My Proposed Solutions to Improve Player Retention

[ReplicaX]

Don't be ridiculous. I am rarely on the forums. I have noticed that on my server we have gone from maybe 400+ people in Mor Dhona around November; to <100 people most of the time. Other areas? In all the outside areas of Limsa Lominsa combined, I just counted 11 people. The game is dying. The percentage of turn 4 clearing players has to be AT LEAST 1/3 by now.

Every MMO has it's launch boost in numbers, simply because ppl want to try something new or the marketing/media hype.

[Nuinn]

Or they might add more to the horizontal progression, and by that I mean content that is not as mind-numbing after 2 weeks like CT or Coil T1 to (arguably)T4 (arguably) is.

I would personally loathe going back to anywhere near 1.0 drop rates. There's RNG in place already and that made me skip a few weeks of getting CT gear for alt jobs cause .... How shall I put it.... Boooooring! It's not a question whether content is easy or hard, or if the drop rates are good or suck. If it's not engaging, I might start skipping doing stuff sooner rather than later. I'm "not coming back" (not doing some of the content) because it's a game of Simon Says to me. Repeat the steps in exactly the same order to win. No variations to fight, no surprises => I'm sleepy.

Thankfully, there's still of other activities in game which I enjoy doing, no matter how silly or pointless they might seem to everyone else :3

[Tupsi]

And what vanishingly small percentage of the 1.8m players this game has fall into that category: 1% maybe, at best?

Yoshida:
Well, the number for daily active user count can be misleading.... The peak time for Japan and oversea countries are different, for example. But if we simply look at the number of people logging in every day, I'd say we have about 500,000 people world wide.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-FFXIV-and-DQX

What 1.8m? Anyway,

For the rest of us, the VAST MAJORITY, clearing T4 is a far-off dream

Which is why they nerf content into the ground, for those who for some reason can't clear T4 even though it's far easier than 1 and 2 (normal way.)

[Kuwagami]

Don't be ridiculous. I am rarely on the forums. I have noticed that on my server we have gone from maybe 400+ people in Mor Dhona around November; to <100 people most of the time. Other areas? In all the outside areas of Limsa Lominsa combined, I just counted 11 people. The game is dying. The percentage of turn 4 clearing players has to be AT LEAST 1/3 by now.

you kidding right ? It's not even sure that 50% of the players have a relic... 1/3 of people with a relic maybe. Not 1/3 of all the population.

Also, you'll be in good right to say that "the game is dying" if player base drop after the 1st expansion, ot before...

Yoshida:
Well, the number for daily active user count can be misleading.... The peak time for Japan and oversea countries are different, for example. But if we simply look at the number of people logging in every day, I'd say we have about 500,000 people world wide.

What 1.8m?

you surely know that 500k daily connection doesn't mean 500k active players ? Not the 1.8 million keys sold, of course, but we might be around 800k at least.

[Arkghyom]

So.. I think we can all agree that a lot of endgame players are leaving the game now. Most would probably agree that lack of endgame content is a factor. However I do not believe it is the main issue. The current endgame content for the people that can down 1-4 easily is basically a Monday night raid and done for the week. The extreme primals are literally just mediocre i90 accessories and i90 weapons for alts. If you have already done that for all the alts you care about there just isn't much to do after Monday night.

A couple of changes I think would help bring players back for 2.2 and to stay:

• Make Coil Something you need to continually do.
  1. Change the weekly lockout on coil 1-9 to a Daily lockout.
  2. Drop the loot percentages to total around 50% per chest in each turn. (Meaning 50/50 chance you might not get loot at all.)
  3. Offer two difficulties. The harder difficulty would increase drop rates to 75% per chest.
• Change Crystal Tower to a 3 part raid.
  1. One drop right side gear, one left side, and the third drop an upgradable weapon.
  2. In addition to loot drops, After you beat all 3 you get a token. When you get a set amount (10-15?) you can cash them in and upgrade your i80 weapon to an i90. (Or comparable 2.2 ilvls)
  3. Keep the weekly loot lock in place, but make it per part.
• Add an extreme primal roulette for people that have cleared them.
  1. On completion give 5-7K gil, 200/100/50 tomes (Philosophy, Mythology, Newcurrency, respectively), and a 20% or so chance at a roulette exclusive mount.
  2. Keep the Daily style of the roulette.

