This patch dropped the ball hard

[Zyrusticae]

We have evidence that the current system works: 4,000,000+ players.

Not really. That's just the number of people that have purchased a box copy and logged into the game (since trial accounts aren't included). It says absolutely nothing about their retention numbers.

I find it very telling that they've never once just straight-up told us 'we have X number of subscribers right now', or even given us another player concurrency number (which was something they did waaay back at launch when we broke 100k concurrent players). I suspect the reason they haven't told us is because they are not proud of those numbers and are having issues retaining subscribers over the long haul.

This isn't even going to be my first hiatus from the game. I did the same thing back during the launch of 2.0, and didn't come back until Syrcus Tower was released. When history repeats itself... Well, they would do well to learn from it, wouldn't they?

[SakuraMidori]

I did the same thing back during the launch of 2.0, and didn't come back until Syrcus Tower was released. When history repeats itself... Well, they would do well to learn from it, wouldn't they?

Not really i mean there will always be players that get unhappy and some will flat out quit. Or like your self they will only play for big patches but i really don't get the ones like your self who quit and then re sub for big events i mean if you keep getting un happy with a game why keep playing?

[Colt47]

Not really i mean there will always be players that get unhappy and some will flat out quit. Or like your self they will only play for big patches but i really don't get the ones like your self who quit and then re sub for big events i mean if you keep getting un happy with a game why keep playing?

Because Yoshi P and his team do the static content well when they bring it out. The issue is the life time worth of that content is pretty short, which is why a lot of MMORPGs now are pushing a mixed approach of having procedural generation for some content and saving set piece development for story related stuff. Unfortunately, Yoshi P and Co had to push something working out incredibly fast from the original game and probably didn't have time to even consider something like this. Not to mention Square Enix wanted to avoid anything that seemed like a risk at the time given they stated they couldn't handle another FFXIV flop.

Keep in mind this board is not the majority of players who actually play the game. Most don't really come here to chat because the forum blocks those who's sub has lapsed so we got a small slice of vocal fans doing most of the talking. Personally, I favor the opinions of the guys who are not posting very much here and have moved to other titles, because they generally have insight that the core audience lacks in this game (including myself as I'm a fan of Final Fantasy and want to see FFXIV succeed, rather than be more of a game hopper).

[Delily]

Because Yoshi P and his team do the static content well when they bring it out. The issue is the life time worth of that content is pretty short, which is why a lot of MMORPGs now are pushing a mixed approach of having procedural generation for some content and saving set piece development for story related stuff. Unfortunately, Yoshi P and Co had to push something working out incredibly fast from the original game and probably didn't have time to even consider something like this. Not to mention Square Enix wanted to avoid anything that seemed like a risk at the time given they stated they couldn't handle another FFXIV flop.

They do try to push out new content every 3 months, which is pretty quick. Adding procedural content would be nice, but it's not a trivial effort.

Keep in mind this board is not the majority of players who actually play the game. Most don't really come here to chat because the forum blocks those who's sub has lapsed so we got a small slice of vocal fans doing most of the talking. Personally, I favor the opinions of the guys who are not posting very much here and have moved to other titles, because they generally have insight that the core audience lacks in this game (including myself as I'm a fan of Final Fantasy and want to see FFXIV Y succeed, rather than be more of a game hopper).

There is no shortage of good ideas on these forums or on the Internet in general. However, most of these ideas are suggested before new content is released, without consideration for the game's target audience, or without the realization that there has to be some justification for this suggestion. If the team works for months adding in procedural dungeons, and yet that has no impact on growth or retention rates, what was the point? I'd like for Square to be a bit more transparent in the roadmap for the game, so that the players have some context for the design decisions made. I also wish Square would have a PTR where they could test out new ideas.