Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

A time investment which requires no skill or actual effort and will inherently become easier over time even without better RNG. Would that same frustration not manifest if say, you had to clear Nidhogg EX 267 times before finally getting a Pigeon drop while I managed the exact same accomplishment in only 23? Because I can tell you right now if the reverse happened, well, a quote from FFIX sums up my opinion of the game nicely: "I'm sharpening my knife, kupo." I'd have put in only a tenth of the effort and walked away with the same reward. We are not talking about progression gear or achievements, but RNG. Like I said already, you are not going to convince someone bored of the game to stay because they got lucky one day. Sure, the initial euphoria may sate them for a bit, however it will wear off when they're now faced with yet again wondering what to do.

Content that necessitates skill, like raiding, I do think should remain relevant longer, and its rewards not so easily squished. But RNG isn't rewarding. It's just dumb luck.

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You're still missing the point. This pattern of devaluing time invested into the game needs to be addressed on all fronts. No one has problems with reasonable nerfs and nerfs over time, but what this game does turns players off to staying subbed long term. It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around. This causes less people to stick around and that sort of apathy always leads to more lost subs.

Like in your post where you use Yokai as an example. Why are we going to grind out all the weapons and the glowing mount when SE will just put the rewards in the cash shop like they did from the lightning returns event? After the Yokai event ends, people that missed it will whine so much that SE will ultimately put them in the cash shop.

These are the incentive problems we are talking about. Why try now when you know there will be a much easier approach to come later?

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Originally Posted by zosia

You're still missing the point. This pattern of devaluing time invested into the game needs to be addressed on all fronts. No one has problems with reasonable nerfs and nerfs over time, but what this game does turns players off to staying subbed long term. It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around. This causes less people to stick around and that sort of apathy always leads to more lost subs.

Like in your post where you use Yokai as an example. Why are we going to grind out all the weapons and the glowing mount when SE will just put the rewards in the cash shop like they did from the lightning returns event? After the Yokai event ends, people that missed it will whine so much that SE will ultimately put them in the cash shop.

These are the incentive problems we are talking about. Why try now when you know there will be a much easier approach to come?

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No, I am not. You're just insisting only your perspective has any merit. And you're arguing in circles. Nerfs of any caliber-- according to you -- result in overall player apathy. Therefore, how can any be reasonable? Say they left mount drops at exactly the same rate. A person waiting several patch cycles will always have a far easier time because those bosses are going to melt. Look at Garuda. No one does her mechanics anymore. You have premades with a single tank, a single healer and six DPS who utterly annihilate her in a few minutes tops. You really don't even need a healer nowadays if the tank can handle it. Good luck trying that back in 2.1.

Hmm, going out on a limb here but I suspect that $65 price tag might be a good deterrent. You're acting like the Lightning Event, or other like-minded, were monumental. I guarantee you the players unsubbed now, would still be unsubbed even if every piece of event content remained lost in time. They unsubbed because they were bored. Running Ravana a hundred times would likely contribute to said boredom not alleviate it.

Because generally people want it now. They don't want to wait a year. Look no further than the recent delays to No Man's Sky and Final Fantasy XV. People lost their collective minds over two months. Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

You also continuously ignore other outside factors. Legion is a massive expansion. And seeing a number of FFXIV players are either former or current WoW players, this will inevitably influence these numbers, especially when we're in a "catch up" patch-- oft criticised for not having enough to do for people already "caught up." Once again, I guarantee if by 4.0, we saw three Primals, a complete and successful overhaul of Diadem, objective and/or more dynamic based content, no more tome grinding, and just more to do in general, you'd see people sticking around longer. For some, one primal and two faceroll dungeons just isn't enough to keep them playing even with PvP and PotD. No amount of mounts, minions or gear will change that even if it lasted for years. (Mount drop rates technically last a year, btw)

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Originally Posted by zosia

These are the incentive problems we are talking about. Why try now when you know there will be a much easier approach to come later?

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As said before.. you're misleaded if you think that the question ("Do I prolong my sub?") is answered either with
"Yes, because I want this or that gear and I won't get it, If I'm not subbed long enough. So I stay subbed." or with
"No, because right now I don't want any specific gear and I can get it easier in a month, so I resubb then. Or when it's released on the cash shop".

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It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around.

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Well, what a luck I don't play this game just for the sake of progression.
And imagine that: When they at some point turn off the game/servers (or the F11 ones, with their everlasting and totally motivating progression system) your progression is down to someone who have not played the game at all and all you have now is some screenshots and memories.

And while I memorize the good times with my friends, you'll memorize the then-called "wasted" hours of progression, or what?

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

A time investment which requires no skill or actual effort and will inherently become easier over time even without better RNG. Would that same frustration not manifest if say, you had to clear Nidhogg EX 267 times before finally getting a Pigeon drop while I managed the exact same accomplishment in only 23? Because I can tell you right now if the reverse happened, well, a quote from FFIX sums up my opinion of the game nicely: "I'm sharpening my knife, kupo." I'd have put in only a tenth of the effort and walked away with the same reward. We are not talking about progression gear or achievements, but RNG. Like I said already, you are not going to convince someone bored of the game to stay because they got lucky one day. Sure, the initial euphoria may sate them for a bit, however it will wear off when they're now faced with yet again wondering what to do.

Content that necessitates skill, like raiding, I do think should remain relevant longer, and its rewards not so easily squished. But RNG isn't rewarding. It's just dumb luck.

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Yes and no, you can't underestimate the attractive power of RnG. Its the whole psychology of why gambling is so potent. However, everybody has different tolerances to risk and reward thus some are drawn and motivated more than others. Some RnG is good because it delays predictable outcomes, however, the real devil you speak of is unshielded RnG. That is True RnG, this is the real killer that causes all but the most tolerant people to unsub.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

From what I've seen here, and after what I feel after 3 months being out: is this game dying any time soon? No it's not; is this game doing well? No, definitely not.

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100% agree. The game is not exactly bleeding subs, but we are not gaining genuine fresh players at a desirable rate either. The most commonly cited deterrents that turn them away are how repetitive combat is, and having to chug through the story.

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Originally Posted by CookieMonsta

Yes and no, you can't underestimate the attractive power of RnG. Its the whole psychology of why gambling is so potent. However, everybody has different tolerances to risk and reward thus some are drawn and motivated more than others. Some RnG is good because it delays predictable outcomes, however, the real devil you speak of is unshielded RnG. That is True RnG, this is the real killer that causes all but the most tolerant people to unsub.

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Aye. However, my point isn't the merits of RNG, but whether it will keep people who are bored of the game inclined to continue playing. Like I said above, they could leave drop rates absurdly low, not nerf the Anima or whatever else and the people who unsubbed largely won't care because odds are they stopped playing from boredom. If you look at patch 3.3 from a pure raider perspective. You have two faceroll dungeons, Nidhogg, Weeping City and PotD. For some people, that just isn't enough to keep them occupied over a near four month span. Even if the devs announced we'd be staying at ilvl 240 until the next expansion at a minimum, it wouldn't bring back players who lost interest from a lack of content.

Skipped over the middle parts of the thread where everyone was muddling over the state of endgame raiding and whatnot; when it started to go around in circles I just jumped ahead to the end to post cuz it wasn't really worth reading anymore. Here's my perspective as someone who quits for pretty long periods of time then comes back and logs in daily and powerhouses current content only to get bored and quit for another few months again:


-content that isn't raiding is stupidly faceroll, and that bugs me. What kept me for so long with 3.3, where patches 3.1 and 3.2 had failed? Dying to Wiping City of Mhach over and over and over again. The fights were recoverable, because I'm a former raid and hardcore PVP healer, and I liked being challenged by content that wasn't essentially "one mistake = we wipe". Stuff can be hard without being synchronized swimming. If 24-man raiding continues to be along that level of difficulty, and is actually somewhat CURRENT, RELEVANT content, then I'd probably run it for longer. If I had the option of doing Wiping City for 230 gear when 230 gear first came out, I would have never touched "expert" roulette. More options for gearing up would be great.

