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

[Yeonhee]

Dynamis pretty much never was alive to begin with, and the real issue with Primal there is how the DC travel system has effectively shunted so many people to Aether even if they're based on Primal. It does reveal a problem with DC travel, but not the game's population.



Not surprising...FFXIV is over 10 years old and finished it's main story arc. How many gamers that are potentially interested in a game like FFXIV but haven't ever tried it are actually left? At some point, there just isn't really a pool of "new blood" left.



It's just the sensible, logical approach. People who were "thrown at you for free" but aren't at all your intended audience just aren't going to stay unless you radically, fundamentally change your game...in which case, most of them will probably still leave, and you'll also have alienated a huge portion of your intended playerbase in the process. Games have intended audiences; changing your game to suit other people is what is ultimately unhealthy.



You don't have to like reality, but it doesn't make it any less real.

So... What's the excuse for the game losing its "intended playerbase" as well ?

[Shistar]

With how much the amount of overworld gameplay quests having been minimized over the years, there is no real "playing together", doing the story with someone else means waiting for them to finish their cutscene so you can mount up and walk to the next cutscene dispensing NPC together, until a dungeon comes in sight.

Quoting only one of you because I can't be bothered, but it goes for everyone who said it. Honestly, that's a fair opinion if you do nothing except read the MSQ and expect a new experience somehow.
I had a great time going through MSQ multiple times with friends and I think it's lowkey the experienced player's fault for not doing anything besides being a glorified taxi?


Off the top of my head, these are some things my friends and I did, either when I was the sprout or when it was my turn to introduce someone else to the game:

• Theorycraft about things coming up in the MSQ. Sometimes, if they accidentally get spoiled or they get exposed to something that could potentially ruin a plot point later, I would straight up lie to the sprout to throw them off or take their attention somewhere else. Once they experienced that plot point, we would go back and laugh about me scrambling to not ruin the plot twist for them, them being absolutely oblivious to it all or eating my lies up and just discussing our reactions to it.
  Sometimes I would deliberately implant a silly idea/theory on them to see if they bite the bait, and it's incredibly funny when they do. Sometimes they're the ones throwing you a curve ball so insane you have to do your best not to give anything away and see how far their unhinged theories can go.
• If you are even remotely interested in the RP side of things, this can be really fun for both of you.
• Great time to have sprouts be as chaotic as possible. Let them pull everything. Let them get in trouble. You have their back and it'll be a great memory for them to keep or possibly enable more sprouts in the future. It's character development but also teach them good habits and manners because they will eventually have to go out without you and you don't want them to be a menace to society lol
• If it's their first MMO, it's great to have someone to teach you the ropes. XIV was not my first MMO but I still needed lots of help to figure things out. This game is so convoluted and it doesn't tell you many things.
• It's a good time for the experienced player to try out a new job since MSQ is pretty low stakes overall.
• Not everyone had someone to guide them when they first started the game. I think it's up to the mentor to make it as good as possible and how they go about it will absolutely shape the sprout's outlook on the game. If you have a bad attitude towards the game it'll inevitably rub off on the other player and make their experience worse. This is not about your own fun only, as the experienced player you should be especially considerate about your friend's experience.
• Feel free to traumatize/entertain them with old PF/game mech horror stories. We all have at least one and as a sprout I loved hearing them. It gives them something to look forward to and may teach them what to do (or NOT to do) if they find themselves in a similar situation in the future.

In short: In my humble opinion, skill issue lol be a cooler friend.
As their mentor/experienced companion/pocket cryptid you won't have as much fun as them because nothing is new for you anymore and you know exactly what will happen next, but I think making it fun for them is part of our own fun, and their joy is infectious. It's also very up to you, in the end. If you wanna stand there, taxi them around and and be bored to tears until a dungeon or trial pops up, more power to you.

Just because the MSQ doesn't have an explicit multiplayer mode doesn't mean you can't make your own fun.
I'm afraid people have become too dependent on the game holding their hand for everything. I treat this game like a sandbox to find my fun in and I've never been bored so far.

[Striker44]

So... What's the excuse for the game losing its "intended playerbase" as well ?

