The MMO model is so bad these days that they have to struggle to keep people around even before it actually becomes a problem.
They can't stop the decline because it's all in the design. You don't have any reason to dwell around areas longer than the advancement curve requires (which these days is like 4 hours). You almost never have any other meaningful things to do outside of leveling and crafting up until max. There's pretty much never a reason to group so nobody does it. And the loot...It's like everybody who makes MMOs these days have never played an RPG before. Loot is so carefully balanced these days. In SWTOR you got the same stat organization on your shit straight up to the top with little surprises thrown in even on the rarest shit. It's like that in nearly every MMO now. If i see it i'm immediately canceling my subscription. And there's never enough art. Three of the last five MMOs i played didn't even have helms put in properly before I quit. Nobody spends enough time before they put out the game. They always think they can do it after the fact but it never pans out. If you put out unfinished bullshit, then you aren't going to get the bodies to help you make up for it later on.
They can't stop the decline because it's all in the design. You don't have any reason to dwell around areas longer than the advancement curve requires (which these days is like 4 hours). You almost never have any other meaningful things to do outside of leveling and crafting up until max. There's pretty much never a reason to group so nobody does it. And the loot...It's like everybody who makes MMOs these days have never played an RPG before. Loot is so carefully balanced these days. In SWTOR you got the same stat organization on your shit straight up to the top with little surprises thrown in even on the rarest shit. It's like that in nearly every MMO now. If i see it i'm immediately canceling my subscription. And there's never enough art. Three of the last five MMOs i played didn't even have helms put in properly before I quit. Nobody spends enough time before they put out the game. They always think they can do it after the fact but it never pans out. If you put out unfinished bullshit, then you aren't going to get the bodies to help you make up for it later on.