Time to Quit

[Myrany]

I have played since 2.0 and have been subbed for 90% of that time with a couple of breaks in lulls between expansions. 6.0 has changed that for me. I have hardly been subbed since it came out. It sadly has killed my love for this game. It's a combination of things, the biggest one for me is the poor MSQ. I hated the 6.0 storyline, it's far and away for me the weakest of all the expansions.

You can't please everyone however, and I would have kept my sub if I was happy doing side content, but there is no side content in 6.0 I enjoy. Everything just feels like a regurgitation. All content is a Linear dungeon after linear dungeon, whether its 4, 8 or 24 man, it is the same old concept again and again. The only change is adding more and more flashy graphics to content. It's all so samey. Job changes throughout 6.0 have been dull. Jobs are becoming more and more similar. The changes to scholar and summoner for me sum up 6.0, smoother - yes. Easier to play - yes, but far more boring. The pet changes to scholar particularly makes it feel like the soul of the job has been ripped out.

Deep dungeon is the one thing I sort of enjoy as it's a personal challenge for me, but even that felt like a re-badged Heaven on High.

I'm just a casual player now and have been for since Stormblood, I was happy to muddle along doing crafting or levelling jobs etc, but everything in 6.0 feels tedious, it quite frankly feels like a chore to log in.

I'm actively looking for a replacement MMO now. I know we have different feelings about games and stories, but if a lot of long time players like me are also cancelling their subs, it must surely make SE do a rethink.

Although I do understand what you are saying there is one factor often ignored in statements like this.

Other than sub time and the purchase of new expansions as they come out NEW PLAYERS make more money for the company. They stay around longer for more sub money consistently. They also have to buy the content to begin with. They don't already own half the cash shop.

Until the number of long term players leaving eclipses the number of new players coming in, long term players are not the main focus beyond "Give them just enough to make them buy the new expansion and sub for a few months here and there."

[Rufalus]

My concern with Island Sanctuary is that its very bare bones in general but has a lot of potential to be something that persists through expansions and gains additional features over time.

It's unfair for me to bring this up due to the age of the game but I wanna offer a little progress update on PSO2:NGS. People overlook it too much.

The June update gave everyone an instanced island (free to play) and two more islands if you pay. You can float objects without glitches, even building way up into the sky. You can add warp points, puzzles, traps, updrafts, springs. You can resize objects. You can make custom objects out basic shapes. Some dude made a working calculator out of play part triggers. I've seen people make cathedrals, sports arenas, dragons, an IKEA store, a Pikachu shrine, etc. You're encouraged to visit other people's islands to collect a type of currency on a daily reset.

I was hoping the creative possibilities of that new content would go viral but it's still flying under the radar and ignored by big gaming sites entirely. The Phantasy Star brand is too small outside of Japan. Some other features of the game include being able to listen to your music discs and playlists in any location, accessing all types of storage in any location, being able to change motion graphics like your run and jump animations, new game updates every week (even if it's just some basic tasks, it's better than nothing.)

The downsides of the game are shitty story, lack of compelling endgame fights, lots of copy-paste environments due to lack of workforce for new assets. I'm happy with the game for something with a minimum cost of nothing. Both the game itself and game time are free. It's on PS4, Xbox, Steam, Epic and Microsoft stores. If people remember it exists, we've got a trinity of JP MMOs to play between Square's FF XIV, Sega's PSO2 and Namco's Blue Protocol.

[Hyperia]

I burned out on Savage raiding due to P8S.

Yea, same here, I took a pass on the rest of raiding after finally clearing P8S. Instead of being super happy that my static cleared, it was more of a feeling like “thank god it’s over”. It feels like the current Savage mentality is that they are making things near ultimate hard and forgetting the fun parts. Don’t get me wrong, there are fun parts but overall it feels unnecessarily long and too hard for what it is supposed to be.

[caffe_macchiato]

Which would get us at around 4% - 10% of players using mare. In case that mare statistic meant daily active players, and not active players at any given time, that would make it 0,8% to 2%.

There are the same number of Mare users at any given time as there are Steam users. While SE doesn’t reveal sales data, it’s hard to believe that Steam only accounts for 4-10% of active players.

[Renathras]

I'd say the fact that - as another poster so kindly pointed out - at least 20000...

1) We have hard data proving this number?

2) So that's between 0.5% and 1% of the playerbase. What about the other 99%?

Why does a hard number matter?

Because people are making arguments it's a significant amount, or even majority, of the population. You need actual numbers to substantiate such a claim.

Do you actually mean to dispute that a lot of ppl use this game for...

