We lost 70% of our player base half a year in

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Is it "hysterics" to think that maybe an MMO shouldn't be content to have only a base of a third their expansion release numbers or two-thirds their patch numbers? That there should be a bit more to do in the mainstream content flow than just the new MSQ and initial raid clears?

The simple reality is that developers can never create content faster than consumers can consume it, without resorting to extremely predatory grinds like Korean MMOs, or on a lesser scale, many systems Blizzard has introduced into WoW across various expansions that are massive time sinks for the sake of being time sinks. If you create a game that respects a player's time like FF14 by not trapping them in insane grinds, it's an inevitability that once people chew through the content they desire, they'll move on to the next shiny thing that releases - why do you think so many games these days are trying to adopt the live service/season pass trend, much akin to a structure that's similar to an MMO with its patch cycles? Because even if the numbers will never be the same as on a game's release, delivering content at a later date will draw back some of those players that had once moved on.

The numbers in the OP's post are disingenuous, because of the fact that it's the exact same trend across every expansion since FF14 was released on Steam. HW, SB, SHB, EW, you can see they all get massive spikes, followed by a very large drop-off, then a steady climb back up in numbers as the next expansion begins to approach as everyone comes back to enjoy all the new content from all patches at once and get caught up, and you can easily see this on the graphs others have posted in rebuttal to OP earlier in the topic.

Claiming FF14 is dying off of a trend that has happened literally 5 times now is literally doomsaying and attempting to spread Hysterics for unfounded reasoning.

MMOs, and games in general, will always be spiky in nature in this day and age. With so much competition and so many shiny new games releasing all the time, having a 1/3rd retention on any game released 6 months post a major release is a pretty decent statistic. Even comparing the new kid in the town, Lost Ark (which is entirely steam based so the numbers are even more accurate afaik) went from nearly 1.3mil peak players 5 ish months ago to 500k average in the last 30 days, or about a 60% decrease across slightly under the same timeframe as EW -> to now, and that's a game that has the predatory long-term grinds to keep people playing. That currently playing number also includes the gold bots in Lost Ark, which is hard to say how big of a volume they encompass, compared to FF14, where the bots will almost entirely be using the normal client or the quick launcher due to the steam one being way too cumbersome to work with their 3rd party automation programs.

TL : DR, FF14 ain't dying. It's experiencing the exact. same. trend. It and the vast majority of games in this industry do 6 months after a release - so many have finished what they wanted to do in FF14 for now, and have moved on to other games. Some will come back for major patch hits, a not insignificant amount will wait until end of expansion to come back.