ACTUAL Proof FFXIV Endwalker Doomsayers Were WRONG

[@QuaziiFFXIV]

you can find Square Enix financials here - www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/library/explanatory.html

[@shirox11]

Their are definitely very valid criticisms for endwalker, but anyone who was spouting bs like “the game is going to die” or “this is the end of ffxiv” was talking out of their ass. FFxiv was never in any actual danger

[@DiMacky24]

Indeed, definitely problems, but no problems bad enough that the game wasn't viable. If the quality of gameplay never improved from RR, FF14 would still be a viable MMO. The QoL and content added since then though means even the mis-steps are still above the "fail" point. More of missing the mark, but still hitting the target.

[@GhostAeonWolf]

@@DiMacky24 Zepla was just trying to get more people into the gamble addiction she have.

[@tbeshers]

I took it as Clickbait. Plain and simple.

[@iphoneShothand]

Clickbait gonna clickbait

[@ChannelRaznoff]

My main issue with what we got was the fact that the deep dungeon wasn't nearly as fun as the past versions. I only went all the way through it once and never felt like repeating it again after. It seems like most people felt that way since it died faster than any from before.

[@playlist233]

Oddly enough, the content creators complaining about lack of content was the moment I realized they were out of touch with my playstyle and I stopped watching them.

[@cyanmage1]

same I have so much stuff to do and I haven't even touched an savage raid or extreme trial this expansion, this whole content drought crap was so annoying we got everything we got in shadowbringers plus more this expansion but I guess its hard to make compelling content in 4 man hard mode dungeons that streamers were begging for last expansion

[@totallynottrademarked5279]

Bruh. They play 18 hours a day. Their playstyle is not the same as yours. The fact there was not an endlessly grindable zone like Bozja took a large amount of time out of the game. The high-end endgame loop is very sparse compared to other MMOs. Sure there is a ton of casual stuff to do but not everyone wants to do that stuff.

[@Kitamurasama]

@@totallynottrademarked5279 Same I stopped watching Zepla 100% I have not seen a video of hers in almost a year and I don't feel I'm missing anything.

[@grevie]

@@Kitamurasama same, already blocked her channel in YT and Twitch and mr. todd's too.

[@thesagaofblitz]

@@cyanmage1 not to mention guild events, server parties and just the social aspect of the game. these things aren't great for content creators but are good for communities.

[@Picxalate]

Seems like the player retention is incredibly solid. This goes to show that you need to go with what you feel and observe yourself, not with what a loud minority of the user base is saying.

[@auroninja]

Pfft critics. Everyone has an opinion. Some are just louder and more annoying about theirs than others. I like what I like. I don't need some jabroni to tell me what to not like.

[@loganblaze2164]

So true bro! Opinions are like butts everyone has one and they all stink.

[@barisaxman2]

This was my first time being current at end game for FF14. I resubbed for multiple patches, more often than i ever did when playing WoW expansions. I am more of a casual player, never really getting into the raid scene. I love being able to dip in and out whenever i feel like it.

[@trawll8659]

When you take a look at some data pooling sites and see the estimated percentage of each Regions savage raid clears it shows that a vast majority of XIV players are the same, only about 10% of players clear Savage raid tiers and even less do Ultimates. I would bet a good 50% are just doing daily roulettes and hanging with friends which is probably why the updated blacklist and two dyes is what the Dev's focused on before any endgame content.

[@rosifico]

I’ve started a little over a year ago and I’ve been consistently subbed since. I’m not even past HW post-quests but I spend enough time just in gold saucer and frontline. It’s a multiplayer game, these small social things are enough to keep me around forever, like any other multiplayer game. My wife does the same in gold saucer, and she hit grandmaster of the hand way before we unlocked firmament a few days ago. There’s a lot to do.

[@Seedmember]

The whole "omg 14 has no content, is dead now" drama really soured my opinion about a lot of 14 content creators. Long, dramatic rants, that in essence were saying "we have no content to stream 10 hours per day". Then don't. Play some PvP if you want something repetitive, otherwise just play something else until new content is added.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

*coughcough* ZEPLA *bigcough* Not the only person of course, just the first that came to mind.

[@malcovich_games]

Probably CBU3 realized that these people are outliers that are not to be catered to. As a parallel, WoW balancing the game against the top raiders was always a mistake. And also those CC's probably realized they're a one-game pony and their viewership will plummet if they even tried playing anything else, so they have no recourse but to demand more things to stream from the devs.

[@aohdakibussubara8820]

Unfortunatly saying “just play something else” doesn’t work for streamers as they’ll loose viewers essentially putting them out on their arse. It’s like saying to throw money out the window that you need.

[@Seedmember]

@@aohdakibussubara8820 If they switch a game and suddenly everyone leaves then they weren't there for the streamer, but for the game. Also, it's not the developers' job to care about the content creators' jobs.

[@GoatOfWar]

My face when i took over a year long break and am told to take a break when i come back and there's still no content.

[@Ryuujinv01]

I reactivated towards the end of the patch content after hearing grumblings about how bad it was. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. The humor was on point and they did a good job of getting you to care about a new side character what's not to love.

[@edwardnowakowski5990]

In terms of complaints, just know my friend list was consistently full of online players throughout shadowbringers post patch because everyone was doing bozja. During endwalker, patch day was busy, but less than a week later it became empty. Few people had incentive to jump in and just play

[@alexandrepinto3936]

My bad if I missed the info, but we also need to underline that the "big" decline post EW is also due to the fact that it is the first time since ARR that there are 2 financial years between one expansion and another. Thanks for the video as always !

[@kultres5920]

I am not full casual, but this is the only expansion that I was basically logging in just to keep my house for 6months. Lack of bozja/eureka was felt. But then again enjoyed many other games and enjoyed EW for everything it had. People just being...people

[@strawberrydialectics]

same & the relics didnt feel rewarding to complete so i stopped doing those

[@Adrasteia__]

I'm the exact opposit. I like doing dungeons (how much? I raided Naxx in Vanilla WoW, when it released and I didn't need to pay for entry), but on the other hand I spent exactly one day in Bozja (haven't even unlocked Eureka) and I hated every minute of it. I already hated farmtrains in GW2 and Bozja is even worse. So the EW relics were a win win for me: doing something I enjoy and getting some nice shinies too (I couldn't care less about how rewarding something is, because it's pixels. They are either pretty or not pretty. If I can get the pretty thing by having fun, great! If it's not fun, I don't need it.) . If they get back to the Bozja model I assume the EW relics will be the last I've completed. I would play different games, bc the queues for dungeons were a hundred times better in EW than before and I like playing dungeons, but I don't like waiting for them. And they would really have to change pretty much everything about how the Bozja model works for me wanting to play it. To me it's more mindless and boring than my actual job and at least I'm getting paid for that one. I simply don't have enough free time to not have fun in my free time.

[@SuperRamos619]

I'm a pretty casual player. Don't do EX or savage content anymore, only do PvP seasons. And leveling jobs. So EW was very boring for me without the Eureka/Bozja content.

[@PrincessofKeys]

​@@Adrasteia__honestly I enjoy doing Bozjan and Eureka myself and I don't really see how people hate it. Any relic is a grind in some way some how, it's best to do it with friends or a group you form who are also doing the same relics as well if that's the case. Personally I just want at least my main jobs relic, the gear set and mount from Eureka I have goals to work towards and am determined to get there.

[@Adrasteia__]

​@@PrincessofKeys I guess it's just personal taste. To me it's just more FATE grind and I already need a whole expansion to get those done for the gemstone rewards (I can't do more than 5 FATEs back to back without having the urge to exit the game and play something else). On the other hand I can spend hours flying in circles collecting mats, I enjoy doing tribe dailies and daily roulette. There are many things I do just for the enjoyment or minor rewards others would consider not worth their time. So I just hope they implement a system that doesn't give me the two options: either not getting it or having to do the same FATEs over and over again for hours and hours and hours and hours, because considering I have a main job in every role at least that would be the only thing I could be doing to make sure I can get the shinies before the content dies. And honestly I just don't care enough about these pixels to make my free time miserable. I finished to date 8 relic weapons for EW just by playing the game and I didn't have to suffer by doing content I absolutely hate. The worst part for me was having to finish the whole Hildy quest, which I otherwise never would have done. They should just give people options how to obtain the neccessary "mats" and don't make it into a fulltime job if you want more than one weapon (why even have job-choices if you force people to choose a main-job they only play considering glam is endgame?). Another Bozja would just be dead content to me. It's neither enjoyable to do nor watch others do it.

