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

[DBriggs304]

As long as when I log in, the game actually lets me in, I don't care what steam numbers or any other numbers say.

FF has always been a niche game and community. I hope it remains that way.

[hagare]

As a developer myself, it's easy to tell who is an armchair developer by their choice of wording as well.

Here is an easy one, saying spaghetti code won't get you any respect.

what about vermicelli code?

[Avoidy]

That falloff happens a lot in this game because of how the development cycle for XIV works. If you look back at shb, the same trend occurred. A massive spike in activity when the new expansion launches, followed by a drop once people beat the expansion and realize there isn't much to do. Loads of people just play this game when the content drops, and they (understandably) don't stick around when nothing's happening. Square addressed this in that famous interview where Yoshi seemed fine with this and encouraged players to just play other stuff in the meantime.

I can empathize with your frustration. I love this game and wish I had more things to do when I logged in that felt personally meaningful. Even if it was just a mogtome event or something. But this is just how it is, and how it's been for a while. It'll probably get worse with EW since we'll have that additional month or whatever between new content drops.

[Akibaws]

This is normal. You see the same trends in every MMO. People leave until a new patch. The only exception I've noticed is Lost Ark because it has major FOMO.

[Ivtrix]

This is normal. You see the same trends in every MMO. People leave until a new patch. The only exception I've noticed is Lost Ark because it has major FOMO.

u mean bots

[Hanayumi]

1)This is the norm for FFXIV, devs dont want folks to feel like they have to play and run this game like a daily chore, so a lot of people break after doing what they want to do
2) Post expansion has some of minimal amount of new additional content, but each adds something entirely new while updating current content
3) A hefty chunk of people bailed on steam cause of launcher/licensing issue

[Katt_Felista]

It's the same thing every expansion, there are allways content drought between two patches, this year is no different then the last 10 years of this game's service.

[Padudu]

you forgot that a good percentage of the people in the forums seem to truly dislike the game and have nothing good to say about... anything. and yet they obviously still pay the sub. boogles the mind really. their only defense is "but, I love the game so much, I am entitled to complain"

one often wonders if they are actually playing the same game

I play the game and have a lot of good to say about it. Doesn't mean I can ignore that the game has glaring problems in a lot of aspects, I think I've said before in a lot of ways this game is a 9/10 when it comes to some content - eureka, bozja, MSQ, presentation, ect.. and then you turn the corner and see hrothgar/viera, housing, healers and it becomes a 6/10. I think we're playing the same game tho

[Sqwall]

NGL. After finishing this current savage tier (P3S nearly broke me), multiple EX trials (mounts), multiple unreals (mounts), dipping my toe in UCOB (not for me).

I took a break.

There are SOOOOO many games out there. Books. Movies. Sports. People.

I know it sounds weird, but sometimes I WANT to distant myself from the game and static group sometimes. Because when that next patch comes out...I log in and it's like seeing an old friend again. For me it's all or nothing style of playing.

Pulling up the duty finder and figuring out what I want to level...if I don't feel it....I don't even want to play. I log out and load up a different game.

Honestly, I have been playing WoW Burning Crusade Classic and just enjoying the ride to 70. Never thought I would even want to do that...but WoW was a good game during that time and it's still fun.

FFXIV is an anomaly in the MMO space that actually values your time. WoW and other MMO's had this FOMO feeling like no other. I know when I come back to the game I can catch up pretty fast, and it's better to let things take time in FFXIV. Blowing through the content isn't my goal. Taking my time and not feeling like I have to hurry.

This savage tier was my main goal for the game. I wanted to clear it before echo is allowed. Don't care about parses, don't care about perfection, and I don't strive for that. I just play the game and have fun with my static, and there are some things that I will remember from this savage tier. So many good times....and bad. (P3S...seriously)

[Shougun]

NGL. After finishing this current savage tier (P3S nearly broke me), multiple EX trials (mounts), multiple unreals (mounts), dipping my toe in UCOB (not for me).

I took a break.

There are SOOOOO many games out there. Books. Movies. Sports. People.

I know it sounds weird, but sometimes I WANT to distant myself from the game and static group sometimes. Because when that next patch comes out...I log in and it's like seeing an old friend again. For me it's all or nothing style of playing.

Pulling up the duty finder and figuring out what I want to level...if I don't feel it....I don't even want to play. I log out and load up a different game.

Honestly, I have been playing WoW Burning Crusade Classic and just enjoying the ride to 70. Never thought I would even want to do that...but WoW was a good game during that time and it's still fun.

FFXIV is an anomaly in the MMO space that actually values your time. WoW and other MMO's had this FOMO feeling like no other. I know when I come back to the game I can catch up pretty fast, and it's better to let things take time in FFXIV. Blowing through the content isn't my goal. Taking my time and not feeling like I have to hurry.

This savage tier was my main goal for the game. I wanted to clear it before echo is allowed. Don't care about parses, don't care about perfection, and I don't strive for that. I just play the game and have fun with my static, and there are some things that I will remember from this savage tier. So many good times....and bad. (P3S...seriously)

I feel WoW is a few steps away from being great but has a weird direction and is not sure who it's trying to please most.

Like if you added more value your time and less FOMO to WoW, making it /more/ casual friendly, fixing up Garrisons to also include a housing component, ensuring using alts was essentially like changing your job in FFXIV- man I think you'd have some SERIOUS competition in that field of players. Stop being so weird with the story would be another. Like even on a bad day with FFXIV story I think to myself "at least we're not WoW" lol. There are good stories in WoW in the past and current, but it just seems like the quality and more particularly the referential quality is really all over. There are a lot of things the game does right, better than FFXIV I'd argue, but there are a lot of things that I look at WoW and I go 'hahahaha nope, smack me in the face and tell me in a more clear way you're trying to manipulate me and mess with my time".

One point that might be harder to 'fix' is they've seriously burnt their good will credits. So every 'meh' action is met with a lot of very negative media (more than FFXIV would have had for doing the same thing). I think Blizzard needs to be biting the bullet on a few things to gain that back, but clearly whoever is rolling in the cash at Blizzard doesn't think so lol.

Alternatively lean more into the crazy hardcore raids, though my supposition on that is it was, for all games, and will always be, the minority- so I'm not entirely sure going all in there is the best idea if you're wanting to gobble all the cash lol (particularly now that MMOs are frequently being designed with other groups in focus, back when WoW was young WoW was actually 'the' friendly MMO for casual minded players). BUT if you did that at least those players would have a home like no other, and you can see those people have pretty epic high energy stories that mean a lot to them. Like to me- the guy who leads WoW has an obvious bias that is clearly put into the game (he's pretty hardcore raider, at least in a general sense of it- like Yoshida but I think Yoshida does better separating his own personal desires over what might be good for the game.. even with people up in arms about BLM), so there is a lot of FOMO and a lot of content directed at a narrow band of players with large bias to many rewards on top of it with sometimes quite unfriendly reward systems (WoW has waffled a few times and I have read about quite friendly systems, but it seems they then remove those so.. yolo). That they have the Garrison system and have for a while been like "housing doesn't fit into WoW" is evidence to me that perhaps they had (imo) misaligned perspectives to what is more and more a majority type environment (be friendly to your casuals, respect people's time, stop trying to scare everyone with FOMO, making a place to call home away from home is important, stop showing up as the company that preaches to players but then harasses their own employees, wild ideas..., etc).