Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Kosmos992k]

Just realize that it's a shallow barrel to begin with. Raiding's just not as attractive here as it is in other games which employ other methods of endgame sucessfully as well as a wider difficulty span.

Well regardless of the issues with raid difficulty in FFXIV (Yes we need a middle tier), I think the issue goes beyond that, and I've felt that this would become a problem since the early days of coil. Raiding itself is in decline, in addition to the issues posed by the difficulty problem. The very nature of having a static that must hold together in order to manage lockouts and learn the synchronized swimming that raiding in FFXIV has become creates problems for the community; people without a group are disenfranchized, people with a group leave because of differneces or schedule problems. Life impacts all these things and the result is that statics will break down over time. But because Static teams create an insular community of players who can complete end-game and raid content - because they have a static - it becomes ever harder for new players to break into raiding. The legion of inter-personal conflicts and similar issues raised by Static groups crossing FC boundaries or multiple link shells should not be ignored either.

Additionally there is a pronounced gear gap emerging between active end-game players and everyone else which makes it harder still for players to join the raiding community. Fundamentally though, the modern gamer does not have the time, or a stable enough life schedule to comit to certain blocks of time for raiding. Life itself gets in the way. Throw in the issues with RNG on gear drops, weekly lockouts and so forth, and you have a lot of factors all contributing toa decline in raiding.

The completion numbers for Alex tend to back this up. Many of these factors impact raiding in other games too. Raiding is out of fashion, it's an old fashioned game mechanic that relies on forced grouping and forced schedules.

As far as a sense of community. There needs to be a more-or less unifying interest in a server to make one feel like a thriving community. There is this idea among older players that the game itself must be responsible for bringing the community together which I disagree with. While SE can provide the tools, it is really up to the player base to make use of those tools to bring people together.

The community cannot simply pull itself up by the boot straps, the issues outlined above are not unique to FFXIV, and didn't really talk about community much. I do agree that the community can help, but as long as raiding requires a style of play that conflicts with lives and creates insular groups, raiding will remain a narrow sliver of the game.

Raids need at least one more difficulty tier, as well as some light party raid content to encourage smaller groups which form moreeasily and informally to complete raid level content, The game needs to facilitate easier grouping and break down the rigid formal lines of the static groups, into a more dynamic system of grouping, not quiteparty finder, more like allowing players to participate in multiple statics. The changes to loot since coild look like they should help, but the loot/drops - especially gear - should be equally rewarding for all those in the team.

Beyond that, the encounters need to be more fun, and the community needs to be less uptight annd more tolerant to imperfect players. Even if all these things were fixed, I think it may be time to recognize that raiding may be past it's prime in general

[zosia]

Well regardless of the issues with raid difficulty in FFXIV (Yes we need a middle tier), I think the issue goes beyond that, and I've felt that this would become a problem since the early days of coil. Raiding itself is in decline, in addition to the issues posed by the difficulty problem. The very nature of having a static that must hold together in order to manage lockouts and learn the synchronized swimming that raiding in FFXIV has become creates problems for the community; people without a group are disenfranchized, people with a group leave because of differneces or schedule problems. Life impacts all these things and the result is that statics will break down over time. But because Static teams create an insular community of players who can complete end-game and raid content - because they have a static - it becomes ever harder for new players to break into raiding. The legion of inter-personal conflicts and similar issues raised by Static groups crossing FC boundaries or multiple link shells should not be ignored either.

It only takes you kosmos, you truly have a propensity to drag me out of lurking.

That's why we have normal modes. People can see the content without a static. Problem solved. There are plenty of casual and midcore groups that form, FFXIV recruitment on reddit is proof positive that you don't have to be a no life hardcore to raid in this game. There are groups that only run 3-4 lockouts a week. This notion that any hard content in this game always equals several hours and nights a week relegated to raiding is simply not true for most raiders.

Also, with the introduction of raid finder, you really don't need a static anymore for midcore fights like a5s.

