Quote Originally Posted by Teraluna View Post
Any dt damage is of course highly relevant, as it's immediate - affecting present and future.
That damage doesn't have to be perfectly mirrored in subscription losses. Once again, it just has to be noticeable and in today's globe spanning multi-forums environment that is enough.
I would disagree on every front. The % of players who give the slightest rat's behind about whatever the heck "globe spanning multi-forums" means is a proverbial grain of sand on a huge beach. Though, if you actually want to look at the entirety of the internet, you'd have to include all of the places that absolutely dwarf forums like this in population and which overwhelmingly have enjoyed DT. It's also not the .0 MSQ that does practically anything for long-term retention; it's the repeatable content (e.g. Raids) that matters there, and even those "globe spanning forums" that try to pan the MSQ like the Raids. Remember how this forum trashed the EW MSQ? And then DT came out with the highest pre-sales ever, and that was without the "WoW exodus" inflating it.

I would guess SE's behavior would be what it always is - analyzing all of the data, not just those screeching the loudest, recognize that the game is still in a great place, and proceed accordingly.

Honestly, I hope YoshiP takes time and reflect on this I feel that they should announce a delay on story content and just release the non-story content I hope they take criticism to heart, and I hope YoshiP does in all actual fact show SE that if they push a certain way in his game, they will lose their flagship.
The way they could push that would truly hurt this game would be to listen to that certain vocal screeching few who aren't FF's intended audience, anyway. Get outside this forum and look around. I recommend YT. For every comment here trashing DT and getting 50 or so "upvotes," there will be one on YT praising the story and getting hundreds of upvotes. Delaying story they've already written to cater to a certain group would be a terrible idea.

But now Square Enix stocks are crashing.
SE is a huge company that has well-publicized issues in its other departments. FFXIV is one of the things keeping SE afloat, as you even mention later in your comment.

Steam concurrent player-count, a very flawed metric but the only active player count metric we have, is down 16% in 30 days.
That means absolutely nothing, and not just because it's "Steam data." You're noting the natural cycle that every MMO experiences every expansion (and patch within said expansions). There is a sizable chunk of people who play MMO's as stand-alone games, not recurring subscriptions. If you do all of the content available at launch (MSQ, side quests, role quests, etc.), there's typically about 50-60 hours of content there. People will buy the xpac and a 1-month subscription to play through that content, and then move on to other games. There will always be a "drop" in activity after that first month because those people have no interest in the "long-term" aspects of MMO's and are just playing for the new stand-alone content. What I'm actually seeing in-game is new people galore, end-game Hunt trains so large they're lagging zones, etc.. The game is in an extremely healthy place right now.

Dawntrail is the first expansion where from the forums, to the shout chat, from the US to Japan, everyone is unhappy. It is the worst recieved expansion for FF14 ever created, by user reviews and metacritic, and it shows.
Umm...what? The forums have trashed every expansion when it's new. Look at how highly rated EW is on those critic scores, and compare it to what was said around here. And shout chat? In game, what I've seen is a ton of people enjoying themselves. The "user reviews" are also relatively worthless, because the specific segment of the population that tends to spend time actually doing those things is also the segment that's not the intended audience here. I'll make my prediction right now that when the next expansion comes out, DT will suddenly be the "good old days" and whatever the new one is will be the "worst thing ever."

If FF14 dies here, Square Enix ends as a company inside of a year. So yeah, I think we may see Yoshi get in front of the bullet. I don't think we'll hear why this happened or anything, but I think there's a good chance they panic and try to stop the hemoraging cash. But even now that may be fantastical to think, which may in itself be part of the problem.
It's "fantastical to think" and "part of the problem" because it's absolutely delusional. FFXIV is in excellent shape despite what the screeching few want people to think. The sky isn't falling, just like it wasn't falling in every single past expansion when people channeled Chicken Little.