Quitting ffxiv for good

[Ath192]

It seems you're looking for a different game from a different age, or perhaps just not yet letting sink in the variety of difficulty levels that exist within this game. Maybe go try Wildstar - they've dedicated themselves to making an MMO that's "old school" in having difficult dungeons, required grouping, etc....oh wait, that's right, they had to shut down because their playerbase was so small it couldn't sustain itself. The simple reality is that today's primary MMO demographic is not looking for the base-level of the game to be a wipe-fest. There are multiple levels of difficulty, even in a non-raid-centric game like FFXIV, above the base level that have the "danger" you seem to desire. I encourage you to try it out if you haven't yet. But your solution is to risk turning off a much larger number of people by making the base-game cater to what you want, instead of doing the content already designed for it.

I'll give another recent example. Destiny 2 seems to have focused on its "elite" gamers and streamers in the current expansion. Basic patrol zones have damage sponges, enemies that will one-shot you from far away, lost sectors with tons of adds, and even the first "step up" in difficulty forces your ilvl (equivalent) to be weaker than your opponents (whereas in the past this only happened at a higher difficulty step). The end result? The company just laid off a significant portion of its staff because so many players have left and pre-orders for the next expansion came in far below expectations.

Why do I say this? In another post, you mention that some people here are quitting. But guess what - many more are staying and joining. Make the base game at the difficulty you want, and many more would quit (and not be replaced).

Edit:



I think we might be on to something here. The impression I'm getting is that you're someone who feels that unless you needed to be at the top of your game the entire fight, then everything was meaningless and unenjoyable. If that's accurate, you're certainly welcome to feel that way. But I'd have to say that's probably very different than most people's experience. Take me, for example. As long as I'm doing the dance and engaging in the fight, I have fun. I still dodge the mechanics even though technically I could just sit there and absorb a few, because I'm just having fun playing the game.

Both of the examples you mentioned had issues beyond gameplay that affected their performance, and in fact, upon researching Destiny it seems like the gameplay is receiving good press and people are liking that aspect of it. So I don't think you can prove that difficulty was the reason why. I could cite counter examples like Elden Ring. Here is a snip of an article praising its gameplay for lightfall:

There are major improvements here
There are problems with Lightfall, and it’s hard to recommend the campaign right now. However, I don’t want to leave this story without saying that Destiny 2 as a game has seen a massive improvement with the expansion. The new build crafting system makes speccing out your Guardian deeper, more rewarding, and accessible. The Guardian Ranks finally provide a smooth onboarding experience for new players (something the community has been asking for over the last few years). I can confidently say that Destiny 2 as a game has never been in a better spot.

Season of Defiance, which launched alongside Lightfall, is fantastic as well. It’s a much more compelling tale than the one told in Lightfall, and comes with what might be the best seasonal activity Bungie has ever made. Various quality-of-life improvements have made their way into the game, too, finally fixing some fundamental problems with chasing loot you want, managing your inventory, and juggling an endless barrage of currencies. From a gameplay perspective, Lightfall is a huge win.

It’s the narrative that suffers. I’m hopeful that the upcoming Root of Nightmares raid pays off the story in a meaningful way, but it’s hard to imagine a world where delaying that conclusion makes the third act of Destiny 2‘s first saga better. My only hope is that The Final Shape, when it launches, retroactively makes Lightfall a better expansion.

Source:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming...r%20Lightfall.


If we're also going to cite player counts here XIV just dropped to its lowest player count since Jan 2021 before the WOW exodus brought in a huge surge of players to the run up to Endwalker. So I would say the game isn't doing super hot, failed to capitalize on retaining the huge new growth and is receiving negative press currently. It will remain to be seen if Dawntrail will bring everyone back but we'll find out. I know people like to hate on steamcharts because not everyone uses steam but I fail to see how steam users differ from their non-steam counter parts so firmly believe the trends would be similar across the board.

My guess is that Dawntrail won't be as big as Endwalker and we'll slowly shrink unless the changes make the current playerbase more happy and press/players turn more positive once more.