Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Erudito]

*Looks at unofficial census* Hmm...
*Looks at last official census* Uh, the amount of active subs is declining at a somewhat fast rate.

Since this is a pay-to-play MMO I can see people leaving since you can't pay $14 (minimum) a month forever but seeing those numbers, its somewhat distressing. People also need a break now and then, we are not machines.
SE still makes a pretty penny with the amount of current active subs alone + mogstation but they are losing us fast.

How should they go about their content to increase sub retention? Should they add content or shorten/ease/change content already present? Both?

For me, PvP is a big no since peoples drive (or obsession or even insane desire) for victory sucks the fun away fast (again, for me) so they can try to fiddle with that a little, but lots of people have already asked for that here. For me, its the jobs. The jobs are designed and tuned for PvE, they have little to no proficiency against other players. If a job does, its the odd job out. Most jobs can only take out one person (barely) and then they have to use just about every single ability and then you are a sitting duck mostly due to long cooldowns, until then, you can barely damage anyone, let alone hurt an Astrologian or a Warrior if you are alone or even with another person. Again, not useful against actual people as you are easily outnumbered, stunned or (in the case of all casters) interrupted. To boot, the escape or "Oh crud!" abilities all tend to have large cooldowns making them even more useless in pvp scenarios.

Savage raiding is also a no for people like me, who don't have the time to waste endlessly wiping to bosses just for learning the fight so that, several days or weeks later, you can down it. Story mode raid is good this expansion since savage Alexander (all of it) is just downright troll difficulty. I wonder if returning to the old ways of Coil is a good more to keep people interested? Just... keep the token system or something, loot getting in Coil was painful.

I am liking Palace of the Dead though, they have to add more versatile traps, floor types, monster mechanics and, above all, more types of rewards from the random bronze chests there. Nothing too fancy or unique either, basic mats for crafting would do. And for the love of all that is good, if that is already in the works, do NOT place anything unique in those chests. Make it something you can find someplace else or things are gonna go bad fast.

Just adding to the discussion, don't shoot me

[Critical-Limit]

So what I got out of this is people just stay unsub even after a new patch is release wait a few months for nerfs to save some gil ect, because it really not worth the effort to be put into anyways. >.>

That's what I did, I quit the game when leviathan extreme came out. I came back 1 month after the expansion release.

I not only caught up to my friend who was playing for 2 years straight in a couple months. But I easily got everything they did before me 30x easier.

I got more irl things done as a result, and... I have all the same things as someone who's put in infinitely more time than me.

[Thayos]

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 difference though (which many people gloss over) is that while rewards in FFXIV are more quickly "obsoleted" because of the game's vertical design, the tradeoff is that none of these rewards are really that difficult to get in the first place.

The relic weapon is a huge grind, for sure. But is it really hard to get? No. If you play regularly and do minimal activities (such as roulette), you essentially get the relic for free. Nothing in this game is nearly as grindtastic as what we endured in old-school MMOs like FFXI.

Personally, I'm perfectly fine with this tradeoff. Being 13 years older and significantly busier than I was when I took up XI, I'd rather play a game nowadays that didn't require the focus of a second job just to be "viable" or whatever.

And yes, this will result in a playerbase that has more freedom to subscribe/unsubscribe periodically without the fear of being permanently unable to "catch up." But if SE can do a better job of giving people reasons to stick around -- which, in my opinion, means an endgame scene that's more diversified than just raiding -- then we'll see a more consistent and lively playerbase between patches and expansions.

[Brian_]

The difference though (which many people gloss over) is that while rewards in FFXIV are more quickly "obsoleted" because of the game's vertical design, the tradeoff is that none of these rewards are really that difficult to get in the first place.

The relic weapon is a huge grind, for sure. But is it really hard to get? No. If you play regularly and do minimal activities (such as roulette), you essentially get the relic for free. Nothing in this game is nearly as grindtastic as what we endured in old-school MMOs like FFXI.

Personally, I'm perfectly fine with this tradeoff. Being 13 years older and significantly busier than I was when I took up XI, I'd rather play a game nowadays that didn't require the focus of a second job just to be "viable" or whatever.

And yes, this will result in a playerbase that has more freedom to subscribe/unsubscribe periodically without the fear of being permanently unable to "catch up." But if SE can do a better job of giving people reasons to stick around -- which, in my opinion, means an endgame scene that's more diversified than just raiding -- then we'll see a more consistent and lively playerbase between patches and expansions.

You think the rewards from A8S are not hard to get? We're talking about content that requires some groups easily over 100 hours of progression to clear.

[Istaru]

You think the rewards from A8S are not hard to get? We're talking about content that requires some groups easily over 100 hours of progression to clear.

Rewards roughly equal to or better than savage rewards are easily available now. And in about 4-6 weeks, all the loot will be obsoleted and the minion can be obtained much easier too.

[odintius]

You think the rewards from A8S are not hard to get? We're talking about content that requires some groups easily over 100 hours of progression to clear.

Nah, I'm sure he think its hard just isn't worth the time for or effort for such a small reward gear wise well beyond the I like the challenge of it part. For me im not going to waste 7 other peoples time if i think the reward for it wasn't such a bore well to keep repeating it for others. /shrug

[Thayos]

You think the rewards from A8S are not hard to get? We're talking about content that requires some groups easily over 100 hours of progression to clear.

I was talking about the game's overall reward system. Most players will never touch A8 let alone get drops from it, so I don't consider that as relevant in a big-picture thread about the game's population.

[Brian_]

I was talking about the game's overall reward system. Most players will never touch A8 let alone get drops from it, so I don't consider that as relevant in a big-picture thread about the game's population.

Then you shouldn't say none of these rewards are that hard to get in the first place. Some clearly are hard to get. And, a lot of people in this topic that you're replying to in a broad sense have made specific complaints about how thankless raiding is in FFXIV and how that contributes to not only the low clear rates but the lack of general interest in the content itself.

Rewards roughly equal to or better than savage rewards are easily available now. And in about 4-6 weeks, all the loot will be obsoleted and the minion can be obtained much easier too.

We're clearly talking about before the proverbial elevator is installed. If you've been following this conversation, you would know that.

[Istaru]

First, I did a poor job in my quoting and responding to you, I apologize.

We're clearly talking about before the proverbial elevator is installed. If you've been following this conversation, you would know that.

We both are actually, knowing that the elevator is coming and what it does has an effect on how some people approach many things in this game.

Everyone knows that the elevator comes with every even numbered patch. We also know the each patch is roughly 100-110 days from the last one.

I know people who skip out for long periods of time because of the elevator. Some of them are people who used to stay constantly subbed and eventually came to the conclusion that challenging content as it is currently delivered is a waste of their time. They can come back 6 months to a year later and clear everything in a short period of time and bounce out again, normal mode or EX or savage doesn't matter.

I doubt removing story mode or making them unique glamour will change that behavior. And the way they play does have an effect on the subscriber numbers we would see in a report like this one. I think part of it is the raid normal mode, part of it is the lack of unique rewards from the savage raid, lack of long term goals, lack of long lasting content of an appropriate difficulty, part of it is a very lackluster raid story, a lack of difficulty in most of the game outside of raiding and part of it is the elevator effect. I think it is all of them together.

I think for each and every one of us, we will rate an item on that list higher or lower or add and subtract from it based on our own experiences. I don't think any one here is wrong, I think collectively, we are correct.

[Tolmos]

Jfdgugcdgb

I second this!