LuckyBancho Census 11/3

http://livedoor.sp.blogimg.jp/luckyb...1/a10e7871.png

80,000 active characters, gone. That is a substantial drop. Were I to speculate on the cause. Unlike Heavensward, every veteran player knows the devs have virtually nothing on the horizon outside the standard release for what will amount to a 9-10 month life cycle for content that can barely keep seven months going.

It doesn't help with nothing else coming except our usual 24 Man, EX and etc, people are even less motivated about gear progression or raiding. Plenty of raiders amongst my circle have either killed Alphascape a couple times or aren't bothering until near the end of the expansion because the gear means nothing.

Arguably the bigger factor here though, is Pagos. It looks the general assumption from the last census was correct. People returned to see what Pagos might be like... and they never came back. Perhaps that will serve an eye opener for the sheer disdain people have towards Eureka and how it has panned out. Pyros could turn things around but it doesn't appear a good amount of people are willing to see it through on release day but maybe wait for word of mouth.

Either way, I'll be curious to see if those numbers climb come 4.5 or if the lack of content pushes even more away as we settle into the long six month drought thereafter.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...tone_data_113/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=356399252


The usual cycle, compared to 2 years before we have ~50k more active characters, but then again more people could have made alts in the meantime.

They made 2 big mistakes:

1) No new ultimate. This means raiders know that savage gear is totally useless (just bragging rights really) unless they do log runs and speedruns, but even then they won't do that for more than 2-3 months;
2) Eureka.

As things are right now, casual players and raiders don't have much to work on, unless for some reason they love Eureka. On the other hand, this situation is kinda ok for those people that have yet to clear the unending coil and/or uwu. I expect those numbers to drop a lot in the next few months, with a temporary jump for the next 24-players raid.

Hot take: Eureka mechanics should be in the main game.
It'd change up the pace enough to make it interesting again. At least, the overworld.

Fanfest to the rescue.

Looks alright. There are still (barely) more active players than the expansion low of 536k where they bled 262k characters over a couple months until Anemos released where it spiked 86k. Lost about 30k more this time than the usual 40-50k bleed in the recent patch dead period. Still (barely) more than 4.2-4.21 when there was no Eureka/HoH. Somewhat interesting.

Yeah that's not a surprising number if look at what's being offered from January and then on. All I can say is that it will be an excellent time for everyone to take your break, play the games that have been collecting dust and come back for the expansion if it pleases you.

For once, Yoshida's advice actually seems to be the best choice for the incoming drought.

Pretty much everyone I know who raids including myself are just raid logging. Cleared Alpha more then a month ago so uwu farms or ucob till it stale sadly

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Hot take: Eureka mechanics should be in the main game.
It'd change up the pace enough to make it interesting again. At least, the overworld.

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It'll change things up again, by making the overall population more spiteful and desolate, and making more people say, "Here, you can have my house, I'm done." At least that's my speculation on that idea.

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Originally Posted by Aster_E

It'll change things up again, by making the overall population more spiteful and desolate, and making more people say, "Here, you can have my house, I'm done." At least that's my speculation on that idea.

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Would be a mixed reaction. Though I feel smart players probably wouldn't really notice much of a change tbh you would have a lot of complaining/quitting from people with no common sense though. At the same time It may attract players from ffxi that have avoided this game because of how, for lack of a better term, "dumbed down" ffxiv is compared to it.

In regards to pagos specifically I think a overwhelming majority of the player dissatisfaction is actually the map layout of the zone itself and that single choke that has to be taken to travel to any of the northern areas on foot. Though I also feel like it could be improved significantly just by doing something as simple as removing lvl requirements to attune to the aetherytes in eureka in general. Let it be a reward for making it there even if you are far below the lvl of the monsters there.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

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The issues with Blizzcon had nothing to do with WoW though, it was the lack of a (proper) new game announcement and the Diablo fiasco, neither should affect this.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

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By what metric though? Most of the backlash is coming from the Diablo announcement of a Mobile Game instead of a proper addition to the series as a whole and to make matters worse they decided to make it Mobile only when its core fanbase is made of mostly PC players. This Blizzcon is gonna have the same effect that the BFA disaster had on XIV, almost none. We already had people claiming that "WoWfugees" were coming to FFXIV cause its better than their shitshow yet we still lost a good chunk of Endgame players going off this "Active Character" update. Assuming we even got people from WoW in numbers that were significant all it shows is that they prevent anything past an 80k loss which is significant given we're not even a game at 1mil subs.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Would be a mixed reaction. Though I feel smart players probably wouldn't really notice much of a change tbh you would have a lot of complaining/quitting from people with no common sense though. At the same time It may attract players from ffxi that have avoided this game because of how, for lack of a better term, "dumbed down" ffxiv is compared to it.

