Another "they quit" thread

[Amberion]

The industry has no room anymore for a couple of guys with a love for gaming churning out the amazing experience that was early Everquest.

I think this has to do more with investors then developers. Investors only see numbers, and when they compare WoW to anything else, they think that must be the working formula. They just don't see that the chance of that happening again, is like being struck by lightning... and a meteor... at the same time.

[Derceto]

I think this has to do more with investors then developers. Investors only see numbers, and when they compare WoW to anything else, they think that must be the working formula. They just don't see that the chance of that happening again, is like being struck by lightning... and a meteor... at the same time.

I'm inclined to agree with your post here. This is entirely speculation but...... I think investors are the key behind the decline in mmo's due to WoW's success myself. Yoshida was, and still is, under pressure to deliver an economically viable game. This is his take on it, likely with suits breathing down his neck. I'm not a big fan of it myself, but.... it is what it is.

In any case, I would love to ask these investors for which other game has succeeded with WoW's formula, aside from WoW itself. The answer is rather "ovular". lol This is not FF. It's WoW with FF character models. A good part of the reason why the community is so torn. Loses it's appeal rather quick when playing mechanics you've already been playing for 12 or so years to date. Great for new to the genre players, bad for anyone who's been in mmo's for a few years.

[Elkya95]

I'm almost glad FFXIV is my first MMO, but as someone mentioned earlier it is kinda an 8-man multiplayer game... Our static has 9 people, 8 of them are real life friends(yeah I feel like dead weight sometimes), gets old planning out who's sitting out each turn in coil then always having someone stay out in t5 progression... considered finding a new static so the others can go at their own pace since half isn't giving their all in t5 attempts and half of us have cleared Titan ex, the rest hates him too much to care when we do it. We had to make a different primal static.

But still I don't see people dropping like flies either, Mor Dhona is packed every day and I know the starting areas are too. Sure more people on Mondays, but not so much that it's concerning and I think the game is ending really...

[Sadana]

From what I have seen personally, groups that have people getting fed up and leaving are ONLY those who focus on "statics", "world/server first or early clear", and "must have this on farm". My FC is holding pretty steady numbers-wise. If someone leaves server or unsubs, I get someone new to replace them (new to the FC not always new to the game). I have one member in the FC that won't participate in anything with the rest of us because we don't have a static and don't have coil or EX primals on farm. To be honest, his attitude sucks. The rest of us are just happy to try new things (or old content) with new people to see if we can't get everyone familiar with all the fights. It's a game, we're just here to have fun. ^_^

Oh! And if you want to know where all the threads of "I just started this game" are, go check the New Player Help board.

[Tiggy]

I'm really sorry to hear that this has been your experience. Personally mine has been the exact opposite. We are organically growing each week and we have more active players at the same time. It's all about trying to build a community within your free company. Our goal was never progression, but just to hang out and have fun. Some of us progress and others don't and for the most party this seems to work out. I understand though that I may be in the exception and not the rule.\

P.S. Also in the last few weeks and the coming weeks a whole bunch of new games will be coming out. This probably isn't helping.

[LalaRu]

Personally, when the quitting players are those who calls "successful" who goes to coil farm stage, and "failure" all others, I'm just happy and makes me want subs for another five years in a row.

[Eekiki]

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

No.

/thread

[Ehayte]

There will be a lot of player churn at the beginning of any MMO, especially one that has a relatively short grind to 50, and relatively limited content post 50. I mean, don't get me wrong, if you go through end-game at a pretty normal pace, it will take A LOT of your time, but at the same time its pretty easy to shortcut through a lot of it and easy-mode your way to the upper echelons of the game.

