Future direction of FFXIV

[Skyborne]

This is very true. About every expansion launch I will recruit anywhere from 50 - 150 players to my FC. By the end of the first patch cycle there are maybe 3 - 5 that stick with the game.

It can have a domino effect as well, if someone logs in to see that a once-bustling FC has dwindled into a ghost town where only they're on. It can be discouraging and cause them to leave, or quit entirely.

[Dzian]

It can have a domino effect as well, if someone logs in to see that a once-bustling FC has dwindled into a ghost town where only they're on. It can be discouraging and cause them to leave, or quit entirely.

Definitely. especially if you're a player who likes playing with others and have seen the same thing happen in 3 or 4 FCs that you've joined...
It could easily put you off trying to join another one and invest in making even more social coonections only to see the same thing happen again..
You'd just drop the game.

[Jeeqbit]

This is very true. About every expansion launch I will recruit anywhere from 50 - 150 players to my FC. By the end of the first patch cycle there are maybe 3 - 5 that stick with the game.

That's pretty normal for an MMO and games as a whole. A lot of people try them out and then stop playing once something else attracts their interest. If you look at a lot of Steam profiles you will see them playing a new game release for a few days and then they don't seem to touch it again for a long time.

MMOs have to keep track of player retention and there are usually a lot of different factors that cause them to lose interest. There isn't likely to be anything that would increase that rate to 100%. It's been the same in any other MMO that a guild ends up mostly dead if you don't keep recruiting.

What I think has affected it negatively is when the free trial only went up to level 35, the story being so long now that there is no end in sight and at first you can find the UI such as the map confusing. Not having a mount from the very beginning is tedious, but there has been the same problem in other games where it takes time to earn your methods of transport.

It can have a domino effect as well, if someone logs in to see that a once-bustling FC has dwindled into a ghost town where only they're on. It can be discouraging and cause them to leave, or quit entirely.

Lack of social connections is definitely a problem for some people. I see it in the novice network occasionally where if it wasn't for the novice network, they would have no social connections and it was what made them keep playing.

Once social connections are formed it seems to be different because most of the 200 people I added on my friends list who are at max level continue to login.