I don't doubt "a lot" do. But that's irrelevant. A lot of people die from the common flu each year. In the US alone, generally around 40,000 people. Which sounds terrible. Until you realize the US has a population of around 330,000,000 (330 million) people, and that is around 0.012%, meaning we shouldn't all live in fear of this disease, even though it does kill "a lot" - 40k is "a lot" - of people.

Now suppose someone argued that most people die of the flu every year, and that if all those people were removed from the equation, it would have a huge impact on the nation. Well, then it matters how many that is relative to the whole. That is, what percentage it actually is. If one is to make sweeping statements like that, they have to be able to provide numbers, hard and trustworthy ones, and they have to support their claim of being a significant portion of the playerbase.

Even the 20,000 people - "a lot" indeed - is between half and 1% of the playerbase (assuming 1-2 million, which is a pretty solid ballpark estimate of the size of the playerbase right now). That's pretty insignificant.

...

1) Going to need some sources for those numbers.

3) 7.7% is hardly a majority, and as even you note, rough estimates.

3) 3% is also hardly a majority.

4) Define "significant". I see a lot of rough math without sources, but it still supports the notion that this is a minority of people. Around 5% of voters in 2016 voted for the Libertarian party candidate. Needless to say, 5% is not a majority.

.

Anyway, I'd continue this discussion, but I'm the only one so far who has provided sourced data and apples-to-apples analysis, and now you guys are moving the goalposts - it went from:

If those people will leave, potential success of this game will lie with the Second Life players and those who sub for few months per expansion to do MSQ.

...holding that people that currently enjoy things are these Second Life players, To:

Do you actually mean to dispute that a lot of ppl use this game for...

You can't go from so many the game relies on them to "meh, 4-10%", without ever providing sources or hard data, and be arguing in good faith.

I presented two arguments:

1) The game is not dying, or even really stagnating. At worst, it's slightly growing. At best, it's growing rather well. The Steam numbers are the most pessimistic but still show this. The other numbers like Lucky Banchos suggest even more health/growth, and,

2) The ERP scene is pretty small compared to the whole playerbase. Even the source-less napkin math holds around 7-8%, which is a far cry from a majority. I've never argued that NONE EXISTS, so don't hit me with that "You're saying there is none?!" BS bad faith goalpost move.

I'm going to bow out as I made both points, and even the attempt to counter the second just proved it was, indeed, a pretty small minority and thus likely not leading SE's development efforts or design. Anything else that's a bad faith goalpost move I'm uninterested in entertaining. I made my case, and neither point has been disproven, with even the attempts to disprove the second supporting it by accident.

Yeah I'd be interested to see how that'd go as well, including in terms of their accounts...

I'd be fine with it, personally. I think most people care more about shaders and such than lewd mods.

I burned out on Savage raiding due to P8S, but I haven't quit the game and announced it on the forums several times. All that's changed is that I'm not logging in the second I wake up, or every day, but instead playing other games, like Baldur's Gate 3 or Persona 5 Royal. I'm several weeks behind on my gearing, and I honestly couldn't care less. When the urge to no-life the game comes back, I'll do so then.

Yea, same here, I took a pass on the rest of raiding after finally clearing P8S. Instead of being super happy that my static cleared, it was more of a feeling like “thank god it’s over”. It feels like the current Savage mentality is that they are making things near ultimate hard and forgetting the fun parts. Don’t get me wrong, there are fun parts but overall it feels unnecessarily long and too hard for what it is supposed to be.

So basically the Gordias problem?

[caffe_macchiato]

2) So that's between 0.5% and 1% of the playerbase. What about the other 99%?

Wow, Square Enix is a lot stupider than I thought. Did they really go through all the work of porting this game to PC and putting it on Steam only for 20,000 concurrent players to make up 0.5 to 1% of the playerbase?

Also, that means that there are two million (2,000,000) people playing FFXIV at any given time. That's more than Fortnite. You understand that FFXIV is by far the most popular online game of all time, right?

So where's our content?

[Koros]

Wow, Square Enix is a lot stupider than I thought. Did they really go through all the work of porting this game to PC and putting it on Steam only for 20,000 concurrent players to make up 0.5 to 1% of the playerbase?

Also, that means that there are two million (2,000,000) people playing FFXIV at any given time. That's more than Fortnite. You understand that FFXIV is by far the most popular online game of all time, right?

So where's our content?

massive caffe macchiato L for actually reading ben shapiro's 1 million page essay at all

[Deo14]

1) We have hard data proving this number?

2) So that's between 0.5% and 1% of the playerbase. What about the other 99%?