[@greggreyes6869]

that guy on reddit that keep on posting threads on the ff subs that ffxiv is losing money gonna loose their mind. lmao

[@MrKnaives]

Well, talkong soley endwalker yes, but overall they gained player. And can't deny that the fall off is very steep steeper than any other expansion.

[@Grebeny]

@@MrKnaives it will shock you if you hear that Square enix expected that. It is simple planning and realizng the earth is circling around the sun. With Covid gone and people touching grass again, it is obvious that game industry lost huge portion of the boost they got from closed indoor world population. Actually they are almost as reading the future, because they predicted this at Endwalker launch, as they explained that it is nonesense to ever expand servers, because after the covid/WoW wave ends, they will need to close servers and that would be painful for the community.

[@KattReen]

@@MrKnaives The falloff might be because a lot of the wow players that decided to dip their toes into FFXIV and stick around for the expansion, went back to wow once their discontent settled? I mean, if there's one demographic you can trust to not adhere to a boycott for particularly long, it's gamers.

[@DiMacky24]

@@KattReen And even then, Dawntrail is likely going to bring a lot of those people back as soon as there's a content lull in WoW. The two games are actually pretty good for each other in that way.

[@The_Catman]

​@@MrKnaivesyou're literally saying "If we ignore the spike of players caused by EW and the fact that at it's lowest point it is still considerably higher than every other expansions in their entire lifetime...the critics are right" So, basically...if we ignore the data, the opinion is right. But isn't data the way we determine the validity of opinions...?

[@ArchieGamez]

Thats quite interesting ngl, the fact they managed to have higher sub numbers than SHB during lull periods in EW is crazy

[@kaly8329]

Just cos its the lull periods doesnt mean new players cant/shouldnt try the game out and be hooked. Its something the critics dont realize for some unknown reason.

[@King-2077]

Yes this really shows how good yoshi P is, these changes he did and the system he set up really work for their game.

[@debatinghealer]

That happens when the WoW exodus happened in EW so it's kinda unfair to compare

[@renarenacat]

I think its because of the amount of newer players. If you started playing with asmongold period,you prob still have loads of content untouched.

[@FlynnFromTaiga]

​@@debatinghealerwow exodus happend around 5.4 post shb. Many months before launch of EW

[@carolinemccall2608]

The huge number of sales for Endwalker is due to the introduction of the male Viera. Change my mind.

[@Scootapuff88]

Basically matches what I've been saying all along. Down from the absolute peak, but still at a very healthy level.

[@elgatochurro]

I'm tired of the drama click farming. I think shb and ew were fantastic. I'm not comparing them like ones worse

[@The_Catman]

After the game went super popular a bunch of parasitic "content" creators spawned. The reasons the game is friendly towards the average player are the same reasons these people can't turn it into a sustainable moneymaker. The smarter among them rebranded themselves and turned to expand their horizons with other games. The not that smart among them...turned to clickbaity negativity and endless react "content" to each other negativity. Thy are eating their own right now. Also, the absurd majority of players does not partake in any kind of "accessory content" for the game. The FF14 community is very particular in this regard. Might be correlated to also being one of the friendlier in the entire Internet. They for sure showed they do not particularly like negativity for negativity's sake. Outside of the game, you get bombarded with endless discourse about it dying soon. Inside the game, with the majority of people who actually play, when I asked how they felt about this, I almost always recieved the same answer: "It's just streamers farming. The game's fine" And honestly, I feel they're right. This particular phase of FFXIV's life is showing the problems of the streaming market more than the game: influencers are like tribal chiefs, and they have their drones in their bubble totally disconnected from reality, fighting each other for clout... They are simply following an algorithm: "First you farm the success narration, and then you immediately move to farm the betrayal one" Humans are like coded to expect hard times after good ones, so it works with some people. Not FFXIV players...it seems. There must be a reason why this community has a better relationship with the internet than the Fortnite Community, or WoW community. I just don't know it. Anyway, these kind of streamers should get a job, really. At this point they're really just leeching to other people's work.

[@sethharrison2284]

One of the biggest selling points of XIV during the WoW Exodus is how much it respected your time and was an MMO you could fit into your schedule. And that was and still is true. The VAST majority of people who play XIV also play other games and have responsibilities. The vast majority of complaints about EW come from a vocal minority who only play XIV several hours every single day. I am convinced the only major issue EW had was no exploratory zone to keep the people who play the game 24/7 satisfied. They just want to convince themselves that balancing and jobs changes will make the game more fun for them but the real issue is they play this game too damn much and have an unhealthy relationship with it. They are burnt out and don't want to admit it.

[@TheGreatDanish]

The story also was also a distinct downgrade from everything but ARR. It was painfully obvious how it was two Expansion stories hastily stitched together to get a product out the door. It has some great moments, but those moments are the only substance the expansion's story had. Everything in between was a huge nothing burger. And worst of all, Metion happened. Metion is very much the big poster child for "this fucking plot needed another expansion to simmer" because she came out of god damn nowhere. We knew that zodiark wasn't the final final boss, but they needed to really knock it out of the park after 4 expansions of him being the biggest bad and getting relegated to a midboss. And pulling a tiny bird girl with trauma out of your ass in the final hour is not the way to do that.

[@GoatOfWar]

I don't think people want to play 24/7 but dude you can't deny there's a problem when you take a year long break from a live service game, still have nothing to do and are told to take a break again..

[@Dharengo]

​@@GoatOfWarWhat did you have to do during Shadowbringers that wasn't Bozja?

[@Dharengo]

​​@@TheGreatDanishYour opinion is noted but I don't think many will agree. Not everybody sets arbitrary expectations only to get angry at people for not delivering on a promise never made. Meteion didn't come out of nowhere, she was set up during the entirety of the Elpis arc.

[@MsAussieSheila]

And there are still plenty of people who do main game FFXIV. I do. I haven't gone a week without logging in since I joined in the exodus. There are plenty of things for people who log in every day to do - you've just got to be logging in because you want to do that extra content not because you are required tofor your job. I'm sure if I had to log in for work I'd struggle a lot more to find things than I do.

[@TheMadMedek]

I feel the number of active players isn’t a direct correlation for how some people felt about the post expansion content. The game saw huge growth going into EW so it’s only natural with a huge new player base that many would still have many things to do post EW. Meanwhile many older players have a different experience. I will ignore anyone postulating that the game is “dying” though. Those sentiments sound like projecting. Like “I’m loosing interest therefore…”

[@LeePatekar]

The issue with these graphs is people like me. I stay subscribed even if I havent played in 6 months. The reality is there isn't much to do at the end of this expansion since there's not bozja.. and there's more months between expansion now than previously.

[@65Reidlos]

But that endwalker dip %wise is higher then any other dip... higher overall to keep money in check but more players left post EW

[@chrisbrooks840]

I took my first break after finishing the Endwalker story. It was a much needed 2 years away. I played many other games and XIV finally started to feel fresh again.

[@yevon956]

The criticism is valid it wasn't soley about playing every day it was about not having any incentive to play hardly at all. It's tough to gauge by numbers alone because there's always new players as well but it also wasn't AS bad as the content creator section made it out to be, not all doom and gloom.

[@HezrouDhiaga]

Sounds like a personal problem that they don't have an alternative to the downtime for content.

[@grygaming5519]

I'd actually like to point this out. The best and worst thing for a game are the streamers themselves. Its great advertising but when the game starts to slide towards catering to the streamers....it harms the game overall. Games that have allowed streamers to dictate things always seem to lose the bulk of the player base. It creates this feedback loop that most games can never climb out once they start to dig.

[@densha63]

Hello! In my humble opinion, I think what other content creators mentioned "lack of content" is simply limited to what they define as lacking large scale operations like Eureka and Bozja and during that time, I hear a lot of people complaining they don't like Bozja...then fast forward now, the same people complaining the absence of these contents...sheessh. Honestly, I don't see the "content drought" to be honest. I still got a ton of things to do in game :). I'm wishing for more FFXIV 10 years down the line :D

[@dracodragniel8648]

There was no grind behind the relic, savage and ultimate content is done by the minority of the population. The fact that you can complete a relic phase per day made it dull for a lot of casuals, Island Sanctuary was boring, if I wanna play stardew valley then ill go play stardew valley. Not log into ffxiv. So yes there was massive content drought, also just because people didnt like bozja doesnt mean they dont like the concept. you can have an amazing concept but horrible excecution which is what happened.

