Anyone Sad about the games Decline

[CatofNineTails]

I'm tempted to write down all the people bashing the game for lack of content and all the people defending the "lack of content issue." and see which group has more. I will be using it by users not number of posts. I have a feeling more people have disagreed with you than agreeing.

Brilliant reply! I say the Fans of the game outnumber the ones with complaints but that the number of which has declined since free month has ended.

you say the fans are more numerous than a detractor!

did you even read what i posted before typing that up?

[Arakatos]

The game started off good but it just took a nose dive into the boring,easy and dull zone. From what I am reading on forums and when I last played the game it seems FF14 is starting to die. Square might say they have a ton of subs but alot of the player base is just not playing there accounts and waiting for there subs to end. Its bound to happen when you make a game that plays exactly like every other mmo on the market.

Hmm, 10000 views and 300 responses give or take for this subject yet player base is in the millions. Personally I enjoy the game. I do understand and respect your comment but I believe it gives a false impression to potential new players.

MMO players are migrators to a large extent but FFXIV is definitely a polished game set in the FF universe. Fun for most but definitely not all. To say it is in decline is an unfair assertion.

[CatofNineTails]

Or people just get tired of the same "this game is stupid and my opinion is the only valid one, if you disagree then your just a white knight/fanboy" threads and dont bother responding as much anymore. Reduction in forum defense posts does not really reflect game population....hell forum period doesnt, as a major portion of population rarely touch forums.

well last few times I've logged in at PEAK hrs for my server there has been no queue. the dead hrs in the most populated fate zones are near empty of players and even during peak time its not 800 people trampling the fates just 2-3 fate parties. there is definitely a decline of population ON MY SERVER. what its like on others I wont speculate. but the forums has lost many of the "this game is the BOMB I recommended it to all my friends" posters.

[Reslin]

Brilliant reply! I say the Fans of the game outnumber the ones with complaints but that the number of which has declined since free month has ended.

you say the fans are more numerous than a detractor!

did you even read what i posted before typing that up?

From my experience the detractors are the ones declined. After the server issues have been mostly resolved I see far less complaints. The term white knight was thrown around far more often a few weeks back by a greater deal of people than now. All I see now are the same people making the same posts. There's a new face here and there but it's mostly the same.

[Rivienne]

well last few times I've logged in at PEAK hrs for my server there has been no queue. the dead hrs in the most populated fate zones are near empty of players and even during peak time its not 800 people trampling the fates just 2-3 fate parties. there is definitely a decline of population ON MY SERVER. what its like on others I wont speculate. but the forums has lost many of the "this game is the BOMB I recommended it to all my friends" posters.

I can to a point speak to this: I have characters on many worlds, in both data centers. The legacy worlds I am on are insanely densely populated still. The high load non-legacy are also heavily populated still, but they aren't heavily populated in the low level fate areas anymore. Low level dungeons are always well queued, but Mid level dungeons have few people. High story dungeons are always full. There seems to be a lull in the 35-44 range right now, though there are always people in titan (SM) queue.

Many of the newer worlds however appear to have severely low population density across the board, and it only got worse after free transfers.

I can only speculate without good numbers, but my guess is that many of these worlds only saw as high a density as they did because of story only solo'ers, and people who got separated from friends. Those latter gave up, or transferred last week, the former are either working their way through still, or gone, leaving some worlds in a bit of lurch.

The question is: will SE end up merging some of those worlds back in, or will the new joins make up for the lack soon resulting in a fresh spike. To a point I think that depends on how SE is managing new character creations on new accounts, i.e. are they encouraging specific worlds, or is it still likely to be a skewed population density?

But to the point: anybody who is only on one world, not to mention a specific timeframe, has a uniquely skewed perspective. Each world environment can feel very different right now, JP and NA are different, Legacy vs Non-Legacy are different. High density overfull, vs the emergency new worlds created for overflow. They all have very different feel to them right now. Which is why I try not to comment on this particular subject yet. Even though I have a wider swath of experience, I am not on (and never can be) all 60 at the same time, much less throughout the day.

Try to go to revenant's toll and judge density by there and Ul'dah by the market boards. Most people are level 50 now.

On your server. Again, I am pointing that on other servers this is not always true. On one of my JP server level 20 fates are still a constant zerg fest to avoid. Over on another JP server I was on (just transfered off) the level 20 fates I had to try and solo with my chocobo if I tried them.

I find that there are roughly as many <30 in world as 44-50. So I am pointing out population density and new character creation differs from world to world.

Think about it like this, if the first million subscribers in the first month, distributed unevenly, but with overflow still resulted in a large number of new players in most worlds, then with an additional 500K this past month, (assuming at leas 90% of them are new not extra) the distribution is either going to be similar, or more distributed. That is there are still a lot of new people, but either a) you won't see as many because there are fewer then the first month, or b) you won't see as many on many servers because they are more concentrated on specific worlds.

Statistically it is most likely to be somewhere in between the two, but again without raw numbers I hesitate to speak much.

there are three areas for the majority fate usage numbers revenant's blue fog and dragonhead zones. these are where the vast majority flock to do fate parties.

shiva is a EU server not a "tack on" some loss was expected to end of free play and as you pointed out some transfers. but as i said the dead time NON-Euro times was always queue to get on and the fates were pretty much what is now during peak hours for euro players which is 2-3 fate parties in the most popular zones with mob farmers and such. the peak time for euro players used to be packed solid in all the primary zones that is no longer true. so were did these 500,000 new subs go? Japanese servers?

