9/15 LuckyBancho Census (with UwU numbers)

All links to Reddit since formatting here sucks

Main thread https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...s_uwu_numbers/

Historical data of all census https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mbers/e61d0ww/

Population per server https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mbers/e61h8ei/

TL;DR Stats:
-Besides 2 servers(1 in NA, 1 in EU), NA/EU still don't know how to beat raids
-Population is increasing steadily since 4.1
-During 4.35, 50,000 players unsubbed thinking the WoW expansion would actually be good but it wasn't so they're all back now already.
-Balmung is almost at 18,000, get the padlocks again
-Jenova has more people than Gilgamesh
-Mateus is 2nd in line behind Balmung, put it on watchlist

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

-Balmung is almost at 18,000, get the padlocks again

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We are fully locked. The population grows when players return to the game, not from players creating/transferring characters ^^;

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Originally Posted by Rokke

We are fully locked. The population grows when players return to the game, not from players creating/transferring characters ^^;

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:0 I thought it was still unlocked

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Originally Posted by alimdia

All links to Reddit since formatting here sucks

Main thread https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...s_uwu_numbers/

Historical data of all census https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mbers/e61d0ww/

Population per server https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mbers/e61h8ei/

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Interesting data...

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

:0 I thought it was still unlocked

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It was only unlocked for 2-3 weeks. It's been locked again for like, over a year again lol.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

It was only unlocked for 2-3 weeks. It's been locked again for like, over a year again lol.

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Must've been unsubbed when it got locked...

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

-During 4.35, 50,000 players unsubbed thinking the WoW expansion would actually be good but it wasn't so they're all back now already.

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I don't mind admitting I was one of these. Pagos still sucks, but jeez BFA was a tremendous flop.

If they fix up Pagos and this patch and Pyros goes well the tables could well indeed turn.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

-Besides 2 servers(1 in NA, 1 in EU), NA/EU still don't know how to beat raids

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I'll quote myself from the reddit post.

"JP puts a higher priority on clearing even if it involves carrying bad players through. NA/EU are more concerned with FFlogs and are more likely to disband or leave if people perform poorly. For example, JP 2nd Forsaken strat is to have the two melee disengage completely and stack their puddles south, then fan out along the edge of the range puddle drops.

You'll never convince a NA/EU group to do that because uptime.

Another major factor is how JP typically views content. A lot of people there feel they should do it because it's available. It's one of the reasons we keep getting new leveling type content lately. A big complaint from JP is they have nothing left to level. Meanwhile, NA/EU won't touch things they don't care about.

Of course, this all applies to average parties. Plenty of JP players still push uptime and whatnot."

It isn't that NA/EU don't know how to beat raids or JP has an abundance of superior players. They simply approach it differently. Japanese culture is heavily group influenced. Someone lagging behind is the responsibility of the group as a whole. NA/EU, by contrast, is individualistic. If you make a mistake, you're impeding the group and continuous mistakes may lead to a replacement or disband. Many JP players have posted on reddit citing the number of players with Savage clears have no business getting said clears if based purely on skill.

Haven't been able to glean much from LuckyBancho all year, in terms of active playerbase size. Free login campaigns keep interfering to a completely unknown extent.

27 January 2018 - 606,000 (4.2)

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/4a...8cf08f69c9.png

11 March 2018 - 536,000 (4.25)
19 May 2018 - 622,000 (4.3)

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/6d...91a68f0714.png

15 July 2018 - 577,000 (4.35)
15 September 2018 - 627,000 (4.4)

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/9b...939374f163.png

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

It isn't that NA/EU don't know how to beat raids or JP has an abundance of superior players. They simply approach it differently. Japanese culture is heavily group influenced. Someone lagging behind is the responsibility of the group as a whole. NA/EU, by contrast, is individualistic. If you make a mistake, you're impeding the group and continuous mistakes may lead to a replacement or disband. Many JP players have posted on reddit citing the number of players with Savage clears have no business getting said clears if based purely on skill.

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Yeah I saw your post. To me, there's more to knowing how to beat raids than just skill. The teamwork, patience, responsibility and all that good stuff all plays a big part. So if NA/EU don't want to do that or don't like that but happen to be skilled, in the end they ultimately still don't know how to beat raids.

