The Perfect Response to "Take a Break"

[Cilia]

The "oh, but there are so few of you guys" argument is done to death. Someone's position on a matter won't magically change simply because they're in a minority, and I'm pretty sure most people know that. Using this argument is in effect simply an attempt to discourage further discourse by making someone feel outnumbered or shamed.

I respectfully disagree. Pointing out that negative critics of the game (whether it be story or gameplay) are in the minority is meant to put things in perspective - it's easy to forget hanging out in locales that are frequented only by people with concurrent opinions, but more people than not are happy with the state and direction of the game. In spite of its flaws (and they do exist), people enjoy the game and its story - even if you don't and have objections to their direction. Vis a vis telling these people what they're enjoying is low-quality and poorly written isn't going to change their minds, and is pretty likely to leave them incensed.

Or at least, enough people are happy with it to keep it profitable, and at the end of the day that's what matters to the SE suits.

The game - with its current story direction and gameplay - might just not be for you. Sometimes you gotta accept that, and refusing to do so because of how much time and money you've spent on it is just Sunk Cost Fallacy. If you're not having fun with it, tell SE / CBU3 in the only way that really matters.

[aveyond-dreams]

I respectfully disagree. Pointing out that negative critics of the game (whether it be story or gameplay) are in the minority is meant to put things in perspective - it's easy to forget hanging out in locales that are frequented only by people with concurrent opinions, but more people than not are happy with the state and direction of the game.

If you say so. For people who are so concerned with how others come across it's interesting that of all things you chose this to follow up and then proceed to double down on.

Vis a vis telling these people what they're enjoying is low-quality and poorly written isn't going to change their minds, and is pretty likely to leave them incensed.

I am not responsible for your reaction to criticism of FFXIV.

The game - with its current story direction and gameplay - might just not be for you. Sometimes you gotta accept that, and refusing to do so because of how much time and money you've spent on it is just Sunk Cost Fallacy. If you're not having fun with it, tell SE / CBU3 in the only way that really matters.

It has been explained multiple times that for users such as myself at the point of purchasing Crysta the money has gone to SE and where they choose to allocate those funds is completely beyond our control. The Crysta I have purchased for FFXI has no doubt been funnelled into FFXIV over the years so unfortunately this tactic is not effective. However, as the chart posted by Deceptus shows, the player population is plummeting back down to the level of previous expansions after having completely failed to retain the WoW population boost.

[Cilia]

I am not responsible for your reaction to criticism of FFXIV.

I neither said nor implied that you were.

It has been explained multiple times that for users such as myself at the point of purchasing Crysta the money has gone to SE and where they choose to allocate those funds is completely beyond our control. The Crysta I have purchased for FFXI has no doubt been funnelled into FFXIV over the years so unfortunately this tactic is not effective. However, as the chart posted by Deceptus shows, the player population is plummeting back down to the level of previous expansions after having completely failed to retain the WoW population boost.

Spoiler alert: where the money anybody spends on a subscription-based game goes is entirely unknown. Ideally it will be reinvested into the game itself, but nobody knows for sure. (You mean the money I spent on XIV might have been reinvested into Marvel's Avengers or, heavens forfend, Forspoken? G-gasp!) Whether you spent money on Crysta for XI is kind of irrelevant; if you aren't satisfied with the product, don't buy it. If you spent so much money on Crysta you can sub to this game every patch and even buy an expansion despite allegedly not playing and hating it all the same, you ought to find yourself a new hobby.

Player population always goes down between patches and expansions, and anyone doing a modicum of research could have told you post-6.0 MSQ would be kind of lackluster (as the 2.0 story arc concluded in 6.0 and they told us so, meaning the devs / writers were going to use 6.x as filler to get 7.0 written instead of leading to the expack's "True End" and setting up the next as per usual). CBU3 also had its hands full with XVI, and one thing Yoshi-P has said over the years is that the SE suits don't properly fund the game. Failing to retain the WoW population boost - at this point in time - is not as big of a deal as you seem to want it to be.