Quitting ffxiv for good

[Striker44]

This argument doesn't make any logical sense. Yes, there will always exist churn inside of any given player base, but that does not mean you ignore the needs of established players as you need to cater to them to reduce the total number of players lost to churn. If too many established players start becoming dissatisfied, it results in new players not having positive interactions with the established player base, which will diminish the total number of new players who stick around to become established players. Subscription-based MMOs in particular can be heavily affected by this as the inability to maintain a stable player base will directly cause the game's revenues stream to be reduced.

This is particularly more evident for new players should they get to endgame, as a lot of content this expansion cycle has not done a good job at remaining evergreen during the expansion's life cycle. The only saving grace for new players is the ample amount of old content that is now able to be either completed solo or done in small groups they now can do without the MSQ looming over them.

It actually does make a lot of sense. Look around and you'll see it all the time. I've experienced it myself with a plethora of rec leagues, bands, and so on. The groups that persist healthily over time are the ones that are constantly working to recruit new members. The simple reality is that no matter how much you focus on existing members, they will slowly but steadily bleed away over time for various reasons. What keeps something going strong is regularly adding new blood. Especially with something that's been around for 10 years like FFXIV has, and in a genre that is no longer the "king" of gaming like it was back in the 2005-2015 era or so, you're not likely to just pick up new people without specifically making changes to appeal to them. But that's what will keep you going.

Also, new players tend to interact frequently with other new players. New-veteran interactions tend to happen either in roulettes (where people aren't going to be bad-mouthing the game) or FC's (which are usually positive social atmospheres). FFXIV in particular has also created so much content over the years that newer players aren't likely to come anywhere close to "finishing" EW content before DT comes out. Heck, I've been playing on-and-off since 2015 and regularly since early 2021, and I still have a laundry list of content from past xpacs alongside EW that I'm still looking to do.

If that upsets you then there's the door, there are plenty of MMOs that will cater to what you want.

I'm curious which MMO's that might be. What always sticks out in my mind is Wildstar setting itself up to be the "old-school" MMO with required grouping, difficult dungeons, etc....and we all know how that turned out.

I love and appreciate all who like this game but I encourage you all to stop settling for mediocre content and hold these devs accountable.

OP, I genuinely hope it was cathartic to get everything off your chest. It doesn't like like you've picked up much "flaming" in your direction, but if it does happen, I'll wager it's comments like the one I quoted here or the part about "baby mode." Comments like that go from noting objective facts (e.g. large boss hitboxes, IRL obligations of the playerbase, and so on) to passing off personal opinions in that manner, and just comes off as condescending/insulting to people who very much are enjoying the game. Me personally? I don't find the content "mediocre" - I find both the story and the music high-quality, and I have a lot of fun day after day doing trains, achievement hunting, etc.. I think other people have also brought up a very good point that something else BIG that changed between HW and today is us, the players. We got much better at the game. Compare the sheer amount of mechanics in the first EW trial to something like the first ARR trial. And yet, part of why the EW trial still feels easy is just that we got good. We've gone from being MMO novices to veterans. Part of what people tend to "miss" is really just the effect of us being newer at the game back in the day, and that's something we can never "get back."