You'd be hard-pressed to convince a random person, FFXIV player or not, that NA/EU isn't as good at raiding compared to JP when 17 JP servers have over 10% clears when ours is a measly 1 server. EU also 1 server. We as a region, are clearly missing something big. I mean, NA is half the population as it is.. we either lack the qualities that really helps the JP win or NA/EU just massively dislike raiding as a whole.

Well, you can't say we are bad either, you can only say less people do it. It looks more like there's much more expectation to raid in JP land.

I said a bit ago I think this is a bigger problem, because I feel SE plans content expecting a lot more people do savage. So they do a lot less actual optional content, leading NA and EU to complain about content droughts. I don't think they get that you can't just expect us to do things through peer pressure or because its expected; they need to get some non-Japanese input on the design aspects of things too.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Yeah I saw your post. To me, there's more to knowing how to beat raids than just skill. The teamwork, patience, responsibility and all that good stuff all plays a big part. So if NA/EU don't want to do that or don't like that but happen to be skilled, in the end they ultimately still don't know how to beat raids.

You'd be hard-pressed to convince a random person, FFXIV player or not, that NA/EU isn't as good at raiding compared to JP when 17 JP servers have over 10% clears when ours is a measly 1 server. EU also 1 server. We as a region, are clearly missing something big. I mean, NA is half the population as it is.. we either lack the qualities that really helps the JP win or NA/EU just massively dislike raiding as a whole.

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Or we are simply less willing to carry people through content. You cannot simply dismiss that with a blanket statement "NA/EU doesn't know how to beat raids." Every attribute you listed could be argued from an individualistic perspective, i.e., NA/EU players put a greater emphasis on their own time or expect people to pull their own weight. If five players are highly skilled yet three aren't, those five players don't magically not know how to beat raids because they decide not to waste their time trying to carry the remaining three. It isn't their responsibility nor are they in any way obligated to help. Likewise, the JP mentality isn't wrong either. It simply boils down to different values and perception.

We aren't missing anything. NA/EU simply have a different mindset. If JP adopted ours, their clear rates would plummet instantly just like the reverse would happen if we adopted theirs. Furthermore, like I said in my initial post, NA/EU players don't approach content the same way. On average, if we dislike something, we aren't going to do it. JP sees content more as something they should do because the developers made it. This is why our two most populated servers are roleplay servers whereas JP's is a raid server.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Or we are simply less willing to carry people through content.

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no, i dont think enough people even try it to be carried. I don't think raid culture is that adversarial yet; you wouldn't even bother looking for a pug replacement at all if you were like that. I think part of the reason i argue against making the game more difficult is that the "i dont carry mindset" could get a lot worse with more people doing it. I mean now if you do raids you really do invest a bit in it.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I'll quote myself from the reddit post.

"JP puts a higher priority on clearing even if it involves carrying bad players through. NA/EU are more concerned with FFlogs and are more likely to disband or leave if people perform poorly.

It isn't that NA/EU don't know how to beat raids or JP has an abundance of superior players. They simply approach it differently. Japanese culture is heavily group influenced. Someone lagging behind is the responsibility of the group as a whole. NA/EU, by contrast, is individualistic. If you make a mistake, you're impeding the group and continuous mistakes may lead to a replacement or disband. Many JP players have posted on reddit citing the number of players with Savage clears have no business getting said clears if based purely on skill.

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This has to be the post of the day for me... you have succinctly nailed it, spot on.

Even from FFXI, this was the method of approach and innate mindset. The effort to be patient (with a clear view that "we are going to finish this together") was so evident, it was palatable; and this was how skilled players imparted their knowledge to the few players who lagged behind.

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Originally Posted by Ramesses

This has to be the post of the day for me... you have succinctly nailed it, spot on.

Even from FFXI, this was the method of approach and even back then the effort to be patient (with a clear view that "we are going to finish this together") was so evident, it was palatable.

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sometimes i think this is caused by the duty finder and simply not needing others so it is more self centred than group centred. also why players expect personal rewards from everything they do..

in XI or older games it was more about bettering the group as a whole than bettering yourself. if you went to sky and personally got nothing it wasnt an issue as generally some people in the group got something and thus the group as a whole was successful.

in xiv if you join a mount farm and say 5 mounts drops but you dont get one then its generally considered by many a wasted evening as they personally got nothing from it...

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

-During 4.35, 50,000 players unsubbed thinking the WoW expansion would actually be good but it wasn't so they're all back now already.