[@deltaoalice9281]

The people complaining they don't like bozja isn't the people who are complaining about the absense of contents. The reality is with the size of the playerbase, there will be bound to be players who enjoy having more content.

[@densha63]

@@dracodragniel8648 I think that is an opinion for you but that for me is a welcome change. I'm a full-time healthcare professional working most days of the week except 1 day and I usually work more than 8 hours a day...so grinding tomes for relic weapon is better for me. Not that I'm saying having no "Bozja" style content is good since I did grind Bozja during ShB. So if you think there is drought for you, then go ahead, will not stop you for thinking so. But as for me, I think they did enough for EW as a change of pace.

[@OmegaEnvych]

ikr, people were complaining how Bozja sucks and then backpedaled when there was no operations. They need grind I guess. I hoped that relics will be more complex to do, ngl - I have only couple of relics from other expansions and like half of my jobs have relics fully upgraded in EW

[@castella352]

I remember in ShB how vocal people were about how much they hated Bozja. It was too grindy. People hated fates and crystal tower. The zones were boring and brown. I'm sure they were much happier with the current relic grind. No longer were they forced to do content they hated. They could literally do what they'd normally do or roulettes and still get their pretty weapon. Multiple even. I think people who are used to having content catered towards them and getting what they wanted felt disappointed this expac because XIV seemed more focused on different types of players who wanted different things. Including the solo experience and things that didn't require nearly as much grinding. A more relaxing and casual experience. But at the same time, they also made some really hard content and raiders had difficulty adjusting. If you change too much people are going to complain no matter what. I enjoyed Eureka and Bozja, but even I can appreciate casually being able to get my relic. Oh I capped on tomes? Maybe I'll work on another weapon. EW was crazy in 6.0, but it was so nice to be able to relax and casually do things vs feeling like I constantly *needed* to do something. I got a bunch of cool mounts, did savage, tried ultimates for the first time, still working on my island, became a fisher and got the final fish title, hosted events for our FC and more.

[@vespi57]

When all the criticism of Endwalker started to appear, some outright claimed the game is dying. I always said it is too early to make that conclusion, and the numbers here are proof of that. Now that the single player aspect is more or less completed, Dawntrail will deliver the post patch content players want. We can only hope it lives up to the expectations, and I have strong belief it will.

[@AlleluiaElizabeth]

These numbers tell me its a miracle I actually finally got a house. lol Like, more of a miracle than usual, I mean. All hail the lottery system. XD

[@michaelstiller2282]

I won in a lottery of like 50 bids. And that was after months and months of loosing.

[@TheOneGreat]

I resub and immediately get one every single time. 😅

[@Sniperbear13]

more often then not, when people doom talk like they did for EW, its usually a small number of people who are just really loud. the internet is like a Megaphone for those kinds of people.

[@kikukat8780]

Thanks for the video! I was tired of people (not just content creators) telling me there was nothing to do in ffxiv in the ew patches. I have a job and ffxiv is easy enough for me to play once i get home after a long day from work. Tbh i love having the lulls in ffxiv sometimes because i can play other games in between it.

[@awworrell]

I'm not to sure this disapproves what content creators or people in the community are saying. when you consider the mass backlog of content new people have when joining the game, it makes sense that they would stay subbed longer generally speaking over those who are at endgame. There is simply more for them to do and endgame issues aren't something they are concerned with. Also I would be curious about taking the percentage decline between expansions relative to the total number of subs. The graph while nominally holds true there are more subs than ever that is a pretty steep decline. It may be that because there are more people subbed declines are going to be larger because the player base is larger. Also Yoshi-p himself has already come out in interviews basically agreeing with the conversations bout post content in endwalker. I tend to agree with the content creators since I got into savage raiding because I didn't have anything else to do in the game. I don't play 10 hours per day but do play more than your average person. In Shadowbringers or Stormblood, I would spend time in the large scale content which consumed most of my time but in general I didn't have much of anything to do outside of raiding. I also just took a lot of breaks from the game too because well very little to do.

[@meteorwalkergg]

That's a problem with you, not the game itself. You're going to run out of things to do when your only activity in a sprawling world is to lock yourself in a room with a boss for 3+ hrs a day. Yes, correct, that is boring. How you choose to play is boring, yes I agree with you. Not the game's fault, that's a you putting off seeing a therapist fault. Go get help. Try the addiction expert ones. I wish you the best of luck on dealing with whatever trauma made you this way.

[@awworrell]

@@meteorwalkergg There is a problem with the game where multiple communities look for different kinds of content, play content at different rates, and find enjoyment in different areas of the game. If anyone needs a therapist, an idiot like yourself who lacks self-awareness should go get some help and hopefully understand that not everyone is you. No one in the communities I frequent is asking for causal content to be removed or for it to be changed so that more casual players have less to do. We have been cheering on more casual content for decades in some instances but those communities lack content.

[@Arbrawr]

​@@meteorwalkergg Immediately attacking someone and telling them to see a therapist for having an opinion. Be better. (Am I doing this right?) #GCBTW

[@TheRufas24]

@@Arbrawr im 3 weeks late with this comment but here goes. yes he could definedly phrased it alot better. the point is content only last for so long so if you get bore then you are allowed to take a break. The devs themselves encourage you to take a break and go out and play some other games in the mean time and come back when new content is out. If you insist keeping on playing the game when you are out of content and bored. Thats on you.

[@BorgWolf359]

I loved the story after we stopped the End of Days! Zero's storyline was Epic! I am stoked for the new FFXIV story & the next 10 years of content!

[@Jelloshotmod2]

i truly believe that most of the people complaining online about EW are simply in a bubble and have no idea of what the wider player base is feels or thinks. i also believe that had c19 or the wow exodus never happened people would've complained almost as much about ShB as they did with EW. the wow exodus, coupled with c19 brought an unprecedented amount of new players that it distracted the veteran players long enough till the release of EW. weskalber made a video about this as well talking about how the complaints of EW are overblown and some of the same complaints could easily be levied at HW yet people hold that xpac in high regards.

[@zerwif]

I am one of those players that does not fit with the wider audience. I don't glamour or own a house, I mostly PvP with Rival Wings being my go to, and would have quit long ago if Eureka or Bozja didn't exist. Also, Cross Class, weapon resistances, and stat allocation were great. I would have loved if they reinforced those instead of dropping them.

[@Jelloshotmod2]

​@@Zoeila so all those people emotional vampiring off of all those new streamers/content creators, the influx of new people to play with or recruit for their fc. none of that mattered, huh? it was all just bozja and eureka that kept interest in between ShB and EW.

[@Disastra]

Anyone seriously claiming that this expansion patch cycle is the worst simply cannot have been playing endgame during HW (in fact, I suspect there's a large number of people making such claims for whom this is their first expansion patch cycle-- period)

[@Smallville619]

This^ holy crap someone else said it post HW was the WORST

[@cynthiahembree3957]

I've heard some insane stories about HW

[@Enderlinkpawnu]

Here was my view on it: The lack of midcore content expecially in Endwalker IS an issue. However, its nowehere near as bad as people are making it up to be. As someone more midcore myself, I felt this lack of content in Endwalker in particular (the midcore content I have left to do is not Endwalker content). HOWEVER, while this is an issue, it isn't going to kill the game instantly, as people are preaching it will. This kind of thing is a slow killer, but only if left unaddressed for long enough. For example, lets take Borrowed Power and the daily systems of Shadowlands. People *hated* that shit. But think about it; when did World of Warcraft start doing that? Legion. People like Legion. It was, technically speaking, these things were problem that started IN Legion. It just got worse over time. It took two expansions for that problem to become so large it started affecting Wow's subscriber numbers. The lack of midcore content is a similar type of issue. It is a relatively small problem now, but if left unaddressed for 1-2 expansions, now it's choking out the game. Thankfully for the XIV players, it would seem that Yoshi P and the team have realized this as well, and while they are still benefiting of the massive influx of players they received from Endwalker's fortuitous release timing, they seek to alleviate the midcore issue in Dawntrail (I think what was said about the relic questline, and the fact we are getting an exploration zone alone is going to be enough to satisfy at least myself). So while it may have not done anything to the player numbers or anything, it could have easily had an effect five years from now in 9.0 if we got more endwalkers with no midcore content, or otherwise no way to bridge the gap between the casuals and the hardcore, just like how the compounding issues of game design starting in Leigon boiled over in Shadowlands later, and I don't think World of Warcraft has even recovered from that loss yet, especially in the public consciousness. A lot of games have this issue, actually, and it's a slow insidious killer. IF Square Enix delivers on what they advertised in Dawntrail, and it is at least passable, then I think Endwalker's player numbers are only the beginning, Dawntrail can very easily become XIV's best expansion yet just with its content lineup alone.

