Been seeing a lot of doomsaying in forums/in-game lately

[IdowhatIwant]

What you should remember is that, assuming we had 1.7 million subscribers every month, that 1.7 million may not be the same people each month. That pool of 35 million accounts could take it in turns to be that 1.7 million. A lot of people do in fact subscribe to do the story content and then play something else for months or years. Every time you see the returner flower is evidence of that.

A lot of them are obviously bots but it should be possible to go through the history of ban reports and calculate how much we need to subtract.

No online game is going to have 100% retention. Sometimes people try a game and it's just not for them or they stop having time to play.

That census breaks it down to how many players have returned and how many new charqcters there are. (which I am not sure if multiple characters bloat the active player number up, I would assume so as there is not a way to link the character to specific accounts on the lodestone)

Even if you assume all 1.7 mil are different players every month there is still a 10mil deficit. If the census is correct, and assuming every month is roughly the same there is about 160000 inactive accounts becoming active. If 1.7mil subscribers is maintained it's still roughly about 3.6 million active players in a year. Which if you want to count all of them as a customer that has been kept it still only hits about a 10% retention rate. Assuming bot accounts are included as active accounts, I would say about ~2000 accounts are banned per week, game has been out for roughly 10 years. So that would be only 1.4 million bot accounts banned. That still makes it roughly ~10% retention still which isn't great. Additionally, for those RMT ban updates, it does specify accounts terminated, which from that terminology I would assume means no longer an active account or an existing account.

But all that requires a lot of assumptions that the census is accurate and what not. We really wouldn't know actual facts on this unless SE just came out and told us.

[Larirawiel]

Is everyone okay, does anyone wanna talk, like for serious is everyone doing okay, need a break or anything?

Because there are players, who played many other MMO(RP)s for a very long time. And those people see ATM many similarities with other MMOs, which died or became f2p-lootbox-slot-machines because they could not keep a healthy playerbase.



Cheers

[IkaraGreydancer]

I mean he SAYS this, but the team's actions show a different reality. Between things like the housing demolition system, weekly tomestone and loot lockouts, and the fact they delay x.x5 patches to be just over a month past the initial patch release...

Tbh you can catch up in the game VERY easily if you took a long break so the weeky tomes, loot lockout and patch release don't really mean much. And folks can say what they want but people have thier own choice to make in regards to letting their house demo. If you put that much stock into said house that's on you. Don't think it's fair to blame the devs for that.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Still waiting to feel useless as a healer, last night’s runs of Mt Gulg and Temple of the Fist made me feel anything but.

[SpiralMask]

@OP: ...lately? complaints and doomsaying have been prevalent (in the non-WHM healer side, and DRKs also got the big shaft) for 3.5 years or so--WHM has been a pretty active grave parade since heavensward when it was made readily apparent that the class' floor and cieling are identical, and it will never change due to being pigeonholed as "the noob healer" (despite having the same potencies as the others and relatively the same kit)

the "recent" slew is from a community that's actually paid attention got a toe stubbed.

[Akimori]

I've been playing for years and battle design is as good as ever. The mechanics in Pandaemonium are intriguing and make you think constantly, otherwise you would drop debuffs and aoes on people, cleave everyone, mis-count or not swap or position correctly and wipe the party. .

Not...really....In the beginning, all of this stuff was true, but once you learn the dance (which Im not saying design AI based encounters that actually learns with the players, but that would be sick af), you can literally do all of that stuff with your eyes closed. Even PF healers aren't coordinated now that they've cleared the tier. Actually, in every Pug party I've been in (I have a static, but I pug outside of raid days, so I do a lot of pugging as well), the healers almost NEVER talk to eachother...even in the beginning. The only ones who really talked to eachother were the tanks and when everyone were picking which spots to stand in during certain mechs, but that talking between healers usually only happens in statics. Even in ultimates; once you've figured out the puzzle, there is no more thinking after that. its just do the dance, clear the fight, ????, profit. Even with DSR (theres a lot of healing in there for some parts), thats going to fall victim to basically every other encounter in there even if Yoshi never intends on adding the echo to it to make sure that it always stays relevant. Information on DSR is coming out and there are pug parties that are actually pushing these fights to completion as well

[Skiros]

I would probably argue the opposite some.
So when FFXIV claims to have 35 million active accounts, yet it only maintains an active player base of 1.7 million currently. That shows a couple various things.