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-50k = mai to july... with Xpac annoucned for 14 august... why unsub so soon? ...

July => today + 50k
criteria to be activ in this scan :
getting at least 1 more level on 1 classe/job, or 1 minion or 1 mount. With HoH 12 days before the july scan, and Pagos early august (10th ? not sure) And Rathalos (1 mount if i am correct). . . Easy to be count even if you go wow after.

Btw, i also just watched content from may 19th to july 15th.
HoH could give minion/mount, but 12 days not all people gets in.
only the patch 4.3, and i dont have memory of numerus minions/mount to get in (i remember mainly primal mount, and tribal rewards. both are not what people does most).


I think, those numbers mainly show what lucky banshos scan show from nearly the begining of FFXIV : population dont grew, dont lower. it stagnate... and most move in the scans are more due to different content more than anything else.

And remember, some people may be activ during this period, and not in the luckybansho count, and people that left end of july, but did loot a minion after july 15th count as activ, even if didnt resub yet...

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Originally Posted by Darrcyphfeid

*snip*

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With the way luckybansho says who is activ or not, yes, it impacts. But i dont think he says his numbers are perfect.
It is hard to define how they impact statistics.
Have to watch luckybansho's stats for activity (not kills of sadic/ultimate content) for the long time. what on one year. compare 1 year with the previous, what from the servers opening etc. Not focus on specific scans

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

no, i dont think enough people even try it to be carried. I don't think raid culture is that adversarial yet; you wouldn't even bother looking for a pug replacement at all if you were like that. I think part of the reason i argue against making the game more difficult is that the "i dont carry mindset" could get a lot worse with more people doing it. I mean now if you do raids you really do invest a bit in it.

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I said as much, actually. NA/EU players are less inclined to participate in things which don't interest them. That being said, Savage and Ultimate are far different than other content. A big reason people have such difficulty approaching harder content is due to the enormous gap between tiers. When a game handholds you throughout then abruptly spikes in difficulty, it catches people off guard. Nevertheless, I don't think it's entirely unfair veteran players who put forth an effort to improve themselves expect some degree of competence from their party. In fact, the ease of difficult can equally encourage this mindset. "This dungeon's so damn easy, they're no excuse not to DPS as a healer." It goes both ways.

WoW is also a factor. Consider that a significant amount of (I’m assuming) would-be raiders here instead stick to Azeroth. So a lot of people/groups who could succeed here simply aren’t here, while this game commands a presence in JP akin to what WoW has in the west.

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Originally Posted by Kazgrel

WoW is also a factor. Consider that a significant amount of (I’m assuming) would-be raiders here instead stick to Azeroth. So a lot of people/groups who could succeed here simply aren’t here, while this game commands a presence in JP akin to what WoW has in the west.

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Well... no

Before FFXIV : ARR, we saw people from top world guilde doing the run to be world first on new raid. then nearly disappear for the game, just coming doing fast main daily things (when expansion has... not the case for most) and the weekly kill to have the stuff for the next raid. They have a really high play time for the first weeks and then, low... their game time go to others MMORPG or even other games.

Some people can do both FFXIV ultimate content, and mythic raid content.

Less a real thing with legion, M+ allow them to compete on wow 52 weeks a year. but not all do this (some just focus on loot with M+). A mythic raid is 20 people, only 8 is needed to do FFXIV content...

WoW and FFXIV are fightning each other on the "MMORPG with subscription" market. but many players does both. We can complain that FFXIV is empty. And probably FFXIV consume even less time than WoW. But it is not so hard to play both game... (just have to pay 2 time sub, but lets see people with 2 FFXIV or 2 wow sub... it is the same than 1 wow + 1 ffxiv sub)

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Originally Posted by Aerlana

Well... no

Before FFXIV : ARR, we saw people from top world guilde doing the run to be world first on new raid. then nearly disappear for the game, just coming doing fast main daily things (when expansion has... not the case for most) and the weekly kill to have the stuff for the next raid. They have a really high play time for the first weeks and then, low... their game time go to others MMORPG or even other games.

Some people can do both FFXIV ultimate content, and mythic raid content.

Less a real thing with legion, M+ allow them to compete on wow 52 weeks a year. but not all do this (some just focus on loot with M+). A mythic raid is 20 people, only 8 is needed to do FFXIV content...

