FFXIV population decline continues

[Nero-Voidstails]

I play the game in german where the story is actually better so I didnt really hate wuk lamat. What I hated was Bagul Ja Ja. They had such a good irredeemable villain that was the antithesis of what Wuk Lamat stood for. Dude was arrogant prideful and the embodiment of nepotism. Believing he deserved it by merit of physical characteristics rather than quality of character. He was Wuk Lamat's internal struggle manifested as a villain who needed to be overcome. Such a strong plot vice did a complete 180 and im supposed to believe he released the angry bird and threatened an entire tribes existence because he cares about the lives of children? He abandoned his own team because he cares about his people? He was such a fun villain that completely fit the new world exploration lighthearted vibe of dawntrail. No world ending stakes just a new adventure with quirky enemies and laughable motives. When he became another bleeding heart "relatable" villain is the point I just skipped the rest of the cutscenes. They straight up character assassinated him and it felt like the story writers of the second half of the xpac were not the same as the ones from the first half.

what I hate is what the scion became just exposition and nothing else. they could have gone down woke Lamat presence not gonna lie tho

[TaleraRistain]

7.2 was good, and that was (arguably) for the exact reason you state. Without spoiling anything, Wuk Lamat does take a back-seat in 7.2. That isn't to say that she's gone, but she doesn't play a big part in it.

They use her in the places where it makes sense to use her and show her strengths. She isn't in everything because she isn't the best tool for the job in those other places. If she had gotten that treatment in Dawntrail then I think people would be a lot less fatigued of her.

[YovelaLindswood]

Hot take. The decline started in Shadowbringers. Specifically after 5.3
The mess that EW was could be mitigated by the fanservice, the catharsis and closure it provided and the epicness of the story in general. DT is devoid of all that and has become a trainwreck. Tbh, I don't even know why people think 7.2 is good. Evil anime girl making evil faces as if she were Amon/Hermes/Fandaniel yet again? Evil anime scientist being a cliche? I'm simply talking about the story. We can talk about content some other day.

Not really a hot take. Its 100% true. It really started with the ceo turnover after shb launched. Everything after that was maintenance mode and squeezing for nostalgia as long as they could.

[YovelaLindswood]

Just put in fox girls or something SE, the writing and worldbuilding is a wreck

True and at least now we have an accurate timeframe on when they'll get hats. Only 6 short years to go!!!!

[Silren]

Population decline? They should be lucky that RP community still gives a damn, otherwise they should just merge the servers at this point. They are doing just the bare minimum to keep ffxiv going, at the same time they request all the players to pay the sub for what? Content that last for a few days after patch launches? Good luck with that if they truly want to keep this game alive at least for the next decade. Too bad people that are praising this game doesn't know how much damage they are doing, less critical feedback means simply that they will stick with this ancient formula, enjoy!

[Rolder50]

Population decline? They should be lucky that RP community still gives a damn, otherwise they should just merge the servers at this point. They are doing just the bare minimum to keep ffxiv going, at the same time they request all the players to pay the sub for what? Content that last for a few days after patch launches? Good luck with that if they truly want to keep this game alive at least for the next decade. Too bad people that are praising this game doesn't know how much damage they are doing, less critical feedback means simply that they will stick with this ancient formula, enjoy!

Even then it’s not really the RP crowd, but the Gooner crowd that’s really keeping things afloat. If they ever add anticheat or ban for cosmetic mods, they’d lose half the player base instantly

[Hanayumi]

Even with the decline it still would take the collapse of SE or some insanely new MMO to actually kill FFXIV. While I do believe our voices are being heard I also believe we wont see any ideal changes to FFXIV anytime soon, I genuinely believe not even by 8.0... their development process is just that bad and that slow...

[Connor]

Feels like they’ve just given up entirely on this expansion and are just leaving it to rot while they work on their ‘super mind blowing ultimate shake-up 8.0 uniqueness update!!!’

As if we don’t already know it’s going to be some more 120s cooldowns with no interaction and a visual upgrade to 1 pre-existing ability

[Daralii]

Feels like they’ve just given up entirely on this expansion and are just leaving it to rot while they work on their ‘super mind blowing ultimate shake-up 8.0 uniqueness update!!!’

As if we don’t already know it’s going to be some more 120s cooldowns with no interaction and a visual upgrade to 1 pre-existing ability

Most of the "new abilities" that are visual updates to old abilities end up looking and feeling worse at this point. The particle effects are bigger and more elaborate, but the sound design is awful and there's no weight to the character animations and no feeling of impact.

[MayuAmakura]

Could definitely see population decline on Chaos data center ever since DT was released. Unfortunately I was forced to leave Chaos for Light since raiding was dead there and I was tired of needing to constantly go back and forth. This led to others leaving as well so now servers like Sagittarius are extra low pop.