of play, even in the face of a final shutdown of the servers in January of next year. Even Old School Runescape is still attracting new players.

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Oh yeah, it wouldn't stop being profitable in that scenario, and that won't change for a long time I'm guessing. I'm not doomsaying at all here, for the record. What I was mostly saying is that we will have a more accurate read on the game's popularity as it starts to stand on its own again instead of being propped up by those fleeing other MMOs, and as those who migrated here begin to see the cracks in the floor. Can it keep the upward trend going? Only time will tell. The ball is in SE's court as far as that is concerned. I hope they can. Truly.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Honestly, 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.

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well then, their intent is obvious.

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Originally Posted by hagare

well then, their intent is obvious.

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I'm still waiting for one of you to tell me what my intent is. I didn't even know I had some nefarious scheme behind my posts, but since you all know so much about me maybe you could convince me otherwise.

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Originally Posted by anhaato

I'm still waiting for one of you to tell me what my intent is. I didn't even know I had some nefarious scheme behind my posts, but since you all know so much about me maybe you could convince me otherwise.

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nah

That's for you find out.

I can vouch for Anhaato. He isn't the alt of a certain Highlander if that is the concern.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I can vouch for Anhaato. He isn't the alt of a certain Highlander if that is the concern.

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I miss him.
His threads was entertaining at least

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Originally Posted by hagare

well then, their intent is obvious.

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Oh no, they aren't trolling.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Oh no, they aren't trolling.

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Mhm you’re getting warmer

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Originally Posted by FrogDog

...

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These are some interesting points, but allow me to make a counter argument or two:

1) Anecdote is not data. While you could argue that people playing and enjoying the game...and people talking about it in Twitter...and on Reddit...and on Twitch...and on YouTube...and "everywhere but here"...might be a skewed sample and your personal "Most everybody I know" might not be - does that REALLY seem all that likely? It's far more likely your friends group is the skewed sample, and likewise this forum, which has long (or always...) had a permanent doomcloud hanging over it.

2) It doesn't mean the game doesn't have issues, but there's a difference between "the game has issues" and "the game is literally dying!". Those are not equivalent statements, and these forums seem to be significantly more towards the latter (apparently, healers not having DPS rotations and two races not having hairstyles is what will sink games, I guess?)

3) I'm a bit curious with what you said about your interest wane over the course of ShB and then into EW. ShB was arguably the best the game's ever been, and it more or less followed SB's overall pattern (patch cycles, gearing system, raid and exploration content releases, etc) to a T. Did you not also feel a waning interest during SB, since ShB was SB with better story? I'm not sure why one would find themselves getting bored in ShB and not SB, since ShB was just an evolution of SB. What did you like so much more about SB? Or was it just the game was still new to you then? (Not asking this to be antagonistic, I'm genuinely curious.)

4) These forums DO seem worse and more negative than most other MMO forums I've been on. And I've been on the toxic sludge pit that is the WoW forums. Even there people weren't as down about the game until BfA gave way to Shadowlands. As for the subreddit, there are two (ffxiv and ffxivdiscussion), the former is mostly upvoting character commissions, but has been negative about the game in mixed measure. While the healer forum here had a total meltdown over a solo heal of DSR, Reddit was oddly more muted, with about 50/50 people saying it was bad vs people saying it was an outlier and an achievement, an exception proving the rule rather than breaking it and indicating doom. It was actually rational discussion where here, only a few voices contested the doom narrative, and were abjectly brigaded into silence - hardly measured and sober minded criticisms.

5) I'd agree that it CAN be good people still care and complain because they care, but there's a point where it becomes an unhealthy doom cult, just like the people insisting "The End is Neigh!" irl probably MEAN WELL, but are not in a health place nor the most rational people to advise others of things like retirement planning or any other future prediction (since all their predictions are "THE END IS COMING!!")

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Originally Posted by anhaato

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...02/unknown.png

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I think the problem with this argument is that for a sample to be statistically valid, it needs to represent the whole well and not have any significant deviations.

I'm honestly not sure that Steam numbers do that. If you were to ask me why, I'd say that the Steam users are PROBABLY a lot of the WoW refugees whereas PS4/5 players (especially people that don't PC game) are likely a very different batch of people. Likewise, the people using the regular FFXIV launcher having bought it normally instead of through Steam are probably also a different mindset of player.