Additionally there is a pronounced gear gap emerging between active end-game players and everyone else which makes it harder still for players to join the raiding community. Fundamentally though, the modern gamer does not have the time, or a stable enough life schedule to comit to certain blocks of time for raiding. Life itself gets in the way. Throw in the issues with RNG on gear drops, weekly lockouts and so forth, and you have a lot of factors all contributing toa decline in raiding.

Not a huge deal, every six months brings a complete gear reset and with new powerful craftable and meldable gear. If you really think gear availability is the problem in this game, then I am glad you are not in charge. You are completely out of touch on this issue, do you even play the end game? The latest sets of dungeons drop 215 gear, you literally could have been raid ready week one of midas savage just from spamming the latest set of dungeons.

Not to mention this problem you are highlighting does not help at retaining players but rather catching up players that don't stick around or who are not active. The problem this game is having is keeping people subbed at the end game. We don't need more catch up gear handouts like you are insinuating. The end game needs more depth, not more gear handouts.

This game already hands out gear for little to no challenge and we see how well that retains players! /s

The completion numbers for Alex tend to back this up. Many of these factors impact raiding in other games too. Raiding is out of fashion, it's an old fashioned game mechanic that relies on forced grouping and forced schedules.

Raiding has had a renaissance in world of warcraft. Maybe raiding is just that bad in this game? Do you actually know how bad a4s was? The dev team could not even play test the fight in it's entirety. They literally released a raid fight that they only beat in theory. SE only beat a4s in parts and never did the entire fight as a whole, and that kind of production quality really showed. The fight was a pure nightmare. Raiding is not some archaic bygone practice like you wish it was, it simply just sucks so much in this game that all the raiders are leaving. I have been saying this non stop of these forums and I will continue to do so. The raiding carrot in this game is too small to ask people to clear nightmare fuel fights that the dev team cannot even beat.

I think you want raiding gone because it's not your cup of tea. If your solution is to make things just simple and easy, we only need to see what kind of participation PotD and diadem have to show what easy content begets us.

The community cannot simply pull itself up by the boot straps, the issues outlined above are not unique to FFXIV, and didn't really talk about community much. I do agree that the community can help, but as long as raiding requires a style of play that conflicts with lives and creates insular groups, raiding will remain a narrow sliver of the game.

Then maybe SE should treat raiders a bit better so they are not so salty towards entitled casuals? If you want this "insular" community to open up, create farm/learning parties, and fill up party finder, then there should be some incentive to do it. Right now, the raiding community is in shambles because of low incentives and large skill demands, skill demands the dev team cannot even meet. You already want the group of players, who are already disenfranchised by this game, to put even more work into their server communities? Do you think that all raiders are neck beard basement dwelling unemployed 40 year olds that can give even more of their time to this game? SE dug this hole, it's not up to raiders to fix it. Find your content scapegoat somewhere else please.

Raids need at least one more difficulty tier, as well as some light party raid content to encourage smaller groups which form moreeasily and informally to complete raid level content, The game needs to facilitate easier grouping and break down the rigid formal lines of the static groups, into a more dynamic system of grouping, not quiteparty finder, more like allowing players to participate in multiple statics. The changes to loot since coild look like they should help, but the loot/drops - especially gear - should be equally rewarding for all those in the team.

I can agree on all accounts to everything you said in that paragraph.

Beyond that, the encounters need to be more fun, and the community needs to be less uptight and more tolerant to imperfect players. Even if all these things were fixed, I think it may be time to recognize that raiding may be past it's prime in general

The community has absolutely nothing to do with retaining players. Server communities on the most populated realms are absolutely toxic in wow. It's actually the smaller less populated realms that have the community you speak of. I don't think that raiders being more tolerant of imperfect players will prop up the end game subs the way you think it will.

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What this game needs is a healthy dose of depth. Right now, most rewards in this game last less than six months. PvP gear is useless, BiS Raid gear is replaced by craftable gear, CRAFTABLE gear. People tout that one reward of raiding in this game is to get BiS for the next raid tier. But, BiS is pointless when the new crafted gear outshines it. Just look at what happened with midas. When midas savage came out, all the months of farming Gordias savage for BiS was pointless because the crafted ilvl220 gear was sooooo much better.

