Another "they quit" thread

[Kuwagami]

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

Nope. All the people I've played with since november are still here, at the exception of one person in internship and one waiting for 2.2 to renew his sub (his sub went off 2 weeks ago while he had only T5 and titan Ex yet to beat).

Marketing strategies just work so well on people. It's 1.8million copies sold, not active subscriptions. Please do not spread false information. There was a recent interview between SE and 4gamers on another thread here. Please read that. Yoshida was also hesitant to announce the figures until the china servers were up. Of course, it would inflate the numbers so it appears to be doing so well.

Actually, it's 1.8 million subscriptions, with over 6 millions characters. And around 500k players loging in every day (not necessarily the same ones every day though)

[Athol]

I'm far from bored with this game but I don't really burn thru content like most mmo players and I don't rush to end game. I have 100 leve allowances so that should give evidence as to how slow I level lol. They should add cosmetic rare skin drops to dungeons and stuff like that. It would give people more to grind for. Keep the highest ilevel for the raiders and crafters and give the casuals cosmetic grind. I would love to see zone wide fates.

[Goodberry]

Queues for dungeons (either random orspecific) here are practically instant, like in WoW.
Some months ago I was playing a good-ish game which has gone free to play and one of the reason I stopped playing it was that there was no way to enter a dungeon. I mean, two hours in queue and still nothing. Of course, the forum there is not doom and glom like here but full of "fanboys" and "white knights".
So I'll start worrying when queues get longer, and fewer people post on how this game is horrible and Final Fantasy 11/Final Fantasy 14 1.0/EQ1/EQ2/Ultima Online/GW2/ESO/Wildstar/EQNext/Archeage/Whatever was/is/will be so much better. :P

[Amberion]

Actually, it's 1.8 million subscriptions, with over 6 millions characters. And around 500k players loging in every day (not necessarily the same ones every day though)

No, it was accounts made.

[Xayoc]

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.

2.2 is the first progression content patch for this game and I don't count ex primals as those were cleared by top tier FCs within 12 hours. Right now my FC is double clearing coil every week, half alts half mains. I can tell you now a lot of people "leaving" are going on hiatus until 2.2 launches and you are going to see a throng of people coming back for the new content. For the people leaving because this game isn't the grind fest 1.0 and FFXI were, good riddance imo, those games are thankfully long gone.

[randomrope]

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

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.

I think the main problem here is that they don't really have a reason to heed the words of a random forum poster. Maybe if you could give them a portfolio of all of the successful games you have produced or been a part of, or maybe purchase majority stock in the company, or maybe work your way up the corporate ladder you might have a chance. Who knows.

[Vensaval]

For the people leaving because this game isn't the grind fest 1.0 and FFXI were, good riddance imo, those games are thankfully long gone.

Except for the fact that XI is still alive and kicking. Just wanted to point that out.

[elreed]

Legacy problems.

I think that's the main problem, they gave us the chance to keep our class/job levels, so what happens? since open beta we started doing the new content and because of our level we were able to clear lots of content in a single week after release, if they wiped our levels but left us with our items I think most of us legacies would still have a lot to do in the game, maxing all our classes to equip our former items.

The leveling is too fast, the content is very linear, you can get a class to 50 in days and the current endgame content is not enough to keep us busy, even with all those lockouts, the only thing they succeed with this is frustrate people...

[Kosmos992k]

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.

I agree with you, but sadly it doesn't always work. In my FC - which I lead - I suggested that the static groups that had cleared all the primals and were working towards the Coil could help others if they needed it. To be honest, the response that greeted me would have been more suitable if I'd simply hurled offensive insults at them instead of making a polite request. The cliques formed by the emphasis on learning via many retries with a static group are utterly antisocial and toxic to the health of a Free Company and the community in general. As it is, many smaller Free Companies are left with no viable groups to play with, unfortunately I believe that they may lose players and disband.

That's not happening with my company, I simply won't let it, and am stubborn enough to weather such a storm if it comes. However, not everyone is like that. The very heavy need to form static groups of 8 hurts Free Companies and Link Shells, they become fragmented. Turning to Duty Finder simply takes the people left out of the static groups and puts them with strangers, further distancing those players from their 'friends' in the statics. That too is pretty much a cancer to Free companies.

That said, I don't believe that the majority of players are leaving, though the player community is fragmenting. I would agree that we are losing some of the population of the 5% that have done everything and put turn 5 on farm, and if so, I honestly don't see it as a bad thing. I've never been treated in a more condescending manner than by players among that '5%'. If they got bored, it's their own fault for being so damned selfish and anti-social.

[Kosmos992k]

2.2 is the first progression content patch for this game and I don't count ex primals as those were cleared by top tier FCs within 12 hours. Right now my FC is double clearing coil every week, half alts half mains.

Not everyone measures progress in the same manner. I am often reminded of a line from "It's a wonderful life"...

"Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."

This is an MMORPG, what happened to the social and community aspect? Where is the working together? Why is everything a race to get the best gear, and then NOT help others because then they would have it too?