Whats with people hating F2P?

P2P also gives developers the chance to plan in the long run, because they have a certain amount of monthly income just from the monthly fee alone that they can plan with.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a fun, enjoyable game with a F2P model, but the likelihood of things going well and especially of big, groundbreaking new systems getting introduced over the passage of time goes down by like 99%.

Oh, and something else:
The price of one month of FFXIV playtime equals the price of one cinema ticket for one person, not including drinks or popcorn. Basically that means if I have even just 2 hours of enjoyable playtime per MONTH, it's already worth it.

If a game is F2P, then it is a non game. A trap for mices where developers are asked to insert pay-wall or things to actually force (at least) a part of the users to pay. In a F2P, skills are not required, you either need to be patient or not smart enough to see their "tricks". There is not a single F2P that can be actually fun and enjoyable without paying.
Basically, F2P are ruining the game industry as far as quality is concerned. Lots of studio are focusing on this model and on games for mobile and the scenario is getting really depressing.

Currently, at the price of two Ps4 games per year you can enjoy the game and its major paces. It's not that bad.

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Originally Posted by PawsTheKitti123

Why? You like spending loads of cash and wasting money every month/two months/three? I hate it. Its a waste but I do it because I like the game.

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If you only going to play the bare minimum of the game otherwise f2p games usually end up costing you even more money that you are "wasting". Also you can't say it a waste of money and say you like the game at the same time you contradict yourself, cause people don't usually view their money as wasted if it going to something they enjoy doing.

I've not read any other comments.

My personal opinion: Some games if I don't pay $x per month I will not get the full game/experience. Other games focus more on the glamour, which deteriorates from the actual content. While I'm not happy with XIV at the moment, I do appreciate the dedication, time and effort they put in - which is something F2P lacks.

Alright folks, I'm gonna enlighten you on some of this F2P shit.


First off: watch this video.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An

It's a lecture on the chinese web gaming industry.

The TL;DR is that in China, you get shit like Wizard 101. You sell powerful equipment so hopefully some rich jerk will drop $100k on your game and kill everybody. Then the game dies and you make a new one every couple weeks.

Now, the cardinal rule for F2P games in America is you NEVER SELL POWER. He actually talks about this. Americans do not like to buy power. You know what Americans buy? HATS. You've seen TF2. You've probably bought the Odin mount. At the very least I know some of you are thinking of dropping $10 to get some jet black dyes on the cheap. That shit works.

A lot of the F2P games we get here are actually imports from China and Korea. Companies like Aria Games pick up the licenses on the cheap because they already failed over there, and while they aren't web games, many of them follow the same design philosophy: Find a whale and let them run wild. That's why F2P doesn't seem fair, because for most F2P games, it isn't MEANT to be.

Now contrast this with purebred american F2P games like TF2, Planetside 2, Hawken, or even Dungeons and Dragons Online. They all use different models of "freemium" content without directly selling you a +9001 Stick of Truth.
TF2 sells you hats and weapons that randomly drop during gameplay anyway, and you can trade them. They even have an in game currency where you destroy drops you don't want. Then they have super rare unusual hats that you need to pay $2.50 for a 1% chance to get. But you can trade in game items for those $2.50 keys too.
Planetside 2 simply gives you bonus exp for paying a membership fee. Granted it's a lot of bonus exp, but in a first person shooter game where the default guns are pretty decent, it's not that bad. Takes about two weeks of totally free play to really be competitive, everything on top of that is just gravy. I've never felt like I was at a disadvantage over paying players. Or at least not more of a disadvantage compared to fighting those fucking Orion users. Or you can directly buy new guns and attachments with money. They also have money-only cosmetics.
Hawken had serious problems. They locked all the alternative mechs behind an unbelievably steep grind. The difference here is Planetside 2 has 5 classes to choose from and gives you a free additional gun at the start, and prices for upgrades or new equipment varies greatly from 100 certs to 1000 certs. In Hawken you have no choices until you grind for weeks on end. They have the same philosophy but the execution is LOUSY. Not to mention the default mech sucks statistically so you just get farmed. Not an enjoyable game experience.
DDO is probably the closest comparison to a hypothetical F2P FFXIV. They sell exp and drop rate boosters, as well as some fairly strong starting equipment and potions, but nothing beyond level 10. They also sell content. Dungeon access, premium classes and races, things like that.