WoW and FFXIV are fightning each other on the "MMORPG with subscription" market. but many players does both. We can complain that FFXIV is empty. And probably FFXIV consume even less time than WoW. But it is not so hard to play both game... (just have to pay 2 time sub, but lets see people with 2 FFXIV or 2 wow sub... it is the same than 1 wow + 1 ffxiv sub)

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The point I was trying to convey is that JP does not have WoW pulling away near as many players to it's raid scene, so they're more likely to concentrate on raiding here. I never said people can't play both (at a high level or in general). But the vast majority of those who are playing both are either NA or EU.

FFlogs report information;

Phantom Train
Statics*
956 O5S ranked JP statics.
1735 O5S ranked NA statics.
1006 O5S ranked EU statics.

Players**
106338 JP player rankings.
84698 NA player rankings.
43720 EU player rankings.

God Kefka
Statics*
678 ranked JP statics.
868 ranked NA statics.
469 ranked EU statics.

Players**
57930 JP player rankings.
25800 NA player rankings.
12750 EU player rankings.

Note * : This just counts the fastest instance of a group of 8 people uploading a log under a given static. It does not mean that there were different people in a static at a given time. This also means that one person can appear in multiple static rankings from the numbers I pulled.

Note ** : These numbers include all the unique jobs someone has run a given fight on and had a log uploaded. So if you played on WHM, AST, and SCH, and all three runs were uploaded, you'd be counted three times.

Anyways, just some data from fflogs to look at what it has to say about ranks. My kneejerk response to this is that it looks like proportionally way more people are trying out Train in JP. I don't think that train is a hard enough fight that assuming relative player skill is the same in both NA and JP that the clear numbers could be this relatively stunted without there just being more people on JP attempting the first fight. Alternatively JP players might be ranking on several different jobs. Most the raiders I know have ranks on Train on 5 different jobs, so the numbers for train may very well be inflated by a rather large number of people clearing that fight on basically whatever. I personally have cleared it on all jobs aside from RDM, MCH, and BRD so I'd count several times.

That said, with how many more people there are in NA and JP, even if the numbers are inflated by multiple alt jobs it's rather impressive that JP is ahead of NA. I'd personally say, though this is obviously obfuscated by the alt jobs thing, that JP has to be attempting the content more than anyone else.

As for guilds, there is one easy conclusion to draw: 70% of JP statics made it to Godka. Only 50% of NA ones did. Part of that is probably the already mentioned easy-awful strats that exist in NA, which means JP can clear with much larger margins for error than NA statics doing our pug strats do. The 20% differential is certainly interesting, and does lend some credence to the fact that JP progging strategies work better than NA or EU ones.

FWIW, luckybancho has the number of O8S mounts as 63,337. I might have counted wrong but in the neighbourhood of 60k is reasonable. The sum total of people on fflogs is around 95k with repeat entries, so these seem like fairly reasonable comparisons between # of people on fflogs and # of clears via mount.

All this reads to me is that less people seem to have time to form statics and given how Savage is structured to be beaten in a week or less this doesn't surprise me. Though given the nature of UwU content where the top 1% gather you can imagine how hard it is to find people who share the same goals and skills. However, the shift to glamour based end-game is okay with me. Assuming the omega gear is good looking I might pug through it just like I did with Delta for that sweet Genji gear. Statics aren't a reality in my current state and while I would love to tackle Ultimate Bahamut for those crispy french-fried weapons I'll have to pass.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I'll quote myself from the reddit post.

"JP puts a higher priority on clearing even if it involves carrying bad players through. NA/EU are more concerned with FFlogs and are more likely to disband or leave if people perform poorly.

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I can't speak for everyone else but I care about my fflogs a lot, mostly because I just like to compete with other players playing my job. That in itself is what make's raiding fun to me, apart from the fight alone.

It's also possible that NA/EU players who enjoy raiding as their main focus of an MMO are playing the game that does raiding best--Warcraft.

Japanese people don't play Warcraft, so they're all FFXIV or bust, which certainly skews the numbers too. To be more fair you'd have to basically leverage the NA/EU's raiding community between WoW and FFXIV vs the JP raiding community which is basically FFXIV. And let's be real. WoW's NA/EU raiding population probably decimates JP's raiding population.

There's really no reason for a hardcore raider to want to play FFXIV aside from the limited edition Ultimate encounters. Just like there's no reason for a PvP player to play FFXIV over a PvP centric game.