-don't feel like stirring up a crapstorm, but healer DPS meta still, and always will, bug the hell out of me. Recently been playing WoW, and outside of LFR (their version of "story mode", I guess), I don't DPS a thing on my restoration Shaman. Damage is too high, my heals are scaled pretty low relatively to maximum tank HP (my generic heal heals for something like 30k of a tank's 500k HP, though that will start to knit when I get better gear), and a lot of my moves actually cost a good bit of mana so I can't just spam like an idiot and be a-okay, due to virtually no mana-restoring tools outside of potions. It's cool that some people prefer the style of healing in FFXIV (lots of praise on the r/MMORPG subreddit for SCH's design, as a matter of fact), but it's really not for me. Healer classes in WoW IN GENERAL feel way better designed, and have their own unique toolkits. Some healer classes don't even get a combat raise! Blizzard doesn't seem to embrace XIV's design philosophy of "every healer needs this-or-that to be successful", and I like that. It makes leveling and playing all the healing jobs feel pretty unique, instead of the disappointment that was my Astrologian.

-applying that to a broader perspective, class homogenization in this game is pretty brutal. It's pretty much guaranteed that a new tank will have Provoke, a few flat % damage mitigators, a stack or resource management gimmick (fair enough, most every MMO has those), and a "holy crap" move that will somehow let them cheat death for a few seconds when stuff Goes Awry. Healers will always have a Swiftcast, some healing % up moves, a powerful instant-cast MP-free heal for "holy crap" moments, and an MP restoring ability. DPS seem to be a bit better designed, but most of their "raid desirability" boils down to a numbers-crunch game, which shows some flaws in content design.

-to enforce what others have said many times in the thread, I just don't CARE about staying current when I can take huge hiatuses and get caught up in a few weeks or so. Most vertical progression games follow this, and it's not even inherently a bad thing, but it does mean that near the middle/end of every gear cycle there's going to be a pretty big drop-off in activity. I don't think making raid gear "more exclusive" would really entice me into doing it, as people have mentioned in this thread, but I certainly wouldn't give a crap if SE were to make that the case. For me, the gear rewards take a pretty big backseat to why I engage in the content that I do...fun is my biggest motivator, followed second by "variety". Currently, of all the content that XIV has to offer right now, none of that really fits the bill. Old stuff gets dumpstered too quickly for me to ever bother with the new "hot item" like Diadem, Gold Saucer, or PotD, because in the end I know that the only real way to progress my character come the new gear cycle will be two faceroll dungeons and a butt-blaster raid, neither of which I am interested in doing ad nauseam.



I had more to say, but am running late for work. Those are just the bigger reasons why I find it hard to stay interested and invested in XIV for a long period of time...it's too easy to catch up, but hilariously limited in terms of how you can gear your character when the gear is ACTUALLY NEW AND RELEVANT. Also, jobs are too homogenized and I hate healer DPS because I'm old or something. Rabble rabble.

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Originally Posted by zosia

You're still missing the point. This pattern of devaluing time invested into the game needs to be addressed on all fronts. No one has problems with reasonable nerfs and nerfs over time, but what this game does turns players off to staying subbed long term. It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around. This causes less people to stick around and that sort of apathy always leads to more lost subs.

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First of all very, very few players will stick to a single game for more than a couple of years no matter what. Also many players never hit the cap even when staying subbed all year long, due to not playing enough hours per week, or just not being that interested in grinding stuff.

But then gear progression is only one of many reasons for playing.


As the game is expanded with new content and increases in max character level and item level, some speedup of progression is not merely reasonable but absolutely necessary. Otherwise a new player would look at everything they need to do to reach the cap and be pretty much overwhelmed and in many cases not even bother to start playing.

I don't know, but I suspect the idea is that the time needed to get from a brand new character to a capped one should stay more or less constant no matter when you start playing.
I.e. the time needed to get from level 1 to level 60 with ilvl 240 gear now should be about the same as was needed to get from level 1 to level 50 with ilvl 90 when ARR was first released.

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Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

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And we need new players why again?

What is better, if game sells 1 million and keeps running for 10 years never getting new players but also almost never loosing old ones. Or if game sells 1 million each year for 10 years, but only 200k players stay subbed longer than month?

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Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

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In what way are you "always behind" the older players as a new player? If you start the game off right now and play it on a consistent basis you can get through 2.0 to Heavensward in around a month or two depending on how many hours you can invest. By the time you get through HW you should be in whatever the most current patch is and then you can gear up to the latest gear. I have a friend who started around March this year and is already i230 and has a few Classes at Lv.60 now.

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Originally Posted by Vantol

And we need new players why again?

What is better, if game sells 1 million and keeps running for 10 years never getting new players but also almost never loosing old ones. Or if game sells 1 million each year for 10 years, but only 200k players stay subbed longer than month?

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Well, we need new players because there is no video game with a half-life period = infinite as you imagine.

So you're asking what is better
a) a game which never gets boring and brings fun for at least 10 years (i.e. a 'perfect' game)
b) a usual game, like we know them today

Hahaha...

So we have an absolutetly unrealistic and so a very risky alternative (1 Mio. Units sold and all sub for the entire 10 years, something never happend so far in videogame history) with something like 1,85 billion € return...
But if you change something you risk losing a bunch of players you can't replace..

OR

a less unrealistic and less risky choice (10 Mio. sold over 10 years and 0,2 Mio subbed all time) with about 0,81 billion € return.
If you change something some will unsub, some will resub.

I'd take the realistic approach as a game producer.

(calculated with 45€ game // 15€ sub)

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Originally Posted by Vantol

And we need new players why again?

What is better, if game sells 1 million and keeps running for 10 years never getting new players but also almost never loosing old ones. Or if game sells 1 million each year for 10 years, but only 200k players stay subbed longer than month?

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Because no game has an infinite supply of players. People inevitably loss interest for one reason or another, which in turn, means a loss of revenue with no way to replace it.

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Originally Posted by seraf

In what way are you "always behind" the older players as a new player? If you start the game off right now and play it on a consistent basis you can get through 2.0 to Heavensward in around a month or two depending on how many hours you can invest. By the time you get through HW you should be in whatever the most current patch is and then you can gear up to the latest gear. I have a friend who started around March this year and is already i230 and has a few Classes at Lv.60 now.

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Um, I think you misunderstood? I said this in reference to the person I quoted implying veteran players should have an advantage over new players based solely because they happened to have purchased the game earlier. I wasn't saying I was behind or couldn't catch up.

We need one of these badly:

http://www.thedailyblink.com/comics/2012-12-05-390.jpg

Myself, I would be checking of a number of them.

An important thing to keep in mind, when discussing Player Retention, is that there is no "magic bullet" for it. Players have completely different motivations, and many of these are contradictory, though not in every case. Game designers have the (immensely difficult) task of appealing to as many of these motivations as they can while not alienating players instead.

For example, here are a some of the more common motivations, along with what content appeases these players. Keep in mind that this is also a spectrum, and players can have many of these motivations at the same time. For example, a character can love challenge, but also love lore. Not all of them contradict.

