FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[Kaurhz]

Anyone remember like 2-3 weeks ago or whenever, when the forums were full of people claiming players had more than enough to do and they were just being lazy/incompetent/not doing enough ultimates?
‘Why are people complaining about content when chaotic just released just make a PF’

Now suddenly the game is dead as a doornail completely exhausted of all content, creativity and enjoyment? What happened to ‘just do savage/ultimates?’

It’s no wonder the devs can’t keep up lol.

1. This is because it isn't the same people making both points, but different people making different points.

2. I don't think most were saying there is enough to do. The lazy/incompetent remarks were largely made in relation to the complaints around reward structure of Chaotic (Most of them didn't bother reading the actual complaints)

3. Just do xyz is a disappointing response to the complaints levied. How would people like it if I turned around and said "Go get your Centurio Tiger, Pteranodon, go do your several thousand Frontline matches and CC", then come back and complain about lack of content.

4. Devs can't keep up because they only develop long form content once or twice every 5 years. Near enough everything is short-form,

[Connor]

1. This is because it isn't the same people making both points, but different people making different points.

2. I don't think most were saying there is enough to do. The lazy/incompetent remarks were largely made in relation to the complaints around reward structure of Chaotic (Most of them didn't bother reading the actual complaints)

3. Just do xyz is a disappointing response to the complaints levied. How would people like it if I turned around and said "Go get your Centurio Tiger, Pteranodon, go do your several thousand Frontline matches and CC", then come back and complain about lack of content.

4. Devs can't keep up because they only develop long form content once or twice every 5 years. Near enough everything is short-form,

1. That’s fair; the ‘forums’ isn’t exactly a hive mind so certain people possibly saying certain things doesn’t necessarily mean everyone has/will.

2. Yeah, the argument was mostly around the rewards structure and the whole ‘hairstyle’ controversy. And going back to the point above, even if there was one or two people saying those things (‘you can’t complain about content if you haven’t done X yet’), it’s not like the entire playerbase was saying the same.

3. I agree. I mean, there’s always going to be that one piece of content nobody ever manages/wants to do, but it’s not really fair to say like ‘if you want content just do the 10M Gil from leves achievements’ or something lol. Or the dev’s (in)famous ‘if healers are bored they should just do ultimate’. That’s not really much help for the people who don’t want to do content at that level for whatever reason.

4. Agreed; not only is it short-form, but even the short-form stuff we do get is so half-assed it barely even managed to last short-term. Island Sanctuary is a good example. Not to mention they constantly start developing content then just completely drop it to work on some different content without addressing the issues with the first thing lol. Like whatever happened to Deep Dungeon? Does that still exist? Criterions? It’s made worse by how large the wait between patches has become. It wasn’t even that long ago (relatively) that crystal tower deep dungeon happened but it feels like a lifetime ago lol

[Striker44]

Seems to be based on the last chart the OP posted. May of last year was 91,000 players. This month is down to 22,000. But are those only Steam accounts? Doesn't say.

It's Steam accounts only, and it's going off of the "peak" number of logins, meaning the single highest (and most anomalous) data point. If you look at the average daily logins per month, you'll see that DT is in virtually the same exact place ShB was, and significantly better than EW. At the 8-month mark, DT has seen its average Steam login drop by 40%, compared to 39% for ShB and 49% for EW. Basically, they're cherry-picking numbers to suit their agenda because the more accurate data shows nothing out of the ordinary is actually occurring.

[Teno]

People love to complain about player numbers when it suits them to bolster their own argument but really what difference does it make if there are 1 million or 2 million or 500,000 people playing the game? Does that make the game more fun for your personally to know that there are 1.9mil other people player over only 499,999 thousand?

The number matters for the people at square tasked with making money, but doesn't really matter to players unless it drops to the threshold where the game isn't profitable at all.

It matters when it's an mmo and you'd just like to see people around. Or better yet, find groups to do content...

[Sayari]

That's one way to see it. Another goes like this: Less people = less funding = company realizes that their flag ship is sinking = more money is invested to get the ship back on course = game improves

So whether the game bleeding subs is good or bad news is totally up to the viewer. But at least voting with your wallet is a feedback that cannot be easily ignored. Whether the company has the skill and brains left to turn the ship around is a totally different question, of course.

I know my post was oversimplified (as someone pointed out) and with your own statement, you are not wrong. We can hope that this becomes the case but we'll see what Squenix does.

[CuteBucket]

"Guys, everyone knows that Steam players are *fundamentally different* from other PC players and console players! Because they often play other Steam games, which PC players who don't play FFXIV through Steam don't tend to do! I have no evidence for this except my personal vibes and how this one friend of mine is like! And even if the game is losing players, which it isn't, it would actually be *good* for the game, because we didn't want or need those stupid WoW players anyway!" - what some comments on here sound like

Man, I want whatever some of y'all are on to think the game is doing great right now and enjoying what little content there is. Sounds nice. I miss being excited and happy about this game.

[Dante131]

"Guys, everyone knows that Steam players are *fundamentally different* from other PC players and console players! Because they often play other Steam games, which PC players who don't play FFXIV through Steam don't tend to do! I have no evidence for this except my personal vibes and how this one friend of mine is like! And even if the game is losing players, which it isn't, it would actually be *good* for the game, because we didn't want or need those stupid WoW players anyway!" - what some comments on here sound like

Man, I want whatever some of y'all are on to think the game is doing great right now and enjoying what little content there is. Sounds nice. I miss being excited and happy about this game.

me to lad me to ... i had one spark of hope for the field operation because i like stuff like mixing jobs in other games. logged in after a while looked at the game and just imidiatly got bored. Yes i know its over a month to go till the patch but man this feeling is for the last half year and i think i will be dissapointed in the end...

[PercibelTheren]

I can see the exodus in my own FC and my friend list. People who had been playing since 1.0 have been gone for months now. Hell, I'm only hanging on because of the handful of friends who still play but if I find another MMO, I'll probably be jumping ship as well.

[BigCheez]

Doesnt account in, Xbox, Playstation and non Steam user, and lets be real steam was the least used platform for ffxiv

I don't think you understand how percentages work.

Yes, there are platforms other than Steam. The Steam playerbase is a large enough sample size to make accurate estimations on player behaviour though. If 75% of the Steam playerbase has stopped playing then there is no reason to believe that retention is better on other platforms.

The total number of players on Steam is not a useful metric. The % of Steam players who have stopped playing is a useful metric.

[BigCheez]

It's Steam accounts only, and it's going off of the "peak" number of logins, meaning the single highest (and most anomalous) data point. If you look at the average daily logins per month, you'll see that DT is in virtually the same exact place ShB was, and significantly better than EW. At the 8-month mark, DT has seen its average Steam login drop by 40%, compared to 39% for ShB and 49% for EW. Basically, they're cherry-picking numbers to suit their agenda because the more accurate data shows nothing out of the ordinary is actually occurring.

No.

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...low-1-million/

...And claiming cherry picking is legitimately insane because Lucky Bancho is notorious for cherry picking numbers that are favourable for SE. These Dt numbers were taken during a free login campaign, for example.