The Great FFXIV Exodus of 2024

[Reinha]

I’ll not mince words because this should be clear to anyone who has been around for a while. Very recently an unprecedented amount of people have been talking about unsubscribing, or have already done so. I’m curious to know what you think about it. Does it represent the silent majority? Are your in game friends talking about taking a break or leaving entirely? Has your fc become more quiet? And most importantly, has Square Enix noticed?

I’ve also seen players express how they have not moved on yet but are considering it. Some have stated they are mainly still subscribed to keep their house but aren’t logging in anymore. A common sentiment right now is that people feel like there is no content left to do for them and/or they dislike the direction this game is heading.

I did a quick sweep of the threads I’ve been active in, and these quotes below are just from the past month. Seriously, has there ever been a month in the history of this game when so many people have simultaneously announced that they are done?

My own sub ends in January. It’ll be my first time in 5 years of letting it go.

I left the Discord and uninstalled the game, and now I'm waiting for my sub to lapse.

I think once my sub is up in december, Ill probably go back to xi fulltime till mh: wildlands releases in february.

Mao finally cancelled subscription

Can't say I'm surprised glad my sub is ending here soon.

I'm now in my retirement tour & plan on retiring from 14 when I finish DT story & 7.1

I no longer feel I am getting value for my monthly sub. After years of supporting the game (from ARR till now) it's clear SE doesn't want to invest in the game any more; and I'd rather not pay monthly just to have my money go towards more failed projects of theirs.

Unsubed.
...
No friends. A Bad taste in my mouth. No 'enjoyable' BS free 'gameplay' for me.

Unsubbed. Issues as listed in previous threads.

I've unsubbed because square enix seems to have forgotten what this game is for.

Cancelled my legacy sub (yes, Legacy - true ride or die FF player here) because this patch held about 8 hours of engaging content

Update: i have destroyed my house and canceled my sub, bye.

I don't plan on renewing my sub until 7.2 after it runs out (idk maybe ill stick around for starlight).

I haven't paid for this game since June and it's been more than 2 weeks since I've used my free time so idk why I'm still allowed to post but I'll stay as long as I can to air out my grievances.

My sub expires this week and i won't be resubbing until at least the next tier, but idk if i want to raid anymore even.

As someone who unsubscribed after months of feedback, allow me to explain. People unsub when they hit their individual limit and give up.

i left my sub to run out in 2 days

i already unsubbed both my accounts

Quite honestly I'm going to cancel the sub again when the three months are done and me resubbing later will depend on if Yoshi P can get his shit back together with this game and stop being so out of touch.

I cancelled my subscription for this game after 1800 days being subscribed and I will not return till 8.0 hoping things changed to the better, see you in 2 years.

I unsubbed for the first time in more than 1000 days just after 7.05. There is nothing to do, my whole fc quit the game.

I'm out. Last two days. Haven't logged in since the 30th. I'm pretty much done for the foreseeable future.

After this new dungeon I'm done. Unsubscribed. don't care if my house gets auto demolished anymore.

My subscription ends in 7 days and I will not be renewing. There's a lot of reasons for it. I already swore on it once, but 7.1 was the final nail on the coffin.

Gonna hand over my FC house to a friend this weekend then hit the cancel button.

Editing to add these after the thread's creation.

Same here, sub ends in 4 days.

That's it...i am voting with my wallet

my subscription will not be renewing this December because I clearly was not, or ever was, this game's target audience.

My sub runs out at the end of the month then im done.

i've unsubed for the 1st time and i might comeback for 7.2 or before if square enix put the auto demo house timer back in europe (spain water issue)... but i might not comeback at all tbh

On and off but consistent player since ARR and I have canceled my sub for the foreseeable future.

I kept my subscription running with minimal playtime up until Dawntrail's release, because I had faith that something at least enjoyable would be offered, but after keeping it open for one more month to wait for the first patch and realizing I don't want to be a part of this story anymore, I'm calling it here.

My sub runs out in a few days

I un-subbed because I'm tired of seeing the same mechanics, PF being so dead, awful fight designs, and im just bored when I log on.

My six month sub is finally up in 10 days. I'll be unsubbing for at least a month.

none of this will really matter once my sub is up.

