Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Vantol]

Objectively...no it doesn't, unless the thing in question has limited supply and thus, taking something away on one end means it's missing on the other. That's not the case for digital items.

I already explained it. Let's say I spend 20 years of my life working hard 24/7 to buy a plane. Now I have plane, get fame, girls, ride friends, tell stories and have fun with it. And next morning goverment decides to give free plane to every person. So in the end I just wasted 20 years of my life for nothing while everyone was spending this time with families, beloved ones, doing fun stuff and enjoing life. Of course that is not fair and I will be mad.

[Zojha]

Of course that is not fair and I will be mad.

Oh, it's not and you can be miffed about it - But if the plane is so easy to procure that everyone can just easily get one, it shouldn't have been gated behind 20 years of work in the first place, so it's merely correcting a mistake that you were the victim of. And if you suddenly enjoy the plane less than prior, it just means that you didn't want the plane in the first place, you just wanted some ego stroking.

And always remember: Whenever you use a bicycle, car or other means of transportation, remember that your forefathers had to work hard to go from A to B by foot. Whenever you buy something in a local store, remember that your forefathers had to work hard and risk life and limb for their food. Whenever you buy medicine, remember that your forefathers had to work hard fighting the sickness with their body alone. And remember that there are places in the world that are less developed where this is still the case and that by having a higher standard of living, you are diminishing their achievements.

A dreadful thought, no?

[Chalbee]

I already explained it. Let's say I spend 20 years of my life working hard 24/7 to buy a plane. Now I have plane, get fame, girls, ride friends, tell stories and have fun with it. And next morning goverment decides to give free plane to every person. So in the end I just wasted 20 years of my life for nothing while everyone was spending this time with families, beloved ones, doing fun stuff and enjoing life. Of course that is not fair and I will be mad.

The lesson there is that you should have spent more time enjoying your life, since you clearly realize that is more important than the plane. Did you want a plane because you wanted a plane? Or did you want a plane because you felt like having one would make you better than other people? Given the fact that you basically called all casual players worthless a few pages ago, I'm going to assume it's the latter.

[Vantol]

The lesson there is that you should have spent more time enjoying your life, since you clearly realize that is more important than the plane. Did you want a plane because you wanted a plane? Or did you want a plane because you felt like having one would make you better than other people? Given the fact that you basically called all casual players worthless a few pages ago, I'm going to assume it's the latter.

Yes, it's the latter. I always explicitly say it (well, maybe not in this thread). Is there something wrong with wanting to be better than others or be the best? It's like basics of how humanity and progress works.

[Jynx]

The lesson there is

You are aware we live in a consumer centric world right? Unless your up meditating on the mountains your as guilty of this as the person your trying to shame for it.

People don't get to have everything. That's how our world works. People generally expect to work for a reward and not watch it be given out to someone else for free.

Technically the same mindset works in game for some people.

[Chalbee]

Consumerism!

I am fully aware that we live in a consumer-centric world, and while I don't meditate on a mountain top, I find no joy in lording my accomplishments over others. My joy in my accomplishments comes from that fact that I did it, not in that fact that others have not done it.

I wonder why your enjoyment of x is nullified by more people having it. As someone else pointed out, schadenfreude should not be necessary to enjoy something. If you really feel the need to whip it out and measure when you see someone with the same item as you, just mention that you got it when it was still a pain in the ass. But really, if your sense of accomplishment is dependent on being better than others, I don't have the right credentials to help with that...

[zosia]

I am fully aware that we live in a consumer-centric world, and while I don't meditate on a mountain top, I find no joy in lording my accomplishments over others. My joy in my accomplishments comes from that fact that I did it, not in that fact that others have not done it.

I wonder why your enjoyment of x is nullified by more people having it. As someone else pointed out, schadenfreude should not be necessary to enjoy something. If you really feel the need to whip it out and measure when you see someone with the same item as you, just mention that you got it when it was still a pain in the ass. But really, if your sense of accomplishment is dependent on being better than others, I don't have the right credentials to help with that..
.

I think you are being a bit hyperbolic. You don't have to rub an achievement in someones face to appreciate it's rarity. You are making a false equivalency. Just because I might appreciate having something that a lot of people don't does not mean I have to obnoxiously rub it in someone's face. It's nice to have something rare, a hard earned reward from a path few will follow.

I don't. I've never even said that I think the reward structure for raiding in this game is sufficient. I'd actually agree that effort:reward ratio for Savage is far too low, but that's not the point here.

It's a big part of the point. The raid rewards sucking is the same pattern dragging down the rest of the game.

If it's just the rewards are the issue, please explain why A4S, which rewards a mount, had a clear rate more than order of magnitude smaller than Heroic Blackrock Foundry, which, as far as I can tell from Wowhead, had no mount, no title, no special quests, nothing that you couldn't get from Normal Blackrock Foundry.

Because a4s is the worst designed raid fight of this game. The dev test team could not even beat the fight in it's entirety. They only play tested the fight in parts. Not to mention how bad a3s was for most groups. It's a complicated problem, but I can tell you I have had to replace a half dozen raiders over the last year and a half that thought raid rewards in this game were not worth the time investment. Call it anecdotal if you like, but frankly I don't care. Raiders have been talking about savage and poor rewards since the expansion started and they have been leaving in droves for other games. They leave for many reasons, but poor rewards is definitely among them and splitting semantic hairs will not invalidate how raiders feel under rewarded in this game.

This is exactly it.

