I sometimes read the “professional” critics…even with a big grain of salt. But reading user reviews is useless. People will bomb a video game even if its “not green enough” so all those 0/10 reviews are useless. Pretty much your average troll/hate post on the forums…made in numbers.
Well… Thing is these are the same kind of people who vote on metacritic. And as far as I understand, OP do not really care about absolute scores, but he cares about relative scores.
So… The analysis is not as dumb as it may first look.
self-hating cultists…
Source.
Look at esti’s.
Steam isnt the only platform FFXIV is on. Its non steam, and Ps4/5 crossplay too.
Told you that. You dont wann read through posts?
Like, I really don’t get all the hate that suddenly appeared. There are quite some negative threads/posts on the US forums too.
I played quite a lot in the last 30 days, and I really really like the expansion so far. I disliked shadowlands quite a lot (Like most did), but I really love DF. I appreciate most of the changes they did, especially the way crafting now works. I also think the new Raid is a lot of fun, and PvP seems to be in a good state too.
However, I have not played warlords,legion and BFA - So maybe people that complain are just generally burnt out by the game, idk.
I think DF so far is a massive improvement and actually a really good time.
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Yes, if you stand nude and dance in front of me.
Same as with the 10/10s ?
Show me what data you have, I’ll ask again. Do you have anything to back up your claims or are you just parroting the same drivel they do over on the XIV forums? I see this come up so many times and yet nothing is ever provided to back up it up, no legitimate data exists for either game and it’s purely speculation.
stop hitting the dead horse.
Estis do exists and estis are a crap ton higher for FFXIV and thats where I base this on.
Like or or not.
You are the one in denial that WoW is losing players every expansion.
Blizzard even said ‘SL’ was record pre launch sales. YET, what happenent after that? They lost 70% of players.
Stats provided by Bellular btw.
40 mil active accounts vs… 5 mil or so, says a lot 
Just stop at Battle for Azeroth, that should have been the last WoW expansion. Copy/paste Battle for Azeroth and rename it to something else, then WoW will be back on track.
You’re the one in denial claiming XIV is growing and growing. The data I’ve seen regarding steam at least shows 30-31k average with it’s peak at 95k in December 2021. Whenever this is shown to zealots like you the response is always the same, denials and misdirections, the same excuses about PS4 and not steam, yet no solid data exists for that.
I’m not in denial either, I haven’t said WoW hasn’t lost players, unlike you, i’m not delusional, I know full well WoW had 12 million at it’s height and I know full well it’s declined over the years. I’m asking you to prove XIV is " growing and growing " the propoganda they feed you over on their subreddit yet can never prove.
So go ahead, prove XIV has 40 million active accounts, I’ll be waiting and ain’t you that toxic clown who said you’ll vote kick tanks for pulling mobs and ruining your experience? Do you do the same in XIV considering wall to wall pulls have been a thing for years now? (Yes, I play XIV as well, unlike you I’m not a zealot though) " "
Edit: I tried searching for your data, I found MMO-Population, it said FFXIV has 40.97m accounts, not all are active, it’s simply the accounts made overall, in comparison, WoW has over 124m, however, only roughly 3 million are active compared to 1.5m for XIV.
As I said before until official data is released we cannot know, what you say is simply speculation and assumptions even that MMO Population site is probably wrong.
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I very well aware of how to play FF14, I’ve been subbed non-stop since ARR.
But let’s look at Steam. For arguments sake let’s say the ‘stickiness’ is comparable to other platforms.
https://steamcharts.com/app/39210#6m
It hit a peak of 95k in December 2021, with an average of 54k players. Now let’s look at last month with a peak of 18.4k with a peak of 27k.
So the current peak is 28% of players; the average fairs better at 34% of players at it’s peak.
While FF14 is not dead (nor has WoW ever been) the influx of players it got last year clearly dwindled, quite a bit. There’s no way you can honestly say it’s playerbase is still on an increasing trend.
I wish i could post my excel graph. 
Yet you are still here…
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so if you don’t like the game why aren’t you just quitting
why are you trying to convince everyone else to partake in your misery.
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No way it can be true (massive sarcasm)
WoW was good until MoP ended. After that idiots ruined Classes, professions and gearing. Game still till hasn’t recovered from that and probably never will. Sharding and phasing makes sure it kills the immersion.
Not what people thought during MoP.
I’m sceptical of meta critic, but one thing stood out to me:
What do WOTLK and Legion have in common that makes them better scoring?
The best enemies.
An army of undead.
An army of demons.
A whole atmosphere of gameplay based around that.
I’m loving Dragonflight, but can’t get excited about primalists, rebel dragons etc.
Metacritic is a completely meaningless system the numbers mean nothing
It’s called Twitch and YouTube.
Something went wrong with some Shadowlands feature (which has been fixed later) that made streamers flocking to find an alternative… and the less crappier one was in fact, FF14. That doesn’t mean it’s better than WoW. It means it is better than the others.
Now Wow has to take back people trust after a failure in some of the systems and lore.
No, they’re clearly not. WoW players are and have always been extremely critical of the game. Some fanboys are out there of course, but do not even try to spin it as if we’re even remotely on the same level.
Do you have official/reliable numbers that prove this? Because I’m not a fan of reasoning based on memes or whatever crap influencers say. XIV had a surge in popularity just before Endwalker’s launch, and sure enough the game is doing very well, but since then, if you look at Steam numbers, it stabilised. Currently it’s back around 2021 values. XIV grew overall, but has spent the last year sliding down that spike just as fast as it rose.