The thing these all have in common is they sell SHORTCUTS. There isn't a tier of paying customers that lords over the f2p plebs. Everyone is on the same level at the end, you can just pay to get there faster. FFXIV could sell loot boosters from mobs. I know leatherworkers would love it if all the amphteres and wyverns suddenly dropped 3x hq skins every time. We already HAVE various ways to boost exp, they could sell an item that fills your rested exp to the max. Stuff like this would not harm the game any more than someone with 3 alts and 24 level 60 retainers does.

That said, FFXIV will never ever go F2P. FFXI didn't and it's been dead for years.

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Originally Posted by Immut

It's a lecture on the chinese web gaming industry.

The TL;DR is that in China, you get shit like Wizard 101. You sell powerful equipment so hopefully some rich jerk will drop $100k on your game and kill everybody. Then the game dies and you make a new one every couple weeks.

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China worst example. FFXIV There sells lvl 50 and other boosters. Many of them have limited internet like paying by minute and stuff like that, so their MMO thing is a little faster passed in compensation, and that's to help those with minutely payed internet connections so people can still enjoy themselves in case they have barriers like these, to make their little time to play more rewarding. China =/= West

because if it went f2p there will be a sharp drop in content release.

The thing with free to play games is that what they offer in their cash shops goes above and beyond cosmetic items such as cosmetic garb, new hair styles/appearances, pets. Some offer items that boost experience gains to an insanely high level. Others provide equipment that isn't fluff equipment. Basically their cash shops provide items that make it practically a necessity to progress in a free to play game. And, thus, free to play games, as a whole, tend to get an oft-deserved bad rap. Oh, and game quality tends to be sub-par because of freemium models. Bugs and exploits don't get fixed, etc. I've played a few free to play games that had potential at their core, but were effectively ruined by the necessity of having to purchase items from their cash shops.

If it's something you enjoy, it's not a waste of money.

When a feature gets implemented in Free to Play, the thought process is "How will this drive users to do more microtransactions" instead of a Pay to Play model of "How will this feature retain our players longer, but not quit".
See Grind:
On F2P models, the grind is crazy rough, but then you *can* skip most of it with real life money.
On P2P models, the grind is there, but can't be too crazy as the users would quit.

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Originally Posted by PawsTheKitti123

Like, they say theyd quit if it was.

Why? You like spending loads of cash and wasting money every month/two months/three? I hate it. Its a waste but I do it because I like the game.

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There is no such thing as free-to-play in reality.

There is however, free-to-get-your-foot-in-the-door followed by pay-for-anything-else.

They still need to generate income after all.

If you think subs are a waste, F2Ps are moreso. I personally hate F2Ps as a former SWTOR hardcore raider/PvPer. The game had potential. But with a bad engine and massive staff cuts, it became F2P. EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF is charged for. Want to hide your hat slot? $10 Please. Want to equip rare gear? $10 please. Want dye for your clothing? Buy gambling boxs off our cash shop until RNG gives you the color you want. btw $10 per box plz. Hey guys we added a new map. $15 to buy the expansion with the map, now $10 to enter the map. Thanks!

etc

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Originally Posted by Elim

If you think subs are a waste, F2Ps are moreso. I personally hate F2Ps as a former SWTOR hardcore raider/PvPer. The game had potential. But with a bad engine and massive staff cuts, it became F2P. EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF is charged for. Want to hide your hat slot? $10 Please. Want to equip rare gear? $10 please. Want dye for your clothing? Buy gambling boxs off our cash shop until RNG gives you the color you want. btw $10 per box plz. Hey guys we added a new map. $15 to buy the expansion with the map, now $10 to enter the map. Thanks!

etc

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Ouch

I see.

