FFXIV population decline continues

[Mawlzy]

Then you ain't hating the game enough to actually make a stand and all you do is yappy yappy. Imagine getting attached to a pixel in a random game that is a major point of distress in somebody's life..lol. You enjoy self-flagellation and self-inflicted misery. Nobody keeps you hostage, nobody is forcing you to take any decisions, you do this to yourself. Stop playing the victim already.

Isn't it a bit more subtle than that, and thus cynical on the part of SE?

Whether I keep paying $15/month on a game I rarely play has zero impact on me. On the other hand, losing my house, finding the game finally adds content I like, and playing it again without my house is an actual problem.

This is precisely what SE intends, surely? Compounded by the fact that me unsubscribing will have no impact on them whatsoever.

[Kohashi]

and playing it again without my house is an actual problem.

No is not. It's a self-created problem so, stop blaming others for your own decisions. A sensible way would be to move away from something that is clearly affecting you, your mental health, and your well-being overall. Nobody cares if you got a house in a game, it's not a symbol of anything.

[Torashiki]

Another post with the same doomers that I have seen for years claiming the same things that are either opinions taken out of proportion by streamers or just flat out not right.

''The story is bad!'' about Stormblood.
''There is no content'' about X.1 patches.
''People are leaving'' about pre-patch lulls.

Some people need to stop pretending to be martyr prophets.

[BigCheez]

Another post with the same doomers that I have seen for years claiming the same things that are either opinions taken out of proportion by streamers or just flat out not right.

''The story is bad!'' about Stormblood.
''There is no content'' about X.1 patches.
''People are leaving'' about pre-patch lulls.

Some people need to stop pretending to be martyr prophets.

Objectively not true.

https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/58883226.html

Every expansion saw growth between x.0 and pre-x.1 censuses.

SB 663k -> 830k
ShB 943k -> 1.2m
EW 1.3m -> 1.7m
DT 1.4m -> 1.1m

In terms of player retention (x.0 peak numbers vs x.1 peak numbers), every patch saw about 45% of initial playerbase returning to x.1 patch, but in case of DT, only 39% returned for 6.1.

|| || |pre x.1| post x.1|Result|
|DT |-290k | -147k |-437k|
|EW|+354k| -369k |-14k|
|ShB |+242k| -221k |+20k|
|SB|+167k| -5k |+162k|

It is likely FFXIV will fall under 1 million active players soon, going under pre-Shadowbringers level.

Comparison data from WaltzForLilly

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ayer_drop_off/

[Jeeqbit]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ayer_drop_off/

I have all the stats in a giant table going back to 2014.

• ARR's average was 600,000 (the fluctuation was 574,440 to 670,169).
• Heavensward's average was 600,000 (the fluctuation was 824,556 to 496,412 in what was a progressive decline).
• Stormblood's average was 600,000 (the fluctuation was 536,830 to 831,334).
• Shadowbringers' average was 900,000 (the fluctuation was 862,032 to 1,254,294).
• Endwalker's average was 1.2 to 1.3 mil (the fluctuation was 1,115,937 to 1,702,744).

(This is ignoring the 1,624,238 which happened during a patch lull when the game went viral, because it was not reflective of the population that stuck.)

All the "fluctuations" were obviously due to patch lulls and the fact the population usually slides down as the expansion progresses, due to there being less hype than at the expansion release. However, there are usually spikes sometimes except in Heavensward.

Although I can't say for sure, comparing a number of spikes makes it seem unlikely it'll drop below Shadowbringers levels, but it is likely it could be at the Shadowbringers average (900,000).

[Miki_L]

I have all the stats in a giant table going back to 2014.

• ARR's average was 600,000 (the fluctuation was 574,440 to 670,169).
• Heavensward's average was 600,000 (the fluctuation was 824,556 to 496,412 in what was a progressive decline).
• Stormblood's average was 600,000 (the fluctuation was 536,830 to 831,334).
• Shadowbringers' average was 900,000 (the fluctuation was 862,032 to 1,254,294).
• Endwalker's average was 1.2 to 1.3 mil (the fluctuation was 1,115,937 to 1,702,744).

(This is ignoring the 1,624,238 which happened during a patch lull when the game went viral, because it was not reflective of the population that stuck.)

All the "fluctuations" were obviously due to patch lulls and the fact the population usually slides down as the expansion progresses, due to there being less hype than at the expansion release. However, there are usually spikes sometimes except in Heavensward.

Although I can't say for sure, comparing a number of spikes makes it seem unlikely it'll drop below Shadowbringers levels, but it is likely it could be at the Shadowbringers average (900,000).

That seems pretty bad. When people said that we were going back to Shadowbringers numbers I thought it was just undoing the gains Endwalker made. But it was more like 1.5 expansions worth of gains lost, in only two patches.

[Jeeqbit]

That seems pretty bad. When people said that we were going back to Shadowbringers numbers I thought it was just undoing the gains Endwalker made. But it was more like 1.5 expansions worth of gains lost, in only two patches.

Well so far, it has only undone the gains of Endwalker. What I meant was there are a lot of indications that the baseline is Shadowbringers levels ie. unlikely to go below that, but obviously I can't say for sure.

The whole topic is silly of course because this is one patch and it could spike higher later on.

[NaoSen]

Every MMO has had a "Is Dying" phase, player loss etc...
Generally, players return if their game adds something appealing that makes them go "Oh that looks cool, I'll give it another try".

I'm quite happy seeing numbers drop heavily, it's the only way that SE can see that what they are doing isn't what a huge number of players want.

[Archeron]

Nobody would be here complaining if we had shit to do in-game that was worth our time.

People are sitting around here huffing copium pretending all is well while the players bleed off, and Dawntrail continues to fail in almost every aspect, even in comparison to Endwalker. A straight one to one examination of 7.1 to 6.1 shows just how little they've given us for a x.1 patch. Endwalker fully revamped its PvP system. Added crystaline conflict to the game, added more PvP rewards and sets to the game, Added Empyreum as a new housing zone, Added adventure plates to the game, and the cherry on top? It also added pretty much every piece of content that 7.1 did with the exception of Chaotic raids. I do like seeing people justify why we should wait 8+ months for new content in a live service, subscription MMORPG with billions of dollars to its name.

[sharknado]

They should bite their tongue with their "it won't make new sales so we won't do it" policy as it's actually starting to decrease their sales. Each expansion is encapsulated and everything before it is left to rot slowly.

The expansion template didn't change since like Shadowbringers while also degrading. Unsure but things like DoH/DoL launch quests are less and less, and basic fetch/craft menu quests that reward less and less, like they are afraid of giving me a bunch of materia. There is some post-launch content but we don't know anything about it so people don't know if they should be playing and getting hyped for it. Cosmic Explorations for DoH/DoL - will they actually be DoH/DoL or generic, will they reward 200 top crafter materia or just a mount/hairstyle/achievement? If you won't give me 100-200 materia I don't care and maybe resub for X.55 and get the scrip gear - leveling omnicrafters was fun, but having omnicrafting on live expansion is just a waste of time if you aren't crafting 24/7 as a job. X.3 gear is a hard pass, especially when they will add some component that requires a lot of braindead collectible turn-ins. And don't forget the new grind content which is also enigmatic

Is it that hard to for example change fates and side quests to give 10x or more exp when leveling alt DPS jobs? Or get experience tokens from running roulette as a job-in-need over and over to then use it on a DPS job?