Discuss : is ffxiv in trouble

[Striker44]

Is FFXIV in trouble?

In a word - no.

In three words - not even close.

In three other words - quite the opposite.

Don't let the forums fool you. We represent only the smallest grain of sand compared to the playerbase, and people who take the time to visit the forums, make an account, and post here are far and away not representative of the typical player.

If you look over the history of FFXIV, each successive expansion has shown a steady rise in the size of the active playing population, and EW has continued that trend. There was an anomalous spike with the famous "WoW exodus," but if you remove that one-time gigantic explosion of people and subsequent fall-off (as most came to realize FFXIV and WoW are designed with two different audiences in mind), you'll see the same steady trend still ultimately occurred. At every comparable data point along the way (e.g. just before patch x.2, the first month of x.5, etc.), EW has had the highest active playerbase to date, surpassing ShB (which itself had been the highest up to that point).

Heck, with the latest patch, Aether hunt trains went back to announcing some of them only server-wide instead of DC-wide because they were getting too large. I can still queue for practically anything on tank or healer, including random dungeons or raids I haven't done in a while for WT, and get it to pop within a few minutes.

Will the typical formula that SE has had enormous success with eventually become stale? Yeah. It already has for some people, as evidenced by the forum here. But there's still such a reliable influx of new (and returning) players that it more than makes up for that. At some point down the road, the steady rise FFXIV is still experiencing will eventually reach a peak and then start declining. It's possible we're still going up. It's possible EW represents the peak. But we're certainly not on the decline yet, and even once that starts, the population will remain healthy for a considerable period of time even if the dev team did nothing to change course.

So no, FFXIV isn't in trouble. In fact - it's the complete opposite. It's thriving, and either at its peak or still climbing towards it.

[strawberrycake]

All of this

While XIV certainly isn't failing, the problem with this mind set that it's better heard then read, I agree with a lot of this, but, the balance is still an issue that can come rearing it's ugly head once we're in DT. With the plan to rework all the jobs as Yoshida said, this can cause a massive rift, this expansion is lack luster in many ways and while I don't want it to be the case, EW wasn't the best expansion. The Question now is, can XIV stand up to having a truly bad expansion, every MMO eventually has one and will people have the same faith and ability to ride it out when it happens.

In every MMO historically, people are really quick to say it's fine in the moment until you have to actually be in the trenches calling out Devs and making a companies higher ups pay more attention to how an IP is being managed. No company is immune this this.

[Heroman3003]

snip

I mean, it already had 'bad' expansions. For gameplay, it was HW and its raiding situation, for story it was StB, seen as 'the low'. The real question remains on whether DT will be bad or good. Frankly, so far, it seems to be setting up to be another reiteration of ShB formula, just like EW was, but this time with everything that wasn't there being brought back. It will have field zone, unlike EW, it will introduce new limited job, it will introduce a rework to Deep Dungeons (basically new content as a result), it will have all the other normal things expected of expansion content. Frankly, content-wise, DT is setting up to be the richest expansion yet so far, potentially better than StB was.

[strawberrycake]

I mean, it already had 'bad' expansions. For gameplay, it was HW and its raiding situation, for story it was StB, seen as 'the low'. The real question remains on whether DT will be bad or good. Frankly, so far, it seems to be setting up to be another reiteration of ShB formula, just like EW was, but this time with everything that wasn't there being brought back. It will have field zone, unlike EW, it will introduce new limited job, it will introduce a rework to Deep Dungeons (basically new content as a result), it will have all the other normal things expected of expansion content. Frankly, content-wise, DT is setting up to be the richest expansion yet so far, potentially better than StB was.

HW still had consistent player retention, Stormblood was the peak of gameplay for XIV. Both maintained consistent player growth and is what lead to the raid scene being as nuanced as it was prior to the 2 min meta.

So when i say bad, I don't mean gripes that can be handwaved away for what the rest of the game offers. I mean bad where it's just all irredeemable trash no one wants to touch, or the devs have lost player trust and have to earn it back. So far people are frustrated, but we all still trust them, and DT is looking good, but we havent seen the new systems in play, we do not know how much content per patch we're getting and we do not know if the job and content balance will be similar to EW, which is very possible. And if it is, a LOT of people will be mad and may lose trust for the first time.

[Gordita]

I mean, it already had 'bad' expansions. For gameplay, it was HW and its raiding situation, for story it was StB, seen as 'the low'. The real question remains on whether DT will be bad or good. Frankly, so far, it seems to be setting up to be another reiteration of ShB formula, just like EW was, but this time with everything that wasn't there being brought back. It will have field zone, unlike EW, it will introduce new limited job, it will introduce a rework to Deep Dungeons (basically new content as a result), it will have all the other normal things expected of expansion content. Frankly, content-wise, DT is setting up to be the richest expansion yet so far, potentially better than StB was.

Um akshewally SHB was the bad story, sb was the good story

[sindriiisgaming]

Is FFXIV in trouble?

