LuckyBancho data shows that FF14 is in decline

[Stormpeaks]

A.) Hyperbole never leads to anything useful. There are a significant number of "WoW refugees" still playing.

B.) I'm surprised that many stayed. FFXIV's target audience is casual gamers looking for an engaging story. WoW's target audience is the eSports crowd. I wouldn't expect people who played WoW all the way up to the "exodus" to be likely candidates for the FFXIV playerbase. They're two very different games.

"Wow's target audience is the esport crowd" lmao

Someone has never played WoW looks like

[Midare]

"Wow's target audience is the esport crowd" lmao

Someone has never played WoW looks like

He's not entirely wrong. There's a huge chunk of players who care too much about the meaningless contest of "big d dps" even at the most casual of levels (not that this doesn't happen here, but I digress).

I've spent most of my time in WoW trying to pay attention to the story, and piece together the horrible amalgamation of retcons that is their lore... and looking back, it feels like a lot of wasted time I'll never get back.

[Stormpeaks]

He's not entirely wrong. There's a huge chunk of players who care too much about the meaningless contest of "big d dps" even at the most casual of levels (not that this doesn't happen here, but I digress).

I've spent most of my time in WoW trying to pay attention to the story, and piece together the horrible amalgamation of retcons that is their lore... and looking back, it feels like a lot of wasted time I'll never get back.

Being efficient at your class, wanting to improve and getting better at the game has absolutely nothing to do with the whole esports mentality, people just don't want to hinder their group progression is all.

In FFXIV its basically a crime to tell someone "maybe you should add x to your rotation" but it isn't the norm in MMO's.

You should always be encouraged to get better at the game.

[Midare]

Being efficient at your class, wanting to improve and getting better at the game has absolutely nothing to do with the whole esports mentality, people just don't want to hinder their group progression is all.

In FFXIV its basically a crime to tell someone "maybe you should add x to your rotation" but it isn't the norm in MMO's.

I'll be very loud when it comes to saying that even casual people should at least bother to keep gear up to date and have, at the very least, some degree of understanding of mechanics, but yeah, when you start speaking of progression, that's a little different here than what it is in WoW.

There, that means you will start going into M+ dungeons, then get into raiding, then up the difficulty... and that's different than simply expecting someone to "add x to their rotation" here.

[Renathras]

As usual CBU3 defenders have nothing of substance to contribute to any debate beyond memes and mockery.

Okay okay but I did go read that website they are basising this on achievements and I am going to drop this little blurb I just copy pasted from the website here also.

Although the recent decline is worrisome, if you look at the overall number, you can see that the active character population is basically increasing, albeit in waves.

You can go read it yourself

I mean...that's not "memes and mockery", that's literally something of substance...

Also: This needs to be said, apparently...

People offering counter arugments are not "X defenders".

People are allowed to hold different opinions than you.
People are allowed to express those opinions.
It's not "defenders" when someone is saying "There are other ways to look at the data/other metrics that are also useful to look at if one is trying to get a full and truthful perspective on the actual state of things."

[Stormpeaks]

I'll be very loud when it comes to saying that even casual people should at least bother to keep gear up to date and have, at the very least, some degree of understanding of mechanics, but yeah, when you start speaking of progression, that's a little different here than what it is in WoW.

There, that means you will start going into M+ dungeons, then get into raiding, then up the difficulty... and that's different than simply expecting someone to "add x to their rotation" here.

Yes, in WoW you are expected at least if you want to have goals in the game to slowly start to do harder content, which is a good thing, because you have a choice, especially since the last patch in which you can upgrade world content gear to normal raid tier gear, so you have the option to stop there or to keep going higher in difficulty.

In FF you have... Savage. Which is barely an upgrade gear wise and really doesn't offer much, with an atrocious loot system on top of it, and the other thing is ultimates, which there is a whole... 5 in the entire game, that's what you have to look for in FFXIV.

The differences between the two games is simple, in one you can stay casual or keep going higher in difficulty if you want the challenge, while in the other which is FFXIV you are forced to be a casual, and that is not a good thing, there should be enough for both.

[Jeeqbit]

The context is this is data from people with Achievements enabled ie. collectors and achievement hunters who expose their information for these websites.

From this we could say there has been a drop of over 100,000 achievement hunters playing the game. But that doesn't particularly account for new players who aren't achievement hunters joining the game. Speculation has been that veteran players are quitting but they all get replaced by new players or returners, so the Lucky Bancho "active character" statistics haven't shifted much.

So we can say the veteran players are in decline, perhaps, but they all get replaced by sprouts so far, so saying it is a decline overall is a bit premature. This is also just Endwalker so maybe they will all come back for 7.0.

It does paint a picture of an issue with the longevity of content in Endwalker though.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Few quick points before bed:

1. I know who OP is, but I take his posts on a post-by-post basis. I do think this trend is worth discussing now, and on the earlier end of things. I'd hope the powers that be at SE are paying attention now as well rather than waiting for more decline.

2. I don't really see a good way to spin the numbers as a positive in any way. They are what they are. I think the risks they took with EW content not panning out, plus the decision to divert resources elsewhere so our patches are spread out a long time is mostly to blame. When ESO said they were going to take a whole quarter of no new content, but "bug fixes and QOL" - people on those forums argued with me that less content was a great thing because QOL and bug fixes were important. Now that they are living in that quarter, they lost a big chunk of players.

FFXIV had a huge windfall of players from the WoW exodus. It's a missed opportunity they slowed production on 14, spent a lot of funds elsewhere, and approved this game slowing down content releases right as they were handed a ton of new players. Not many 10 year old MMOs, or any MMO eally, gets the nearly free interest XIV got, and I think they ultimately ended up squandering it.

Nothing about the trailer for the expansion, which is still 3 quarters away, really looked all that thrilling. I hope they put some effort in instilling confidence here and that we aren't just starting the slow decline to maintenance so soon after it's height.

Just seems so bizarre, covid aside which is no longer really at play, that they diverted attention away from XIV, right at it's peak.

[Sigma5]

That graph is pure gold. mmmm, delicious shareholder tears.

[TaleraRistain]

I don't know if he collects the data only on the dats listed in his normal census or if he does additional collection on other dates. If it is coming strictly from the census dates, it explains the strange appearance of the 2nd QTR bar - the census for 2nd QTR would have been done on May 20th, 2 days before Patch 6.4 was released. The census prior to that was March 6th, just before patch 6.35 was released. It's not likely many veteran players would have earned new achievements between April 1 and May 20th because there was no new content with new achievements released during that period.

That was a question that popped into my head. Were there new achievements for continuing players in these time periods and how many, and are they only counting new achievements for activity or any achievement? I think that is some important context missing.