Time to Quit

[IkaraGreydancer]

Feel like 7.0 isnt going to bring much in the way of change as folks are hoping for. But Im hoping for these concerns to at least be brought up in any Q&A or interviews from fanfests or pre-expansion tours. Really only thing they can do at this point is to ease woes is to just come out and say "We fucked up, we're listen, well make changes in the future."

The problem with that is...that'd require there to be actual mess ups as folks claim. I personally don't think the game is perfect but it IS growing each and every expac so that means they're doing something right (contrary to what many say here). It's less a case of devs messing up and more a case of people not feeling like the game caters to them anymore. For a game that's been apparently dying for 4+ years according to these forums, I can't tell really, and numbers don't support that thought.

[AlexiaD]

The problem with that is...that'd require there to be actual mess ups. I personally don't think the game is perfect but it IS growing each and every expac so that means they're doing something right (contrary to what many say here). It's less a case of devs messing up and more a case of people not feeling like the game caters to them anymore.

It actually is not growing but okay ? lol, it's stable yes, but its not growing.

To prove my point based on Steamchart's sample which is a certain % of the community (source : https://steamcharts.com/app/39210)

It shows that the game is pretty much stable and always coming back down to the same numbers, and I can already see the comment "yeah steamcharts is a small percentage !!!" yes it is, but it gives a very good idea and it's a good sample.

June 2023 21,494.1 -382.0 -1.75% 36,308
May 2023 21,876.1 +1,340.8 +6.53% 44,087
April 2023 20,535.3 -1,183.0 -5.45% 33,821
March 2023 21,718.3 -1,727.4 -7.37% 35,443
February 2023 23,445.7 -3,694.4 -13.61% 39,958
January 2023 27,140.2 +8,694.5 +47.14% 47,992
December 2022 18,445.6 -902.5 -4.66% 27,313
November 2022 19,348.2 -3,130.9 -13.93% 32,463
October 2022 22,479.1 -5,447.7 -19.51% 37,718
September 2022 27,926.8 -302.0 -1.07% 48,199
August 2022 28,228.8 +4,608.5 +19.51% 56,616
July 2022 23,620.3 -1,127.6 -4.56% 37,743

[IkaraGreydancer]

It actually is not growing but okay ? lol, it's stable yes, but its not growing.

People pulled up numbers of player counts now compared to the same times last expac and they were indeed higher now. If you call that stable and not growing then I say have at it.

Not like it changes much lol A stable/growing game is still not a dying game so your point is irrelevant to what I said realistically.

[AlexiaD]

People pulled up numbers of player counts now compared to the same times last expac and they were indeed higher now. If you call that stable and not growing then I say have at it.

Not like it changes much lol A stable/growing game is still not a dying game so your point is irrelevant tbh.

I just gave you evidence of my claim, where are yours ?

Also I never said the game is dying, I said that the game is pretty much stable.

[IkaraGreydancer]

I just gave you evidence of my claim, where are yours ?

Also I never said the game is dying, I said that the game is pretty much stable.

Iirc it's in the thread made about seeing the same roulette people. I'm not sure how to quote a post from a different thread tbh.

And I never said you claimed the game was dying. My original point is the game isn't dying like many claim. Regardless if it's growing or just simply stable. Neither of those equals dying. That's the main point.

[Kes13a]

I just gave you evidence of my claim, where are yours ?

Also I never said the game is dying, I said that the game is pretty much stable.

Steam does seem to say the game is stable, though truly, if I could flip my sub from Steam to actual SE without having to buy the game again and with my characters, I would in a heartbeat, and I think so would many on steam now.

[Renathras]

The problem with that is...that'd require there to be actual mess ups as folks claim. I personally don't think the game is perfect but it IS growing each and every expac so that means they're doing something right (contrary to what many say here). It's less a case of devs messing up and more a case of people not feeling like the game caters to them anymore. For a game that's been apparently dying for 4+ years according to these forums, I can't tell really, and numbers don't support that thought.

This.

From what data we DO have, the game is growing vs the past. The Steam data is a poor measure (and probably the most antagonistic/pessimistic of the data we have), but even it shows higher levels of players and active log-ins than pre-2021. The game on Steam is at or above 5.4/5.5 levels, and spikes higher every new patch.

The other data sets we have, like the Lodestone crawls that Lucky Bancho puts together, show player retention higher post-expansion than any prior expansion.

While I do agree the game isn't perfect and there are things I'd like to see fixed or changed going forward, it's not dying. It's not even clear it's plateauing. My big issue with doomsayers making this claim is that it's just false by even the most pessimistic data.