As you said yourself in the same message: "Going to need some sources for those numbers". My estimate with 7% is rough, but at least it's based on some sources. What kind of source have you found that said that 20K of all time active players makes only 0.5 - 1% ? If you provide source, go ahead, but this claim is insane and implies FFXIV is more popular than any game on Steam or any game for that matter.

*common flu analogy*

I don't doubt "a lot" do. But that's irrelevant. A lot of people die from the common flu each year. In the US alone, generally around 40,000 people. Which sounds terrible. Until you realize the US has a population of around 330,000,000 (330 million) people, and that is around 0.012%, meaning we shouldn't all live in fear of this disease, even though it does kill "a lot" - 40k is "a lot" - of people.

Now suppose someone argued that most people die of the flu every year, and that if all those people were removed from the equation, it would have a huge impact on the nation. Well, then it matters how many that is relative to the whole. That is, what percentage it actually is. If one is to make sweeping statements like that, they have to be able to provide numbers, hard and trustworthy ones, and they have to support their claim of being a significant portion of the playerbase.

Even the 20,000 people - "a lot" indeed - is between half and 1% of the playerbase (assuming 1-2 million, which is a pretty solid ballpark estimate of the size of the playerbase right now). That's pretty insignificant.

Your analogy is hyperbolical and unfitting at best, completely of the perc at the worst. Analogy with 0.012% is okay for you, but we're talking about roughly ~5%, even with your unrealistic 0.5%, that's still very close to covid death rate, which, unless you forgot, was quite a problem few years back. Not like any of this matters, this analogy is bad from the start. Also, give me source of that 1-2 mil, and once you do, I'll respond just like you, and tell you to give me hard data instead.

1) Going to need some sources for those numbers.

3) 7.7% is hardly a majority, and as even you note, rough estimates.

3) 3% is also hardly a majority.

4) Define "significant". I see a lot of rough math without sources, but it still supports the notion that this is a minority of people. Around 5% of voters in 2016 voted for the Libertarian party candidate. Needless to say, 5% is not a majority.

1) Averages of numerous sources which seemed okay. I acknowledged that I'm working with rough estimates numerous times, and that hard data are impossible to come by

2, 3, 4) It's significant portion that only represents the biggest degens, there is also assumption that a lot of midcore degens exist as well. And holy moly why do you need to bring irl politics into stuff. Nobody cares, this is videogame, get a grip.

You can check Mare's website, it takes like 30 steps to make it work. You need to get on their discord, modify your lodestone and so on. This insane process is bound to discourage many players from even starting, yet there are 20K active Mare users at any given time as people in this thread said. That number is rivaling whole FFXIV's playerbase on Steam. If that is not significant to you, I don't know what is.

Anyway, I'd continue this discussion, but I'm the only one so far who has provided sourced data and apples-to-apples analysis, and now you guys are moving the goalposts - it went from:

You haven't provided any and your "analysis" that you provided is just completely off topic comparison of some 0.042% rare disease to 0.5% - 7.7% of users installing an ERP plugin.

You can't go from so many the game relies on them to "meh, 4-10%", without ever providing sources or hard data, and be arguing in good faith.

And you can't go away from posting your source for that 0.5% - 1% claim of yours. Come on, I'll wait, I'm curious where did you get that number. Same goes for that random 1-2 mil you threw in.

I'm going to bow out as I made both points, and even the attempt to counter the second just proved it was, indeed, a pretty small minority and thus likely not leading SE's development efforts or design. Anything else that's a bad faith goalpost move I'm uninterested in entertaining. I made my case, and neither point has been disproven, with even the attempts to disprove the second supporting it by accident.

"My argument is so strong it will not even need further defending, I'm always right waaah" - Ren Shapiro, 2023

massive caffe macchiato L for actually reading ren shapiro's 1 million page essay at all

I'll take an L, if they're not too long like one of his many deranged healer rants, they're somewhat fun to respond to. Until he starts repeating the same things over and over again.

[Lauront]

The downsides of the game are shitty story, lack of compelling endgame fights, lots of copy-paste environments due to lack of workforce for new assets. I'm happy with the game for something with a minimum cost of nothing. Both the game itself and game time are free. It's on PS4, Xbox, Steam, Epic and Microsoft stores. If people remember it exists, we've got a trinity of JP MMOs to play between Square's FF XIV, Sega's PSO2 and Namco's Blue Protocol.

I'm hoping Namco steadily improves on BP and polishes it, as I really like some aspects of what I've seen from it. Still not thrilled about AGS being involved in its western release, I have to say, and the company they picked for Hong Kong release (which some were hoping would be an alternative) isn't great, either.

[Bookie]

i seriously need bozja or eureka kind of grinding to keep on my love with the game. otherwise the game feels dead to me