FFXIV population decline continues

[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.

[BigCheez]

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

It was more of a game design problem that created a cyclical ageing population problem. New players would buy the game, get to level 10 and realise they couldn't really get anywhere from there and then leave because it seemed like it was impossible to get anywhere without agonisingly slowly solo grinding to level 30 and then paying a merc to boost them in Abyssea (which most of them probably didn't even know was an option).

The problem wasn't that the game had a low population. The problem was that the game had an ageing population.

Now that it's very possible to get into the game as a new player, there are actually a lot of new players around in FFXI these days.