We need to talk about the PC Gamer article

[sindriiisgaming]

This tbh, the daily "ffxiv is dying" and "the ffxiv community is bad" threads are getting very stale.

If the game is so bad and the community too, play a different game. We'll be fine without you OP I promise

You can allways not engage with them you know... or can you actually not stop yourself

[Atelier-Bagur]

You can allways not engage with them you know... or can you actually not stop yourself

See the thing is, people will take you less seriously if 90% of your posts are all like this though

[Jojoya]

To be honest, no I do not read over the "why" behind why people say to unsub. There can be any number of motivations, none of them make sense. That's whole point of all my posts. People are unsubbing.

So your point is to tell everyone something that any player who plays subscription based games already knows? There are always players unsubbing. They have any number of different motivations.

The point of my posts is to encourage people to make the choices that will leave them the happiest instead of miring themselves in negativity, or even worse paying to do so. Research has shown that retaining a negative mindset for long periods of time can have detrimental effects on health, both physical and mental. It is best not to stay in a situation where you are unhappy if you can avoid it. In the case of games, it's really easy to avoid.

You talk about people being inept with problem solving but just who would those be in relationship to the game content? None of us has the ability to solve problems with the game. That is in the developer's hands. Furthermore, what one person sees as a problem may not be a problem to another.

As for your burger analogy, restaurants are usually able to customize a menu offering within reason for its patrons. Theme park MMOs aren't the same. They can offer many different things but the individual things generally can't be customized to an individual patron's preference.

So the patron walks into a theme park MMO and decides to get a burger, which the theme park only makes with mayo. Either the patron can still enjoy the burger despite the mayo, or they can't.

If they can't enjoy the burger at all and they say that there is nothing else on the menu that they like, what advice would you give them?

[Turtledeluxe]

So your point is to tell everyone something that any player who plays subscription based games already knows? There are always players unsubbing. They have any number of different motivations.

The point of my posts is to encourage people to make the choices that will leave them the happiest instead of miring themselves in negativity, or even worse paying to do so. Research has shown that retaining a negative mindset for long periods of time can have detrimental effects on health, both physical and mental. It is best not to stay in a situation where you are unhappy if you can avoid it. In the case of games, it's really easy to avoid.

You talk about people being inept with problem solving but just who would those be in relationship to the game content? None of us has the ability to solve problems with the game. That is in the developer's hands. Furthermore, what one person sees as a problem may not be a problem to another.

As for your burger analogy, restaurants are usually able to customize a menu offering within reason for its patrons. Theme park MMOs aren't the same. They can offer many different things but the individual things generally can't be customized to an individual patron's preference.

So the patron walks into a theme park MMO and decides to get a burger, which the theme park only makes with mayo. Either the patron can still enjoy the burger despite the mayo, or they can't.

If they can't enjoy the burger at all and they say that there is nothing else on the menu that they like, what advice would you give them?

The problem with this interaction is that you are unknowingly pointing out how circular it has been. You ask "so you are trying to tell us an obvious truth"? Yes, because this entire discussion began with the insulting "please unsub" when people actually have unsubbed due to many of the popular complaints surrounding the game currently. Yes people also unsub for other reasons, but acting like there's no genuine critical reaction to the game right now is disingenuous.

My burger analogy has nothing to with FFXIV. It has to do with how people use the forum. "I don't like this one idea, so this voice needs to go away/unsub". Instead of solving your own problem by not engaging with the idea or maybe discrediting the article, you're throwing your hands up and saying "just unsub". If devs are the only ones who can address the concerns, then stop trying to control player feedback by telling people to unsub.

And it's not even just unsubbing-- it's less engagement. If someone subs but doesn't play an entire patch cycle, how is that improving other players' experience? Lack of engagement has a trickle down effect on every aspect of the game, significantly too many modes of play to bother mentioning.

[Jojoya]

And it's not even just unsubbing-- it's less engagement. If someone subs but doesn't play an entire patch cycle, how is that improving other players' experience? Lack of engagement has a trickle down effect on every aspect of the game, significantly too many modes of play to bother mentioning.

We don't need every player remaining subbed for an entire patch cycle for other players to have a good game experience. Even now there are more players logged on every day than a single player could possibly interact with (except maybe on Maduin - Maduin is strangely quiet even by Dynamis standards).

Lack of engagement has always been there for many players at the end of a patch cycle. They've earned the rewards they want so they stop logging in while playing other games. They'll come back for the next patch.

It is nothing new to this game, or to any other long running subscription based online game. There are always those peaks and valley in subscriptions once the game has been released for a while and hype dies out. New content comes out, the hype builds back up and players return for a little while before quitting again.

If the LB census numbers are fairly accurate in representing the population state of the game, things are fine. Compare the most recent numbers to the census taken shortly after the release of patch 5.58

Patch 5.58: 1.2 million active characters over level 60, represents 760k active continuing characters, 230k returning characters and 210k new characters.

