Yoshida did not make this game pay-to-win. The players did. *NOT a cash shop thread*

This is often why I push for storymode to NOT include Raids, or to have a solo mode of all content where you have npcs that fill out your party.
Easy:
Light Party
Option to bring a friend or 3. NPCs will fill the remaining slots.
Reward the current Tomes for non current gear. (Solidarity etc) Will chance of out of date gear to drop.

List it via Duty Finder:
Ex: The Coil of Bahamut Turn 1 (Story)
Crystal Tower (Story)

This way folks can bare minimum see the storyline without getting carried, paying for a clear, and "inconveniencing" players who have already cleared.
They can farm their glamour armor, and normal modes, hard modes, & etc remain untouched.

It's less 'pay to win' and more 'pay to catch up so you can go into a static'. T9 requires a serious, skilled group, and putting together one of those who are willing to commit to a raid schedule when 90% of serious, skilled groups are trying to down T13 is a pipe dream. It's 2.2 T5 all over again, basically.

The other option is suffering through DF so you can suffer through PF - if your server is even willing to join a progress/learn group. It's a process that can take weeks to months depending on your luck, at which point you're gonna have to buy your FCOB wins to join the only FCOB groups that fill.

But why do any of that when you can just craft/convert/marriage band up 5 million gil and purchase a run? Well, maybe you're one of the few who wants to actually attempt to execute the content, but you're a stark minority on most servers - so get used to AFKing in PF while you pray a straggler static picks you up and actually stays cohesive in the process.

It's not really the sellers' fault, though they're economically motivated to lobby for the status quo. It's the shoddy loot and raid progression design FFXIV's endgame is plagued with.

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Originally Posted by Krr

It's less 'pay to win' and more 'pay to catch up so you can go into a static'.

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Any decent static would help the replacement or member catch up to start progressing. One of our members changed to NIN for FCoB, so we farmed SCoB for NIN drops.

If you take in a replacement or a member for a static knowing what state they are in progression wise and expect them to magically catch up solo then you arent a team player. Also doing earlier content to help them catch up gives you practice in synergy with the new player/s.

Try again.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Any decent static would help the replacement or member catch up to start progressing.

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Any static that's recruiting from outside of an exclusive social clique is going to demand experience in the current content they're doing. It doesn't matter what you think a 'decent' static is, or what your semi-casual friends FC does, that's the common practice.

Half-competent FCOB statics don't do T9 carries. They expect you to have done T9, with gil or otherwise. They expect you to have been PF practicing T10, T11, and possibly even T12, and if they're on T13, they'll scoop up someone who was with another static doing T13, not you. This isn't necessarily because 'T9 makes you good' but because 'doing our content and having seen our content makes us less likely to destabilize trying to reteach someone'.

Do you think Collision is out there getting world first by recruiting players still stuck on T5? Hell naw.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the sentiment, but it doesn't match the existing reality of how the game works.

I had a feeling it wasn't my fault that I wasn't clearing Titan. I just had a gut feeling. So a group on Lamia has been shouting for "free" Titan Ex clears - then can do it with 7 people, carry style, but this way they get a newbie bonus on top of their pony farm. (The only rule was No Lotting On Ponies. That's fair.) So I went in, and I stayed ALIVE and ON THE PLATFORM until he was down to the last 5%. One of the "carry" team fell off at 30%. Amazing what happens when you are allowed to join a party with people who know what the heck they're doing.

That said, I'd considered just paying the durn million gil for the Pay To Win clear, because I enjoy crafting and have a nice little nest egg with nothing to spend it on til I hit the next stage in my relic.

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Originally Posted by Krr

Any static that's recruiting from outside of an exclusive social clique is going to demand experience in the current content they're doing. It doesn't matter what you think a 'decent' static is, or what your semi-casual friends FC does, that's the common practice.

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And you don't think they would notice if someone pays to get carried through content that they don't know the content?

Random person joins a raid group demanding clear experience of turn 9. Random person paid to get carried through t9, in fact suicided in the wall to not wipe the party due to inexperience. As you know, if you have no clue for placing golem meteors, wipe inc.
The statics you are talking about will recruit in house from known and proven players first, not randoms in PF so, honestly that argument is moot. The ones in PF are not the top 1% that push for world first.
The world first raid FCs have synergy between players from constant practice and playing together, that takes time to develop. Why do you think it is not always the same FC which gets world firsts in MMOs? Takes time, practice and dedication to learning to a certain level of efficiency to even have a chance of joining the top 1% statics, having to pay for wins proves you don't. The members are expected to and do go that extra mile. Something the majority would never to attain to.

From a lot of experience in DF (I last used it on my alt to get some experience healing turn 5 and 6) the ones that fail most on mechanics are teh ones to play the blame game the hardest instead of looking at their own mistakes their fragile ego automatically places the blame on anyone else except themselves (also they are usually the ones to ragequit first XD ). Players that never improve that can go on to pay for wins. So they never learn and improve because they did not go through the learning and self improvement of their ability to play that learning and clearing the legit way gives.

FCoB was cleared so fast because 90% of the mechanics are the same as what we have dealt with before. Biggest hurdle was the gear check which was mitigated with fully melded ilvl 110 gear.

I don't think it is necessarily unfair or cheating, even, to have people pay hard-earned gil for carries.

It lets people play DoH/DoL that they enjoy while still catching up for the latest content for whatever the reason (read: Alisaie's butt looks nice).

It also makes a lot of sense RPwise to have a spoiled rich brat buying his way into 'fame'. Isn't it a very reasonable (if not common) fantasy trope?

Moot point really. No offense.

SE didn't create the game as an verbal abuse simulator, yet we have some players putting down others they deem "unworthy".

The issues is whether SE is "enabling" such undesirable behavior.

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Originally Posted by Thistledown

I don't think it is necessarily unfair or cheating, even, to have people pay hard-earned gil for carries.

It lets people play DoH/DoL that they enjoy while still catching up for the latest content for whatever the reason (read: Alisaie's butt looks nice).

It also makes a lot of sense RPwise to have a spoiled rich brat buying his way into 'fame'. Isn't it a very reasonable (if not common) fantasy trope?

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It's also a common fantasy trope for someone to become immensely powerful and evil, randomly killing as he/she see fit, looting and pillaging as he/she desired - i.e. the evil overlord.

Should SE allow such a "very reasonable (if not common) fantasy trope"?

Mercing content has been done in every MMO since the dawn of... whenever the first MMO was.

Players aren't magically gifted the ability of a group to clear content then sell it, that takes time and effort. No, putting up a PF and hoping to get lucky with a clear isn't what they did. You must be proactive in meeting people and maybe even build a group yourself!

Also, the purpose of gil is to save time. Want a 4* item? Well you can either buy it off market, or you can painstakingly level every DoH/DoL to 50 and work your way up to be able to make the item which requires both raw stats from gear and practice and experience with how crafting works. Want a boss clear? Pay for it, or work on networking and building relationships with people who are capable of clearing content.

This isn't going to go away, ever. And it is not wrong in any way either. This is an MMO, social networking is part of the game and is required to clear content that has a time investment to learn.

Thread title me laugh and reminded me of "guns don't kill people, rappers do" xd

I think it's a bit suspicious that a pretty expensive relic upgrade ( for anyone not actively making gil ) comes right at the same time as a legit irl--->gil converter gets implemented. I call BS on what was intended too btw....