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[Uzephi]

To try and pretend somehow the servers are all overflowing with people even though they are emptying out at an alarming rate.

Typical SE response. Stick head in sand and pretend things are collapsing around them. Maybe if they just do nothing like they always do, the problem will magically go away yet again?
The only thing going away at this rate is XIV.

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?

[CapaxInfiniti]

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?

[Jeeqbit]

critical thinking needs it's hand held apparently.

Critical thinking works both ways. Not only is critical thinking useful, but being critical of the criticism itself is useful as well - the lack of the latter is why conspiracy theories are so rampant. They believe in critical thinking too but they don't critique their own criticsm, and thus 50% of the time it turns out to be wrong.

Player retention in an mmorpg is heavily dependent on the experiences with other players.

I agree that the best way to hold players is usually to create systems that assist players interacting with eachother in fun ways. The most obvious example of this is PvP, but anything that supports interacting such as RP systems, housing, wars, tournaments, trade that requires getting another player to craft and gather things for you (and there is no other way to get it), tackling bosses or fights together in a way that it goes differently each time, etc.

This doesn't always require new "content" so much as new "systems". But SE's strong point isn't really on enduring systems, so the majority of people just check out the new content for a few days then move onto another game, resulting in patch lulls. To a certain extent, they are catering to a behaviour players have anyway where they check out new DLC for a few days then move onto another game.

"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.

While I'm not going to disagree that there is a decline, it's the objective truth that patch lulls always happen and have happened for the entire 10 years I've played, and that the game getting more quiet before a major patch has always happened. So it's not intellectually dishonest to say this since it is just the truth, and a fair point to make.

[Veritas-Ancora]

"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.

I agree with this. Dawntrail has been a very disappointing expansion for many people. Developers seem to be "throwing s**t and seeing what sticks" as it were. Promise Cosmic Exploration, promise Exploratory Mission (Occult Crescent), promise a Deep Dungeon (Pilgrim's Traverse), keep throwing things at the problem and see what solves it. Unfortunately, I don't see Pilgrim's Traverse to be useful nor do I think players really appreciate a half-arsed Occult Crescent with oopsie patches to fix glaring errors in logic and playerbase.

While we can argue the world as to what will fix this game (and I think the forums do an exceptional job at talking things to death), the current trajectory of an unremarkable storyline, joyless characters, lacking engaging casual content, forgotten housing issues, congested servers (read: no new players), unfulfilling healer rotations, repetitive daily tasks with minimal benefit/reward, forgetting that Ultimate/Savage players are a very small percentage of the player base, and so much more attributes to a game that players are giving up on.

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.

This. EVERYTHING. THIS.

Look, Square-Enix, if you're reading this: all of my closest friends have quit this game. People I considered to be my family are gone. I spent 10 years playing with these people and they silently unsubscribed because they felt bad about leaving, sometimes leaving me a Discord message telling me how much they're going to miss us. One by one, all of my favorite players left. The ones who have stuck around say nothing in chat, have no new players to help guide to L100, have lost interest in signing in more than once a week, and keep hoping for people to come back.

They're. Not. Coming. Back. Unless. You. Do. Something!

The best advice I can give you is to begin scrapping what you're doing and focus on the casual player experience. You have to work extra hard to bring those players back. They didn't find enough enjoyment in the game and you have to do something radical to change that. Work on instance housing. Incentivize players more for doing maps. Create an in-game FC calendar to sign people up for things. Increase the rewards for doing FATEs and Bi-Colored gemstones. Heck, totally revamp the method of receiving tomestones every week so players have more ways of reaching cap. What about Gold Saucer events that don't require 20 minutes waiting time in-between each game?

Above all things, fix the @#$% Datacenter!

[CidHeiral]

There should be no congested servers now when less people are playing the game. It's bs and I think we all know it.

The restrictions are there to attempt to throttle everyone from piling on one DC as they did previously. The game's overall population is irrelevant.

[Uzephi]

"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.

You have misconstrued my words. I have never contested decline in numbers as a whole, but as an Aether local, I can assure you, during peak times, we are congested for a reason. We still experience patch lull, this is a fact. Please don't gloss over it. I have jokingly said earlier how I've seen traveler more often. This happens during patch lull... All the time. Welcome to Aether during patch lull. Everyone comes here.

Edit: I actually know quite a few on Midgard who only plays on patch week, completes the MSQ and unlocks the tier stuff. After they're done and trying the savage tier for a week, maybe two, won't see them unless they're resetting their housing timer. (Now that it's active again) Those players are also counted in congestion, which you have clearly missed me saying.

Complain about this on content drops and I'm all for you. But please don't gauge my neighborhood's population during a patch lull to justify congestion, because I can say, this server of Aether is full... Can't vouch for the other's though.

[Mawlzy]

The restrictions are there to attempt to throttle everyone from piling on one DC as they did previously. The game's overall population is irrelevant.

I think the overall population has dropped to a point that it is actually relevant. If raiding is the main reason for one DC getting piled on, enough casual players on Aether have quit that you can stick the raiding communities from all of NA on it without stressing the server.

For example, Aether queue times for Frontline seem to me much longer than usual, particularly during a mogtome event.

Be interesting to see if they drop the congested tag in 7.3. I imagine they won't because they're hoping people will come back.

this server of Aether is full... Can't vouch for the other's though.

Not my experience at all.

[Veritas-Ancora]

Be interesting to see if they drop the congested tag in 7.3. I imagine they won't because they're hoping people will come back.

They're not coming back without a reason to come back.

The current trajectory of content wasn't exciting enough to justify coming back. At Fan Fest, we hear the entire agenda for the expansion and subsequent patches.

Players saw it and saw the same old thing that they've done over and over again.

[Mawlzy]

They're not coming back without a reason to come back.

The current trajectory of content wasn't exciting enough to justify coming back. At Fan Fest, we hear the entire agenda for the expansion and subsequent patches.

Players saw it and saw the same old thing that they've done over and over again.

100% agree, but SE seems to live in constant hope that mediocre content will magically energize the player base again, hence I imagine in the 7.3 patch notes Aether will maintain congested status, even though it manifestly is not.

[DynnDiablos]

They have to get rid of Dynamis. As a player on Seraph, roulettes are all 25-30+ minute wait times. The entire DC was a mistake. They need to really look at the populations and consolidate. My thoughts are splitting the worlds on Dynamis, between the other DCs, and just adding them there.