In order to use Steam as a sample, one would have to confront each of these arguments with data to suggest that Steam IS a representative sample, which I've seen no one do. People using the number are simply making an implicit assumption it is and not ever justifying this assumption other than "Surely Steam players are the same as the rest, right?" with no actual evidence to substantiate that - and yes, the burden of proof is on the people wanting to use the Steam numbers as a representative sample, not the people questioning that assumption.

Moreover, as people have noted, (a) this trend exist (using the Steam numbers, no less) in some form for all past expansions, (b) the measurement is of concurrent players, not total players (meaning it's weighted to people spending more hours playing and NOT the total number of individual people still playing the game just doing so fewer hours), and (c) even based on those numbers, the player activity is STILL higher than at this point in prior expansions and shows a net upward trend overall if you look at the entire Steam history of the game.

So, for those wanting to use the Steam numbers, not ONLY must you justify the claim that the Steam numbers ARE a good representative sample, you must explain each of points (a), (b), and (c) above somehow also leading credence to your hypothesis. Can you do so, I wonder...?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I'd say that the Steam users are PROBABLY a lot of the WoW refugees

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WoW: Has no Steam tie-in. Has never had a Steam tie-in. Has its own launcher.

XIV: Has a Steam tie-in since 2014, roughly half a year after ARR's release.


So why would WoW players, who've never had any Steam integration, flock to Steam, while all other players of XIV (which has had Steam integration since the game's second quarter) would predominantly avoid it? And why, even, would players be more critical of XIV just because they'd played another MMO prior?

What even is the basis for this "probably"?

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Originally Posted by hunkygladiator

https://i.ibb.co/MPBmpDh/Untitled.png

People have been saying make healers more engaging since Shadowbringers, and it’s been ignored.

People have been saying endgame is horrible with lack of content and it’s been ignored.

People want better hairstyles and headgears on the new races and it's been ignored.

After an ENTIRE year of receiving player feedback and FAILING to do what the community wants, now we have them scrambling to fix critical bugs after bugs like the housing lottery bug.

What a joke.

I wanted FF14 to thrive, I loved Stormblood but the game is dying and on it’s way out.

Square Enix, changes need to be made FAST.

NOT in 7.0, NOT in 8.0, it needs to happen THIS EXPANSION or you WILL lose the remaining player base.

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Steam numbers LUL

You do realize there's more platforms than just Steam, right?


There's PC, MAC, PS4, PS5.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If every WoW refugee leaves this game, it will still be popular enough to make money for Square Enix.

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The only issue would be the large investment they've made into servers and hardware due to the rush of players on launch. If we lost all those players, that's wasted investment and a harsh loss. And really, Endwalker hasn't actually offered anything new or exciting to retain players, most things are pretty much the same as ShB.

The game will be perfectly fine, but at the same time letting a goldmine like the WoW exodus slip through your fingers is a rough blow for any business. Endwalker really needed to go big and be the best expansion yet.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

Ah yes, Endwalker's launch, when we had queues in the several thousands, compared to now, where I STILL have to queue unless it's 3am.

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The queues don't mean the servers are full. The game logs players into the game in batches. That's why there always seems to be a 20-50 person queue.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The game will be perfectly fine, but at the same time letting a goldmine like the WoW exodus slip through your fingers is a rough blow for any business. Endwalker really needed to go big and be the best expansion yet..

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The game was doing fine before Activision/Blizzard blew up their WoW player base. A/B is doing things to bring them back. Not every WoW player will suddenly abandon FFXIV either.

Anecdotally speaking, I played both games side-by-side for four years, running from Warlords of Draenor through the first year of Battle for Azeroth for World of Warcraft and A Realm Reborn through Stormblood for Final Fantasy XIV. I lost interest in World of Warcraft. I remain subscribed to Final Fantasy XIV.

This isn't a zero-sum industry, where There Can Only Be One.

The influx of new players is very welcome. The sudden desire to "improve" the game by changing it to become more like WoW in order to "keep" those new players is not as welcome, mostly because the so-called WoW Refugees aren't the backbone of the FFXIV player-base.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

This isn't a zero-sum industry, where There Can Only Be One.