Every activity in this game feels meaningless because SE always nerfs EVERYTHING from glamour rarity to raids. The thavnarian set from treasure maps is another great example of why this game is a joke. I did not own a full set myself back then, but I remember stopping and admiring people who could manage to get a full set back in 3.0. Now, the entire set is worthless thanks to treasure dungeons. The drop rate for the materials should have never been buffed too. We need more individuality in this game, and giving everything to everyone just makes rewards feel less impactful. Why grind for something now when you know you can easily get it later?

Dungeons are too easy, there is no hard 4-man content anymore. We need more dungeons like the original amdapor keep, where players are challenged at a reasonable level. How will players ever step up their game if we only have toothless pinatas for dungeon bosses? Hell, half the time people don't even need to perform mechanics in dungeon fights.

You can tell that people are hungry for depth in this game by how well wiping city was received when it first came out. People loved that the new 24-man was not a loot pinata netflix set of encounters.

The biggest problem with the end game is that everything a player does doesn't feel important or impactful.

Did you grind for the super rare thavnarian set? Too bad, it was a pointless grind, it's super common now.
Did you meld that super expensive crafting gear? Too bad, now you get to do it again!
Did you grind for Gordias savage BiS? Too bad, it was completely pointless, crafted ilvl220 gear is far better.
Did you farm weeks for your thordan bird? Too bad, SE doubled the drop rate and make it purchasable.
Did you sell enough ore/herbs/crystals to buy that super rare minion? Too bad, they drop as mid tier rewards from aquapolis now.
Did you pay 15 mil for a coffin lid? Too bad, now they are worthless.


Do you see the pattern? Why work for anything in this game when you can just wait for nerfs, come back for a month or two and sweep up a large amount of easily obtainable rewards after any challenge and rarity are removed? This is why this game has a retention problem. Nothing in this game feels worth while since everything will be nerfed or invalidated.


What could solve some of these issues?

Keep some items rare, like the thavnarian set, for players to have long term goals. If there is nothing for players to save up for or work towards (glamours, pets, furniture), why bother logging on past socialization? We need long terms goals to strive for, like MPG rewards. Just look at how active the minicactpot always is. People love to have these bigger goals to slowly work on.

Raiding needs proper incentives. This 5ilvl weapon difference between 240 and 245 should be extended to all midan gear. There should always be a new savage mount, just like wow does for mythic. There should always be a new savage title, just like wow does for mythic. The BiS of one raid tier should help you in the next raid tier, just like in wow. The highest ivl in the game should only come from savage raids, just like mythic raiding in wow. The midan savage sets should look different from the normal models, just like how the models look different across normal/heroic/mythic raiding in wow.

Until the raiding carrot is bigger, people in this game won't bother with savage. SE might as well give up on the end game until they make the mountain top worth climbing. Right now, the only reason to raid in this game is for the challenge, that is it. There are no special savage cut scenes, bosses, or gear look. You can literally do midas normal and completely forget about midas savage.

4-man experts should be what the title implies, an EXPERT dungeon. Right now, there are leveling dungeons harder than current end game dungeons, it's really really sad. 4-man experts don't need to be savage difficulty, but I never saw a problem with the original pharo sirius and amdapor keep.

Also, if the in-house test team can't beat a4s in it's entirety, don't let it go live! How did that even happen? If you're not gonna have beta servers SE, at least hire some good play testers. I will never know what was going through Yoshi P.'s mind when he signed off on a4s going live. The dev team should feel absolutely embarrassed about a4s going live in the state it did.

Lastly, the dev team needs to work on having new mechanics. You can dress up a divebomb anyway you like, but it's still a divebomb. You can only dodge a circle or line aoe so many times before it is old. Dungeons become stale quickly because of this. New content is just old content wrapped up in a new skin. Even palace of the dead and treasure dungeons are just more what we already have in the game. Heck both of those contents show heavy reuse of past game assets. You can't give me gravy and tell me it's jelly 'cause gravy ain't sweet!

