I guess it's time

[RobbieH]

Those numbers have nothing to do with active subscribers/players.

You were the one who linked it, if those numbers have nothing to do with active players why did you post it, facepalm.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...s_time/d2bkr37

These are the numbers, if you believe them or not doesn't make a difference.

If you look back to last year, you'll find similar numbers of people who'd completed the 2.x storyline going into Heavensward.

The decline from 3.0 til now was far bigger than the decline from 2.0 to 2.55

An active player can simply be a sprout which never gets to complete the story because he got bored, can even be a bot or just people who get hyped and come back but quit rather than completing content.

Accept it if you will, the player base of this game is very low.

As for population numbers even worse, population include alts, so no point going that way.

[Zojha]

An active player can simply be a sprout which never gets to complete the story because he got bored, can even be a bot or just people who get hyped and come back but quit rather than completing content.

More precisely: Critera same as the last time, must be above level 21. Any changes to HP/mount/minion/gear counts character as active.
From an older survey of the same person: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

If anyone can speak japanese, feel free to compare other numbers o.o

[KitingGenbu]

More precisely: Critera same as the last time, must be above level 21. Any changes to HP/mount/minion/gear counts character as active.
From an older survey of the same person: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

If anyone can speak japanese, feel free to compare other numbers o.o

Funny enough that 21+ can't work anymore since the trial period lets you level up to 35 now doesn't it?

Anyway, this is going way off the point that many people are trying to make I believe, which is they want the dev team to make SOME changes to their formula since its not retaining a lot of interest for SOME people. Personally, I'd like more QoL adjustments to make the game actually less awkward, like an actual raid party instead of this 3 8 man thing tethered together. I'll at least say FFXI does this better since they allowed players to swap parties within the area they were and alliances could be formed anywhere, not just for a specific thing (funny how 90% of mmos allow you form raids wherever you want too...). Fixing the skill speed stat since its pretty much a negative stat. Set bonuses since they are actually in the game to some degree under the FC armor/weapons. Letting us talk to npcs without the dismounting. I know they are making baby steps but some of these things are a bit amateurish imo and not greed related.

[RLofOBFL]

You're highly misunderstanding me...that's the only source we have, I am aware the population is probably half of what it was now including alts.

The majority doesn't think of ways to change the game, they just play, they come & they go. You're highly over estimating how many people are in support of major changes. This game is a success as it is & Yoshi "isn't changing the formula for the foreseeable future" bc it works well enough for them to profit of it. Of the 800 posts here, nearly all of them are the same 20-30ish people agreeing with each other which makes you FEEL like you've got a strong base until it comes showtime & you have 4 people against a 24 man raid. And only end game players will even have strong opinions in the first place which is already less than half the population.


The majority is accidentally ignorant & I'm sure don't even realize they have the power to change things, but at what point is it so much change that it's like you want an entirely new game. People want longevity then proceed to list FF11 elements, like okay sounds like you want FF11 with 14's graphics & story? Or what? You need to take what we already have & build on to it if you want to give meaningful suggestions.


The EU thread is the majority & minority, you can safely say this bc it's free(exploit) glamour that finally is accessible, who doesn't want that? Yet this thread is about change & being fed up, yet can't garner more views in 3 weeks than EU(who has the smallest player base) can get in 1 day, bc you're not as big as you think you are. That is the reality of it, I'm sorry if you can't see that, you can stay angry forever & liken the whole system to XI instead of just trying to change things realistically one thing at a time.


It's not like they'll suddenly overhaul everything & recreate a system from the ground up. According to them, it takes a year to balance a job with the simplistic stats we have now, imagine how long it would take to balance every job to a whole new horizontal system. It's not as easy as you make it sound with a forum post. /endrant

[Thayos]

You were the one who linked it, if those numbers have nothing to do with active players why did you post it, facepalm.

Nobody was talking about storyline completion rates until dude brought it up a few posts ago for unknown reasons.

