Forbes even wrote about FF14 success recently.
It’s clear–the entire game needs to have a sit down and ask themselves how do we get a player who’s not going to obsess about M+ or Raids. What content can we give to them that’ll have them asking for more.
Right now, this ain’t it.
I obsesse about raid and M+
Some people over BGs and Arenas.
But for more casual players…the game falls a bit short…there isn’t enough evergreen content. I’ll give a great example of a more casual system we currently have.
Pet collecting that stuff imo is awesome. No player power, just something fun to do.
Well even as someone who did a lot of M+ on their main last patch this one doesn’t seem too fun to me because it feels like the same all over again.
Raid was fun and we beat up toKel-Thuzad day 1 (normal). But the plot of the raid which i tend to enjoy didn’t do it for me. Maybe people were just looking for a reason to try something else and this patch was it.
As an officer for a casual old farts guild, they seem to be doing fine with casual players.
What if I said FFXIV was bleeding players too?
Everyone’s always loved to quote their accounts created and everything. But keep in mind, they have 25 million or so accounts made in the last 8 years.
But a projected playerbase that was under a million or so by their version of armory trawling at ffxivcensus.com. That’s a year old at this point, and of course open to argument of how accurate it was.
But that’s still a bit shy of 20 million or so accounts created around that time.
Edit: Worth pointing out was WoW announced 100 million or so around 10’ish years old while having like…7m active accounts at the time too, so it’s not like they were doing amazing in that regard either 
as long as they focus on some weird mmo esport identity the game is gonna go down hill, they gotta understand their player base has grown up.
With what is being offered at this time?
I don’t think they can even hold their breath.
Some people will go out to see what lies beyond their horizon. Some will come back and some won’t. The game’s prestige will be shaped by how the company reacts to all of this.
But despite a lot of feedback, suggestions, requests, reviews, rants, #pullripcord, etc, I don’t see any change on the horizon, as Blizzard seems happy with the game right now.
Considering blizzard don’t understand their player base they’ll probably just add mythic+ raids thinking that will solve the problem
Take those shots everyone, wow’s dying again.
I never want to do another M+ again and rarely Raid. I find Dungeons and Raids to be side content that should compliment the game. Doing Dungeons every week is terrible, I want to do them once or twice with friends and be done. Not funneled in there and forced to do it.
WoW can’t keep old players either. Most people play for 1-2 months then unsub as there isn’t much worth doing in a game riddled with convoluted systems and meaningless grinds to attain what you should of already had.
I’m too drung to make nuther shot now
falls over
I’m okaaaaay
Tuns of casuals loved random BGs but the honor system is just terrible.
I suspect alot of them just left because of it.
Nah wows bleeding subs cause new wow devs dont get games. They would be better off working in finance or marketing.
The last good version of wow was legion where the old guard gave us a little bit of fun for their last hurrah, now we’re stuck with the sponge cake of mmos, safe, boring, expensive
I don’t think devs have any interest in bringing new casuals into the game. In fact, I think they have themselves convinced that the natural progression is to join this game as possibly the first one they have ever played and leapfrog directly into elite content. The only thing stopping new players from this is reading forum posts by players who aren’t happy with the direction of the game. It also appears they think existing casuals can be easily converted into mythic raiders, key pushers, and glads.
We’re seeing the fallout from that now. I don’t think they’ve learned anything from how this expansion is being accepted by the playerbase.
Original developers leave Blizzard
Original developers: “SUCH DEVASTATION! This was not my intention.”
Because Forbes is such a great judge of gaming…
As for FF14 and their supposed gains, wait for their next earnings call in order to see if it actually drew new players in that PAID and SUBSCRIBED to it. Like I said in another thread, you can play FF14’s unlimited trial to level 50 and NOT spend a single dime ever.
Most casual players want (and need) player power, too.
WoW always had casual power progression until SL, while FF14 currently offers this. No mystery why SL is hemorrhaging subs to FF14.
Too much mad science in controlling how our characters get stronger has led to this.
Even maxed Honor gear at this point is a DOWNGRADE from 9.0 gear and 9.1 catch-up gear.
SL devs are obsessed with the idea of refusing to reward players for doing unrated PvP.