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Originally Posted by Elim

If you think subs are a waste, F2Ps are moreso. I personally hate F2Ps as a former SWTOR hardcore raider/PvPer. The game had potential. But with a bad engine and massive staff cuts, it became F2P. EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF is charged for. Want to hide your hat slot? $10 Please. Want to equip rare gear? $10 please. Want dye for your clothing? Buy gambling boxs off our cash shop until RNG gives you the color you want. btw $10 per box plz. Hey guys we added a new map. $15 to buy the expansion with the map, now $10 to enter the map. Thanks!

etc

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Do they still charge $$$ when you want to do the optional kill x number of mobs for more exp quests? I remember hearing something about that and thought.... 'wow this is nor the f2p for me.' I do hear the best example of a f2p MMO done well is that LoTR but I havn't felt an urge to try it.

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Originally Posted by Immut

The thing these all have in common is they sell SHORTCUTS. There isn't a tier of paying customers that lords over the f2p plebs. Everyone is on the same level at the end, you can just pay to get there faster. FFXIV could sell loot boosters from mobs. I know leatherworkers would love it if all the amphteres and wyverns suddenly dropped 3x hq skins every time. We already HAVE various ways to boost exp, they could sell an item that fills your rested exp to the max. Stuff like this would not harm the game any more than someone with 3 alts and 24 level 60 retainers does.

That said, FFXIV will never ever go F2P. FFXI didn't and it's been dead for years.

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Shortcuts, are a big deal.

You used leather drops as an example, for a crafter that's pay to win. Gradually these ramp up until you're at a significant disadvantage by not buying the potion or whatever than increases things.

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Originally Posted by XgungraveX

because if it went f2p there will be a sharp drop in content release.

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Well 3.1 was very short on dungeons and MSQ so we'll see what 3.2 brings.

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Originally Posted by Leknaat

Do they still charge $$$ when you want to do the optional kill x number of mobs for more exp quests? I remember hearing something about that and thought.... 'wow this is nor the f2p for me.' I do hear the best example of a f2p MMO done well is that LoTR but I havn't felt an urge to try it.

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Some quests you have to get from gambling boxes. There's about maybe 3% chance to get them. But you get all the basic kill x number of mob quests for free, if you have the map unlocked. Although what you don't get is full EXP as a F2P unless you buy EXP boosts. You also can't get rewards from quests as a F2P.

btw did i mention you have to pay for hotbars?

The sub is what-- $15 a month? For as much entertainment as a person wants, without ads, and without P2W bullcrap. It costs more than $15 to go to a movie or to eat out at a sub-par restaurant. I'll keep my sub, thanks.

Also you have a max limit of credits (aka gil) you can carry. All your excess credits get put into a "bank", and in order to get those credits, you have to pay real money. Example: $10 for 100k of your credits.

I'll admit that SWTOR is one of the worst F2Ps out there, but it's still an example of what a F2P can devolve into. It wasn't this bad at release, it was BAD, but not this bad. It got worse over time as they thought of things to charge for.

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Originally Posted by Elim

Also you have a max limit of credits (aka gil) you can carry. All your excess credits get put into a "bank", and in order to get those credits, you have to pay real money. Example: $10 for 100k of your credits.

I'll admit that SWTOR is one of the worst F2Ps out there, but it's still an example of what a F2P can devolve into. It wasn't this bad at release, it was BAD, but not this bad. It got worse over time as they thought of things to charge for.

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I was thinking of tinkering with SWTOR again, since I played for a month at launch (before it had gone F2P) and found it lacking, but still fun in its own right... Now I think I'll just steer clear. ._.; I knew things had gone downhill even further after they had launched F2P but I didn't anticipate just how bad it had gotten D:

For me, I dislike F2P not just because the game's quality takes a nosedive, but so does the playerbase as a whole. Subscription does ward off a bunch of undesirables...not all, but a good portion. Our playerbase isn't exactly the best sometimes, but it can always be worse.