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Tell that to the shareholders and companies that funnel resources to said game. I'm sure they would be more than happy to coexist, we should ask EB games or Hudson. :^)

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

The influx of new players is very welcome. The sudden desire to "improve" the game by changing it to become more like WoW in order to "keep" those new players is not as welcome, mostly because the so-called WoW Refugees aren't the backbone of the FFXIV player-base.

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These things, like.. a lot of things.. yee.. lol, always feel funny for me to read because maybe there are sometimes "make it exactly like WoW x y z" but other times, most of the time, I see this for things that are just plain good ideas.

"Lets at least have as good a glamour system as WoW", and things like that I see a lot here. Maybe rarely I'll see something that isn't clearly as 'good' like some people like borrowed power system, but I almost never see that.

Yet I see lots of "don't make it like WoW" and it leaves me scratching my head like where are the pit of bad WoW ideas that people seem to be seeing a lot, that I tend to only see the "BEST" from WoW being suggested here. Why the heck wouldn't I want glamour log upgrades? Why the heck wouldn't I want upgraded Garrisons (if they did it to our current Garrison GC system, or if Island Sanctuary), of course I want instanced housing system (but if they did Garrison right then sure why not- it wasn't bad content miss a few key, fairly large, missteps by Blizzard).

"Don't make it like WoW!" and, for the most part, I only see either neutral or actual /fantastic/ ideas suggested from that game.


Maybe someone might be like "I get we don't want race racial abilities because the whole FFXIV game is play how you want, but can we get a bit more character on our jobs?"
'don't make it like WoW' ...? Is there literally no flavor we can do to the game? I find that really hard to believe, especially given we're at the most homogenized state of the game. To which I even suggest non-combat flavor as a easy way to dodge that reason for not doing it.



I think it's fair to like the game as it is, but sometimes I see stuff like that and immediately think 'wot?' lol. Now for your post I don't know the context of what you're thinking of, just in general I'd say /most/ of those situations are for things that are generally very well received and due to the similarities of the game could very well easily argued to fit FFXIV (like glamour log upgrades).

Perhaps I only click on the threads I find interesting, and generally ignore the other ones.. Selection bias /shrug ?

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The game will be perfectly fine, but at the same time letting a goldmine like the WoW exodus slip through your fingers is a rough blow for any business. Endwalker really needed to go big and be the best expansion yet.

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What exactly did you expect them to be able to do? By the middle of last year EW was probably pretty much feature complete. They might have been able to squeeze in something minor but I'd be shocked if they had the flexibility to rearrange the existing schedule much less add something major. I fully support complaints that some of the longer term content should have been introduced earlier but a scheduling decision like that was probably made in 2020 if not earlier.

I think XIV retained as many ex-WoW players as it would have anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The only issue would be the large investment they've made into servers and hardware due to the rush of players on launch. If we lost all those players, that's wasted investment and a harsh loss. And really, Endwalker hasn't actually offered anything new or exciting to retain players, most things are pretty much the same as ShB.

The game will be perfectly fine, but at the same time letting a goldmine like the WoW exodus slip through your fingers is a rough blow for any business. Endwalker really needed to go big and be the best expansion yet.

---

WoW's pop fluctuates the exact same way FFXIV's does. Most people simply don't stick around in between patches and come back when there's new content.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The only issue would be the large investment they've made into servers and hardware due to the rush of players on launch. If we lost all those players, that's wasted investment and a harsh loss. And really, Endwalker hasn't actually offered anything new or exciting to retain players, most things are pretty much the same as ShB.

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Yup, it's something LB remarked on today as well when he was analysing the figures from the recent survey here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

WoW: Has no Steam tie-in. Has never had a Steam tie-in. Has its own launcher.

XIV: Has a Steam tie-in since 2014, roughly half a year after ARR's release.


So why would WoW players, who've never had any Steam integration, flock to Steam, while all other players of XIV (which has had Steam integration since the game's second quarter) would predominantly avoid it? And why, even, would players be more critical of XIV just because they'd played another MMO prior?

What even is the basis for this "probably"?

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Basic logic and reasoning skills?

Suppose you've been a FFXIV player for a while - for the sake of this argument, we're JUST talking PC players. Like, for 5-9 years. Would you likely be playing on Steam or the SE launcher?