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It's jsut weird to compare NA vs JP for that stuff. It's like saying that JP people are better at riding bikes than Americans. Which may be true, but Americans don't waste their time with bikes when they have cars. Americans have Warcraft, so the NA population is divided heavily, because they have more options.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

It's also possible that NA/EU players who enjoy raiding as their main focus of an MMO are playing the game that does raiding best--Warcraft.

Japanese people don't play Warcraft, so they're all FFXIV or bust, which certainly skews the numbers too. To be more fair you'd have to basically leverage the NA/EU's raiding community between WoW and FFXIV vs the JP raiding community which is basically FFXIV. And let's be real. WoW's NA/EU raiding population probably decimates JP's raiding population.

There's really no reason for a hardcore raider to want to play FFXIV aside from the limited edition Ultimate encounters. Just like there's no reason for a PvP player to play FFXIV over a PvP centric game.

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It's jsut weird to compare NA vs JP for that stuff. It's like saying that JP people are better at riding bikes than Americans. Which may be true, but Americans don't waste their time with bikes when they have cars. Americans have Warcraft, so the NA population is divided heavily, because they have more options.

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That may be true but you can still compare both fanbases of the same game and the results are the results. There's enough of a difference in requards to how we both take on raids for this to matter I feel.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

snip.

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I mean... maybe? But realistically if you play both games it shouldn't be hard to clear both raid tiers given that FF's are much shorter. Also, using the bike analogy, we're not really comparing people riding bikes to work vs people who drive cars, it's more 'how far do people get on average on their bike'. JP gets 20% further per bike ride than NA, which given that everyone is riding more or less the same bike indicates there has to be something about the JP bike-riding climate, routine, whatever that makes it so they get 20% further.

When it comes to WoW there's certainly a certain push to play one game over the other, though even so there are pressures on the JP side to play other games. Some people enjoy raiding but if it's not make or break for you it might be preferable to play another MMO like that DQ one that we never got. They could still get their difficult content or mmojrpg fix without stepping into savage. Options in any way reduce the likelihood of people going into savage content of any caliber.

At the end of the day, SE is the only one with the detailed meta-data to tell us what exactly is going on. Our data sets are incomplete, we don't know what sorta overlap WoW and FF have (you'd think if there was much we'd hear more comparisons than we do), and we don't know how many FF raiders switched to WoW permanently, etc etc.

Didnt Yoshida also state in that one interview that the JP playerbase have a different view on content? Like if its there they want to clear it thus more people might try to clear raids unlike people in NA and EU. This could also be the reason why they did not give people a third Ultimate. Maybe too many JP players are still trying to clear the other two so that they did not need a third one? But that is pure speculation on my side.

I get the feeling that we western players just simply do the content that we like and not force ourselves to do savage content just to have everything done.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I'll quote myself from the reddit post.

"JP puts a higher priority on clearing even if it involves carrying bad players through. NA/EU are more concerned with FFlogs and are more likely to disband or leave if people perform poorly. For example, JP 2nd Forsaken strat is to have the two melee disengage completely and stack their puddles south, then fan out along the edge of the range puddle drops.

You'll never convince a NA/EU group to do that because uptime.

Another major factor is how JP typically views content. A lot of people there feel they should do it because it's available. It's one of the reasons we keep getting new leveling type content lately. A big complaint from JP is they have nothing left to level. Meanwhile, NA/EU won't touch things they don't care about.

Of course, this all applies to average parties. Plenty of JP players still push uptime and whatnot."

It isn't that NA/EU don't know how to beat raids or JP has an abundance of superior players. They simply approach it differently. Japanese culture is heavily group influenced. Someone lagging behind is the responsibility of the group as a whole. NA/EU, by contrast, is individualistic. If you make a mistake, you're impeding the group and continuous mistakes may lead to a replacement or disband. Many JP players have posted on reddit citing the number of players with Savage clears have no business getting said clears if based purely on skill.

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Preface - I am not indicating you are right/wrong. I am curious though where this statement comes from?

What credentials do you have that allow you to state this so matter-of-fact? Do you speak/read fluent Japanese? Do you actively play on a JP server at a raid quality level?

I don't have any concrete data myself to draw a conclusion, but another poster did bring up competition (aka WoW), which is a very viable conclusion to arrive at based on logic, but not nearly enough to state as fact.