I've already responded to that claim a few times, but here's a quick summary:

-FFXIV has finished its main storyline. Games naturally will see a portion of their population leave after that point. It just happened with Destiny 2. It happened with WoW years ago when the Lich King expansion ended. They had an active playerbase at the time of ~12 million. It cratered right after when Cata released, and it recently took two solid expansions in a row just to get back up to ~2 million (meaning over 80% of its one-time playerbase has left). It'll naturally happen to some degree with FFXIV, too. Game studios end up in a lose-lose situation...they'll get trashed if they put a game into maintenance mode at the height of its popularity, and if they keep going instead, it'll never be "as good" as the culmination of the main story. DT is basically the new ARR. It's entirely possible that FFXIV will have another major hit of an expansion a little ways down the road - the question will be if the naysayers bring themselves to acknowledge that it took installments like DT laying the foundation for that future one to really fly.

-The game also hasn't lost anywhere near the portion of its "intended playerbase" as the negative echo chamber on the forums would lead you to believe. If you want the best data, just look in-game. I'll point out again that Hunt Trains on Aether started DT with around 200 people in the big trains, and I'm still estimating ~125-150 people in them now (harder to tell with no instances currently in play, but based on how quickly things melt compared to when there were instances, I think it's a reliable estimate). That's nothing out of the ordinary compared to the usual cycles that happen over the course of an expansion. Same goes with queue times when I do WT and queue up for very specific dungeons and raids that aren't the "typical" ones people run - queues are still popping within a few minutes like they always have. I think the "negative" or doomer viewpoint has been amplified more in DT than usual because there's a particular portion of the gamer population that tends to be more vocal on forums, reddit, etc., and they are most certainly not the intended audience for DT. But just because those voices are louder doesn't mean they're more numerous.

Just because the MSQ doesn't have an explicit multiplayer mode doesn't mean you can't make your own fun.
I'm afraid people have become too dependent on the game holding their hand for everything. I treat this game like a sandbox to find my fun in and I've never been bored so far.

I think this is huge. The reality is that it's physically impossible for developers to create content anywhere near the rate players will consume it. A good MMORPG instead provides players with the tools and the spaces to make their own fun, and I believe FFXIV excels at that. It's a role-playing game; it's expected that you use your own imagination and the tools available to create your own experiences with your friends or even just within mini-communities of like-minded people.

[ovIm]

way too much to quote.

Your assumptions do a lot of heavy lifting in your flailing way of trying to blame the players for the shortcomings of the game developers. You have no idea what kind of experience all of us had, and insulting us is certainly no way to be taken seriously. Honestly, this is one of the most GCBTW posts i have seen in this forum. And in all your flailing you even admit that the MSQ is bereft of actual co-operative gameplay in and out of itself. So thank you for proving the point me and the other 2 posters did.

Consider this though: it is not the responsibility of the players to make the co-operative game design be engaging for all participants. That is the game designers job. As an example of where it works, just look at how Guild Wars 2 solved the issue of co-operative main story gaming. Its possible, but the devs have decided to make MSQ a single player person experience first and foremost.

I could go ahead and speak in length of my experiences, which are definitely far from negative, but still resulted in people all but quitting the game, but that would be wasted in this thread. I have said my piece, and I am too old to go mud flinging in an MMO forum, lmao.

[Hyperia]

Per Steam Charts and Lucky Bancho, the game’s population is back to December 2020 numbers, that’s a 5 year low. What is really wild is that these numbers include a lengthy free login campaign.

We went from 42,181 to 14,250 since the release of DT, yes we lost 67% of the players to date.

[Striker44]

Per Steam Charts and Lucky Bancho, the game’s population is back to December 2020 numbers, that’s a 5 year low. What is really wild is that these numbers include a lengthy free login campaign.

We went from 42,181 to 14,250 since the release of DT, yes we lost 67% of the players to date.

Again, despite what doomers want to believe, this is actually pretty normal at this point in an expansion. The high mark you noted was July 2024 compared to the low mark being one year later July 2025.

Compare to EW. Endwalker's high was 53,729 in its release month of December 2021. Exactly one year later in December 2022 it hit a low point of 18,445. The drop? Yep - 66%.

Or how about ShB, widely praised as the "best" expansion. Its release month of July 2019 was 23,105. Just 5 months later (December 2019), it was down to 9,693. The drop? 58%. We can only speculate how much farther the low would have been at the one-year mark, because by July 2020 covid was in full swing and the population was up because everyone was stuck at home.

