More and more microtransactions

I agree with you Hestzhyen, I've been a long time fan of Square Enix Games but I'm not a blind fanboy. Lately their business culture has really started to be exposed over the many long years, they just kept it hidden very well until lately. There is a reason they don't want outsiders looking into their business because they know something reeks of Malboro Breath. To me this is more than their just their Final Fantasy series, but what they have been doing lately to their long buried games and other games they don't give two bolts about.

They can create a wonderful game if they really wanted to do so, I'm not blaming the Developers on this but who is running the show above them because they don't understand gaming, all they care about is their bottom line (Fun or not) and unfortunately this has been a inconvenient but accepted truth today for almost any gaming studio or corporation. Though I would be disappointed if they have a few developers in their ranks that were not doing the right thing.

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Originally Posted by Aylis

So to get the "full" FFXIV experience It's $10 a month sub, plus It's 8 retainers now for $2 each? and now the app is another $5 a month? So roughly $31 a month not including costs for expansions and cash shop items.

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..you don't need 8 retainers. Unless your goal is to be a crafter baron and max out your gil, it's hard to need more than the base two. People are overreacting here mostly, save for the people worried about how the app might be hackable.

I already don't like the fact that in a sub based game I have to pay for many of the better looking items. If there was a way to earn them in game I'd be totally fine with it or if they were seasonal and you could only pay if you missed them but I abhor how some items you can only get from the damn store.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

..you don't need 8 retainers. Unless your goal is to be a crafter baron and max out your gil, it's hard to need more than the base two. People are overreacting here mostly, save for the people worried about how the app might be hackable.

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Yeah, I only have the base two and not filled and a nearly empty inventory. I don't craft or gather at all and I only play as one class and don't really put too much time into glamoring. I'm very much bare minimal when it comes to XIV. From what I know though from when I did play this game seriously, those that do take the game seriously, want to craft and gather and run as multiple classes. Then inventory starts to be an issue.

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Originally Posted by Aylis

... So to get the "full" FFXIV experience ...

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To get the "full" FFXIV experience, one only needs to play the game. There is no "extra" cost for any quest or dungeon instance. Your subscription pays for all of that.

Unless you want to play the "Make Lots of Gil on the Market Board" meta-game, there is no real requirement for more than two retainers at this point in time. Heck, this game has more inventory space than any other subscription-based game on the market at this point ... and I've tried most of them at one time or another. That's 475 inventory slots for which you do not need to pay an extra dime (or gil).

Micro transactions, for cosmetic items and pets and mounts, have been a part of the MMO subscriber experience for at least the last 10 years.

When you have to purchase keys via micro transaction to unlock loot boxes in FFXIV, let me know, and maybe I'll change my mind ...

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Originally Posted by Aylis

Yeah, I only have the base two and not filled and a nearly empty inventory. I don't craft or gather at all and I only play as one class and don't really put too much time into glamoring. I'm very much bare minimal when it comes to XIV. From what I know though from when I did play this game seriously, those that do take the game seriously, want to craft and gather and run as multiple classes. Then inventory starts to be an issue.

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I have four retainers near max capacity, my chocobo and inventory are nearly full, just from mats that I'm using to level crafting.

I dont mind microtranscations when it comes to cosmetics, but when you start charging a lot of money for QoL stuff that has an impact on gameplay experience, I tend to balk at that.

It especially bothers me when all that extra money people are paying doesn't seem to be going back into the game itself. Servers as are stil potatoes. Content patches provide the same amount of content as they always have. So where is all the extra money going?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

To get the "full" FFXIV experience, one only needs to play the game. There is no "extra" cost for any quest or dungeon instance. Your subscription pays for all of that.

Unless you want to play the "Make Lots of Gil on the Market Board" meta-game

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I could easily argue that is part of the "full experience" the game does allow for it after all with the armory system and being able to level multiple crafts as one character. I know quite a few people that want to take part of it along those same quests and dungeons. They all had to buy extra retainer space. As someone who omni-crafts in other games I never ran into the space issue like here when it came to crafting. if space was an issue I could just mail things to an alt charac......oh right. That's not allowed here.

This and several other reasons is why I already dropped sub. Im done with FFXIV and SE altogether. I think I'll go play Ni No Kuni 2 which btw looks like a lot of fun. I absolutely love Level 5 games... my all time fave was White Knight Chronicles 2 online.... I really miss that game.... any who FFXIV is pretty much going F2P soon enough. I might as well pack my bags now and jump ship before the storm hits.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

Am I the only one who abandoned f2p games to pay for a sub because sub games didn't have microtransactions? And now sub games are being flooded with microtransactions, more so this game has long surpassed WoW in terms of microtransactions.

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I quit playing F2P games (other than The Simpsons Tapped Out, which I've spent less than $50 in the last 5 years on, it's what I play on transit) almost entirely because those stupid games cost upwards of 100$/mo to stay ahead of the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) race. But it needs to be said that while many of the indie games need a source of revenue (it costs them $100 just to have the game on an app store, so that can cost them $1000/yr just to put out a free game) the large gaming companies can recoup that revenue from an actual subscription. Ad revenue basically hit the pavement like a watermelon last year, thanks to google effectively showing it's hand that it puts paying ads on garbage and earns money from doing so, so many advertisers have been dropping "algorithm" based advertising in favor of direct sponsorship (eg where the ad is baked into the content in some shape.)

So ask yourselves, would you willingly pay for this app once? Would you be willing to use this app for free if you had to sit through a 15 second Pepsi commercial each time you return from AFK?

Micropayments have been the other side of this coin. Some micropayments make sense when they are tied directly into a resource consumed. Hence a subscription to a game makes sense in lieu of nickel-and-dime payments for things like staying at the inn, or phoenix down, or being revived at an aetheryte (all things that many other P2W MMORPG games do.) Other games make you pay for dying clothes, changing your appearance, even having any options to your appearance (eg cash shop outfits, never available in the game in any form.)

Which is why some of the mog shop stuff is worrying. If we keep buying stuff from the cash shop, they will keep taking more out of the game and put it in the shop like they have with DLC for their single player games. Some of this is outright madness.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

..you don't need 8 retainers. Unless your goal is to be a crafter baron and max out your gil, it's hard to need more than the base two. People are overreacting here mostly, save for the people worried about how the app might be hackable.

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I actually have 9 retainers myself and they have space on them they are starting to fill up. I collect stuff keep stuff so I need as much space as I can get.