I saw someone on the reddit post mention that the JP community's latency is really good.

Just think of how many of us NA/EU players have had a wipe due to a lag spike of 'one' of our members or our selves. And then realize that the JP players are all clustered around their servers. Where as the NA/EU players are often screwed over by having the servers in wonky spots. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor internet infrastructure played a role in all of this. Because there's probably a good chunk of players who d/c and say "go on without me!" Where as you'd probably never have those situations in Japan on the JP server--where it's all literally in the same region.

RIP east-coast players.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Didnt Yoshida also state in that one interview that the JP playerbase have a different view on content? Like if its there they want to clear it thus more people might try to clear raids unlike people in NA and EU. This could also be the reason why they did not give people a third Ultimate. Maybe too many JP players are still trying to clear the other two so that they did not need a third one? But that is pure speculation on my side.

I get the feeling that we western players just simply do the content that we like and not force ourselves to do savage content just to have everything done.

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I believe Yoshi said that they view content as "if it's there, we need to do it." Over here it ends up as either wanting to do hard content for personal reasons or not doing it because it isn't efficient/too much effort for the reward considering other avenues of getting comparable gear.

Anyways, they are just way more organized than we are. They usually settle into universal strats that aren't hard to reproduce no matter the comp as long as a minimum player skill threshold is met. Just remember over here we had Tsuku with so many different meteor strats it was a pain sorting that out than it should have been in pugs. Even with Kefka we had the line strat and box strat, edge celestriad and cross celestriad, or Guardian with vertical/horizontal virus, CW/CCW library and different ways of dealing with Ultros + missiles.

As someone who pays a sub for both games. I mainly play FFXIV for the community/RP stuff (hence the Mateus server), so my progression on FFXIV is not as good. I don't look for a FFXIV guild for raiding progression. Nor will I waste my weekend pugging and learning FFXIV raids if they're just pugs.

FFXIV is also unique in that you can get max ilvl gear 370 without raiding. You can go mendacity/lighthouse coins. Which means that if you think critically about it a bit. One can reckon that learning/grinding harder raid content is more time consuming than just doing your mendacity dailies ect. Again, think critically about it. What's the goal of players? Do people raid because they want to raid, or do some raid because they just want the best gear? If people are smart enough and figure they can get the best gear from capping mendacity--why bash your head on a wall with pugs?

I raid in Warcraft, because FFXIV's server-tic drives me insane. I play things that I enjoy, because I play games for fun. Not to grind or stress myself out, or out of some misguided social pressure to do so, or be a teamplayer or whatever. I play the content I enjoy--and I avoid content I don't like. FFXIV raiding feels crappy compared to WoWs, and it's mostly because of the combat tic. If they fixed that--I'd enjoy FFXIV raiding a lot more. I also hate that FFXIV raiding is 4 bosses per 6 months. Not very fun socially. And once you clear it--then what?

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I also hate that FFXIV raiding is 4 bosses per 6 months. Not very fun socially. And once you clear it--then what?

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I did "serious" raid on both game (trying to kill twintania/nael/bahamut before the end of weekly lock, manage each time / trying to be serv first on wow) . I did learn to play with the server-tic. So i wont fully agree with your post. I have other complains. But all these are also feeling question i think.

Just want to answer for the part i did quote. I am today an "anti-FFXIV". the game could have been so much and... here we have. like you i log in FF mainly for RP now (doing some PvE content here and there, but not sadic, rarely extrem primals).
WoW in legion (last expansion) it is 40 raid bosses. FFXIV, we could count 33 bosses = 7 primals (2 at X.0, 5 with .X patches + 12 from raid 24 and 12 from raid 8 and the 2 ultimate we had... lets hope a third? :x).
31 is less than 40. But a far better number.
When i came in ARR, while WoW did add the "LFR" difficulty (so LFR < normal < heroic) i did have a bad view of this, and SoO was not to help (another difficulty between LFR and "normal"). But finally. Cant find a game that doest more than 20 boss hard (Mythic/sadic difficulty at least) all different, and have other (fully others) for more casual player (and then, LFR for really low player ^^")


FFXIV itself had a matter. Casual did complain about not able to see in game the bahamut's cinematics. A complain i did understand. And the solution was? story mode. only matter with it in my mind : it should open 2 weeks AFTER sadic (LFR in WoW, the "story mode" opens 1 week later but with only 3 bosses from a raid that can go to 10+ bosses).


