Ffxiv monthly sub isn't stretching & response to PCGAMER article

[Ardeth]

You know a game isn't doing well when most of the replies are stuff like "Akshually its totally normal to be unsubbed most of the time and not feel like you want to play the game, just quit!"

While it is healthy to do you're correct in that statement. It removes the responsibility of SquareEnix to actually make the game better by adding content. And it doesn't even have to be login everyday or you miss out content. Imagine delves from Wow that rewarded locked tomes that had variances on how they function and scale with the players' comfort zone. Instead, it's either too easy or too hard with bad rewards. Yay!

[Aneshda]

I'm also thinking of playing Sims 4 which I bought but never delved into.

Sad but true. The Sims 4 have right now more content then this Game here.

[Hypnotic13371337]

1 dungeon that you wont get when you do expert
24 man content that is just glamour farming past the first 'Oh wow" run for most people
1 EX trial to farm 99 times for the mount then stop caring about it forever

For like, the next 4-5 months...... yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy...

[Syln]

"content feel like 1 month worth" good one

[Jeeqbit]

SE isn't giving enough room for FFXIV to take risks or giving them budget, because the money keeps coming in, so why bother?

Well I saw Yoshi-P mention in an interview that he's seen the arguments about increasing the budget for FFXIV and will try to do that, as well as trying to repay in better delivery. But he said this prior to the expansion release, so it's worth taking this with a grain of salt if the expansion itself hasn't been impressive for you.

Yoshi-P's formula is on repeat and the devs are happy with it, because it makes their workflow easier, and makes everything release on schedule at the cost of any innovation or risk, but the money keeps coming in, so why bother?

Mostly that. Based on prior statements, they are happy with the formula and understandably "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applies, but they are not entirely against trying new things:

• Diadem and Deep Dungeons (3.x experiments).
• Eureka and Ultimates (4.x experiments).
• Trusts, Ocean Fishing, Ishgard Restoration, CEs, Duels, DR and DRS (5.x experiments).
• Variant and Criterion dungeons, Island Sanctuary (6.x experiments)
• Chaos Raids, Graphics Improvements, new take on Deep Dungeons (7.x experiments)

But obviously these innovations risk very little. Is it worth taking a risk when they can risk it in an isolated sandbox instead to see the effects? That seems to be how they do it. All of these "experiments" are mostly ignorable for those not interested.

Obviously they aren't money-crazed, because that's against Yoshi-P's philosophy. If they were, they'd be advertising the mog station everywhere in the game, making everything pay-to-win and trying to make you subscribe for more than 1 month... which obviously they don't seem to care about like all these other MMORPGs you mentioned.

Are you sure that's a winning argument?

It's not an argument. For better or worse, it's just a statement of fact. A lot of people unsubscribe within the first month of a patch release and return at the next one. That's what the returner icon is and it's what returners say in the Novice Network.

That's a change. And you're saying there was no change. Why are you gaslighting?

I barely see a change since HW, really. Except extra content we didn't used to get (such as Chaos Raids, Variant and Criterion) and the experiments I mentioned above.

It would be nice if our subs could automatically end after that first month instead of being on auto-renew.

It would but that's an issue with all subscription services in my experience. When I subscribe to binge watch a new show on a streaming service, I have to immediately cancel it so it doesn't auto-renew.

Wait, so there is content?

In my opinion, yes. Obviously, others don't see it that way.

The game doesn't respect your time?

It does because it's my choice to do those grinds or ignore them, since they are mount grinds.

You want a game with no content so you can play other games

I don't really play other games.

You treat FFXIV as that kind of an MMO, yet you don't want it to be.

Sorta true. It doesn't force me to grind so hard that if I miss a day, or an hour, then I fall behind, which is how people said they felt in many previous WoW expansions. But it has optional grinds I can do if I want.

[VerdeLuck]

1 dungeon that you wont get when you do expert
24 man content that is just glamour farming past the first 'Oh wow" run for most people
1 EX trial to farm 99 times for the mount then stop caring about it forever

For like, the next 4-5 months...... yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy...

