Lots of sprouts.. Where are all the new folks coming from?

[Liam_Harper]

I'd say WoW. Last I heard my old WoW guild on retail had to cancel raiding for the month due to no activity and were excited when they had 8 players online at once in the evening one day. I felt rather sorry for them. It's not the first time either, I remember many periods in WoW where I would be the only one online. In FF14 we have end-of-patch quiet time but we're still getting full groups for FC EX runs and events.

WoW might have more subscribers, but they're spread over many, many servers and most just log on twice a week to raid. It feels more dead over there than FF14.

Shadowbringers is amazing too in terms of story and MSQ. A lot of players out there are still just learning that.

[MrKusakabe]

You need to reach Shadowbringers as well.

The "no longer a sprout" threshold has been raised to completing all of Stormblood (including patches) since Shadowbringers came out. So it's possible that there are just relatively more sprouts because the same number of people have the status for longer.

I am at the very Stormblood beginning (still waiting for my cousin in Heavensward to catch up but I start getting into it myself now) I think right before the first Stormblood dungeon and I am not a sproud nor could I select it in the list. When did that change happen? Or is the amount of playtime also a thing?

I remember that I had to de-select the sprout several times in Heavensward but it came back after relogging or after a dungeon if I remember correctly. But since Heavensward it is gone and never came back. Even right now, I should be a sprout according to you two, but nope..?

[Anienai]

Well wherever they are coming from let's make them feel welcome!

Big /ehug!

[Jojoya]

I think right before the first Stormblood dungeon and I am not a sproud nor could I select it in the list. When did that change happen? Or is the amount of playtime also a thing?

I remember that I had to de-select the sprout several times in Heavensward but it came back after relogging or after a dungeon if I remember correctly. But since Heavensward it is gone and never came back. Even right now, I should be a sprout according to you two, but nope..?

I can remember when I finally bought Stormblood in summer 2018, my character was automatically given sprout status back until I had completed the 4.0 MSQ at which point it was removed again. It seems to be tied to some combination of played time and MSQ progression, with the played time amount increasing with each new expansion release. You can lose the status if you have enough played time even though you haven't completed the currently available MSQ.

You can try to enable it again by typing /nas on
If you don't meet the requirements for New Adventurer, you'll get an error message stating the status isn't available to you.

[frostmagemari]

Can it just be that these are people from other games, or simply that FFXIV is their very first MMO, and not some kind of WoW exile wave you all immediately assume?

Because it can only ever be subs stolen from another MMO. The cheerleaders like to assume that every person that plays XIV has to be a person that will never play another MMO again because nothing but XIV can be enjoyable.

[Chie_M]

I came here from WoW. I've always loved the Final Fantasy franchise, but I didn't want to commit to more than one MMO. Battle for Azeroth has been the perfect time to jump ship -- it's truly dreadful.

[Macleod]

Been playing an old character of mine lately, had the returning adventurer tag for awhile, that fell off and I guess I'm a sprout again even though I lost the sprout tag years ago. /shrug