• Challenge: Some players heavily value the Challenge games can offer. Whether it be incredibly complex rotations, difficult mechanics, or punishment for failure, these players love it. They play primarily to test their skills. Content like Savage Raids appeases this kind of player.
• Prestige: Some players play for "prestige". They want to show off their incredible gear, proudly wear their titles, and have truly exclusive equipment, whether it be functional or simply visual (mounts/minions etc). Prestige players favor long-lasting, hard-won items, and hate it when it becomes easier to acquire later. These players favor games that require a lot more commitment.
• Progression: Some players desire a constant sense of progression. They always want to feel like they're getting stronger, and ideally quickly. They constantly want to feel as if they're improving, whether it be through better gear, new skills and abilities, or even improving their skills in various fights. These players prefer to get gear faster and upgrade it often. They usually don't need complicated stats, and will focus on what's "strongest" instead. The current gear progression in the game caters to these players, with high ilvl gear only lasting 3-6 months.
• Storyline / Lore: These players are fueled by a sense of immersion and a desire to learn more. They love additional storyline cutscenes, scour the world for lore in sidequests, and eagerly pursue minute, world-expanding details. These players enjoy content like the MSQ, side quests, and exploration.
• Social: Some players play the game for the community and social interaction. These players engage in Roleplay, enjoy casual discussions with others, and love meeting new people and making friends. These players enjoy new venues to meet new people with, whether it be expanded chat systems or online forums. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to truly shape a community through gameplay, so social players must usually work on their own to find what they enjoy.
• Side activities: Some players enjoy having a wealth of side, "fun" activities. They enjoy mini-games, personal challenges, and other content to the "side" of primary gameplay. This may also include houses, "glamour", and more. The Golden Saucer, for example, is content that these players love.
• Completion: Some players thrive on completing tasks in the game. They want to accomplish as much as they can, and seeing "unfinished" content drives them to play more. These players will level every class, complete every dungeon, and get every achievement. Simply adding more content is what appeases these players.
• Experimentation: Some players love to tinker and experiment in game. They love to tweak stats, character skills, and combine abilities to create powerful or creative builds. These players favor complicated gear stats that allow them to optimize, or at least create something different. Currently, FFXIV doesn't do a great job with this motivation, since gear is rather simple and there is no real way to customize your character's combat style.
• Commitment: Some players place a heavy value on commitment. This usually comes in two flavors, with some preferring a high level of commitment and others preferring lower amounts. Players who want high levels of commitment want to spend a lot of time playing the game, and be demonstrably stronger and/or rewarded as a result. Lower commitment players favor shorter grinds, "catch-up" content, and the ability to progress without investing as much time. Many "low commitment" players play other games or have real life schedules that make a heavier commitment impossible. Currently, FFXIV caters well to low commitment players, with plenty of opportunities to catch up on the gear grind.
• New Experiences: Some players play exclusively for "new" experiences. The first time running through a dungeon, the exploration of a new zone, getting a new ability, trying out a new class, discovering a new fight mechanic, and such are what this kind of player enjoys most. These types of players hate grinding or re-doing old content. Unfortunately, due to the finite amount of content in most games, these players can be the hardest to please. There is a limited amount of ways any encounter can be built, and the farmable nature of dungeons and raids (including "hallway" dungeons) gets grating quickly. Still, they can be appeased with new, innovative content and randomized content.

Even the list above doesn't cover many of the detailed player motivations that drive player retention. Unfortunately, the Devs can't produce enough new content to satisfy all of these motivations, so they have to pick and choose carefully. There is no one way to satisfy everyone, and what attracts and keeps some players pushes others away. The best they can do is come up with a variety of different content which caters to these different motivations.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

We need one of these badly:
Myself, I would be checking of a number of them.

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That is truly beautiful. I think pretty much every forum needs one of those.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

No, I am not. You're just insisting only your perspective has any merit. And you're arguing in circles. Nerfs of any caliber-- according to you -- result in overall player apathy. Therefore, how can any be reasonable? Say they left mount drops at exactly the same rate. A person waiting several patch cycles will always have a far easier time because those bosses are going to melt. Look at Garuda. No one does her mechanics anymore. You have premades with a single tank, a single healer and six DPS who utterly annihilate her in a few minutes tops. You really don't even need a healer nowadays if the tank can handle it. Good luck trying that back in 2.1.

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For starters, yes you were missing the point by virtue of the yokai watch example. You also further missed my point where I said no one has problems with reasonable nerfs, yet you claim my point is nerfs of any caliber result in player apathy. You are probably still missing the point. Let me be as simple for you as possible....

Big nerf bad

Many Big nerf really bad

SE, should try a different nerf style to preserve reward impact across all aspects of the game

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Hmm, going out on a limb here but I suspect that $65 price tag might be a good deterrent. You're acting like the Lightning Event, or other like-minded, were monumental. I guarantee you the players unsubbed now, would still be unsubbed even if every piece of event content remained lost in time. They unsubbed because they were bored. Running Ravana a hundred times would likely contribute to said boredom not alleviate it.

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I am sorry if your life has left you thinking $65 dollars is a substantial amount of money. That is a price of a new video game after tax. You keep having to fall back to this idea of RNG, but you have yet to address other aspects where reward nerfs have hurt this game like the thavnarian set, gearing in general from a tome vendor, putting rare past event items in the cash shop like the lightning event. Your argument is a one trick pony, lol. You can only rely on how miserable it is to farm a 5% drop rate on current content. If you can't take the 5% drop rate now, why not wait until 4.0 who you could duo most of the primals that drop birds?

Your defense of the pony situation is just laughable. People would be able to get them, easily, if the drop rate had stayed around 5%. Rather than try to find a happy middle ground, you are here, defending the status quo despite the 25% sub drop over 7 months. Pathetic. This is why this game will die, people are too scared to change the status quo.

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Because generally people want it now. They don't want to wait a year. Look no further than the recent delays to No Man's Sky and Final Fantasy XV. People lost their collective minds over two months. Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

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You're wrong. Wow had a decade of great sub numbers with a system that favored long term subscribers. You are offering nothing but a slippery slope argument here. A game can both be rewarding to it's long term players and welcoming to new players. Wow did it for a decade, whats your excuse for this game?

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You also continuously ignore other outside factors. Legion is a massive expansion. And seeing a number of FFXIV players are either former or current WoW players, this will inevitably influence these numbers, especially when we're in a "catch up" patch-- oft criticised for not having enough to do for people already "caught up." Once again, I guarantee if by 4.0, we saw three Primals, a complete and successful overhaul of Diadem, objective and/or more dynamic based content, no more tome grinding, and just more to do in general, you'd see people sticking around longer. For some, one primal and two faceroll dungeons just isn't enough to keep them playing even with PvP and PotD. No amount of mounts, minions or gear will change that even if it lasted for years. (Mount drop rates technically last a year, btw)

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Legion was not coming out 7 months ago, these sub numbers have been dropping for SEVEN MONTHS! IF you think you can pin that all on wow and legion, then I won't discuss this any further with you. The reason people are not sticking around for content like PotD is that A) it's grindy and B) the rewards suck.

You are cherry picking my posts and assuming my position solely rests on the idea that everything needs to be rare. Here, I will quote myself from another thread...

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Originally Posted by zosia

I like Housing, Minions, and glamours.



I dislike how the dev team has little to no communication with the player base. Important questions are never addressed in live letters, only silly questions no one cares about. Yoshi P had not given a good truthful answer to "what has not worked out" as it pertains to heavensward. He always dances around that question.

I dislike how the dev team implemented a4s without play testing the fight from start to finish. Some of them should literally lose their jobs over gordias. This dev team took a healthy raiding community in ARR and shattered it beyond repair with Gordias.

I dislike how the dev team invests so much of their limited resources on content like PotD, Lord of Verminion, and Diadem only to have all of those contents flop due to poor design and/or bad incentives.

I dislike how gear is worthless in this game.

I dislike how gear does not really impact your endgame gameplay, people literally get full 240 to stand around towns.

I dislike how full 240 BiS is a pointless endeavor because a ilvl 250 crafted gear set will completely outshine any 240 BiS set day one for patch 3.4.

I dislike how this dev team makes super rare items super common. (coffin lid, Thavanarian set, etc). It's like this dev team only knows 0 and 100 on the speed dial, the coffin lid went from a 1% drop to a 100% drop. How does that even make sense? Why not start like at 10, 15, or 25%? Why even nerf it at all, it's just rare furniture?

I dislike how there is no individualism in this game. Since everything is nerfed into the ground, rewards and rare items often become common place and cheap. There is very few ways to actually distinguish yourself from others. Everyone and everything feels like a giant bowl of bland vanilla paste.

I dislike how every bit of content outside of midas savage is set to the brain dead ez mode setting. I really dislike how netflix is almost mandatory for repeat clears of 90% of this game content. This game is boring af!

