Reacting to ArtharsFF14 Here’s Why Some Creators Quit FFXIV Fast And Are Never Coming Back. A really funny and insightful …
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I Reacted To Arthars "Why Some Creators Quit FFXIV"
Reacting to ArtharsFF14 Here’s Why Some Creators Quit FFXIV Fast And Are Never Coming Back. A really funny and insightful …
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The problem is that most content creators build their entire community around watching the MSQ and then they lose a ton of viewers when they finish the MSQ.
I hope you don’t quit but give a break and come back later.
Pretty true , I've seen this a bunch since many viewers are pretty msq focused. If you get really into raiding there's a separate audience for that too which is seems like you could fit into , but many other streamers also will say that ffxiv isn't a super sustainable solo stream game during dead periods when you're fully caught up. It is what it is I guess.
Some viewers/ff14 players are wierd, they want you to play and do exactly what they say and, get this, actually get upset when you dont. Thats probably one of the most annoying things for new ff14 streamers. Definitely filter those ppl out.
It´s not that the tourist streamers are better than their regular carriers, it´s that they are much worse than the top 100 players are who will beg you to let them carry you so they might get more viewers.
Preach has actually transcended. Like you he started out as an outsider who played MMOs and for whatever reason came to play FF14. Preach genuinely fell in love with the story so he went and started playing other Final Fantasy games to see if they were any good as well. To his credit he has completed almost all of them with the exception of a few (but even now he's continuing because I heard he's recently stated playing FF 12). He's on a different level now because he's not just an FF14 player but rather a Final Fantasy player. Even if he had harsh criticisms of the game he would still be heard and respected because he's "paid his dues" to the community, rather he is part of the overall Final Fantasy community.
The biggest issue is that a majority of them dont build a community, so once the MSQ vampirism dries up they realize they have nothing.
Preach did it correctly. He obviously had a pre existing audience coming in, but hes aldo gained a ton of new viewers no matter what he plays because he nurtured that community and didn't just treat them like a paycheck.
Arthars is a friend but I've always disagreed with his outlook in this video because its hyper focused on a few big streamers like Asmon or Rich as examples who had a lot more going on than just the issues he mentioned.
Yeah, this is why I suggested that speed-running to get in place for Dawntrail might not be the best tactic. It's a long story, and one that deserves your time and focus. There are lots of little offhand comments made that have dramatic ramifications later, and they're very easy to miss. You only get to see this for the first time once and nothing is ever the same twice. One of the whole underlying themes of the game is the importance of the journey over that of the destination. You'll get there when you get there.
That said, replaying stuff is, itself, valuable because sometimes you pick up on stuff that you missed and suddenly realize where the writers reached to find threads that they were able to pull forwards later. There's a reason why my area of expertise in my FC is my Alt Army constantly going through MSQ.
The tendancy the community has to backseat and be general annoyances towards streamers playing for the first time and going through the MSQ is very present. After MSQ, viewerships drops tremendously because most viewers just want to relive the MSQ through you. So once you're caught up and have done everything you could do, it would be prudent to take a break until the next big patch and play offstream during your free time if you can. Most importantly though, don't let backseaters bully you into playing the way they want you to play. Do what YOU want to do, not what THEY want you to do.
One thing i'd recommend would be getting some mates together once you finish ARR and doing some of the ARR extremes synced, min iLVL.
I know preach did some of that. Not only is it fun content, but you also get the opportunity to present yourself to newcomers as more than just 'the guy playing through the story for the first time'.
Either way, you're hella entertaining so it shouldn't be too hard for you to build a sustainable community in FFXIV.
Creators have to skip around and follow the games that are hot at the time. Most gamers act like they have add and jump from game to game after a month. Maybe its the games these days.
we get it man you work out
Honestly I think a big part of it is how the streamer themself treats the game. If the streamer goes in acting like a tourist, and openly treats the game like something they're only going to do temporarily, then yeah, the cycle here is more or less correct. However if the streamer doesn't let their chat force them into doing content more quickly, or let their chat carry them in high-end content just for the sake of making content, then the second half of the cycle doesn't apply.
