Quitting ffxiv for good

[Striker44]

This argument doesn't make any logical sense. Yes, there will always exist churn inside of any given player base, but that does not mean you ignore the needs of established players as you need to cater to them to reduce the total number of players lost to churn. If too many established players start becoming dissatisfied, it results in new players not having positive interactions with the established player base, which will diminish the total number of new players who stick around to become established players. Subscription-based MMOs in particular can be heavily affected by this as the inability to maintain a stable player base will directly cause the game's revenues stream to be reduced.

This is particularly more evident for new players should they get to endgame, as a lot of content this expansion cycle has not done a good job at remaining evergreen during the expansion's life cycle. The only saving grace for new players is the ample amount of old content that is now able to be either completed solo or done in small groups they now can do without the MSQ looming over them.

It actually does make a lot of sense. Look around and you'll see it all the time. I've experienced it myself with a plethora of rec leagues, bands, and so on. The groups that persist healthily over time are the ones that are constantly working to recruit new members. The simple reality is that no matter how much you focus on existing members, they will slowly but steadily bleed away over time for various reasons. What keeps something going strong is regularly adding new blood. Especially with something that's been around for 10 years like FFXIV has, and in a genre that is no longer the "king" of gaming like it was back in the 2005-2015 era or so, you're not likely to just pick up new people without specifically making changes to appeal to them. But that's what will keep you going.

Also, new players tend to interact frequently with other new players. New-veteran interactions tend to happen either in roulettes (where people aren't going to be bad-mouthing the game) or FC's (which are usually positive social atmospheres). FFXIV in particular has also created so much content over the years that newer players aren't likely to come anywhere close to "finishing" EW content before DT comes out. Heck, I've been playing on-and-off since 2015 and regularly since early 2021, and I still have a laundry list of content from past xpacs alongside EW that I'm still looking to do.

If that upsets you then there's the door, there are plenty of MMOs that will cater to what you want.

I'm curious which MMO's that might be. What always sticks out in my mind is Wildstar setting itself up to be the "old-school" MMO with required grouping, difficult dungeons, etc....and we all know how that turned out.

I love and appreciate all who like this game but I encourage you all to stop settling for mediocre content and hold these devs accountable.

OP, I genuinely hope it was cathartic to get everything off your chest. It doesn't like like you've picked up much "flaming" in your direction, but if it does happen, I'll wager it's comments like the one I quoted here or the part about "baby mode." Comments like that go from noting objective facts (e.g. large boss hitboxes, IRL obligations of the playerbase, and so on) to passing off personal opinions in that manner, and just comes off as condescending/insulting to people who very much are enjoying the game. Me personally? I don't find the content "mediocre" - I find both the story and the music high-quality, and I have a lot of fun day after day doing trains, achievement hunting, etc.. I think other people have also brought up a very good point that something else BIG that changed between HW and today is us, the players. We got much better at the game. Compare the sheer amount of mechanics in the first EW trial to something like the first ARR trial. And yet, part of why the EW trial still feels easy is just that we got good. We've gone from being MMO novices to veterans. Part of what people tend to "miss" is really just the effect of us being newer at the game back in the day, and that's something we can never "get back."

[ZavosEsperian]

It does make sense, there is always a slow decay of older players leaving the game. They have kids, families and can't play, are in graduate school and have no time. They quit and the playerbase slowly decays.
The only way to consistently keep things going is to bring in new players at a constant rate.
Think about all the reddit and forums threads over the years of "is it still a good idea to start X MMO in 2023?". There is a fear that for any MMO that caters to older players, new players get the shaft and can never be "equal" to the old guard.
You have a huge wall of content to overcome, massive amounts of tricks and mechanics to learn, and it will take you years before you are on a good enough level to even attempt the endgame content in the MMO.
Not to mention hearing constantly from any old player how the game used to be harder in their day and the achievements they enjoyed are now meaningless when you do them.

You have to cater to new players, offer QoL to them, offer ways to get them into the game, deal with the things they care about. Otherwise, they see it as a waste of time to invest the years it takes to reach endgame in your game, and thy're going go play a newer game that just started.
There must be a constant reaching out to new players or your population will stagnate. It will annoy old players and make them leave, but you gain more in new players than you lose in disillusioned old players who want the game to go back to how it was in 2014.

I think I wasn't clear on this, but I never said to not cater to newer players. Churn is inevitable and cannot be denied, but you do need to take some measures to limit the number of established players lost to churn instead of not doing anything at all, which was how I interpreted the prefaced argument.