[@HikingFeral]

Endwalker was incredible and remains the best MMO expansion I have played in the best MMO I have played and I have played them all over 30 years, I did stop playing for a long time because games like Baldur's Gate 3 are amazing and it's this fall of in players that cause weirdos to state the games dying. They know nothing. FFXIV is designed to be put down for a while but if you don't want to there's thousands and thousands of hours of content if you want to do all the beast tribe stuff, every side quest, every optional dungeon raid and field operation, every deep dungeon and V/C dungeon and all PVP. Unlock all glams, mounts pets, max out all jobs catch all fish hunt all monsters. The nay sayers are irrelevant and 50 million players backs me up.

[@KalanosYT]

I have played less during Endwalker then ever before. Now, that could simply be because I've been playing since ARR release and I'm just burned out, but I have also taken breaks during Stormblood and Shadowbringers. Endwalker just has not released any content that I've wanted to come back for. That said, there's certainly no shortage of content for player's to enjoy, just nothing at the moment that piques my interest. Looking forward to Dawntrail none the less.

[@Aitherea]

As a small content creator myself, I had felt like the EW stuff was really overblown xD I was like "but I played during shb and we had lulls like this too." I honestly didnt see a difference 😭

[@Grimnoire]

The community is ravenous and must constantly be sated

[@darkovertime13ps42]

i feel like the main thing for me was the relics them not being tied to anything made me feel like there wasn't a real goal to chase. that's why even with post shb lul it felt waaaaaaay better than EW imo.

[@Dharengo]

​​​@@darkovertime13ps42I sort of understand but at the same time the relic grind in ShB was the worst I've ever had to do. The exploration zones were fine and all, but ruining Delubrum Reginae by making me run it 70+ times was criminal. I never want to go through something like that ever again. I'd rather go back to Pagos.

[@Zakjuh]

The only difference is Bozja, which was better at keeping people of every skill level playing. Whereas Endwalker had criterions in their place, which were pretty hardcore and had barely any replayability. As an MMO-retiree, who does things when I feel like doing them, I totally agree with you. I'm not a big grindfest/treadmill type player, so Endwalker was plenty of fun for me. But I can understand I'm not the only one, and that some people do want that carrot on a stick grind.

[@Dharengo]

@@Zakjuh The problem is less the content existing, it's locking the relic behind it, as well as the DR problem I mentioned earlier. I know there were alternatives, but they were even worse.

[@aeravan]

yeah... anyone claiming game is gonna die probably haven't played during HW. we are nowhere near the low numbers the game had back then. the game survived worse

[@tooloud3376]

I started playing around 2 months before EW release and i've been subbed evert since not so much because of EW content but because of content from previous expansions such as bozja, eureka, ishgardian restoration, previous relic weapons, etc. EWs "lack of content" allowed me, and certainly other players, to catch up with content from previous expansions which for the most part is still content with a lot of active players. It just shows that this game as a lot to offer outside of the current expansion and that they are able to retain players on older content

[@Maria_Erias]

Not to mention that unlike other MMOs, all that old content is still relevant, especially for new players. When I had old friends from WoW coming over to FF14 during the mass exodus, I had a lot of fun running with them in old EXs and Savage raids. Now, more than a year later, some of them have picked up WoW again, but almost all of them are still playing FF. Because it *is* a "pick up and play when you want" game. We do Friday events together, which can be anything from a MINE Extreme to Leap of Faith in the Saucer to just doing treasure maps while laughing and goofing in Discord. And the last trials we did were the Weapon EXs. So it's going to be a while before we run out of stuff to do. And with each expansion, there's just more and more added to the list.

[@fayte0618]

2022 and 2023 was also the busiest year in gaming with the biggest games releasing like elden ring

[@patrickoverstreet2372]

The handsdown worst expac was Heavensward, was the story good, sure but the gameplay nearly killed raiding and have more failures than successes

[@porina_pew]

I think ideally we'd need to look at the actual numbers to see the % drop post expansion release. Eyeballing it, 1st year post EW drop looks about same proportion as SB. Might be better looking at this quarterly if they split the numbers due to different release times. Post ShB was almost flat, presumably as player growth at that time almost offset the natural fall off rate.

[@seven2eight2]

while i agree that the game is still in a healthy place post EWs massive peak, its undeniable that the drop off is also the largest post expansion drop. stormblood and shadowbringers were trending smaller and smaller decreases in revenue. are we just ignoring that?

[@markup6394]

Outside factors: Large influx of players when WoW was failing, many of which left when WoW stabelised again. Plus Covid which delayed patches and EW release, and many new game releases in general. None of these factors have anything to do with FF14 itself, even if everything wasnt sunshine-and-rainbows.

[@ExceedProduction]

Big drops after large peaks are natural. If 50% of your players leave after every main release, then the dip is smaller with 100 players than with 10.000 players. Either 50 leave or 5.000. Still the same percentage but a much deeper dip.

[@seven2eight2]

@@markup6394 sure, we can speculate as to the reasons why but Quazii is saying this is proof that any criticism was wrong when its simply not. as i stated, the post launch drop was decreasing after StB and Shb. this graph shows that the game has held onto more players than previous expansions overall, yes. it also shows that the game has had the largest post launch decrease. thats all im sayin.

[@Zakjuh]

If you have fewer players, it's also easier to have a smaller drop off. Smaller spike, smaller dropoff. In terms of Shadowbringers, the reason it played even all throughout is because 5.0 was already hyped, then 5.3 was considered a big story peak. And then the lull that would've followed was compensated for by the wowfugee exodus that happened after. If the wowfugee exodus and covid hadn't happen in the latter half of ShB, it'd have had a far more dramatic falloff as well.

[@markup6394]

@@seven2eight2 I'll refer to Zakjuh here, who answered your point. Which is still inaccurate, sorry.

[@Rico-butHandleWasTaken]

This isn't surprising. Anyone playing the game would've seen how healthy the game is. Those thinking otherwise just had their heads stuck in a hole of their own making. There's also the simple fact that a lot people's feelings on the matter fluctuate just like that graph chart does 🤣 Feelings are not facts, people.

[@syaojyn]

These are the people who are strawmen. I dont think you need to be a content creator to feel there wasnt enough post patch content

[@lucystoole4355]

I'm so glad you made this. While it may be true there's nothing to super duper grind on, I was SO thankful for the break. My character got deleted at the start of endwalker and I had to redo everything. The fact that I didn't have to do another exploration zone, or farm a million old 24 man raids to get weapons helped me catch back up and I've been enjoying island sanctuary, criterion, and deep dungeon for the first time because I'm not afraid of trying other things in game and missing out while I do

[@clumsyturtle8544]

Didn't Yoshi recently say in endwalkers downtime towards the end the number of people player were still higher than shadowbringers launch.

[@iphoneShothand]

I love the fact that I can unsub for a few months every expansion and play other games. I dont feel like the game is trying to manipulate me into playing it daily like some other games.

[@silvioito4269]

Welp...i didn't want to play another game. I wanted to play FF14 but it was very very boring to do same stuff again and again, without end. That's the moment ppl feel don't have nothing "they like" to do. I farmed deep dungeons achievement mounts because was really bored in upgrade gear of classes that I don't really feel enjoyable to me. We were all just bored. lol

[@ventusvero4484]

I was a ARR raider (maxxed jobs on main, and multiple alts who could also raid on different timers) and I burnt out around 2.35. I didn't come back for 9ish years. Last Aug2023, I came back as a plays-a-lot-solo, casual player (duty roulette only, no raiding, just having fun) during 10 year anniv because I wanted something with a lot of content to chew on, and I had 4 Xpacs to do. My experience was different than most, having all the Xpacs at my fingertips (with all their patches), and FF14 quickly became my new favorite FF RPG. I loved each expansions so much that I made it a point to spend some additional money on an account-wide mount or similar as a kind of 'tip'. I am a heavy gamer (8+ hrs a day, im in my 40s and have no social media accounts). I have been expecting to burn out or run out of content in FF14, but it hasnt happened yet, since I had so much to catch up on. Eureka was a hoot. I just hit 29 on my personal FC and made it a huge project to do the subs, and that was a lot of fun too. I still have so much here and there on offer that when I get annoyed with 1 thing, I do another. Breeding a max Chocobo or Card games? Leveling squadron, island sanctuary!, hunting achievements, etc. I am already looking forward to going back and playing all 4 xpacs again on one of those alts I mentioned

[@icaruscrowe5552]

Thank you! This is exactly what I've been trying to tell people! I've been playing this game since the early tests for ARR, and I have been subbed since ARR officially launched. I've been playing for all this time, and I will still never run out of things to do. I will never be able to finish every single thing there is to do in this game. It drives me up the wall to hear people claim there's not enough to do, or that there's nothing left to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. It takes 7+ years to obtain every currently available achievement, and to my knowledge only ONE player in the WORLD has managed to do that.

