Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[zosia]

A time investment which requires no skill or actual effort and will inherently become easier over time even without better RNG. Would that same frustration not manifest if say, you had to clear Nidhogg EX 267 times before finally getting a Pigeon drop while I managed the exact same accomplishment in only 23? Because I can tell you right now if the reverse happened, well, a quote from FFIX sums up my opinion of the game nicely: "I'm sharpening my knife, kupo." I'd have put in only a tenth of the effort and walked away with the same reward. We are not talking about progression gear or achievements, but RNG. Like I said already, you are not going to convince someone bored of the game to stay because they got lucky one day. Sure, the initial euphoria may sate them for a bit, however it will wear off when they're now faced with yet again wondering what to do.

Content that necessitates skill, like raiding, I do think should remain relevant longer, and its rewards not so easily squished. But RNG isn't rewarding. It's just dumb luck.

You're still missing the point. This pattern of devaluing time invested into the game needs to be addressed on all fronts. No one has problems with reasonable nerfs and nerfs over time, but what this game does turns players off to staying subbed long term. It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around. This causes less people to stick around and that sort of apathy always leads to more lost subs.

Like in your post where you use Yokai as an example. Why are we going to grind out all the weapons and the glowing mount when SE will just put the rewards in the cash shop like they did from the lightning returns event? After the Yokai event ends, people that missed it will whine so much that SE will ultimately put them in the cash shop.

These are the incentive problems we are talking about. Why try now when you know there will be a much easier approach to come later?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You're still missing the point. This pattern of devaluing time invested into the game needs to be addressed on all fronts. No one has problems with reasonable nerfs and nerfs over time, but what this game does turns players off to staying subbed long term. It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around. This causes less people to stick around and that sort of apathy always leads to more lost subs.

Like in your post where you use Yokai as an example. Why are we going to grind out all the weapons and the glowing mount when SE will just put the rewards in the cash shop like they did from the lightning returns event? After the Yokai event ends, people that missed it will whine so much that SE will ultimately put them in the cash shop.

These are the incentive problems we are talking about. Why try now when you know there will be a much easier approach to come?

No, I am not. You're just insisting only your perspective has any merit. And you're arguing in circles. Nerfs of any caliber-- according to you -- result in overall player apathy. Therefore, how can any be reasonable? Say they left mount drops at exactly the same rate. A person waiting several patch cycles will always have a far easier time because those bosses are going to melt. Look at Garuda. No one does her mechanics anymore. You have premades with a single tank, a single healer and six DPS who utterly annihilate her in a few minutes tops. You really don't even need a healer nowadays if the tank can handle it. Good luck trying that back in 2.1.

Hmm, going out on a limb here but I suspect that $65 price tag might be a good deterrent. You're acting like the Lightning Event, or other like-minded, were monumental. I guarantee you the players unsubbed now, would still be unsubbed even if every piece of event content remained lost in time. They unsubbed because they were bored. Running Ravana a hundred times would likely contribute to said boredom not alleviate it.

Because generally people want it now. They don't want to wait a year. Look no further than the recent delays to No Man's Sky and Final Fantasy XV. People lost their collective minds over two months. Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

You also continuously ignore other outside factors. Legion is a massive expansion. And seeing a number of FFXIV players are either former or current WoW players, this will inevitably influence these numbers, especially when we're in a "catch up" patch-- oft criticised for not having enough to do for people already "caught up." Once again, I guarantee if by 4.0, we saw three Primals, a complete and successful overhaul of Diadem, objective and/or more dynamic based content, no more tome grinding, and just more to do in general, you'd see people sticking around longer. For some, one primal and two faceroll dungeons just isn't enough to keep them playing even with PvP and PotD. No amount of mounts, minions or gear will change that even if it lasted for years. (Mount drop rates technically last a year, btw)

[Neophyte]

These are the incentive problems we are talking about. Why try now when you know there will be a much easier approach to come later?

As said before.. you're misleaded if you think that the question ("Do I prolong my sub?") is answered either with
"Yes, because I want this or that gear and I won't get it, If I'm not subbed long enough. So I stay subbed." or with
"No, because right now I don't want any specific gear and I can get it easier in a month, so I resubb then. Or when it's released on the cash shop".

It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around.

Well, what a luck I don't play this game just for the sake of progression.
And imagine that: When they at some point turn off the game/servers (or the F11 ones, with their everlasting and totally motivating progression system) your progression is down to someone who have not played the game at all and all you have now is some screenshots and memories.

