I guess it's time

[Zojha]

Wow, look at that. Everything I said was totally correct!

Not quite: It's still active "characters", not players. Alts are counted, if they had a change in gear/mounts etc. Of course, legitimate new players that stick aren't counted as well, if they're below 20. Who knows if it evens out?

Overall, it doesn't seem too much has changed. I find the disconnect between 800k clear for 2.0 and 200k clear for 2.5 a tad large and it puts the ~300k for 3.0 and up into perspective.

Now...I am kinda curious how it looks for other subscription based MMOs. But those aren't exactly common and rather stingy with data...

[RLofOBFL]

3.1 was a 6 month dry spell....come 3.2 the subs shot up to near peak numbers.

You are in serious denial of how successful this game is lol sure it's repetitive end game is crap but it works....until you are faced with a 6 month dry spell. That kinda proves that the content has no longevity seeing as how the playerbase was 1/4 of what it was during that time.

[RobbieH]

But you're comparing apples and oranges here.

We're talking about active players RIGHT NOW.

Right now is 2 months ago? You posted a 2 month old link, that's far from right now.

You also take confidence saying you're 100% right from a 1 year old data someone else posted.

You can't be any more irrelevant.

I'm only irrelevant because you don't understand what active players mean, i recommend you to look at steam stats page for an idea.

Peak vs active.

Even if this game peaked at 900k and decline to 500k it's declining, and 500k is the active number, the same way FFXIV can have 500k active subs in one month and the next it can have half.

Anyway you're clearly here only to troll, i've spent enough time with troll white knights for one day.

[RLofOBFL]

Now...I am kinda curious how it looks for other subscription based MMOs. But those aren't exactly common and rather stingy with data...

I know it isn't active but with 5 million life time subs in 3 years, FF14 is the second most subbed paid mmo.

[Thayos]

I'm only irrelevant because you don't understand what active players mean

I think you're completely misunderstanding what I've been saying this whole time.

I'm not arguing that the population hasn't declined. The data shows it has declined. A survey from a year ago (from the same guy who did the survey from two months ago) showed the active playerbase around 730k. A year later, the study I linked shows it around 640k. Yes, that's a decline. But it's not a "ZOMG TEH SKY IZ FALLING" sort of decline.

But look back through my posts, and nowhere am I even attempting to argue that the population hasn't declined. I'm arguing that the population is still healthy. There is a huge difference! And I'm guessing you missed that in all the usual back-and-forth that usually goes on.

You also take confidence saying you're 100% right from a 1 year old data someone else posted.

No, the survey I linked to was from May of this year. The guy who did that survey also did a survey a year ago (when the active pop was 730k). I think that may be the key source of your confusion.

active players mean

Yes, I know exactly what active players mean. THE ONLY THING I CARE ABOUT IN THIS THREAD IS THE ACTIVE PLAYER POPULATION.

Good grief, talking to you people is exhausting.

But I'm still right. Except for what Zojha said, in that the numbers probably change slightly if you account for alt characters. But most players don't have alts, because it just doesn't make sense in this game. And alts wouldn't have been counted if they weren't used during the three-week period during which survey data was collected.

[Vantol]

I know it isn't active but with 5 million life time subs in 3 years, FF14 is the second most subbed paid mmo.

It means only 2 things: 1. SE is good at marketing 2. How unbelievably bad product must be, to hold only 5% of those, who actually tried it.

A survey from a year ago (from the same guy who did the survey from two months ago) showed the active playerbase around 730k. A year later, the study I linked shows it around 640k. Yes, that's a decline. But it's not a "ZOMG TEH SKY IZ FALLING" sort of decline.

You also should understand that there is difference between "active players" and "subscribers". I know at least 3 ppl who keep paying for this game since release. But none of them has logged in even once in last 7 months. They keep paying just to support this game "because it's FF" and because they hope for changes.

Active player is the person who completes MSQ at least in 2 weeks (though everyone I know complete it usually in 5 hours +/-). All other players are irrelevant. And according to your own Survey there are actually 263,604 players who cleared 3.2. To me it's very low number of active players.

[Thayos]

You also should understand that there is difference between "active players" and "subscribers". I know at least 3 ppl who keep paying for this game since release.

Yep, and I already touched on this earlier.

This survey doesn't account for subscribers who are sitting on the sidelines and not logging in. It's only people who were active within a three-week period.

I don't see idle subscribers as being worthless, either. If a subscriber is idle, then in most cases that person intends to play again. It could just be the person is waiting for the next patch, or perhaps he's just too busy to log in. Maybe the person is focusing temporarily on another game. I'm not sure if I've ever gone three weeks without logging in, but I've personally had times where I didn't log in for around two weeks just because I was so slammed with work and social obligations.

I am a FFXI subscriber. Play off and on. And I've definitely gone more than three weeks without logging into XI at times.

And according to your own Survey there are actually 263,604 players who cleared 3.2. To me it's very low number.

I agree! I'm surprised by such a low clearance rate among active players. But as I said earlier, we saw the same general phenomenon a year ago heading into HW. Turns out, this game has quite a few casual players who just don't feel much of a need to blow through the storyline. (EDIT: Although, this is somewhat less surprising now given that new players must progress through all of 2.x before they can work on the 3.x storyline content.)

[Vantol]

Well, ok, with that I can agree.

So, now we need to decide what to do with this infromation,- how to make playerbase grow, make people log in every day for many hours and still be interested in playing.

[Thayos]

My gut feeling has always been that this game is great at getting new players but not as great at keeping people around. I also think a big culprit is an endgame scene that's focused too heavily on eight-man raiding, which, as a format, encourages statics and excludes casual participation.

That's why I'm so encouraged by the direction of Diadem (even though it was a failure) and Deep Dungeons. I think this game needs content that is more inviting to all-comers. When people can get enjoyment from this game without having to pencil in dedicated time for static raiding, then I think we'll see more people find motivation to stick around.

Yeah, we have the 24-man raids, but those don't really feel like endgame. When I think of endgame, I think of things I need to work for. Honestly, the relic grind feels more like endgame to me than then 24-man raids.

FFXI was incredibly welcoming in regards to casual endgame participation while also facilitating "elite" endgame groups. Yoshi-P needs to strike more of a similar balance here.

That's just one man's opinion, though.

[KitingGenbu]

More precisely: Critera same as the last time, must be above level 21. Any changes to HP/mount/minion/gear counts character as active.
From an older survey of the same person: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

If anyone can speak japanese, feel free to compare other numbers o.o

Funny enough that 21+ can't work anymore since the trial period lets you level up to 35 now doesn't it?

Anyway, this is going way off the point that many people are trying to make I believe, which is they want the dev team to make SOME changes to their formula since its not retaining a lot of interest for SOME people. Personally, I'd like more QoL adjustments to make the game actually less awkward, like an actual raid party instead of this 3 8 man thing tethered together. I'll at least say FFXI does this better since they allowed players to swap parties within the area they were and alliances could be formed anywhere, not just for a specific thing (funny how 90% of mmos allow you form raids wherever you want too...). Fixing the skill speed stat since its pretty much a negative stat. Set bonuses since they are actually in the game to some degree under the FC armor/weapons. Letting us talk to npcs without the dismounting. I know they are making baby steps but some of these things are a bit amateurish imo and not greed related.