2nd Anniversary 14-hour Broadcast - Hai! Sou Da. Hai! Un. Un.

[Shenrien]

Which is funny because the people who find Alex Normal laughably boring but Alex Savage a step too far is shit out of luck.

There really should have been a Heroic tier... Savage is on the tier of Mythic raiding. On the plus side I've been having more fun in WoWs raiding than I have been in XIVs this past month so I've got that going for me!

[Gilgameshx]

I feel like there's a misconception regarding the majority and the minority. The minority(players on this site) feel like they are the majority, which according to the numbers released..... Is so far from the truth.

Just look at the jobs percentage for levels 51-60.... Its pathetic. It doesnt mean 6% of the population are only 51-60, but looking at the alexander normal completion.... It doesnt seem that far off. 6% of any given class being 51-60 just seems extremely low. Unless I misinterpreted the chart which is entirely possible.

According to the numbers they release, It just seems like the majority of the population are pleased with content, how its released, whats released, etc. The majority is super super casual. The majority couldnt pass steps of faith. This is the mmo we're in. No 3.x patch will change this.

[Edelweiss]

It's one of the things that bugs me about their workflow for ARR.

They spend a huge amount of resources on extravagant locales, for content that lasts maybe one content cycle, two at most. They need to make better use of these assets they create, be it for multiple-difficulty levels, or re-purposing them for another style of event (modern FFXI's forte) for the cost of just Q&A testing whatever you script + a couple new animation/mechanic effects for recycled enemies.

Sort of beating a dead horse, but their output is probably more suited for a horizontal progression model. The vertical model just trashes everything biannually - and they can't even pretend to keep up.

[Silenka]

Without engaging content for players who like the high-end raids, those players are going to move on.
Without engaging content for players who like the practically non-existent mid-tier stuff, those players are going to move on. (I can count myself as one of those).
In the end all that will be left is the lowest common denominator, forever running the hamster wheel of dumbed-down, recycled content. At that point, does it cease to be a game anyone can enjoy? I don't think that's what the devs had in mind when they set out to create a FF MMO that will keep all FF fans entertained and subbed. If they lose a good chunk of subs focusing on nothing but churning out mediocre content that keeps the majority happy, that's STILL a financial loss and a failure of vision.

You argue how much original assets, implementation and testing cost as a reason for lack of content. But all we have to do is look at the quality of updates XI has had the past couple years, a game that is certainly not making near as much money as XIV and is no longer even SE's flagship MMO, to see that that's at least partially bullshit. The dev team can certainly do better than they're doing with XIV right now, even just in the relatively inexpensive QoL department. The fact of the matter is, for reasons unknown it seems they can't be bothered to do so, and that is fairly infuriating to many - both to posters here AND the OF "majority". When it is obvious to everyone except the people actually running the game how easily a problem could be fixed, discontent is bred among players. And considering the frequency of complaints on the OF, the place where the majority's voices are heard, I'm not sure that "the majority are pleased with content", either.

XIV can continue to cater seriously to no one but the LCD, but at serious risk to the quality of its playerbase. When no one is left but the people who can consistently overlook all the easily-fixed problems the game has and are content to be "equal" to everyone else while not even being able to clear the simplest content with any sort of regularity, how do you think that will impact the PR for the game, and even its development? If all but the LCD moves on, SE is certainly not going to waste their time and money developing more difficult and well-thought-out content for players who cannot even clear story trials.

I never wanted to hear "only casual scrubs play FFXIV". "There's nothing in that game for good players." "XIV doesn't deserve my sub".
I doubt Yoshi-P wants to hear that either. But if the game keeps on developing like this, I can't see how we're not increasingly going to hear things along those lines.

[solracht]

What I want them to do is to actually design content with some replayability in mind. Instances are only interesting the very first time you do them because they have absolutely zero depth: they are nothing more than hallways - no optional objectives, optional bosses, multiple paths, or any sort of randomization. Yea, repeating things will get boring after a while no matter what, but right now it's like they're not even trying to stop that from happening.

[Arelian]

Wildstar tried it that and it actually helped contribute to the game's miserable state. They had the medal system which would give you additional loot depending on how people did in the dungeon/which objectives were cleared. If a run wasn't going to get gold, people abandoned it immediately.

There's no such thing as an "optional objective" in the modern MMO mindset. If you aren't good enough to get everything, people abandon ship and don't get anything at all--or it's not worth getting in the first place. The idea of 45 minute Baron runs in Stratholme are no more, instead replaced by casual elitism from people that don't really have a right to claim it.

Though a bit of randomization or multiple paths would be neat. Though it's possible that the airship stuff will be somewhat randomized and have branching elements to it.

Also RE: FFXI assets. That game is infinitely cheaper to develop for compared to FFXIV. Obviously I don't have numbers on hand, but it's a fact that developing for PS2/PS2-era PC-games required a whole lot less money than Last Gen/Current gen and their PC equivalents. It also took them several years to push out enough content to really diversify things. How many crabs were killed in XI? Colibri?

[solracht]

The issues with what Wildstar did are related to giving players a meta-reward for completing objectives in the dungeon, nothing to do with optional objectives merely existing. I don't disagree with your second paragraph though.

