Is FFXI Dying?

I don't think SE cares that much about whether or not people who are cheating come back or not. If they ban someone for repeated offenses, they aren't thinking "oh no, what if that person doesn't come back?"

I think people take MLs WAY too seriously. You know my solution to "EP is boring"? I don't EP. You don't have to be ML50 on every job to do content. You don't need ML anything, for any content. I guess technically you probably need ML5 on some jobs for Super Jump, but outside of that I cannot think of a single scenario where you can't clear any content without a high degree of MLs. I've cleared V25 bosses on ML0 jobs, ML15 jobs, etc. I have like...1 job above ML40 and fewer than 5 jobs above ML30 across both characters.

It's really WAY too heavily emphasized by people, you can just ignore them, you don't need to bot EP 7 days a week 8 hours a day to play the game. I'm sure part of this is meta because people in "the community" insist they won't invite anyone who's not at least ML30+ 40+ or whatever to their PUGs, but that's *** and anyone who insists on this is a moron not worth your time.

Sorry, but I have 0 sympathy for people who got suspended, banned, or quit because they felt they needed to bot to keep up with MLs, even if they are fun, genuine people. People will come up with any excuse under the sun to pass off their behavior.

This is horrible advice, outside of the “ban worthy” part, and its mostly safe provided youre not running it for 48 hours straight.

If someones gonna bot, theyre gonna bot. What are you gonna bot thats “the most efficient use of your time”?

JP. I would rank gifts higher than ML for most jobs.

Bot ep for a job you play: bad use of your time
Bot jp for a job you dont play: excellent use of your time

ITS THE SAME *** THING

My suggestion is that you actually play and learn the job while you're mastering it. Ignore ML because at that point, gear is higher priority.

I see both arguments. Many of us with a family/partner/responsibilites don't want to use the little time we may have to exp mindlessly so from that perspective I somewhat understand the use of it.

On the other hand mindlessly botting for the other 22 hours of the day non stop is ridiculous. You are absolutely 100% abusing those tools and asking SE to drop the banhammer on you. ML50 is nonsense and isn't going to miraculously make you a better player. Those individuals I have no sympathy for personally.

Be smart... but then again apparently we have individuals who prioritize a video game over the babies they have to take care of, so maybe that's way beyond expectations and asking way too much of a manchild.

We can try and let math answer this question...?

According to the "database" on ffxiah.com, the total number of active characters is 65,207.

The number of "mules" people have is unknown, but is included in this total (65,207). So for example, if every one with an active account had 16 characters, this would give (65,207/16) = 4706 different paid subscriptions/accounts.

The number of people paying for mog wardrobes (beyond the first two that are free) is unknown.

Therefore, assuming every account has 16 characters, no extra wardrobes, tells us SE is pulling in ~$110,000 USD a month.

Realistically
Let's make some realistic assumptions. We know people multibox, RMTs definitely multibox. Most people don't have a main character with 15 mules. Some people have all 8 wardrobes (2$ per wardrobe = +12$ per month); Some have less, or none.

So, conservatively, if we assume each account has their main + 4 mules)- so 5 characters total, that means there are (65,207/5 characters per sub) subscriptions, so approximately 13,041 subscriptions. To determine the monthly revenue in this case, we would multiply the 13,041 subscriptions by the 12.95 + 4$ per month (1$ per mule), so $16.95. Therefore,

Total revenue (monthly) from subscriptions: $221,052 a month.

Now, the mog wardrobes. Let's take a conservative estimate, and say on average, people pay for 3 extra wardrobes per month. That's an additional 6$ per subscription. Using the (conservative) estimate of 13,041 subscriptions x $6.00 per subscription, that gives a monthly revenue from 3 extra mog wardrobes of:

Total revenue (monthly) from 3 wardrobes per sub: $78,248.

So let's get a total revenue per month, and then by year.

Total monthly revenue = revenue from subscriptions + revenue from mog wardrobes (3 extra on average)

= $221,052 + $78.248

= $299,300 per month.

Let's extrapolate for a yearly revenue then:

= ~$300,000 per month x 12 months = $3,600,000 a year.

So, is final fantasy dead? It depends on how you define "dead". Realistically, they're pulling in probably about $3 million a year. In terms of MMORPGs I have no experience in what is "good" versus "bad" in terms of total revenue. This figure also doesn't reflect employee wages, taxes, building costs, server maintenance fees, electricity etc.

Hope this helps provide some perspective.

Killing mobs for CP (a good thing to bot) or EP (a bad thing to bot) isnt really gonna teach you much. Grinding XP/CP/EP really doesnt teach much that is endgame relevant. I'm trying to word this next part properly so bear with me, but what jobs in FFXI have a skill requirement that can be mastered by killing low-difficulty fodder for hours on end?

Depending on these three factors, you could master all 22 jobs within 1-2 months:
1-How good is the group carrying you
2-How dedicated are you to dumping that JP when you hit 500
3-Did you catch a XP/CP campaign

Killing colibri or otherwise doesn’t teach anything…. Mobs don’t kill you, are not dangerous, do not link, do not spawn a NM, that doesn’t teach you MB, absorb Tp strat, SB strat, proc, OA … and so forth. i met more people that just can’t understand the game’s mechanics that did not bot than the opposite. Botting is irrelevant of competency. What’s relevant to people perception of the game "dying" is some try to pretend to be so puritan that they willing to lose the game over it. Also, I bet most that say something here have never play with me, neither did I play with them, but I don’t criticize their play style, botted or not, as it’s no what prevents me from playing or succeeding at task throw in front of me.