Obviously, the SE launcher, since FFXIV wasn't always for Steam.

But say you're a NEW player. Someone who just abandoned an MMO they've played for years, has heard about this competing MMO, and decide to look up how to buy it and get started? We're talking PC gamers here, so Steam is probably one of their first sources, especially whey they hear the FFXIV/SE website is a pain and a half to buy, register, and set up the game from.

So it makes logical sense to assume a lot of Steam players are people who just recently decided to get into the game and likely have a more "I just want to try it out" feel. That's certainly not an UNreasonable assumption. Whenever I want to try a new game that I just heard of but have no personal investment in, I check to see if it's on Steam myself. On the other hand, games that I've been playing longer or know someone who plays non-Steam, I'll often talk to them and install it the way they did, which is non-Steam.

But again, the onus is on you wanting to use the Steam numbers to address this and prove that they are valid to use, not on the people questioning you. Imagine if a scientific paper was published and the authors placed the onus of disproving it on the scientific community rather than them having to publish their data and explain why their data and experimental parameters were valid.

EDIT:


...and, of course, NOW I'll bring back the PS4/5 players into the mix. Hard as this might be to believe, there are a LOT of console gamers that do not have a gaming PC. These people simply never played WoW to begin with. The Playstation as a lineage of systems has also long been known as a system with an extensive RPG library. I remember back in the PS1/N64 days this conversation, and it was only cemented in the generation after that. These folks probably are not WoW refugees, and many may have FFXIV as their first ever MMO.

There is some overlap in some cases - some people do have consoles AND PCs that they game on - but it's not unreasonable to note that there are likely a lot of distinctions here as well.

.

The overall point stands that the Steam numbers are probably NOT a representative sample of all FFXIV's playerbase. You can make the argument they ARE, but you'll need some evidence and a rational argument backing it up. Not just "No, YOU prove they aren't!" or "Well...there's no reason that they wouldn't be..." as I've already pointed out reasons to think that the Steam sample wouldn't be representative.

A lot of players avoid steam version of FF14 like plague because since FF11 steam doesn’t play well with SE account system
I am not sure why WoW players think Steam can correctly represent the FF14 playerbase

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Basic logic and reasoning skills?

Suppose you've been a FFXIV player for a while - for the sake of this argument, we're JUST talking PC players. Like, for 5-9 years. Would you likely be playing on Steam or the SE launcher?

Obviously, the SE launcher, since FFXIV wasn't always for Steam.

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ARR released on August 27, 2013. It is now June 27, 2022, exactly 106 months later.
ARR released on Steam on February 14, 2014, less than 6 months after ARR's release.


For over 100 of the 106 months that XIV has been out (>94% of its lifespan thus far), XIV has been on Steam.

People would have had to have played in the first 5.5 months of the game's ever being released for Steam not to be an option. Not "5-9" years, but literally 8.3+ out of the game's total of 8.8 years' lifetime.

Meanwhile, for 0 of 213 months that WoW has been out, WoW has been on Steam.

So what is it about Steam-launcher users (or anyone who joined in the latter >94% of XIV's lifespan) that makes you think they are disproportionately more likely to be WoW players? (Let alone that anyone who touched WoW must have a more negative view of the game that would make their perceptions of XIV invalid and misrepresentative? Or that PC players would be significantly less appeasable than console players?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

ARR released on August 27, 2013. It is now June 27, 2022, exactly 106 months later.
ARR released on Steam on February 14, 2014, less than 6 months after ARR's release.


For over 100 of the 106 months that XIV has been out (>94% of its lifespan thus far), XIV has been on Steam.

People would have had to have played in the first 5.5 months of the game's ever being released for Steam not to be an option. Not "5-9" years, but literally 8.3+ out of the game's total of 8.8 years' lifetime.

Meanwhile, for 0 of 213 months that WoW has been out, WoW has been on Steam.

So what is it about Steam-launcher users (or anyone who joined in the latter >94% of XIV's lifespan) that makes you think they are disproportionately more likely to be WoW players? (Let alone that anyone who touched WoW must have a more negative view of the game that would make their perceptions of XIV invalid and misrepresentative? Or that PC players would be significantly less appeasable than console players?)