The rest of us are only talking about active players. And that spreadsheet has a column with active players on each server. Add them all up, and you get the total estimated active playerbase.

The decline from 3.0 til now was far bigger than the decline from 2.0 to 2.55

I am pointing out that a year ago, we were all shocked and surprised that so few people had completed the 2.x storyline heading into Heavensward. It was a wake-up call that not everyone cares about pushing through the content -- some people just log in and do whatever.

I don't think too much about how big the playerbase is. Hyperion has a very healthy population, and server pops elsewhere don't affect that.

But if forced to choose, I'll always prefer data over guessing.

EDITED to make this less adversarial, because the person I was responding to probably didn't realize active players were listed on the spreadsheet.

[Thayos]

Thanks for posting that, Zojha.

Wow, look at that. Everything I said was totally correct!

And that's why I prefer actual data rather than guessing. I enjoy being right.

[RobbieH]

More precisely: Critera same as the last time, must be above level 21. Any changes to HP/mount/minion/gear counts character as active.
From an older survey of the same person: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

If anyone can speak japanese, feel free to compare other numbers o.o

Even at level 21 is still not accurate, even if it was lvl49 or 59 is not accurate, people can get there and quit, those active numbers don't represent much simply because people can quit, meaning those players might have been active for X amount of time and then quit for good, meanwhile people who cleared story are proof they kept active.

Also, there's bots of lvl50 and lvl60, so again lvl21 limit doesn't mean anything.

Thanks for posting that, Zojha.

Wow, look at that. Everything I said was totally correct!

And that's why I prefer actual data rather than guessing. I enjoy being right.

You're not right, read my post above.

The reddit link says that it doesn't include any players under level 20, so some weeding out has been done, & it is April 20th which was 2 full months after 3.2 dropped.

Again I'm aware the playerbase isn't huge as they try to lead on but it is bigger than you give it credit for & is the second highest subbed paid mmo behind WoW according to the internetz. If it didn't have a good playerbase then why is Yoshi okay with never changing? Clearly it's making them money the way they do it now.

Bots lvl50 and 60, never seen them? I'm sure you have, do you really think gold spammers make gil just out of low lvl bots? I could farm low level mobs and make no gil, they're leveling them up. -.-

[Zojha]

Wow, look at that. Everything I said was totally correct!

Not quite: It's still active "characters", not players. Alts are counted, if they had a change in gear/mounts etc. Of course, legitimate new players that stick aren't counted as well, if they're below 20. Who knows if it evens out?

Overall, it doesn't seem too much has changed. I find the disconnect between 800k clear for 2.0 and 200k clear for 2.5 a tad large and it puts the ~300k for 3.0 and up into perspective.

Now...I am kinda curious how it looks for other subscription based MMOs. But those aren't exactly common and rather stingy with data...

[RLofOBFL]

Now...I am kinda curious how it looks for other subscription based MMOs. But those aren't exactly common and rather stingy with data...

I know it isn't active but with 5 million life time subs in 3 years, FF14 is the second most subbed paid mmo.

[zosia]

I know it isn't active but with 5 million life time subs in 3 years, FF14 is the second most subbed paid mmo.

It's second because there is no good competition. If you actually look at what second means and contrast it to the first most subbed MMO, FFXIV success has been rather poor. Wow Averaged somewhere around 100 million + registered accounts over 11 years. That's a little under 5 million new registered users per year of the game's existence.

This game has had 5 million over subs since launch in 2010. It's 2016 now and that means this game gains new registered accounts at a rate of little under 1 million per year.

By the best comparison we have, This game is barely 1/5th as successful as wow at obtaining new registered accounts. This game has a problem retaining players. That 'second place spot' you pointed out is a very poor second place.

You can keep telling yourself that this game is just fine, just wait until the expansion when there are noticeably less players returning. Every content patch is full of cheap hooks and people begun wising up.

Legion is going to decimate this game and I cannot wait!