FFXIV population decline continues

[Fatch38]

You do realize it is the casual players that built this game to success.

fun facts, it wasn't. been here since early ARR and what made the game a success was more midcore than casual. everything else was only good reviews from players. i could even say that the game gone downhill after trying to please everyone and anyone right in their mind knows that by catering to anyone, you cater to noone, you just become stale.

raiding back in the day with coils was more accessible to most ppl than right now. cash shop wasn't even a thing so you could grab previous event rewards in game. a time where you needed to interact with the game and ppl, nowadays ppl don't even greet you in dungeons and everything is braindead to the point of falling asleep during fights (outside of ex/savage).

the game had a soul, and at the time the team really listened to feedbacks and players. when something was badly recieved it was reworked in the matter of weeks, now it's only reused formula over and over and pr talk like "we're listening" but nothing is done.

[CalvinDescoles]

Don't get me wrong, this numbers are shocking... but i am glab it happen. They will may be start thinking for making things right

[CNitsah]

I don’t know how bad or normal this is nor do I really care if I’m being honest. I have my theories to the why and so on but who knows.

basically, we're back to late stormblood numbers.

[AntoniusQuil]

I mean, I’m not surprised, as a casual player I would drop too, if I didn’t have my sub paid for few next months already.

Like there’s nothing to do really in current content if you aren’t interested in hardcore raiding, save for farming tomestones and some job lvling.
I at least have some older expansion content like bozia and eureka to do due to being fairly new to the game, but casual players who are up to date with stuff really don’t have anything to do right now, you can’t even farm alliance raid glams due to one item per week limit.

I don’t really understand SE approach to how much resources they put in developing hardcore content vs casual content . Considering that looking at achievements, hardcore raiders are at most a 10% of player base, but get more content with entirely new gear sets and mounts which I assume takes quite a lot of time and resources to make, than reminding 90% of the players.At the same time SE “doesn’t have resources” to not make half of crafted and dungeon gear just bad re-colors (sometimes releasing the same glam for the third time or not evens adding a dyeable option to it when reusing it)

[AntoniusQuil]

Can you stop with derailing this into yet another casual / hardcore debate?
Not everything is black and white.
I didn’t say anything about this stuff.

You can’t really avoid casual vs hardcore debate, when more resources spent on hardcore content (ranging from gameplay content to rewards like glams and mounts) means less resources spent on casual content and vice versa. And SE doesn’t seem willing to increase the general total amount of resources and development

[Evergrey]

fun facts, it wasn't. been here since early ARR and what made the game a success was more midcore than casual. everything else was only good reviews from players. i could even say that the game gone downhill after trying to please everyone and anyone right in their mind knows that by catering to anyone, you cater to noone, you just become stale.

I would even go as far as saying that the "skill level" of Casuals have declined since then which also makes the gap between Casuals and Mid/Hardcore players wider than it really should be.
Seeing how the later years FFXIV have nerfed a couple of older dungeons that's been fine for years upon years because people started complaining how "they were too difficult" just sends me the message how people just don't put in the effort to improve themselves as gamers as people once used to anymore, and that's casuals included.

Heck, when SE has tried putting in some challenging quests they've been nerfed within the first week because people complained how they were "gatekept" out of the MSQ.
"Casuals" today just don't care about improving anymore. They just want to play the game and not have to put into any extra effort into it.
Those are my 2 cents.
Ofc, not everyone's like this. But it's a trend that I've seen in other games as well. More and more "casuals" find any challenging content as "unacceptable" game design and anyone who tells them otherwise is a "toxic tryhard".

[Teno]

You do realize it is the casual players that built this game to success. If they want to focus on the 2% of the midcore/hardcore playerbase, they should expect the numbers to continue to plunge. Some of us who have been around over a decade may just decide to never come back. The game is on a downward spiral, the writing quality tanked with DT. I highly doubt this game makes it to 10.0.

Nonsense, it is not the current casuals that built it. The game had more meat to it from a casual perspective back then. It wasn't as bland and one dimensional as it is right now. That is to say, different breed of casuals built it.

[Larirawiel]

When the majority of your playerbase is casual and turned off by harder dungeons and chaotic raids, I don't believe going "all in" on more of that type of content is wise. The mid-core/hardcore players represent the minority.

I do not even think, that they make this with intention. I guess, this neglect of casual players happened accidentaly. For me, it seems, that they basically lost the control over the game. The MSQ failed badly, the graphical upgrade backfired, the casual content is consumed way too fast, then bots everywhere etc. I do not believe, that it was planned. And so much hardcore content is in the game because it is braindead easy and very cheap to make. You take a normal boss, you increase some numbers, you add one ability to it and you are basically done. It is propably one hour of work for one person. I guess, the hardcore content is a sort of damage control for them. Because they are not able to produce interesting normal content fast enough.




Cheers

[DynnDiablos]

Can you stop with derailing this into yet another casual / hardcore debate?
Not everything is black and white.
I didn’t say anything about this stuff.

It actually is pretty black and white when the minority of the players have such hatred and disdain for those of us who are the reason they have the hardcore content they get to enjoy. Period.

[ovIm]

Heck, when SE has tried putting in some challenging quests they've been nerfed within the first week because people complained how they were "gatekept" out of the MSQ.
"Casuals" today just don't care about improving anymore. They just want to play the game and not have to put into any extra effort into it.
Those are my 2 cents.
Ofc, not everyone's like this. But it's a trend that I've seen in other games as well. More and more "casuals" find any challenging content as "unacceptable" game design and anyone who tells them otherwise is a "toxic tryhard".

This sadly has been a big recurring issue in this game. In any other game, you are expected to improve to a certain level if you wanted to continue. That is not gatekeeping, that is normal game design.
There was a vocal minority (and I absolutely believe it is a minority) that always yaps whenever the game demands a modium of attention - see Steps of Faith, or In from the Cold. There are a few solo duties which are absolutely impossible to fail (I tried, out of curiosity, and failed to fail.) And being deadly afraid of accessibility criticism of the critically acclaimed MSQ of the MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, Square works to remove every hurdle standing in between the player and the cutscenes.
Some players don't want to play the game, they want to watch the cutscenes with their character.

Its not bad making the MSQ not too difficult to allow lesser skilled players to progress. But as always, CS3 are prone to overcorrecting.