I'm perfectly fine with the mogstation offering optional items and services. people seem to think that this is the first time a p2p mmo has had a shop that has sold optional non game breaking items.
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I'm perfectly fine with the mogstation offering optional items and services. people seem to think that this is the first time a p2p mmo has had a shop that has sold optional non game breaking items.
The maintenance seems to not have addressed the issue that was discussed here. So after careful consideration on their actions, I had made a big post and decided to bring it to this topic as it is relevant. Apologies if this offends anyone.
With that out of the way, let me discuss the pay-to-win aspect with you. Players have argued that the players taking advantage to this is causing a pay-to-win environment. So I did a little research and dug a little into the matter. So I would like to share my findings, my experiences, and my opinions. Most of which are already explained in the quote above, so I'll try to keep this brief.
I looked into the matter by turning my thinking around and looked at the situation from a different angle. What I discovered is something that throws away the pay-to-win argument out the window in no time flat. What was argued was that these players who obtained gil by selling the Bracelets are gaining signifigant advantages by buying gear from the market and gearing up to the teeth with the best gear Gil can buy. Allow me to point out one flaw to this argument; time.
Given some thought, you will realise that the advantage they gained is just the time it took to get what they wanted. That is the only advantage. I've looked into the recipes of those crafted gear and materia and discovered that you can obtain every single material for free. The only downside the the fact that it takes time to gather up these materials. This can also be said for buying clears. Given the time, I think everyone has the capability to defeat every fight without having to pay a single Gil. The people selling these clears are cashing out on player's impatience. So what does this mean for us? We're all very impatient.
That is exactly my point. Pay to win is about paying rl money for an ingame advantage. In this case, the advantage is time.
It can take weeks for someone to earn 20m by crafting/gathering/desynthing. Or he can just earn the 20m overnight by selling wedding bracelets. If that is the case, then what is the point to crafting, desynthing grinding for supras/master book when you can just spend $20+ for gil?
As stated before, easy solution: Make it so that any character can only obtain 2 bracelets, EVER.
No, you're misunderstanding the point that I'm trying to make. It isn't about earning the gil, it's about working towards your goal. What advantage they have is time, yes, but you can also get what they have given the time. Look, the way you're explaining the situation makes it seem like players can't take the time to do it themselves. This is evident because people actually bought the Bracelets with Gil. What we're missing from the equation is patience. The pay-to-win argument is under the assumption that time is the main advantage. However, the point I'm trying to make is to dismiss that argument by introducing the fact that if given time, the player can achieve the same goals.
If it takes you two weeks to get something someone else can get in a few minutes, what difference does it make? You both have the same things, but the main difference is the time you took to get it. Someone decided to choose a faster way, and the other took their time to go by the most cost-effective way. My stance is still the same on the matter. I do not support people selling the Bracelets for Gil, but at the same time, I do not support those who are against getting the same results at a slower pace.
Weeks? hold on here... I'm on Jenova, the smallest server with the smallest amount of gil in circulation. I made 10 mil in the past 6 days, just desynthing brass crafting rings for fieldcraft 1's, then selling them on the market board. in my spare time I did my gathering of unspoiled nodes, but still.
and why craft, desynth, and grind for 20 mil instead of buying it for $20? for one, I don't have that kind of money readily available to spend, and two, 20 mil barely gets a quarter of what is required for crafting endgame (artisan HQ pieces are currently selling for 9-10 mil per piece), and unless someone has the real world money to keep buying wedding bracelets (making SE a fortune in the meantime) 20 mil isn't going to get him far.
I wont even count battle class gear, since pentamelded i110 on someone without the skill to get it on their own in the first place wont even be able to clear Tam Tara HM, let alone any extremes or turns.
I think this is even too simple. I've so far bought four myself - I gave two to another couple in my Guild as a xmas present.
I personally never thought on selling them but can see as to why players may have jumped to this chance of gaining a lot of gil in one easy go. People buying them though - how can you afford two of these? They sell for like 10 million each most times on my server @_@
I donno to me it feels a little cheaty to get an item out the cash-shop then sell it and become rich - but people play games in different ways I suppose :P
create a new character
buy 2 bracelets
sell them
repeat.
I abused your solution in about 30 secs of thinking :/
Make them untradable, possible to have 2, and the couple has to have 2. Won't solve the "selling EB's mount and dresses" part but I don't think you can do anything to stop a db being a db...
There is actually a solution which is even a steam has, why not make it gift option in the mogstasion. By selecting gift, you need to put character name and choose their world (you need to do this immediately). After that, the item will be sent to specified player using mogmail (as the trade in-game is based on trust, make the mail is delayed between 6 - 12 hours). The item is bound from the beginning. I think this will solve all of any problem regarding this. What about the item which gained by player before ? Give them 3 days, after that the item will be automatically bound to that player.
Now what about account wide item ? Account wide item must be bought by the owner of the account and cannot be gifted. Anything related to account cannot be gifted (appearance change, name change, etc).
Pay to Win is getting an in-game advantage by paying real world money. You acknowledged that players who bought and sold the bracelets have the advantage of time. Hence, my point, Pay to Win.
And I am not against obtaining them the slow way. If I were then I would have started selling the bracelets myself.
20m was just an example. The amount of time to make that will depend on server economies. Besides, it took you 6 days to make 10m. It would have taken someone only a few hours to make the same amount with the bracelets.
And another thing. For you to have been able to craft, gather and desynth, you had to level your classes, which you invested both time and money in. People who sell bracelets only need to spend $20+ and make money much much faster.
It doesn't matter how harsh the effect is. There is now a P2W aspect to the game. This would be fine if FFXIV were F2P but it's not.