Overcoming a difficult challenge should be part of the reward...

I think there are a couple parts here that often are missed.

1) People that do difficult content often say they do it for the challenge, but refuse to do it without reward. This suggest the aren't being honest about their motivations.
2) People will do things they don't like if the reward is great enough to them...but is that good game design? Force people into doing something they find un-fun...in a game...which is supposed to be fun?
3) Difficult things can have rewards without them being exclusive to that content, provided it has some other advantage (time efficiency, for example). This is still "tangible".
4) Even if we ignore that and go with your premise, Savage groups still will attempt 8 clears for all their members, not just one.

I agree all content should have rewards, but I tend to support an "all roads lead to Rome" model of video game design. The Sand step in the HW Relic I thought was very well done precisely because it gave players lots of ways to engage with it, with different ones being more or less efficient (in time and resources), but everything from Level farming for those Aether Incased Vilekin chests to DoH/DoL crafting scripts could be used to progress it, as could running Alexander raids.

The trick, I think, is in giving people efficiencies they can use. For example, suppose Criterion Savage capped your tomes for the week in a single run. Now, at least for a little while, hardcore players (who are the ones it's made for) have a good reason to run it. Would you rather spend a few hours chain running Experts to cap on Tuesday (that's something like, what 7 Expert runs in a row since you only get the daily bonus on the first one?), or run a single Criterion (Savage) if you've got it down to where you can do it in half an hour with your static-mates splitting into two groups? Not even an exclusive reward, but already there's a reason to actually run the things once a week. Some might then choose to do that while others choose Extremes or Hunt Trains or what-have-you, but the point is, it's a competitive and attractive option at that point since you trade difficulty for time efficiency, which matters to some people.

It actually is not growing but okay ? lol, it's stable yes, but its not growing.

To prove my point based on Steamchart's sample which is a certain % of the community...

Prefacing this with "steam numbers are HORRIBLY bad and likely don't represent the playerbase as a whole", you can find fault with that statement all you want, I already debunked this. The problem isn't using Steam numbers, the problem is HOW people are using them with poor/incorrect analysis. For example, you're looking July 2022 to present. Why? Because if you cherrypick data like that, it supports your position. But what if you DON'T? What if you look at all the data?

Well, fortunately for us all, I already did that.

UNfortunately, I think the thread and post got deleted. So the analysis isn't here, but I do still have the picture:



As anyone can see - and recall that I said Steam numbers are likely the most pessimistic, meaning the most likely to state your case - we are still above patch 5.4 numbers, meaning "apples-to-apples" comparisons of numbers at this time last expansion to this time this expansion shows GROWTH, not stagnation, and certainly not decline.

Moreover, consulting the graph at the top, it show we're at approximately the same level as we were in Summer 2021, when we had the WoW collapse, and this was well before EW launch, which temporarily boosted that (a pattern ALL not dead MMOs have with every expansion launch), and we also get more minor but still significant bumps every major patch.

By the Steam numbers, the game is AT LEAST as popular as it was in 5.4, and probably a bit moreso.

.

You did not "give evidence of your claim". You cherry-picked data that, if viewed on the whole, does not support your claim. The game seems to be at a higher level than it was this time last expansion. That is defined as growth. Not decline, not stagnation/stable. Growth. Increase. Higher than it was then.

So it's hard to make the case the Devs have a lot of apologizing to do.

.

Again, I say this as a person who wants some changes - I REALLY want Exploration Zones back, and would love to see more open world content and more heterogeneity within some of the roles, particularly Healers and to a lesser extent, Tanks, and I think the combat system/encounter design needs to be changed, particularly in reference to mitigation checks, and that Job design needs to be less oGCD/weave based on at least some Jobs with more strategic GCD focus (contrast the four present Healer Jobs to BLU in Healer Mimicry using GCD heals to see how different the two playstyles are and feel) - but objectively, by even the most pessimistic numbers, the data does not suggest that the Devs have made huge mistakes, that the game is dying, or even that the game has plateaued.

[caffe_macchiato]

etc

20,000+ people are logged in to Mare at any given time. What's the bet that most of the people playing on PC are doing so because it's a better version of Second Life, and not to play the actual game? The devs could stop making content and people would still play, because it's the players that are making the content now.

This is what FFXIV is like on PC. This is why people are subbing. And this is because the amount of gameplay content has fallen. Square Enix's weakness and ineptitude pushed actual players out and allowed habitual TOS-breakers to take over.

