FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[Rithy255]

It would definitely help content longevity if job design wasn’t so laughably terrible

Healers especially are designed for people who don’t play them. That doesn’t mesh well with “the only content to do is the same content you’ve done 1000 times already”

I've always said this but When job design is good it enhances the casual content and even savage encounters.

Currently playing through content once is really the only unique experience you will get with that form of content, take savage raids for example once you do it on one job theirs no real point doing it on another, especially if they are in the same category of tank/dps/healer.

picking a different job should feel interesting and unique, maybe even challenging, but instead it feels pretty much the same because job design is so one note.

Healers like you've pointed out are a great example of this, but in general they cannot design anything other then a DPS role in this game (even this is becoming questionable), they have to give tanks absurd defensive kits that get stronger each expansion, they have to bloat healers with extra heals that doesn't get used because encounters still design around healers who only use gcd heals lol, this also results in no evolution in DPS kits, I guess people complaining made them add one skill dps you use to in 2minute windows.. enjoy?

Support roles (tanks/healers) need a massive overhaul with how they interact with the game, but my bet is 8.0 will mostly only focus on dps, because I have a feeling that they have no idea what they are even doing at this point with tanks or healers.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I've always said this but When job design is good it enhances the casual content and even savage encounters[…]

I’ve said the similar since forever, too.

There’s no doubt that casual contents are the most populous in the game. Players from all facets—casual to HC—touches them at some point in their weekly routines. So why not push the effort to actually make that process more fun?

I.e. I’ll probably stop bailing from CT raid and groans far less if I get one from roulette, IF the buttons are actually engaging, well designed lv50 kits. Not only that, this will also help any other lower level pops, too. But as of now, they just don’t. Design deems that all the fun stuffs should be shoved to close to cap level & frankly I find this overtly silly.

[TaleraRistain]

The "majority of players doesnt use steam" argument makes no sense, that's exactly how you make statistics. You use a sample, except if you have evidence that players on other platforms play the game differently, if that is the case, feel free to prove me wrong.

You have a biased sample. You're trying to make assumptions about the entire playerbase but only look at numbers for one segment of the player base. If you wanted a truly unbiased sample, you would need a sample of players from each available platform.

What you guys are doing is if I said I interviewed 1000 people in New York and they all agreed on X, but I only talked to people who lived in one specific area.

[Supersnow845]

You have a biased sample. You're trying to make assumptions about the entire playerbase but only look at numbers for one segment of the player base. If you wanted a truly unbiased sample, you would need a sample of players from each available platform.

What you guys are doing is if I said I interviewed 1000 people in New York and they all agreed on X, but I only talked to people who lived in one specific area.

What is it about steam players that you believe is more or less likely to act significantly different to the rest of the playerbase

It’s more likely interviewing 1000 people for x then dismissing that as a biased sample because the 1000 people are far more likely to have a living grandma than grandpa but without providing a reason as to why the sample being biased on the grandma/grandpa front makes it biased on x

[Saraide]

Great news for an MMO hater like myself.

[Reinha]

The question is what is the constructive use of your negativity spiral?

Malicious negativity festers, creates an echo chamber, and drives people away.

The potential for new players is infinite and you're killing them off with self-fulfilling dread.

You answered your own question. If negativity has the power to drive away new players, then negativity is a way to damage the company until our demands for improvement are met. The people who still care should complain even harder in that case.

If the company still refuses to make the game better, well ... they are losing revenue, the white knights are losing people to play with and the people complaining lose nothing, not even a sub fee since they allow people to complain on the forums for free.

[Clockworks]

You have a biased sample. You're trying to make assumptions about the entire playerbase but only look at numbers for one segment of the player base. If you wanted a truly unbiased sample, you would need a sample of players from each available platform.

What you guys are doing is if I said I interviewed 1000 people in New York and they all agreed on X, but I only talked to people who lived in one specific area.

Yeah because its a very common fact that steam players are different types of human beings than console players or standalone players. (/s)

Please explain to me how console players or standalone players would be any more different than steam players ? I'll wait for your response.

[TaleraRistain]

What is it about steam players that you believe is more or less likely to act significantly different to the rest of the playerbase

It’s more likely interviewing 1000 people for x then dismissing that as a biased sample because the 1000 people are far more likely to have a living grandma than grandpa but without providing a reason as to why the sample being biased on the grandma/grandpa front makes it biased on x

We know the Japanese player base is predominantly console, for one. The console numbers could be completely different because of regional behaviors. All that can really be assessed from looking at Steam numbers are the behaviors of those who use the Steam platform. And that has gone down after they started making us tie our accounts to our Steam accounts. So it's an even smaller amount of players to base behavior for the entire player base on now. Not to mention XIV is on XBox, so you have two consoles adding to those numbers.

[Clockworks]

We know the Japanese player base is predominantly console, for one. The console numbers could be completely different because of regional behaviors. All that can really be assessed from looking at Steam numbers are the behaviors of those who use the Steam platform. And that has gone down after they started making us tie our accounts to our Steam accounts. So it's an even smaller amount of players to base behavior for the entire player base on now. Not to mention XIV is on XBox, so you have two consoles adding to those numbers.

So you are still willing to die on that hill that people on console or standalone somehow are different human beings with different behaviors and ways of playing games

Interesting.

But no, that's not how samples work, you dont need statistics from every platform to have a sample of the game's health.

[Supersnow845]

We know the Japanese player base is predominantly console, for one. The console numbers could be completely different because of regional behaviors. All that can really be assessed from looking at Steam numbers are the behaviors of those who use the Steam platform. And that has gone down after they started making us tie our accounts to our Steam accounts. So it's an even smaller amount of players to base behavior for the entire player base on now. Not to mention XIV is on XBox, so you have two consoles adding to those numbers.

Yes so the game is on 4 platforms. So in order for a sample of one of the 4 platforms to not be broadly relevant there needs to be a defining feature or features that means that said platform is likely to act significantly differently to another platforms players. There is no defining feature that separates steam players

Or are we going to start segmenting PC players by what GPU they play on