[@shawnscouten5184]

Obviously there is no scenario in which Dawntrail actively loses money (even if there was a disaster of untold proportions, it takes multiple years for the financial effects to kick in like we saw in WoW). It is notable that Endwalker post patches had the largest player count drop off percentage on any expansion post-patch ever. Even though so many people joined in Endwalker that even with the player drop it was still bigger than Shadowbringers. But these massive drops in player retention suggests a missed opportunity, as they lost a large portion of the people who joined in Endwalker. This is likely at least a minor reason behind the emphasis on “more rewarding long term content” in Dawntrail. Don’t get me wrong, Endwalker was a massive financial success and is basically the main thing keeping Square enix afloat at this point, but they likely missed out on an even bigger success due to sub retention percentage declines compared to previous expansions.

[@clintmatthews3500]

When you give people a definitive ending people will naturally use it as a jumping off point. It’s just like the MCU. After Avengers Endgame people were done and even if the subsequent films were good, many still aren’t coming back.

[@adamosborne9440]

Gotta tell ya.... Endwalker has been my favourite expac. Yeah, a lot less grinding... but I'm married, have a busy job and kids... so that's been great! Post MSQ was a nice breather. Pandaemonium ruled. Myths of the Realm was super fun. Extremes were very good. Hildi was fantastic. Variant and Critereon are a little undercooked but a great first try. I actually play CC occasionally which is better than previous pvp. Island sanctuary...exists. Overall... I'm very happy with what I got for my sub.

[@saucepapi6741]

Uhh..... I dont know man its looking like your chart is proving them right. As a business I would say the increase is steadily good but how do we decrease the loss post patch. I agree Shadowbringers numbers are hard to judge. But Heavensward to Stormblood they only saw a loss of around 5 billion. I would ask myself what happened in that window that caused it to reduce loss. Looks like content like Eureka helps the game alot. Post patch revenue, Realm Reborn: +$10 Billion Heavensward: -$10 Billion Stormblood: -$5 Billion Shadowbringers: Even Endwalker: -$15 Billion

[@Zakjuh]

But it's also true that the higher the peak, the higher, potentially, the dropoff is. If you have 6 balls, and you lose 3, it doesn't seem like as much of a loss as when you have 1 million balls, and 500,000 are lost.

[@saucepapi6741]

@@Zakjuh Yeah your correct, but if we us percentage stormblood to shadowbringers = -12%. Endwalker to Dawntrail = -22.6%. If you calculate the loss percentage you can see a time where the percentage wasnt as much.

[@Zakjuh]

@@saucepapi6741 Fair enough. But also this isn't the most recent result, I think? It went back up with 6.3, down with 6.4 and back up a bit with 6.5 and is now holding at around 1.2m active players pre-Dawntrail according to LuckyBancho. (the 6.3 rise was inexplicably to me.)

[@SuperRamos619]

FFXIV was already on a natural increase year over year. SHB to EW was an explosion. Population spiked because of COVID and WoW bring in the worse state it has ever been at the time, lead to the population boom. It's natural that most of those players returned to their "home" game when it got better, and that increase to FFXIV maintains it's steady growth trend.

[@KaedysKor]

On a _percentage_ level (ie. inter-expansion revenue divided by launch revenue), the patch loss for Endwalker is lower than it was for Heavensward. Endwalker also, due to release timing and the extended development cadence, had two inter-expansion annual revenue reports while the others had only one, so it's somewhat statistically inaccurate to look at just the second of those, rather than the average of the two.

[@OriginalRockCandy]

Personally, the downtrend might just be because of the post covid times as well when most people are returning to normalcy. There's also more time inbetween this expansion and the upcoming one compared to the times inbetween other expansions which in turn gives more time for people to take breaks or leave. There's also other games that's come out these past few years that were really good which in turn takes away time. What i'm saying is that there's a lot of factors to why this downtrend is shown but with proper context and data which SE definetely should have, they can extract way more data out of this than we can at a glance. From my own analysis from this, it shows the game is healthy and is still gaining more than it's losing which is a good trend even if it shows a downtrend. Depending on how Dawntrail sales go, we will see if Endwalker was more of a positive expansion or not. But tbf, the initial release of it shows a incredible upturn which will potentially be hard to overcome depending on not just the community but also how many of the wow refugees come back as well. There's definetely improvements to do however which could have made the dip a little less steep imo. edited some typos and stuff.

[@Leon-dragneel]

With due respect, I think the better way to judge how its the worst is by comparing the drop and even from this chart, the drop past peak is highest in EW

[@Raika63]

By percentage is probably best and looks roughly in line with non covid expansions. That said the new players would have had a ton to do, and that peak is revenue and includes game purchases for the expansion plus any new players buying the base game - so even flat player counts would show a bump. I think it's really hard to judge sub counts by revenue alone and that's without getting into mounts and fantasia and such.

[@goglux2]

Do people not realize the hardest content in the game is winning the giant cacpot !?! How many people have that jackpot winning ring? Now that’s true hardcore stuff people!

[@recantedforger5850]

As a casual ff14 player I'm always looking forward to coming back to the game and never scared of missing out because like 99% of the content stays around. I've literally been playing since the RR and still in the same FC(never asked once to leave or phantom kicked for leaving months/year at a time for breaks). I dunno, the game has always just been there and unbelievably good and its probably why its the only mmo I've come back to since playing since WotlK. This expansion I haven't played 6.2 or further, so I got a bit to catch up for DT and I'm looking forward to it all again.

[@SMNtheNight]

Shadowbringers was a massive expansion launch. People tend to only talk about the streamer/refuge surge, but that happened late in the expansion cycle. I was already seeing TONS of new sprouts at launch and well into the major patches. It was receiving critical acclaim from absolutely everybody. For Endwalker to far surpass that and maintain a higher revenue "despite" all the noise and successes of Shadowbringers is nuts.

[@4SkippyRoo]

so grateful to have this channel back in my feed! Really a breath of fresh air in the ffxiv content space

[@FloatingFatMan]

I really don't understand the people that say Endwalker was rubbish or even "could be better"... Did they even play the same game I did?!?!

[@chelsthegameruiner8669]

I think it's mainly the post patch content, which I agree with now since it felt more like filler with the 6.x story. Granted, I've never played FF4 so I wasn't as invested. I did complete Island Sanctuary and did the V&C Dungeons (which I honestly did enjoy and I'm thrilled they're gonna be in DT)

[@elgatochurro]

I think they're just story skippers or not paying attention I've never seen such a massive conclusion to a game... Closest was the Avatar ending of the original series

[@light6713]

its mostly people that have no jobs but ffxiv that complained about it. arguably they were worse expansions. plus content creators that got nothing else to do but clickbait and make it sound like Endwalker was the worst expansion.

[@saberix69]

@@elgatochurro I seen people saying like the Endsinger was out of nowhere. And I got so confused because I knew she would be the final trial before the patch content. I really liked Endwalker's story regardless if some assholes call me dumb or a shill. I even liked majority of the patch msq things in Endwalker

[@elgatochurro]

@@saberix69 endsinger was literally the accumulation of each meteion

[@rtbear674]

You think people who just joined during the endwalker's rise would run out of things to do now? They don't normal people aren't content creators. even for raid I'm almost finished with TEA and UCOB, some years old contents, after clearing uwu on april. Still have DSR and TOP. Then they have the new one coming. Sad thing is EW relic will be outdated fast, because of the non adjustable stat. Though I get why, with EW relic stat, and you allocate it for lv UWU and ucob, you can get a weapon with 4 substat maxed out.

