Why telling people to unsub is a horrible defense of the game.

[hydralus]

I'm sure that went so well for WoW.

And the implication of that is supposed to be...? Last I heard you can still play WoW if you want to.

[Theodric]

And the implication of that is supposed to be...? Last I heard you can still play WoW if you want to.

The implication is that smart veteran players saw the problems WoW created miles away and spoke up in an effort to try and convince the development team to take a step back and reconsider their plans. Instead they doubled down on questionable design choices and the game began bleeding active subscriptions over time. Any feedback, no matter how constructive, was shot down there as well with the 'jUsT uNsUb BrO' declaration. As if people who are passionate and invested in something should just up and leave rather than fight to try and see a different trajectory embraced.

Eventually even many passionate fans left as well and all that is left today is a soulless husk. A shadow of its former glory.

I can safely suggest that FFXIV is likely to go the same way if recent rends continue. Do you really think those of us who have seen this song and dance before can't see the exact same issues arising here?

If people didn't care about FFXIV then they wouldn't speak up about how it can improve - and before the inevitable 'gotcha' arises, the development team do not need to take every bit of advice on board. However it's pretty clear that they're pretty far removed from player tastes given how things like the housing lottery and Hrothgar hairstyles have been playing out.

[hydralus]

The implication is that smart veteran players saw the problems WoW created miles away and spoke up in an effort to try and convince the development team to take a step back and reconsider their plans. Instead they doubled down on questionable design choices and the game began bleeding active subscriptions over time. Any feedback, no matter how constructive, was shot down there as well with the 'jUsT uNsUb BrO' declaration. As if people who are passionate and invested in something should just up and leave rather than fight to try and see a different trajectory embraced.

Eventually even many passionate fans left as well and all that is left today is a soulless husk. A shadow of its former glory.

I can safely suggest that FFXIV is likely to go the same way if recent rends continue. Do you really think those of us who have seen this song and dance before can't see the exact same issues arising here?

If people didn't care about FFXIV then they wouldn't speak up about how it can improve - and before the inevitable 'gotcha' arises, the development team do not need to take every bit of advice on board. However it's pretty clear that they're pretty far removed from player tastes given how things like the housing lottery and Hrothgar hairstyles have been playing out.

So is the intent to make the game have a better active subscription base? Because so far what they've been doing has been working pretty nicely for them.

What if the changes to a more dynamic style of gameplay ended up making them lose a lot of subscribers rather than gain? Would that still be considered better because now the players who bitched for more long-lived content got what they wanted?

Frankly I couldn't give a rat's ass if they lose subscribers because my self worth isn't tied to a videogame company doing well. But if I were a developer whose choices have resulted in record active subscribers for the last 7 years and someone tells me the way to save my company from future disaster is to make <nondescript dynamic content that will cost millions in development time and resources>, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't listen either.

Also as an aside, I dunno what OP was talking about with 'whistle' because nobody used it unless they didn't meet basic meld requirements and makes me think they never seriously touched crafting until recently. Crafting has been heavily macro-based since HW and probably before even then. Yeah, it IS even easier now. But aside from requiring less materia to HQ stuff, the actual gameplay involved hasn't changed. About the only time dynamic crafting was relevant was for scores in the Firmament and it had so little engagement you could win the Saint title just doing the regular crafts in a super casual manner. I sure know I did.

[Ronduwil]

The implication is that smart veteran players saw the problems WoW created miles away and spoke up in an effort to try and convince the development team to take a step back and reconsider their plans. Instead they doubled down on questionable design choices and the game began bleeding active subscriptions over time. Any feedback, no matter how constructive, was shot down there as well with the 'jUsT uNsUb BrO' declaration. As if people who are passionate and invested in something should just up and leave rather than fight to try and see a different trajectory embraced.

Eventually even many passionate fans left as well and all that is left today is a soulless husk. A shadow of its former glory.

I can safely suggest that FFXIV is likely to go the same way if recent rends continue.

Yeah, I don't think so. The problem is that everyone has their own opinion on why WoW is in decline, but the most vocal group is the hardcore contingent that always complains that the game is being dumbed down when there is objective proof that it's not. The reason that WoW is in decline while this game is growing was summed up very nicely in a similar parser debate on the WoW forums:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...oxic/1234978/5

Do you remember when you played Street Fighter against your friend as a kid and you both had fun?

This is Final Fantasy.

What if I told you that you were both playing the wrong character because Blanka and Sagat are terrible and that good players play Ryu Ken and E.Honda and if you ever do a combo of less than 4 hits you’re an absolutely terrible player, and if your playing on less than rank 8 of turbo then your street fighter games didn’t even count?

In fact what if I then went further and said that if you come to my house to play street fighter I’m going to review your high scores to see if your good enough to play with me in versus mode before I let you plug in the player two controller?

This is WoW.

I wasn't the one who posted that, but I wholeheartedly agree with that player.

[MsMisato]

The implication is that smart veteran players saw the problems WoW created miles away and spoke up in an effort to try and convince the development team to take a step back and reconsider their plans. Instead they doubled down on questionable design choices and the game began bleeding active subscriptions over time. Any feedback, no matter how constructive, was shot down there as well with the 'jUsT uNsUb BrO' declaration. As if people who are passionate and invested in something should just up and leave rather than fight to try and see a different trajectory embraced.

Eventually even many passionate fans left as well and all that is left today is a soulless husk. A shadow of its former glory.

I can safely suggest that FFXIV is likely to go the same way if recent rends continue. Do you really think those of us who have seen this song and dance before can't see the exact same issues arising here?

If people didn't care about FFXIV then they wouldn't speak up about how it can improve - and before the inevitable 'gotcha' arises, the development team do not need to take every bit of advice on board. However it's pretty clear that they're pretty far removed from player tastes given how things like the housing lottery and Hrothgar hairstyles have been playing out.

This is exactgly what happened with the launch of 1.0. SE not listening to the playerbase from telling SE its not ready for launch to simply not listening to feedback it until it was too late. Sad thing, this is apology gave to us for the second anniversary on the 18th floor. How they failed to listen to the fans of the game and how they were not going to let that happen in the future. Don't get me wrong Yoshi save FFXIV but its about to come full circle and repeat what happened.