Again - what we're experiencing is nothing out of the ordinary. We lost 2/3 of the players by this point in EW, and might have even lost more in the "best expansion ever" ShB at the same point if it hadn't been for covid.

[Supersnow845]

The problem you are conveniently ignoring with the census is the proportion of new players entering the game has NEVER been lower than it is now and DT holds the awful distinction of being the ONLY expansion where the x.0 new player numbers are actually lower than the previous expansion (x-1).5 patch

New player interest in the game is collapsing and attrition of the top heavy playerbase is accelerating, looking at the change from 7.2-7.3 we gained a negligible amount of new players and simply lost existing players even with a free login campaign

A game can’t survive off its top end legacy playerbase and since we made the genius decision to spit on the largest well of new players we will ever get I don’t know where they think they will get more new players in the future

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Funny how hunt trains are even mentioned, because I recalled seeing similar numbers of players in each instances back in ShB days and DC travel wasn't even a thing back then. If you're seeing the same numbers today when DC travel is included in the factor, that really doesn't inspire confidence lol. Especially over here in Aether when you join any trains at all, you will bound to see non-aether people that's not just from Dynamis but also from Primal and Crystal.

[Shistar]

Your assumptions do a lot of heavy lifting in your flailing way of trying to blame the players for the shortcomings of the game developers. You have no idea what kind of experience all of us had, and insulting us is certainly no way to be taken seriously. Honestly, this is one of the most GCBTW posts i have seen in this forum.

My post must have come off as much meaner than I intended genuinely confused at the things I got called here. I'm sorry.
Although a bit sarcastic and not meant to be taken seriously in some lines, the post was well-intentioned in wanting to share what worked for me and my friends.

The skill issue thing wasn't really serious, but I understand tone is not easy to read over text and harder when reading someone's opinion that is seemingly opposite of yours - I certainly did not mean any personal attacks, so I am sorry it was taken that way.

We are in agreement with one thing, and that is that the MSQ does not provide any built-in, spoon-fed way to include your friends in it. Mostly because if I was the dev designing that thing I'd go insane on the spot.
The best I can imagine them realistically doing is just spawning whoever is in your party standing in the background like they did with Prae custcenes... which is not the best, honestly. In the hopes that I've not yet been muted into the abyss and there's someone willing to share their ideas, what would be ways you'd like to see the MSQ gameplay loop include other players?

And in all your flailing you even admit that the MSQ is bereft of actual co-operative gameplay in and out of itself.

I don't admit it, I straight up say it is that way. Because I specifically said the MSQ was never meant to be multiplayer and doesn't take anyone into consideration besides the one player going through it, but that doesn't mean you can find your own ways to make going through it with friends entertaining through other means not readily spoon-fed to the playerbase by the game. That was the whole point of my post.

Consider this though: it is not the responsibility of the players to make the co-operative game design be engaging for all participants. That is the game designers job. As an example of where it works, just look at how Guild Wars 2 solved the issue of co-operative main story gaming. Its possible, but the devs have decided to make MSQ a single player person experience first and foremost.

But we're talking about the MSQ here; there's no cooperative game design in the MSQ quests, so what is there to consider responsibility for?


No, you're not responsible for mentoring your friends, and perhaps we have different perspectives on what a friend with more experience than you should and should not do, but if I take the role of a mentor, going through the game with a newer player with the intent of making their experience better, I will try to make their experience better where I can. Your attitude affects others, specially your friends who may look up to you for guidance or opinions about the game.

I am not familiar with Guild Wars 2 at all, so I'd be interested in hearing about how they went about it!

You are right in that I don't know everyone's specific experience, but there were quite a few people in a row saying "I am bored because MSQ doesn't provide me with the multiplayer entertainment I want when I accompany a friend through their singleplayer campaign" with nothing else go off of, no context of what you did or didn't do and where things went wrong - all necessary to give the devs useful feedback so they can fix something in the direction you'd like, otherwise they may implement a fix that is even worse in your eyes either because they misinterpreted the feedback or they didn't have much to go off of from the beginning. The MSQ has always been like this, and unless people provide the feedback needed to steer it in a better direction, all we can do is try to mitigate the issue ourselves in the meantime.

