Are the 70% of the playerbase that quit even coming back for DAWNTRAIL?

Just half a year after EW launch, we lost 70% of the playerbase.

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

Oh but surely they'll come back before the expansion! Wait...

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

https://i.ibb.co/nkGCVXD/Screenshot-...-07-093625.png

"You're wrong!! People only come back right at the expansion launch!" Wait...

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

What's this? Player count reached 42k a month before EW launch?

"But Steam only represents 15% of the community!!"

And trends in one subset of the data should reflect trends in the entire data :o

I stopped playing at 6.2. Popped in for 2 days for Blue Mage Update and am returning for Dawntrail. I think the continuation of MSQ and the new classes will draw players in temporarily before it drops off again given that most of the changes for this expansion don't really extend past "graphical upgrade".

Endwalker launched in December 2021, which was firmly in the middle of World of Warcraft's mid-Shadowlands implosion (Their patch 9.1.5 actually released at the start of November with not a lick of content to be seen). Pretty much every MMO got a glut of players as a result of this.

https://i.redd.it/xmxokf7urbqc1.jpeg

FFXIV was probably the most standout because their messianic figure Asmongold was giving FFXIV a lot of attention at the time, which is huge for any game.

WoW is currently in a somewhat better state than it was then, and also has an expansion release coming in the next two or three months, so it's players don't have a need to hurriedly jump ship anymore. You didn't lose 70% of the 'playerbase', you lost all the FOTM-andys who realized they didn't actually like FFXIV and went to go play New World or something equally as stupid while they waited for Blizzard to fix their game (still to be seen).

TitanMen is out in force today I see.
You'll never quit because of your rmt business, but it'd be great if you did.

Homogenize the classes even more, I'm sure that'll bring them back!

All those arguments being the case, the player spike that happened just prior to Endwalker was temporary because the game was going viral, so naturally it dropped off. The game did grow with Endwalker release as compared with Shadowbringers and more so than normal due to it going viral and the WoW stuff, but a large portion of the spike obviously dropped off because some of those players didn't stick around or were variety gamers.

Another factor is the congestion issues and the stopping of sales of the game artificially pushed people away who wanted to play and some of them put it off months or 1-2 years (based on interactions I've had).

As for if they will come back, the ones who got deep enough into the game usually will someday even if they claim they won't (similar to how people always go back to WoW after all the stuff they said about it). The "30 million adventurers" is a pool (obviously some of which are bots ;)), so any individual one of them could resubscribe at a given moment to do the one-and-done content then unsubscribe.

And honestly, if a lot of salty veterans quit because the game isn't like it was back in their day, maybe that will reduce (or have reduced) the degree of overall growth, but there are an awful lot of people who started the game since who are much more content with things, so it'll likely still grow but just less due to the people who quit.

SE actually said that Dawntrail pre-orders broke all their previous records from what I recall.

Eh some of these factors are not necessarily down the state of this game, but the state of other games at the time. E.g., the player count just prior to EW had a lot to do with the WoW exodus, and some of the streamers from that side that it attracted, just as much as what it did with the actual state of this game. I would argue a large drop in the numbers was also partially down to this.

I am not saying it is the only reason. But it is a pretty big reason.

I mean... the current job balance isnt exactly one sided, the simplifing does bring in a new source of players who were otherwise hesitant of trying out FFXIV. But ARR is still the biggest player killer, if there was 1 change to jobs I wouldve liked to see, it would be a way better pre lv50 job progression, its just too boring, too slow...

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Eh some of these factors are not necessarily down the state of this game, but the state of other games at the time. E.g., the player count just prior to EW had a lot to do with the WoW exodus, and some of the streamers from that side that it attracted, just as much as what it did with the actual state of this game. I would argue a large drop in the numbers was also partially down to this.

I am not saying it is the only reason. But it is a pretty big reason.

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Of course the WoW exodus was the principal factor, if not the only major factor.