[@markup6394]

? What do you mean? You can re-adjust the weapon stats o.o

[@TheKrzycho5000]

​@@markup6394you cannot readjust them like in shb relic where you can do it up to a single point. Also EW relic doesnt offer direct hit for healers and Tanks and that's most important stat for the Weapon since in synced content you lose it entirely

[@rtbear674]

​@@markup6394 You can, but it will be just like any other weapon. 2 high substat, 1 lower substat. and lv 100 gear will definitely pass it. because you can only choose 3. Shadowbringer relic give you 467 stat point that you can assign to your weapon. 1 by 1, and because of that you can not overcap. Let's say ucob, it'll be capped at 127 substat. you can put Crit, 127 Det, 127 DH, 123 SPS, 90. If you use EW relic Crit, capped at 127 DH, capped at 127 Det, at 72. So ShB relic is still far better than EW relic for ucob and uwu. even TEA. you lose 141 points. So if you can assign EW relic substat 1 by 1, unlike how it's done in EW, you have 610 substats. You can have 4 substat for TEA Crit, Det, DH = 180 SPS = 70 or all substat maxed for UCOB and UWU.

[@KironX1]

Relics are almost always for glam honestly.

[@cynthiahembree3957]

@@KironX1 Yup I mean they are nice for early expac but they are always only good for flexing and looks after that

[@chrisanderson7820]

If you watch the market boards you can tell by item turnover how active an MMO is. I can only see a tiny drop compared to EW launch, plus my duties and Hunts are still loaded with sprouts.

[@Ruzgfpegk]

You live in Asia, so you're probably familiar with the exchange rates of the region, and as much as I like the game I think that taking this point into account completely changes the perception of the annual revenue graph. The graph is in Yen and in 2022 and 2023, the Yen exchange rate really tanked, which is bad for imports but good for exports (from the JP POV): 15$ in 2021 was 1650¥ (base ~110¥), and 2250¥ (base ~150¥) in 2024. So the revenue from the US and the EU should have been increased by that much if subscriptions stayed at the same level, or the revenue should have stayed at the same level if the subscriptions got lowered as much as the Yen. But despite the favorable exchange rate, the overall revenue dropped.

[@exiaedges]

While the largest percentage of players started in Shadowbringers and it is understandable for them to rate expansion base on the MSQ, it is annoying seeing players cherry-picking when rating expansion. There are nostaglic players have been playing for a long time will rate Heavensward as the best expansion solely on the MSQ and will ignored some of the major post game issues in it had like Diadem which was delete from the game twice, then they will criticize Eureka, Bozja, and the lack of large scale field instance in Endwalker. Stormblood was not perfect, but it is the most productive expansion when comes to its post game and quality of life improvement. Some people who are awared of the amount of post game content Stormblood have, will still say its worst expansion and won't ellaborate on why those post game content and quality of life do not work for them.

[@mauriciomartell2433]

I got the feeling after Endwalker, that my character could stop and smell the flowers. I actually enjoyed the relaxing pace with a plethora of options to pass time which were not mandatory. When I had to pull off was when I realized that my PC wouldn't go beyond Endwalker. Maybe I'll upgrade or move towards PS. I got disappointed that an Xbox S wasn't an option I'd like to come back eventually. It was a very fun ride

[@Jay-mx5ky]

6:26 You have said the main criticism you hear is that the midcore content is fewer and the job design is stale, but the reaaon you state is that the story is the main draw and it's made more single player friendly. When you use financial numbers to justify whether players are satisfied or that there's an issue in the game, you will go wrong every time. Endwalker sub numbers have so many factors to it. There are more servers, and therefore, housing than ever, and people have to continue to PAY monthly to keep their homes that are incredibly hard to get. Anyone who cares about that must sub to play. Endwalker also gave the best free trial of any game ever, with a far more attractive entry point from a story and gameplay standpoint (the beginning of Shadowbringers) than Heavensward's trial. Keep in mind that these same veteran players and streamers that you're talking about are Square Enix's greatest marketing tool. So much so that it became a meme all around. When veteran players become less inclined to play the game, there might not be an immediate effect, but people will eventually follow suit when we're not loud enough about our game.

[@geebster.]

60 billion yen is pretty crazy. 380 million USD o.o Its not WoW numbers but its pretty nuts.

[@ehwick8175]

I payed the sub most of endwalker, but I didn't raid like in shadowbringers and the most recent playing I've been doing is dawntrail hype, most time spent in eureka. Endwalker post expansion packs didn't encourage me in any way. Is this graph revenue generated by end walker content or just general interest in the game and all it's content?

[@clayskii]

I think it's fair to say that the doomers were definitely overblowing the state of the game as a whole. You're right that total revenue is definitely fine, higher than ShB. But I think many content creators were correct in critiquing that the EW patch content has been lackluster. The high revenue of EW launch is the aftereffect from a great expansion and patch content from ShB (and WoW exodus). EW started from the highest peak we've ever had, but it's also had the biggest drop off of any expansion. Some of this is dropoff after some unnatural growth, but you even mentioned in the video quite a bit of it could be from patch content not keeping attention. I think Endwalker critics are correct in saying Dawntrail should handle post-expansion differently, and luckily it sounds like they are.

[@Maria_Erias]

If you watch any of the videos about the Q&A from the North America media tour, one of the questions asked addressed this. Basically, Endwalker was lacking in end-game content because the team was busy going back, trimming the ARR MSQ, adding in duty support for every single expansion - basically reworking the game from the bottom up to be solo- and new-player friendly. They were looking to secure the future for newcomers to FF14. But now that that's done, their focus in Dawntrail is going to be on the MMO elements of the game.

[@clayskii]

@@Maria_Erias I mean that's what everyone suspected. It definitely did seem like resources were spread thin. No sane person was blaming the devs directly, just pointing out the content issue. The reasons being all the old content reworks, new expansion graphical updates, maybe ff16 development. The other issue being people gaslighting any critiques saying there were no new content issues and it's just a streamer problem. Which I'm seeing in these comments as well...

[@Maria_Erias]

@@clayskii I wouldn't call it gaslighting. That's a bit disingenuous. Mainly because it seems like the one thing people bring up when saying there's "not enough content" is a Bozja-like zone. Not everyone played Bozja. That's a kind of content that doesn't appeal to everyone, as not everyone enjoys a WoW-style grindfest. Just like Island Sanctuaries wouldn't appeal to everyone. Or Eureka Orthos. So, just because the content that was released wasn't something that jived with you doesn't mean that there was a problem with not enough content. It just means there wasn't enough to suit your personal tastes. And that's fine. That just means that content wasn't for you.

[@grevie]

Finally someone said it :) Thank you for your detailed information.

[@Xararion]

As someone who was busy finishing his masters thesis during Endwalker I was okay with the content, hell I didn't even get to all of the content I wanted to get to. I absolutely loved variant and criterion dungeons, I just thought they had a bad reward structure to them. It was fun content to do with my generally smaller group of friends. I had enough things to do with the time I had available and more. In previous expansions I remember actively disliking Bozja/Eureka since farming overworld mobs was always the lowest level of entertainment for me in the game, something I avoid as much as possible, I only ever touched them because relics were locked behind content I disliked. In my opinion XIV isn't really designed from ground up for that kind of zerg play.

[@Murdus81]

Those content creators are just fair weather fans and always have been. They have literal armies to carry them through content everyone else has to grind for months. Once they finish said content at break neck speed, they complain there's nothing left to do. Imagine DR bring completed while relevant and having all your desired drops, in the same month. I know I won't get an Ozma mount, or an ultimate weapon, but one day I'll get that two seater mount from Bozja, even if someone else already had it week one.

[@Tygaera]

Needing to upgrade old systems might play a small part in the graph for DT and it's important to keep that in mind.

[@droopyturtle98]

Holy shit EW current downtime income is much higher than SHB release thats amazing

[@ishirutaekakura308]

It's no surprise the game had a huge spike in Shb that has managed to continue further, it doesn't mean Endwalker did better.

[@droopyturtle98]

@@ishirutaekakura308 numbers dont lie of course it did, you can try and debate the content and all that but the game DID DO BETTER overall and in the metrics that mattered which is $$$$

[@pastaboy1338]

those are 30% degenerate ERP and 50% people who didn't want to lose their house. I have like 130 guys on my friend list and more than half of them only sub to keep their house or don't know anything to do but still sub because it's their habit.

[@markup6394]

@@pastaboy1338 Which has been the case for years ever since the game started, this is no news.