That's also ignoring the fact that for this time around, the 24 man is really just a nostalgia trip for FFXI players and everyone else is going to be entirely lost on what's going on.
I really do not know anyone out of the people I play ffxiv with who is excited for this alliance raid.

[Darkstride]

I usually do pretty well with keeping myself busy in the lulls between content, but I'm finding myself genuinely bored. I don't particularly agree with the responses of "just unsub and come back later - that's how the game is designed" or "do you have this random achievement? No? Then you haven't done everything so that means there's content to do".

I do think that the primary reason for my boredom and lack of enthusiasm comes from the general tone of the expansion. I was also relatively bored for most of the MSQ. It picked up in the middle but both the "real villain" and the hero of the story fell flat for me. I felt like I was finishing it just to finish it. For the first time since 1.0, I was really being tempted to just skip MSQ cutscenes.

Back to my current state of mind, the MSQ ultimately didn't set me up to feel excited about what happened and what's to come. I have no battle high to sustain me until the next round of content. I'm really just hoping for something to draw me back in.

[Striker44]

Are you sure that's a winning argument? Because that goes against what you and Yoshi-P argued last year. Your side wanted less content going forward so that we could have more time to play other games. That's a change. And you're saying there was no change. Why are you gaslighting?

Did you...umm...actually read the article you linked? It's not about "less content," but rather about making the grind for gear less tedious. I always wonder whether the people around here posting about the "play other games" thing are being intentionally dishonest, or if they're reading the comments from their fellow echo chamber cabal and just believing it. The "time to play other games" thing is about being able to keep up with gearing without having to make the game your life (or job). Compare it to WoW where at various times in its existence, there were things like high-quality gear locked being reputation grinds that featured daily quests (rather than just things like cosmetics, orchestrion rolls, etc. in FFXIV). If you weren't able to log into WoW every single day, you were going to fall behind in gear. Or when they put tier sets in LFR, so high-end raiders were burning out even more than usual because they "needed" to do LFR ad nauseum in between their own Mythic runs to get the tier set bonuses from LFR drops.

FFXIV doesn't have anything like that. Gear is done "one-and-done" on a weekly basis, so as long as you have time at some point during the week to log in for a few hours, you're good. That's what's meant by things like "respecting your time" or "you have time to play other games, too."

You know a game isn't doing well when most of the replies are stuff like "Akshually its totally normal to be unsubbed most of the time and not feel like you want to play the game, just quit!"

More like "you know you're on the forums when...". In reality, the game is just as healthy as it's been for the past few expansions (and significantly better than its early ones). The Lucky Bancho numbers were posted here recently, and Steam data is showing the same. ShB is widely considered the "best" expansion for FFXIV, yet at the 3-month mark on Steam, logins were only 42% of their peak when the expansion released. For EW (which is amusingly praised on this forum now despite being absolutely trashed when it was current), the 3-month retention was only 33% (though worth noting the "WoW Exodus" running its course contributed to this). For DT? We've only got a few days left to hit the 3-month mark, and it's currently right at 42% as well, the same retention rate as the "best" expansion (and with almost twice the pure # of players). Simply put - the game is doing very well, experiencing the same cyclical trends it's experienced its entire existence, just with significantly more people playing.

[AnnRam]

1 dungeon that you wont get when you do expert
24 man content that is just glamour farming past the first 'Oh wow" run for most people
1 EX trial to farm 99 times for the mount then stop caring about it forever

For like, the next 4-5 months...... yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy...

Please look forward.
Please stay tune.
Please look up at these new emotes for $9.99.

[Rolder50]

That's also ignoring the fact that for this time around, the 24 man is really just a nostalgia trip for FFXI players and everyone else is going to be entirely lost on what's going on.
I really do not know anyone out of the people I play ffxiv with who is excited for this alliance raid.

I mean, they definitely encouraged people to stay subbed for more then one month at a time by doing things like: Having housing auto-demo, having weekly lockouts on loot, tomestone caps that don't get turned off until like 2 weeks before the next patch, new content is often done in x.x5 patches which are conveniently spaced to be a month to a month and a half after the main line patch, and so on.