While we're talking about other games, where the fuck is WoW's Glory of the Hero/Raider? That's such an easy way to extend content's shelf life (and also fun to do). I can't believe they haven't copied the idea yet...

[Gilgameshx]

XI turned into the same mess this game is turning into. The bulk of content in xi was leveling to 75... Once you were 75, what was there to do? Kill a monster that spawned every 3 days? Do dynamis, salvage, nyzul, limbus once a week? The only reason that content lasted was because of the piss poor drop rates.

I think the lack or originality in content for xiv might be because they have a large portion of the team working on the expansion. They stopped investing in the foundation and are already moving towards the future.

It feels like the game is in the exact same spot as when 2.0 launched... A lot of players twiddling their thumbs capping weekly's, and maybe others feel like I do that the expansion was gonna have more to do.

[Arelian]

The issues with what Wildstar did are related to giving players a meta-reward for completing objectives in the dungeon, nothing to do with optional objectives merely existing. I don't disagree with your second paragraph though.

While we're talking about other games, where the fuck is WoW's Glory of the Hero/Raider? That's such an easy way to extend content's shelf life (and also fun to do). I can't believe they haven't copied the idea yet...

Dude, yeah. The Glory achievements were really fun. An easy way to elongate content is give individual bosses weird little achievements. Like killing A1 when the oppressor has 3 stacks from being too close to .5. Hand out a mount after you've done all the Hero/Raider achievements and--boom. People are doing content for a far longer time.

As far as 3.0 feeling like 2.0, yeah. I can agree with that. Without their in-between raid. I didn't really start liking FFXIV until patch... 2.3, I think? Having Labyrinth and ST helped a lot with content dryness, even if it did get boring as content is wont to do.

[Niiro]

XI turned into the same mess this game is turning into. The bulk of content in xi was leveling to 75... Once you were 75, what was there to do? Kill a monster that spawned every 3 days? Do dynamis, salvage, nyzul, limbus once a week? The only reason that content lasted was because of the piss poor drop rates.

You list 4 events in XI (there were a lot more) that could be done multiple times a week (could do Nyzul daily ffs) and somehow think you're still making an apt comparison to XIV.

[Buffy]

Not to mention limbus and dynamis had no set requirement for number of people.

Something that is desperately needed in ffxiv atm.

[Alkar]

You list 4 events in XI (there were a lot more) that could be done multiple times a week (could do Nyzul daily ffs) and somehow think you're still making an apt comparison to XIV.

Except you could go months without drops in XI even by doing daily stuff. I can actually buy gear with tokens and get new stuff every week in XIV.
"FFXIV forces you to run the same thing multiple times to cap stuff and it's boring"> "FFXI had the same issue at cap but with shit drop rates"> "But you can do those multiple times a week"... really?
The only good branching event was Salvage but yeah... shitty drop rates ruined it.
I do agree something needs to be done with gear though because most events right now are only useful for jobs that aren't your main.

[Kari]

Except you could go months without drops in XI even by doing daily stuff. I can actually buy gear with tokens and get new stuff every week in XIV.
"FFXIV forces you to run the same thing multiple times to cap stuff and it's boring"> "FFXI had the same issue at cap but with shit drop rates"> "But you can do those multiple times a week"... really?
The only good branching event was Salvage but yeah... shitty drop rates ruined it.
I do agree something needs to be done with gear though because most events right now are only useful for jobs that aren't your main.

I'm pretty much an Abyssea baby as far as XI goes, so my opinion is a bit biased, the only bad drop rates for me were Voidwatch and it was whatever. I could live without that gear because, unlike FFXIV, there are other pieces of gear to get that aren't completely outshined in every way. Ever since level 99 cap was a thing, I've never felt like I've had "nothing to do" in FFXI, and most of the time I was getting a few gear upgrades every day or two.

[Thiefami]

Except you could go months without drops in XI even by doing daily stuff. I can actually buy gear with tokens and get new stuff every week in XIV.
"FFXIV forces you to run the same thing multiple times to cap stuff and it's boring"> "FFXI had the same issue at cap but with shit drop rates"> "But you can do those multiple times a week"... really?
The only good branching event was Salvage but yeah... shitty drop rates ruined it.
I do agree something needs to be done with gear though because most events right now are only useful for jobs that aren't your main.

In comparing the two, I do not believe anyone is suggesting to bring back the horrible drop rates XI once had. That said, there were gears you could buy in XI that were on point systems.

The smart answer is you do not have to go to either extreme, bad drop rates to extend life of content nor do you have to continue invalidating content every patch after you spent months creating it. You can have rng rewards that are not hell as well as token based gear. You can have item level gear along with some degree of horizontal gear progress for that time frame.

I think the best of both worlds is to stop increasing ilv with every patch and come up with an interesting mix of unique stats that will require players to put some thought back into what they equip. That change alone would present all the content they include for that expansion as a spread instead of what we have now.

I think they will stick to what they are used to because this would throw a wrench in how they tune fights.

I also think the game would fair better and add longevity to content if the devs would put more thought and time into the content. It would be nice if everything wasn't just a hallway then a boss fight.