[Turtledeluxe]

Catering to new players is something devs can accomplish in one or two expansions. There's not enough content in the casual space at endgame, after many expansions, to bridge the gap between normal and no lifer gameplay. Alliance raids, dungeons and trials are hit and miss in terms of difficulty, so there is no sense of progression. What is the point of catering to new players at level 90 nearly indefinitely?

[Aword3213]

Shockingly, people are allowed to not like a game or how a game has changed and voice their opinion. I know, that might sound blasphemous in FFXIV land. Agree, disagree, or ignore the thread. Or be a sleazeball and tell people what they’ll be doing in x months. Idk man I can’t tell anyone to not be scummy. I’m just saying it is scummy.

I find "I quit FFXIV" posts scummy because a lot of times they're not genuine. Idk man I can’t tell anyone to not be scummy. I’m just saying it is scummy.

Shockingly, people are allowed to have certaiin reactions after witnessing serveral contradictory examples. I know, that might sound blasphemous in FFXIV forums where critcs genrerally don't handle different opinions very well, ironically

[Nebelheim]

I find "I quit FFXIV" posts scummy because a lot of times they're not genuine. Idk man I can’t tell anyone to not be scummy. I’m just saying it is scummy.

Shockingly, people are allowed to have certaiin reactions after witnessing serveral contradictory examples. I know, that might sound blasphemous in FFXIV forums where critcs genrerally don't handle different opinions very well, ironically

I don't find them genuine either look at how many times people started the "I'm quitting ff14 for good" threads just to start posting again months later.

[sindriiisgaming]

I find "I quit FFXIV" posts scummy because a lot of times they're not genuine. Idk man I can’t tell anyone to not be scummy. I’m just saying it is scummy.

Shockingly, people are allowed to have certaiin reactions after witnessing serveral contradictory examples. I know, that might sound blasphemous in FFXIV forums where critcs genrerally don't handle different opinions very well, ironically

Ironically I find calling people scummy and being rude to be the most scummy thing. But perhaps I take that word more literally being from the uk where it was used to describe poor people

[ty_taurus]

I find "I quit FFXIV" posts scummy because a lot of times they're not genuine. Idk man I can’t tell anyone to not be scummy. I’m just saying it is scummy.

Shockingly, people are allowed to have certaiin reactions after witnessing serveral contradictory examples. I know, that might sound blasphemous in FFXIV forums where critcs genrerally don't handle different opinions very well, ironically

Nice, I feel like I’m back in Eighth grade. It’s the pettiness that really catches the nostalgia.

[NanaWiloh]

Is it incorrect, though? A lot of people dramatically talk about quitting and then come back later.

I view 99% of I quit threads as a player screaming for attention..

[Atelier-Bagur]

I find "I quit FFXIV" posts scummy because a lot of times they're not genuine. Idk man I can’t tell anyone to not be scummy. I’m just saying it is scummy.

Shockingly, people are allowed to have certaiin reactions after witnessing serveral contradictory examples. I know, that might sound blasphemous in FFXIV forums where critcs genrerally don't handle different opinions very well, ironically

I wouldnt say scummy just obvious attention seeking for the sake of stirring up heated discussions. Its so low brow and I dont take these threads seriously. The people whom actually genuinely quit are those that dont make a big deal out of it and do so without announcing it.

[Ath192]

It actually does make a lot of sense. Look around and you'll see it all the time. I've experienced it myself with a plethora of rec leagues, bands, and so on. The groups that persist healthily over time are the ones that are constantly working to recruit new members. The simple reality is that no matter how much you focus on existing members, they will slowly but steadily bleed away over time for various reasons. What keeps something going strong is regularly adding new blood. Especially with something that's been around for 10 years like FFXIV has, and in a genre that is no longer the "king" of gaming like it was back in the 2005-2015 era or so, you're not likely to just pick up new people without specifically making changes to appeal to them. But that's what will keep you going.

Noone is saying the game has to only cater to existing players.... What everyone is saying is that it shouldn't be the only focus. Expanding the lifespan of each customer is a good business strategy. To counter your point I'm just going to say that theres always a small subset of players that will defend the current direction of any game right up until they drive it to the ground. It's also up to the Devs to not listen to those players because you want to know the funny thing? Even after all the defending they do once the game goes dead they also quit lol. Bunch of hypocrites.