Rant about game population and general dissatisfaction with the game

[Desolate Eden]

I feel like every type of content I was excited to reach, once reached was a complete and utter let down due to a small player base. Alexander was absolutely dead I had to run it unsynched as were the Heavensward alliance raids, now I finished stormblood, Omega is dead, took me 70 minutes as a tank to get alphascape 1 queue pop, now done with Omega, savage alphascapes are basically non existent in duty finder and there's less than a handful of parties to join in party finder.

How can there only be a max of 28 parties in party finder across the ENTIRE data centre? Max I saw was 50 and that was shocking to me because it's the most I've ever seen and that's not even a lot considering all the servers within a data centre, the player base feels so tiny it's actually frustrating.

I was hoping I would reach Omega and could start farming savage raids for ilvl 400 gear and all I was faced with was another dead duty.

How old is this game? And yet the most alive content I see is ARR duties with the roulette.

I feel like I invested all this time with no pay off.

Imagine paying for a game and game time but then being artificially barricaded from content because of a lack of player base, I got to a really interesting moment in Omega and couldn't wait to see what happened next, but what;d you know I had to wait almost 2 hours to find out because of the lack of players queing it

Nobody does fates, the world feels empty and barren, even Kugane is more dead than La Nosca, literally feels like ARR content is where 90% of the players are despite 2 whole expansions and a 3rd one coming up soon.

Best way to get highest ilvl gear was tomestones in ARR, same thing in HW, same thing in SB, probably gonna be the same thing in Shadowbringers.

Let's not forget the stupid weekly cap to make you spend more time farming out gear just to make you play more.

The lack of creativity and effort is disgraceful and now with the new data centre being added which will result in less servers across each one, the total player pool will be reduced making these problems even bigger. If you don't play the game and new content exactly on release, you will have absolutely no incentive to try aim for any cool and exciting stuff like omega or alliance raids or anything remotely intriguing because it will be dead within 3-5 months. No incentive to do it once you're done and the lack of a healthy population means there isn't enough new players constantly joining the game to keep the older content alive.

Raids suffer this the most because they are not a part of a roulette unlike alliance raids so the wait times are disgustingly bad.

For a game that relies heavily on a player base to do fun content which is mainly dungeons, raids, trials etc, it's not good when there isnt a player base to keep it alive.

Make the game free to play with a premium account option to bring in new players because it's dying.

[Desolate Eden]

I took this yesterday, I've done the normal omega content now, it was 70 minutes to find a team for a normal sigmascape, finding one for savage is even longer, my whole argument and this post is about long queue times due to a low player pool, what is there to counter argue, the bigger the player pool the lower the queue times, more players means more people doing all content in all aspects of the game, low player count means a lot of dead content, simple, im on aether data centre too

[Shinkiro]

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

savage alphascapes are basically non existent in duty finder and there's less than a handful of parties to join in party finder.

Theres one problem, EU/NA use party finder for hard content, only JP uses duty finder because their playerbase actually gives a crap and tries rather than hopes to be carried like EU/NA.

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

Raids suffer this the most because they are not a part of a roulette unlike alliance raids so the wait times are disgustingly bad.

There is a normal raid roulette...

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

Make the game free to play with a premium account option to bring in new players because it's dying.

LOL NO, FF11 a game from before WoW is still a subscription game, this moment either go f2p they die because there will no zero content to actually do...

[Lord Doober De La Goober MXI]

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

-snip-

and? look, its hard to push your case that the game is dead / dying because of long queue times when almost everyone else experiences the opposite.

all that picture shows is that you had a long queue for that one raid

[Desolate Eden]

I dont care if people believe me or not and my argument isnt going to change the fact lol you can believe the game is perfectly alive brimming with millions of players and I'll believe the opposite, I state my argument based on my experiences, you state yours on yours, this is a rant and nothing else, all I experience is dead content for anything new and exciting i try to reach and it frustrated me thats the whole story, dont see what there is to argue against, not going to convince me the game is not dead when there is like 500k total players across the entire world split into tiny portions via data centres and region locks, its obvious

[Nerevar]

ok tc you clearly dont understand how this game works. and that is pretty much obivious about your post. thus you draw some really really off conclusions.

1st :
savage is not duty finder content. it never was. no matter if relevant or outdated. normally you cannot even que for savage via duty finder in this game. this is only added after its completly outdated. and even then trying to clear savage trough df is bound to fail.

as savage and extreme trials is where the line is drawn and the difficulty SPIKES up easyly times 10 or more in case of savage compared to simple dungeons or story trials. this is why nobody ever ques for it via df.

2nd :
this game doesnt have millions of players. it never had even 1 million. this 14+ million adventurers crap SE is shouting around is pure marketing and simply means ACCOUNTS CREATED. which for an mmo means absolutly nothing as only active accounts matter from a player viewpoint.

while SE only looks at total sales and brags about that. this leads to false believes by the player. its common for corporates to do that these days sadly. marketing trickery.