In regards to pagos specifically I think a overwhelming majority of the player dissatisfaction is actually the map layout of the zone itself and that single choke that has to be taken to travel to any of the northern areas on foot. Though I also feel like it could be improved significantly just by doing something as simple as removing lvl requirements to attune to the aetherytes in eureka in general. Let it be a reward for making it there even if you are far below the lvl of the monsters there.

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The change itself would be insignificant if Dungeon exp still outdid overworld chaining. The issue with the idea overall is still will not address the issue that maps generally feel like theyre there to eat as much time from the player between quests as they offer little to nothing outside of that. Also attracting XI players is one thing and retaining them is another especially once they notice the reward structure and how nothing holds little to no value + no respect to your grind, a stark contrast to XI's reward structure.

Pagos itself is an issue indicative of the Dev's interpretation,or lack thereof, of the Player's feedback from its original predecessor, Diadem, and its first implementation, Anemos. Nothing so far has shown that they have listened to the players and double downed on the most frustrating systems that the players hate, the map might play part of it but most of its issues fall onto the fault of the leveling system itself. Want to attune to an aetheryte you risked time and exp to get to? Too bad you're not the appropriate level. Want to play with friends who have been there longer than you? Too bad level discrepancy is too high and hence you get little to no exp. Want to solo or go in and do progression little by little? Too bad you need to join a party and grind for hours on end for any significant change to your Elemental Level and Weapon Progression. It added nothing new and everytime it has been released most of its gear is irrelevant making the gear just glorified glam that you grind longer than you ever would Savage for. It simply doesnt respect a person's time, social interactions or fingers, the map is the least of its problems. If they don't do anything to retroactively fix Pagos and somehow don't screw up again with Pyros expect a similar reaction at Fanfest once they start going over the 4th and Final section of Eureka.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

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Aside from the Diablo reveal which was just...embarrassing, and accompanied by some pretty sick burns, it hasn't been too bad tbh.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

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Why would the Diablo playerbase suddenly decide to swap to FFXIV? It's more likely that they'll move to Path of Exile.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

They made 2 big mistakes:

1) No new ultimate. This means raiders know that savage gear is totally useless (just bragging rights really) unless they do log runs and speedruns, but even then they won't do that for more than 2-3 months;
2) Eureka.

As things are right now, casual players and raiders don't have much to work on, unless for some reason they love Eureka. On the other hand, this situation is kinda ok for those people that have yet to clear the unending coil and/or uwu. I expect those numbers to drop a lot in the next few months, with a temporary jump for the next 24-players raid.

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Plus the DDoS attacks lagging things up for everyone. >x>

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Hot take: Eureka mechanics should be in the main game.
It'd change up the pace enough to make it interesting again. At least, the overworld.

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They should probably make Eureka actually good before require people to do it in the overworld (or at least good for the majority of players and not the niche few who do it, and even then, who many of those people actually like it?) >w>

It's interesting how the two biggest MMO companies have missed out lately.

When ff14's Eureka was a flop just before WoW launched an entire fresh expansion, Blizzard had a huge oppertunity to hook a good chunk of FF players. I freely admit I went over to WoW for BFA launch.

BFA however was subsequently a massive flop and Enix in turn had a big oppertunity to pull in a large chunk of WoW's players. They've done nothing to take advantage of this and sit on Pagos, stubbornly refusing to change it.

I feel there are a lot of MMO players out there floating around looking for an enjoyable game and both companies are just twiddling their thumbs and churning out the same old.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Why would the Diablo playerbase suddenly decide to swap to FFXIV? It's more likely that they'll move to Path of Exile.

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Exactly this, everyone was hoping for a Diablo II remaster alongside WC 3 and Vanilla WoW, Blizzard abandoned their Diablo franchise and PoE has just been wreaking the benefits and is very successful hell even i'm playing it with how dead FFXIV is for me atm.

Largely die to no really amazing news about WoW. People hate the current expansion with a passion and a few tweaks have been made; but not enough to really fix it. There are a ton of comments I've read with players saying they will never level an alt through that content. If people only have a single character at max level they're more likely to just quit out of boredom. Classic will have a bit of a life, but an MMO with zero new content ever added will die off fairly quickly.

This time around was them boasting about the past and nothing to really show for the future.

