Quote Originally Posted by Uzephi View Post
Congestion doesn't factor in pre-patch lulls. It calculates congestion at peak times after a major patch. A majority of players don't play FFXIV every day of the year. As someone who is on Aether and does some crafting for the server. After a patch comes out, I can't keep stock of key foods/potions, until the patch lull hits, and that's fine and should be normal. Y'all are literally going 'we are in between patches, players stopped playing' no crap Shirlock. Have you played any other MMO, there are normal dips when content is no longer 'fresh.' SEs response to keep player engagement during this time is the mogtome event. Sure, it won't keep a chunk of the players in the game during downtimes, but it does help somewhat.

What would your solution to fix this normal life cycle of an MMO be?

Ah. Hyperbole.
Let me counter. I will word this with enough simplicity for you to understand, as critical thinking needs it's hand held apparently.

Player retention in an mmorpg is heavily dependent on the experiences with other players.
"It's a patch lull" is intellectually dishonest. Or perhaps bankrupt, and you know it.
The decline has been happening far longer than the last several weeks.

As players continue to find little to do with other players (see all of Dynamis), it creates a negative feedback loop (big scary word there i know).

Players begin playing less, or perhaps even quit due to the inability to find others to do things with.
The remaining players, in turn, feel this effect even more pronounced due to dwindling numbers, as now there are even less.
This goes back to point one.

However, we can just continue to white knight if that's what you want, because surely it's working this expansion, right?