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This person always makes shit up, pretends it's true, and acts like they're smarter than you for "knowing" the shit they just made up. With the length of posts they write maybe they should find a different hobby in fanfic writing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

ARR released on August 27, 2013. It is now June 27, 2022, exactly 106 months later.
ARR released on Steam on February 14, 2014, less than 6 months after ARR's release.


For over 100 of the 106 months that XIV has been out (>94% of its lifespan thus far), XIV has been on Steam.

People would have had to have played in the first 5.5 months of the game's ever being released for Steam not to be an option. Not "5-9" years, but literally 8.3+ out of the game's total of 8.8 years' lifetime.

Meanwhile, for 0 of 213 months that WoW has been out, WoW has been on Steam.

So what is it about Steam-launcher users (or anyone who joined in the latter >94% of XIV's lifespan) that makes you think they are disproportionately more likely to be WoW players? (Let alone that anyone who touched WoW must have a more negative view of the game that would make their perceptions of XIV invalid and misrepresentative? Or that PC players would be significantly less appeasable than console players?)

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Just because something "existed" on Steam doesn't mean it was common to use it. Keep in mind when you go back 8-10 years, Steam wasn't viewed as an MMO source. If you wanted to play an MMO (WoW, Guild Wars, SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV, etc.), you bought it through the company and played it through the company's launcher. That was the norm. Steam as an MMORPG source just wasn't really a thing back then even if it technically existed as a way to play the game.

Add to it not only the length of time a person is likely to have played based on launcher, but add the type of gamer into the mix. Long-time RPG fans are more likely to use the company launcher. Meanwhile, WoW has become largely an eSports game in recent years, and guess where more eSports can be found...yep, Steam. A competitive eSports player is more likely to have other games on Steam and more naturally thus use Steam for FFXIV.

As someone else pointed out, the onus is on *you* to prove Steam would actually somehow be a representative sample of the playerbase. Because not only have you not proven that, but you've been presented with multiple pieces of evidence from multiple people showing why it is *not*.

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WoW's pop fluctuates the exact same way FFXIV's does.

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Um...as far as i am aware, FF 14 has never had more than 50% of its playerbase leave in disgust over less than a few months...add to that the WOD flight debacle that saw another 15% walk away.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The only issue would be the large investment they've made into servers and hardware due to the rush of players on launch. If we lost all those players, that's wasted investment and a harsh loss. And really, Endwalker hasn't actually offered anything new or exciting to retain players, most things are pretty much the same as ShB.

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I don't think it's right to argue it's a "wasted investment". The only place that MIGHT be an issue - and probably not - is the Oceania datacenter. Legitimately, there needed to be one there due to latency issues for those players, but they PROBABLY only need two servers there, not 5.

North America is still pretty loaded looking at the Lucky Bancho numbers the NA servers are more populated than JP, and EU is even moreso. EU definitely needed - and still needs - more servers and possibly another datacenter. NA probably needs a fourth datacenter as well. As long as they move AT LEAST ONE (and preferably 2) existing servers to any new DC so they have options for market and que access, and with DC travel enabled in each region, that should shore up any problems.

Another thing is that there's ALWAYS a player spike with expansions, and we were already at the limit when EW came out. But that's hardly new. Anyone that was around for ShB launch, or SB early access/launch, or HW launch, or ARR launch knows that the servers have ALWAYS been the limiting factor. So even if EW was a once in the game's life high point (which I highly doubt - BEFORE the WoW influx, FFXIV was already experiencing steady growth, and the trendline is still continuing with steady growth), the extra servers were honestly already needed. Even if we never get another player more than we have right this moment during this X.1 lull (which happens literally every expansion since people have done all the X.0 and X.1 stuff but the "something to do when you're bored" Exploration/Relic stuff hasn't come about yet since that comes in X.2), then the extra server space was already needed and is money well spent.

FFXIV has a "slow and steady wins the race" approach, and it has given them a lot of success, so that's not a bad thing. It doesn't need "to go big", it just needs to hold steady. But that said - it DID go big in EW. This forum aside, the rest of the internet and people playing the game on the whole largely loved 6.0 and the entire story and resolution of the saga, and were excited to see where we go next and what we do from here. The generally consensus at the time was that most people loved the experience, and the biggest complaint was a BIT of downtime two places in the story, and that some people didn't like Zenos at the end but otherwise loved the narrative.