Not surprised. We're at the beginning of a huge content drought. Aside from Eureka, the remaining content to be released before 5.0 will take less than 15 hours to do. There's probably a lot of people walled behind pagos that are not going to bother with finishing eureka. 5.0 will be too predictable, so I have doubts that fanfest hype will bring people back.

For 5.0 we'll get:
- increase level cap by 10
- 5 leveling dungeons unlocked at odd number levels
- 3 expert dungeons
- 3 primals
- job ability pruning
- normal mode raid
- savage raid
- weekly tome grind

I'm not saying it won't be fun, but it's so predictable, there's nothing to get hyped about. The only surprise left for 5.0 is what the new jobs will be.

For me, when I get bored with XIV, I go back to XI, so SE gets my money either way.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

Largely die to no really amazing news about WoW. People hate the current expansion with a passion and a few tweaks have been made; but not enough to really fix it. There are a ton of comments I've read with players saying they will never level an alt through that content. If people only have a single character at max level they're more likely to just quit out of boredom. Classic will have a bit of a life, but an MMO with zero new content ever added will die off fairly quickly.

This time around was them boasting about the past and nothing to really show for the future.

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Which is an issue that FFXIV itself has fallen into. Predictable patch cycles and content so abhorrent that any future additions to it are shaping up to be DoA given the initial response from the community. I don't see any WoW players joining this game staying long as they'll recognize the same tell tale signs of BFA and WoD going on here which really makes me think that some people really overestimated the WoWfugee migration from BFA.

I'm more concerned with this game's future and 5.0 now given the Finaland Interview has made it clear that Yoshida has not considered anything to shake up the "Farm Tomestones and Raid whose armor is irrelevant to next iLvl's crafted. Eureka in of itself has made this more prominent than ever since it absorbed the Relic into itself and made all past content irrelevant since you can no longer run them to get notable progression on your relic. The worst part of it all is the many issues that they said to have learned from 1.0's failure still rings true within this game.
"Developers allow past successes to foster a false sense of security."
The biggest issue with FFXIV right now is its predictable patch cycle and so far it seems Yoshi-P is really content on sticking the same patch formula given how well it worked in Heavensward. Rather than trying to keep us on our toes it has created a false sense of security.
"We're unable to keep up with changes in user needs."
This should be obvious to most: "Server Limitations, Please Understand". Almost every desired feature from the community is always sidestepped with limitations of sorts and rarely ever addressed since it's too difficult to do but as the Megaserver focused interview they have already made it clear they coded themselves into a corner and in the past 5 years have shown no attempt to remedy this issue.
"Things suffer from longer development periods."
Eureka, 17 months of Dev Time including the delays for something that was universally panned due to how hyped up it was.
"We're unable to incorporate new technologies."
Graphics, Server Upgrades, Promised API for PC Players that never come. Theres always an issue with any of these topics, especially graphics when you consider how big of a topic it became when the PS3 got dropped and the new Graphics Cards came out. Sidestepped due to financial worries and "We dont need it to be competitive"
"Every problem can be patched in a future update."
The best example of this at the moment? Mannequins, a feature touted for house customization and what do you get? Only one race because they still need time for the rest of the models. Or how about the Companion App that was released broken and buggy and slowly fixed thru patches?

I want this game to do great and use its potential to its fullest but at the way things are currently going with how feedback seems to be ignored or how there is no consideration for iteration of the Patch Formula I can not see this game surviving a Heavensward 3.0 expansion especially if it ties another Diadem-Esque style content to it.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

It's interesting how the two biggest MMO companies have missed out lately.

When ff14's Eureka was a flop just before WoW launched an entire fresh expansion, Blizzard had a huge oppertunity to hook a good chunk of FF players. I freely admit I went over to WoW for BFA launch.

BFA however was subsequently a massive flop and Enix in turn had a big oppertunity to pull in a large chunk of WoW's players. They've done nothing to take advantage of this and sit on Pagos, stubbornly refusing to change it.

I feel there are a lot of MMO players out there floating around looking for an enjoyable game and both companies are just twiddling their thumbs and churning out the same old.

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partly due to how game companies love to cater to their share holders instead of the players, you know the people actually buying their games. Seems like 99% of game companies today only know how to treat their players as recurring monetized incomes then actual human being who desire entertainment.

Case and point: The shift to heavy RNG and glamour focused end-game. While rewarding and engaging to those who simply want to stand out or casual play, disappointing and monotonous to those of us who use skill as a measure of identity. I'm sure we all had our spots in Mor Dhona,Idyllshire and Rhalgar's Reach where we afk with our raid weapons while we wait for the next content, which continues to be further stretched out with every expansion. We went from 3 month patches to 4-4.5 month patches, while still keeping the same amount of content as the former but with the same resources going into "new content" that constantly falls short of its mark.