But is that really the low standards that FF14 players now have for the game? Is it a source of pride for Square Enix to have not been able to capture the vast majority of those WoWfugees? To just let them slip away? Is it a good thing to be handed a golden goose laying golden eggs only for the goose to be so dissatisfied that it ran away in the night?

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

But is that really the low standards that FF14 players now have for the game? Is it a source of pride for Square Enix to have not been able to capture the vast majority of those WoWfugees? To just let them slip away? Is it a good thing to be handed a golden goose laying golden eggs only for the goose to be so dissatisfied that it ran away in the night?

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WoW players are unique in that someone who plays WoW is more likely than not to only play WoW, or at least have it as their primary game. That's the kind of audience that they've cultivated over the years... and the type of audience to still play WoW in its current state. Going on 10 (EDIT: Actually 20, I don't know why my brain thought 2004 was 10 years ago...) years of updates, the sunk cost for some of them is probably so high, it would be actually physically dangerous for them to quit.

Late 2021 was unique because it was in the middle of arguably the worst expansion to come out for WoW, so those who only played it had nothing to do, and those who had it as their primary game were looking for other MMOs to pass the time. This is no longer the case, as not only is Dragonflight a much better expansion in terms of content density and quality (relative to Shadowlands, anyway), but they're currently in the alpha/beta cycle for a new expansion. Those WoW players are staying firmly where they are.

People like me, who decided to stick with XIV after November 2021, never left. Everyone else isn't coming back, at no fault of FFXIV.

Source: Played WoW for half a decade straight

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

Just half a year after EW launch, we lost 70% of the playerbase.

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Yes and no. You'll get the expansion bump from people who are curious about DT and they changes it brings. The question is if DT is going to add enough of a change to keep them playing? Based on media tour, the jobs are more or less the same with just one button combos being added. Understandable due to limitation and the desire to compress things to add more stuff. However the question is should SE have focused on Class/Job redesigns first or was focusing on a graphic facelift the correct path forward? Only time will tell.

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

Of course the WoW exodus was the principal factor, if not the only major factor.

But is that really the low standards that FF14 players now have for the game? Is it a source of pride for Square Enix to have not been able to capture the vast majority of those WoWfugees? To just let them slip away? Is it a good thing to be handed a golden goose laying golden eggs only for the goose to be so dissatisfied that it ran away in the night?

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I mean not that I disagree with that in premise, but I don't think anyone really anticipated it way in advance to actually do anything meaningful with it to actually retain them, especially when it wasn't this game in the first place that enticed them. MMOs generally are in a pretty bad state. I've tried going back to RS many a time, tried WoW on a few occasions and I still come back here. Same thing for WoW players, really, or other players that try migrating to another game. Many of them will have tried the game for themselves and then just dipped out, and a great many will have joined the game because of their favorite streamer, and will have left when they did, so arguably a lot of them weren't even here because of the game but because of who came over to it, but of course this latter part is just me speculating.

If they wanted to actually capture a vast majority of those players then they would need to do an extreme amount of work to the earlier game to actually help them stay interested along the journey. Sure, they can skip the game, but that's not always within everyones budget, and generally speaking XIV is a game with an utterly tragic early-experience. If people join en-masse then they are also going to leave en-masse when they realize there's a good 60 hours minimum of actual in-game play-time before they can even get the same level of satisfaction. This is a massive undertaking anyway, especially if you're coming here from a source of dissatisfaction from another game.

It was only ever going to land one-way, and I don't think anyone got any pride out of it, except those that are on the possessive "Stay out of my(our) game¬!" personality.

The sky really is falling this time! It's not like all those other times people said that the sky was falling! It's really for reals falling this time!

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

Just half a year after EW launch, we lost 70% of the playerbase.

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A funny thing about forum posters is that they can't even conceive of the fact that most players don't 24/7 no-life games that they play. People pop in for new content, play through that content, pop out, and then pop back for new content - that is the natural ebb and flow of live service games.

Put another way, it's fine. Play they game if it's fun for you, or play something else if it's not - that's normal.

