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

[Ath192]

If these WoW "refugees" you are assuming XIV didn't keep are the reason player number is down, how would they have kept them? Change the game fundamentally to keep them and thus alienate their long time players? Or if it's because they "had nothing to do" after burning through four expansions worth of content do you think SquareEnix is somehow going to start releasing content at 4x the speed as the past?

It really doesn't make sense, and Striker44 is right that if they did leave they were never going to stay to begin with.

They could've started by not taking the exploration zone away and not giving the relic for free. Just putting it out there.

[Supersnow845]

If these WoW "refugees" you are assuming XIV didn't keep are the reason player number is down, how would they have kept them? Change the game fundamentally to keep them and thus alienate their long time players? Or if it's because they "had nothing to do" after burning through four expansions worth of content do you think SquareEnix is somehow going to start releasing content at 4x the speed as the past?

It really doesn't make sense, and Striker44 is right that if they did leave they were never going to stay to begin with.

Most of them joined during an expansion famous for its hilarious lack of content and strangely long patch schedules

Rel adding more content to satisfy more players isn’t fundamentally changing the game

[FlopsyPrince]

Looking at the second chart with SHB and DT, it seems like--if I'm reading it right--FF14 has fallen back to pre WoW migration numbers. Only I imagine you have some refugees still here, and some of the old guard that dislikes the changes brought out by those refugees, hardcore raiders, etc, have jumped ship--but you also have a lot of refugees going back to WoW since the game's gotten good so all is forgiven with the scandal /s.

That's my read on it, at least. Similar to how WoW was at a low point during FF14's high point in SHB.

My sub here runs for a bit longer but I find several non-high end things to be much more painful than I like.

The 2 main ones are:

- The inventory management hassle. Needing so many retainers to juggle what is where gets to be a real pain when leveling professions as I level my main.
- The forced nature of the main thread. I have very little choice of what I do there if I want to keep making progress.

It is a different playstyle than WoW (or ESO which I played prior to this) and it lacks some of what I want as an intense casual.

[Bonoki]

Something that isn’t talked about enough is how FFXIV isn’t that fun to watch, and that’s a huge reason why so many people left. Many of the WoW refugees who came over were raking in views during the MSQ hype, but once they hit the endgame? Their numbers tanked—because, let’s be honest, FFXIV’s endgame isn’t good streaming content.

Even our biggest FFXIV streamers struggle to keep their audiences engaged. The game doesn’t have the kind of high-energy, unpredictable content that makes for good live entertainment.

So yeah, it makes complete sense that many people left. If you’re a streamer, your livelihood depends on keeping an audience—why stick around in a game that actively loses viewers?

[SXTC]

Doesnt account in, Xbox, Playstation and non Steam user, and lets be real steam was the least used platform for ffxiv

The issue with console players is that they often don't bother communicating due to it being too hard for many console players to type without a keyboard or such... So you end up with a lot of players that don't even communicate on an MMO which pretty much ruins the experience if you want to have a social community where not everyone ignores one another...

[Red-thunder]

do you think SquareEnix is somehow going to start releasing content at 4x the speed as the past?

Yoshi P is so good at propaganda he really managed to convince a whole bloc of people that they're actually already producing at peak capacity.

Bruh they're literally focusing on two other new games. This game is their side project.

[Clockworks]

Yoshi P is so good at propaganda he really managed to convince a whole bloc of people that they're actually already producing at peak capacity.

Bruh they're literally focusing on two other new games. This game is their side project.

Its been 6 years they're working on viera and hrothgar hats, that's peak capacity right there

[DPZ2]

The forced nature of the main thread. I have very little choice of what I do there if I want to keep making progress.

It is a different playstyle than WoW (or ESO which I played prior to this) and it lacks some of what I want as an intense casual.

You've been playing the game for close to 2 1/2 years at this point. Why? What is there about the game's philosophy that kept you subscribed for that period of time? Perhaps you didn't realize the amount of free time between patches because you were still mid-way through 9 years of content?

Be specific in defining "some of what I want" rather than hand-waving.

And no, "Make it more like <insert game name here>" will not be specific enough.

An example: "I appreciate M+ dungeons in World of Warcraft because they challenge me without having to think much about tactics, since I can now do them in my sleep, but they give great "near raid-level" gear, and that's what I really want".

Another example: "I appreciate the fact that I can level my Hunter to max-level without ever touching a dungeon or raid instance and can skip most of the boring storyline at the same time. That's what I really want"

Another example: "I had fun during the initial phases of Legion with all of the 'spontaneous' breakouts across the known world. That's what I really want"

Another example: "I had a great time in Legion. Battle for Azeroth sucked because all of the time I spent on my Legendary Weapon was pretty much destroyed when it became useless at the beginning of the BFA expansion. That's the sort of thing I don't want"

[DPZ2]

Yoshi P is so good at propaganda he really managed to convince a whole bloc of people that they're actually already producing at peak capacity.

Bruh they're literally focusing on two other new games. This game is their side project.

And you know this for a fact because ...?

[ovIm]

And you know this for a fact because ...?

Because the man Yoshi-P himself has actually said that CS3 are working on two more titles in an interview with a different gaming site.
Now we don't know how the workload is balanced within the team, or how much capacity the project FFXIV even requires, so whether 14 is a side project or not is debatable, but his words do imply that not all resources CS3 have available are used on FFXIV.