The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[AvoSturmfaust]

Yes, SE was gifted an incredible opportunity with the influx of players from WOW's temporary selfdestruction, and Covid. But rather than capitalizing on that opportunity, by adapting their development schedule to get more incentive out for those 'temporary' players to become more permanent additions to the playerbase, instead they kept doing what they were doing, and let the golden goose walk straight back out of the pen

Square could adjust everything they want, the WoW Refugees wouldnst stay, if Square wanted them to stay they had to change the ToS or do you with all honesty think a WoW Player which comes from the most toxic mmo out there would accept ffxivs "happy pink unicorn fluffy world everyone loves everybody there is nothing bad in the world" mentality? hell nah, i know already 5 wow refugees which leaves the game again because they cant tell people that they are suck and should start practicing the rotation and start doing dmg etc

[Supersnow845]

Square could adjust everything they want, the WoW Refugees wouldnst stay, if Square wanted them to stay they had to change the ToS or do you with all honesty think a WoW Player which comes from the most toxic mmo out there would accept ffxivs "happy pink unicorn fluffy world everyone loves everybody there is nothing bad in the world" mentality? hell nah, i know already 5 wow refugees which leaves the game again because they cant tell people that they are suck and should start practicing the rotation and start doing dmg etc

According to limited data we can gather on the listening posts and some unofficial polls done on twitter and some of the official WOW forums the biggest source of people leaving 14 to go back to WOW was dragonflight was good. The second biggest was that EW’s patch cycle was boring and empty

TOS disagreements didn’t even rank

It’s stupid to think you shouldn’t try to hold your competitors players by adapting to them. As much as some people on the forum hate it the sheer amount that fled to us was worth whatever square could possibly do. Instead they did nothing and not only sent the WOW refugees back but also pissed off the core playerbase. 14 has increased by about 100,000-200,000 players per expansion since ARR. the fact that two expansions later we are barely clinging to ShB and are about to fall back to SB numbers is blatant shrinkage. This isn’t a return to long term trends, we are losing players