Player Numbers DOWN? | Zepla looks at LuckyBancho 7.0 JP CENSUS [Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail]



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28 thoughts on “Player Numbers DOWN? | Zepla looks at LuckyBancho 7.0 JP CENSUS [Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail]”

  1. I more or less stopped playing after I finished the DT storyline. I wonder whether the size of the development team has something to do with the lack of content push. I’d imagine their team isn’t as large as WoW for example and they don’t command as big a budget since SE likes throwing money at a bunch of failed projects. One of the biggest issues FFXIV has is that it doesn’t make an effort to retain even a casual player base as they actively advise you to stop playing and I think it’s counter productive since a lot of people I know want to play the game but there’s no content to play / grind out etc, exploration zones need to be added from launch imo

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  2. Dawntrail was crap.
    It definitely deserves the Steam reviews it got.
    I'm on a long break now due to content drought & am thinking I might check out the chaotic alliance raid when it drops, & I'm 50/50 on doing the next Savage tier in 7.2.

    But story wise, you can keep it Squeenix.
    Not interested anymore after Dawntrail.
    Unless I hear rave reviews about the story patches I'll be skipping all of the story until 8.0.
    Even when that drops I'm going to tread carefully this time & read the Steam reviews before I buy. If it's a Dawntrail 2.0 I'm done with 14 entirely.

    Many will hate me for saying this but I don't care. Dawntrail was a change of approach to DEI hiring, & gamers like me are sick of it.
    Ditch the DEI BS & just go back to making the best experience possible.

    Don't fool yourself, they hired the trans VA because they were probably advised to go woke by Sweet baby inc, not because they were good for the role. They were well below par for 14 VA's.
    So no one can convince me they were the best choice when the quality of performance was so low.

    I personally wish that VA all the best & I'm not attacking them, it's nothing personal but they just weren't good enough for a role in 14.
    Same thing with the writers, what the hell happened there???

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  3. Unfortunately, I’ve just grown tired of FFXIV. These days, I mainly play to finish the main story quest and side quest stories. The content releases have become too predictable for me. It feels like we're getting the same type of content over and over—a few new dungeons with no real innovation, just linear paths with three bosses and a handful of trash mobs. The same goes for raids, both 24-man and 8-man: they feel repetitive, with only new aesthetics to differentiate them. Dungeons used to be more interactive and engaging, but now they feel boring and formulaic. As for the Dawntrail story, I found the characters really off-putting. It's hard to create fresh and compelling narratives after saving the entire universe from destruction.