[@Dharengo]

​@@pastaboy1338That's the price people pay for keeping those plots out of the hands of people who actually play the game.

[@dallinjc]

Good video. I play ffxiv a lot, and was fine with less things to do this time around. I’m also excited to have more things to do next expansion. I think guys like me are ff fans and also yoshi-p fans - we’re just excited to be on the journey through the ups and downs, and we are usual pretty quiet about it.

[@blessedloaf6199]

I consider myself pretty casual, aside from clearing savage. FFXIV is easy to fit into my lifestyle compared to a lot of other games. I can meet folks, chat, play my game, then go to bed. It doesn't affect my work, my marriage, or my dogs 😊 I don't unsub because my discord folks need me to fill heal spots off the cuff sometimes 😂

[@DEE_MYZE]

This guy gets it. Great well delivered points here.

[@natebroadus8474]

I feel like if Endwalker's lack of Bozja-Eureka midcore type content leads to what Dawntrail appears to have (new field op, new Firmament-style crafting stuff, Etc.), then it was all worth it. Me? In terms of story, Endwalker is my favorite expansion. Post-EW's story was incredible for me, but probably won't truly shine until we go back to the 13th--sort of like the Warriors of Darkness plot from post-HW.

[@Heldemon]

I think I remember devs warning us that doing the graphics update would take a lot of their time and resources.

[@JamzP14]

@@Heldemon They did. As well as the revamping of the dungeons and duty support. There was the post-EW stream where they laid out the next decade planned.

[@TheGreatDanish]

Really? Endwalker was your favorite story? Did you even... like... play the previous 3 expansions? I'd say only ARR was worse than this jank mess of a plot that pulls its final villain out of thin air in the final hour.

[@JamzP14]

There was still "Firmament-style" content with the Island Sanctuary. (Sort of) See, it's an evolution from 2.0. First you had Revenant's Toll build up over the expansion, but that was too costly as they had to rebuild all of Mor Dhona each time 3.0 had Idyllshire (which is why it's separate from the Hinterlands). And improvement, but it's very much something new players can't enjoy 4.0 had Doman Enclave. Very, very basic gameplay (just turning in items for donations), but something every player can take at their own pace. 5.0 had Firmament. More involved gameplay, but it also had the issue of Revenant's Toll and Idyllshire. 6.0 had Island Sanctuary. Mixing Doman Enclave's unique player aspect with the more involved gameplay of Firmament; however, lacking the crafting aspect in terms of DoHs So we'll see what Cosmic Exploration brings. I'm hoping a mix of IS and the option to go without DoH/DoL classes or with them.

[@pastaboy1338]

@@TheGreatDanish I agree Meteion was introduced way too late but pulling the 'final' final of final villain out of thin air is what FF genre has been doing for more than a decade xD

[@Null_Experis]

That's still a massive decline. Heavensward dip = 29% decline Stormblood dip = 13% decline Shadowbringers dip = 2% decline Endwalker dip = 24% decline The message here is clear. Endwalker's post-MSQ experience was closer to the Heavensward experience for many than it was to the Stormblood/Shadowbringers experience. Engagement is a REAL metric that matters to investors. FF14 isn't in danger right now, sure, but that kind of dip NEEDS to be addressed. I hope Dawntrail is a course correction, but time will tell.

[@anaalvensleben789]

Covid.

[@Brahmsonite]

Don't forget how the algorithm rewards being an outage merchant.

[@shaginus]

I agree If my entire day are nothing but playing FFXIV I would reach a moment where there is nothing to do

[@Maria_Erias]

That's something Xenosys Vex mentioned at the start of it all, that the people complaining there was nothing to do were the ones who'd been playing the game constantly since 2.0, or streamers who no-lifed the game for subs. Which kind of highlights the difference between an actual content creator (Jesse Cox, the Grinding Gear guys, and Quazii here come to mind) versus the simple react streamers who do nothing but just play a game without being able to introduce any creative or original on their own to make it interesting when the game isn't spoon-feeding them content on its own.

[@maharaja101]

I've been playing on and off since Stormblood and most of the old content that I want to do I've done at this point. Sure there's always _something_ you can do, but what people wanted was NEW content that is engaging and that's where EW failed (at least for me) and why I spent most of the expansion unsubbed.

[@Maria_Erias]

@@maharaja101 Out of curiosity, what would you consider "new" content that is "engaging"? New EX trials? A new deep dungeon? New dungeon types (such as, I don't know, variant and criterion dungeons)? A sort of sanctuary that might just happen to be on an island? Or do you just mean something like Bozja, where people can go and mindlessly grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind for days on end?

[@maharaja101]

​@@Maria_Erias Variant dungeons were pretty meh for me and didn't have the longevity (didn't do Criterion) and Island Sanctuary basically runs itself. Eureka Orthos technically doesn't even exist for me because it's locked behind PotD floor 50 and I still can't bring myself to clear it lol. In all honestly a new Bozja probably could've saved the expansion for me as I've spent an inordinate amount of time in both Bozja and Eureka.

[@Dharengo]

​@@maharaja101And that's fine. The game respects your time and allows you to play other games.

[@ministabber4927]

Smiling and laughing Dev team, that alone says it all.

[@OmegaEnvych]

Funny enough - we had 2 ultimates, new Deep Dungeon, new PVP mode that was really good, lots of QoL updates, pretty good new dungeons, raid series while not without issues, was really good for new and veteran players (IMO Eden was better, but Pandemonium is better than Omega, Alexander and Bahamut), Alliance raid series is probably the best Alliance raid series to date. I think only thing that was lacking, were field expeditions (funny enough, people HATED Eureka, Bozja and Zadnor back during Shadowbringers as well as they HATED Deep Dungeons during Heavensward and Stormblood). Yes, a huge lot of content was postponed due to them adding NPC party members to story dungeons. Post patches were alright, but generally smaller story arc understandably was not super-beloved. Also IMO Zero was a great character and I hope to see how her story will develop in the future. I guess true - another issue was that there was not that much in terms of really new and repeatable content.

[@grygaming5519]

Why doesnt this post have enough likes. People are using hindsight to justify their anger towards EW. Would people enjoy the new exploration zone in EW....nah there would have been calls of it being trash. We were told far ahead that 6.0 was the end of story. Meaning anything after that was nothing more than a short story written by the writers to fill the patches. Sure filler arcs are hit or misses and the story from 6.1 - 6.45 does in fact look to be a hit and miss with the community. The streamers care more about eyeballs and advertisers, they view the game as a job...so any fun they had in the game was sucked out of them years ago.

[@nubitynub1757]

Pandaemonium is definitely worse than Omega and Eden. Alliance raids were really good, true. I don't see where people keep getting the idea that Bozja/Eureka/Zadnor were hated. This is a vocal minority. Most people enjoyed being able to do that content and the fact that people still go back to Eureka and Bozja to this day is proof that they are enjoyed. The deep dungeon was not very good imo as I preferred HoH in comparison. It also lacked as good rewards also my opinion. PVP in general was really good, probably one of the best things about EW same with the ultimates. DSR was initially meant to be a ShB fight but it got pushed to EW with Covid and TOP was... it was alright but I did not enjoy doing it as much as DSR that's for sure.

[@grygaming5519]

@@nubitynub1757 Panda was a step up from Eden. However no raid they have put out compares to Omega the fun and difficulty was balanced perfectly. There were reddit and message boards, about Eureka type zones. It was very well covered.

[@Dharengo]

A content creator who actually gets it? Rare.

[@Jordonzo]

These numbers aren't saying what you think they're saying. Is the revenue up from previous expansion? Yes. Does that mean player satisfaction is up? Definitely not. It just means there are more players spending more money. Square effectively doubled the number of cash shop items since shb, and while a small subset of players loyally buy every cash shop item, you still have to consider that revenue here as well. I belive this accounts for a much larger portion of this graph than we might expect. Now even if revenue is up, the decline in revenue post ew is much more significant in average rate of change than other expansions. This indicates that people just arent being retained and are not continuing spend money to the same extent thus kinda invalidating the topic of this video. If the trend continues it could normalize back to previous expansion levels, but with how much growth in playerbase we've seen in the last 3 years I seriously doubt that could happen unless dt is a complete and utter flop. Am I trying to be a doomer, no. I think XIV deserves to flourish even with some of it's story shortcomings. But this video kinda just feels like looking for what you want to see regardless of whether it's right or wrong.

