Character and Item Restoration Policy

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn released on August 24, 2013 initially to the masses. Throughout the years, millions of characters have been created, many thousands of communities have grown from the game, and a general fondness has been created in the hearts of millions of players around the world for this MMO which has spanned 3 console generations, has numerous expansions, and is on a roadmap for a long future.

As policies have changed throughout the years in regards to community guidelines, restricted actions and account penalties, I’d like to also see a change with the current one-time restoration rule for items and characters. Currently, if a character was deleted by mistake, maliciously, or anything else, you may send in a ticket through Square Enix’s support desk website to restore up to two characters at once. If you delete an item mistakenly, (say, tossing out a completed Zeta or accidentally trading in an Ultimate weapon for Grand Company seals,) you may send in a request in-game to the in-game Support Desk asking for assistance. However, according to Square Enix’s own website, “This service is only offered once per SQUARE ENIX account.” If you have used your one-time restoration before, you are out of luck.

This policy initially seems to be fair. If you regret tossing away an item, you have your one chance to make things right and get it back within a week. However, past one week or more than one time? You’re all out of luck. When it comes to characters, it seems you’re allowed to restore your character far past an initial one-week limit, but never more than once. If you made a mistake in removing alternate characters, you’re able to restore up to two at once. However, you’re never allowed to restore again. Should you either regret your decision to delete a character later, or make a mistake, or fail to secure your computer / game console and have someone else living with you, or any other reason, you have absolutely no recourse to ensure that your character makes a return.

For a game that is in its infancy, this is fine. For a game with nearly 10 years of history behind it, this is unethical and completely unacceptable. If you have gotten a restoration back in the early days of Heavensward, you’re never allowed to restore any subsequent characters in Endwalker or beyond. Whether deleted intentionally or otherwise, this seems very unfair. Characters may have thousands of hours, achievements, memories and otherwise associated with them, not to mention hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent in subscription time and optional items. This also extends to items. If you spent your one-time item restoration on something that seemed important at the time such as gear while you were still leveling up your character, yet two expansions later accidentally threw out a relic or traded in an ultimate weapon by mistake, you are completely unable under the current policy to fix a mistake.

This policy guarantees that character and item restorations are not abused. However, changing the one-time restoration policy to a once-per-year restoration policy, or even allowing players to undelete characters within a certain amount of time initially from the Mogstation and past that allowing it to be done for a fee through the Additional Services section of the Mogstation would protect users from losing their investment of time, money and much more in their character while also creating a new source of revenue depending on how much it is used. It is a security system for players that can only serve to benefit them from peace of mind and comfort if it is never needed, and if it is, provides a way to ensure a player’s continued enjoyment as the character they’ve come to enjoy playing as.

Changing this policy may make no change for players who have never needed to restore an item or a character, and won’t affect them other than seeing a new option in the Mogstation. However, for players who have used the restoration service once, this change in policy allows them to have a sense of comfort knowing that their time, money, effort and more is not at risk of being lost by any intentional or unintentional action. For those who have been denied a request of having an item or character restored, this allows for another chance to return to the game with the character they’ve spent potentially years on, or restoring an item that they had no intention of getting rid of, or have come to regret discarding. By placing a fee on character restorations, this eliminates using a loophole where a character restoration could lead to a free name change, and frees up the Game Master team from having to investigate character restorations, which allows for more focus on different areas.

People who have to do it once are made very clearly they cannot do it again.
Learn from mistakes or be doomed to repeat them, I guess.

I suppose it is easy to have that stance. However, a change in policy is something that is good for *all* players, as it gives more agency and power to players to fix their own mistakes, frees Game Masters to focus on other things rather than investigations, and gives a greater sense of security for those who may have made that mistake once. I think this is a good thing, that would benefit the game and players besides.

I've been playing since beta (actually 1.0, but not long) and still haven't used my ONE TIME restoration. Why, because I realize it's ONE TIME. Stop acting emotionally and pay attention to what you're doing and you'll never need to use it.

Once more, changing this policy may seem as though it creates no change for players who've never needed to use the service. However, freeing up a Game Master means that any requests for assistance that you may make will be faster as it is one less thing that they must deal with. Having focus on things that matter, such as moderation or requests for assistance is something that benefits all players rather than simply a select few. It only serves to benefit players rather than hinder them.