The difficult part, as a streamer, is always going to be balancing that "interesting to watch" aspect with "growing into the game organically and just having fun". You're a streamer, so of course your primary goal is to entertain your viewers. But if that causes you to keep your enjoyment of XIV at arm's length, you'll just burn out and end up in the second half of the cycle.
Yeah alot of content creators focus solely on the msq because people love seeing reactions to it but there are plenty of creators that do well with casual/hardcore raiding and side content especially when they do that content with their community.
I see it as new FFXIV content creators have the length of the MSQ to build their audience, to make us fall for you and make us stay once the emotional vampirism is over. There are FFXIV content creators that I will continue to watch long after MSQ… that's thanks to their efforts to build a community and make their audience engage with them. Hopefully that will be the case for you, too! Thanks for the video!
I have never done an ultimate.
im honestly not good enough.
I personally liked Asmon's FFXIV raid content way more than his MSQ content, maybe cause I like to raid.
When it comes to Ultimates, you’ll get a lot of backlash if you prog ultimates with people who have cleared it before. That’s what gets the community mad at streamers. If you prog with other first timers, you should be fine.
Thing was that Asmongold had some people in his chat posing as FF14 players, annoying the crap out of him, getting really pushy to get him to play FF14, knowing he doesnt like that. He found out about the "duplicity" after several months but, yeah, other games and topics were and are more important to him now so he probably wont come back – maybe next year but I doubt it. Pity, his streams were fun (or rather the summaries on YouTube: I dont watch live streams XD ).
As for the "at the beginning" (1:58) , it all depends on how you engage with your audience. There will be those who only watch because they like watching Sprouts going through MSQ (its the "classic", if you want). To keep your audience, or part of it, long term the most important thing is staying authentic – I think. If you enjoy yourself, others will enjoy watching you and walk the journey with you, whether you do MSQ or something else. Until recently, many FF14 vets would advice sprouts to just "beat" MSQ as fast as they could but burn-out is a real thing here. Better to step away from time to time, either do side content (like the Gold Saucer) or other jobs, maybe crafting and/or gathering, whatever strikes your fancy. Maybe even another game to unwind. As long as you are entertaining, as is kinda your job as a streamer, I guess (who am I, no idea), chances are your audience will stay for your sake, and not just the game.
6:30 — "The Wizard" is a polish player, who became famous when he roasted Lost Arc. Furor-something (?), I keep forgetting his name. He played and finished FF14 but didnt stuck with it. Made a good review video, but what he's up to atm I dont know. Go watch him, he's very entertaining
7:40 — I think, the story of FF14 is a very personal thing. Most (?) immerse themselves into their Warrior of Light and truely "care" about these pixels and the characters that are your friends: you're rooting for them, and even the villians. You're not quite there yet but this game messes with your heart strings. I remember Zepla, another streamer, saying before EW launch something along the lines like "the story is super emotional, she'll probably cry her eyes out, and she'd rather not have that on camera with hundreds of live viewers". As a former fellow WoW player, all I can say is this: the story experiance in FF14 is fundamentally different from WoW
Whether its better or not is up to you to decide.
11:30 — If you are at home with M+, FF14 should be perfectly fine for you. Mechanics and rotations arent that difficult, even at max level. The difficult part comes from seeing what happens around you, your own reaction time, and the fact that the boss throws everything at you at the same time and you have to keep your wits about you. Still, even grey parsers get they savage and ultimate clears, simply because max deeps and speed are things you wont need here: a basic understanding of your job and role is all thats needed – and 7 other people with the same mindset.