That being said, I still very much like this game. I'm currently working on T5, and got my first X mode primal weap this week. My static isn't the greatest, but I enjoy hanging with them. I think I've left one linkshell (Hard Mode Group find, lol), and I've had to delete 5, count 'em 5, people from my friends list (out of roughly 150). I think what you will see is FFXI, EQ1, Ultima Online, etc type of people will eventually get disenchanted with this game if they are looking for a replication of that experience. The 54 man raids of EQ and the 60+ man raids of FFXI are NEVER going to be present in this game (IMO). It will be up to players to play together. For instance, my FC does 1 night a week outside of our single Coil group where we do Ultima, farm crafting mats, grind myth, get Titan HM kills for people's alt relics, etc. Probably 1/2 the static members show up and some other people from the FC get to have some structured fun : D

The 8-man clique thing . . . I kind of have similar problems in my FC. Not that the 8 regulars in the coil static are the best of friends and only group with each other, but that the members who couldn't commit to our times or joined late or didn't have their Relic are feeling left out. However, its mainly the people that are unwilling to PUG to gain experience, and the people who sit around crafting all day, not working towards X primal accessories or working on other jobs to be more diverse raiders. Not that that is what you HAVE to do to have fun in this game, but it certainly facilitates the likelihood you will become a raider.

I actually do come from 12 years (on and off, probably 7 years of playing on a weekly basis) of Everquest, played from the 2nd expansion to the...12th? Then led a progression raiding group on a time-locked progression server in the 9 months proceeding me leaving that game for FFXIV. I quickly realized FFXIV was NOT Everquest, and I would not get the same sense of being lost in a giant world I could never hope to fully understand or explore.

My opinion is that, given some time, a nice group of people will eventually settle in and call FFXIV home for a while. The people who are really looking for an open world endless possibility game from FFXIV will eventually realize that it won't happen, or that they can unsub for a few months while they wait for another massive plate of content to devour, and we'll get waves of population at each patch and expansion. I'd predict at about 12 months you will have a friends list that you can expect not to dissipate quickly, unless SE introduces a Competitive Eater class or something.

I know its sad for someone who had 20-50 friends from 1.0 or FFXI to see people leave, but just ask them where they are going, plenty of people will stay here to keep this game alive, go where you will have fun again - it will be a win-win for everybody!

TL;DR: If your friends list is full of people that loved FFXI or EQ1, they are probably going to leave to go play a game like that. FFXIV is not a game like that.

[ExKage]

Personally I started to play FFXIV because all of my friends were playing it. The player lockouts made it pretty hard to enjoy T1-5 and even Extreme primals with them. They are all much better geared than my main and so the only time I ever did coil with the actual group from my FC is when the 'static' couldn't get a good time set for most of them to do it together. It leaves a player feeling a little like they are just mere left-overs "oh we need a dps slot... eh close enough we can take that one with us for today." The amount of active members in the FC is so small that it can only support 1 static with just a one off or two to rotate when absolutely needed. I've basically pugged coil for the 4 weeks I've been geared for T1-2 (perhaps T4). The player lockouts are only a game mechanic but it sorta reinforces the idea within certain peoples' mindset that "we need to do this with this group and until 2.2 comes out we won't be helping our lesser geared friends to gain experience in coil, they'll just have to pug it"

I joined the Free Company that I am in because I wanted to be with my friends and enjoy the content with them which is sometimes hard to deal with when you're the one going off to pug it. Even once 2.2 comes out, who is to say that those people won't have moved on to trying T6-9 and forgetting about T1-5 and not working that out with their friends either? But the main problem is peoples' attitudes about working with and around the game mechanic than the mechanic itself.

[Ehayte]

...certain peoples' mindset that "we need to do this with this group and until 2.2 comes out we won't be helping our lesser geared friends to gain experience in coil, they'll just have to pug it"

That attitude is what I am dealing with right now and it is grossly unfair to the people in your FC's static group. They probably worked really hard to get Coil on farm like they have it now, what do you want, for your FC's BLM to say, "You know what? I've worked hard and paid my dues, but I'm going to let someone else have the fun, loot, and tomes I've earned for this week." I mean, I could see someone doing that once in a great while, while feeling extra-charitable one evening, but you have to understand that strats get tailor specifically to groups, work is put into those strats and those players, and people want to get out what they put in. Getting a chance at 4 loots from T4/T5 is not a just reward for having figured out how to beat it with your group.

What I am trying to encourage my people in a similar situation to do is to make friends while pugging, generate some interest in your own FC, take the bull by the horns and help your FC leaders get another static going! I know its rough and it seems like they are shutting you out because they are selfish/elitist, but its like of like going to college or vocational school - they worked to get their Coil Farm degree, and it would be extremely silly for them to not put that degree to work to pay them a loot-salary.