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

[DiaDeem]

As someone who usually defends XIV, who's still mostly happy with the game, who usually troubles herself with doing all sorts of content, and who understands that game development isn't as easy as flipping switches on a whim...

I'm starting to resent the 4 month patch cycle. The way content is structured just doesn't spread well over such a long period of time.

We were supposed to get less dungeons so they could focus on other content, but I haven't felt the presence of that content. Savage, Chaotic and Ultimate? That's nice and all, but those can't be run without a static or a guide, or I guess I can spend three hours in PF and subject myself to the whims that come with that, but that's not my idea of exploring and learning content on a normal pace. We should be getting a Variant Dungeon at least every patch, but those have been MIA for two patches now. HM dungeons are dead, and I'll continue to lament their disappearance. I'm working on finishing all ShB relics, on getting some gil to get a small house on an alt, and I love caring for my garden's plants, so it's not like don't have "things to do", but more the fact that I'm not really even engaging with the xpac's content right now. As a side note, I threw away my Mandervilles. They're worthless as far as power is concerned, their design never appealed that much to me, and because how utterly easy they were to make, I felt absolutely no remorse whatsoever after tossing them away without fanfare.

I'm so uninterested in the MSQ plot right now, and it's not Wuk. I think Zepla mentioned it, but the whole of Dawntrail's plot and characters lack polish. Wuk's characterization is just a symptom of the bigger problem of how unfinished and disjointed everything feels. I even told my sister while we were playing... it felt like 2 completely different teams made each half of the Dawntrail MSQ. Tone is all over the place, stakes make no sense, and the more I think about it, the worse I feel about the whole Living Memory situation. It was an interesting topic that we simply rushed through at the tail end of the entire story. There's this Fashionista video about the xpac being about a pirate treasure, and stuff like that would have been so much fun. Instead, we're saving the multiverse once again. Nuance has been completely absent from the story for a while now, and it's making me miss the rather forgettable Zero/13th Plot of the 6.X patches, which is something I never thought I'd say.

Last but not least: Hats for hroths and buns are RIGHT THERE. It's exhausting to hear Yoshida say it's very low in the priority list or that it's not currently possible, when all they have to do is implement the thing that already exists and say "Thanks" to the person making it.

I still love the game, and I'm not going anywhere... but gosh, some of this stuff is just so frustrating to me.

[Ath192]

As someone who usually defends XIV, who's still mostly happy with the game, who usually troubles herself with doing all sorts of content, and who understands that game development isn't as easy as flipping switches on a whim...

I'm starting to resent the 4 month patch cycle. The way content is structured just doesn't spread well over such a long period of time.

They always either quit or come to the dark side. Welcome. We have cookies.

[DiaDeem]

They always either quit or come to the dark side. Welcome. We have cookies.

Oh no, the only time I unsubbed was when they were doing the weird new payment thing and it forced me to unsub and I had to get a Time Card through G2A for a couple months before I could sub again, but other than that, I've been here ever since Sept 2013.

Sadly, they don't even reward loyalty anymore

When this game bleeds players, is not by one big nuke, rather by a thousand cuts.