13:51 — Preach never "crossed the line" because he's a mentally healthy person. Not to imply that Asmon could have issues but he does let his chat influence him more than he likes to admid (otherwise he'd probably would've kept playing FF14 – or wouldnt have started). Preach stayed true to himself and allowed all the good and magical things to happen around him. The community forming around him was also already established and they invited him to all sorts of funky events (best not check it out, its super spoilery – except the one time, he goes to a nightclub
). But these are just two streamers, there are others who all have their own recipe of success – some more than others. All a question of how you engage your audience, I guess 
Seriously, I wanted to shorten this but its late and I just finished the raid, soooo… enjoy
Other than the rather obnoxiously inserted self-promo, great vid. I'd rather hear/see a 10s self-ad than have it superimposed over the main content being presented.
Another log for rhe woodchipper. Lol gimmy that sprout so we can grow it to be a nice big tree then thr community turns you into compost for our Island Sanctuary farm.
Hahahaha
As a content creator you can farm soooo much out of the community with the promise of MSQ reactions and anything reaction based gameplay.
As someone who is relearning FFXIV, I can honestly say this: ARR and HW queues normally pop pretty quick for pretty much everyone. However, if you're not a streamer and decide to do "non-mainstream dungeons/trails" you will find yourself waiting for 30+ minutes or longer even with PF. Don't believe me? As a streamer, create an alt, and don't tell a soul that you ate a YT/Twitch streamer and see how fast things go for you. Unless you are lucky to get in a FC that TRULY is willing to help sprouts and returning players clear EVERYTHING: your FFXIV experience on the alt with be DRASTICALLY different than that of the toon you stream with. That is one of a few reasons I originally stopped playing the game. The YT/Twitch experience is NOT what every FFXIV player experiences and even those who feel they have an awesome experience playing FFXIV will still feel something isn't right when they see a YT/Twitch streamer have a dungeon/trail pop almost instantly while they has to wait sometimes days for that same thing to pop for them. The "cycle" that wasn't discussed doesn't even get that far for some new players as the words of hype about the FFXIV community do NOT translate into action in regards to the majority of the FFXIV community. Some will say I am bitter, jaded, or jealous. No…. I am calling it like I have experienced it. My reason for returning is that I loved the story of FFXIV and I am hoping my experience this time around will be 1/4th as good as that of a YT/Twitch streamer. Regardless, I have decided to experience all of FFXIV and if it takes me until August of next year to make it to EW: so be it.
I might be coming from a really biased perspective, but I feel like takes like that video lean into fearmongering.
Like, yes sure some of the points are valid in that a lot of people will follow along because they're interested in how people react to the story and you and the community both should be respectful and careful regarding parasocial relationships and not being absurd about it, but I think if you've actually built a community that is there because of you and what you bring to the table and the conversations you want to have, then they'd be there for what you have to say.
I dunno how to explain it more aptly than that, but like. I suppose for example- yes there are story beats and fights and so on people can follow you for, but there's always tons of opportunities to actually talk about your thoughts about what's happening in the story, your understanding of the world, and the characters or wherever your interests take you. And that's not like a 'stall, stall, stall' but like I've seen people I keep up with stop and just talk in depths about their thoughts surrounding the music, or artistic choices or designs of dungeons or raids because of their musical or artistic backgrounds. Digging into stuff that you have specific knowledge of that you bring from outside the game that you can apply to within it and just talking about it is a good way to build things out imo.
I'm not a streamer and am absolutely talking from the outside, but I'm just like talking about the specific things I've seen that's actually made someone catch my eye for a long time as opposed to just glancing and skimming over them for a little before moving on.
A lot of other comments definitely have fantastic thoughts on the topic as well regarding handling catching up.
I suppose I'm "better" or "more skilled than the guy who introduced me to the game. He's a jack of all trades and I'm a master of one, probably not a master, but ya know what I mean. I main ninja and always at least tried to do as tough as content as I can if I have the people to play with. Eventually when I was a part of a static, having raid nights, there was one day he asked why I stopped playing some other game or didn't play this new game yet that was I too busy being a masochoist because I was doing savage. I just said hey I like a challenge sometimes but I never heard that type of talk when I was brand new and dying in random dungeon.
