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

[RiceisNice]

Taken from reddit

Active players by server

Overall Active players based on MSQ progression

Players possessing gobwalker mount



A new criteria for active players is possessing a chocobo mount in order to remove bots.

That <200k finish on 3.1's story though.

[Colorful]

Those Savage clear rates are incredibly low, it's no wonder they're nerfing Savage to Coil difficulty. I'm surprised so few people reach max level too, only 5,000 level 60s give or take on popular servers.

[ChalupaBatman]

Well i know I for one have not done the 3.1 story, but play more hours than i would like to admit

[Zojha]

Well i know I for one have not done the 3.1 story, but play more hours than i would like to admit

Heh, same. Read a few spoilers, went "meh" and didn't bother. Nobody stays dead these days...

[Twilite]

Heh, same. Read a few spoilers, went "meh" and didn't bother. Nobody stays dead these days...

That particular spoiler which was dropped in a thread title here also discouraged me from continuing the story.

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.

..And I recall saying that this something nobody here should want, and especially if some of you have no REAL experience with the model at all. It's not going to work the way you think it will and it will benefit mostly those with lots of cash to throw away..

The fact that they are pushing the Mogstation is worrying me.

I maybe an intolerable cynical poster around here, but you all better listen and not ask for this.

[Alahra]

Anyone have a link to similar previous data (say for the 3.0 MSQ) before 3.1 came out? I'm curious about comparing them. That 200k is rather low, but not particularly surprising given the game's current state.

[Reinha]

Anyone have a link to similar previous data (say for the 3.0 MSQ) before 3.1 came out? I'm curious about comparing them. That 200k is rather low, but not particularly surprising given the game's current state.

"With LB's criteria, there are approximately 770k active players, with around 200k have finished 3.1 storyline" The game is quite heavy on the leveling side according to those numbers.

The second most recent census which I found (8 months ago) had a very similar number of active players:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

"733,267 have met the above criterion" (actively playing)

It seems like the game has a stable amount of active players if you look at all levels, slowly rising in fact.

For 3.0, the only thing I could find was this:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...e8ff1bcf34c5ae

251,718 had completed AN1 in September. Not sure if this matches the criteria of an active player on the unofficial census though. If it does, it means that 50k or 20% of active max level players have become inactive while the total number of active players is roughly the same as before. Newbies seem to replace the capped player losses.

[Alahra]

"733,267 have met the above criterion" (actively playing)

Thanks! That's what I was curious about. It seems the game is actually staying somewhat stable. That survey from April was during the relatively content-lite period prior to the release of HW, which adds some context to the current numbers as well, since HW has also had a bit of a content drought so far.

Newbies seem to replace the capped player losses.

Part of me suspected this was happening to a degree based on the steady trickle of newer players I'm seeing on my server, but I couldn't really verify it.

That ~200k that had finished A1 in September also roughly tracks to the ~200k that have finished the 3.1 MSQ. I'd imagine there's significant overlap in the two—those interested in finishing the story are also most likely to engage with newer content, I would think.

So while the game doesn't seem to have any major subscription bleed, it's likely that it saw a population influx at the beginning of HW, and then settled back down to its pre-HW numbers, probably due to lack of content/burnout.

[Reinha]

Part of me suspected this was happening to a degree based on the steady trickle of newer players I'm seeing on my server, but I couldn't really verify it.

That ~200k that had finished A1 in September also roughly tracks to the ~200k that have finished the 3.1 MSQ. I'd imagine there's significant overlap in the two—those interested in finishing the story are also most likely to engage with newer content, I would think.

So while the game doesn't seem to have any major subscription bleed, it's likely that it saw a population influx at the beginning of HW, and then settled back down to its pre-HW numbers, probably due to lack of content/burnout.

I agree with you on all points. There's a steady trickle of new players in my fc as well, and at the same time a few older players have unsubbed for reasons unknown to me. The fc seems about as active as before Heavensward but with some new faces in the mix. Not entirely sure how the raiding is going compared to before but it's probably in line with the overall clear rates of Alex savage compared to coil.

[Keiko_Kumiko]

[QUOTE=Reinha;3522340]"With LB's criteria, there are approximately 770k active players, with around 200k have finished 3.1 storyline" The game is quite heavy on the leveling side according to those numbers.

The second most recent census which I found (8 months ago) had a very similar number of active players:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

"733,267 have met the above criterion" (actively playing)

Wow, that's about 10.7 million Dollars income out of 1 game's monthly fee only. That's...kind of lucrative. :/