My server feels dead

[CidHeiral]

I tried solo play, but there's literally zero social interaction in this game outside of a free company. I try to spark conversations in Hunt trains or Fate parties and nothing.

I can only speak for Primal but that is definitely not the case here. I've played this game for years only on Hyperion and what you describe has never been my experience. Hunt trains and S rank kills are a flood of memes in shout chat whether I chime in or not. Even if nobody is saying anything I'll just say something silly and chat will be a flood of responses. I can also visit any major city right now and 100% guarantee success in talking to some random person. Why just this past evening, in the middle of the night when Limsa was mostly empty, some random lala came up to a friend of mine and I and started chatting with us.

All that being said, I can totally see Dynamis having trouble in that department. DC travel kneecapped Dynamis before it could ever develop its own community, so it's not surprising if the people there feel no kinship with each other.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: DC travel was a mistake and should be rolled back. Until such time as that happens unfortunately your best bet would probably be to transfer to a different DC.

[Orinori]

You can lead feedback but it's rather pointless when you use hyperbole and the feedback is non-constructive.

The game has plenty of content. I've got things I do every day in game.

Nor is the game dead. I see lots of other players online.

Trying being more specific about your issue. Do you feel like you don't get enough new content over the course of an expansion? Every MMORPG is like that. There's only so much the developers can create and release over a given time period. That's why we should have more than one game we play - something to fill in the content gaps and help prevent burnout even if we enjoy repeating the game's content.

Like What? GW2 expansions stay fresh for almost the entire playerbase for 8-14 months until the next one launches because there are objectives and fun repeatable content and open world mmo content people can spend a lot of time in. Runescape has one of the best player retention rates post patch of any video game other than Fortnite. GW1 hasnt had an update in 15+ years and still pulls tons of numbers, tons of players to play with in open world, lots of repeatable content and the playerbase still isn't burnt.

I'm not here to doomsay and say "the game is dead its all over!" but I feel like its really disingenuous to pretend that this is a normal state of the game for a .4 patch. Steam player numbers are down over 80% and there is no evidence to assume that the Steam playerbase has any overwhelmingly different habits than the playerbase that uses the launcher. Even in the Lucky Bansho census we're currently bleeding a percentage of players never before seen in the game's history since 1.0's failure.

Thats not to say the game is dead. It is clearly not dead and it will take a lot more than 1 bad expansion, but again the game will never improve if everytime someone brings up valid feedback on issues everyone swarms them and goes "AKSHUALLY I HAVE MILLIONS OF HOURS OF CONTENT TO, I LOGIN AND ORGANIZE MY MINIONS, AND THEN I ORGANIZE MY DYES, AND THEN I DRESS UP MY RETAINERS, GAME IS NOT DYING ITS PERFECTLY HEALTHY BEST MMO!!!!!!" (not to say thats how you came across but its how a lot do and it wouldn't unreasonable to attach that ideology onto your statement without context)

[Volgia]

I can only speak for Primal but that is definitely not the case here. I've played this game for years only on Hyperion and what you describe has never been my experience. Hunt trains and S rank kills are a flood of memes in shout chat whether I chime in or not. Even if nobody is saying anything I'll just say something silly and chat will be a flood of responses. I can also visit any major city right now and 100% guarantee success in talking to some random person. Why just this past evening, in the middle of the night when Limsa was mostly empty, some random lala came up to a friend of mine and I and started chatting with us.

All that being said, I can totally see Dynamis having trouble in that department. DC travel kneecapped Dynamis before it could ever develop its own community, so it's not surprising if the people there feel no kinship with each other.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: DC travel was a mistake and should be rolled back. Until such time as that happens unfortunately your best bet would probably be to transfer to a different DC.

I've made friends in Eureka, Bozja and PF, but otherwise unless I go out of my way to attend a venue, nothing.

[CidHeiral]

I've made friends in Eureka, Bozja and PF, but otherwise unless I go out of my way to attend a venue, nothing.

Sounds like a you problem.

[Ardeth]

I can only speak for Primal but that is definitely not the case here. I've played this game for years only on Hyperion and what you describe has never been my experience. Hunt trains and S rank kills are a flood of memes in shout chat whether I chime in or not. Even if nobody is saying anything I'll just say something silly and chat will be a flood of responses. I can also visit any major city right now and 100% guarantee success in talking to some random person. Why just this past evening, in the middle of the night when Limsa was mostly empty, some random lala came up to a friend of mine and I and started chatting with us.

All that being said, I can totally see Dynamis having trouble in that department. DC travel kneecapped Dynamis before it could ever develop its own community, so it's not surprising if the people there feel no kinship with each other.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: DC travel was a mistake and should be rolled back. Until such time as that happens unfortunately your best bet would probably be to transfer to a different DC.