Maybe Yoshida should consider making the raid24 source of "end game" content for community. The best thing would be more boss mooooooar. but even if i have many to say against the game today, i dont want to ask the moon. For rathalos, normal mode = 8 players, extrem mode 4 player.

Why not see raid 24 bosses a "sadic" mode for 8 players with similar difficulties than sadic? I would prefer difficulty with 24 players (because i also like where there is many people to coordinate with... 8 is short in my mind) But yoshida said he didnt want it and i can understand.

With his we could go from 4 to 8 boss per cycle. to 24 bosses during an expansion (1 per month) + 2 for top guild (3? please yoshida, give us 3 ultimate per expansion é_è )
Then why not adding same thing for primals? adding 3 bosses for the raid tier, and then 2 of the others.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

As someone who pays a sub for both games. I mainly play FFXIV for the community/RP stuff (hence the Mateus server), so my progression on FFXIV is not as good. I don't look for a FFXIV guild for raiding progression. Nor will I waste my weekend pugging and learning FFXIV raids if they're just pugs.

FFXIV is also unique in that you can get max ilvl gear 370 without raiding. You can go mendacity/lighthouse coins. Which means that if you think critically about it a bit. One can reckon that learning/grinding harder raid content is more time consuming than just doing your mendacity dailies ect. Again, think critically about it. What's the goal of players? Do people raid because they want to raid, or do some raid because they just want the best gear? If people are smart enough and figure they can get the best gear from capping mendacity--why bash your head on a wall with pugs?

I raid in Warcraft, because FFXIV's server-tic drives me insane. I play things that I enjoy, because I play games for fun. Not to grind or stress myself out, or out of some misguided social pressure to do so, or be a teamplayer or whatever. I play the content I enjoy--and I avoid content I don't like. FFXIV raiding feels crappy compared to WoWs, and it's mostly because of the combat tic. If they fixed that--I'd enjoy FFXIV raiding a lot more. I also hate that FFXIV raiding is 4 bosses per 6 months. Not very fun socially. And once you clear it--then what?

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You can only get the highest item level gear after raids have been unlocked. For 4 months or so it's exclusively for the raiders. In that respect, yes it is much much faster to get gear via raiding if your group can manage to kill stuff within that 4-5 month time gap. And usually the best gear is a combination of tome and raid gear, so it's not like you need all of one set or the other, hence you can gear up faster by going for both at the same time. I don't think any serious raider is going to forego capping tomes (especially in the early weeks/months) just because they are raiding. Not how it works, you're doing both.

Everyone's goal for raiding is different. If I had to guess I'd say most do it for the gear, some for the glory. For me, it's about the only thing I enjoy doing in this game any more. Everything else feels like a chore. Being a tank only half the gear is valuable to me (sad lol), so it's more about just the challenge itself and enjoying the people I raid with.

What do you do once you clear it? Clear it again. And again. Until everyone get's their chest and weapon. Then go for oranges. Oranges are healthy for you ;)

I cut my teeth on competitive raiding back in Wrath/early Cata. I chased the glory of seeing how far I could push it. How far we could go as a team. It was a lot of fun, and I think any serious raider should challenge themselves to the point where they're in a team of equal-minded players--and they literally can't push any further. For me, it was a dream that I reached. And after making it--it was a great ego boost for a long time. Being able to lord realm firsts and national ranks. But looking back at it. As anyone reading this post. No matter what we do. No matter how hard we push ourselves--those accomplishments result in diddly squat. No one would care if I was part of the world first team to kill 4H--and they shouldn't. In the end--raiding is just about personal gratification and playing with people you enjoy--because the prestige of it--it's fleeting.

It's why I don't care about Ultimate, because busting my balls for 2-3 weeks to master some complex fight wouldn't mean anything in a few months or a year. And would ultimately feel like 2 weeks of wasted time. Although, I do think anyone who 'hasn't peaked' should certainly push themselves to their peak--that life experience is worth it. Whether it be raiding, or mountain climbing, or even running a marathon. Being able to push yourself. Your body and your spirit to the edge--that's an experience worth having on one's bucket list.