Again, I am saying every world is different. I am not, and have never been, on Shiva. But to my recollection it also has never ever been one of the highly populated worlds either, not even during the peak time all worlds were overloaded. My guess is whatever "draw" there is to specific worlds, has never drawn people to Shiva, and with the lower percentage of the 500K distribution, that means that smaller percentage wasn't really enough to cause an influx to your world.

It is about distribution patterns. Since I haven't seen an official one I can only guess based on previous feedback and my own in-world experience.

Also: yes some of those are on the JP side. That is what I mean by different worlds: it is quite possible that all 500K are densely concentrated across no more than 20 servers, and the other 40 servers are seeing few if any of these, while those on those 20 would say the world is as busy as ever. Without real numbers I can only guess, but that is the problem with trying to judge population density of the entire game, based on a few servers, or a specific timezone.

As to Rivenne.. you realize Behemoth is considered one of the highest populated servers, right? Trust me. Your server is more than populated.

Not to nitpick but I think you missed the part where I said I am on "many" worlds and that is where I am coming from: each world I am on is different.

I am on significantly more than just Behemoth and not all of them are high density like that.

[Reslin]

I can to a point speak to this: I have characters on many worlds, in both data centers. The legacy worlds I am on are insanely densely populated still. The high load non-legacy are also heavily populated still, but they aren't heavily populated in the low level fate areas anymore. Low level dungeons are always well queued, but Mid level dungeons have few people. High story dungeons are always full. There seems to be a lull in the 35-44 range right now, though there are always people in titan (SM) queue.

Try to go to revenant's toll and judge density by there and Ul'dah by the market boards. Most people are level 50 now.

[CatofNineTails]

there are three areas for the majority fate usage numbers revenant's blue fog and dragonhead zones. these are where the vast majority flock to do fate parties.

shiva is a EU server not a "tack on" some loss was expected to end of free play and as you pointed out some transfers. but as i said the dead time NON-Euro times was always queue to get on and the fates were pretty much what is now during peak hours for euro players which is 2-3 fate parties in the most popular zones with mob farmers and such. the peak time for euro players used to be packed solid in all the primary zones that is no longer true. so were did these 500,000 new subs go? Japanese servers?

[Reslin]

there are three areas for the majority fate usage numbers revenant's blue fog and dragonhead zones. these are where the vast majority flock to do fate parties.

shiva is a EU server not a "tack on" some loss was expected to end of free play and as you pointed out some transfers. but as i said the dead time NON-Euro times was always queue to get on and the fates were pretty much what is now during peak hours for euro players which is 2-3 fate parties in the most popular zones with mob farmers and such. the peak time for euro players used to be packed solid in all the primary zones that is no longer true. so were did these 500,000 new subs go? Japanese servers?

In most mmo's usually the NA player base is by far the biggest. In this one it's going to be NA/JP. My evidence? Look at the number of NA servers VS EU servers. 23 NA servers vs 7 EU servers. There's over three times the number of NA servers. I do foresee server merges. MMO's always have a drop off point and 23 seems excessive. Japan has 37 servers.

As to Rivenne.. you realize Behemoth is considered one of the highest populated servers, right? Trust me. Your server is more than populated. The thing is the Japanese (based on my experience in numerous mmo's including FF11) tend to be completionists. Most western gamers are privy to one or two classes/jobs and that's it. You see many people when others suggest when people are bored "level up new characters" and people are opposed. I'm included in this. Most people are fine playing a single character. Again, myself included. It's common in western mmo's to see leveling areas become ghost towns when the majority of the players hit cap.

[Hagito]

Sadly it did go downhill for me once you hit 50 on the first character.

When I get online and think I have to level and gear other classes just one thing comes to my mind, and that is: man, I have to wait 1 hour to complete an instance on most of these classes to get them some gear and do it over 50 times...

Or when I start leveling up mining, I literally get this face:

I know these issues could be fixed, it's not just the content, it is simply how dull and repetitive everything is, leveling up as well as gearing up. No challenge on instances, it is pretty much a "oh well we gotta kill them to get to kill the boss then leave... let's do it", kind of dungeons.

[Welsper59]

Sadly it did go downhill for me once you hit 50 on the first character.

When I get online and think I have to level and gear other classes just one thing comes to my mind, and that is: man, I have to wait 1 hour to complete an instance on most of these classes to get them some gear and do it over 50 times...

Or when I start leveling up mining, I literally get this face:

I know these issues could be fixed, it's not just the content, it is simply how dull and repetitive everything is, leveling up as well as gearing up. No challenge on instances, it is pretty much a "oh well we gotta kill them to get to kill the boss then leave... let's do it", kind of dungeons.

I think it's important for you to remember that EVERYTHING that has ever existed can get dull, boring, and repetitive. There are NO exceptions to that concept. Some things take longer to reach that point, and will obviously vary from person to person. but it will eventually get there for the individual. Every single challenging thing you ever come across, will be faceroll once you've done it enough (usually once or twice is all it takes).

It's easy to criticize that things get boring, but that's how our very lives are. We're boring creatures that have to look for entertainment elsewhere. Technology does not exist to create a forever dynamic gaming experience in an MMORPG.