This is a good time to mention that almost everyone loses some viewers after finishing MSQ. That doesn't mean you can't retain a good chunk of them but there's a LOT of people who will only watch for the MSQ. It seems like the best thing to do is just try to build a community and focus on being entertaining as a streamer. I think a really good example of this is Preach. He's been able to retain a good deal of his FFXIV fans and has a pretty sizable audience regardless of what he's playing.
Also, if you happen to get decent subs throughout the journey I wouldn't count of that being the new norm forever. Hopefully it will be but I wouldn't make any hasty financial decisions until I'd made sure. I'm not trying to scare you off or anything, just trying to be realistic. I still follow quite a few people who played FFXIV but there's a lot that I don't. The ones I do are just fun personalities who I enjoy watching for what they bring to streaming regardless of what they're playing.
Yea, just use the opportunity to foster a good community then you can just branch out to other games between patches. Oh also, Jesse Cox watches EVERY FFXIV reaction video. So wave and say hi
It is honestly a bit sad if someone does feel like they have been spurned by streaming the game and being told they just get carried when doing harder content like extremes and savages.
Yes the MSQ is where a lot of the love from the community is, and is the major highlight for sure, but I have a lot of fun also watching people do minimum item level of older content, palace of the dead, or the exploration zones. It’s important to have fun with the new things you try.
It's easy to keep your audience. Just don't be Pyromancer or Ginger Prime
Establosh yourself as a Variety stream, a predictable stream schedule centered along the patch cycle will be healthier overall then trying to jumpnin at 100%. XIV is designed to allow large breaks withoit FOMO, it makes it a fantastic option for Variety streams because you never feel tied down and the community knows youll be back and knows WHEN youll be back. Makes it easier to keep a solid watch base.
imo do not get carried in Ultimates or Savages.., use only party members new to the fight too
(for the better, more truthful experience.., and (!) so no one can say you were "carried"..)
That’s because most streamers after doing all cutscenes in the game they don’t have creative ideas for content or are not interested in optional side content
Basically most streamers just streamed their reaction to the main story but we’re not making their streams interesting enough to retain viewers in side content or in end game.
There is a lot of big FFXIV streamers who stream everyday and their streams are always unique and not just cutscene watching.
Other streamers like Asmongold are in a phase where they constantly play different video games that comes out like Baldur Gate 3
There's a lot of people that get really salty if you clear ultimates with people that have already cleared. They see it as streamer privilege getting to easily find a good group and clear when they have to either suffer in PF or have to play with worse players. Basically they are just mad that you didn't suffer like they did. Also it's the casual players that aren't good enough to do ultimates that get salty about it too. Best thing is to ignore them.
Also word of warning for this game. Many people in this game who rp take it WAAAY to seriously. In all my time playing I have never met more toxic, cringy and hateful people than some of the hardcore rp crowd. Seriously you interrupt their rp and their immersion is broken you just made an enemy.
Found out that there was a rp linkshell and rp discords that will legitimately mass report you to try to get you banned for ruining their immersion.
Oh and for anybody wondering I haven't done anything to anyone in the rp scene. But I know because I have friends that have been in the scene and I know people who have been banned due to mass reports for trivial stuff.
Actually funny story, the Wizard still does sometimes play ffxiv. He made a video saying the game is good but totally not for him, but his viewers are literally an insane variant of xeno's viewers and repeatedly donated to him to force him to play ultimates
He did prog UCOB a few weeks ago
Usually I'm not a fan of the cultlike behaviour but in this case the way they put wizard on a leash is hilarious
Its pretty on the point.
Honestly it'd be best to use this time to branch out to other games as well. Final Fantasy XIV is one of those rare games that allows you to reset your content for some reason.
Those who have taken the opportunity to do so have done rather well.. those who haven't well… you can only go through MSQ once.