I dislike how there are completely unnecessary complications in this game. Why do we need five different types of glamour prisms? It takes the same mats to make any of the different grades, just standardize them FFS!

I dislike how SE is trying to bribe people with houses to stay subbed with housing demolition. Lets stop pretending that demolition makes housing wards active. People just log in once a month to preserve their housing lots.

I dislike that after three years that this game still has massive RMT issues. I dislike that rampant botting of all types is hardly punished in this game.

I dislike the clunky friends/black list UI that closes out every time you remove someone from the list.

I dislike hunts. They are no where near as cool as actual NMs. Hunts can go die in a fire.

I dislike the cash shop. I dislike the cash shop. I dislike the cash shop.

I dislike how every time there is a hotfix, the severs go down for three hours. Invest in better servers SE, Blizzard can do a hotfix in 15 mins and they only need to restart the server. Maybe use some of that cash shop money on FFXIV instead of FFXV?

I dislike the cheap reuse of monster assets and mechanics. 95% of PotD was just regurgitated environments with regurgitated monsters.

I could easily keep going on, there is so much to dislike like yokai, relics, gordias, etc. etc. etc. but why bother? The dev team is tone deaf and near incompetent when it comes to delivering new content.

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I have plenty of issues outside of loot, mounts, and minions. This game is in trouble on multiple fronts. I do agree with you on the legion part. This game is losing more and more players to legion. Wow is doing what it does best, taking the best parts of other games and adapting them for better use.

For example, where do you think blizzard got the idea of the artifact weapon and guild halls from? It's going to take content misgivings of FFXIV and turn them into something amazing in wow. Have you even seen the artifact weapons yet? They even give me pause asking why I ever worked on a relic in this game.

Blizzard is going to keep snatching up more and more ffxiv players with legion. If the expansion is even half as good as it looks, FFXIV won't have another WoD flop to benefit from. This games days are numbered and the thought puts a grin of my face every time.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

As said before.. you're misleaded if you think that the question ("Do I prolong my sub?") is answered either with
"Yes, because I want this or that gear and I won't get it, If I'm not subbed long enough. So I stay subbed." or with
"No, because right now I don't want any specific gear and I can get it easier in a month, so I resubb then. Or when it's released on the cash shop".



Well, what a luck I don't play this game just for the sake of progression.
And imagine that: When they at some point turn off the game/servers (or the F11 ones, with their everlasting and totally motivating progression system) your progression is down to someone who have not played the game at all and all you have now is some screenshots and memories.

And while I memorize the good times with my friends, you'll memorize the then-called "wasted" hours of progression, or what?

---

Ah yes, ofc I have no friends in-game, no fond memories of epic raid wins, no people I will retain friendships past this game. None of that at allllll. How shallow of me just to focus on pixels and never consider the MMO part of MMORPG. /s

lol, thank you for that.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Because no game has an infinite supply of players. People inevitably loss interest for one reason or another, which in turn, means a loss of revenue with no way to replace it.

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Which is fine as long as this inequality is true


Sub lossed per year < New subs per year.


That has not been true in this game for about 10 months now. The player churn won't keep this game at 500k subs, a number Yoshi P. said is needed to maintain this game. We are already at what? 500k? I am willing to even give that a 100k buffer since it's an unofficial census. I wonder how long it will take to lose another 100k subs when legion hits :p

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

Well, we need new players because there is no video game with a half-life period = infinite as you imagine.

So you're asking what is better
a) a game which never gets boring and brings fun for at least 10 years (i.e. a 'perfect' game)
b) a usual game, like we know them today

Hahaha...

So we have an absolutetly unrealistic and so a very risky alternative (1 Mio. Units sold and all sub for the entire 10 years, something never happend so far in videogame history) with something like 1,85 billion € return...
But if you change something you risk losing a bunch of players you can't replace..

OR

a less unrealistic and less risky choice (10 Mio. sold over 10 years and 0,2 Mio subbed all time) with about 0,81 billion € return.
If you change something some will unsub, some will resub.

I'd take the realistic approach as a game producer.

(calculated with 45€ game // 15€ sub)

---

Well, the situation right now is that we are losing a bunch of players that are not being replaced fast enough. To put it simply, we are losing way more subs than new players joining. Yoshida said this game COULD survive with 500k subs, and already half way into the 2nd expansion we are at that number.

I am sure the quality of content is going to SKYROCKET when subs drop below 400k ^_^

enjoy that F2P P2W cash shop that is always looming behind every corner! I wonder how long it will be until this game sells character boosts just like wow, lol. Keep defending the status quo, you are doing great!

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Originally Posted by Vantol

And we need new players why again?

What is better, if game sells 1 million and keeps running for 10 years never getting new players but also almost never loosing old ones. Or if game sells 1 million each year for 10 years, but only 200k players stay subbed longer than month?

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this is wrong what is the point of having 200k players forever when the current model will always have more (at its lowest point aka right now) then that will ever have.

guess what when 3.4 hits the numbers jump back up for the players who come for the new patch and leave.

the game model you guys are wanting will only hold (for a long period of time) a much smaller number than what we do now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

this is wrong what is the point of having 200k players forever when the current model will always have more (at its lowest point aka right now) then that will ever have.

guess what when 3.4 hits the numbers jump back up for the players who come for the new patch and leave.

the game model you guys are wanting will only hold (for a long period of time) a much smaller number than what we do now.

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There have been two major content patches in the last seven months and there was still a net loss of subs, about a 24% loss. In light of that fact, your proposition is to stay the course because any change could be worse than what we have now?

Great plan, lol.

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this is wrong what is the point of having 200k players forever when the current model will always have more (at its lowest point aka right now) then that will ever have.

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The whole point of this thread actually is that this is the highest point right now and we have been only losing subs since 2.X with minor spike at 3.0 (on straight decline since then) and "to be" 4.0. This game will never surpass 500k subs / 200k active players ever anymore. We are discussing here problems, that caused it and how to prevent it from happening in next FF:Online. Because this one is done for good.

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Originally Posted by zosia

There have been two major content patches in the last seven months and there was still a net loss of subs, about a 24% loss. In light of that fact, your proposition is to stay the course because any change could be worse than we have now?

Great plan, lol.

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choose the course with more players or the one with less, sounds like the better one to me.

but hey its better to just drop 70% of the current players and just accept 30% forever i mean it's better to just take the drop and accept mediocrity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vantol

The whole point of this thread actually is that this is the highest point right now and we have been only losing subs since 2.X with minor spike at 3.0 (on straight decline since then) and "to be" 4.0. This game will never surpass 500k subs / 200k active players ever anymore. We are discussing here problems, that caused it and how to prevent it from happening in next FF:Online. Because this one is done for good.

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but we are already above that, you are discussing made up problem based on what you like or dislike about the game and saying it's because of this opinion of mine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

choose the course with more players or the one with less, sounds like the better one to me.

but hey its better to just drop 70% of the current players and just accept 30% forever i mean it's better to just take the drop and accept mediocrity.

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I don't think you really understand the problem here. This is not a casual vs hard core argument as much as some of you like to make it out to be. This is a post mortum on why this game cannot retain any type of player. Do you really think everyone complaining here is some HC special snowflake raider?

Pull your head out of your tuckus and see that this game is poisoned across ALL player skill strata. From casual tome farmers to HC raiders, no one is staying subbed for long periods of time. It has everything to do with the lack of compelling incentives. There are several reasons any rewards in this game are no longer compelling. There are several reasons why this game is not captivating people any longer.

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but we are already above that

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We are not. There are ~507'772 players who logged in at least once (or more) in past 7 months, and ~225'457 players who completed 3.3 main quest (which takes maximum a few hours).

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Originally Posted by zosia

no one is staying subbed for long periods of time.

