FFXIV population decline continues

[MicahZerrshia]

This makes me curious how long Final Fantasy 11 was around before the "Great Trust Change" that turned it into the game it currently is due to low population, and if we're approaching the point where the same will happen to Final Fantasy 14 now.

Well, when it comes to FFXI, it was a completely different situation.

When FFXIV was about to release they dropped Abyssea on us, which upped the level cap, allowed us to level stupid fast, burn through content and gear up extremely easily, while at the same time rendering all old content and gear obsolete. They were essentially trying to rush us through the game, expecting us to just naturally transfer over to FFXIV. Then 1.0 happened (because as a tester I can attest that they completely ignored all of our feedback. For isntance, no one thought the 1.0 fatigue system was even remotely a good idea) and they scrambled to keep FFXI going to help keep the lights on while they were fixing XIV. But, they had already devestated the game and lost a large chunck of the playerbase due to a decade of work and dedication being gone in a literally instant, so they had to scramble which is what brought about trusts and such. They even gave us a new, and frankly amazing, expansion in Seekers of Adoulin that not only helped retain players but brough ppl who had left, back. Expansions in FFXI don't take nearly the work that FFXIV expacs do, and they had a dedicated team led by someone that cared for the world a lot and listened to their audience, so it wasn't hard for them to do.

So, the situation would not be the same unless they have another, yet unannounced, mmo on the burner waiting to be revealed. Even then though at least we knew about XIV when Abyssea fell on our heads like Dalamud would do to Eorzea just a couple short years later. What we are seeing now is purely just inexperienced, and likely overworked devs who are just trying to do something, while being led by someone who has lost his passion and feels he knows better than his audience.

[Jeeqbit]

This makes me curious how long Final Fantasy 11 was around before the "Great Trust Change" that turned it into the game it currently is due to low population, and if we're approaching the point where the same will happen to Final Fantasy 14 now.

What was this "Great Trust Change"?

The only things I know that really happened there were a lot of bans that wrecked trust. Obviously, SE isn't repeating that (or the regular banwave reports would look a lot more catastrophic).

Other than that, they started working on this game and virtually abandoned FF11 but if you spend just a day trying to set it up you will see why they had to... it has many times more spaghetti code than FF14 ever will and they've said how it can't be salvaged. They failed to make it into a single player game or whatever they were trying to do and they still have been unable to detach it from PlayOnline.

Its population never reached the levels of this game as far as I know given the amount of people who used computers was less back then, being on less platforms than this and rivals such as WoW.

They started work on FF14 in 2005, so they were planning to abandon FF11 as early as 3 years after it released anyway. So its population decline was inevitable - people were going to jump ship to the new one and wreck its population regardless.

Anyway, for as many that might develop distrust, I guarantee there are plenty that are filled with trust because I meet them in the game all the time. Either they are unphased older players like myself or newer players that have a backlog of things to do or are completely satisfied by the social environment of the game. You could argue a fair share of raiders will be satisfied by the sheer amount of high-end duties these days if they aren't wound up about rotations and metas and just enjoy classes for what they are.

[BigCheez]

It was still a case of Square-Enix "future-proofing" Final Fantasy 11 to make it playable alone regardless of whether the game was abandoned by too many people or having two remaining populations that didn't want to play together (old versus new in this case). Now we have Final Fantasy 14, being left behind for other games, and casual and hardcores divided more than ever. It's the same abandonment and population split, it's just coming through in a different (and more negative) way, heralded by an especially divisive expansion.

Another thing is that there technically IS "another MMO" in Square-Enix's pipeline to further account for possibly sweeping changes to Final Fantasy 14, and that's... Final Fantasy 14, Mobile Edition. Given SE's track record as a whole, or how they almost did the "abandon PC version, get everyone to the mobile version" for FF11, there's some churning in the water here that shouldn't be ignored about the future of the PC version of FF14, or more specifically, how they're going to "proof" it too.

I'm kind of confused as to where you're going with this.

Yes, trusts (and other systems) were introduced in FFXI to make it easier for new players to get into the game and play through the story content solo due to the shift in the ecosystem making it very difficult for new players to catch up otherwise. The equivalent system in FFXIV is already there - it's duty support. They just need to add support for some of the remaining content that isn't covered by it and then it's done.