I'm still holding out hope for the FC I have now, but I still have until January 3rd. I'm still not even sure what DC I would want to leave to. I've been on all of them, but primal the least.

But also, I agree. I remember getting hate when it was announced for asking for heavier restrictions on DC travel, and here we are. Hindsight is 20/20, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that Aether was going to run away with most of the playerbase.

[Communion]

HA-HA... just transfer to any server on Materia for that "dead feeling". That said, I have characters on Midgardsormr and Gilgamesh... ALL the servers on Aether are PACKED! Transfer there.

And stop with the Dead Game / Dead Server posts. It's a tired old meme in the forums of every mmo.

[Ardeth]

HA-HA... just transfer to any server on Materia for that "dead feeling". That said, I have characters on Midgardsormr and Gilgamesh... ALL the servers on Aether are PACKED! Transfer there.

And stop with the Dead Game / Dead Server posts. It's a tired old meme in the forums of every mmo.

If I could, I would give you a hug. Because you seem like you desperately need one. No memes, and no jokes. I wish you well.

[Jojoya]

Thats not to say the game is dead. It is clearly not dead and it will take a lot more than 1 bad expansion, but again the game will never improve if everytime someone brings up valid feedback on issues everyone swarms them and goes "AKSHUALLY I HAVE MILLIONS OF HOURS OF CONTENT TO, I LOGIN AND ORGANIZE MY MINIONS, AND THEN I ORGANIZE MY DYES, AND THEN I DRESS UP MY RETAINERS, GAME IS NOT DYING ITS PERFECTLY HEALTHY BEST MMO!!!!!!" (not to say thats how you came across but its how a lot do and it wouldn't unreasonable to attach that ideology onto your statement without context)

But these comments demonstrate what's causing the conflict among players. Everyone has a different idea of what the game is supposed to be. They also have different ideas of what is a "healthy" game and what is a "dying" game.

What players need to do is learn to play a game for what it is, not what it could become in their heads. Either they are enjoying playing the game as it currently is or they aren't. They don't need to worry about whether a game is healthy or dying. If a game is dying, the game company is going to pull the plug because they are losing money operating the game.

In the case of FFXIV, it's a themepark MMORPG that appeals to a more diverse player base than some other MMORPGs do because it's got so many different content options to choose from. Someone wanting to play the game for Barbie dress up is just as valid as someone wanting to play the game to raid.

Every MMO loses players over the course of an expansion then they start returning when the next expansion is ready to release. How much of a drop depends on what other games are being released or adding new content. Most players do not stick to playing a single game.

You bring up Steam and other games. I go to Steam and look at the Steam charts for those games. FFXIV shows a range of 18.4k to 22.8k average users over the last 12 months. GW2 shows a range of 2.7k to 4.7k average users in the past 12 months. That's a much larger variance in the GW2 numbers than the FFXIV numbers.

Guild Wars - 47 to 83 average users over the past 12 months (that's not hundreds or thousands, that's 47 to 83). Even the Steam FFXIV Free Trial numbers are higher than that.

Runescape was fairly consistent as you said - at least until the last 3 months when numbers dropped from the 3.2k range holding steady earlier in the year down to 2.5k in October.

OSRS also showed a drop in average users in the last 3 months, going from 1300 at the start of the year down to 920 in September.

I don't think those Steam numbers are showing FFXIV in a bad place compared to those other games like you claim. But read them as you like.

[Araxes]

Just so you don't waste money transferring, I'm on Phoenix and it's the same, it's time to accept that there really isn't anything worth logging in for until Dawntrail

I believe that is just it. There is no content for Casual players, no relic grind, no Relic raid, no medium difficulty content. Its all just super easy or very hard. PvP rewards for Frontlines are farmed after 3 weeks when you are slow.

Things will probably stay calm until Dawntrail launches... and then we will be Stuck in 20k queues again.

[Zsavooz]

Most of the servers are going to feel this way because we are in one of the worst content droughts in the game's history with 8 months until the next expansion. Increasing the patch time from 3 months to 3.5 months to 4 months is having a deep impact on the game's population and most likely, SE's revenue as people start to go into long term hibernation. If we were on the old schedule, we would be weeks away from Dawn Trail but instead, its 8 more months.

Long term veteran players, like myself, have nothing left that they want to do so they are either going into long term hibernation or quitting the game with EW being a good stopping point.

I really want to play this game but... every time I reach for the login button, I ask myself... why. What's really sad for me is that I can't answer that question anymore.

I just ended my sub. Couldn't login anymore. My FC is dead as dead can be. I cannot play this game anymore, too boring.