As someone who has been with this game since 2.0 launch its really sad to see the state of where it is and un-subbing for longer periods of time has become a far more easier decision as of late until the inevitable. It also doesn't help that the dev team is out of touch and lack any sense of foresight. I'm still annoyed that they added a favorite mount list but failed to add a favorite mount roulette button. Also seeing all the whales in-game just makes me think that SE is so blatant about their "whales" and their "whale" demographic that they can tout it and people will still defend them.

This census doesn't surprise me and I predict the next expansion will have far more "fan service" to get those people back only to lose them again when they realize that the grind is for naught, and only meant to keep them addicted in stead of entertained. As someone who is addicted, Im just glad there are other games like monster hunter world which broke SE's grip they had on me for a few months when it released.

TLDR: census doesn't surprise me and I'm disappointed in what FFXIV has become but can't do anything to change it.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

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I hope SE is closely watching the reaction to Blizzcon and Diablo: Immortal. A lot of the anger, seems to be coming from the fact that Diablo fans are expecting DI to be yet another mobile cash grab burdened with mircotransactions.

Over the years gaming companies and SE have been ramping up on incorporating mobile/microtransaction elements into their PC/Console offerings on the assumption that mobile gaming is the future of gaming/more profitable.

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partly due to how game companies love to cater to their share holders instead of the players, you know the people actually buying their games. Seems like 99% of game companies today only know how to treat their players as recurring monetized incomes then actual human being who desire entertainment.

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This.

However, the fault partly lies with players themselves. Companies only understand when you vote with your wallet or with your character's feet. Like how people complain about Eureka/the Mog Station but still go on to grind out Eureka for relics/rewards or purchase stuff from the Mog Station.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

partly due to how game companies love to cater to their share holders instead of the players, you know the people actually buying their games. Seems like 99% of game companies today only know how to treat their players as recurring monetized incomes then actual human being who desire entertainment.

Case and point: The shift to heavy RNG and glamour focused end-game. While rewarding and engaging to those who simply want to stand out or casual play, disappointing and monotonous to those of us who use skill as a measure of identity. I'm sure we all had our spots in Mor Dhona,Idyllshire and Rhalgar's Reach where we afk with our raid weapons while we wait for the next content, which continues to be further stretched out with every expansion. We went from 3 month patches to 4-4.5 month patches, while still keeping the same amount of content as the former but with the same resources going into "new content" that constantly falls short of its mark.

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Aka what happens when the sales and marketing people get promoted over the product design people.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

Not surprised. We're at the beginning of a huge content drought. Aside from Eureka, the remaining content to be released before 5.0 will take less than 15 hours to do. There's probably a lot of people walled behind pagos that are not going to bother with finishing eureka. 5.0 will be too predictable, so I have doubts that fanfest hype will bring people back.

For 5.0 we'll get:
- increase level cap by 10
- 5 leveling dungeons unlocked at odd number levels
- 3 expert dungeons
- 3 primals
- job ability pruning
- normal mode raid
- savage raid
- weekly tome grind

I'm not saying it won't be fun, but it's so predictable, there's nothing to get hyped about. The only surprise left for 5.0 is what the new jobs will be.

For me, when I get bored with XIV, I go back to XI, so SE gets my money either way.

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It's actually worse! We only get two Primals with the expansion. :p

Regardless, this post highlights my precise issue with FFXIV of late. While I appreciate some degree of predictability, especially for a game otherwise billed as a more casual focused product, I shouldn't be able to predict an entire expansion two years before it even releases yet I can safely call nearly everything 5.0 onward to 5.5 will release because it's literally never changed since ARR. That isn't predictability for comfort sake, it's predictability out of sheer laziness and/or lack of innovation. I doubt anyone wants a massive overhaul but even if they did something to shake things up a little, it would go a long way. Unfortunately, FFXIV has largely been about attracting new players not retaining old ones.

I'm not surprised by the figures.
Eureka was supposed to be a major part of this expansion but it revolves around a style of game play that the majority of players find unpalatable. Even worse, it feels as though the devs have gone out of their way to stop players playing this content any other way than 'as intended', stopping the train and making helping people outside your party detrimental to your progress.
Heaven on High is a reskinned Palace of the Dead only without any real story and an extremely limited number of floors that can be tacked with a random party.
Submarines that can be built in the FC Workshop offer less than airships did in HW since there is no exploration tied to them, and they have many items on the loot-table from HW (worthless rubbish basically).
Free Companies without housing are still completely locked out of FC Crafting.