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yet your *unofficial census* says there are, but hey only use the info when you want right?

pull my head out of my tuckus? it is.

you are the one says *this is why it's dead this is why it's a dead game*

yet it's not dead yet it's just over exaggeration to try to make some fake fearmongering the game has lasted 3 years in 4 days, and yet it's still got a large game population (yes large)
if you wanna compare it to wow sure but then this game is only in second place to wow itself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

yet your *unofficial census* says there are, but hey only use the info when you want right?

pull my head out of my tuckus? it is.

you are the one says *this is why it's dead this is why it's a dead game*

yet it's not dead yet it's just over exaggeration to try to make some fake fearmongering the game has lasted 3 years in 4 days, and yet it's still got a large game population (yes large)
if you wanna compare it to wow sure but then this game is only in second place to wow itself.

---

Yoshi P. said this game needs about 500k subs to stay healthy. We are already sitting at that lower limit just based on the number of characters that logged in the last few months. You are fine sitting at the lowest number of subs needed to support this game midway through the second expansion? LOL do you even see what you are defending? Those stats were taken from lodestone data, there is not a bunch of unaccounted for active players for you to cushion your argument with.

Go on, defend a game being at it's lowest carrying capacity during it's first real expansion. It delights me to see you try and even defend these terrible active sub numbers.

FYI, these were the types of numbers a lot of MMO's showed before going F2P, just take a gander at the star wars MMO. hehehehehe, everything is fine though, don't you worry, as long as the last five of you use the cash shop enough, this game can stay around for ever :D

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Originally Posted by zosia

snip

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i will leave this here just quoting the title of the thread,
Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

your whole arguement is based on a unofficial census made by a random person.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

yet your *unofficial census* says there are, but hey only use the info when you want right?

pull my head out of my tuckus? it is.

you are the one says *this is why it's dead this is why it's a dead game*

yet it's not dead yet it's just over exaggeration to try to make some fake fearmongering the game has lasted 3 years in 4 days, and yet it's still got a large game population (yes large)
if you wanna compare it to wow sure but then this game is only in second place to wow itself.

---

I don't really have a dog in this race, but you can't blast that person for using figures from this unofficial census to support how "dead" the game is then turn around and boast that the playerbase is healthy without any of your own data to back it up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I don't really have a dog in this race, but you can't blast that person for using figures from this unofficial census to support how "dead" the game is then turn around and boast that the playerbase is healthy without any of your own data to back it up.

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actually i was making a point, they use the info only when they want to, they say the gaming is dead but the own census says other wise.

then they say well it's going down hill look at the census, see what i am saying?

me the matter of the census is *it's on the internet so it has to be true right?!*

now if you are saying i can't argue their point because they have a made up census sure i can make a fake graph in photoshop if you like and use that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

actually i was making a point, they use the info only when they want to, they say the gaming is dead but the own census says other wise.

then they say well it's going down hill look at the census, see what i am saying?

me the matter of the census is *it's on the internet so it has to be true right?!*

now if you are saying i can't argue their point because they have a made up census sure i can make a fake graph in photoshop if you like and use that.

---

The census data was taken right off of lodestone. It was a simple set of scripts that tracked active players. I guess the lodestone is an unofficial source now ;p

Do you really think these stats could be off by a significant amount? Yoshi P. said this game need 500k subs to survive, not thrive, not fluorish, survive. This game is sitting at that lower limit. At least I have a statement from the game producer and lodestone data backing my argument. You just have 'opinions' and 'feelings', lawl.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

actually i was making a point, they use the info only when they want to, they say the gaming is dead but the own census says other wise.

then they say well it's going down hill look at the census, see what i am saying?

me the matter of the census is *it's on the internet so it has to be true right?!*

now if you are saying i can't argue their point because they have a made up census sure i can make a fake graph in photoshop if you like and use that.

---

Except this census is not made up. They've specifically stated how the data is accumulated. For you to compare it to a fake graph is asinine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Except this census is not made up. They've specifically stated how the data is accumulated. For you to compare it to a fake graph is asinine.

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yes and i read it but i didn't see it saying anything about reading the total number of players subbed each month for the last 7 months just some random numbers generated by using a few filters.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zosia

The census data was taken right off of lodestone. It was a simple set of scripts that tracked active players. I guess the lodestone is an unofficial source now ;p

Do you really think these stats could be off by a significant amount? Yoshi P. said this game need 500k subs to survive, not thrive, not fluorish, survive. This game is sitting at that lower limit. At least I have a statement from the game producer and lodestone data backing my argument. You just have 'opinions' and 'feelings', lawl.

---

Yet somehow this game is still going strong despite it, with SE clearly making enough money from the game to run a FFXIV themed cafe in Tokyo to boot! /sarcasm

I think it's pretty telling that this so-called 'census' is nothing but chocobo dung not to be taken seriously, just like this same tired Chicken-Little mentality about the game 'dying' that keeps being spouted over and over again (since long before launch actually - really this game should have died half a dozen times by now if the doomsayers are to be believed).

The game is not failing, sure it can be improved, but articulating 'room for improvement' as 'the game is dying because not everyone is logging in 24/7/doing endgame stuff!' only invalidates the whole arguement.

But I've said enough on this subject already so I'm tired of repeating myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

yes and i read it but i didn't see it saying anything about reading the total number of players subbed each month for the last 7 months just some random numbers generated by using a few filters.

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lol, the numbers were not random. The source explains what each number is and how they arrived at it. It shows the number of active characters that have played month to month. This seven month notion comes from simply looking at the 1st month player activity dipped and contrasting it with the most recent month. This is not some hand wavy BS like you are trying to make it seem. You are setting up an impossible standard for proof since SE has not nor ever will release the actual number of active subs. This is the best we will ever get, and from the data we have, the game is in terrible shape.

%

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Yet somehow this game is still going strong despite it, with SE clearly making enough money from the game to run a FFXIV themed cafe in Tokyo to boot! /sarcasm

I think it's pretty telling that this so-called 'census' is nothing but chocobo dung not to be taken seriously, just like this same tired Chicken-Little mentality about the game 'dying' that keeps being spouted over and over again (since long before launch actually - really this game should have died half a dozen times by now if the doomsayers are to be believed).

The game is not failing, sure it can be improved, but articulating 'room for improvement' as 'the game is dying because not everyone is logging in 24/7/doing endgame stuff!' only invalidates the whole arguement.

But I've said enough on this subject already so I'm tired of repeating myself.

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Says the guy on balmung. lol. Why don't you just move to gilgamesh and tell me how this game is so well populated.

It's really not going that strong, Maybe on one of the few mega servers, but on any average server, the market boards are stagnate, towns are empty, housing wards are lifeless, and party finder is way less active than it used to be.

Then stop repeating yourself, arguing on the internet is a pointless endeavor, especially on these forums. Not to mention very few people care. I don't delude myself into thinking I am accomplishing anything here, you should embrace that. Just enjoy the schadenfreude and enjoy the dumpster fire that the active amount of subs has become.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Yet somehow this game is still going strong despite it, with SE clearly making enough money from the game to run a FFXIV themed cafe in Tokyo to boot! /sarcasm

I think it's pretty telling that this so-called 'census' is nothing but chocobo dung not to be taken seriously, just like this same tired Chicken-Little mentality about the game 'dying' that keeps being spouted over and over again (since long before launch actually - really this game should have died half a dozen times by now if the doomsayers are to be believed).

The game is not failing, sure it can be improved, but articulating 'room for improvement' as 'the game is dying because not everyone is logging in 24/7/doing endgame stuff!' only invalidates the whole arguement.

But I've said enough on this subject already so I'm tired of repeating myself.

---

We should bump up that thread that recorded everything that said the game would die. Or did it get purged?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

snip.

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Again, LIKE I ALREADY SAID, it's not about the pretty mounts / vanity items. It is about rewarding a player's time. That is not limited to gear.

You are fixated on the superficial and are missing the point.

The feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, the fun of a shared experience, the fulfillment and entertainment in just playing the game. Those are all rewards, too.

And, they are marginalized by how this game treats its balance of accessibility vs. earned exclusivity -- the point that you missed.

