Another "they quit" thread

[Royze]

Disclaimer -This isn't a "I quit thread".

The rate at which people are quitting seems to be increasing. I've been saying the direction the dev team is taking XIV won't prove to be successful in the long run for a while. Just search for topics and threads I've posted in or started and you will see that.

But I didn't start this thread to toot my own horn, or tell the white knights "I told you so". I also didn't start this thread to start a debate or revisit the casual vs hardcore gamer endless argument.

Look to your community and please be honest with us and yourselves; aren't people dropping like flies?

My original 1.0 friends have all gone. They numbered somewhere between 20-25 people who started in 1.0 with me after making the switch from XI to XIV, and returned for 2.0.

We had the numbers to form an FC, so we did. Some of us formed a static coil group. We were successful and had coil down to farm status. Some others were also successful, but at least half were not. We quickly found ourselves in a situation where some of us were happy with farming coil and developing our characters together, while others felt left out. Incidently, there was literally nothing we could do for them other than guide them on TS and Vent while we watched them attempt coil and other content.

That didn't work out too well. Many of them just felt betrayed by our group's success. The situation devolved into hostility over time, and a sense of resentment towards us built. People we had known for as much as 10 years left our FC and decided to go at it on their own. They didn't last long with PUGs and within a month, unsubscribed.

Our FC, now broken, merged with another FC that were suffering from the same challenges. We tried to get people more involved this time round by mixing and matching strong and experienced players with those of us who were less skilled and with less wins under their belt.

The result was catastrophic. More resentment grew as the splitting of the static resulted in some of the members feeling less motivated to play. They logged on less, and felt that having to run others through coil and repeat the same painful learning experience was unfair. They argued for a return to the old group, and to let the weaker ones fend it out for themselves.

As leader I tried to talk 5 groups into reason, but while a person is reasonable and fair, people are generally selfish and irrational. The amount of personalities and different priorities in the mix resulted in a slow deterioration of friendships, and forming of new alliances and loyalties.

Fast forward 5 weeks, and all have unsubscribed but 3-4 members and 2 of them haven't logged in for 9 days as of this moment.

I'm in many Linkshells as well and see the same situation, more or less, being played out in other groups.

I scroll through my friend list sometimes to look for something to do and see a lot of "deleted" accounts, not knowing who it was, and where they went or why.

I played XI for many years. It was nice knowing people for many years and playing alongside with them. Maybe 64 man Dynamis was over the top, and maybe Absolute Virtue and Pandy Warden were too hard core. Maybe the exp grind was too long, and maybe the battles were a bit slow paced. But there was something there, and I'm certain it had something to do with the community.

I also played WoW for a few months and could never really get into it. There wasn't much difference between a PC and NPC; both were just names on the screen.

I'm not asserting anything here, just telling it like it is. Many of my friends have unsubscribed, and even more acquaintances.

I'd like to know if this will be the norm and the producers are happy with it, because if it is I just don't think I can invest any more time in it as it isn't living up to my expectations. That's not a threat, or an ultimatum. I'm no special snowflake, and the game will continue to prosper without me for sure. But I'm most definitely not happy with the current state of affairs.

[Elirion]

I'm seeing the strain placed on FCs because of the 8 man end game instances and weekly lockouts. If you don't have an exact multiple of 8 then people get left out each week. My FC's leaders have tried different strats to fix this but I'm not sure it's fixable under the current system. People always get left out. PUGing turn 5 is just an exercise in frustration and not really an option unless you are able to spend all week hopping from PUG to PUG until you get a win. This system is getting frustrating.

[AmyNeudaiz]

Unfortunately these are the growing pains of an MMO. I for one want to stick with it because I still have a core of friends to play with, but the best message you can send is not giving them your money if you are unhappy with the game at the moment.

[Noahlimits]

the TLDR: I'm basing experiences I had with 2 FC's and a few LS's/IRL friends to declare that the game is dropping users like flies without any real evidence.

[Mixxy]

The Siren server seems to be rapidly growing, to be honest. Which actually makes me sad, because I specifically came here to be on a small server...

[alhandra]

the TLDR: I'm basing experiences I had with 2 FC's and a few LS's/IRL friends to declare that the game is dropping users like flies without any real evidence.

i can sympathize with the OP, ive been in a couple of FC and a few active LS's and what he is saying holds true to my experience.

[Noahlimits]

i can sympathize with the OP, ive been in a couple of FC and a few active LS's and what he is saying holds true to my experience.

While I'm not taking your experience away from you, many people I know and myself have had the complete opposite. I've had 15+ IRL friends join the game from a small starting base of 3, but I'm not saying that the game is 'thriving like never before!' since I don't have anything to back it up yet (until the next wave of numbers SE releases). My only point is that you shouldn't say that people are dropping like flies without any proof. It just makes the OP sound like the -special snowflake- title that you really don't want to have.

[Moheeheeko]

Legacy problems.

[Fendred]

I can sympathize. The same thing is happening in my FC to some degree.

The developers have accomplished their objective with catching up to Western MMORPG standards. However, their goal was never to surpass them, at least not in the initial release of the game. There are signs that they are noticing the issues within the game, as can be seen by several different kinds of lockout mechanisms, including a passive lockout in terms of the extreme primal fights. However, the primary reason for lockouts, that is to keep the community on similar footing in terms of progress, simply does not work. We know this from years of MMORPG experience which tells us that those who spend more time on the game will always be in a different world from those who have hefty time constraints.

The real challenge facing current designers of MMOGs is creating an end game that justifies a subscription fee and allows the people living in different worlds to play together with a positive atmosphere. Creating encounters where players can effectively choose how difficult the encounter will be is the key to doing that, as can be demonstrated by games in other genres like Skyrim, Terraria/Minecraft, and The Sims. I use the term encounter loosely to define any kind of challenge the player can be faced with, and I'm not saying that hard boss fights can't exist, but that the focus of end game shouldn't be boss fights. A game can't unify players with less experience and those with more experience when progress in the game can be determined objectively with numbers and statistics.

[Zumi]

We had the numbers to form an FC, so we did. Some of us formed a static coil group. We were successful and had coil down to farm status. Some others were also successful, but at least half were not. We quickly found ourselves in a situation where some of us were happy with farming coil and developing our characters together, while others felt left out. Incidently, there was literally nothing we could do for them other than guide them on TS and Vent while we watched them attempt coil and other content.

If you have 1 successful group and have it on farm status you can cycle in the people who are having problems with it each week and take different people in your FC until you cleared it with everyone. The you go problem solved.