[Renathras]

I think Asmongold said it best. If everyone or if 90% of the playerbase actually just quit right now, SE would immediately do a 180 with FFXIV in a heartbeat.

The thing is, it doesn't appear anywhere close to 90% of the playerbase agree with the doomposters and would quit. Tons of people - we don't know the percent, but it's very likely higher than 10% - seem to still very much enjoy the game. Even a lot who have quibbles with it still enjoy it overall while wanting some changes. It's VERY unlikely there's going to be a 90% dropoff of players. People self-sort between MMOs over time. People that don't like a lot of what FFXIV has have already either allowed their subs to lapse or moved on/back to other MMOs. If all the really discontented people quit, that probably wouldn't be anywhere close to 90%.

The question there is more "At what percent does it become significant?", which must also factor against the fact new people are coming in all the time. So say 25% would be significant. Then not only would you have to have 25% quit, you'd also need an additional X%, where X is the amount of new people coming into the game.

I'm hopeful but I can understand why some are ambivalent.

I agree with most of what you said in this post. This point I want to take note of, though. Ambivalent I can understand - EW was largely "ShB 2.0", and as much flack as people give the SB to ShB transition (particularly on the Healer forums), the changes were a lot less major than people think; the Relic grind was SIMILAR (albeit Covid interrupted), the patch cycles were more formalized, but followed the same formula of some new story, a new dungeon, a new trial, every other a new set of 4 raid bosses, the same tome and token and hunt progression systems, and so on. ShB's big changes to SB were simplifying Healer damage rotations, Tank threat generation, and eventually formalizing the patch cadence. EW's "innovations" other than SMN and PLD were largely the Relic "grind" becoming a second Tomestone weapon that didn't require raiding and the 2 min meta. As much as people (including me) attack the latter, players were already trying to align buffs in ShB as well, particularly 1 min ones, and some raid groups picking Jobs whose bursts aligned, so this was again more formalizing a thing already being done anyway.

Ambivalent I understand, since 6.X has largely been like 5.X which was largely like 4.X in terms of content, cadence, game systems, and encounter/fight design.

What I don't understand are the doomposters saying things are so much worse when...they're largely the same. And player numbers are higher, meaning the game is growing either due to or in spite of it.

No need to go into hyperboles, I'm sure some people who consider themselves midcore are having fun, but if you look around in forums and reddits, you cannot deny content could be designed better for us.

I mean, even I say that and you disparage me for it.

There's a wide gulf between "could be better" and "imaragequit! this game sucks! it's going to die!!"

(Also, I didn't comment on it, but your Second Life comment is moronic - no RPing here and I love the game just fine. No one in my FC does, I think one time they all went around venues for an evening just to see what it was about and were more amused by an Omega Legend being a cook somewhere than the actual "scene", etc etc. The game isn't depending on "Second Life" players, and it's unlikely they carry it anyway.)

20,000+ people are logged in to Mare at any given time. What's the bet that most of the people playing on PC are doing so because it's a better version of Second Life, and not to play the actual game? The devs could stop making content and people would still play, because it's the players that are making the content now.

This is what FFXIV is like on PC. This is why people are subbing. And this is because the amount of gameplay content has fallen. Square Enix's weakness and ineptitude pushed actual players out and allowed habitual TOS-breakers to take over.

No, it's not.

You're trying to make a sweeping statement, and from that more sweeping statements.

PROVE RIGHT NOW that EVERYONE on PC FFXIV is subbing because they are playing "better Second Life". Show your work. Where is your evidence?

Right, you have none.

So your argument that it's "because the amount of gameplay content has fallen" is vacuous, since you don't even know the "better Second Life" is happening in the first place. This further compounds into yet another error when you insist it's SE's "weakness and ineptitude" that "pushed actual players out", since you've provided no evidence that "actual players" have even been "pushed...out".

I'm an actual player.
I haven't been pushed out.

Same with many others.

You can't start with a flawed premise you cannot prove, then draw a conclusion based on that, then draw another conclusion based on THAT, especially when your latter premises seem not to agree with the data.

[CStrife912]

.

All I'm going to say is I am appreciative of someone whos way more analytical and offered better concrete evidence to support whatever you claim. But alas you'll be called a white knight even though your evidence above sort of aligned with what I thought about the game with its actual steady growth compared to pre-wow exodus. This is without console player data and like someone above saying people on PC sub to be second life there's a lot of console players that make up the playerbase (id love to see the percentage of console to PC) that can't access mods and there are people here who sub because they just do story or housing...just cause they don't engage in content types isn't the be all end all.