With all the recent buzz about FFXIV dying or dropping in numbers, I wanted to give my perspective. As someone who has been playing FFXIV since January 2015, Iâve seen a lot, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to give my takes and dispel some click-bait.
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I've played since Heavensward, and this happens EVERY expansion.
But for the most part Dawntrail is the best the game has ever been (excluding the story), we have so F'ing much content these days compared to what we had in HW or STB.
If anything, the game is in a healthy position now, but obviously for some people there's not enough, or they've done the things they wanted to do this expansion, and are playing other stuff while waiting for new updates.
Taking breaks once in a while is also healthy, rather than burning out on the game you like, it's better to take a short break to refresh yourself in that case.
The problem is, dawntrail was not just bad as a story, it was also lacking proper development. So few cutscenes are voiceacted, they really put in minimum effort, and not talking about the obvious flaws the game had since 6.1 doesnât help it. Of course the game doesnât die tomorrow, but especially mmos live from reputation.
I disagree, I played from beta 2.0 seen all the ups and downs, and now I've fully quit. Same tired mechanics, same story beats, nothing has changed since hw just maintained and/or gotten worse. I am not the only one. People from my static and fc have quit, with a fair amount taking a break and giving it one more expac. If nothing actually changes, the game will be on a downward spiral. If that change is more class identity or a major change in how the story plays out, who knows. I don't think the game is quite dying yet, but I do know we are not alone. Game has felt stagnant for a long time now and thats where a lot of us are coming from.
I've recently returned to FFXIV after an 8-year hiatus. Just finished Stormblood, now in the early parts of Shadowbringer. What I'm noticing is that the questing areas of these expansions are practically empty of other players. No one to do FATEs with, etc. Every now and then I might see someone else but it's very very rare. Just as I start to think maybe the game is dead, then I warp back to Limsa and see where everyone is! I think what SE has failed to do (at least so far as what I have seen in my current progression) is give players reason to return to older zones. In WoW, no matter which zone you're in there is almost always going to be multiple people also in that area working on something, because there is so much to work on. Maybe this is something SE has resolved in future zones, I dunno. You might also ask "OK so why don't you just go play WoW?" Well, as much as I do genuinely love WoW, I am very upset with Blizzard right now and refuse to give them any more money for at least the next two years, maybe longer. So, SE gets my business instead.
Appreciate ya. Thanks for sharing.
FFXIV is dead, says everyone every expansion. It's not as bad as people make it out to be. The content of DT is great. Yeah, casuals are complaining they don't have content, and thats a lie, I know they all don't have every class leveled to 100, completed every relic weapon, completed every deep dungeon, and expansion area, ect. There's plenty to do. You just want to complain that there's nothing new for you to do. Quit complaining, go back and do older content you never did, and if that doesn't work for you, take a break until there is something you want to do.
Is it dying? Not really. Should it die? Yes. The saga is over, the world is saved, the systems, code, and graphics are dated. I say they finish up the current "epilogue" story and put a neat bow on everything then let the game enter maintenance mode while they work on making the next FF online game.
Oh hii, I just found your channel! ^.^ It's nice to hear the perspective of a veteran player. I started in 2022 and have only recently finished the msq of endwalker. XD There was and still is so much to explore, the cities are packed, my fc is active and there are always people to talk to, it doesn't feel like a "dead" game to me at all. But I understand that as a new player of course there is way more to still do so I can only compare this to my WoW experience which I've been playing for 15+ years. Honestly I really dislike the online negativity, most of it is indeed just clickbait because negativity attracts more attention (like look at asmongold, lol). There are a bunch of players like me who just enjoy the game in silence, without posting on social media. That being said, as a casual player even I felt WoW going downhill bigtime, especially after shadowlands. My friendlist that was usually full of active players who loved the game suddenly became empty. I had nobody to play with anymore and didn't like the direction WoW was going in, so like many others I quit and tried FFXIV instead. WoW did feel dead af,, but look at what happened now, they improved and recovered, now people are saying to leave FFXIV for WoW?! All this to say, it's normal for this to happen. People get tired of playing the same game for years. I'm not worried about it at all. Though of course disliking the direction of the game, the msq, etc, all of that is very valid and to those who feel this way I'd recommend to take a break and come back when there's new content or you feel ready and refreshed. đ
I've been playing FFXIV since Legacy beta. I agree 100%. I didn't main FFXIV until Shadowbringers as I bounced around a lot until then and was a tourist after coming back in the end of arr/beginning of Heavensward. I am not having issues finding groups (except BLU spell groups lol) and RP (yes I do that, I never did until this game) has been hit hard by RMT bans and no one wants to admit it because everyone still believes everyone owns 20 FC houses and that's how they get their massive amounts of gil. LOL.
