FFXIV population decline continues

[Oizen]

The game isn't bringing in new players right now. Anyone new who's curious about the game does one google search and sees the "Mostly Negative" on Steam, the 5/10 on MetaCritic, and dips out.

[Jeeqbit]

Yet Square-Enix still felt the need to add them all the same, even when nobody asked for them. It suggests that there's a thought process over there that they prioritize wanting people to experience the story, and FF14 isn't a stranger to that already.

You're right. That is their mindset. And I can't entirely say it's wrong. I'm sure everyone had the time to grind 99 levels in old Final Fantasy games when they were a kid.

But things change, you get real life responsibilities - work, education, looking after your health better, maybe a partner, kids or caring for an elderly relative. More than that, it starts to occur to you that you don't in fact have unlimited time on the earth like you thought as kid. And at that point, perhaps you want to skip the timewasting mechanics like grinding to 99, so that you can just do the important bit: the story.

Whether or not they go further than just unsync though, THAT'S the part I wonder about.

They already don't sync properly anyway. Cape Westwind was an extreme example, but there is a lot of content that is just as much a striking dummy with mechanics that do 2% damage.

And BST is a limited job so it will only be OP in a pre-made party like BLU.

Ultimately it'll come down to what they can and can not get the code of FF14 to do, which is the one part where I still try to give Square-Enix the benefit of a doubt where I don't think they're creatively bankrupt, they're creatively handicapped.

A lot of them are the very same people that made FF11. So they can't be incapable of making "complex systems". It's partly a design decision for the exact reason we've been discussing - they don't want to waste people's time or confuse new players which caused huge problems with FF11.

But I can't shake the feeling that it's partly that they see it as a limitation of what they can do easily within the engine. I'd love to see a beast master catch an animal, take them to a training ground, feed them different stuff, teach them new techniques and each one have different possible attacks. Yet knowing this game it'll just be a beast book and nothing quite as sophisticated as I'd imagine. I just don't see it being anything more than that, but hopefully they'll surprise me.

The game isn't bringing in new players right now. Anyone new who's curious about the game does one google search and sees the "Mostly Negative" on Steam, the 5/10 on MetaCritic, and dips out.

I've been meeting plenty of new players on Dynamis actually, just doing my regular mentor roulettes there.

[bloodSp3c]

ill give you a like cos i LOL'd at Ineko's response

[NamiRocket]

Their delivery was out of line but the premise is objectively true, no?

You are beyond help.

[sindriiisgaming]

I mean yea. It's deing for sure, I can hardly pop tank or healer ques anymore without my bf as the other support. There are also more empty main hubs than ever befote too. But there's no point in me threating over it as there's nothing I can do. Game will either step up or step out and I hope they'll male the right choice

[Archeron]

This games population will continue to decline regardless of whatever is coming down the pipes, and I don't foresee this changing until 8.0 Square Enix seems to have adopted this arrogant attitude that FFXIV is invincible, and will always be popular come hell, or high water.

People are voting with their wallets. No matter what anyone says, thinks, or does - Player counts dropping are a MASSIVE sign that the game is going in the wrong direction.

This game to me, has grown stagnant. There is nothing driving excitement, and attention to FFXIV anymore. Can anyone give me just ONE example of something fantastic they've done in Dawntrail that blew your mind? This expansion has followed the same generic formulae as all the others. 6 zones, duties at lvl x1 x3 x5 x7 x0, and everything down to fates and how jobs play are practically identical. Fight boss in circle square arena. Clear trash mobs that pose no real threat to you, even if you wall to wall to next boss room. Story quests, and quests in general boil down to "Go here, talk to random villagers x3, pick up random items x5, talk to ___, interact with purple cloud and kill enemies, talk to random guy and unlock ___ duty. Choose one of 3 dialogue choices that are ultimately meaningless as the conclusion of that cut scene is the same regardless."

There is no excitement driving people to this game. Instead we have stagnation, content droughts, and bad choices on the part of SE driving people away. There is a chain reaction when people quit, as communities vanish around them they lose the "Social" element of the MMORPG which I find is the last line of defense keeping people playing the game, even when current content is bad/poorly recieved. This chain reaction is what drove monstrous growth to us during SHB when WoW was imploding as communities completely vanished overnight. FFXIV needs to find a way to bring that magic back into the game sooner rather than later.

[JimCasey_RF6]

Good, more room for me.

[Somnolence]

Looking back at 2024, do you feel like we got 12x13$ + 40$ for DT expansion price worth of content?

That is ~3 standalone AAA games worth of money.

[ZephyrMenodora]

It’s almost as though moving your A team to other projects and giving us less quality while charging us more for less has consequences.

[Connor]

It’s almost as though moving your A team to other projects and giving us less quality while charging us more for less has consequences.

You mean you’re not already mega-hyped for FF16-2 and disagree with them pooling almost the entirety of their resources on it? Clearly not a true Final Fantasy fan
/s lol