[Karbuncle]

2 years with nothing but subscription increases to support their patch styles.

I don't want to be that guy but "Citation needed". I imagine the expansion did bring back some folks who might have grown bored but every MMO, regardless, is going to lose more subs over time than it gains.

[Shenrien]

I'm pretty much an Abyssea baby as far as XI goes, so my opinion is a bit biased, the only bad drop rates for me were Voidwatch and it was whatever. I could live without that gear because, unlike FFXIV, there are other pieces of gear to get that aren't completely outshined in every way. Ever since level 99 cap was a thing, I've never felt like I've had "nothing to do" in FFXI, and most of the time I was getting a few gear upgrades every day or two.

2 years 7 months for 1 35 Usukane feet that got ninja'd from me. BR done non-stop in that time literally killed my motivation to do Salvage anymore until they release the Lv.99 stuff.

If I knew it would take me 2 years and 7 months to get 1 piece of gear in an MMO I'd quit that fucking MMO 2 months into the process because it's not worth it.

Yeah you were an abyssea baby but voidwatch drop rates have nothing compared to what salvage had.

[Carth]

Meh. The majority of the BG talks about XI it's always about camping HNMs or spending nth amount of months hoping something would drop. Yet, I appreciated XI for it's midcore content. Missions, storyline, sky/sea and the occassional "bune is up wanna kill it?". I generally enjoyed XI because it just felt "alive". I could choose to not do things but I would still have other options.

This is probably why I'm not a jaded old timer and actually enjoyed Abyssea when it came out. While it killed a lot of old content, it injected some life in the game when things started to get stale.

[haroldsaxon]

I've not really disagreed with the fact that the players going at the top end content are in the minority. The issue I have is that they are pouring loads of dev time into stuff that has no re playability (Hildebrand Quests), or stuff that people just don't end up doing (Golden Saucer, and to a lesser extend Triple Triad).

Combined with how quickly the game makes everything obsolete (both items and content wise) and the lack of content in the in between patches just makes me not want to sub again. And this isn't coming from someone playing 12+ hours a day either.

The issue I have is that they make no effort with the assets already in place (Void Ship Savage for 8 man wouldn't be much extra dev time), as well as some extreme dungeons. I'm not asking for the world for 3.1, but something. Please.

[Stef]

I don't want to be that guy but "Citation needed". I imagine the expansion did bring back some folks who might have grown bored but every MMO, regardless, is going to lose more subs over time than it gains.

We don't really have solid data on active subscribers, but we can make some educated guesses based on what Yoshi-P has said in the past and Lodestone scans.

The official numbers we've received have been of "accounts created." These numbers do not include free trials (confirmed in 2 separate official sources below). From September 2014 to February 2015 this number rose from 2.5 million to 4 million. That means about 9000 new players per day. Back in April 2014 Yoshi-P said they had 3000 new players per day. If the 9000 per day held consistently from February 2015 on, then that means over 1.08 million new players joined between Feb and July when Yoshi-P first announced the 5 million number. So it seems to be consistent with what we've been told before.

Some data and quotes below:

3,000 new players each day (April 26th, 2014)

Yoshida: Right now we're getting about 3,000 new players each day globally.

Source: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120...=1#post6094065

FFXIV launches in China (August 20th, 2014)

Source: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/blog/000821.html

Around the launch in China, the known figures for accounts created were “over 2 million” from the patch 2.3 trailer (June 24th, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYBu4dpZJBo) and “over 2.3 million”from the I BEAT TITAN trailer (August 24th, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBU8eUWREU).

2.5 million accounts (September 21st, 2014)

The 2.5 million accounts figure was first presented at TGS in September of 2014. This number wasn’t updated at all until February of 2015, 5 months later. During this period we had the release of Ninja and FCoB (which brought a lot of new contenders to the world first race), the Fan Festivals and the announcement of the Heavensward expansion. On top of this we had patch 2.5 which brought news of the Gold Saucer. There was quite a lot of media attention during these 5 months.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVKbhos6utY

4 million accounts (February 26th, 2015)

In February 2015 the number of accounts created was at 4 million not including free trials,

Source: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...01c6348ab5d5e5

and

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...eekend/coxp6ww

730,000 active players (April, 2015 - Lodestone scan)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_730k_active/

5 million accounts created (July 4th, 2015 - Japan Expo)

Yoshi-P announces 5 million total accounts created for the first time during the Japan Expo presentation

and

(August 21st, 2015 - official press release)

“In just under two years, Square Enix Ltd., today announced that the community of FINAL FANTASY® XIV now exceeds 5 million registered accounts globally - across Europe, North America, Japan, and China. * excludes those from free trial.”

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressr...sworldwide.php

So the official information tells us that roughly 9000 new accounts have been created per day since September 2014. This is a 3-fold increase as compared to the new accounts per day back in April 2014.

The Lodestone scan back in April 2015 (3 months after patch 2.5, 1 month after 2.55 and 2 months before the expansion launched) showed that there were over 730,000 active players at the time.

[haroldsaxon]

Have there been any other "active player" counts other than that single Lodestone scan?