There were no plans to shut down the PC version of FFXI in favour of the mobile version. Like the FFXIV mobile game, it was outsourced to a 3rd party and was likely just intended to be an additional revenue stream for SE without them having to put a great deal of work into it. It was cancelled fairly early on in development.

[Jeeqbit]

It was still a case of Square-Enix "future-proofing" Final Fantasy 11 to make it playable alone

Seemed pretty obvious to me that it would be to account for people moving to FF14.

they almost did the "abandon PC version, get everyone to the mobile version" for FF11, there's some churning in the water here that shouldn't be ignored about the future of the PC version of FF14, or more specifically, how they're going to "proof" it too.

They made it very clear that the mobile version is "for people who want to play it but can't because they only play mobile games, or only have time for mobile games" and judging from comments I've seen on YouTube, mobile-only gamers are excited about it. They aren't intending to push PC/Playstation/Xbox players to use a mobile suddenly. That would make no sense.

It's also an entirely separate version of the game, made by an entirely separate company, so changes to the main game are not necessary to make the mobile version function. The reason it's entirely separate is because they needed it to have changes so that it can be played in even shorter bursts of time than the main game.

Only good things are likely to come from the mobile version, because the company making it are doing the same things but better. So SE will just learn from them and improve the main game.

Nearly every Final Fantasy game on Steam, From 1 to 11, has features ranging from quick level gain to virtually infinite gil as a way to, I assume, let players enjoy the story without having to fuss with the gameplay too much if they so choose.

Realistically, PC players would use simple hacks to achieve that in single player games if SE didn't add it.

Hell, the idea that you "steal" the mob packs between bosses and then they get buffed up is... kinda interesting to think about actually.

Realistically, Beastmaster will probably just have a "beast book" then we go and learn beasts like we learn spells and they will probably have a generic ST and AoE attack. SE doesn't make anything that complicated anymore. If they do anything more than that, it'll be a welcome surprise.

[BigCheez]

My point is that Square-Enix may expand FF14 Trusts beyond just those dungeons if they feel like the game has hit FF11 levels of a playerbase that can't get content to pop reliably, especially when it's not just dungeons that can cause a player to be halted in the MSQ but currently no Trials and Crystal Tower doesn't have NPC options either. As someone from Maduin, I can assure you it was never the difficulty of CT and Susano that stopped me cold for days, but rather the fact that there weren't enough people on Dynamis doing it, and even when I traveled to Aether/Primal, it still took awhile because I play later than most. Perhaps that's ONLY an issue for Dynamis (and a personal one with regards to schedule), but considering its the data center they try to funnel new players into and it's been an issue here for over two years now... well, it becomes difficult to just tell people to data center travel instead if Aether/Primal/Crystal start to clear out too.

I've heard both that they did and did not plan to shut down the PC version of FF11 if the mobile version came about, so admittedly it's not something I was ever really certain about, and the subsequent cancellation of the mobile version made it moot anyway. But it was still an example of Square-Enix possibly not wanting to put all their eggs into the PC version, and if not for the decision to make FF14 an MMO and the "intended successor", we might very well have two different versions of FF11 right now.

I think they probably will expand duty support to include all of the trials. AFAIK the plan is for full MSQ coverage.

FFXIV was already in Heavensward by the time the mobile version of FFXI was announced. It wasn't cancelled until 2018. It being cancelled wasn't really anything to do with XIV, it was just SE being SE and managing projects poorly.

[BigCheez]

This makes me curious how long Final Fantasy 11 was around before the "Great Trust Change" that turned it into the game it currently is due to low population, and if we're approaching the point where the same will happen to Final Fantasy 14 now.

The problem wasn't low population. FFXI has a decent playerbase even to this day. The problem was that you were dependent on other players for pretty much anything and everything in FFXI and the entire playerbase had been at endgame for years, so the game was essentially unplayable for new players.

You need a party for leveling and to do your story missions, so they added trusts so that people could do that solo. You need to buy gear on the auction house and no one was selling low level gear, so they added a challenge log-like system that rewards a currency called sparks which you can use to buy low level gear from a vendor.

[NamiRocket]

The problem wasn't low population. FFXI has a decent playerbase even to this day. The problem was that you were dependent on other players for pretty much anything and everything in FFXI and the entire playerbase had been at endgame for years, so the game was essentially unplayable for new players.

That's called a population problem. That means you're not ever bringing new blood into the game in any volume that is sustainable.