In a word - no.

In three words - not even close.

In three other words - quite the opposite.

Don't let the forums fool you. We represent only the smallest grain of sand compared to the playerbase, and people who take the time to visit the forums, make an account, and post here are far and away not representative of the typical player.

If you look over the history of FFXIV, each successive expansion has shown a steady rise in the size of the active playing population, and EW has continued that trend. There was an anomalous spike with the famous "WoW exodus," but if you remove that one-time gigantic explosion of people and subsequent fall-off (as most came to realize FFXIV and WoW are designed with two different audiences in mind), you'll see the same steady trend still ultimately occurred. At every comparable data point along the way (e.g. just before patch x.2, the first month of x.5, etc.), EW has had the highest active playerbase to date, surpassing ShB (which itself had been the highest up to that point).

Heck, with the latest patch, Aether hunt trains went back to announcing some of them only server-wide instead of DC-wide because they were getting too large. I can still queue for practically anything on tank or healer, including random dungeons or raids I haven't done in a while for WT, and get it to pop within a few minutes.

Will the typical formula that SE has had enormous success with eventually become stale? Yeah. It already has for some people, as evidenced by the forum here. But there's still such a reliable influx of new (and returning) players that it more than makes up for that. At some point down the road, the steady rise FFXIV is still experiencing will eventually reach a peak and then start declining. It's possible we're still going up. It's possible EW represents the peak. But we're certainly not on the decline yet, and even once that starts, the population will remain healthy for a considerable period of time even if the dev team did nothing to change course.

So no, FFXIV isn't in trouble. In fact - it's the complete opposite. It's thriving, and either at its peak or still climbing towards it.

I never understand this "Don't listen to the forums" argument. Isn't everyone on here one of those players casual or not... so should there opinion be downplayed. If I ask around in game I'd get all the same mixed bag of responses.. trust me I am vocal about my concerns in game too. And most say all the same things. Either
*it's fine
* it's not fine

Ironically. Most aren't happy with it. Try asking urself in nn or ur fc and see what they say. Or in Discords. I just don't get this argument

[OdinelStarrei]

I never understand this "Don't listen to the forums" argument. Isn't everyone on here one of those players casual or not... so should there opinion be downplayed. If I ask around in game I'd get all the same mixed bag of responses.. trust me I am vocal about my concerns in game too. And most say all the same things. Either
*it's fine
* it's not fine

Ironically. Most aren't happy with it. Try asking urself in nn or ur fc and see what they say. Or in Discords. I just don't get this argument

While people here will actively downplay other people's thoughts on the game, I don't think the developers are doing it. It's a thing that's done on an individual basis.

For example, I can say the game is dead for me, because all my friends have quit, my FC has died (twice), and whenever I DO manage to meet up with some of the old crew for some games (Helldivers is the new hotness, very good game), a common inside joke is "Imagine playing a game that you actually like and the developers actually care about." And by common, I mean literally anytime we squad up, one of the post-game conversations is "are we ever going back to XIV" and the answer is always "Wish we could, but the game sucks now."

We're literally reinforcing (haha helldivers) our own collective echo chamber, which is what's going to happen when all the friends/contacts you made in the game ALSO hate it. It is the definition of a confirmation bias.

I can say that "most" of my circle is not happy. People who think like us are not happy. I am not happy. If you are happy, that's cool, but like, I don't care, much like how they didn't care when they ruined all my jobs to make them more "accessible".

It is what it is.

[strawberrycake]

While people here will actively downplay other people's thoughts on the game, I don't think the developers are doing it. It's a thing that's done on an individual basis.

For example, I can say the game is dead for me, because all my friends have quit, my FC has died (twice), and whenever I DO manage to meet up with some of the old crew for some games (Helldivers is the new hotness, very good game), a common inside joke is "Imagine playing a game that you actually like and the developers actually care about." And by common, I mean literally anytime we squad up, one of the post-game conversations is "are we ever going back to XIV" and the answer is always "Wish we could, but the game sucks now."

We're literally reinforcing (haha helldivers) our own collective echo chamber, which is what's going to happen when all the friends/contacts you made in the game ALSO hate it. It is the definition of a confirmation bias.

I can say that "most" of my circle is not happy. People who think like us are not happy. I am not happy. If you are happy, that's cool, but like, I don't care, much like how they didn't care when they ruined all my jobs to make them more "accessible".

It is what it is.

Yeah thats when people in this game act like it's a you problem, but they don't realize having a high turnover rate and a high new player influx isn;t good for your game. This rotation of end game players with new game players In ARR, ShB, and EW isn;t good, we lose as many as we get and it's noticeable if you ever look around and see outside your own collective bubble, but not many people in this game, or at least on these forums know how to do that.

I know plenty of people who talk about XIV just like your friends, And they were long time players who just gave up when simple questions could never be answered by Yoshida. They felt like he didn;t care.