I have to admit, one F2P game I did enjoy tinkering around on was Rift. It wasn't pay-to-win per-se, did have a bit of pay for convenience stuff, but most of it is cosmetic. Class customization was kinda fun for it, but I really think that is the only F2P game I have enjoyed.

I don't really like the idea of the game becoming F2P, sure, it might be nice to finally stop worring about my sub every few months, but from my experience, FP2 games tend to have horrible communites most of the time, they get flooded with the worst kind of people in MMOs.

Also, depending on what SE does IF they ever go F2P, the game might become a nightmare with RNG boxes that just steal your money and the only people that benefit from those are the whales in the game, like the thing TERA has right now.

I kinda like how this game feels special from others, sure, it's annoying to have to pay a few bucks every month, but from my point of view, the content in this game it's worth it.

For me it has to do with quality, for the most part games where I can play for free have much lower drop rates, lower exp gain but that can all be remedied with cash shop items like x2 exp and drops (for like 2 hours) and other such items that people seem to gladly fork over. Even worse in some games they give you horrible or ugly looking normal armor that you almost feel compelled to buy something decent from the cash shop. I know maplestory was a big victim of the above of course now it's just a laughing joke of itself (Though I still wanna try Maplestory 2). Least with subscription games I feel I am on fair ground with everyone, I don't have to worry about getting behind cus everyone else wants to shell out $100 for Exp gain.

Will admit some games have done it right, Path of Exile is one that comes to mind and (least for me) Shin megami Imagine, while its cash shop may have offered shortcuts, I found the combat fun to the point I didn't care, how I miss that game :(. When compared to several other games I have tried during my break from FF14 a lot of them just seem to fall into the same category of doing insane damage at level 1 (Honestly I can't stand games where your level 1 doing 1000s of damage), steep exp gain needed and bland click and pray systems.

Plus also for subs being only $15, I will gladly take that over a 2 hour long movie at a theater or eating out.

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Originally Posted by Nix

I was thinking of tinkering with SWTOR again, since I played for a month at launch (before it had gone F2P) and found it lacking, but still fun in its own right... Now I think I'll just steer clear. ._.; I knew things had gone downhill even further after they had launched F2P but I didn't anticipate just how bad it had gotten D:

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If you sub for a month and stay with the bare basics(don't buy expansions, don't unlock extra planets, don't buy exp boosts, don't glamour your character, etc), leveling from 1-50 is still fun because the stories are well written. Basically stick with vanilla SWTOR. Lv 51+ the stories for all classes are the same, and at some point, your character is no longer voice acted. They also stopped making faction based content. They've slowly simplified the story, along side of finding everything possible to charge for. Past vanilla SWTOR, it no longer sticks out from the regular run-of-the-mil F2P.

It's sad because SWTORs strong suit was their story. Everything was voice acted. Stories had twists depending on your choices. NPCs reacted to your class(example: if you were a sith, imperial NPCs greeted you as "My lord"). Quests changed depending on your faction. But that was the past. RIP high quality content

The pay 2 win thing is kind of a myth, at least in western MMOs. Games that go F2P just undergo a massive drop in quality with most of the dev's work focused on cash grabs. The Old Republic is a good example of this. I hear LOTRO got hit pretty hard too.

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Originally Posted by Elim

stuffu!

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Maaaan, that's disheartening :(... I had a blast with the smuggler storyline... But I guess now that really is something that will remain better just being thought of in a fond way XD

Rather than focusing on a quality game, f2p games seem designed around a shop, with the content attempting to drive you there. I played two subscription-based games that started out as great games (LOTRO and Rift). They both went f2p a couple of years in and both began their slow but sure descent in quality and fun. It really hurt me to see that happen. I hope I have learned my lesson and will not linger too long (as I did before) should this happen again.

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Originally Posted by ArcMoon

. It really hurt me to see that happen.

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I feel your pain bro.

