Where is the "never before seen content"?

[Berethos]

Don't be obtuse. You know as well as I these abrupt staggered releases are an attempt to keep subscribed. I won't necessarily fault Yoshida for that though.

No more or less than putting gear progression behind an unhealthy wall of RNG and grind, like a certain other MMO has done the past couple of expansions. Not sure why it's worth bringing up when all MMOs look to find ways to convince players to stick around between major patch windows.

And while Yoshida may prattle on about breaks, SE employs systems purposely designed against taking breaks. Do you not think it suspect these staggered release schedule coincide with a month's sub? Or that should you own a house, you're locked into a renewal every 45 days.

That particular system was asked for by players, if you happen to remember that housing demolition wasn't added until 3.1 after months of being a requested feature as a response to the lack of housing availability precisely because the system as originally and purposefully employed by SE did not lock you into renewing to keep your house.

Kind of interesting that a detail like that keeps being forgotten when criticisms about SE's "locking into subscriptions" practices are brought up.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No more or less than putting gear progression behind an unhealthy wall of RNG and grind, like a certain other MMO has done the past couple of expansions. Not sure why it's worth bringing up when all MMOs look to find ways to convince players to stick around between major patch windows.

At least I would be doing something in a certain other MMO whereas this one I essentially log off. That isn't to say WoW's system is perfect, far from it. But that doesn't make the staggered releases any less annoying. I would hope FFXIV aspires to better than mindless RNG grind...

That particular system was asked for by players, if you happen to remember that housing demolition wasn't added until 3.1 after months of being a requested feature as a response to the lack of housing availability precisely because the system as originally and purposefully employed by SE did not lock you into renewing to keep your house.

Kind of interesting that a detail like that keeps being forgotten when criticisms about SE's "locking into subscriptions" practices are brought up.

Another detail forgotten is when people asked for that system, they wanted longer than 45 days and to have it tied into their subscription. That way, in the event they were away for whatever reason, they weren't required to have someone log into their account and step inside their house, which breaks the ToS. Regardless, they can have their demolition system, just stop prattling on about taking breaks then because it's nonsense.

Perhaps a better solution is to actually fix their abysmal housing system.

[Remedi]

At least I would be doing something in a certain other MMO whereas this one I essentially log off. That isn't to say WoW's system is perfect, far from it. But that doesn't make the staggered releases any less annoying. I would hope FFXIV aspires to better than mindless RNG grind...

Ye, but Wow too has a staggered release too and sometimes the staggered releases nullifies your grind before completely

Example: When mythic+ were released there was a ilvl cap on titanforging which was then increased when raid released

Also I will say that the staggered content in wow is worse because the main dish of wow is the raid content and they stagger the release for no real reason.

If anything Wow taught SE that they can get away with staggered release

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If anything Wow taught SE that they can get away with staggered release

I'm not convinced FFXIV can. While unofficial censuses cannot be looked at as definitive, they're still telling. Stormblood numbers have dipped to Gordias levels, which is really bad. And I'd attribute it directly to the staggered releases of content and how niche much of its been. FFXIV just doesn't have the playerbase to float like WoW can.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not convinced FFXIV can. While unofficial censuses cannot be looked at as definitive, they're still telling. Stormblood numbers have dipped to Gordias levels, which is really bad. And I'd attribute it directly to the staggered releases of content and how niche much of its been. FFXIV just doesn't have the playerbase to float like WoW can.

This.

Moreover, XIV doesn't have the constant, floating content that WoW has. Raids and the weekly cache are the only things that can't be grinded as much as the player likes in WoW. And in WoW, PvP is actually very much a thing. That's dozens of hours more repeatable content (that many find enjoyable in itself) that actually helps character power.

I'd say it comes with the noticeable downside of requiring far longer to maintain an alt, but... compared to XIV -- if one were to make the 'mistake' of putting all gear types on a single character, thus cutting your gearing potential into sevenths between NIN, DRG, MNK/SAM, Caster, Healer, Tank, Ranged -- it's still far more lenient, and suffers from none of the unintuitive competition between one's own jobs, let alone in an irretrievable manner over time-gated progression.