Maybe SE could pull in some tiny sliver of players who don't like or enjoy raiding, but will do it if the rewards are ridiculously over-the-top good, but it's a such a small subset of the player base that it's not going to have any significant impact on the game as a whole.

SE's time would be much better spent making content that people want to do than trying to bribe them to do content they don't enjoy.

What exactly do you want? Was the scores of casual content from LoV, Aquapolis, Diadem, Alex normal, PoTD etc etc etc not good enough? Are two 24 man raids a year not enough? Hunts, yokai watch, seasonal festivals... This game has casual content wall to wall.

lol, your idea is what we have in this game is now and it's a big flop.

Except the only thing in this entire list that counts as true endgame is Primals... and Primals are really just single-floor raids. They're heavily scripted eight-man fights with extremely punishing mechanics that are only efficiently tackled by statics.

All that other stuff you mentioned is irrelevant to everything we're talking about here.

This game needs diversified endgame content that is accessible by groups of different sizes. We need content that really capitalizes on the game's FC and LS social structures. We need content with a gate that differs from "repeat this until you memorize it."

We need this because, as the data plainly shows, most players are not raiders. They will never be raiders. SE can't entice people to play this game long-term if the only real endgame content is raiding.

So, then what do you want more of? VA? Weeping City? Here is the thing, you want content that capitalizes on communication devices like FC and LS but you want content that also requires no progression. We already have that in fates and in hunts. Really, hunts are exactly what you are describing, but hunts are also some of the worst gameplay in this game.

You know what made dyanamis fun? It was a challenge, it was heavily progression based. You didn't just get to fight dynamis lord, you had to work up to fight him. This Game is void of any of that depth. HOw fun would dynamis had been if the monsters could never kill you, you always made it to the last boss on time, and you could repeat until you got loot that week?

This game has no depth, it never will, and that's why it can't retain players. This game caters to the casual non-raiding community like no other game in the industry. Virtually all the content in the game is designed with you guys in mind. It does not work and that is reflected in the sub numbers.

That's why I'm not discussing how we should be making raiders happy. It's not that I don't want raiders to be happy -- the presence of raiding is fine by me, and I'd rather have SE make good raids than bad raids -- but that's not super relevant to the big-picture topic of how to improve player retention.

And that's the problem, you claim to be looking at the big picture, but you are not looking at the big picture. If we are talking meaningful progression content and rewards for casuals, what makes you think SE can even meet that need when it can't meet that need for raiders? That's the problem, The vertical progression latter has been broken in this game since 2.0 launch, it's just more exaggerated at the top (savage). Just look at the ilvl of the 24 mans, it has always seemed backwards. Why is new content rewarding items of inferior ilvl? Look at niddhog ex. He had no 240 accessories, only ilvl 235 glamour weapons. Niddhog Ex rewards were literally for alts or for players who did not raid or have a relic.

If you want this to honestly be fixed, the entire latter (big picture) has to be reworked from top to bottom. For there to be meaningful progression and rewards for casual non raiders players there also needs to be meaningful progression and rewards for raiders. There always needs to be more for players to strive for or envy. Even raiders, players who clear all the content, still chase parses and 7-man clears. There always needs to be a chase, for both groups and this dev team does not deliver on that for a multitude of reasons.

This game will get a huge slug of players at 4.0, just as it did at 3.0. Nobody expects this game to ever break 1 million active players, but the population will definitely get a nice influx. And the devs will have another chance to better retain that influx of players. And they need to figure it out, because with each expansion they'll have less of an influx to try to retain.

But that doesn't mean it's time to panic. Yoshi-P has said in the past the game could survive just fine on 500k subs. So if they can figure out how to engage more players, then the game will be fine.

Just take a look through my post history and see how many times my predictions about what savage was doing to the raid community came true. This game is not going to rebound. Yoshida is going to have to fight tooth and nail for those 500k active subs to keep this game viable. One more bad expansion like heavensward and this game is done. At least I get to say I told you so a lot. F2P is just around the corner.

[zosia]

The lesson there is that you should have spent more time enjoying your life, since you clearly realize that is more important than the plane. Did you want a plane because you wanted a plane? Or did you want a plane because you felt like having one would make you better than other people? Given the fact that you basically called all casual players worthless a few pages ago, I'm going to assume it's the latter.

People ARE learning that lesson, and that's why this game can't retain subscribers. People reach the end game, see it for what it is after 2-3 patches and quit.

[aesteval]

Normal mode is a massive mistake. Level 5's CEO was right in pointing it out to Yoshida.

First off, it kills off a lot of the hype and anticipation behind the story and big reveals. I can only imagine how anticlimactic it would've been to defeat Nael van Darnus, Louisoix, or Bahamut if all it took was 10 minutes with maybe a single wipe. These enemies are supposed to be a threat to the realm. They should feel more substantial to defeat.

*ponders* A flaw with every player being the warrior of light and leaving no room for supporting roles? What if we all WEREN'T the world's "only hope." What if the normal mode was the challenge and the minstrel's ballad was the easier story mode to share the tale that becomes accessible as legend spreads. Could community incentive be designed around only making story mode available after server first clear (and maybe a later patch as a last ditch time based release.)

[aesteval]

*ponders* A flaw with every player being the warrior of light and leaving no room for supporting roles? What if we all WEREN'T the world's "only hope." What if the normal mode was the challenge and the minstrel's ballad was the easier story mode to share the tale that becomes accessible as legend spreads. Could community incentive be designed around only making story mode available after server first clear (and maybe a later patch as a last ditch time based release.)

...set it up so that the server first player names are part of the story / legend as part of the story line leading up to normal mode? That could be some incentive?