[Kosmos992k]

It only takes you kosmos, you truly have a propensity to drag me out of lurking.

**snip**

Hi Zosia, well, I don'tknow about dragging you from lurking, though it's good to see your posts, and perhaps this will surprise you, but...

I do agree with a lot of what you are saying. There is one thing though I need to clarify as I think it has caused a misunderstanding. my use of the word insular. The point I was trying to get at is that static groups are mechanically insular. Not because the people in them are insular in their attitude, but because the entire point of a 8-person static in FFXIV is to run the 8-person raid content, and thanks to the earlier lock out policies statics groups had to maintain their cohesion. They are in that sense insular, they are isolated from other statics, and the game's own systems discouraged churn in static membership. The effect of that is that each static appeared from the outside to be insular, even though they were dealing with the hand the game dealt the players with respect to raid content. I did not mean to imply that players adopted an insular attitide or anything of that nature. My apoloogies for that misunderstanding, I simply did not choose a good word for thhe concept I was trying to discuss.

Oh, for the record, I liked the original difficulty of Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius, they were hard enough to be a challenge to be overcome. The lack of challenging 4 player content is one of the holes in this game, and one of the places so-called mid-tier stuff could be added - as you say as a stepping stone to real raiding.

I have no problem with the presence of raiders, raid content or raid exclusive gear whatsoever in this game. My only issue arises if the meta-game needed for raiding starts to pervade other content and pretty soon running dungeons as intended is considered super slow or just plain wrong, or for example, when the MOAR DPS mentality obliterates all other ways of gearing and playing. But that's really beside te point. I do think that raiding mayy be past it's prime simply because a lot of the long time raiders have had changes in their lives that restrict playing schedules. I smirk when I here of 48-hour long fights in FFXI because if anything like that was ever attempted in FFXIV it would very rapidly become content that is not run - people just don't have the time to dedicate to those things anymore. I take your point about the time needed - once the content has been learned and is on 'farm', but until that happens, there is a larger time commitment isn't there? Either way, It's an observation based on the aging gaming population's changing lifestyle and commitment to play. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that traditional raiding and strict static teams are past their prime?

Regardig A4S, no one should ever relerasr a fight in a game like this that has not been fully play tested to ensure balance. I've sugggested before that SE needs to have a small beta test team made up of people who ae not part of the Dev team or SE in order to gather more objective feedback. Fundamentally speaking testing your own code is a very poor way of seeing how it will perform in the real world.

At the end of the day, I want to see more challenges, more difficult, but not punishing content, lesssynchronized swimming, better gearing and slower gear progression, and above all fun content. Part of what makes things fun is the difficulty level. If there is content that we complete by the skin of our teeth, we'll talk about it in a positive way for a long time, if there is content that is too hard and feels like punishment until we memorize every step, it's unlikely to get much positivity even after it's cleared. For example, my son has several challenges that make it harder for him to play, but he still does well. My wife and I took him through Arum Vale before any nerfing there, and we got through with a single wipe, a friend of ours was the 4th and playing Bard like my son. But we really enjoyed the run ebcause it was hard for everyone, and he beat it because he was good. Everybody had a win. I like content that can run you close on completion because it pushes players to perform better and rewards them when they do.

Anyway, this is a good disucssion in this topic, I agree with most of what you said. For me this game will never be about raiding, but I love that my friends who like raiding haver that option, just as I'll be unlikely to PvP, but it's great that people who want to, can. Ideally all of the content should be engaging, and the difficulty set to be challenging without being simply punshing. Actually, what would be great would be 3 difficulty modes for light party content (with a slider to scale MOB levels like the Levequests, in addition to the mode setting); normal, hard and expert. The level and value of drops should increase with the difficulty level. 8-player content should retain normal and 'savage' modes but gain a more moederately balanced version in between the extremes.