Play with people, chat stupid thing on discord, ask for help, learn how to create a community, shouts for a fill up once in a while, don’t be bother by other, while doing task in the game is what will prevent the game from "dying"

Missing the point.


Don't bot at all, because it's not worth the risk. Playing the job to job mastery isn't going to make you amazing, but it's far more valuable experience than bot/afk. You have to play the game ourself to get better at it.

Don't bot, pay someone to bot for you.

Zero risk and they do it better than you.

Be efficient. Unsub one month, use the 12.95 you would've wasted to buy M40.

You can learn things in CP though...

What skillchains are possible with your WS? What's the average WS damage for each WS? Do they spike, or are they consistent? You can try out different equipsets to see how much damage each one does. You can mess with different toggles for different amounts of PDL, accuracy, or whatever. You can make sure your macros are in the place you want them to be, get your muscle memory going for where everything is so it's quicker to do in an emergency.

You can familiarize yourself with how your damage varies when certain JA are up or down. You can understand the impact of things like Climactic Flourish vs Building Flourish. Understand how often you retaliate with a single mob on you (or two or three) and how that affects your TP gain rates. Feel the difference between self-skillchaining while dual-wielding vs single-wielding. Compare WAR/SAM two-hander to WAR/DRG two-hander. See how magic and hybrid WS compare with physical WS. How's a 2-step SC compare to a 3-step or 4-step?

Plus loads of other things. Having these experiences will make you a more effective player of those jobs. Though most people will just spam a single WS over and over again because it's simpler.

I’m getting a secondhand copium high from this thread

I believe it was added after the 24+ hour PW Fight made the news.

Pretty standard "don't sue us if you neglect your family" statement for MMOs. XI wasn't the first game to make news for this type of thing and other games before it had similar statements. XIV probably says pretty much the same thing.

Sounds like it's just time to play a different game where folks can enjoy the 1-2 hrs of gameplay they've got. Botting content X, buying gil to merc content Y, all so you can maybe get a group to play content Z.

It's been there from the start, I remember seeing it when I started in 2002 and my parents commenting on the warning.

Grinding xp isnt gameplay.

How is killing the same mob over and over learning how to play the job? Lol

I guess I'm surprised nobody responded to this yet; 4 mules is the realistic assumption? Is that really the norm and I'm the odd one out here?

Personally I have -a- mule, mostly just to hold all the things I really should have thrown away a decade ago, but can't bring myself to do so.

I also have one mule to store extra znm pop items I get from nni campaigns and currency from ambuscade. Most people have just one or two. Multiple mules and alts isn't the norm at all

It's an average. 10000 have 16, 5000 have 2. Somewhere in the middle.

4 is probably a little ambitious. The ones who have <4 probably buy wardrobe(s) to come to the same sub price.

Don't overthink it. It's not relevant to anything.

The game makes money, you know this is fact because it's still online. That's all that matters. If the profit was zero or negative, it'd be closed.

Its actually the opposite: killing the same mobs over and over can potentially create vices.

Because its natural you to develop a method with the lowest effort possible to accomplish a goal.

So, maybe capping haste, one attack buff, dia ii and youre set to go for hours snd hours

While in actual content, your firced to prep your team squeezing all options available, like using added effect WS, rotating JAs without delay, reapplying buffs, maybe reacting to mobs patterns, etc.

I can say for myself, over time i grow incredibly lazy on keeping all those variables updated in real time, so no wonder my pergormance was always subpar

I think 4 same account mules is too high, and 3 wardrobes is also too high. But, the general gist is still reasonable(less same account mules increases estimate by more than less wardrobes decreases it, at this rate). Operating expenses are likely to include:
-under 100k in additional electricity/bandwidth/hardware costs because servers are kept in a facility SE already maintains
-6 dedicated worker salaries, at japanese pay rate, none of which are full developers (likely 350k range, maybe a bit more)
-under 50k in support staff, since they are also tasked with FFXIV and you are just borrowing a small portion of resources rather than establishing new facilities and hiring
-contracts with payment providers and other companies that handle international business (may be done in house, but doubt it)
-occasional borrowed development labor from FFXIV staff, this is hard to quantify but likely not significant.. again, doesn't require additional facilities or hiring or HR

It's likely that the game is making 3-4 million in revenue yearly, and it also has the numbered FF element behind it.

Obviously its not common everyone having 5 mules.

If your ls has 13 people, only 2 of them will have 5 mules.

The mules will only play one account at a time.

That's why competitions and industries are dominated by athletes and artisans and experts who showed up without ever practicing right?

There's no substitute for practice. Muscle memory, job familiarity and personal experience all contribute to being a better player

I don’t merc anything, earned all my clear and weapons and ***, you can log anytime on phoenix and will not see Gav botting. You making assumptions because you just can’t understand what someone is saying. I said I miss my friends, some have botted, and got the 3 days, that lead to the entire exodus of the group and more than once. That’s one of the reasons the game is emptying. XI is à also a place where dads and moms come at the end of the day to relax, and to do some content, some have botted, big effing deal, whoa!!!. That’s what I said.

You on the other hand is encouraging people to leave and at the same time post on a forum "is FFXI dying?" What do you do to keep it alive? I post, I shout I take shout I interact I play the content and no one that has botted has affected my game play, that’s in your bias mind

I literally just answered this question.

Killing "Apex Mob" over and over will teach you nothing.

Killing "Named Boss" over and over will teach you proficiency.

Fighting 12 million Robber Crabs didn't make you a better healer on Fluffy. Healing at fluffy made you a better healer at fluffy.
(Maybe it trained you to stay awake for 4 hours while nothing happened, lol)

Muscle memory