[Berethos]

Raids and the weekly cache are the only things that can't be grinded as much as the player likes in WoW.

Last time I played, most everything worth pursuing was locked to at least a daily schedule at the shortest - things like world quests and dungeon bonuses (such as they were). Some of the reputation grinds did allow for completing dungeons tied to them, so there was that...but I don't recall those taking long (most were the second highest rep level by the time you finished questing) so the life of that as a motivator for content was short.

I mean, speaking of current content specifically, dungeons here and dungeons there you can farm as much as you want, mythic dungeons there you can so long as you have keystones to do it (so it's limited, but in a different way), Trials here you can. Daily quests here and once a day, World quests (which are just daily quests without requiring you to accept/turn in) there are once a day.

PvP you can grind Wolf Marks here or Honor Points there...

Are you sure you're not thinking of an older time in WoW (when grinding reps and currency for gear was less restrictive/less based on daily tasks)?

[Remedi]

Are you sure you're not thinking of an older time in WoW (when grinding reps and currency for gear was less restrictive/less based on daily tasks)?

Good time it was mate

[Vstarstruck]

Last time I played, most everything worth pursuing was locked to at least a daily schedule at the shortest - things like world quests and dungeon bonuses (such as they were). Some of the reputation grinds did allow for completing dungeons tied to them, so there was that...but I don't recall those taking long (most were the second highest rep level by the time you finished questing) so the life of that as a motivator for content was short.

I mean, speaking of current content specifically, dungeons here and dungeons there you can farm as much as you want, mythic dungeons there you can so long as you have keystones to do it (so it's limited, but in a different way), Trials here you can. Daily quests here and once a day, World quests (which are just daily quests without requiring you to accept/turn in) there are once a day.

PvP you can grind Wolf Marks here or Honor Points there...

Are you sure you're not thinking of an older time in WoW (when grinding reps and currency for gear was less restrictive/less based on daily tasks)?

PvP there is actually worthwhile doing and is not dragged down by poor servers/netcode. I could level 10- cap off pvp and do different battle grounds at any given level. I think at 20? maybe it is 30 idr, where you have acess to more battle grounds then here at max level, and the entry point of doing pvp there is small and not gated by tedious MSQ. (You have to be so far to be 30 here along with having a job)

There the different battle grounds, the acutall doing the content makes them worthwhile and an alt way of gaining exp. Here it is... dead.. unattractive, and pointless.

I agree with the reasoning but I doubt that ppl were really that sold on ultimate and rival wings. I don't really think pvp are that interested in pvp on this game also the report of 200k extra players have come so late in 4.0 that imho it should've been were the drop should've started, since lucky bancho bases itself on activity they can't just be accounts, also since it was 3.5 months after SB release the effect of a new players shoudl've been reabsorbed by then.

the first week or so people where interested in it, I guess they where "sold" upfront? then after people learned that it sucked, bombed right after.

I will preface my response by saying it's entirely speculative. So please keep that in mind.

That aside, I suspect the upswing in 4.1 came due to players still returning, Ultimate and Rival Wings. Both were hyped exceptionally, especially the latter in conjunction with the PvP changes. Collect all that with an easier Savage and promises of a scaling difficulty, and people had more to keep themselves occupied. Something else you can attribute to increased subs in 4.1 is raiders opting to stick around. After all, they now had Ultimate whereas before, they didn't have a whole lot to do. Additional housing wards also came out around this time. So why the subsequent drop? Rival Wings imploded while Savage being made easier also meant it possessed less longevity. The reception towards Alte Roite and Catastrophe weren't exactly stellar either, at least amongst my own circles. Even casual groups like NEST pointed out Alte Roite was a bit too easy, which says something.

As more players finished Stormblood, I wager many found there wasn't actually all that much available with any lasting appeal. The PvP "improvements" bombed, hard, and 4.1 offered very little outside niche content. Therefore, when 4.2 came around, you saw a noticeable dip—one that only recovered because Eureka was supposed the "next big thing." That brought players back given how much focus was placed on it's innovation. And the divisive response is why those active numbers dropped sharply thereafter.