I do think there's a hunger for the game to take on more, but it's hardly in a bad place continuing as it has been.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

ARR released on August 27, 2013. It is now June 27, 2022, exactly 106 months later.
ARR released on Steam on February 14, 2014, less than 6 months after ARR's release.

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Experiment funtime - people have already shown you that the Steam numbers have always been a small portion of the player base. You can see this looking at the Steam analytics for the entire game's history. WHY IS THAT?

Further, that it has had a Steam version wasn't the point. When I started playing, I didn't know there was a Steam version (I'm not sure there was when I started), but over time, many people didn't choose the Steam option. We can argue over why this is and how long this has been, but it's been a long running belief of the community until fairly recently that Steam is iffy for FFXIV, so most people recommended new comers, friends, and people asking on social media get the official launcher.

FACTUALLY, FFXIV wasn't always on Steam. I love how you quote something I said, go "BUT TECHNICALLY..!!", and think that's a win.

Moreover, in terms of PERCEPTION, Steam was not seen as a valid or good platform for the game for a long time.

But ignoring ALL OF THAT:

You have yet to present an argument backed by any data at all, or even an ARGUMENT, as to why the Steam numbers are valid for the game as a whole, and the onus is on you to do so since you wish to employ the numbers as if they are. You've merely insisted they must be, questioned anyone who has questioned you to try to shift the onus onto them to disprove your data set choice instead of you proving/validating its use, and refused to entertain the notion they may not be, despite numerous arguments and analytical analysis of the numbers that question that assumption.

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Originally Posted by anhaato

This person always makes shit up, pretends it's true, and acts like they're smarter than you for "knowing" the shit they just made up. With the length of posts they write maybe they should find a different hobby in fanfic writing.

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Do you never get tired of ad hominem fallacies?

You always make shit up, pretend it's true, then act like you're smarter than people for "knowing" shit you just made up. Moreover, you do so in the most insulting ways possible, and your posts are littered with you attacking people and calling them names, often completely ignoring their arguments.

You should find a different hobby as a professional insulter - it's clearly more up your alley than rational discourse or analysis.

And for the record - I'm often writing long posts because MULTIPLE PEOPLE reply to things I say, and the forum limits me to 20 posts per day, so I have to try and combine several replies otherwise conversation would be impossible.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Just because something "existed" on Steam doesn't mean it was common to use it. Keep in mind when you go back 8-10 years, Steam wasn't viewed as an MMO source. If you wanted to play an MMO (WoW, Guild Wars, SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV, etc.), you bought it through the company and played it through the company's launcher. That was the norm. Steam as an MMORPG source just wasn't really a thing back then even if it technically existed as a way to play the game.

Add to it not only the length of time a person is likely to have played based on launcher, but add the type of gamer into the mix. Long-time RPG fans are more likely to use the company launcher. Meanwhile, WoW has become largely an eSports game in recent years, and guess where more eSports can be found...yep, Steam. A competitive eSports player is more likely to have other games on Steam and more naturally thus use Steam for FFXIV.

As someone else pointed out, the onus is on *you* to prove Steam would actually somehow be a representative sample of the playerbase. Because not only have you not proven that, but you've been presented with multiple pieces of evidence from multiple people showing why it is *not*.

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This.

ALL of this.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Um...as far as i am aware, FF 14 has never had more than 50% of its playerbase leave in disgust over less than a few months...add to that the WOD flight debacle that saw another 15% walk away.

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For transparency sake 1.0 was like that. But unlike Current WoW, 1.0 also was losing money hand over fist.

There was a reason remaking 1.0 is just straight up a nightmare for Yoshi P. 1.0 combined with XIII not doing so hot nearly killed Final Fantasy (and bankrupted Square enix all together)

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Do you never get tired of ad hominem fallacies?

You always make shit up, pretend it's true, then act like you're smarter than people for "knowing" shit you just made up. Moreover, you do so in the most insulting ways possible, and your posts are littered with you attacking people and calling them names, often completely ignoring their arguments.

You should find a different hobby as a professional insulter - it's clearly more up your alley than rational discourse or analysis.

And for the record - I'm often writing long posts because MULTIPLE PEOPLE reply to things I say, and the forum limits me to 20 posts per day, so I have to try and combine several replies otherwise conversation would be impossible.