The game has many shortcomings and I'm not interested in defending them, I don't get paid for it, but I'm just saying if you stand around doing nothing you will absolutely be bored out of your mind. XIV does try you a decent amount of tools to find your own fun compared to other MMOs I've played, so I think it deserves credit in that regard.

I am too old to go mud flinging in an MMO forum, lmao.

You and I could disagree and "mud fling" about this until the heat death of the universe, but it won't make a difference until SE finds a reason to change the way they operate that they agree with. I don't have any specific feedback to provide on this front, but complaining without sharing your experience, what you did and didn't do, etc is hardly feedback we can offer and discuss about. What would you like to see them try so more people can be included in one MSQ campaign besides the "main player" at once? How does it decide who the main player is, if there is any? How does it adjust for different party sizes? How much of the already existing MSQ would have to be revisited?

A good MMORPG instead provides players with the tools and the spaces to make their own fun, and I believe FFXIV excels at that. It's a role-playing game; it's expected that you use your own imagination and the tools available to create your own experiences with your friends or even just within mini-communities of like-minded people.

XIV is truly one of the easiest games to find your people in. There's at least one discord server or FC for everything under the sun in this game and it makes me happy.

[...] the proportion of new players entering the game has NEVER been lower than it is now and DT holds the awful distinction of being the ONLY expansion where the x.0 new player numbers are actually lower than the previous expansion (x-1).5 patch

This is what seriously worries me. Even the sprouts you can see around seem to be jaded already.

That is why I was mentioning that those who take the role of guiding their friends should do their best to make it as fun as possible for the sprout. They will only experience the game for the first time once, and it can make or break their opinion on the game. This doesn't mean you should pretend everything is perfect and nothing is wrong, they will eventually see the cracks in the game as they get further into it regardless, but exposing them to everything wrong with the game straight up is a great way to ruin it for them. There's a reason there's quite a few people that said "ARR isn't that bad when you don't have someone bitching about it in your ear all the time" across platforms.

[Villa101]

I've already responded to that claim a few times, but here's a quick summary:

-FFXIV has finished its main storyline. Games naturally will see a portion of their population leave after that point. It just happened with Destiny 2. It happened with WoW years ago when the Lich King expansion ended. They had an active playerbase at the time of ~12 million. It cratered right after when Cata released, and it recently took two solid expansions in a row just to get back up to ~2 million (meaning over 80% of its one-time playerbase has left). It'll naturally happen to some degree with FFXIV, too. Game studios end up in a lose-lose situation...they'll get trashed if they put a game into maintenance mode at the height of its popularity, and if they keep going instead, it'll never be "as good" as the culmination of the main story. DT is basically the new ARR. It's entirely possible that FFXIV will have another major hit of an expansion a little ways down the road - the question will be if the naysayers bring themselves to acknowledge that it took installments like DT laying the foundation for that future one to really fly.

-The game also hasn't lost anywhere near the portion of its "intended playerbase" as the negative echo chamber on the forums would lead you to believe. If you want the best data, just look in-game. I'll point out again that Hunt Trains on Aether started DT with around 200 people in the big trains, and I'm still estimating ~125-150 people in them now (harder to tell with no instances currently in play, but based on how quickly things melt compared to when there were instances, I think it's a reliable estimate). That's nothing out of the ordinary compared to the usual cycles that happen over the course of an expansion. Same goes with queue times when I do WT and queue up for very specific dungeons and raids that aren't the "typical" ones people run - queues are still popping within a few minutes like they always have. I think the "negative" or doomer viewpoint has been amplified more in DT than usual because there's a particular portion of the gamer population that tends to be more vocal on forums, reddit, etc., and they are most certainly not the intended audience for DT. But just because those voices are louder doesn't mean they're more numerous.

I'm glad you bring this up. There's quite a few people i know who feel like all the story they needed to see ended at end walker. Some feel shadow bringers, but played endwalker all the way through anyway. I'm the kind of fella who enjoys seeing where a story goes but people have other things to do with their time and money especially if the current expansion is considered lack luster by fans and a " vacation " by devs, if the next expansions are compelling and some will return , new people may spring about. All will be confused by the direction DT took and i'm interested to see those reactions