January 9, 2016 Active player census (and savage clear rates)

[Kaze3434]

So FF got around 200k "active" (lvl60) players world wide, i knew it was low but this low... wow

200k past 3.1 story. you are the third person to miss read that.
"To sum it up a bit :

Lucky Banchou added a new criteria for active players - 'having at least one mount' to not count bots.

With LB's criteria, there are approximately 770k active players, with around 200k have finished 3.1 storyline

Most worlds only have less than 2% A4S clear rate, with only 4 JP worlds having over 2%, and Chocobo standing all by itself with over 5%. In fact NA/EU do not have any world with over 1% rate. But remember, being Gobwalker ownership and not actual clear numbers, the numbers can and will be a bit higher."

[Yasuhiro]

NA always the lowest. lel.

[StrejdaTom]

Hmm, I didn't expect it to be so bad..
F2P in 1 year? (Yeah, Yoshi said they won't do F2P, but in other interview he said, he would do it if people really wanted it)

[Preypacer]

Hmm, I didn't expect it to be so bad..
F2P in 1 year? (Yeah, Yoshi said they won't do F2P, but in other interview he said, he would do it if people really wanted it)

Yeah, he's always said that if it seemed like the right thing to do for the game, that they would make the switch to F2P. He'd said that they kept it as Subs, at least in part, because that's the model they'd promised to release it as, and they wanted to keep that promise (I've no complaints there; I can't stand the Free 2 Pay More model, and all it entails, personally). Though I'd be lying if I said this game's design, and the way they have us acquire new gear, wasn't set up perfectly for a F2P system.

One of the many methods of getting people to spend in the cash shop is to make grinds in the game painfully tedious (we're already kinda there with some of the stuff in XIV, no?), and then sell things in the cash shop to make the grind faster/easier. So, were this applied to FFXIV, (folks, this is hypothetical, don't take it as being an actual example lol)... imagine you're doing the grind for Relic, and that drop rate is loooooow (it would likely be even lower in a F2P scenario). Well, you know, there's this item in the cash shop that will increase the drop rate by 200% or 400%, if you want to spend a little more. So, you can continue grinding it the s-l-o-w way, and not spend the money, meanwhile seeing people around you all getting their drops and moving on way faste... Or, you can drop $10 or $20 on he cash shop, and join them in getting your Relic weapon sooner rather than later. And it wouldn't technically be pay to win.... because you don't have to spend that money. You still have the option of getting it the slow way.

The above would be a very plausible scenario in a F2P FFXIV, and it's why - though they would consider it - I hope they never make that change.

Back on Topic...

~700k players is a nice number... but I'm glad it's out there. I always knew their "5 million players" marketing was BS; that they're using registered members, not active players. I just always wondered how far off it was. Many MMO devs use registered members, instead of active players, and I wish they didn't. It's really slimy and dishonest. It's fooled many people into believing (and arguing at length) that XIV's active playerbase rivals WoW's, which simply isn't true.

[Kai_Lee]

If a NA group was the first world clear of A4 savage, why is there a huge disparity between the NA and JP servers? Are Japanese players really that much better then American players? Are JP servers using some super secret strategy we don't know?

[RickXRolled]

If a NA group was the first world clear of A4 savage, why is there a huge disparity between the NA and JP servers? Are Japanese players really that much better then American players? Are JP servers using some super secret strategy we don't know?

They tend to feel more responsible and improve themselves before engaging in hard content. Most NA players rather blame anyone but themselves and can't be bothered to improve. This leads to the Japanese players having a larger pool of skilled players that can work together to overcome challenges.

[cgbspender]

You don't need to do savage to understand what's wong with people's mentality. Just have a run in the level 60 dungeons or even below.

[RickXRolled]

You don't need to do savage to understand what's wong with people's mentality. Just have a run in the level 60 dungeons or even below.

You are referring to "my 15$" ice maging 10s gcd netflix warriors, I assume?

[myahele]

I wonder if some of the jobs changes affected people decision to continue to sub or not?

Many didn't like the changes of BRD, BLM and DRGs on release.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I wonder if some of the jobs changes affected people decision to continue to sub or not?

Many didn't like the changes of BRD, BLM and DRGs on release.

I think there had to be other factors that was pushing them to quit. There can't be that many people quitting over just the job changes alone.