January 9, 2016 Active player census (and savage clear rates)

[Alahra]

If people can't be bothered to do 3.1's MSQ...which in itself was also content that was part of 3.1's release....that's concerning. Espesically if one of the strong points of FFXIV is the storyline and presentation.

That's in part why I'm curious about the numbers for previous story chapters, though I've not been able to turn any up. I knew several people during ARR that only really did the story in order to unlock stuff, and more still who did the story but skipped all the cutscenes, and since they've said they're going to start putting some of the new content outside of the story (as was, notably, the case for 3.1), it may be that we're seeing that people who were never interested to begin with simply aren't bothering with it now.

[RiceisNice]

That's in part why I'm curious about the numbers for previous story chapters, though I've not been able to turn any up. I knew several people during ARR that only really did the story in order to unlock stuff, and more still who did the story but skipped all the cutscenes, and since they've said they're going to start putting some of the new content outside of the story (as was, notably, the case for 3.1), it may be that we're seeing that people who were never interested to begin with simply aren't bothering with it now.

The active players based on MSQ completion breaks down to how far they have progressed.

Out of the 771k active players (based on their criteria), 392k have finished 3.0's storyline, and 198k out of that has finished 3.1.

Region | Active | Newbie (leafer) | Continuing | Patch 2.0 Clear | Patch 2.55 Clear | 3.0 Access | 3.0 Clear | 3.1 Clear

That's the breakdown for the chart based on my excellent google translate skills.

[Alahra]

The active players based on MSQ completion breaks down to how far they have progressed.

Out of the 771k active players (based on their criteria), 392k have finished 3.0's storyline, and 198k out of that has finished 3.1.

Do we have numbers, though, of say, who completed the patch 2.3 MSQ at the same relative point in 3.2's lifespan, perhaps a month or two after the launch? That's more what I'm curious about—trying to gauge some sense of how much interest there is in the story.

Obviously, lots of folks have completed everything in ARR by now, since it's required for HW, and was also required to unlock most new content. 3.1 is only about a month old at this point, it was over the holidays in NA, and it didn't unlock any actual content, so I'm just not sure how much stock to put in that ~200k number without additional context.

[RiceisNice]

Do we have numbers, though, of say, who completed the patch 2.3 MSQ....

I don't think there's any census with soemthing like that, nor do I think it's really relevant to what you're asking for. However, having the amount of poeple who have) cleared 2.0 in relation to how many have finished 2.55's story, and those that are currently in 3.0 gives you a relative idea of how many of those are neither leafers or veteran players.

And well honestly, 3.1's MSQ is really, really short even if you consider the cutscenes. Even in relation to how long the patch has been out (and it's closer to 2 months), the clear rate shows a lack of interest in even the MSQ for whatever reason. That just doesn't spell out anything good if people can't be bothered to do content that comes with a patch.

[Ossom]

Not surprised about Adamantoise, I know every single member who has the mount. It's a shame, we would be double that if AS3 didn't destroy so many groups back in July/August. All the big FCs pretty much got their statics broken, some groups are coming back slowly, and hopefully Midas will be more forgiving. AS3s mechanics were never the issue, it was that impossible gear check. Down right impossible.

[Warlyx]

3.1 MSQ is short and "meh" at best.... we waited so long for 3.1 and that patch didnt even delivered a good portion of MSQ

[Alahra]

That just doesn't spell out anything good if people can't be bothered to do content that comes with a patch.

I just don't think it's that cut and dry.

Yoshi said the 3.1 MSQ doesn't have any content tied to it specifically because players had provided feedback that they didn't like having to do the MSQ to unlock the new stuff. So the seemingly low number of completion may very well be tied to that, and we can't tell if it's really "low" given that without more context.

We also don't really know if the percentage of players who typically completed the MSQ was historically all that much higher than it is now. Again, we don't have much information here other than a number, and statistics are usually best understood with context.

To explain a bit what I'm getting at: if we only knew that less than 5% of the player base had cleared Alexander (Savage) but nothing else, we wouldn't be able to say much about whether that was low or not. However, we have some indication (from the developers, if there aren't similar numbers available for clears for say, FCOB) that Savage clear rates are lower than anticipated, which suggests a drop off in participation for that type of content. Further supporting the idea that participation in Savage is lower than it was for Coil is the fact that the developers are making major changes to their plans for future raid content to increase participation. So we can be pretty sure that the drop off there is significant.

We don't have any similar information for the MSQ, so we can't draw as concrete of a conclusion. We do know that roughly twice as many players completed the 3.0 storyline, but the 3.0 storyline has also been out for half a year—three times as long as the 3.1 storyline has been. That makes it hard to draw a direct comparison just based on those two numbers alone.

(And yes, it's closer to 2 months, I was thinking of the launch of Anima when I typed that).

[Kuwagami]

So noone is really going to comment on the fact that the AS4 clear rate is utterly low (0.75%) while Coil clears after 5 month were usually more about 15% ?

Am I really the only one thinking and getting confirmation that it was a game direction error and that they should fix it by returning to coil difficulty, instead of the obscure "not as hard as Gordias" we got as "hype" (huge emphasis) ?

[Shizukya]

So noone is really going to comment on the fact that the AS4 clear rate is utterly low (0.75%) while Coil clears after 5 month were usually more about 15% ?

Am I really the only one thinking and getting confirmation that it was a game direction error and that they should fix it by returning to coil difficulty, instead of the obscure "not as hard as Gordias" we got as "hype" (huge emphasis) ?

I think again that people should remember that Coils are DIFFERENT from Alex SAVAGE just like Coils SAVAGE, you just cant compare Alex savage rates and Coils savage rates.

Yoshida made no gate to let people go through story and give everyone something they wanted, a normal story vers + some hard mode because ppl was complaining about coils ease. They cant just adjust difficulty for everyone, and since alex savage is giving 210 gear, people complain again but now everyone can have it, A1S and A2S are doable with pugs, even A3S if youre experienced enough, not A4S but it's not called savage for the fun, i guess? People asked for some challenge, Yoshi gave them, now they want the nerf, but its already getting nerfed with the time and the patches. They are the unique challenge content at this time so thats the real issue. Thordan EX was a good idea to help people clearing savage and have some fun but its all about lack of challenging content id say.

[Ashkendor]

I think again that people should remember that Coils are DIFFERENT from Alex SAVAGE just like Coils SAVAGE, you just cant compare Alex savage rates and Coils savage rates.

I don't feel that there's much of a comparison to be made between Alexander (Savage) and SCoB (Savage) because there was a full Second Coil of Bahamut and then a full Savage Second Coil of Bahamut instead of this six of one/half a dozen of the other crap. What we have now is a choice between faceroll (Alex Normal) and facedesk (A3S/A4S). There's not only a lack of challenging content, there's a lack of middle ground as well. The only real "midcore" content we have is A1S and A2S. I get that some people find the difficulty of A3S and A4S fun, but based on the clear rates that audience is very small indeed. It seems like many people have just given up on raiding altogether until the new tier comes out in 3.2 because of how high the raids are tuned.