One example that many talk about is Coil vs. Alexander. Alexander's normal mode was implemented as a response to negative feedback regarding the gating of content behind inaccessible raid encounters. But, as many including Level 5's CEO have pointed, doing so has cheapened the experience. He wasn't talking about the gear. He wasn't talking about the title. He was talking about our feelings as gamers. Reveals like Nael van Darnus, Louisoix, and Bahamut had more weight and impact when the fights and raid structure more aptly represented the gravitas of their reality. With Alexander, you spend maybe an hour in DF on release night with a bunch of randoms and you're done with it. It's an anticlimactic and antisocial experience. They sacrificed the benefits of exclusivity for accessibility and a lot of people will tell you that it hurt the content.

It's about inspiration. Rewards matter only so far as their value in inspiring a positive emotion. I don't think people play games to feel like complete crap. When you make content less rewarding in every sense, virtually tangible or emotional, there is less room to inspire someone and keep them hooked to the game.

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Originally Posted by zosia

For starters, yes you were missing the point by virtue of the yokai watch example. You also further missed my point where I said no one has problems with reasonable nerfs, yet you claim my point is nerfs of any caliber result in player apathy. You are probably still missing the point. Let me be as simple for you as possible....

Big nerf bad

Many Big nerf really bad

SE, should try a different nerf style to preserve reward impact across all aspects of the game

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And allow me to enlighten you. Your opinion is not fact. No amount of frequency or insistence will ever change that. All you've proven is to be wholly arrogant as the very idea someone might dare to disagree seems entirely foreign to you.

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I am sorry if your life has left you thinking $65 dollars is a substantial amount of money. That is a price of a new video game after tax. You keep having to fall back to this idea of RNG, but you have yet to address other aspects where reward nerfs have hurt this game like the thavnarian set, gearing in general from a tome vendor, putting rare past event items in the cash shop like the lightning event. Your argument is a one trick pony, lol. You can only rely on how miserable it is to farm a 5% drop rate on current content. If you can't take the 5% drop rate now, why not wait until 4.0 who you could duo most of the primals that drop birds?

Your defense of the pony situation is just laughable. People would be able to get them, easily, if the drop rate had stayed around 5%. Rather than try to find a happy middle ground, you are here, defending the status quo despite the 25% sub drop over 7 months. Pathetic. This is why this game will die, people are too scared to change the status quo.

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And these presumptions continue. At what point did I expression my own financial situation? I spoke in general because there are, indeed, plenty of people who play this game and couldn't afford $65 on frivolous minions. There are plenty more who simply do not see the value in tossing money at the cash shop for stuff they could have gotten in-game yet chose not to.

Laughably only because you, once again, seem incapable of perceiving arguments that are not your own. Thus, I shall reiterate, you place far too great a significant on mounts, events or other frivolous trinkets. The mere fact you even bring up the Lightning event demonstrates you don't get its purpose. This wasn't some reward, but a promotional campaign for SE to advertise another game. Nevertheless, putting leveling gear on vendors or the Lightning event on the Cash Shop isn't causing sub loss. At least not to the degree you seem to believe. loreleidiangelo's post summaries how most people feel when bored of any game or hobby. By her own admittance, mounts or events won't woo her back because the content isn't interesting.

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You're wrong. Wow had a decade of great sub numbers with a system that favored long term subscribers. You are offering nothing but a slippery slope argument here. A game can both be rewarding to it's long term players and welcoming to new players. Wow did it for a decade, whats your excuse for this game?

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A decade of sub numbers... that gradually declined each and every year since its release. WoW had the unique advantage of essentially revolutionizing the entire genre-- releasing at a time where it literally had no competition. Nearly fifteen years later games are still attempting to copy it. Despite all of its prior success, WoW has lost millions of players. And I have a good suspicion it didn't have to do with drop rates or exclusives but content.

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Legion was not coming out 7 months ago, these sub numbers have been dropping for SEVEN MONTHS! IF you think you can pin that all on wow and legion, then I won't discuss this any further with you. The reason people are not sticking around for content like PotD is that A) it's grindy and B) the rewards suck.

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And in that seven month span, what happened?

Gordias Savage
Diadem
LoV
3.1's general lack of content

It's almost like people might have quit from boredom or frustration. FFXIV attempted numerous bits of content that either completely flopped or proved far too challenging for the overwhelming majority. This, coupled with what amounted to five months of basically Thordan EX and nothing else unless you could handle Gordias meant there just wasn't much to do.

None of this couldn't have influenced the sub numbers. You know, despite people even openly acknowledging they quit because of Gordias or because they had nothing to do. No. It's the drop rates and lack of event items staying exclusive.

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You are cherry picking my posts and assuming my position solely rests on the idea that everything needs to be rare. Here, I will quote myself from another thread...

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I cherry picked nothing since this whole argument began initially on mounts. Some of that I could even agree with, albeit not necessarily as vehemently. But the operative word in each point you make is "you." You feeling this is an issue does not abruptly make it one. People who disagree with your opinion are not inherently wrong because every single word is purely subjective. This is the part you seem to have difficulty with.

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I have plenty of issues outside of loot, mounts, and minions. This game is in trouble on multiple fronts. I do agree with you on the legion part. This game is losing more and more players to legion. Wow is doing what it does best, taking the best parts of other games and adapting them for better use.

For example, where do you think blizzard got the idea of the artifact weapon and guild halls from? It's going to take content misgivings of FFXIV and turn them into something amazing in wow. Have you even seen the artifact weapons yet? They even give me pause asking why I ever worked on a relic in this game.

Blizzard is going to keep snatching up more and more ffxiv players with legion. If the expansion is even half as good as it looks, FFXIV won't have another WoD flop to benefit from. This games days are numbered and the thought puts a grin of my face every time.

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Let's hold back a little before praising WoW as the gospel, hmm? They practically tanked their own sub numbers with years of essentially no content. For all of Legion's promises; for many, this is their last attempt to "win back the crowd." Nonetheless, Artifact weapons are nothing new. These have been in plenty of games, be it MMOs or single player RPGs.

That last sentence of yours speaks more about you than FFXIV, the devs or its players. "I'm so excited FFXIV is gonna die!" Is basically what you just said. Why not go play WoW then? Oh, because you're borderline trolling at this point and just want to watch it all burn. I mean, if we're being honest.

I'll summarize this whole 'debate' as thus:

You think the game is struggling due to nerfs to drop rates, lack of exclusives and basically stuff that makes you feel special.

I think the sub decline is a result of Gordias Savage, a general lack of content; in particular a midcore and less innovative features in overall design.

Neither of us know for certain. So mayhaps you should stop pretending otherwise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And allow me to enlighten you. Your opinion is not fact. No amount of frequency or insistence will ever change that. All you've proven is to be wholly arrogant as the very idea someone might dare to disagree seems entirely foreign to you.

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Where once did I say my opinion was fact? Where? Quote me once. LOL, Quote me once where I stated my personal beliefs as fact. You are just being sore that I pointed out from two separate posts that you did not really know what my point was. Yet, in light of evidence provided by your very own posts, you are doubling down that somehow you understood and that I am just arrogant.

No miss, you misunderstood, plain and simple. You didn't even read my post very well. You missed the entire point where I concede that reasonable nerfs are fine. lololol you can't even admit to being wrong in that light. You can only just call me arrogant and skip past the BS that you were called out on. You are so triggered! XD

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And these presumptions continue. At what point did I expression my own financial situation? I spoke in general because there are, indeed, plenty of people who play this game and couldn't afford $65 on frivolous minions. There are plenty more who simply do not see the value in tossing money at the cash shop for stuff they could have gotten in-game yet chose not to.

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Yep, I assumed you thought $65 was substantial because you said $65 was a substantial price tag for the set of retired items. My bad for making an assumption. See what a normal person does when they do something wrong? Now only if you could see the irony in you making assumptions about how I felt about nerfs, lol. Pathetic.

