FFXIV population decline continues

[Exmo]

Player count was up a little last month. Last 30 days show a 13% increase. The doomsayers all crawled back into the woodwork

[Sifpatata]

Thank you wuk lamat for reminding us that western devs should not be allowed to touch this game.

[Qyoon]

I would have been worried if the game was actually good, but atm it's not really so not surprising.

[Zackneifein]

Player count was up a little last month. Last 30 days show a 13% increase. The doomsayers all crawled back into the woodwork

Not surprising that there is an increase just after a patch.

But also maybe it's because the 7.2 is good because it's going in the very opposite direction of the 7.0 MSQ which is :

• The WoL is once again at the center of the story and matters in it.
• Sphene, unlike Wuk Lamat, is a well-written character that isn't vampirizing the plot but complementing the WoL like all "main characters" of every expansion did before.
• Wuk Lamat is so much put to the sideline with "excuses" like "Oh, I have to talk to those guys, I will leave you with Sphene alone" that it almost feels like the plan was to have Wuk Lamat and Sphene connect to make a parallel with her relationship with Endless Sphene, but realizing how badly Wuk Lamat was received, they switched Wuk Lamat role in this to the WoL with desperate attempts in the last moment, and it works so much better than having a Wuk Lamat centered story.

So everything that goes against people like you who were overly defensive about Dawntrail and its MSQ direction, against people like me who didn't like it as a whole.

[kajv95]

Player count was up a little last month. Last 30 days show a 13% increase. The doomsayers all crawled back into the woodwork

Steam Numbers specifically, but I'm sure you agree the sample size is large enough to be indicative.

So, there was a patch. A Savage patch. Percentage is a bit of a weird metric to use here, since the percentage would get buffed if the last month is especially shitty. As an example, the last 30 days shows an average of 18988, a 13.6% rise over the 30 days before it, whereas November (Patch 7.1) shows an increase of 12.4% over the last month despite the average being higher than 7.2s "last 30 days" window you refer to, at 19651.

Overall, savage patches (x.2) are often stronger than their non-savage counterpart (x.1), so this isn't surprising. What is surprising is the decline after the first week of savage is rapidly getting us back to pre-patch levels, and we still have a few months of the patch to go. 7.2 is an extremely strong patch as far as Dawntrail's content cadence is concerned, but it also confirmed that compared to it, 7.3 will likely be a very weak one. For the next 7-8 months, this is likely your playerbase.

That being said, we're currently missing the occult crescent, which will be a key component in retention for the foreseeable future, so I wouldn't be able to predict to what extent they'll be able to hold on to this playerbase. If the trend holds though, we'll likely see record lows we haven't seen in years, which is worrying.

[Fatch38]

Player count was up a little last month. Last 30 days show a 13% increase. The doomsayers all crawled back into the woodwork

you mean when there is actual content to do ppl come back ? who would have guessed ?

[MicahZerrshia]

Steam Numbers specifically, but I'm sure you agree the sample size is large enough to be indicative..

Wait that 13% was taken from steam? This whole time the defenders have been saying Steam numbers being so low are meaningless because most of the population doesn't use steam. But now that its an increase instead of a decrease its suddenly relivant? Well well, look at how convenient that is.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Not surprising that there is an increase just after a patch.

But also maybe it's because the 7.2 is good because it's going in the very opposite direction of the 7.0 MSQ which is :

• The WoL is once again at the center of the story and matters in it.
• Sphene, unlike Wuk Lamat, is a well-written character that isn't vampirizing the plot but complementing the WoL like all "main characters" of every expansion did before.
• Wuk Lamat is so much put to the sideline with "excuses" like "Oh, I have to talk to those guys, I will leave you with Sphene alone" that it almost feels like the plan was to have Wuk Lamat and Sphene connect to make a parallel with her relationship with Endless Sphene, but realizing how badly Wuk Lamat was received, they switched Wuk Lamat role in this to the WoL with desperate attempts in the last moment, and it works so much better than having a Wuk Lamat centered story.

So everything that goes against people like you who were overly defensive about Dawntrail and its MSQ direction, against people like me who didn't like it as a whole.

My honest reaction to DT was very negative and it put a dampener on my enjoyment of the game. I think they deserved to lose subs for what we got.

I do like 7.2 a lot more for the reasons you listed above, and hopefully they are rewarded for making improvements.

[JohnConstantine]

Wait that 13% was taken from steam? This whole time the defenders have been saying Steam numbers being so low are meaningless because most of the population doesn't use steam. But now that its an increase instead of a decrease its suddenly relivant? Well well, look at how convenient that is.

They'll quickly start screaming about how Steam isn't indicative once it drops down again lmao.

Besides, a 13% increase is pathetic for a raid patch. It used to be more like 20-30%.

By the way, concurrent player activity has already dropped by 30% since the 7.2 peak.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I've been around for over 10 years in this game and it's never been this dead. I'm actually worried.