And while I memorize the good times with my friends, you'll memorize the then-called "wasted" hours of progression, or what?

[CookieMonsta]

A time investment which requires no skill or actual effort and will inherently become easier over time even without better RNG. Would that same frustration not manifest if say, you had to clear Nidhogg EX 267 times before finally getting a Pigeon drop while I managed the exact same accomplishment in only 23? Because I can tell you right now if the reverse happened, well, a quote from FFIX sums up my opinion of the game nicely: "I'm sharpening my knife, kupo." I'd have put in only a tenth of the effort and walked away with the same reward. We are not talking about progression gear or achievements, but RNG. Like I said already, you are not going to convince someone bored of the game to stay because they got lucky one day. Sure, the initial euphoria may sate them for a bit, however it will wear off when they're now faced with yet again wondering what to do.

Content that necessitates skill, like raiding, I do think should remain relevant longer, and its rewards not so easily squished. But RNG isn't rewarding. It's just dumb luck.

Yes and no, you can't underestimate the attractive power of RnG. Its the whole psychology of why gambling is so potent. However, everybody has different tolerances to risk and reward thus some are drawn and motivated more than others. Some RnG is good because it delays predictable outcomes, however, the real devil you speak of is unshielded RnG. That is True RnG, this is the real killer that causes all but the most tolerant people to unsub.

[Dalvy]

From what I've seen here, and after what I feel after 3 months being out: is this game dying any time soon? No it's not; is this game doing well? No, definitely not.

100% agree. The game is not exactly bleeding subs, but we are not gaining genuine fresh players at a desirable rate either. The most commonly cited deterrents that turn them away are how repetitive combat is, and having to chug through the story.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yes and no, you can't underestimate the attractive power of RnG. Its the whole psychology of why gambling is so potent. However, everybody has different tolerances to risk and reward thus some are drawn and motivated more than others. Some RnG is good because it delays predictable outcomes, however, the real devil you speak of is unshielded RnG. That is True RnG, this is the real killer that causes all but the most tolerant people to unsub.

Aye. However, my point isn't the merits of RNG, but whether it will keep people who are bored of the game inclined to continue playing. Like I said above, they could leave drop rates absurdly low, not nerf the Anima or whatever else and the people who unsubbed largely won't care because odds are they stopped playing from boredom. If you look at patch 3.3 from a pure raider perspective. You have two faceroll dungeons, Nidhogg, Weeping City and PotD. For some people, that just isn't enough to keep them occupied over a near four month span. Even if the devs announced we'd be staying at ilvl 240 until the next expansion at a minimum, it wouldn't bring back players who lost interest from a lack of content.

[loreleidiangelo]

Skipped over the middle parts of the thread where everyone was muddling over the state of endgame raiding and whatnot; when it started to go around in circles I just jumped ahead to the end to post cuz it wasn't really worth reading anymore. Here's my perspective as someone who quits for pretty long periods of time then comes back and logs in daily and powerhouses current content only to get bored and quit for another few months again:


-content that isn't raiding is stupidly faceroll, and that bugs me. What kept me for so long with 3.3, where patches 3.1 and 3.2 had failed? Dying to Wiping City of Mhach over and over and over again. The fights were recoverable, because I'm a former raid and hardcore PVP healer, and I liked being challenged by content that wasn't essentially "one mistake = we wipe". Stuff can be hard without being synchronized swimming. If 24-man raiding continues to be along that level of difficulty, and is actually somewhat CURRENT, RELEVANT content, then I'd probably run it for longer. If I had the option of doing Wiping City for 230 gear when 230 gear first came out, I would have never touched "expert" roulette. More options for gearing up would be great.

-don't feel like stirring up a crapstorm, but healer DPS meta still, and always will, bug the hell out of me. Recently been playing WoW, and outside of LFR (their version of "story mode", I guess), I don't DPS a thing on my restoration Shaman. Damage is too high, my heals are scaled pretty low relatively to maximum tank HP (my generic heal heals for something like 30k of a tank's 500k HP, though that will start to knit when I get better gear), and a lot of my moves actually cost a good bit of mana so I can't just spam like an idiot and be a-okay, due to virtually no mana-restoring tools outside of potions. It's cool that some people prefer the style of healing in FFXIV (lots of praise on the r/MMORPG subreddit for SCH's design, as a matter of fact), but it's really not for me. Healer classes in WoW IN GENERAL feel way better designed, and have their own unique toolkits. Some healer classes don't even get a combat raise! Blizzard doesn't seem to embrace XIV's design philosophy of "every healer needs this-or-that to be successful", and I like that. It makes leveling and playing all the healing jobs feel pretty unique, instead of the disappointment that was my Astrologian.

