Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Enkidoh]

Why? Because not everyone is interested in endgame that makes the game dead too? Or story? Or doing <insertxxxxcontent here>? There is many different things a player can do in this game - not everyone has to be interested in exactly the same things or doing everything available. Just because they choose to not do some form of content, does not mean this game is failing or is an accurate indication of player subscriptions. Hell, I dislike PvP and raiding, yet does that mean my sub is not to be countered in this? Because your arguement pretty much says because I don't do endgame it's therefore not important.

But anyway, I've said my piece, I'm leaving this arguement now. This Chicken-Little mentality has been around since before the game was launched, but it simply is not true. The game is not dying. Take from it what you will.

[Kosmos992k]

So, only 225k players finished 3.3 story, eh? Which can be done actually in 1 day and takes no effort at all.

So, where are those 5 millions accounts registered / 2.7 millions playing game / 700k active players?

Looks like doomsayers were right after all, the game is dead.

Well, for what it's worth, I haven't completed the 3.0 story yet, nor hwve my wife or son. I'm sure we are not alone.

Why? Because not everyone is interested in endgame that makes the game dead too? Or story? Or doing <insertxxxxcontent here>? **snip**
Hell, I dislike PvP and raiding, yet does that mean my sub is not to be countered in this? Because your arguement pretty much says because I don't do endgame it's therefore not important.
**snip**
The game is not dying. Take from it what you will.

Thank you for posting this, you did it better than I could, i am completely uninterested in end-game, but my sub has been active since ARR launched and I logon almost daily. At least I know that SE values me, even if the end-game people do not.

[Eul]

Oh my server is rank 4th for raid progression...

[Kosmos992k]

It just means while they may keep getting new players, they aren't really retaining subs the way they should be.

Actually, I think it means that the pace of gear progression at end-game is far oustrippIng the progression of players who don't participate in end-game resulting in a group of players who are well behind the curve because gearing is not easy unless they grind tomes or do older 'end-game' content, which they may have no interest in. For a while now it's felt like the progression in FFXIV is being dragged around by the end-game community and despite being very accessible to all players as a game, more recent content (in terms of new dungeons and high ilvl gear) is no where near as accesssible. There is a tendency on this forum and elsewhere to think that end-game is all there is in terms of active players, that's far from the truth.

[Kosmos992k]

Mounts/minions aren't hidden and its the ONLY way to get an accurate snapshot of the game since numbers aren't being released.

I don't understand where this foaming at the mouth defensiveness comes from. People are just trying to understand more about the state of the game. Calm down.

"foaming at the mouth"? Post proof or retract.

[Moomba33]

Well, looks like the Midas clears are a bit better than the Gordias ones were (I'm remembering a 5%(?) clear rate for the Chocobo server in a similar survey).
I'm curious if there's any similar data for Coil back when it was endgame.

As for the overall numbers I'm not really surprised. I remember 3.1 having a a shockingly low clear rate presumably since it didn't gate any content when it was first released. Half of the game's population not being at endgame doesn't really worry me.

Edit: I think it's a fair assessment of the population as well. If anything it's overestimating active players. I have 4 characters that count as active due to logging in on my 3 lowbie alts for seasonal events and getting a minion from the Yo-Kai quest.

[Yurimi]

Wait, back up - because not everyone finished the 3.3 story the game is automatically 'dead'? You do realize not everyone has the expansion installed? Not to mention there has been a significant amount of new players entering the game who are nowhere even near the start of 3.0 let alone 3.3. Enough with the doomsaying already - it wore thin back when people were saying the game "was dead" even during launch when servers were overloaded with too many players trying to login, and now it just seems a worn out and tired argument.

Hells, where did this 'unofficial' census get it's information from? Not server info that's for sure save of taking info from the Lodestone which is usually inaccurate anyway due to how slowly it updates. A little reality is needed here.

EDIT: and it seems I have my answer:



You do realize that is totally inaccurate given the fact players can hide their achievements on the Lodestone from anyone but themselves? So if this 'census' can take that information even when it's locked for viewing shows that this is virtually hacking and thus is a violation of the ToS. And minions? Not everyone bothers actually using the minion items believe it or not (many players find them annoying), so again this is NOT a good way of getting an accurate snapshot of the game.

Maybe I'm just overthinking this though.

To be a bit more thorough on the way that the person gathers the info (if it is the same person who has done the last few and using the same method) it is done by scraping the lodestone with 2 passes.

Active is determined to be any CHARACTER (as it is impossible to determine account association at this time) above level 10 that has had any change at all to their lodestone profile between the previous unofficial census and either of the 2 passes through the PUBLICLY available lodestone data. This includes any new minions , mounts, a change of job, any gain of levels, any new achievments, or even a single change in gear. So in order to be listed as inactive you need to have not done anything at all since April (the last time they did this) making it a fairly accuracte gauge for the number of active characters. Keep in mind that this means that if someone were to have multiple characters that they are active on this would count as more than 1 therefor the active subs are less than the total of active characters (though I would say probably less than 10% of people have played actively on 2+ chracters so it should be within negligible amounts)

[Lexia]

Has SE ever actually said how many active paying subs there are or do they only boost about the 5 million registered accounts?

[Zojha]

Looovely, statistics!

First thing to note: This is character, not player data, because unofficial censi cannot tell whether a character belongs to another account or not. The data is roughly in line with previous such censi (Just google Lucky bancho for reference): About 500k characters, raid completion in the single digits (pre-nerf/echo), completion rate of MSQ decreasing.

Interesting: 3.3 has by far the biggest completion loss of all the MSQ phases - I blame Nidhogg and the endless fetch quest at the end.

[Remus]

Has SE ever actually said how many active paying subs there are or do they only boost about the 5 million registered accounts?

They have never said how many active players there are in the game that i'm aware off.