Current (just before patch 6.55): 1.11 million active characters over level 70, represents 790 active continuing characters, 220k returning characters and 100k new characters.

Those numbers are almost the same outside of the new characters (no WoW exodus this time around). The active continuing characters (the number important to your engagement claim) is slightly higher than it was at the closest equivalent period in Shadowbringers.

There is not less engagement this expansion than in the past. What we're seeing right now is the population numbers stabilizing after the effects of the WoW exodus and most of those players going back to WoW because Dragonflight turned out better than Shadowlands was (or because they're Classic WoW junkies).

The difference for you is probably that this time around, you're one of those feeling disaffected and so you're paying more attention to the shifts in player population over the course of the expansion. In previous expansions, others were feeling disaffected for their own reasons and quit even though you continued to play. Those shifts are normal for MMOs.

Separate out your feelings from what you assume others are feeling. They're responsible for their own choices, you are responsible just for yourself. The game is in no danger of dying any time soon. What matters is whether or not you're enjoying yourself when you log in. There's no point in paying for a game if you're just not having fun playing it anymore.

There was another poster who asked if anyone had considered that some remained subbed because they felt it was the only way to make certain their voice was heard. I'll ask you the same questions I asked them:

Do you feel like your voice is being heard? Are there changes that have been announced that make you feel like your concerns are being addressed?

Or do you feel like you're shouting into a void?

I went through this with WoW. I thought staying active on the forums would help get the word through about just how unhappy players were with changes being made to the game. Finally, I gave up in frustration after about 3 years (I was using WoW gold to sub, if it was real money I would have quit sooner), stopped posting, stopped adding game time and moved on. Returning briefly for the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch confirmed that I had made the correct decision. I just didn't enjoy the game anymore.

That was 6 years ago. The game never did die during all that time but Shadowlands was certainly a close call. The WoW developers are finally acknowledging that maybe they should have been listening to all that feedback the players had been leaving after all.

As long as players keep paying money to play the game, SE doesn't have any reason to do any differently than Blizzard did.

[sindriiisgaming]

There actually were things announced that addressed my concerns. Not all of them. Not the bigger ones. I wanted some of the things announced for dt. Like a new Ltd job. And on the 7th we may yet get more. I remain hopeful because ice seen some things I wanted added. Now give me a spiky ponytail for men that's like heinsm... that's never gona happen smh

[Solakor]

Pointing out the flaws of the game and how it was better designed is mental illness now i guess according to the PRO mental health care individuals of the forums lmao

[Jojoya]

Pointing out the flaws of the game and how it was better designed is mental illness now i guess according to the PRO mental health care individuals of the forums lmao

I don't see any saying that posting an opinion about the state of the game and how they liked some of the past design better is a problem.

But continuing to pay month after month for a completely optional service that you no longer like in hopes that it will become you personally want? Yes, that's crazy.

You don't have be subscribed to leave feedback for the developers. There are other places they and the Community Managers watch (though you have a better chance of your feedback getting through if you speak JP).

[Striker44]

Pointing out the flaws of the game and how it was better designed is mental illness now i guess according to the PRO mental health care individuals of the forums lmao

I haven't seen that happen, but I would say that providing personal opinions and acting as if they're somehow objective facts is rather egocentric, no?

[Solakor]

I don't see any saying that posting an opinion about the state of the game and how they liked some of the past design better is a problem.

But continuing to pay month after month for a completely optional service that you no longer like in hopes that it will become you personally want? Yes, that's crazy.

You don't have be subscribed to leave feedback for the developers. There are other places they and the Community Managers watch (though you have a better chance of your feedback getting through if you speak JP).

You yourself said that you criticized wow back when you played it but now you tell others to keep their mouth shut?
Any normal person won't be criticizing a game months on end if they don't like some aspects of it.
The thing is that more and more people are just saying their piece now.
Your issues with mental health don't reflect anyone elses experiences and are completely wack in the context of what is being discussed.
You are picking parts of peoples texts and missunderstanding what is even being said.
Why are you engaging with ppl who are trying to voice their dissatisfaction of the game and trying to tell them to just leave lmao? If you don't like the topic you can just not talk. I know, it seems very hard for you and many others

Also to Striker44. It's a fact that most of the games aspects are worse designed than what they were and anyone who has played for longer than 1 or 2 expacs and has a few braincells can tell this.
I would say that high end content is still one of the best in the market but anything below has been subpar and the biggest culprit are the combat/class changes.
Also maps, story (trying to cram 2 expacs into 1 .0 patch was a mistake and the direction it went was so out of left field), mmo group content etc...

Also i literally can't tell if the game is still mmorpg or mmo something, visual novel, rp venue with gameplay on the side, because the rpg aspects are pretty much non existent at this point.