Allowing people to run content on easy mode and then challenge it on high difficulty for better erwards would encourage people to play better. Keeping strict level sync and ilvl sync on hard and expert/extreme/savage content for at least a year before relaxing it would help improve longevity of content as well. No encounters should boil down to a mob filled corridor leading to a boss, multiple paths, secondary bosses and bonus rooms (and bosses) would spice things up and make for a more varied run.

Anyway, I don't know how to solve all the problems, least of all raiding. I was just observing based on the expereience of myself and my friends (many of whom raided in the past) and drawing a few conclusions. I think raiding needs to change to remain relevant to veterans and new players alike - if for no other reason than End-gamers are part of the active population, and we need an active population to keep the game vibrant.

[Ibi]

Raiding needs proper incentives. This 5ilvl weapon difference between 240 and 245 should be extended to all midan gear. There should always be a new savage mount, just like wow does for mythic. There should always be a new savage title, just like wow does for mythic. The BiS of one raid tier should help you in the next raid tier, just like in wow. The highest ivl in the game should only come from savage raids, just like mythic raiding in wow. The midan savage sets should look different from the normal models, just like how the models look different across normal/heroic/mythic raiding in wow.

We don't have a way to compare participation rates (because there's no way to get that information for XIV unless SE decide to tell us), but aren't the completion rates for Savage raiding in XIV extremely comparable to the completion rates for Mythic raiding in WoW, despite Mythic raiding having all these additional rewards that Savage doesn't?

[Thayos]

They focus on trying to get new players too much and forgetting about trying to retain current subs.

Yeah, this data shows the same two conclusions that all the other surveys have shown:

1. The game's population is healthy.

2. While the population is healthy, the current trends aren't sustainable; SE needs to do better at keeping people engaged.

The situation isn't nearly as dire as the most vocal Negative Nancies make it out to be. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows, either.

Up above, Hyrist talks about how the community can play a role in that, and how it's not all up to the development team giving us new content. I'm somewhere in the middle. I think the developers need to give us real endgame content that doesn't limit itself to eight-man (usually static) parties. If we can get real endgame that's doable by FCs of different sizes, THEN the playerbase can do the rest by forming different types of communities that thrive in this content.

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

1. The game's population is healthy.

The game population isn`t healthy, far from it for a game of this scope and cost. We are steps away from other games that are F2P, that isn`t good.

[aesteval]

The game population isn`t healthy, far from it for a game of this scope and cost. We are steps away from other games that are F2P, that isn`t good.

So other games, without the upfront game or subscription cost and a lower barrier to entry, have a similar number of players playing and that's not a good thing to have monthly income from a similar number of players? If anything I'd expect F2P to have more players than subscription. What are you basing this judgement on?

[Thayos]

The game population isn`t healthy

XIV's population is awesome for a subscription game. I'd be waaaaaaaaay more worried about a F2P game with only 500k active players, lol.

The problem isn't the game's current population; it's the trend line showing that at this time next year, the active playerbase could be closer to 350k or 400k, which would then be cause for concern.

The population is going to skyrocket again when 4.0 launches, just as it did when 3.0 launches. The question is, can the devs do better this time at engaging and retaining players?

[zosia]

XIV's population is awesome for a subscription game. I'd be waaaaaaaaay more worried about a F2P game with only 500k active players, lol.

The problem isn't the game's current population; it's the trend line showing that at this time next year, the active playerbase could be closer to 350k or 400k, which would then be cause for concern.

The population is going to skyrocket again when 4.0 launches, just as it did when 3.0 launches. The question is, can the devs do better this time at engaging and retaining players?

Let me spoil some things for you.

No, that was not a chocolate chip cookie, it was oatmeal raisin.
A wizard did it.
Wall-E ends up being ok.
And FFXIV will never break 1 million active subs again.

[Instrumentality]

No, that was not a chocolate chip cookie, it was oatmeal raisin.
A wizard did it.
Wall-E ends up being ok.
And FFXIV will never break 1 million active subs again.

"World of Warcraft is just a casual person's EQ and will never be successful."

-People like you 12 years ago.