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So you don't actually know what an ad hominem is... guess you just got lucky the one time you used it right.

Idk man, since your lore posts tend to contain either debunked theories or pure headcanon, and now you're inventing made up scenarios about imaginary people starting out the game in order to "disprove" that Steam is a proper sample of the playerbase (mind you, no actual solid proof went into this), then what else can it be said that you're doing other than making shit up? Also, try to formulate an argument without copying what I say word for word, you've done this twice already.

well it would appear that someone is necro bumping this topic just to keep it going very sad.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

FACTUALLY, FFXIV wasn't always on Steam. I love how you quote something I said, go "BUT TECHNICALLY..!!", and think that's a win.

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My apologies then for assuming some relevance between your latest claim (it wasn't always on Steam) and the one before (that XIV's Steam users are disproportionately WoW refugees, despite WoW never using Steam -- never mind that you have yet to say why those coming from that one particular MMO, as compared to any other, would have such distinct preferences that they would corrupt any sample that includes them).

The only way for those slim 5.5 months, under 6% of XIV's lifespan, to have collected misrepresentative players on the basis that "XIV wasn't always/yet on Steam" is for majority of XIV players to have started playing within the first 5.5 months of the game's lifespan. That is, by all estimates, not the case. Nor is there anything mutually exclusive about having played ARR since its release and having played another MMO prior, WoW included.

Latest Lucky Bancho

Reddit Thread on it

*From the thread*

Total population is down from 1.7 million in the last census to about 1.33 million

Over 5600 characters have cleared Dragonsong's Reprise Ultimate.

The Materia datacenter continues to experience a large population disparity between servers and low overall population. While the total number of active level 90 characters on Ravana stands at around 7.2k (by comparison, the smallest JP servers have around 9k and the smallest NA servers have at least 17k), Sephirot and Sophia sit at around 4k while Bismarck and Zurvan have a mere 1.8 and 1.3k respectively.

*End*

Oh boy that disparity is crazy I knew NA was bigger than JP but not nearly 10K when comparing smallest to smallest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

Latest Lucky Bancho

Reddit Thread on it

*From the thread*

Total population is down from 1.7 million in the last census to about 1.33 million

Over 5600 characters have cleared Dragonsong's Reprise Ultimate.

The Materia datacenter continues to experience a large population disparity between servers and low overall population. While the total number of active level 90 characters on Ravana stands at around 7.2k (by comparison, the smallest JP servers have around 9k and the smallest NA servers have at least 17k), Sephirot and Sophia sit at around 4k while Bismarck and Zurvan have a mere 1.8 and 1.3k respectively.

*End*

Oh boy that disparity is crazy I knew NA was bigger than JP but not nearly 10K when comparing smallest to smallest.

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Ahh, if nothing else I love how the Lucky Bancho data disproves the notion that only a small percentage of people do Savage.

Doing the math the game has retained about 78.3% of its player base. At the same point two months after x.1 patch during ShBs lifecycle the game had retained around 81%.

Yeah that 3% definitely means the game is dying.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Doing the math the game has retained about 78.3% of its player base. At the same point two months after x.1 patch during ShBs lifecycle the game had retained around 81%.

Yeah that 3% definitely means the game is dying.

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That's 78% of the population that was playing during the pre-6.1 content drought, as that 1.7 million number was recorded in early April. The difference between the current number and the December peak is much higher.

AHEM.

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No. The census is done by scraping lodestone data, so it cannot explicitly tell which characters are free trials, but it excludes all characters lvl 60 or below unless they are in a free company, so free trial characters are guaranteed to not be included.

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What was that I was saying about statistics and incomplete data earlier? That so called census ignores players not in an FC...oops.

It's one physical server, and 5 logical servers. So the argument of 2 vs 5 is......again......WRONG.

Materia was steady whilst all other servers lost players, and we expect 6.2 to be a massive uptick in player numbers. Materia, like any new datacentre, is growing steadily, and we look forward to that continual growth over time. We are both busy and happy.

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As long as they move AT LEAST ONE (and preferably 2) existing servers to any new DC so they have options for market and que access, and with DC travel enabled in each region, that should shore up any problems.

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Seeing as SE refused to do that to the JP datacentres, its unlikely they will do it anywhere else.