We may see another upswing around 4.4 because of the Monster Hunter Collab, but I guarantee it will plummet severely come 4.5, especially if we're given no new surprises beyond more Eureka.

Stormblood has basically fed off constant hype yet poor sustainability. Be it Ultimate, PvP, Eureka all the way to something as simple as job gauges. They were all hyped substantially despite only Ultimate paying any real dividends. And if 4.5 does repeat the drought of 3.5, I cannot help wonder if people's faith will have been spent. After all, if they follow predictable patterns, we're looking at a very lengthily drought with virtually nothing to do. Stormblood was supposed to SE's chance to be innovative. Instead, they played it punishingly safe, going so far as to make everything even easier. I just can't see them getting away with a retread of that same philosophy come 5.0.

agreed with all of that.

[Nezerius]

Last time I played, most everything worth pursuing was locked to at least a daily schedule at the shortest - things like world quests and dungeon bonuses (such as they were). Some of the reputation grinds did allow for completing dungeons tied to them, so there was that...but I don't recall those taking long (most were the second highest rep level by the time you finished questing) so the life of that as a motivator for content was short.

Early Legion had the Artifact Power grind, a grind that was so ridiculous that it even made people quit, simply because they felt like they didn't have time to do anything else on their main/alt. It was also pretty time-consuming to clear out all the world quests, especially after they added paragon reputations (post-exalted reputation that would give you a reward cache with every 10k reputation).

I mean, speaking of current content specifically, dungeons here and dungeons there you can farm as much as you want, mythic dungeons there you can so long as you have keystones to do it (so it's limited, but in a different way), Trials here you can. Daily quests here and once a day, World quests (which are just daily quests without requiring you to accept/turn in) there are once a day.

Mythic keystones were hardly limited, even more so after they changed them. Before the change, you could just list your party in the group finder and get someone with a mythic keystone, then hope that it wouldn't get depleted (ie: not clearing the dungeon in time). After the change, keystones simply can't deplete anymore, and the one using the keystone simply gets a new one after the run, which would either be upgraded if the party cleared it fast enough, or downgraded by 1 if the party did not (or did not complete it at all).
Emissary quests are more like the daily quests of WoW, while the world quests themselves pop up throughout the day. If you do a bunch of world quests in the morning, you can expect to have a bunch of world quests respawn in the evening.

Are you sure you're not thinking of an older time in WoW (when grinding reps and currency for gear was less restrictive/less based on daily tasks)?

I'd hardly call Legion's grinds more restrictive than previous expansion, considering players had free reign on how much AP they wanted to grind, the titanforging giving any content the possibility of dropping an upgrade, as well as any content done by the player adding to the "bad luck protection" of obtaining any of the legendary items.

[Remedi]

I'm not convinced FFXIV can. While unofficial censuses cannot be looked at as definitive, they're still telling. Stormblood numbers have dipped to Gordias levels, which is really bad. And I'd attribute it directly to the staggered releases of content and how niche much of its been. FFXIV just doesn't have the playerbase to float like WoW can.

Well on my defense maybe I should have used words differently I meant that they've shown that it works on their game and they thought it would work on here especially since ppl complains that later in the patch there's nothing to do afaik we've been getting monthly updates this time around so we can't really say that nobody said anything about the previous release.
But overall I agree that FFXIV doesn't gave the ability to fly like wow and that's why I'm always saying that we should consider what wow does with a grain of salt.

However as far player counts go it has been extremely erratic in behavior for all of stormblood with spikes in player counts in odd moments as such I would say we need more investigations before having any remarkable conclusions on it
I don't get how we got about 200k in the lul before 4.1 (this was right before 4.1 dropped and after the 2 counts in SB btw) Or the 90k spike between the release of eureka and 4.3, so far I've got no answer on why it might've happened perhaps I need to contact the guy keeping the list again