Unsubbed yesterday after being on a sub spree for around 3 years, with very high chances of not coming back.

My sub will run out at the end of January and I don't know if I come back for the next expansion.

Turned my account off today.

I am at the point where I am ready to end my sub until a month before 8.0 and blast through the 7.X content then.
...
However, unless 8.0 looks really compelling, I may not come back at all.

[Purrnauskis]

Don't care. Don't have loyalty to a videogame.

[RaideDuku]

Seriously, has there ever been a month in the history of this game when so many people have simultaneously announced that they are done?

From someone that's been playing MMOs since Meridian 59, About every MMO with a that's had a decent player base that's existed for a decent amount of time has this happen.

[Greyhawk]

The forums are in no way how to gauge the player-base stability for population queries in any game. They are frankly the vocal minority of the game. The majority of players don't even come to the forums for several reasons, one of them being how just absolutely toxic forums are. Most players would only come to seek out resolve to a problem and come across forums with an internet search related to the issue. The problem is SE reads these and other forums for ideas, and take them most of the time as gospel. They implement dumb ass changes that either no one asked for, or interpreted how they think it should be done, and get it totally screwed up. Some things are still that way since implementation and a certain Director's ego won't allow that to be changed.

In summary: No, people treating this space as an airport and announcing their departure is minuscule at best, and with their alleged 30 million player-base headcount they boast, and the 200 rewards they've won, the 'people leaving in droves' is quite actually the knee-jerk reaction that the drama-infested forum-base wants to see. The majority in the mean time will continue to play and pay, continue to feed the online store, and enjoy the game they love to play.

I do enjoy this game, but I enjoy it more when all my friends are playing too. We do our thing, make our jokes in Discord, live, laugh, hate and love all aspects of the game. Yes, I've even thought about just leaving, but am I so pissed off at the game because of it? Not in the totality of the game, no. Certain aspects that are a small percentage - sure, no one will be happy with every single aspect of the game, but the overall picture is something more people need to take a look at. Not just a couple of patches of an annoying character. Every game has those, you won't ever escape that.

[CNitsah]

The forums are in no way how to gauge the player-base stability for population queries in any game. They are frankly the vocal minority of the game. The majority of players don't even come to the forums for several reasons, one of them being how just absolutely toxic forums are. Most players would only come to seek out resolve to a problem and come across forums with an internet search related to the issue. The problem is SE reads these and other forums for ideas, and take them most of the time as gospel. They implement dumb ass changes that either no one asked for, or interpreted how they think it should be done, and get it totally screwed up. Some things are still that way since implementation and a certain Director's ego won't allow that to be changed.

[snip for lenght]

And what would you take to gauge the players representativity?
- The social media. Twitter is still ok, but both subreddit now kinda align with the forum, even the one that was known to be place where you were downvoted to oblivion when you dared to criticized the game. If you go in the comments, you'll see the same kind of "I cancelled my sub" comments, on a far larger scale.
- the numbers we have access to? LuckyBancho, considered as a trustworthy source goes that way, we're bleeding players, and are nearly back to pre ShB numbers.
- You could also use the activity of the game on twitch, but there too it's not so good. Big streamers that used to play FFXIV now only play occasionally, most smaller streamer that were nearly FFXIV only now play other heavily play other things. The FFXIV category has fallen down so much over the last 6 to 9 month.

And those are only the one that seem obvious, I could probably find others if I thought a little more about it.

Now, sure, the game is still far from being dead, but there is moment where you have to consider the possibility that, for once, the forum might be representative of the global feeling and not be "a vocal minority". Every hints point to the direction the game is in crisis, yet there you are, contiuing to pretend the forum are not representative on principle.

[ForteNightshade]

And what would you take to gauge the players representativity?

Actual dungeon queues, overall content participation such as Lucky Bancho's census even if it's, technically, unofficial and other stuff with tangible data. While online forums, reddit and social media can give an indication where the general opinion may lean, it's never going to be a majority swing unless it's incredibly one sided. I'm in enough casual circles to say none of them are anywhere near as angry about the game as people here. Heck, a friend of mine argued how much content 7.1 will add, a stark contrast to the opinion here, my own included. A great many people are happy to pay for this game to play for a few hours whenever they feel like it, hang out in social RP venues and do something else when they're bored. Which is the exact demographic SE seems to be satisfied with. Hence all the changes, dumbing everything down and keeping to such a sparse update cycle.