It hurt seeing what happened to SWTOR. I hung on as long as I could, but once they finished streamlining the story, I was done.

I took the hardest hit with the loss of faction based content. The only reason I clung to the game was to play an imperial/crush republic scum. imp4lyfe. Long live the emperor. Imperial pride. Now no one gives a toss if you're an imperial, republic scum or a jawa.

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Originally Posted by Elim

Now no one gives a toss if you're an imperial, republic scum or a jawa.

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#Jawalivesmatter

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Originally Posted by Nix

#Jawalivesmatter

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......lmao

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

Actually, your average player tends to spend more on F2P games than they do on subscription-based games like WoW and FFXIV. Game quality also tends to suffer which is why the turnover rate for F2P games coming and going is so great. Going F2P also tends to start heading down the dark slippery slope of becoming P2W. Nobody likes P2W.

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Exactly this. In FFXIV, we pay for purely cosmetic things like dyes and glamours and mounts. In F2P games, you do still pay for costumes, but the thing is, they aren't purely cosmetic. They usually have huge chunks of stats on them, and are significantly more expensive than anything we have. F2P games also tend to do things like put powerful items into gacha boxes, further maximizing profit. Instead of selling the items directly, they sell you the chance at the items, though they're incredibly rare. 95% of the gacha boxes contain items that range from 'utter crap' to 'marginally useful' and only a small fraction contain the powerful items you're actually after. They can even take it a step further and put (for an example) an entire set of accessories into the boxes. They're each effective on their own, but together they give you an enormous chunk of stats and you can't hope to be a "top player" without it.

F2P games usually give you minimal amounts of inventory and storage space (10-20 slots) and then make additional bag space able to be purchased for a fairly reasonable price through micro-transactions. Once they get that foot in the door by getting you to pay five bucks for inventory now and again, it's easier to get you paying upward of $30-50 for that cool costume you really want (and a lot of the gear is super dull looking, to further push you toward buying costumes) or $1 apiece for a stack of the aforementioned gacha boxes. Some F2P games even sell access to premium cash-shop only areas that are vastly superior to the open world for level grinding. Exp scrolls are another big seller, as are pets and other things that either affect your skill levels or have extra stats.

Then there's enhancement mechanics. On FFXIV, we get our gear from a raid and it has set stats on it. On other games, when an item drops it's got a fairly weak base amount of stats but can be enhanced to be stronger. Usually there's a base level of enhancement you can take it up to before you risk breaking the item (which means you lose it forever), and "protection" items can be purchased through the cash shop to prevent the item from breaking upon further enhancement. Some of them take it a step further and let you slot extra stats into your gear (cards, jewels, etc sort of like materia), which again is done through cash shop items.

It's very, very easy to spend thousands of dollars just trying to be competitive on a F2P game.

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Originally Posted by Saccharin

Sadly it seems like this game is slowly going towards a cash shop heavy model.

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I see no basis for this claim whatsoever. Nothing in the cash shop goes beyond cosmetic items.

Pay to play is Everyone is equal.
Free to play isn't Free it shouldn't be called that. People Keep calling it that but's it's not.

Free to access. pay to enjoy. And in many cases Pay more then sub.

I played one Free to play MMO for about 3 months. I enjoyed it. I have paid sub for FFXI, WOW, FFXIV, for over 12 years. All games are Great games. I will note that FFXI is dated and isn't worth it's current sub even more so with no more major updates in the works.

Now if I took my sub of $12/ month and dropped it on a Free to play game I would ask WHY am I spending money if it's Free to play. Here is the problem.. To play and get the same out of FFXIV as I do out of a Free to Play game. normally I would need to spend more then $12/ month.

I think everyone already knows why F2P has such a bad reputation, and why people automatically roll their eyes at the thought. Bad free-to-play games outnumber the good ones a thousand-fold.

Think of all the times you've seen paywalls or 'pay to win' strategies in these games. They're rife with them. And the games that don't resort to these get forced to eventually. Or they'll use the classic 'lockbox' as a mechanic, enticing players with the promise of rare and unique loot for purchasable keys, when in reality it's just another wind crystal.