3rd :
running old raid content in this game is completly pointless for 90% of veteran players. as there simply is no incentive for doing so. so only the few new players are even trying to do them. majority of the playerbase is either long done with them or doesnt care about them in the first place.and if they are done they are done unsync to get an easy and fast clear. running old content synced for no good reason is pointless in this game reward wise. always was. is the same for any vertical progression only mmo sadly.

4th:
as for omega :
alphascage is the most recent one. but the normal version of it has been out for over 6 months and the weekly lockout on it was removed a good while ago aswell. thus majority simply is done with it as they got thier rewards outa it and thus ignore it now as there is again no incentive to keep running it.

5th.
the game is currently in its pre big patch lull period. since shadowbringers will completly reset the endgame back to square one progression wise there is literally no reason to play right now for alot of players. as anything you do now gear wise is meaningless the 2nd shadowbringers launches due to the way gear works in this game. people who are still trying to get gear now are mostly doing it purely for glamor.

if you are around on 5.0 launch youll see what i mean as then youll be seeing a huge flood of players within the first month playing trough the new big patch and then running the new normal mode raid. at that time you wont even be waiting 10 mins for a que to pop even as a dps. however due to the way this games progression system is designed majority of players do this content when its released. not months/years later as that is completly pointless.

[CALICOMP 1.1]

Lord Doober De La Goober XVI の投稿を引用：

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

-snip-

and? look, its hard to push your case that the game is dead / dying because of long queue times when almost everyone else experiences the opposite.

all that picture shows is that you had a long queue for that one raid

she has a point though. the game has been going downhill in the last year or so since its been out for 5 years

[Lord Doober De La Goober MXI]

CALICOMP 1.1 の投稿を引用：

Lord Doober De La Goober XVI の投稿を引用：

and? look, its hard to push your case that the game is dead / dying because of long queue times when almost everyone else experiences the opposite.

all that picture shows is that you had a long queue for that one raid

she has a point though. the game has been going downhill in the last year or so since its been out for 5 years

But what mmo isn't? It’s impossible to make everyone happy even the littlest change is going to piss someone off, even I'm disgusted with some of the changes but I'm more concerned that this person is experiencing such long queue times when everyone else isn't (at least in this topic anyways)

unless you're on the population boat as well then Idk, I doubt this game has "millions of players" but it prob has 2x more than your avg. f2p game but going f2p in hopes for "more players" would be the worst thing they could possible do, sure more people would start to play it and the population would go up but then progressively leave over the next few months due to lack of updates, content and overall actions against bots/ RMS and scammers...

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

-snip-

I...I can't roll my eyes hard enough at this...there's so many things wrong with this..


edit: it just occurred to me, if you kept experiencing long queue times....why didn't you join an FC?

[CALICOMP 1.1]

Lord Doober De La Goober XVI の投稿を引用：

CALICOMP 1.1 の投稿を引用：

she has a point though. the game has been going downhill in the last year or so since its been out for 5 years

But what mmo isn't? It’s impossible to make everyone happy even the littlest change is going to piss someone off, even I'm disgusted with some of the changes but I'm more concerned that this person is experiencing such long queue times when everyone else isn't (at least in this topic anyways)

unless you're on the population boat as well then Idk, I doubt this game has "millions of players" but it prob has 2x more than your avg. f2p game but going f2p in hopes for "more players" would be the worst thing they could possible do, sure more people would start to play it and the population would go up but then progressively leave over the next few months due to lack of updates, content and overall actions against bots/ RMS and scammers...

Desolate Eden の投稿を引用：

-snip-

I...I can't roll my eyes hard enough at this...there's so many things wrong with this..


edit: it just occurred to me, if you kept experiencing long queue times....why didn't you join an FC?

Yea I know every mmo is always on a downgrade but in comparison to other mmos this one just seems really low. On top of that some servers are really lopsided when it comes to population. I don't blame people saying its dead because honestly its reaching that point pretty soon

[Lord Doober De La Goober MXI]

CALICOMP 1.1 の投稿を引用：

Yea I know every mmo is always on a downgrade but in comparison to other mmos this one just seems really low. On top of that some servers are really lopsided when it comes to population. I don't blame people saying its dead because honestly its reaching that point pretty soon

which is why a new expansion is on its way, now I can't say for certain that'll bring in more people or it'll make the game better but its getting more people interested. So that's something...

baby steps I guess...

as for server yeah...never understood why there were so many last time I checked BDO has like 2x as many and half of em are dead



edit: also what mmos are you comparing this to?

[Athmet]

With 60+ minutes to join as tank, something is utterly wrong. Either your data center or the time of the day.... But never had such long queue unless I am trying old (2.x / 3.x) raiding content.

Also, claiming game is dead based on your sole experience show a serious lack of understanding. And claiming others who show you otherwise are delusional... Man you are asking to be called troll.

