Player numbers?

[Teraluna]

Except that didn't work most of Endwalker, where players kept going "Look at the Steam numbers, the game is dying!" just for statements from SE to come out showing that FFXIV was the one area of solid growth for them.

People should stop worrying about how many others are playing a game, and just worry about whether or not they like it themselves. There are plenty of games with much larger player bases than FFXIV and I don't touch them because they're not games I like.

That is a sensible approach. However if players aren't happy with the direction the game has taken they will be hoping for change, and that will only be driven by a fall off in players.