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Anyways, I meant this as a response to the "you don't get the highest item level unless you wait months." Yeah, big deal. You only need the best gear to run raids. Gear is just a crutch to accomplish something. A means to an end. Though some people look at gear as the end-game. And being able to max 370 without raiding means that a lot of people--don't need to raid. And those non-raiders don't give two thoughts about BiS. I doubt they even know their stat weights. They just know that bigger numbers are better. It's not like anything inside the game-world itself will ever convey that spell-speed has a different value ratio to direct hit. They just see that 370 is better than 360.

The point is that a lot of people. Most people... they're looking for a finish line. Some of them use MSQ as that line. Some use 370 gear. Others just float around and do things willy-nilly. So a lot of people crave a full 370 set. Even if they never raid. Even if they never use the gear to its full potential. Even if it takes them months longer. They don't care. Because eventually--time is the great equalizer. We'll all sit here on a patch-ull sitting in 370. The ultima raiders. The midcore crusaders, and the casual who just plays on the weekend. We all end in the same position. In a full set of 370 gear just waiting for the next treadmill race to begin--and then do it all over again.

As for me. I'll gear up just enough to not be a liability in a raid, but I won't do anything I don't enjoy to accomplish it. Which means I generally end up in a full set of crafted gear. But I don't run Primals beyond the one time for the experience. I don't care about mounts. I have my one favorite mount ever (the cloud), and anything else is a complete waste of my time (unless I enjoy the content itself). I even follow this philosophy in Warcraft. Games are meant to be fun, so I play them as I enjoy them. I refuse to subjugate myself to stupid grinds like Azerite power or Eureka. I found myself a fun and friendly WoW raiding guild that I enjoy with a casual item level. My item level will go up in time. I have MONTHS to enjoy Uldir--so why burn out on the first two weeks? IT's not a race. There's no reward for winning except self gratification--and many of us have already tasted that victory.

Eureka taught me that I shouldn't invest time into a game that I don't enjoy. That I had convinced myself to capping out on mendacity to gear up was fun--it's just tolerable. So after taking a long look at why I played FFXIV. I cut out a lot of the fat, and all the extra time pulled me back into Warcraft. Where by playing both games stupidly casually--I can experience all the aspects I enjoy--without being burned out on the content I hate.

No Eureka
No crappy world quests (I do a few I enjoy, but skip ones I don't)
No trials that only reward mounts and sub-par weapons
No island expeditions.

Just me and my crafting playing the market board in FFXIV while raiding in Warcraft. My biggest salt issue is that neither game is perfect, and I wish one of them was obviously better than the other so I could quit one. But they're both incredibly flawed. And everytime I think FFXIV might have an edge over Warcraft--they squander that potential in a way only Square-Enix can. 1.0, Diadem, Eureka, Squadrons, glamour wardrobe, the companion app, PvP, and more.

I mean seriously Square-Enix, you're so close to being such a good game, but you manage to take any good idea and do it half-arsed enough to make it annoying. I'm seriously just waiting for you guys to announce the bunny race to public fan-fare just to disappoint us all over again by saying they're gender-locked.

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The point is that a lot of people. Most people... they're looking for a finish line. Some of them use MSQ as that line. Some use 370 gear. Others just float around and do things willy-nilly. So a lot of people crave a full 370 set. Even if they never raid. Even if they never use the gear to its full potential. Even if it takes them months longer. They don't care. Because eventually--time is the great equalizer. We'll all sit here on a patch-ull sitting in 370. The ultima raiders. The midcore crusaders, and the casual who just plays on the weekend. We all end in the same position. In a full set of 370 gear just waiting for the next treadmill race to begin--and then do it all over again.

As for me. I'll gear up just enough to not be a liability in a raid, but I won't do anything I don't enjoy to accomplish it.

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I don't do savage raids or even normal raids to augment my gear.And hell no to Eureka.

Just the bare minimum Duty Roulettes weekly to get the highest iLvl tomestone gear I can get. My weapon is from Centurio seals.

With 4.4, I'm considering to stop melding my gear as well. Because the difference between melded gear and unmelded doesn't seem too much in normal content.

The way I see it, if I'm only doing MSQ,Duty Roulettes,Hunts, there's no point upgrading my gear to raid-tier only to repeat that cycle a few months down the road. The time investment is not worth it.

The only other combat related content I enjoy, is POTD/HOH and gear doesn't matter there.

While, I respect raiders for their skill,dedication and the guides, they put out on optimal rotations,etc, I'd rather be collecting glams,minions,mounts,playing the market board and socializing.