None of this is to say there hasn't been a dip. There has. The most recent census showed 7.1 saw the lowest amount of returners ever for the free login campaign. That still isn't enough to say the game is seeing a "mass exodus" on the scale of WoW.

When you might start to see the general sentiment shift is if 8.0 has another lackluster MSQ and the supposed job overhaul amounts to nothing. Right now, most of the general perception of DT is between enjoying it or accepting it was a bump in the road but will get better. There's concern but nowhere near the same doom and gloom online.

[Greyhawk]

And what would you take to gauge the players representativity?
- The social media. Twitter is still ok, but both subreddit now kinda align with the forum, even the one that was known to be place where you were downvoted to oblivion when you dared to criticized the game. If you go in the comments, you'll see the same kind of "I cancelled my sub" comments, on a far larger scale.
- the numbers we have access to? LuckyBancho, considered as a trustworthy source goes that way, we're bleeding players, and are nearly back to pre ShB numbers.
- You could also use the activity of the game on twitch, but there too it's not so good. Big streamers that used to play FFXIV now only play occasionally, most smaller streamer that were nearly FFXIV only now play other heavily play other things. The FFXIV category has fallen down so much over the last 6 to 9 month.

And those are only the one that seem obvious, I could probably find others if I thought a little more about it.

Now, sure, the game is still far from being dead, but there is moment where you have to consider the possibility that, for once, the forum might be representative of the global feeling and not be "a vocal minority". Every hints point to the direction the game is in crisis, yet there you are, contiuing to pretend the forum are not representative on principle.

I don't believe that we, as players have an accurate capability of doing so. Honestly, SE gives us access to what we can access. Populations, congestion, etc are all part of their statistics that they don't let out of the box unless it's to boast in a Live Letter, or interview from another gaming information media source. We can try and count on our fingers all day long, some people look at Steam numbers and believe it's the most accurate thing which it's not, Lucky's information, which it's not, you name it - we just don't know unless they allow us to be informed. And, they don't have to outside of what they are doing now.

[CNitsah]

I don't believe that we, as players have an accurate capability of doing so. Honestly, SE gives us access to what we can access. Populations, congestion, etc are all part of their statistics that they don't let out of the box unless it's to boast in a Live Letter, or interview from another gaming information media source. We can try and count on our fingers all day long, some people look at Steam numbers and believe it's the most accurate thing which it's not, Lucky's information, which it's not, you name it - we just don't know unless they allow us to be informed. And, they don't have to outside of what they are doing now.

Problem is statistics about population, congestion, etc.. don't tell anything about how people feel about the game.

The thing about steam numbers is that statistically, it's good enough to be representative. Then all of those hints we can get, being steam numbers or any of the points I mentionned, might not be enough by themselves, but when you take them together they paint a tendancy you connot just ignore. Your whole argument feel like a situation where the soil is muddy, everything is drenched, it smells like it just rained and the sky is still grey, and yet some people say "yeah, we were not there, so we can't say it rained". That's technically right, but the most probable explanation is that it rained.

To me, there hasn't been an exodus yet, but it's still something that can happens if the reaction to complaints continue to be delayed. I feel like were at a stage were the dam is leaking, but hasn't broken yet. And the only reason it hasn't leaked yet is the attachment people got to game. For a lot of us, it's several years of our life, so it's hard to just turn back and leave. MMO are a special kind of game.

[Shikiseki]

They are frankly the vocal minority of the game. The majority of players don't even come to the forums for several reasons

I'll gladly tell that to my 3/200 friends and 2/128 FC members that still play. The rest already silently moved on years ago or just return to clear their content during their free login campaigns lol. Feel free to send them surveys about why they quit the game (because the lack of content/boring gameplay 80% of the cases I know) if they ever bother to reply to begin with.

The forums wouldn't be this negative if they would have put the same effort and passion that they used to have back in 2.0 back into the game again. At least I would!

[Garnix]

Everybody knows that the vast majority of people on the forum have been complaining about the games for years and it was just a matter of time for some to leave.
Party finder still looks as healthy as usual, especially for an odd numbered patch.