Even content like Custom Deliveries seems a bit thinner than we were promised.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

They also said that the NPC would start to wear the things we craft for them yet this has just turned into another squadron glamour option...
...(I have the same problem with the rebuilding of the doman enclave too. The concept sounds great, but the end product in the game is kinda boring, since you only go there and give them some leftovers.)

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Add into the mix an unfinished glamour system, an unfinished mobile app, limited storage for gear and items, limited housing(still!) and playable content following the exact same pattern as previous expansions (only less of it because of Eureka) and I can see why players might be discontented.

stop watching to blizzard or other MMORPG all time.
Watch what are good things to show "hey yoshida, they manage to do things like this, we would like it"

The matter of FFXIV is more itself than WoW, TESO or anything else. a game is good or bad because or itself more than because of other games...


Also, for luckybansho scans : at last scans topic there, a guy did show that most over 600k "activ players" are for scan after a free login-program, and the less than 600k didnt have it ;)

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Originally Posted by Noodle_Trinidad

"Developers allow past successes to foster a false sense of security."
The biggest issue with FFXIV right now is its predictable patch cycle and so far it seems Yoshi-P is really content on sticking the same patch formula given how well it worked in Heavensward. Rather than trying to keep us on our toes it has created a false sense of security.

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This is true and it baffles me too.

Both Enix and Blizzard have seen failure. Enix with 1.0 and Blizzard with WoD. Both had to step up their game and they produced Legion and ARR, both solid successes. But then both companies have immediately relaxed with their success and started churning out the same old stuff that worked and disregarding feedback on the unpopular content. And Eureka and BFA are subsequently failures. They haven't learned anything.

It also surprises me that Enix has put in no investment towards success. The game isn't at its peak right now and I still get a small "server full" queue occasionally when logging in. The servers literally wouldn't be able to handle a popularity spike of a few hundred k subs. There's also nothing big planned, no revamps, no big projects to improve server capability in the future. It's like they don't expect to be successful, have no aims or goals to be and just plan to sit on the current sub count and try to maintain it.

Well, as long as SE makes money from their sub fees and other stuff related to FFXIV, I guess they probably satisfied with their outcomes atm. Subs from HW and SB are relatively similar from what I'm seeing in their respective patches.

As for me, is form emptiness, or is emptiness form? Either way, I'm still here to sate my thrills of combat and get those dogs from the SB EX primals. Getting the Lakshmi and Susano dogs for my active characters are merely the beginning steps in my long term goal.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Aka what happens when the sales and marketing people get promoted over the product design people.

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ikr? I also love how they keep pushing for a glamour based end-game and then put glamour locked behind the mogstation. If your game is promoting looking unique and different from others and you put content that makes you unique and different from others you are effectively creating a mentality of pay2win. It's why you always see threads of people getting salty when another item is put up at the mogstation. Here's an analogy that I'm sure all of us can relate to and it explains the mogstation perfectly:

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It's a hot summer day and you and the other neighbourhood kids hear the ice-cream truck (mogstation) come around the corner. You all quickly run to your parents to give you some money to buy ice-cream (playing FFXIV). They only give you enough for a plain vanilla cone (monthly sub) but you don't care because you get to enjoy ice-cream today. You go out and buy your plain vanilla cone and you are enjoying it. Then one of the neighbourhood kids buys a double chocolate dipped, chocolate and vanilla swirl, waffle cone with crushed nuts, caramel drizzle and a cherry on top (monthly sub, retainers, exclusive mounts, exclusive glamours). You both get to enjoy ice-cream (playing FFXIV) but one clearly has a better experience simply by comparison. The other kid with the plain cone can either deal with it and just be happy they get ice-cream or more commonly, get jealous, cry to their parents for one just like their other kids and now the parents have to buy it for them (coerced sales).

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The example might hit close to home for some people but that's really what's happening in this game. There is no reason, outside of monetary greed, to put such and egregious amount of content on the mogstation while subsequently reducing the amount gained in-game via RNG. I think this is the crux of why people seem to leave in-between patches. It's a subconscious level of feeling that not everyone can relate to but does affect the ease and decision making of un-subbing.

Plainly speaking, if there is nothing I can do to gain something equal to or greater than my contemporaries then there is no reason for me to participate in such actions. This is a basic human function and only addiction can override it.