Good free to play games are something of a rarity because it's really difficult to toe the line between content people actually want to buy, and content which would be considered overpowered or pay to win. It's also very difficult to balance out the enjoyment for non-paid and paid players in these sorts of games. Want more fun? Open your purse.

So, is it really a surprise that so many people grimace when they hear the words 'free to play'? It's been done so poorly lately, that groaning is practically a reflex action at this point.

i played for some time f2p games, and me waste by plaiying such games on me whas around 60€ per month, now look back to FFXIV sub price, on f2p games, if you whant something, you will usualy to pay for it, on sub ones you earn it(most of the time if we add the few aditions to mogstation)

then theres other problem added to f2p games, less mature comunity, trolls, a even greater flood of cheaters(to the point what is imposible to control if the player base is huge)

Everybody in this thread keeps hating on F2P. Calling it Free to Lose, Pay to Win, whatever.

Yep! And that explains why to this day, FF14 and WoW are the two biggest video games played on computer. Certainly, there's no possible way that a free to play game could ever succeed, or be balanced in a way that you can achieve play at the absolute highest level without ever spending a dime on the game. SURELY there's no possible way that they could succeed if they just pushed you to spend real money on things to speed up grinding a bit, or by giving you amazing cosmetic changes to your character that you'd actually WANT to spend money on. No game has ever been able to do that before.

https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/t...ogo2_clean.png

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

Nice try.

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Sorry friend, but LoL is small game (any MOBA is) compared to a MMORPG.
You just can't go and compare 2 completely different genres.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

Sorry friend, but LoL is small game (any MOBA is) compared to a MMORPG.
You just can't go and compare 2 completely different genres.

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Uh, yes I can. If this many people are playing it, then I suppose they're doing something right.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...f205957013.jpg

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

Everybody in this thread keeps hating on F2P. Calling it Free to Lose, Pay to Win, whatever.

Yep! And that explains why to this day, FF14 and WoW are the two biggest video games played on computer. Certainly, there's no possible way that a free to play game could ever succeed, or be balanced in a way that you can achieve play at the absolute highest level without ever spending a dime on the game. SURELY there's no possible way that they could succeed if they just pushed you to spend real money on things to speed up grinding a bit, or by giving you amazing cosmetic changes to your character that you'd actually WANT to spend money on. No game has ever been able to do that before.

https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/t...ogo2_clean.png

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But not everyone likes MOBAs.

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

Uh, yes I can.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...f205957013.jpg

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By small game I meant the developement costs. 1 champion monthly? Ok, they have to balance stuff, but that's it.
Finances put into developement of MMORPG are much bigger, that's the main reason why most companies decided to go with smaller games (MOBAs for example) because there isn't so much risk in them and they can be paid with vanity/hero shop.

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Originally Posted by AskaRay

But not everyone likes MOBAs.

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You're missing the point. League found a way to become literally the most played video game in the world while humoring the F2P market. There are zero pay to win mechanics in the game, and everything that influences the actual game balance you get either through leveling up or buy through IP. RP just allows you to buy specific champions, skills, and rune pages.

It's not impossible, it's not even really all that HARD. Just make content that your players are willing to spend money on.

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

snip

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It's a pvp game and the first to make a game that's pretty much easy mode dota which was already popular. It got a good headstart and exploded in popularity after that.

pvp games like LoL and TF2 have a totally different audience that they attract. LoL doesn't require new content, new worlds, trials and dungeons being created like MMORPGs require.

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

snip

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Yeah, but they did it anyway. Did you see the preseason changes they're making going into S6? Every year Riot changes LoL drastically, to the point where it's an entirely different game. New champions barely scratches the surface of Riot's extreme balance changes at the start of every new season.

The S6 client and itemization changes, and the inclusion of rift herald, is an expansion so broad that it actually puts Heavensward to shame... In a F2P game.