The Great FFXIV Exodus of 2024

[ReynTime]

Well, speaking personally, the friends I have left from when I first started (very early ShB) have all had negative sentiments that started from post Endwalker, I share them too.
Ever since I've started playing I've been in love with the game, the story and all else, I could say I was a FFXIV shill having come from Bugwars 2. The concept of Live Letters and devs actually communicating with us felt hmm... personal I guess. I never cared much about my character, the story or NPCs as much as I did in this game and I think it's really unique that they managed to create this kind of experience...

After EW, I've essentially been playing this game solo, all the people I'm familiar with are gone. My close friend whom I met in this game and known for years is considering quitting for good and I know how much we both love this game. DT was the first time I started contemplating leaving the game, every memory felt like it was tarnished, one way or another. Perhaps I haven't been around for long and perhaps the rose tinted glasses and the honeymoon phase of ShB wore off...

I've been pretty sad everytime they sloppily change something, I've been fearful of playing the MSQ and/or unlocking new content out of fear of eyestrain that I never had in any game before prior to the 7.0 Graphical Update.

Not that I'm missing much, the quality of the MSQ has taken a nose dive since post EW and honestly the only reason I don't skip (though I really want to) is to see it for myself.

All this could be meaningless, perhaps their target audience is the new green player who just has so much content to do and give em a few years and cycle out the old and bring in the new.

That appears to have become their strategy since they analyzed the success of Shadowbringers.

I think if anyone stop and analyze the previous expansions they will notice this too. Heavensward and Stormblood were mostly focused on pleasing the players they already had. When Shadowbringers' changes were developed there was a little more concern about the experience for new players, and when they saw how many newcomers joined, they have since doubled down in form of patches and then EW/DT in their entirety.
We don't get much in terms of "midcore" because all they do for veterans is add more high-end content. The so called midcore isn't an audience they care to keep around, because for the past 4~5 years the design they came up with has been compensating those players leaving with new players who will take their time to finish the MSQ and alliance raids... Possibly stay for the roleplay and fall to the housing trap.

[CNitsah]

That appears to have become their strategy since they analyzed the success of Shadowbringers.

I think if anyone stop and analyze the previous expansions they will notice this too. Heavensward and Stormblood were mostly focused on pleasing the players they already had. When Shadowbringers' changes were developed there was a little more concern about the experience for new players, and when they saw how many newcomers joined, they have since doubled down in form of patches and then EW/DT in their entirety.
We don't get much in terms of "midcore" because all they do for veterans is add more high-end content. The so called midcore isn't an audience they care to keep around, because for the past 4~5 years the design they came up with has been compensating those players leaving with new players who will take their time to finish the MSQ and alliance raids... Possibly stay for the roleplay and fall to the housing trap.

This whole things seems to me like the companies trying to create a hero shooter to get some part of that juicy hero shooter market, but fail one after the other because a few titles are well installed, and why play the game that try to be Overwatch or Valorant when you can play Overwatch or Valorant.

Lately I feel like SE see the success of Genshin Impact and Honkai star Rail (Yoshi-P has mentionned them on a few occasion, and even the quote given last page can be understood as talking about those kind of game), and want to somehow get that kind of player on a game that not thought for that. So you tray to attire players that will prefer playing those games, and at the same time alienate the players that are there. Worst of both world.

[Aexnidaral]

Anecdotally, I have had a number of friends unsub and uninstall. My FC had about 30(ish) active people before and During Dawntrail and now it's down to 3.

I've considered unsubbing for a couple of weeks, now that I'm done with Savage reclears and helping friends etc etc but I want to see how Chaotic turns out.

Dawntrail's MSQ has been a huge bummer for me. It's not bad but it's so mediocre compared to precious expansions it hurts. I really hope they're able to pull me back in.

