So...
There's been talk about how WoW is starting to crash.
Interested to know your thoughts about it as well as whether or not you think the same fate will befall FFXIV or if you think both games are suffering the same problems right now.
Inquisitive minds and all that.
*puts on fake monocle*
They're vastly different games, so they aren't going to behave the same way.
FFXIV can't "crash" the same way WoW does because FFXIV doesn't place any importance on "retention metrics". The producer/director has stated multiple times that FFXIV, if you're prefer, is a game where you can sub, check out all the content currently, unsub and play something else, and then just come back when there's new stuff.
FFXIV also has a tons of side content that isn't tied into player progression (Triple Triad, Chocobo Racing, Housing, Majong, Lord of Verminion, etc) that serves as decent filler between content patches, where as WoW has none.
WoW's major problem is grinding, gating, and burnout. Everything in WoW is tied to player power - every faction grind, every raid grind, every daily/weekly quest, world quests, whatever, even the PvP grind is all tied to player power. For most of WoW's playerbase, this checks a very specific and satisfying box game-feedback loop of "getting more powerful" but the issue is there is a huge wall eventually as players hit whatever their goal is (either full conq gear, a certain arena rating, certain raiding progression, etc) that there is very little to do after the fact.
This creates a
major issue, though, as if everything is tied to player power - content that is no longer good for player power is effectively dead or literally removed from the game. Legion weapons/class halls, Warlord's garrisons, WOTLK's jousting mechanics, any reputation/questline/faction that only rewarded gear (basically all of them) are all dead/worthless content. I don't currently play WoW, but if you weren't interested in PVP/Raiding - I honestly have no idea why you would play it currently.
There's also the issue of gating - everything in WoW is behind a series of incredibly large gates. Getting into any of the "important" aspects of the game becomes a huge time commitment. "Serious" raiding involves various levels of farming, sometimes to a point of absurdity (island expeditions in Legion), PTR tracking, and any
other activity that rewards good gear (PVP, Mythic+ dungeons, and Torghast). PVP (frequently). You're forced to engage with many parts of the game that are long and tedious, parts you may not enjoy or actively hate, in order to play the parts you like - and those parts may not be all that great in the end.
These aren't just "grind" gates, either - they're time gates. With weekly caps, lockouts, diminished returns, etc - these all run these progression systems out over a number of weeks, sometimes months. You (currently) would need to run Torghast for a few hours a week, every week, for 4 weeks to get a "max power" legendary that is relevant to player power. You also need to grind dungons/reputations to get the runecarver powers to put on said legendaries. PVP gear upgrades are locked behind your weekly covenant progression and Arena gear upgrades require a
fucking lot of honor (the battleground currency).
This all leads, ultimately, to burnout - which is extremely bad for WoW. WoW's bread and butter is raiding, but individual player burnout can very easily lead to an entire raid group burning out as they don't want to deal with replacing players that drop off the roster/just stop showing up. Your "raider" pool is very shallow because of the treadmills the game puts infront of the activity so it isn't like you can just grab an eager new player "off the boat" - they've got to grind from ilvl 150 to 200 first. They need to do several weeks of Torghast to get legendaries/soul ash/whatever the fuck, they need the corresponding reputations to revered/exalted - there's a decent chance they may just say "fuck it, raiding isn't for me" and just watch it on twitch instead.
FFXIV doesn't really have
those issues because the game has more/varied content and doesn't
force you into any of it that you might not like - it's all extremely accessible.
Players leave FFXIV and WoW - WoW just has them frequently leaving with a very bad taste in their mouths and thinking "do I really want to come back next time?" and usually the answer is "no" unless it's a new expansion dropping.
