1 million active players, but how many of them are bots and alts?

[Aword3213]

So many active players. How many of them are bots?

So few players. The game is dying.

[Hurlstone]

In the end we are all bots, made of flesh and making our way through life for reason we rarely understand... its beautiful and scary.

[MintnHoney]

quick question. Why do you care?

I raise you a counter question:
what else do people do with this game, except care? What else is there to do for those who need the midcore content that this game sorely lacks?
Besides, these are all things that should be said, but people are just tired of seeing it. If the problem were somehow dealt with, we'd probably see less threads like this. So, in the meantime, we may as well let these threads keep happening so that it's annoyingly there for Squeen to see, if they look at all, so that we don't have to write it ourselves. Maybe, one day, it'll lead to some sort of resolution.

[caffe_macchiato]

stuff that we don't agree with

None. We like the game as-is, which means there aren't a lot of bots. In fact, the game is at an all-time high in subscriber count in addition to being the most critically-acclaimed MMO of all time. I literally cried about 12 times during the MSQ (6.x patches) and a few dozen more during Endwalker. I've played for 10 hours a day since 2013 and still haven't run out of content. Still better than WoW, remember Shadowlands? What other MMO are you gonna play if you hate this one so much? Exactly. FFXIV is fine as-is, so your claim about bots is false because everyone else also agrees with me. Stop complaining.

Also, according to post #10 of this thread, you are a bot.

[Neoyoshi]

What's the overarching point to any of this though? Every mmorpg in recent history has dealt or deals with this problem to this day. World of Warcraft has probably one of the more 'out-in-the-open' RMT issues compared to any other game in the list.

But because FFXIV is in the current mmorpg 'zeitgeist' -it's this games turn to have this pointed out?

Oh yes, so this is what it feels like to nibble on the bait.

I hate this so much.

[Renathras]

Well, OP makes up for half the bots and alts, so that's that question answered

/thread
/10 chars

[Jojoya]

What's the overarching point to any of this though? Every mmorpg in recent history has dealt or deals with this problem to this day. World of Warcraft has probably one of the more 'out-in-the-open' RMT issues compared to any other game in the list.

But because FFXIV is in the current mmorpg 'zeitgeist' -it's this games turn to have this pointed out?

Oh yes, so this is what it feels like to nibble on the bait.

I hate this so much.

Tunnel focusing on things they feel they are associated with.

Virtue signaling to distract from their personal flaws.

Obsession with what others do instead of focusing on having fun with what they do themselves.

Social media conditioning to be part of the "popular" crowd.

If people gave more importance to what they do instead of to what they have, bots wouldn't be a problem.

[Sindele]

Very few, mostly because the "Active Player" determinator is going to cut out most basic gil farming bots, as Fawkes mentioned. The only bots that need to clear Endwalker are top-end craft/gather bots, and even a maximally skeptical view of how many of those exist is going to struggle mightily to justify anything above four figures - they're relatively expensive, competition-sensitive, and effective enough operating off a single character or a tandem craft/gather duo that the major limiter is sale slots.. which isn't something you need more full cleared characters for.

Alts is a trickier call in theory, but the tell for me is that if it was a significant factor, I'd expect to see a noticeable uptick on either Balmung and Mateus from all the RP alts, or Gilgamesh from raiders using alts to funnel reclear loot. But.. well, the former doesn't need to be fully up to date save for rare instances of glamour chasing, and the latter isn't really necessary in the modern environment. Both show in the proportional and expected character counts.

[UkcsAlias]

So few players. The game is dying.

Team fortress 2 already had people yelling the game was dying fast in 2010. And especialy overwatch would be the tf2 killer.

The most dedicated core of players can keep a game alive for VERY long. But that only works if the game itself is good. If you think the flaws in this game are bad... try tf2 matchmaking. It will make the botting problem in this game appear as almost non existant. And yet, even with that issue in tf2, dedicated servers keep the game alive.

A game might also appear dead for several years until a good update comes out again and pushes numbers up for a while again. tf2 has the advantage of being pvp, which doesnt require a constant addition of content to be kept alive as much, which helps it a lot. But players can be stubborn.

FF made a major mistake with island sanctuaries as it isnt a grindy combat based thing like eureka. This is probably a major reason numbers now appear extra low. But it doesnt tell anything about what they add later. 7.0 might be a failure, while maybe in 7.3 they add something that revives a lot. Its very hard to create good fresh content that players will like. Its just trial and error.

Add to that FF16 and it will make the current game appear quite dead. But who knows what they will do later on. As long as new content causes a spike in money, there is motivation to keep the game alive. Maybe as barebone and life support. But this little bit can be more than enough.

[IckeDerTyp]

In the end we are all bots, made of flesh and making our way through life for reason we rarely understand... its beautiful and scary.

This.

I like you <3