[Yukimin]

I cancelled my extra retainers' subscription. This game is boring, content is lackluster and it's filled to the brim with ugly modbeasts. The community regressed to the one of Second Life 2 and IMVU.
All there is left to do is check my submarines and roleplay with my friend. Outside of that the game is dead to me.

[DPZ2]

If you want to utilize Steam Charts as your bellwether on how well a video game is doing, World of Warcraft is on its last legs, as there are zero players on Steam.

[Kaurhz]

There won't be an Exodus of any kind, simply because generally most people do not care to the same degree, or do not have the same level of investment towards the state of the game.

Now that's not to say that I don't think there is a problem, because I do think there is a problem, but it is the same problem we've had for the past 7 years.

[Yukimin]

Saying that Steam doesn't matter is such a cope lol

[TomsYoungerBro]

If you want to utilize Steam Charts as your bellwether on how well a video game is doing, World of Warcraft is on its last legs, as there are zero players on Steam.

Creates a strawman argument by using a game not on steam to try to make a point...i would be surprised, but bad takes are a normal pattern for you.

[TheDustyOne]

Well, speaking personally, the friends I have left from when I first started (very early ShB) have all had negative sentiments that started from post Endwalker, I share them too.
Ever since I've started playing I've been in love with the game, the story and all else, I could say I was a FFXIV shill having come from Bugwars 2. The concept of Live Letters and devs actually communicating with us felt hmm... personal I guess. I never cared much about my character, the story or NPCs as much as I did in this game and I think it's really unique that they managed to create this kind of experience...

After EW, I've essentially been playing this game solo, all the people I'm familiar with are gone. My close friend whom I met in this game and known for years is considering quitting for good and I know how much we both love this game. DT was the first time I started contemplating leaving the game, every memory felt like it was tarnished, one way or another. Perhaps I haven't been around for long and perhaps the rose tinted glasses and the honeymoon phase of ShB wore off...

I've been pretty sad everytime they sloppily change something, I've been fearful of playing the MSQ and/or unlocking new content out of fear of eyestrain that I never had in any game before prior to the 7.0 Graphical Update.

Not that I'm missing much, the quality of the MSQ has taken a nose dive since post EW and honestly the only reason I don't skip (though I really want to) is to see it for myself.

All this could be meaningless, perhaps their target audience is the new green player who just has so much content to do and give em a few years and cycle out the old and bring in the new.

I know that stories like this are only anecdotal, but I've had similar; most of the people I played with during ShB largely went away by the middle of EW, and few of them came back for DT, even fewer have stayed for 7.1. At this point it's only a handful of FC members that I play with that still log on, the others only come back when there's a free login campaign.

The use of Steam charts can only tell part of the picture since it's only part of the playerbase, but it's still a rather large sample size we can work with, and as such shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because it doesn't include PS4/Xbox/etc. Barring major port issues, if 10% of Steam players up and left the game, there's a good chance that around 10% of the other platforms also lost players (give or take some margin of error) because of similar reasons to those Steam players.

[IDontPetLalas]

I know that stories like this are only anecdotal, but I've had similar; most of the people I played with during ShB largely went away by the middle of EW, and few of them came back for DT, even fewer have stayed for 7.1. At this point it's only a handful of FC members that I play with that still log on, the others only come back when there's a free login campaign.

The use of Steam charts can only tell part of the picture since it's only part of the playerbase, but it's still a rather large sample size we can work with, and as such shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because it doesn't include PS4/Xbox/etc. Barring major port issues, if 10% of Steam players up and left the game, there's a good chance that around 10% of the other platforms also lost players (give or take some margin of error) because of similar reasons to those Steam players.

Not necessarily, I would argue that there are other factors that make it more difficult to extend from one platform to another - age/ gender/ gaming history, income etc can also affect the platform that someone selects- so the 10% of Steam users isn't really a reliable indicator.

For my part- that doesn't mean that I'm dismissing out of hand anyone's stories that they know players who have negative feedback, or have un-subbed.