[CALICOMP 1.1]

Lord Doober De La Goober XVI の投稿を引用：

CALICOMP 1.1 の投稿を引用：

Yea I know every mmo is always on a downgrade but in comparison to other mmos this one just seems really low. On top of that some servers are really lopsided when it comes to population. I don't blame people saying its dead because honestly its reaching that point pretty soon

which is why a new expansion is on its way, now I can't say for certain that'll bring in more people or it'll make the game better but its getting more people interested. So that's something...

baby steps I guess...

as for server yeah...never understood why there were so many last time I checked BDO has like 2x as many and half of em are dead



edit: also what mmos are you comparing this to?

wow

[Abuzigahl]

Omega is a problem? What?`I play regularly Alpha-, Sigma- and Deltascape and i get fast groups. Same goes for Extremcontent (last weekend farmed sussano for doggo). 24-Man Raids are also good populated even the old ones (World of Darkness). So what content is not populated ? Sorry sounds like you play at weird times or very specific content. The Gear that you get for Tombstones are mostly not BIS and very easy to obtain. But if you need help just ask ^^

[Magistrella]

*yawn*

I'm playing this game since September 2013's release. I have never had a que over 30 minutes at normal gametime (10am-11pm CET).

But then i never played catchup and did every content when it was released. Because most people, like i, are casual scrubs and enjoy this game at their own pace. And that means: Not do stuff over and over again.

You complain about Sigmascape and how hard it is to get in.

Guess what? That content was released over a frigging year ago on 30th of January 2018.

It is normal content that has no gear to offer whatsoever for anyone who's playing this game regularily. It's not Savage content, so it's not done regularly via PF either. It's just a story mode for casual people to enjoy the raid story before diving into (Savage) and a standalone story with no relevance to the main story what so ever or even necessary to do.

If you want to get it done, stop insisting to use a method that never worked on any patch on any content that has no progression relevance, drops gear that people want or needs to be done if they want to unlock new quests.


Open a PF, ask nicely to get some help as you want to do it for the story and maybe people will come to help. Or they wont - depends if you play at 1-9am on your datacenter or not.


Now the only real piece of advice you'll get from me about XIV:

Get used to it, and stop complaining. This game is not dying because your subjective little bubble tells you so.

[RopeDrink]

this is a rant and nothing else

You're simultaneously proving that you are not even close to being any kind of authority on the liveliness of the game. There is also no accounting for your server. After posting the below text, I logged in to do some weekly-reset grinding and my very first queue for Sigmascape v4 popped immediately, followed by a 2minute queue for the Ivalice 24man raids at about 10pm (not exactly peak time for the most crowded content type), and it wasn't even the most recent of the 24man raids (see below for explanations).

I can tell you hand on heart that practically everything you claim to have experienced does not apply to me and I have absolutely no reason not to believe pretty much everyone else claiming the same, because we're in there looking at populated HUBs and constantly queued-for content while Joe Soap playing catch-up holds up their 'game is dead' sign-post from the back of the crowd and wondering why said sign is getting dirty and confused looks.

As for that screenshot: (Normal) Sigma v1 and v2 won't be played as much as v3 and especially v4 since the loot restriction was lifted.

A lot still do v4 for the weekly crystaloid/currency to grind for a weapon (if they're not doing savage) and the higher presence of Shaft/Springs for the Chest/Legs, otherwise there's no need as you also have Ivalice raid for a weekly item of equivalent IL (without the tome/coin grind) and/or just upgrading tome-gear via the Ivalice 3x coins and your most recent tome currency for 390il gear -- coupled with the fact that the vast majority (who probably farmed this stuff back at release) likely already have said gear or even gone beyond it via normal means. Then there are the savage raiders who are a step ahead due to populating the toughest available content right now.

But hey, apparently it's dead because Sigma Norm might throw Joe Soap a long queue.

In short, you can just do the max-level dungeons (always populated) and the three Ivalice raids without even looking at Sigmascape (normal). At this point in the expansion, the majority who choose to do those are either filling in gear for alt-classes or probably grabbing the v4 weekly item for an alt-weapon grind, give or take quite a few who are simply still in catch-up mode. None of the above accounts for any server-based populations.

Up-to-date players do not gain much by doing said content as it is the guts of a tier behind, yet they are still very populated and there are plenty of people still catching up even now, and will continue to be this way until Shadowbringers gives the bulk of the playerbase even more new content to head into, thus the way forward continues. It is no different to pretty much the vast majority of standard trinity MMORPGs out there with instanced content as the focus.

You complained about currency as if it wasn't expected. I suppose currency and reputation grinds in the likes of WoW is exempt from that criticism? No? Of course not - it's the same deal, just like pretty much every other alternative.

I could log in right now on a tank or healer and do a nice relaxing Sigma-Normal session if I so chose, give or take 1-5minute queues at the worst of times. In fact, if I signed up for Normal Raid roulette, the most likely result will always be Sigma, followed closely by old Alexander raids (ironically), but as said above, I really don't need to as I had done all this back when it was new content.

[ᴛᴀʟᴜ 🐦]

Some people enjoy leveling jobs more than doing end game content, something you just have to accept, or join an FC with people who are interested in running end game stuff. Also alot of people are doing Eureka content.

Not everyone is interested in getting the best gear or beating the hardest content, everyone
do not flap their tiny e-peens and whine.