The reason for the daily lockout change is because (at least on my server) a lot of decent players are getting left out of coil groups. I feel the reason is that the best teams don't want to split up and help other people because they want to waste their time and lose their spot in the group for the week or skip some of the turns to get their spot back.

EDIT:

Adjust my numbers then. 75% normal and 100% for Hard mode? Remember you have 2 chests per turn for 8 people. As compared to 1 chest in ~same amount~ of time as a turn of coil. (Turn of Coil = about 10-15 minutes | Crystal tower = ~ 45-60 minutes)



Fair point on the progression. Maybe just give you the option to redo the first turns after you complete them each day. Or maybe only turns 1-5 like that. Then 2 months from now add this system for 6-9.

The point of the Crystal Tower changes is to give Crystal tower a reason to exist. Personally I don't see the point of Crystal Tower right now. Most of my Free company shares this opinion I believe.

The point would be to get people in the fights again and to give them something else to do that is worth their time. I personally can't find or make an Ifrit Ex party anymore and the Duty Finder didn't find 8 people in nearly 3 hours a couple of nights ago.

Also, 30 minutes isn't enough of a penalty. Make it 2 hours or lock them out of all roulettes if they leave or something.

Player Detention!

[OrganizationXIll]

you kidding right ? It's not even sure that 50% of the players have a relic... 1/3 of people with a relic maybe. Not 1/3 of all the population.

Also, you'll be in good right to say that "the game is dying" if player base drop after the 1st expansion, ot before...

Other worlds must be vastly different than Goblin then. I would be willing to say that 75% of players are at endgame on Goblin. (That play disciple of war and magic) If not then where do they go? They must have a secret pre-50 zone or something, because I never see more than 50 players outside of Mor Dhona and Wineport a day.

[Talligan]

I can tell you why I don't play very often (~ once/month now) and still haven't hit 50. I work at a computer all day, every day so for me to spend more time on my computer when I get home it needs to be something exciting. Final Fantasy XIV, while it looks fantastic, has some really cool class and crafting systems and unique ideas the bulk of the game plays like vanilla WoW, but much easier. The instances are dull and unexciting, the quests are from 2005 and even the vaunted storyline quest is mostly boring fetch and travel quests interspersed with the aforementioned dungeons.

Quite frankly, it's boring. I *want* to like, I want to want to play more. But as it is there's nothing here that my other games (both single player and multiplayer) don't do better.

[Kuwagami]

Other worlds must be vastly different than Goblin then. I would be willing to say that 75% of players are at endgame on Goblin. (That play disciple of war and magic) If not then where do they go? They must have a secret pre-50 zone or something, because I never see more than 50 players outside of Mor Dhona and Wineport a day.

The point would be to get people in the fights again and to give them something else to do that is worth their time. I personally can't find or make an Ifrit Ex party anymore and the Duty Finder didn't find 8 people in nearly 3 hours a couple of nights ago.

I think that's your major issue rather than anything else. Are you sure your server is well crowded at all in the first place ? Or are people waiting for 2.2 to come back ? Because on Balmung there are a lot of ifrit/titan parties, and a few Garuda ones, mostly for learning.

Also, if you stay in the cities (especially Gridania) or mor dhona (even wineport), you'll see a lot of end game players because they tend to gather there. The new players are either in dungeons, quests or fating somewhere.

As I wander a lot from not using the teleport, I see a lot of people everywhere, like around 30 to 100 per map. Some levelling areas are less crowded for obvious reasons (no point going in western thanalan or central thanalan besides the storyline for example. also, no point going around limsa except wineport/costa and maybe aleport), but the south shroud, east shroud, north shroud, Coerthas, southern Thanalan and Northern Thanalan are never empty.

[OrganizationXIll]

I can tell you why I don't play very often (~ once/month now) and still haven't hit 50. I work at a computer all day, every day so for me to spend more time on my computer when I get home it needs to be something exciting. Final Fantasy XIV, while it looks fantastic, has some really cool class and crafting systems and unique ideas the bulk of the game plays like vanilla WoW, but much easier. The instances are dull and unexciting, the quests are from 2005 and even the vaunted storyline quest is mostly boring fetch and travel quests interspersed with the aforementioned dungeons.

Quite frankly, it's boring. I *want* to like, I want to want to play more. But as it is there's nothing here that my other games (both single player and multiplayer) don't do better.

I feel you pain, but wrong thread? lol

[Talligan]

I feel you pain, but wrong thread? lol

Not really. I was talking about retaining players like me, casual players who most likely make up the bulk of any MMO.