[@beatrixkaelin5120]

I will continue saying the same thing always: The Loudest sounds are made by the part that's broken. Squeaky Wheels, you after you hit that nail that's sticking out, the belt in my car engine that keeps whining. If Content Creators are crying out in droves that there's no content, but you and your friends are having fun? Maybe they're the ones who need to be "Fixed." Play another game. "Oh but Streamers will lose audience and money and..." And if they cared about working hard for their brand, they would diversify and build up a loyal fanbase. If their audience leaves because they aren't playing the game, THEY are doing something wrong. Look at the Grinding Gear guys, They have good numbers playing other games. Comically, they do more than just Grind. Take a Look at Jesse Cox, He does a good deal of FFXIV, but way back he did nothing but WoW. Then he diversified and has a strong loyal fanbase that'll follow him around. There are plenty more examples, but you get the picture. If they're spending time complaining, they could be spending that time trying to branch out. They could be spending that time trying to build a loyal fanbase that will follow them into other games while they take a break from XIV. But no. They're working for the lowest bar of effort needed, especially if they resort to Games Journo level of Click bait that is taking a massive dump on anything. And hell, if you want "Lack of Content" look at how WoW creators handle it. Sure they have stupidly long Grinds they can do, but some of them make their own damn content, Like Asmongold making Glamour Contests. You can take an idea like that with your community, Make a challenge contest, like 'best OC do not steal' glamours making other game characters the best you can with XIV Gear. Challenge run dungeons or Raids (All Healer, All Melee, You Die you Die MINE). "But that's a lot of work." No Duh, If Content Creation is your dream job, the career you want to pursue to the limit, then you gotta be willing to put in the work. Wanting other people to do all of it for you is just showing how lazy you are. There's no way a Game Dev can make you good rewards in an infinitely replayable content. Take a look at twitch's statistics, the top 10 are PVP games. The first arguably PVE game is Minecraft at #13, then WoW (which still has a good PVP Community inspite of the devs giving nothing to that community in years) at #17. There's a reason I don't Stream. It's not because I'm camera shy, VTubing is a thing. It's not because I lack equipment, as I have recently upgarded my computer and still have my old one which is plenty good for rendering and streaming. The reason I don't try, is because I know how hard good Streamers work, and I know I'd crack under the amount of work it'd take to be a half-decent one, let alone a good one. You have to first and foremost be likable. You have to have something no one else does. You have to interact with your community. You have to spend time off Camera planning and working.

[@Amariyali]

In addition to the content creators, I also feel like there is a considerable amount of 'loud majority' that need to understand that just because there is nothing to do for them they enjoy, it doesn't meant there is nothing to do in the game. Because I think everyonehas a piece of content they just don't like or don't feel like doing or only feel like doing at a later point. And on top of that the FF community offers so much in terms of 'Make your own fun' with venues, conventions, RPs, Treasure Map events, etc. Some ppl spend all their time in game gposing or decorating their house! And I get if that's not your thing but saying there is nothing to do in game is in my opinion a very narrow way to view FFXIV or MMOS in general.

[@FuyuYuki92]

I think why Yoshi-P still acknowledges the critics is that as we have seen during shadowbringers leading to endwalker, influencers playing the game can also mean massive growth, so in my opinion things play into each other here. Also, it's important to maintain the core playerbase to ensure constant growth, especially because it's the core playerbase that advertises the game to other people too.

[@kelathos]

FF14 has a LOT to do for new players. Content creators? Would be like judging WoW solely by mythic raiders. While the "lull" was real, it was only an issue for those who had already done everything. But they kept my sub because they earned it.

[@TorManiak]

TL;DR: It has always been a cycle to tali about such a supposed "lack of content", and because this one's case is more vocal and valid than usual(and that Yoshi-P said they will address them), I think that the point content creators talked about were right to a certain extent. They were just more negative because they both love the game and have biases towards how they play. Even if the numbers are here, there's always going to be a period where content creators say such things, in order to boost their engagement to keep the views flowing, while still pointing out valid concerns that arose when you see the expansion's current issues for anyone. It's pretty much a cycle at this point. The only difference here is that it's been more vocal as of late because everything the vocal players(not just content creators) like to do is either not present, or done so fast they may as well not be here to them(Relic, lack of Field Operations aka Eureka/Bozja, etc), yet they want to keep playing regardless because they just like the game, even though the release of content is pretty sparse as usual. Which is to say, if there's enough merit for Yoshi-P to say in the Media Tour, Live Letters *and* news outlets that the devs acknowledged those issues with lack of content for them, took them to heart and that they're working on changes to that for both 7.x, 8.x and beyond, I'd say those content creators were, in fact, right. Not as right as to say it was imperative(you can easily tell why by just watching this video), but right enough to warrant such changes to be talked about, that's how I see it.

[@steveaustin4118]

I think what also content creators get is instant queues they can get their viewers to join for content making everything that much quicker

[@JakeCompton-do4em]

I'll be honest I was never a hug fan of Zero but versus previous MSQ questlines all of these were connected to the same story and just a random new story so even not liking a character as much I still wanted to comeback and play to see how the story played out. I hope this continues this in the future.

[@BeanSandwiches]

As a young adult i think alot of people also miss how endwalker has been huge in gettinf new people in. When i joined on shadpwbringwrs nobosy my age played ff14 and i was the youngest in my FC - even though i wasnt "young". Though now people my age have been getting into it alot more and i know alot of people irk who have started it out

[@AnjaliSmith.]

I was actually very glad about this so-called lack of content. It made it possible for me to either play something else or continue things ig that I started, but (due to my full-time job) couldn't finish. I'm very grateful for that.

[@SomeOne-vh1rm]

As a big FF4 fan, Endwalker was kick ass the fiend trials were pumping and the story was similar in a way to FF4 as well which I loved.

[@elgatochurro]

Thanks for making actual content to watch

[@Bardeus]

I have been playing FFXIV since around 2.1 patch back in the day. I really like the game, and Endwalker is a nice bowtie end for the story for me, once that was done i knew that it was a good moment to just stop playing it daily. Post patch content was indeed interesting but, it couldn't be compared to the end of 6.0. I firmly believe that for many people like me it would be the same case: I will sub for any major expansion release and then every time we get major content patches i'll be back. Every time you get to this time frame in the expansion cycle the nay sayers say the same thing tho... "Game is dead" "Not enough content!" "Is this the fall of FFXIV?!" and it¿s really tiring, but they get clicks so it works for them. Also, as you said with the Madness that was streaming FFXIV in the shadowbringers era of all the wow refugees , most of the are still trying to get the same views as when they were streaming the MSQ, so it is natural that they will complain. Nice video Quazii, hope we all enjoy Dawntrail.... I need to resub, btw xD

[@chiekokurokumo]

Also want to add... I went through EW and its patches to list all of the things they added into the game to make it better. Maybe (for one reason or another) EW didn't hold the same amount of numbers post-patch compared to ShB. There might be a variety reasons for that, regardless of quality of post-patch content. Sure. But I think, looking back, we'll be able to point at EW and consider it as a time where a necessary foundation was laid for the future. And, at the very least, CBU3 never baited-and-switched about what to expect. They delivered what they promised, which, compared to other games these days, is a blessing. I'm thankful for the experience I've had so far... and I'm looking forward to the new direction they are focusing on in the coming years. Edit: I agree that they gotta know how we are interacting with content... I wish they'd share those numbers! :)

[@Dharengo]

I mean I examine the content purely in terms of quantity. And I don't mean the amount of time people spend in it, just the quantity of the content itself. And it is about equivalent to or even more than Shadowbringers. We lost exploration content, instead we got a deep dungeon, island sanctuary, crystalline conflict, and V&C dungeons. In addition to them being hard at work updating the graphics engine and developing female Hrothgar, which is more work than other races have been up to this point due to the sheer increase in visible gear. It's clearly not quantity that it is lacking. It's just that the complainers have less content that appeals to them, personally.

[@Zakjuh]

@@Dharengo They also did duty support updates to old content.

[@Rine.4656]

As someone who has played 14 since 1.0, I find it amusing as we move through each cycle of an expansion. We're currently in the "doom and gloom" cycle where people freak out because very vocal content creators are unhappy for a myriad of reasons; the next predictable step is once SE drops the full job changes right before DT launches and the same vocal crowd cry because something changed (even though they haven't tried it yet). FF14 will be fine, play the game, decide for yourself and rely less upon the opinions of streamers.