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  4. My biggest gripe is just the sheer amount of content there is that im basically locked out of. Sure I could spend every free second I have working my butt off and likely end up achieving those goals but at the end of the day- why should I have to put so much time into this game to get anything done?
    Moving up from normal content to extreme is such a huge step up. They still havent put anything in the game to allow us to slowly bridge up. Sure the difficulty increase has been a step in the right direction, but really the difficulty has come in the form of randomness of attacks that you cant predict (normal raid 2 for dt) or just not knowing the mechanics from your first few times (which is 95% of the case). I know this is the case with all content, but the easy content benefits from easy to learn and master and once you know what youre doing you are very unlikely to make a mistake.
    The same cant be said for higher tier content especially savage and ultimate where your timings have to be precise, your buffs stacked, and your knowledge of your job has to be pretty high. Gear and materia can play a huge role as well. Quite frankly thats a LOT to have to take in when youre a super casual msq and side story quest player. Ironically my biggest issue with this content is the fact that its such a grind. Its a grindfest to get to that skill level if youre not there. Then a grindfest to learn the mechanics alongside typically 7 other people. Then a grindfest having to clear this content over and over again to get the stuff that you want- and while you could leave after you got what you wanted- its just normal etiquette to keep going until everyone is done- so youre still there grinding the fight for other people- which somehow feels more valuable than grinding it for yourself. On top of that you typically need a static, not always, but party finder is very high risk low reward. Its usually a waste of time to even attempt party finder- and as someone who doesnt have a single real life friend left that plays this game- and cant find an fc that can even make me feel welcome (its impossible. I am very antisocial) just makes it even harder. I worked on hades ex with an ex bf of mine for a long time and never even got very far because i was struggling. Soon after we broke up and i had to leave his fc and so i basically lost the closest thing to a static ive ever had. Ive had numerous invites to very lenient static groups/groups in general to help me do content from some great people ive met on there, but my schedule does not align with theirs and then we are stuck once again with no one.
    Another main gripe is just how incredibly boring the fighting gets. Jobs like viper and pictomancer are very flashy and very satisfying, but i still get bored so quickly of doing the same combos and things over and over again. Its exactly how i felt with ff16. Great story dont get me wrong, but it was just the same combo time and time again. Every boss fight was just me doing a combo, dealing small hits in between and then doing the combo again when it came up until the boss was dead. In past ff games its always been i have so many options and i need to create a strategy using one of them- and it was like that on every turn or every second if it was active battles. Im a healer main, so im sure you already can tell where this is going, but it does really suck that the game revolves around dodging and just doing the same mechanics over and over. Its worse on my main white mage because i basically just reapply dia when it wears off and spam glare and then just heal as needed and as little as i can to be the most efficient. Theres a couple times where it feels like I have options on what healing spell to use, but typically not really. For example liturgy of the bell or whatever its called is useful when the normal raid 4 in dt is basically just trying to blow you to smithereens and isnt even trying to give you mechanics anymore, so i use it then. But typically a well timed medica 3/asylum or just using a planetary boosted lily is enough. I barely even have to think about it. When you get to higher content it becomes even more rigid where your heals have to be precise and done in certain ways to maximize them. Idk if im even explaining this correctly, but the gameplay is just so stale. The gameplay is summed up as do the mechanics, spam your damage buttons and combos in the exact same way every two minutes, and do what your job is meant to do through mitigations on tank, healing on healer, and just dealing maximal damage on dps. Even then basically every job has evolved into just deal the most damage you can. Games like ff3 revolved around using the correct jobs and job actions. 5 was very similar to that except it was much more strategic and you had less power in your general stats. Ff6 you mostly got to build characters how you wanted to. Ff10 was my favorite, very linear which took a huge hit, but very strategic- every type of fiend needing a different strategy and having some loopholes.
    Ff14 has just evolved into what ff4 felt like- which i loved- but lacked so much strategy. The gba version was better because you actually got to change your team- any other version that im aware of you are locked with cecil, kain, rydia, edge, and rosa. That and they didnt have the extra content thats on mount ordeals to give you super powerful weapons and huge upgrades to abilities. At the end of the day ff4 ended up just being use cecil as your enmity tank using cover and what not, heal when needed, and just click the buttons that will deal the most damage. In which case rydia is the only one who could even hit 5,000 on one attack without criting. You basically just fought a boss with mechanics like needing to jump barbariccia to stop her from counter attacking and for you to actually kill her, but thats duper simple and youre forced to have kain for that fight. Then you get better gear, level up, get a new ability if youre one of the few that actually get abilities or magic, and you just move on.
    Even the most overpowered end game equipment in ff4 feels the same as the difference between normal content item levels to savage. The difference is there, but its not really that apparent. Nor does it really save you all that much time unless youre unsyncing content and getting a huge boost to your numbers and stats.
    Idk the game is just a slog man. The story is the only thing really going left for the majority of players. I dont even enjoy exploration zones because i find them too difficult to progress- having to do nearly an entire trial/raid to progress and having to do multiple at that. Sure it goes fast with a lot of people but when theres a lot of people theres really nothing left for me. Even if i do participate, im left with terrible contribution and im getting some of the worst rewards I can. Strategizing with these players is horrible because its the same dilemma as party finder savage.
    Im gonna pay for an entire month of a sub, play the msq that doesnt even look promising, play the alliance raid that looks/sounds pretty difficult if its anything compared to ff11 difficulty, and log off. Im not taking an hour+ to do an alliance raid over and over again just for the CHANCE of some gear. Thats another big issue but ill keep it short where youre almost never guaranteed gear outside of a dungeon and even then- it just likes to spam you with the same piece you have over and over. Not to mention dungeons take forever to clear- even with maximizing damage and combos and buffs and having an amazing real life party. Not to mention by the time you should unsync it, you dont need any of the gear anymore and the unsync isnt that beneficial. And if you unsync it while trying to level- you dont level- so you basically have to decide what youre willing to do. Doing the ai characters arent even really an option because they nearly double the time a constant wiping real life party takes to clear the content. Also criterion dungeons take too long as well. I dont really know of many other if any other final fantasy games make you do 5-10+ minutes bosses back to back to back. I havent even gotten the mount for the first one. Also zepla, doubt you or anyone will read this, but criterion is NOT a good way to level. Neither is bozja or any exploration zone or deep dungeon. You are better of waiting for 15+ minute queues spamming dungeons or aglaia at this point.

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  5. EW was a "shame on you" moment when yoh buy it because of its lore breaking bits. DT's was a "shame on me" moment with its story that felt secondary. Also, that player drop off is a nothing burger, it's seeing the drop off between players per expansion is a real pandara moment. Can't wait for the Cataclysm expansion~!