-applying that to a broader perspective, class homogenization in this game is pretty brutal. It's pretty much guaranteed that a new tank will have Provoke, a few flat % damage mitigators, a stack or resource management gimmick (fair enough, most every MMO has those), and a "holy crap" move that will somehow let them cheat death for a few seconds when stuff Goes Awry. Healers will always have a Swiftcast, some healing % up moves, a powerful instant-cast MP-free heal for "holy crap" moments, and an MP restoring ability. DPS seem to be a bit better designed, but most of their "raid desirability" boils down to a numbers-crunch game, which shows some flaws in content design.

-to enforce what others have said many times in the thread, I just don't CARE about staying current when I can take huge hiatuses and get caught up in a few weeks or so. Most vertical progression games follow this, and it's not even inherently a bad thing, but it does mean that near the middle/end of every gear cycle there's going to be a pretty big drop-off in activity. I don't think making raid gear "more exclusive" would really entice me into doing it, as people have mentioned in this thread, but I certainly wouldn't give a crap if SE were to make that the case. For me, the gear rewards take a pretty big backseat to why I engage in the content that I do...fun is my biggest motivator, followed second by "variety". Currently, of all the content that XIV has to offer right now, none of that really fits the bill. Old stuff gets dumpstered too quickly for me to ever bother with the new "hot item" like Diadem, Gold Saucer, or PotD, because in the end I know that the only real way to progress my character come the new gear cycle will be two faceroll dungeons and a butt-blaster raid, neither of which I am interested in doing ad nauseam.



I had more to say, but am running late for work. Those are just the bigger reasons why I find it hard to stay interested and invested in XIV for a long period of time...it's too easy to catch up, but hilariously limited in terms of how you can gear your character when the gear is ACTUALLY NEW AND RELEVANT. Also, jobs are too homogenized and I hate healer DPS because I'm old or something. Rabble rabble.

[MistakeNot]

You're still missing the point. This pattern of devaluing time invested into the game needs to be addressed on all fronts. No one has problems with reasonable nerfs and nerfs over time, but what this game does turns players off to staying subbed long term. It only takes 2-3 patches to figure you out only need to really sub a few months a year to have the exact same character progression as someone subbed year around. This causes less people to stick around and that sort of apathy always leads to more lost subs.

First of all very, very few players will stick to a single game for more than a couple of years no matter what. Also many players never hit the cap even when staying subbed all year long, due to not playing enough hours per week, or just not being that interested in grinding stuff.

But then gear progression is only one of many reasons for playing.


As the game is expanded with new content and increases in max character level and item level, some speedup of progression is not merely reasonable but absolutely necessary. Otherwise a new player would look at everything they need to do to reach the cap and be pretty much overwhelmed and in many cases not even bother to start playing.

I don't know, but I suspect the idea is that the time needed to get from a brand new character to a capped one should stay more or less constant no matter when you start playing.
I.e. the time needed to get from level 1 to level 60 with ilvl 240 gear now should be about the same as was needed to get from level 1 to level 50 with ilvl 90 when ARR was first released.

[Vantol]

Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

And we need new players why again?

What is better, if game sells 1 million and keeps running for 10 years never getting new players but also almost never loosing old ones. Or if game sells 1 million each year for 10 years, but only 200k players stay subbed longer than month?

[seraf]

Here's the thing though, if you make so players who have played for longer have a distinct and continual advantage over those who don't, you will never see new players. I started around HW's release. Why would I continue playing if no matter what I do, someone from launch is ahead of me not because of their individual skill, but because they picked up the game before I did?

In what way are you "always behind" the older players as a new player? If you start the game off right now and play it on a consistent basis you can get through 2.0 to Heavensward in around a month or two depending on how many hours you can invest. By the time you get through HW you should be in whatever the most current patch is and then you can gear up to the latest gear. I have a friend who started around March this year and is already i230 and has a few Classes at Lv.60 now.