1. There are possibly a lot of bot accounts for this game.
2. There is something that is causing a lack of retention for players.
3. There is something that is detracting players while attracting new players.

One key thing that has been successful for FFXIV is that is has not had very strong competition over the years. For the most part it's greatest competitor WoW, had been on a decline since Cataclysm which only got worst as time went on. With how slow the growth has actually been over the years, I would say the game is bleeding players at a slightly slower rate than it is gaining players. Assuming all data is in fact accurate. I am not sure what exactly an active account is, as SE has never defined it. Does it include banned bot accounts? Is it a total of the accounts that have been activated?

You are exactly right.

FF14's retention is extremely, extremely poor. It's just that the people who even stayed are already self-selecting to be fine with the atrocious retention because they don't realize how good other games can be in other dimensions. That's why people looking at the community wouldn't realize that there is such a huge issue with retention. Because everyone's oblivious to it.

This game's community has been notoriously insular for a while now.

Guess where the people who quit hang out? Not in FF14. Most of them leave without so much as a whimper.

I see so many of them in other games, like Lost Ark. They don't have many good things to say about this game, other than the community being nice. That's literally the only compliment people ever give. Not that it has great raids or that its grind is satisfying. Just that the community is nice. I personally knew 5-6 friends in real life who tried FF14 out and quit before even finishing ARR.

Outside of FF14's community, the reception to FF14 has mostly been below average.

But you wouldn't know if you only stuck to the circlejerk that is this community.

[Deceptus]

Still waiting to feel useless as a healer, last night’s runs of Mt Gulg and Temple of the Fist made me feel anything but.

Leveling dungeons have always been more dangerous than end game ones because players tend to not overgear them, quite the opposite in reality.

But healer engagement shouldn't be determined by how badly other people are playing.

[IkaraGreydancer]

You are exactly right.

FF14's retention is extremely, extremely poor. It's just that the people who even stayed are already self-selecting to be fine with the atrocious retention because they don't realize how good other games can be in other dimensions. That's why people looking at the community wouldn't realize that there is such a huge issue with retention. Because everyone's oblivious to it.

This game's community has been notoriously insular for a while now.

Guess where the people who quit hang out? Not in FF14. Most of them leave without so much as a whimper.

I see so many of them in other games, like Lost Ark. They don't have many good things to say about this game, other than the community being nice. That's literally the only compliment people ever give. Not that it has great raids or that its grind is satisfying. Just that the community is nice. I personally knew 5-6 friends in real life who tried FF14 out and quit before even finishing ARR.

Outside of FF14's community, the reception to FF14 has mostly been below average.

But you wouldn't know if you only stuck to the circlejerk that is this community.

People who quite aren't hanging out in 14...because they quit. That's obvious dude.
And most people you speak of that I've seen are folks who want hardcore raids n such hence xiv not being the game for them from the jump. Lost Ark (as you keep peddling the game any chance you get now) can be the best thing out there but turn people off with its p2w nature.

I'd love some sort of proof that outside of the community the game is below average. Your word alone isn't enough there tbf. Your friends quiting before ARR doesn't say anything about the entire game. It says something that small portion they played. If someone plays not even the 1st year worth of content in a 9 years long game n calls the whole game bad thats just flawed.

But yes, the community is just a huge circlejerk lol Let's say that's true, that'd also mean EVERY games community is a circlejerk by your logic.

[HisShadowX]

Keep in mind hardcore players doomsaying don't mean anything. Except of course when the Casuals leave and the game gets progressively worse with Hardcore players staying and eventually developers focusing on the more vocal hardcore players like whats going on in WoW right now.