Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[Lauront]

This isn't even about being endgame focused. If you have played this game for 6+ years with any regularity you have most likely already exhausted the backlog of old content you actually want to do.
Sure, when you've just started you have a lot of content to do because duh, the game had 10 years of content updates.

But everyone eventually becomes an "endgame player" because they will have done everything else already.
When one of those new players then asks me what they have to look forward to when they've done the old content that interests them and I have to tell them "well, pretty much the same stuff you've already been doing, but just less of it." that's not exactly motivating.

I mean, right now it works. All of us unsatisfied veterans could quit tomorrow and we would just be replaced by sprouts who still have 10 years worth of content to do. But this will eventually reach a point of total saturation, a point where every potential new player has already tried the game, and what then?

Not to mention that the experience of playing old content becomes worse the older it gets due to all the job and system changes. I can't even bring myself to do synced content below 70 anymore because the gameplay experience is just lackluster. You just end up pressing your 5 buttons randomly because the new stuff gets tacked on close to level cap and your main job mechanic often doesn't even exist at lower levels anymore.

Exactly. It's not just about endgame as in raiding but what is there for me to do in general as a player once I'm at max level? And I think it's rather myopic to think that players don't ask such questions ahead of time to see if the game is worth pouring their effort and sub money into. Not all do, obviously, but being the type of game it is, it's part of researching how the product shapes up by the point you get past the levelling experience.

[Jojoya]

Exactly. It's not just about endgame as in raiding but what is there for me to do in general as a player once I'm at max level? And I think it's rather myopic to think that players don't ask such questions ahead of time to see if the game is worth pouring their effort and sub money into. Not all do, obviously, but being the type of game it is, it's part of researching how the product shapes up by the point you get past the levelling experience.

Most consumers don't research products at all, especially not low value items such as games.

Day one sales are a good example of that. A game can have millions of sales on day one with no information available outside of reviews from industry critics who've gone through maybe the first 15-20 hours of the game.

Even with review bombs hitting the first week of release, sales can continue to climb because consumers aren't doing any research. New World had 4.5 million copies sold by the end of its first month of release and that had climbed to 17 million by the end of the second.

It usually takes them being burned with a very bad purchase on a similar product before they start doing the research. Even then, they may not bother with a game because they don't see the money involved as a big deal.

So while there are some players who will do that research in advance, I highly doubt its as many as you think. Did you thoroughly research this game and its end game before you purchased it? Did all of your friends?

[Lauront]

Most consumers don't research products at all, especially not low value items such as games.

1) Going to just say "bald assertion" here because of how sweeping that statement is, with such a low bar as "at all".

2) "low value" is very much dependent on what you're comparing it to and discretionary expenditures like an MMO sub are some of the first things to go when budgets get tight. The game has a sub as well as upfront purchase cost, and it's not just money but time you're investing in it too. People are increasingly cost-conscious, as well.

3) "Research" in this case is not a particularly high bar (especially if you're saying "at all") since it can involve as little as looking up existing threads on the topic, asking a friend who already plays or asking someone in-game or simply observing with your own two eyes how active the max level playerbase is. I'm not talking about reviews, which have become so fraught with issues that they're often just ignored, but simply looking up/asking for feedback on (or indeed, observing) what the game is like at max level. And it's not hard to find or get.

It usually takes them being burned with a very bad purchase on a similar product before they start doing the research. Even then, they may not bother with a game because they don't see the money involved as a big deal.

Or it just takes them questioning what the value of the subscription is when they're curious as to what the game is like when you get through the levelling experience... it's a sub-based MMO, don't forget that. You're treating this like it's a one off purchase.

So while there are some players who will do that research in advance, I highly doubt its as many as you think. Did you thoroughly research this game and its end game before you purchased it? Did all of your friends?

Seems like a goalpost switcharoo here, from "at all" to "thoroughly". But yeah, I did in fact research the game and its max level content (not just end game, as was pointed out to you) to see what it's like once you go through the levelling experience. This may not immediately occur to someone who is completely new to MMOs and the importance of a healthy community in them, but a common criticism of this game is that it's not the greatest fun while levelling, so putting aside customers who are simply put off by that altogether and just quit without another word, it's not like the question won't come up eventually.


And besides, the "research" is just one aspect of it, as was mentioned; the other is that you'll eventually cease to be a new player and thus that seemingly inexhaustible backlog of content, some of which may not even interest you, will no longer be as inexhaustible. So whether you research it ahead of time or not, assuming you stick around that point will eventually come. Going back to the original post prompting all of this, the game's current content durability may not be an issue to new players whilst they're new but it eventually will be. The difference researching it will make is how long it takes to find out that could be an issue to you.