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  6. Woke Loser left me so drained. Dawntrail MSQ was awfully paced and English VA was horrible. After that I could not deal with the game for a while. I took time off from work to do that MSQ and it was such a dissapointment.

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  7. I remember the Heavensward expansion launch, all my friends and how fun the story was as well as the voice acting. And that's basically how I've felt with each expansion to some degree even Stormblood despite people trying to make references to it to detract from how bad Dawntrail is. The reality is we've gone from A-list voice actors to trashy twitter activists that are blatant nepo hires, a Californian localizer that's a genuine antifa schizoid and a new writer that just sucks. All the while Koji, Yoshi and the A-listers of the dev team have moved on to other projects. And worse Yoshi is handwaving critique because there's enough paypigs that he can now safely ignore it. They'll pay anyway. They spent years feeding Bobby Kotick. The only good writing in DT is what Ishikawa has touched in her spare time. The whole thing is a joke. And years from now when people can be honest they'll shit on Dawntrail like it rightfuly deserves. Frankly if the DQ remaster's censorship is anything to go by this is it. Square clearly believe this is right direction.

    Yawntrail video. Look it up. That's the future of the game. Enjoy learning about bush tucker for 40 hours in Meracydia from an aboriginal stand in while variants of Smile play, or you partake in vapid middle class tourism and lectures about "culture" to score brownie points with twitter. Having fun? Exploring? Adventure? Fighting Eikons based on gods? What's that? It's just fiction? Sorry! That's cultural appropiation chud. Stand there and watch the lecture, bigot. Don't worry! You'll occasionally get nostalgiabaiting to keep you invested in the slop they churn out and the ethics department at Square will be sure to make appropiate "changes" for the modern audience. And Kate is there now to permanently "consult", localize and hire voice actors. I'm sure them being a raging political activist that unironically nepo hired Sena to be the lead VA won't affect the end product.

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  8. So, an MSQ where one new character basically takes off the spotlight from you while you are forced to fight and eliminate the much more interesting character, did not worked out well for them.

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  9. I don't think the game is in trouble, that said, they need to bring it in the patches and the next expansion especially. The job system and homogenization issue needs to be addressed in a big way, the story cannot be this childish tone again. I think stuff like the graphics update is maybe a reasonable culprit as to the kind of content drought feeling currently, they do need to add something like Bozja and those style relics again that is playable for long periods and gives the entire player base something to do in these gaps, raids are cool but when most players don't do savage or ultimates, it feels bad when that's like the biggest content coming.

    They just need to get it together, stop this weird childish tone, get back to the story style that players liked and they must shake up the job system in a big way.

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  10. I think we are still suffering from EW post expansion. DT MSQ made it worse and then 7.1 capitalizes on it even further by drip feeding 1 and done content. Game will bounce back in 7.25 at the earliest and latest 8.0

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  11. In my eyes FF14 ended with Endwalker. It was a good run. I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Dawn Trail MSQ just isn’t my cup of tea. I played FF14 for the story to keep me attached to the game and that in turn make me want to sub and play other content knowing good MSQ is coming. Do I think they will make a comeback? Definitely when they realize they need up their MSQ and content game.

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  12. what u expect its a copy paste expansion nothing new its boring no new content just the same thing different colors thats all the new patch is trash the only things they work was some glamours that look like shit the game needs to be fun and have some short of new things to do not the same old junk rip ffxiv

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  13. I dont really get what's with Zepla's obsession with retention.
    If SE doesn't give a shit if ppl cancel their sub until there's something to do, why do you?
    Feels like a little bit of WoW brain.

    I have plenty of issues with FF, the content cycle, etc… But the absolute last thing I want SE to start doing is focusing on retention for retention's sake.
    I just want them to stop using the same boring ass formula for their content releases. The whole thing is on rails and the longer you play the less interesting it is in general.

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  14. No new character customization, no new glam plates, no Viera hats, no additional ability to make multiple profile pictures that change with your job/glam, and no TRP style profile creation so you can give your characters a backstory

    Yeah I have nothing let to get me playing. I did what I can do in the game

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  15. I personally have seen a huge drop off just on my own server, as an active participant in novice network, all the names I’ve seen for the last few years have slowly disappeared since a few weeks after DT release, and now there are very few recognisable names in there, with less new ones popping up in their place

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  16. I've played this game for 10 years…I'm tired of the same boring MSQ. Talk to this person and walk and talk to him again over and over. The story is a snooze fest that overuses the Scions none fucking stop.

    It got this bad because Yoshi is praised as a god who can do no wrong.

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