Time to Quit

[Theodric]

There's ample proof to be found by simply daring a look at what the FFXIV tag brings up on Twitter to see exactly what a lot of players use the game for.

As for players being 'pushed out', one only needs to look at how vocal members of this community behave if someone likes or dislikes the 'wrong' character or doesn't react the 'right way' to certain cutscenes.

[Renathras]

There's ample proof to be found by simply daring a look at what the FFXIV tag brings up on Twitter to see exactly what a lot of players use the game for.

As for players being 'pushed out', one only needs to look at how vocal members of this community behave if someone likes or dislikes the 'wrong' character or doesn't react the 'right way' to certain cutscenes.

You...can't be serious, can you?

1) There are no numbers with "what the FFXIV tag brings up on Twitter". "a lot"? How many? 1? 50? 500? 1,000? 1,000,000? How is this "data"?
2) "anecdote is not data".
3) Can you offer evidence that the majority of FFXIV's playerbase is even on Twitter?
4) Can you show the number of them that post on Twitter?
5) Can you show the number posting "Second Life" on Twitter, and what percentage that is of the playerbase?
6) Twitter, in general, represents only a small segment of society, and studies have shown that around 80-90% of posts are made by only around 2% of Twitter users to begin with. Did you know that?

No?

Then that's not data. That's not useful to a discussion. "A few hundred" - in a game played by between 1 million and 3 million people? 100 is 0.01% of 1,000,000. 500 is 0.05%. You need 10,000 to get to even 1% of the playerbase. Can you find 10,000 individual FFXIV posters on Twitter all posting Second Life topics? I doubt you can. And even if you could, that would be at best 1% of the playerbase, hardly a majority. And that's if we lowball the playerbase at 1 million instead of 2 million or 3 million (I think around 1.7-1.8 million is the general ballpark of active player by various estimates.)

In short, you contest data with "look at Twitter".

That's like contesting serious policy debate with "Read the President's Twitter rage takes".

.

EDIT:

Again, I don't think the game's perfect. It's leaving a lot of potential content and players on the table by not developing more midcore content - something other MMOs have also failed at (for years, WoW was "raid scene and PvP" and nothing else). I think there's also room for both simple Jobs (like current SMN) and complex ones (like old SMN) in the same design space. Hell, old SMN had a 2 min rotations so would work with the 2 min meta system, even!

I think the solution is to change things up a bit, but keep the core, just adding to it. Cast a wider net, both to catch new fish and to give existing fish more room to swim within. I don't see anything wrong with that.

However, the notions that the game is dying or only held aloft by "Second Life" players is both insulting AND statistically invalid. The data does not support either claim.

[Theodric]

You...can't be serious, can you?

Why wouldn't I be serious? A significant number of people playing this game are present on Twitter and they're openly advertising that their primary use of the game isn't to actually play it but to mod and lewd it.

It's been a problem for a while, escalating in recent years. Even when I roleplayed in this game, there was always this sleazy portion of players trying to pressure people into engaging in ERP even if they declined. That portion of players has grown emboldened over time to the point where many threads have been made regarding the number of venue adverts filling up the party finder (some of which are outright adult in nature).

You could also look at the amount of players casually advertising their deepest, darkest fetishes in a carrd profile linked to their search info.

One thing that is consistent, however, is that whenever any of this is pointed out it is always downplayed.

Just the other day there was a thread here where someone was defending pedophiles. It's past time to stop pretending that this game doesn't have a growing number of genuinely unsettling players who aren't here for the actual game as intended but as a Second Life simulator.

Furthermore, where did I say the game is 'dying'? I doubt it'll die, much in the same way as World of Warcraft isn't going to die. It doesn't mean the game can't go in a completely different direction and screw over the original target audience, though.

[Renathras]

Why wouldn't I be serious? A significant number of people playing this game...

And what is that "significant number"?

What is the "number" there? Is it 50? 500? A thousand? A million?

[Theodric]

And what is that "significant number"?

What is the "number" there? Is it 50? 500? A thousand? A million?

I'd say the fact that - as another poster so kindly pointed out - at least 20000 players are using a specific lewd mod counts as a 'significant number' when there is content designed to appeal to a far lesser number of players.

I think it'd be quite the interesting experiment for Square Enix to ban mods altogether as of 7.0 and prevent them from being launched, if only to see how many players actually stick around to continue playing the game as intended.

[DPZ2]

I think it'd be quite the interesting experiment for Square Enix to ban mods altogether as of 7.0 and prevent them from being launched

It might be an "interesting experiment", but no sane company CEO is going to approve such a move. The liability lawsuits would cripple any game company involved in such stupidity.

And fully encrypting network traffic between client and server could work, but if you're not already worried about ping you will be shortly after implementation.

Dream on though.

[Fortecael]

I officially joined the 7.0 make it or break it gang.

For a bit of a story I only resubbed to play the MSQ, see the new trial and pandemonium's ending. All of it. ALL. Was trash.

MSQ is literally another "We went to za void (again), we failed (again), we go back (again) and try again next patch lol (this is like the 4th time or what ?)", the Golbez fight was also the least interesting trial this expansion, which is saying a lot since Rubicante was just a reskinned Suzaku. The last good trial was Barbaricia, which was about 2 patches ago, hot damn.

And on this topic, the first 2 tiers of Pandemonium were cool, had interesting mechanics and were fun to watch, play and listen to. This tier is crap, in all departments, the mechanics all boil down to "Hahaha, gotcha" bodychecks, the bosses are literally who cares mobs, and do we really need another Themis fight ? Like, really ? Let him be already. And don't get me started on P12. E12 was visually impressive and fun to play (even on normal) but I don't have words to explain how disappointing P12 is.

I won't even go into all my complaints about no content, but at this point I feel robbed of $12, I literally played this patch for less than 12 hours, there's nothing to do, there's no worth in paying the sub.

I'm joining the 7.0 make it or break it gang.

[caffe_macchiato]

It might be an "interesting experiment", but no sane company CEO is going to approve such a move. The liability lawsuits would cripple any game company involved in such stupidity.

That's odd. Since when is it illegal to not allow modding? Are you telling me that WoW is also banned in Japan? Are you telling me that FFXIV's own TOS opens them up to lawsuits? Are you telling me there's no way they can find mod users?

[Ath192]

And what is that "significant number"?

What is the "number" there? Is it 50? 500? A thousand? A million?

Why does a hard number matter? Do you actually mean to dispute that a lot of ppl use this game for ERP, lewd mods and random venues. Because surely you have common sense and know that is the case.

[Ivtrix]

And what is that "significant number"?

What is the "number" there? Is it 50? 500? A thousand? A million?

The developer who runs the horse mod where you can see other mods has estimated based on usage that 14% of the playerbase uses his specific mod. I can find you the discord post if you’d like. He’d be very in tune with player usage.