Loosing players after update?

[Gerolan]

Sad to say that even though I'm only in a small fc of 12 people, all of us have now stopped playing xiv, with only two of us logging on once a day for gardening. Which once their grown, we will both stop too.
It's a shame that a game who's company asked us to trust they can make reborn work, have bought shame on to their brand by repeatedly slamming down the player base and ignoring anything that isn't high praise.

[Shougun]

I come from xi as well. And while i didnt expect the same game at all, what i stumbled on seems like a dissapointment for a FF game.

We pay subs but this feels more like a f2p game with all the vanity. It has FF aesthetics but it doesnt feel very FF when you play it.

I always played the FF games because of the wide variety of jobs and all the fun and diversity they provided.

XIV calls its classes and jobs after originals from the other games but they dont really feel like it when you play them...

Maybe they should stop trying to be WoW and try to be more FF, after all, the title is FF

If you could choose a number of things to change some being conservative and a few being all get out expensive, what would start your list to make the game feel more like a FF game?

I'm curious what would restore your FF feel the most.

Perhaps not for FF feel but some things I've always wanted:

I would like to work with the overworld (terrain/quest script) and music team for a bit of my desires, I think both are doing really great and my memories of FF games have a lot to do with the sounds and locations, quirks, the journey. I might see small changes made like different chocobo pathings to be more exciting and a better network, more FATEs with unique circumstance feeling more like a quest less like a leve (remember the WoW abomination quest*, relating to that also a few more unique chains) FATEs music not starting until you start the FATE, trying to ensure that the sound of the environment isn't too disjointed (a lot of interruptions doesn't let the soul of the area shine, imo), giving monsters their sight, sound, true sight, magic, and ect detection, making them have behaviors like was done in XI/1.0, things to find not made obvious like the riddle quest, removing invisible barriers**, less teleporting more natural travel***, bunch of little stuff and in the end I know that it would only meet tastes similar to mine. . Hard to be dev but don't stop giving feedback :P (just include examples of what you want too).

*There was a quest in vanilla WoW where you would start collecting random items that were like liver, intestine, and other meaty things. At the end of the fairly long quest chain you helped create an abomination for a bad guy who sends it against a town (Alliance), and you have to stop it. Other quest in WoW where you actually do an evil dead against your main city and get negative reputation and you have to redeem yourself. These were vanilla things, WoW actually has a lot of quirky quests since then too (some too quirky imo lol). A few someone made a wiki out of lol.

**Anywhere that isn't stopping you from going off the map imo (so when they/if add swimming, take out the walls make sure there are a few ramps and call it done deal).

*** I'm not saying wait 15 mins here, 5 mins there, 50 mins to get to your destination. You can have natural fast travel - riding the boat for 30 seconds to get to an island in WoW was neat (of course it was also open world, but still neat). When going from Aleport to Umbral island, that should be a boat ride imo (a fast one, but a ride). Also not saying "no" teleporting, just less.

^^^
Above is not my only concerns or even primary, just encouragement for you to list some changes and the above being one of the things that kept me going in other MMOs even if I didn't like some larger blaring feature (bunch of little things making the "soul" of the game (soul being an imo ofc)).

[Roris]

I think subs are just evening out, just like all WoW clones cut from the same cloth like ARR is. Active subs will most likely hover around the 500k mark and go lower or maybe higher at times, regardless of how many accounts and "adventurers" there are.

Thing is most MMOs don't need millions of subscribers to stay afloat, just look at XI with their lower than 500k subscribers still getting substantial updates every month, not just every 3 months and their monthly patches have more content than ARR's somewhat monthly 2.x5 and 2.x8 patches. Legacy servers will obviously always be the most populated, because of the people playing on them since 1.0. Most people will have an attachment to their characters and the game by now and will stay around for a long while.

That core group of loyal players is what drives pretty much every MMO regardless of their age, financial model and server populations, and of course you also have the usual minor band of apologists who'll defend anything and even if a game suddenly started charging $1 per dungeon run they will call you entitled for not wanting to pay.

Whether this inevitable drop in players will be good or bad for the game will depend on how they handle it. XI has been doing great adding and tweaking a lot of features and content to what a couple of people around here would otherwise call a dead game, even Everquest is getting its 21st expansion soon. There have been very few MMOs that have completely disappeared and failed, so it's very likely ARR will still be around even with a huge drop in subscribers, for better or for worse.

[Obysuca]

just look at XI with their lower than 500k subscribers still getting substantial updates every month, not just every 3 months and their monthly patches have more content than ARR's

Not to mention XI's content stays relevant for far longer, which is a good thing. Unlike XIV how once the next update is out, the previous content is obsolete and dead. It doesn't help that SE seems to focus on vanity content on XIV, rather than real content :/

Oh and No FC members for me considering I only got a two person one. :P

Well, your post wasn't bad :P Unlike most people who jump into topics and skip over what most people say, sometimes changing it, then going "You're wrong! Quit assuming stuff! Waah Waah Waah!" etc lol And my FC is down to only two of us too :/ We used to be a decent size one but the last few months have dropped us down to only 2-3 on

[Lillia]

@Roris; I wanna hug you after reading that comment... :<

[Alurwen]

If SE doesn't get their head outta their asses and start listening to the players regarding idiotic FATE grinds, atma drop rate and the general state of end game they're going to keep loosing subscriptions to the point that F2P will have to be an option simply for economic reasons. One end game raid (No, ST doesn't count) with progression lockout as the ONLY option is ludicrous.

I love this game and want it to thrive but I just don't get the feeling that the community is liking the general path that is developing concerning game "features". And SE's response of "oh well live with it" is very discouraging.

[Anatha]

No change on Gilgamesh, it's as busy as ever, still has queues during peak.

[scarletfoxxy]

The biggest issue is the fact there is no lasting social aspect of the game. They have made it next to pointless to join an FC and most people only join FC's for their friends they know or the raiding opportunities. They need a more lasting social aspect within the FCs that keep players engaged in more then just the content offered. A lot of people log on just to kick it with their online family and the FCs are being torn apart with these new patches. If the had FUN card games or swimming pools or items that actually allow you to interact as a group, people would have more of a reason to stick around. People are naturally social beings and having an online life to attend to could only help the situation. You'd be surprised how much fun you'd have enjoying the company of others instead of hating the company of others because of raids.

[StrejdaTom]

Stuff

Something like was in GW 2 would be nice. Some FC challenges, FC jumping puzzles and labyrinths etc..

[Empressia]

Something like was in GW 2 would be nice. Some FC challenges, FC jumping puzzles and labyrinths etc..

Nah ff14 jump animation is sluggish and isn't fluid enough for gw2 JP