Data from lucky bancho about participation in field content

[Post]

Additionally, there was a major spike in the game's popularity during ShB, while Bozja was relevant content, larger than compared to StB ahead of ShB's release. This may mean that engagement with Bozja is higher on characters that exist today simply because more new players were reaching max level and doing 'endgame' content while Bozja was relevant than Eureka, skewing results in favor of Bozja when compared to Eureka, whereas a player wholly new in EW would be just as likely to skip both.

[ForteNightshade]

But the dev team is still hindered by resource limits. SB had both Deep Dungeon and Exploration. ShB only had Field Operations (curious drop in content). This expansion only had Deep Dungeon but they also added Variant/Criterion as a new content form. Was it because Deep Dungeon had that much more ongoing participation than Eureka and Bozja/Zadnor did, or is it just a matter of they only have resources for one or the other and they decided it was Deep Dungeon's turn this time?

While the dev team is hindered by limited resources, specifically budget, SE is not. Which is generally where the criticism lies. They made it a point to express several times that Endwalker would "spare no expense" yet it wound up having the least amount of content once you account for the longer patch cycles. With the huge growth we saw, people expected more than what has essentially been a rotation of "new side content". Which is a fair criticism if they're going to keep boasting about how much money FFXIV makes. Put simply, people are more frustrated at SE and the seeming lack of investment than the dev team. Although both are worthy of criticism. Just not necessarily an equal amount.

The fact Yoshida is suggesting we may have Deep Dungeon, Island Sanctuary, Exploratory zones and Variant/Criterion is a solid step in the right direction. Now if they can improve the longevity of each then we're getting somewhere.

[ReynTime]

Those issues aren't limited to FFXIV. Look at their "triple A" games. They cut corners that other teams (outside of SE) don't. Why is that? Budget? Bureaucracy? Staff incompetence? The more likely is just SE has a terrible workflow for big budget projects. A workflow that probably didn't change since the merger or even before that.

[Supersnow845]

Additionally, there was a major spike in the game's popularity during ShB, while Bozja was relevant content, larger than compared to StB ahead of ShB's release. This may mean that engagement with Bozja is higher on characters that exist today simply because more new players were reaching max level and doing 'endgame' content while Bozja was relevant than Eureka, skewing results in favor of Bozja when compared to Eureka, whereas a player wholly new in EW would be just as likely to skip both.

I want to also point out seeing the statistics jogged something in my memory. During launch EW Zadnor zone 3 was the fastest leveling method available if you had it open, if you remember the EW dungeons had to be buffed in exp rewards due to Zadnor being superior for exp gains and way easier then EW dungeons. Also for new Reaper/Sage players it was the PoTD equivalent for the expansion. Honestly this may explain why Eureka Orthos' exp gain is also rather terrible as to not repeat what happened with Zadnor. This may explain some of the gap between Zadnor and rank 25 percents as rank 25 was not required to level there.

Still this isn’t really a knock against field content, just that maybe it needs some rewards outside of money and cosmetics for some people and levelling is a big one, if anything it shows that they hit the right note by adding levelling to it

[angienessyo]

Eureka/Bozja are about to be popping off. They always get really busy during content lulls. I got my Bozja bike during the last big content lull that happened before Endwalker. While I don't believe Eureka/Bozja are the best content ever, they're chill vibes long term content you can do while hanging out with your buds, so I've always enjoyed them. I even got my Ozma mount the week BA was released.

[ThaCa]

Would be really nice if they tied the old field content as optional way to get mats for next relic's steps. Just generally allow people to play more the content they enjoy to progress at some things.

[SieyaM]

The complaints at the time were bad enough that if you didn’t like eureka chances are the relic would not have saved your opinion on eureka so likely you would have never cleared pagos

So that doesn’t really change the data

Regardless for square engagement is good anyway

I would wager a not insignificant number of people did Eureka without enjoying any part of it. I think you're under the impression that relic weapons are just good for glams when the fact was then, and probably will be this time too, that they are the best weapon in the game at the end of an expansion. They will also be useful a pretty good way into the next expansion, making them a worthwhile investment for that alone since you won't need to grind dungeons for drops as early in the next expansion. There was a lot of reason to run Eureka even if you suffered every moment you were there.

[Renathras]

I was speaking in general, you generally write entire books to explain concepts that can be explained in a few sentences. Like I said, there's a time and place for long walls of text, but that shouldn't be 80%+ of your posts.

That's fine: Except it wasn't true of the post you were replying to, so was irrelevant...

I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of people doing those things 'for the fun of it' was a lot lower than most people think it would be.

It's possible, but:

1) We have no way of knowing that, nor of how much,
2) We have no way of knowing if it's more or less than other content; if it's at the same rate as other content, then it's an irrelevant argument since it would apply to everything else, too.

Being concise can be just as important as being thorough,

Can be, but short an imprecise can cause more issues. Look at that post you commented on above. You and Snow were acting confused about it. It's because it was a short post and I wasn't thorough enough in my explanation. I apparently needed to add more paragraphs about why I thought it was important and why I thought looking down on the Exploration participation number was flawed in the context of all the other content participation numbers in the game also being much less than 100%, and most being less than 50%.

Moreover, for all your complaints about my posts, people that actually do read them seem to like them. A pretty consistent thing is that there are a lot of people who badmouth my posts but then also say at some point they don't actually read them. And when I DO make short posts, instead of responding to them, they do as you did, bringing up my long posts and misinterpreting my short ones.

You make a lot of short posts yourself, but most aren't making a point, they're just insulting or snarking at people.

Mao likes Ren posts. Mao appreciates thorough but well written discussion. Mao mights not always agree with Ren buts Mao gets pretty good picture where Ren comings from.

Aww, thanks Mao. Honestly, I know some people don't, but I really like your posts. It actually takes effort to write in a language in a way that mimics not being good at it (kind of like it actually takes a good swimmer to film "drowning" in movies; it's easy for a bad swimmer to drown, but not to stay afloat while "drowning"), and that aside, your posts tend to make really good points and share insights I appreciate.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I see so much praise for Eureka and Bozja. I dont get it. As someone who nearly universally praises this game is not shy about my love for it, I don't think I could do Eureka or Bozja if I was literally paid to play them. Ureka felt like Star Wars Galaxies early days with no quests, nothing to do really, no direction. Bozja, my first few minutes there got yelled at several times for attacking a mob that the game gave no indication I wasn't supposed to attack them.

Maybe I need to give them another chance.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I mean,
less than 6% of players have last seasons PVP mount.
less than 3% of players have the triple triad mount.
less than 4% of players have the Eureka Orthos mount.
less than 2% of players have the BLU morbol mount.
less than 9% have the Shadowbringers Trial mount.
less than 17% of players have the Magicked Bed mount from treasure maps.
less than 23% have the Arden III mount from custom deliveries.

I guess all of these activities need to be removed from the game, since such a small number of players actually do this content.

Only 23.8% of players have the island sanctuary bike from rank 10?
Only 7.5% of players have the rank 15 island sanctuary mount!
Damn this isn't good, less than 1/19th of the playerbase actually did that content! Guess we better get rid of it.

lets get even more perspective going!

More players cleared a savage fight ON PATCH in 5.1 than people have completed island sanctuary rank 10, 3 patches after its release.

Bozja and Eureka feel far less like side content than things like triple triad, and some of the other things you mentioned. Yes of course anything other than MSQ is technically side content, but its not quite the same.