FFXIV population decline continues

[KiiNGKRUSH]

https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-14-active-players-large-drop-below-1-million/

Thoughts on this article and are you at all worried about the games trajectory?

[Immut]

I'm not worried at all, I've been sounding the alarms for two expansions now. Nobody wanted to hear it. This MMORPG is slowly turning into an MMOVN.

[Skaadenfroid]

Probably not an issue. There's little to no appeal at the moment for casual gamers with the content actually expecting people to put in effort to complete it, no exploration zone for grindcore content, and little to no 4 player party or solo content.

All of that is consistent with x.1 though and you see the same drop off in player count in previous expacs, it's just happened sooner in DT than in previous expansions which SHOULD be expected given SE has verbalized they don't feel the need to baby casual players this expansion (along with most of the midcore/hardcore players having cleared the raid tier enough to not want to keep griding it).

Stormblood was fine and that was BEFORE data center and world travel; the playerbase could drain pretty significantly and the game would be just as playable at all tiers.

Also (in america at least) there are a lot of direct economic contributors, which you see in ShB as well until about the time the Blizzard controversies start spinning up and content creators jump ship. If the best story this game could offer can suffer from the same issues and still be wildly successful then probably DT is doing fine.

[DynnDiablos]

Probably not an issue. There's little to no appeal at the moment for casual gamers with the content actually expecting people to put in effort to complete it, no exploration zone for grindcore content, and little to no 4 player party or solo content.

All of that is consistent with x.1 though and you see the same drop off in player count in previous expacs, it's just happened sooner in DT than in previous expansions which SHOULD be expected given SE has verbalized they don't feel the need to baby casual players this expansion (along with most of the midcore/hardcore players having cleared the raid tier enough to not want to keep griding it).

Stormblood was fine and that was BEFORE data center and world travel; the playerbase could drain pretty significantly and the game would be just as playable at all tiers.

Also (in america at least) there are a lot of direct economic contributors, which you see in ShB as well until about the time the Blizzard controversies start spinning up and content creators jump ship. If the best story this game could offer can suffer from the same issues and still be wildly successful then probably DT is doing fine.

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.

[NamiRocket]

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.

This us versus them narrative is so goddamn tired. Other MMORPGs cater to both types of players just fine. It's not a case where you have to forsake one to do the other. Stop stepping all over the things others enjoy about the game just to prop up the things you enjoy about the game. It's pointless.

EDIT: I just realized, you're the person from the other day who made the insanely deranged, "We do not forget, we do not forgive," speech in the other thread. I don't know why I'm bothering.

[Lilapop]

This us versus them narrative is so goddamn tired. Other MMORPGs cater to both types of players just fine. It's not a case where you have to forsake one to do the other. Stop stepping all over the things others enjoy about the game just to prop up the things you enjoy about the game. It's pointless.

EDIT: I just realized, you're the person from the other day who made the insanely deranged, "We do not forget, we do not forgive," speech in the other thread. I don't know why I'm bothering.

Objectively, they aren't wrong. For every one hardcore raider there's probably over a dozen casuals. Statistically, the casual audience has a way larger stake than the combined hardcore audience; objectiveness aside, if the majority of people who play this game for super super casual content, the story, some roleplay, maybe fishing? then suddenly amping up the difficulty is obviously going to see people unhappy.

[bloodSp3c]

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

[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.

[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".

[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.