Sub expired 2 weeks ago and dont miss it. Which is sad. I want to miss it but there is nothing I want to go back to do.
Dawntrail was rushed and it shows.
only on lvl99 story rn but only gripe so far is i wish more of the story was Voice acted. Burnout is natural yall. Take breaks, try other games, read a book, knit a blanket, idk <3 (hell dawntrail, story wise, is the perfect time to take a few patches or an expansion off and rest)
Yeah I honestly just mainly think it's people trying to justify their burnout by fully blaming it on individual aspects of the game (ie, story). Like you, I've had gaps where I've gone a month or more without playing, it's natural when you have thousands of hours in a game you've been playing for years. When 7.1 dropped I blasted the game every single day for couple months but rn I'm mostly raid logging for FRU (with an exception for Chaotic) and it's pretty chill; think a lot more people need to be okay with doing that and the communities' relationship with the game and the devs would be a lot more healthy.
I have to agree with the whole "a chance to try new concepts" statement. People were saying before even EW that the game wasn't innovating much and was stagnating in content because it rarely if ever changes but now they've done a full 180 and now complain when they tried new things near the end of EW and now DT.
People need to realise that they can't expect the game to become fresh again if they don't allow the devs to experiment and try new avenues for content.
…no, no it's not. Way too many doomposters.
To save you all 15 minutes of wasted time, yes it's worth it. No the game isn't dying. Just try it. Playing for ten years doesn't mean shit in this case because so many things can change in ten years.
If there are doomers saying "it's dying" on one side, you are the complete opposite, white knight and cope no matter what. Perfect example is you saying that the team was taking risks, however the biggest issue with FFXIV is that the formula is so formulaic that there is no risk. The story revolves around dungeons at levels 91/93/95/97/99/100 and trials at 93/99/100. Characters must appear at specific times to allow for trusts. Savage tiers launch on X.05, X.2, and X.4 always with the same number of bosses. All dungeons have the exact same layout of move down a corridor and fight two to three groups of mobs, move down another corridor and fight mobs, fight a boss, and then repeat.
Job design has been simplified down so that all friction has been removed and the DPS sequence is the exact same every encounter with NO variance. CC/interrupts are almost completely unused because most mobs hit like wet noodles, or just cast circle, cone, or straight line AOEs that are easy to avoid. Healers can heal entire encounters with oGCD spells. Tanks have so many defensive abilities that they never have to worry about anything.
People have far more issues than the story being an overly verbose drag written by a sad millennial with no friends.
It hurts to say all this, but SE NEEDS the criticism. These overly positive, everything is great, we are just in a lull videos DO NOT help and one of the primary reason we are where we are. I say this as an original 1.0 player and someone who has held a sub without interrupt since 2.0 launched, however I finally canceled my sub 3 weeks ago. I've been in the same FC for 8 years and we've always maintained 60+ members online even during lulls, but when I logged out the last time 3 weeks ago there were 10 online at peak hours. Our GM, and my best friend, was logging in only to do some maintenance stuff for the FC. đ
There are issues and they need to be discussed and taken seriously.
no. i h i have just walked away it is pish now . story shit not worth doing
Been playing a long time, it definitely feels like it's falling apart.
it's not dying… but it's not growing. It's just existing now. DT was kind of a low point but all mmos go thru low points. I'm currently playing other games and I will return when they announce the next expansion and I can catch up on all the filler content. plus we got POE2 to jam out on and Monster Hunter coming out in Feb…. it's a good year for games.
As a fellow fossil (been playing since Syrcus Tower came out) definitely a quiet period right now. It happens a lot. Remember during early Heavensward game felt like dying out. We're really missing some grindy casualish content now that people can do together.
The game isnât dead and the servers are alive and well, itâs the fcs we were all in that are dead and when the ppl you know and talk to stop playing it feels abandoned and empty to that specific person. Visiting any world servers is laggy because every server is so packed