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Laughably only because you, once again, seem incapable of perceiving arguments that are not your own. Thus, I shall reiterate, you place far too great a significant on mounts, events or other frivolous trinkets. The mere fact you even bring up the Lightning event demonstrates you don't get its purpose. This wasn't some reward, but a promotional campaign for SE to advertise another game. Nevertheless, putting leveling gear on vendors or the Lightning event on the Cash Shop isn't causing sub loss. At least not to the degree you seem to believe. loreleidiangelo's post summaries how most people feel when bored of any game or hobby. By her own admittance, mounts or events won't woo her back because the content isn't interesting.

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Did you not even read the long list I posted to you? Do you know why I care about loot so much? Have you even the slightest idea? Probably not. Because to you, it does not matter what kind of feedback I have to give, it does not fit your play style and therefore it deserves to be refuted and invalidated.

Interesting content is just one side of the damn coin. Don't you see that? If all content needed to be was "interesting" to be popular, the concept of rewards and carrots would not even be a topic of discussion. You refuse to see that no matter how interesting new content is, less people will grind it out if they know there will be a short cut to the rewards later. People will get a handful of clears and put the content on a shelf, until the rewards are easily obtainable.

You could have the best content in the MMO industry and if the reward system sucks, people will just wander else where given enough time. There needs to be great reasons to do repeat clears of content.

Just like my long list of dislikes insinuates, you need both compelling content and compelling rewards to keep people playing. But go ahead, that presumption glass house of yours needs a few more stones through it's walls.

Look at palace of the dead, it's by far one of the more interesting dungeons SE has added so far, yet people gave up on it pretty fast. Why? Unless you wanted a common glamour weapon or a common mount, there was very little reason to return to the content for repeat clears. Now, how many people would be doing PotD if it dropped a BiS ring from the final floor? I bet a lot more people would rather have a BiS ring for their main class than some garbage alt weapon with an obnoxious glow.

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A decade of sub numbers... that gradually declined each and every year since its release. WoW had the unique advantage of essentially revolutionizing the entire genre-- releasing at a time where it literally had no competition. Nearly fifteen years later games are still attempting to copy it. Despite all of its prior success, WoW has lost millions of players. And I have a good suspicion it didn't have to do with drop rates or exclusives but content.

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You are absolutely FACTUALLY wrong!!!!!!! That entire paragraph is started on a false premise. Tell her what she has won, Johnny!

~today she will be receiving a lovely graph of wow subs showing there was no real sub decline until the game was already six years old! Back to you Zosia! /announcer-voice
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...5815773287.png

What a lovely prize, don't go spend that all in one place! On a serious note, we all know that wow set the bar, but we don't need to look at wow to measure FFXIV. You can look at the star wars MMO and you can see what happens when a sub game hits around 500k active subs. Let me spoil the surprise for you, it's called free 2 play and games going belly up always run to that model.

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And in that seven month span, what happened?

Gordias Savage
Diadem
LoV
3.1's general lack of content

It's almost like people might have quit from boredom or frustration. FFXIV attempted numerous bits of content that either completely flopped or proved far too challenging for the overwhelming majority. This, coupled with what amounted to five months of basically Thordan EX and nothing else unless you could handle Gordias meant there just wasn't much to do.

None of this couldn't have influenced the sub numbers. You know, despite people even openly acknowledging they quit because of Gordias or because they had nothing to do. No. It's the drop rates and lack of event items staying exclusive.

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I think it all affected the sub numbers, you clearly did not read my list of dislikes. At this point, it does not surprise me that you read anything on that list. LOL.

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I cherry picked nothing since this whole argument began initially on mounts. Some of that I could even agree with, albeit not necessarily as vehemently. But the operative word in each point you make is "you." You feeling this is an issue does not abruptly make it one. People who disagree with your opinion are not inherently wrong because every single word is purely subjective. This is the part you seem to have difficulty with.

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Where have I said any feedback of yours is wrong in this thread? I mean, you are right, I genuinely think you are being willfully ignorant to the reward side of the compelling content coin. Where do I say you are not allowed to have an opinion? The irony is killing me!! LOLOLOL You are saying that I think you are wrong because we disagree. YESSSSS I absolutely think you are wrong in many regards, but not just for having a different opinion. I Think you are wrong because you don't or are not willing to take a look at the reward side of the 'content coin'. I think you are wrong and THAT IS MY OPINION, and I am allowed to have it, lololol!!! Sorry that it rubs you the wrong way that I don't think much of your opinion. You already have shown me that this is about being right for you more than it is about finding solutions.

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Let's hold back a little before praising WoW as the gospel, hmm? They practically tanked their own sub numbers with years of essentially no content. For all of Legion's promises; for many, this is their last attempt to "win back the crowd." Nonetheless, Artifact weapons are nothing new. These have been in plenty of games, be it MMOs or single player RPGs.

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I did say "IF". Do I need to really point out the nuances of reading to you? By qualifying my statement with "IF" I am already admitting that there is risk of failure... /headdesk

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That last sentence of yours speaks more about you than FFXIV, the devs or its players. "I'm so excited FFXIV is gonna die!" Is basically what you just said. Why not go play WoW then? Oh, because you're borderline trolling at this point and just want to watch it all burn. I mean, if we're being honest.

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Yes, I am enjoying myself. Trolling? I would not go that far. I am glad to provide actual feedback, like I have in this thread. I just take none of you or anything about this game seriously. I am sorry if that offends or if you even care, which you probably don't. I get more entertainment out of these forums than I do from any of the content in the game.

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I'll summarize this whole 'debate' as thus:

You think the game is struggling due to nerfs to drop rates, lack of exclusives and basically stuff that makes you feel special.

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DEFINITELY DID NOT READ MAH LIST! And you call me arrogant, lol. If you read my list, then you would know I have way more issues with this game past loot and mounts.

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I think the sub decline is a result of Gordias Savage, a general lack of content; in particular a midcore and less innovative features in overall design.

Neither of us know for certain. So mayhaps you should stop pretending otherwise.

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And maybe you should stop talking like an NPC from the game? lol mayhaps, lolololol

Anyway, Everything you said in that little list in your last quote was stuff included on my dislikes list. So, if you pulled your head out of your tuckus and actually read half of my replies in this thread alone, you would know I agree with you on that stuff. JUST FROM THIS THREAD:

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Originally Posted by zosia

-snip-

Furthermore, content like PotD, Diadem, Aquapolis, the 24 mans, will all be different sources for your BiS set in addition to having minor upgrades along the way to help you get to your BiS. Imagine if you had to go into diadem to get the best belt in the game made from killing giant dinosaur bosses? Then, to get the best ring in the game, you have to slay a lich lord and his army of minions in palace of the dead? To round out your set of interesting BiS gear with item effect, you have to kill Thordan EX for the best helm in the game. Do you kind of see what I am saying?

Now these ideas could be worked on obviously, but if I could snap my fingers now and make a wish, that would be the changes I would make. I would also make monsters tougher, dungeons harder, and hunt monsters more like world bosses. This would actually make these gear upgrades meaningful other than just stat sticks to stand around town with.

-snip-

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The irony XD it's too much. Get me the number to planet fitness, I need to work out after this desert. You literally wrote me an essay about how arrogant and presumptuous I am, yet we agree on way more stuff then you realized. You just assumed that my only issues with this game are loot and rare items. You were just too busy trying to be right, lol.

Go actually read what I have been posting for the last week instead of jumping on one of my responses in a thread 30 pages deep playing logic hero.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Again, LIKE I ALREADY SAID, it's not about the pretty mounts / vanity items. It is about rewarding a player's time. That is not limited to gear.

You are fixated on the superficial and are missing the point.

The feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, the fun of a shared experience, the fulfillment and entertainment in just playing the game. Those are all rewards, too.

And, they are marginalized by how this game treats its balance of accessibility vs. earned exclusivity -- the point that you missed.