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Originally Posted by AnimalsALot

Of course the WoW exodus was the principal factor, if not the only major factor.

But is that really the low standards that FF14 players now have for the game? Is it a source of pride for Square Enix to have not been able to capture the vast majority of those WoWfugees? To just let them slip away? Is it a good thing to be handed a golden goose laying golden eggs only for the goose to be so dissatisfied that it ran away in the night?

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I think that no, it does not seem a good thing if most people quit due to ARR, story pacing, not enough fighting, story content sometimes being ridiculously easy due to the ilvl sync, etc. Nor is it good for it to be so rigid and complicated just to pay SE or buy the game.

I think it does turn a lot of players off, not just the people who tried the game in 2021. They could at least improve the system for buying the game, improve the ilvl sync and alter the presention of cut scenes to involve more fighting.

But also, the game will never be for everyone. That's the point of a free trial tbh. Just to let you see if it's for you.

In spite of all these issues... somehow, it's still grown. I think a lot of it is down to the social aspect ie. friends (or streamers/content creators) bringing people in, in a way that is strong enough to endure all these issues and push through ARR, as well as the story because some people will just endure it if they like the story and final fantasy (like me).

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

People like me, who decided to stick with XIV after November 2021, never left.

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I've met plenty who have stuck either as a result of leaving WoW, or having not played WoW before but got caught up in this game going viral.

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Source: Played WoW for half a decade straight

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In my experience, there's always been WoW players come to the game. But a huge uptick was definitely noticeable in Stormblood into Shadowbringers (2018-2019) due to their BFA expansion. But it felt like that was more the 6-year vets.

What was different about 2021 was it motivated actual 17-year vets who were far more attached to WoW than even that and unable to ever leave because it was their life's work, actually quit to try this game. But most likely some of them just went back or played both after it improved. :D

Judging the general consensus of folks in this thread, seems like most of the folks here will have a champagne celebration when CBU3 finally shutting down FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

In spite of all these issues... somehow, it's still grown. I think a lot of it is down to the social aspect

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That's basically how the entire MMO genre gets away with horrid gameplay (with FF14 being the least worst in a pile of trash).

Eh, we only had a boon due to WoW sucking a couple years back. FF is still good, but the quality is declining slightly. I will say this thought, WoW is about to eat our lunch expansion wise.

Guild Wars 2 has a solid expansion in august and actually fun past the msq. Wow and Gw2 are in a prime position to hack away at square enix this year. As for the graph, yeah, even without taking into account the exodus xiv's just stagnating; all the single player game features and dumbing down have done nothing in increasing numbers.

Gw2's getting housing in august and I bet 100 million gil it'll be better than ffxiv's; they even hihred some SIMS developers to help them design it. That level of dedication is what square enix was known for in 2013/14.

What I see on the Steam charts is that when I started playing in October 2019 we had 9,7k average players and now we have 22,9k. XIV has grown a lot compared to when I started playing and it has a high population for its age. :)

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Originally Posted by Erinellza

What I see on the Steam charts is that when I started playing in October 2019 we had 9,7k average players and now we have 22,9k. XIV has grown a lot compared to when I started playing and it has a high population for its age. :)

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This. We're posting in a Titanman thread, but all his Steam data ever really showed was that at every single comparable data point along the way, EW had a higher active playerbase than ShB (and likewise ShB outdid SB, SB outdid HW, and so on). When I say comparable data points, I mean looking at the launch of 5.1 versus 6.1, or just before 5.3 versus just before 6.3, etc..

There's only an anomaly because of the "WoW exodus" that caused a massive spike followed by most of that spike going elsewhere, which was always going to happen. It's not called an "FFXIV influx" but rather a "WoW exodus" because these players were never the target audience of FFXIV, anyway. They were just fleeing WoW, and FFXIV is its biggest competitor, so they naturally found their way over here. But they were never going to stay. FFXIV would have had to massively redesign itself and just try to be WoW if they wanted to keep them...which likely wouldn't have succeeded, and alienated FFXIV's actual target audience in the process.