We don’t have such reliable stats for WoW, but we do know that Shadowlands had the fastest launch sales of any PC game ever, and that it was the most played expansion in the last ten years, which roughly meant 9-10 million subs. XIV can’t even dream of reaching those numbers. I’d be happy if it did, but that’s just unrealistic. Of course SL subs dropped but were still in an order of millions. I imagine XIV might have surpassed WoW, during EW’s launch, meaning when WoW was at its lowest and XIV at its highest, but that’s it.
I’d be absolutely 100% happy if XIV was as popular as WoW, but that does not seem to be the case. Even Yoshi-P said that WoW numbers are unreachable and that talking about winning over WoW makes no sense.
World of Warcraft, even at its worst, was still an incredibly popular game, easily able top Twitch views. Do not let the mood of online communities sway your judgement. Especially since, with all SL’s flaws, that mood is not an accurate representation of the game’s quality nor of the wider player base’s opinions.
Hating on WoW gives you internet points, hating on XIV doesn’t, generally speaking. You can’t not take this into account, just as you can’t not take into account influencers singing praises to XIV when they had 20 hours playtime on the game, just to ride the trend.
Internet trends say something useful, but are not accurate representation of reality. Especially when WoW had an army of influencers who don’t even play the damn game, saying it’s bad for years just to get controversy clicks from mindless sheep in need of their fix of videogame war.
The historically low user scores of all WoW expansions prove this: we said the game sucked even “at its best” and the most popular, and anyone who played the game long enough should remember and know this well.
Why wouldn’t it make sense? You know internet trends are a thing right? WoW players, as objectively demonstrated, have always been critical of WoW. Some could say we’re a diffident and cynical community, I like to say that we’re a bunch of karens who simply enjoy moaning about this and that. But the fact doesn’t change: hating on WoW has always been cool.
I’ve been in the XIV community long enough (since 2015 I believe) to know it’s the opposite over there. I’m not saying we don’t have reasons to love XIV, it’s a great game. I’m saying the community is extremely more protective of their game. XIV has always been the hidden gem reviewers tell you about without having ever installed the game, it’s always been cool to praise XIV like it was the second coming of Christ.
Not only that, XIV players always had this weird sentiment of revenge against WoW, as if they had to prove something, that results in endless, groundless comparisons between the two. I was actually kicked from a FC for the sole reason Discord showed I was also playing WoW. Reason: betrayal.
This got even worse when “WoW refugees” started playing the game, since they just had to prove that their new girlfriend had bigger fun bags than their ex-wife. The fact that somehow XIV popped up in this discussion out of nowhere, and it’s always XIV, never any other MMO, is telling.
The funny part is I’m old enough to remember when the rivalry was WoW-GW. Same vibes, same discussions, same omnipresent comparisons between the scuffed game incompetent Blizzard devs are putting out, and the WoW killer.
These internet phenomena are not, if you’re honest and rational, something indicative of the game’s quality and success.
In fact, so far I’ve always said “WoW players” and “XIV players”. What I should’ve said is “online community”. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of players simply play their favourite game without ever engaging with these silly debates.
See, this is what I hate so much about the XIV community: the dishonesty and the double standards.
Have you ever set foot into a WoW raid? You know WoW raids have multiple bosses in them, right? Have you ever cleared SAV? Ever got KSM? If you did you’d know how much complex, difficult and repeatable WoW instances are compared to XIV. Instanced PvE content is where WoW was always an exellence. There’s a reason WoW has a thriving sports scene and XIV doesn’t, there’s a reason WoW’s WF race lasts weeks and XIV’s lasts hours.
And no, it’s not “just” M+, raids and PvP (aka the three most important and replayable branches of content), it’s got story quests, events, rares and world bosses, renown content, professions and 18 years worth of quests, zones and rewards.
Decline content wise? Blizzard is hiring more devs, going so far as acquiring studios, and you make up, completely out of nowhere, that we’re going to have less raids? Why? So you can dance the “XIV won” mambo?
See, this is what I’m talking about. People going out of their way to preach XIV’s superiority by having double standards as high as mountains.
If WoW had a 300 hours long mandatory campaign before being able to raid, if a quarter of the playtime was spent watching characters silently walking in and out of cutscenes, if PvP was reduced to a push the cart minigame, if Blizzard removed talents, builds and gear choice from the game, WoW players would go kamikaze on Blizzard HQ.
But when it comes to XIV, features WoW players would absolutely hate suddenly become amazing or get omitted.
WoW does a lot of things “better” than XIV. It’s way bigger on challenging end-game content. It’s got a more vibrant, more interactive, more vertical and interconnected world. It’s got a more varied class design, with fewer core abilities and way more utilities, compared to arbitrary 14 buttons rotations, most of which are “does x damage” and “does y damage if used after Z”, with almost no (and mostly useless) utilities. You don’t glide in XIV, you don’t disengage, you don’t kite, you don’t manage pets, you almost never interrupt, you don’t silence, you don’t soothe, you don’t banish, you don’t trap, you don’t double jump, you don’t reverse time, you don’t turn into a bird and fly away… Classes are more varied, they have way more flavour.
You actually have a semblance of RPG mechanics in WoW, from race/class choice to specs, talents and gear. Gear is more varied, imagine if ALL tanks in WoW had the exact same gear with the exact same stats and exact same BiS items. Imagine if you didn’t have talents and every skill was baseline. Imagine if WoW players were forced into the Bozja grind for months in order to get their legendary.
This list could go on forever.
And I’m not saying all this as an argument in favour of WoW’s superiority. That’s why I put “better” in braces. These are just differences. I love XIV because it’s a simpler, more chill game. I love it because of its unique merits, not because it’s superior: it’s not. If you measured XIV by WoW standards, by what WoW players want from WoW, XIV would get absolutely destroyed on almost all fronts. AND viceversa. If you’re a fan of mandatory visual novel content, you will never be happy with WoW. And this isn’t the case just now, this was true during Shadowlands and BfA as well.
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