One example that many talk about is Coil vs. Alexander. Alexander's normal mode was implemented as a response to negative feedback regarding the gating of content behind inaccessible raid encounters. But, as many including Level 5's CEO have pointed, doing so has cheapened the experience. He wasn't talking about the gear. He wasn't talking about the title. He was talking about our feelings as gamers. Reveals like Nael van Darnus, Louisoix, and Bahamut had more weight and impact when the fights and raid structure more aptly represented the gravitas of their reality. With Alexander, you spend maybe an hour in DF on release night with a bunch of randoms and you're done with it. It's an anticlimactic and antisocial experience. They sacrificed the benefits of exclusivity for accessibility and a lot of people will tell you that it hurt the content.

It's about inspiration. Rewards matter only so far as their value in inspiring a positive emotion. I don't think people play games to feel like complete crap. When you make content less rewarding in every sense, virtually tangible or emotional, there is less room to inspire someone and keep them hooked to the game.

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The easiness of Alexander Normal might has to do with it and I won't argue that stepping up the difficulty would be a good thing. To still cater to the casual crowd they could implement temporary HP/AP-boosts like the sanction spell of the GC (i.e. let them do a Task/quest of ~0,5-1h to get a 2h echo-like boost just for the current normal raid) or something like that.

But I think what most people turned of was the overall design of alexander compared with coils... I mean, even when they didn't implement normal mode, what would you think about Gordias' epicness? Well in the end, it's just robots and goblins.
Mide is no Louisoix and Twinkledinx is no Nael deus Darnus and they'll never be.

That, together with the fact, that there was an unusual long period of no new content turned people off, that's for sure. And I won't say anything against giving us 3 dungeons again.

But I don't feel the same about overall design flaws regarding gearing system or longevity of content. It's the same since 2.x, that's true there was no change.. but well that is exactly what I signed up for over a year ago. Titan Ex wasn't 'relevant' aynmore when I joined the game, it was just as relevant as Thordan is now.
E.g. Diadem failed, but not in terms of reward I think, but instead 'cause of the overall design. I.e. I just don't believe Diadem would be good if the rewards for grinding hours of dino Island were "meaningful"... it's still a boring grind and only 'cause I'm 'happy' to get my gear finally (is it really happiness or is it just relief that it's finally over?!) doesn't make the content itself better or worse.

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Originally Posted by zosia

You're wrong. Wow had a decade of great sub numbers with a system that favored long term subscribers. You are offering nothing but a slippery slope argument here. A game can both be rewarding to it's long term players and welcoming to new players.

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The reason it works in WoW is because they have catch ups with dungeon gear, crafted gear and Justice/Valor gear to get geared up. And it's something that is often complained about (my epics are not truly epic, lolwelfare epics, etc).

Of course, the other thing is that stuff felt like it lasted because you waited near-eternities between patches. I don't think you want to be stuck with only Alexander Midas for 8 months just so that you can claim your savage gear lasted longer. And this is something actual WoW players complain about a lot, which is why they complained about 11 months of Siege of Orgrimmar and the duldrums Warlords of Draenor saw until the pre-Legion patch.

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I have plenty of issues outside of loot, mounts, and minions. This game is in trouble on multiple fronts. I do agree with you on the legion part. This game is losing more and more players to legion. Wow is doing what it does best, taking the best parts of other games and adapting them for better use.

For example, where do you think blizzard got the idea of the artifact weapon and guild halls from? It's going to take content misgivings of FFXIV and turn them into something amazing in wow. Have you even seen the artifact weapons yet? They even give me pause asking why I ever worked on a relic in this game.

Blizzard is going to keep snatching up more and more ffxiv players with legion. If the expansion is even half as good as it looks, FFXIV won't have another WoD flop to benefit from. This games days are numbered and the thought puts a grin of my face every time.

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Blizzard is deciding to appeal to nostalgia, and Legion is pretty much WoD v2 with a couple of lessons learned (and really, instead of being all "omg orcs and Grom Hellscream" it's pretty much "omg demons and Illidan"). Artifacts are not something to take seriously, especially when taking into account the culture the original legendaries fostered (weapons that took an entire guild's combined efforts to get for one person) without even getting into how most of the artifacts were literally pulled out of someone's ass just to create one for every spec. And not mentioning the ire some have expressed at seeing a trillion people with Ashbringer, The Scythe of Elune and so on.

Granted, FFXIV's approach to relics is no better, but at least Excalibur, Longinus and Nothung were not prominently featured in the story content wielded by hero NPCs before they were given out like candy to all player characters.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

The easiness of Alexander Normal might has to do with it and I won't argue that stepping up the difficulty would be a good thing. To still cater to the casual crowd they could implement temporary HP/AP-boosts like the sanction spell of the GC (i.e. let them do a Task/quest of ~0,5-1h to get a 2h echo-like boost just for the current normal raid) or something like that.

But I think what most people turned of was the overall design of alexander compared with coils... I mean, even when they didn't implement normal mode, what would you think about Gordias' epicness? Well in the end, it's just robots and goblins.
Mide is no Louisoix and Twinkledinx is no Nael deus Darnus and they'll never be.

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This is probably a result of wanting to make raids sort of side stories of their own. This is something the devs stated as their intention during the design phase and beta. Of course, the advantage Coil had was that it was build up over the course of the MSQ in ARR as a background detail. Alexander didn't have this at all; in fact, I feel that if Mide had been someone you ran into once in a while during the MSQ and they had done something to build up Alexander, it wouldn't feel as lackluster to some.

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Diadem failed, but not in terms of reward I think, but instead 'cause of the overall design. I.e. I just don't believe Diadem would be good if the rewards for grinding hours of Dino Island were "meaningful"... it's still a boring grind and only 'cause I'm 'happy' to get my gear finally (is it really happiness or is it just relief that it's finally over?!) doesn't make the content itself better or worse.

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Agreed. You'd have people begrudgingly doing it for the reward, but in concept it's not really fun. I guess as an actual raid it could have worked (granted, it would need a lot of changes in design); would probably work a lot like Firelands.

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

snip.

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If I got to see the final Midas cut-scene after the victory cut-scene post A8S, would it bring Alexander up to the level of Coil? Obviously not. But, would it be infinitely better than watching it after a 10 minute DF fight? Yes.

I'd get to sit there with my static mates and share the moment. Even the dinky little victory cut-scene post A7S was a great moment to share. After weeks of wiping, frustration, and disappointment, seeing Quickthinx fly away and explode had us cheering. Moments like these create bonds between players that form the foundation of the social web of an MMO.

And again, you go back to gear. You just can't look past the superficial. Did I mention gear in this post yet? And yet everything I said was all about the rewards we receive.

Your Diadem example is just proof that you just don't understand the issue. Even though the "tangible" rewards for Diadem on my server are quite good -- the mats sell for quite a bit due to their rarity and grade V materia is always useful -- nobody does it. Why? Because while the "tangible" rewards are quite good, the content is emotional punishment. The first time I did Diadem, I went in with my static after a raid night. While it was pretty fun at first because it was fresh, after the grind set in, we were all falling asleep and couldn't wait for it to be over. The content just didn't reward us with a fun and fulfilling experience.

And, if you think the gearing system or the longevity of content hasn't changed since 2.X, you really haven't been paying much attention. Just a few of many ways it has changed -- T5 and T9 were required for raid tier progression. A4S wasn't and A8S probably won't be. EX primals had their own progression path. 3.X primals don't. In 2.X, primals were required for relic progression. In 3.X, they aren't (at least not yet and probably not ever). Raid / upgraded tomestone gear in 2.X was still valuable during the next tier of progression. Raid / upgraded tomestone gear in 3.X is completely worthless because it just gets replaced by Alex NM and crafted gear. Outside of some specific scenarios, raid / tomestone gear was always BiS until the next even patch. In 3.1, Diadem took a crap on your raid / tomestone gear.

That's really interesting. I know why I'm hardly ever on any more waiting for the MSQ update. After that I'll be gone again since I'm slowly getting board of this game.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Yet somehow this game is still going strong despite it.

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You may like the game, and it may not be dying like many people feel it is, but it's worlds away from going strong. That much is something pretty much everyone can agree on, otherwise you'd be trying to lie to yourself.