Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Yoshi-P

Either stop with the "please take breaks" mentality

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"We know everyone will be busy at the end of the year, so please challenge it at your own pace. There is nothing wrong with taking your time. Please enjoy all the variety of different games as well"

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or actually design your game to not punish taking breaks.

"but the game is already designed to not punish taking breaks"
If you were ready to say that, then I'm here to tell you that's just bull.

Weekly Tome Cap
The weekly tome cap provides a rigid, week-by-week power upgrade struggle to keep you subscribed longer. I've never been a fan of this, but I see the reasoning both from a retention standpoint and an MMO gameplay structure one: it keeps players powering up over the course of a patch and feeds into the sense of accomplishment. But it is also at odds with the notion that the game doesn't punish you for taking a break - I cannot go 7 days without playing my ass off on atleast one day or casually over the course of several days, lest I fall behind on the gear curve.

Proposed Solution: Catch-up tomes. Make it so that any unclaimed tomes for a week move on to the next, and the next after that and so on. Will this create a system where I can decide to grind my ass off for 4500 tomes after not being subscribed for 10 weeks? Yeah! But I'm also not falling behind for not playing the game, so I'm allowed to take breaks now.

Savage Lockout:
Savage Lockout is another way the game funnels you into minimal progression each week. I'm actually more fine with this than the tome gear lockout - you're probably much more invested in the game to begin with if you're doing savage, and you're more likely to clear with the gear you have 10 weeks in anyway, so the weekly tome cap adjustment would help alleviate the annoyance of Savage Lockout regardless.

Proposed Changes:
I'm not fine with the fact that Savage Lockout also means you're disincentivized to help others out due to affecting *their* gear drops as well. Remove this. Everyone just gets one chance to loot each week as before, but you don't delete drops from the pool for existing. Although I realise this would probably mess with their wish for world first races to be their own sort of esport, so let's say this relaxation only happens starting the week after someone on the server has cleared T4 the first time.

The reason I'm very adamant about this change is because if you're not already raiding by week 2-3, people usually stick to clear groups from that point onward for their reclears. There's a few gems of people who will offer their services to learn the fights a bit better, but by and large there's a specific culture in PF and otherwise your only option is a static, which doesn't work if you're a part of the crowd that takes breaks routinely. Therefore, you need to create a system that, even if not incentivizing people directly to go back into lower levels and helping others out, atleast doesn't disincentivize people to do exactly that.

Also, uncap Savage entirely in the off-patch. It's been out for 3-4 months by then. It's fine.

Housing Changes:
Housing is scarce, and I understand that there is no desire from the developer's side to change the way it works right now because you would much rather have the neighbourhoods. This is why housing auto-demo is a thing.
Since Housing autodemolition is currently 45 days after inactivity, which on the original patch structure meant ~15 days off from patch, you would need to add atleast 30 days extra to truly gauge whether someone is quitting for a time or just taking a break, like you and your team supposedly intend for us to do.

Minor Suggested Changes:
Roulette Charges. I'd like to be able to save my roulette bonuses for a few days. Doesn't have to be a lot, just like upwards of 3 days saved, so I can take minor breaks during the week and play when *I* want, as opposed to feeling like I'm missing rewards if I'm not playing the game.

Higher Allied Society Quest Allotment. Please make this 24. It'll make catching up so much better. Please.

Higher Poetics Carrying Capacity. I want to spend less time micromanaging a currency I get too much of. Please allow me to park my ass away from whatever vendors trade things for Poetics. You did it for scrips, you can do it for this too!



In my opinion, this will go a long way in creating a game that, as is intended, allows you to take breaks with minimal falloff. And who knows? Maybe I'll finally play Final Fantasy XVI with the money I won't have to use to stay subscribed all the time ;)

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Originally Posted by kajv95

The weekly tome cap provide a rigid, week-by-week power upgrade struggle to keep you subscribed longer.

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It doesn't take that many weeks though. At a certain point you have more than you know what to do with and use them on other roles for the sake of it. Plus, if you want to stay subscribed you can just cap at the start or end of the week then play other things (a lot of people do this, I know because I see it from hunt train regulars).

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Proposed Solution: Catch-up tomes.

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Would be nice. I'm honestly surprised they even let you do this sort of thing with Beast Tribes and Wondrous Tails because I'm used to games being inconvenient in this way.

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I'm not fine with the fact that Savage Lockout also means you're disincentivized to help others out due to affecting *their* gear drops as well.

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I've never personally understood this really. I try to understand their perspective but I don't really get it. It just stops good players helping the ones that still need to clear, for no reason, forcing them in many cases to accept a clear with less loot.

They could make it so if the person who cleared for the week wins the roll (after automatically rolling), it automatically goes into a void and gets destroyed, to maintain the concept of loot not being guaranteed.

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Roulette Charges

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Would be nice but after playing long enough you realize there's just hundreds more days in the game to get these bonuses. Plus the game would stop feeling casual if you had a backlog of 100 roulettes to do so there would at least need to be some limit to reduce this pressure.

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Higher Allied Society Quest Allotment

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I feel like limits on these, leves, and custom deliveries are pointless. I don't understand the purpose. Per-NPC limits, sure, but general limits don't make sense to me with how many we have in the game now.

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Higher Poetics Carrying Capacity

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All I know is Yoshi-P said he could write a book about why this cap was needed. Which says a lot about how determined he is about this cap.

I quit for close to 8 years because I was sick of lockouts and caps. I'm not scheduling my life around a videogame because I can't just do a fight a couple of times on a weekend.

I've since decided to purposefully stay behind 1-2 expac and it's such a better experience. I miss out on all savages/extremes but I can play whenever and however I damn want. They're that annoying it's worth the tradeoff.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It doesn't take that many weeks though. At a certain point you have more than you know what to do with and use them on other roles for the sake of it. Plus, if you want to stay subscribed you can just cap at the start or end of the week then play other things (a lot of people do this, I know because I see it from hunt train regulars).
Would be nice. I'm honestly surprised they even let you do this sort of thing with Beast Tribes and Wondrous Tails because I'm used to games being inconvenient in this way.
I've never personally understood this really. I try to understand their perspective but I don't really get it. It just stops good players helping the ones that still need to clear, for no reason, forcing them in many cases to accept a clear with less loot.

They could make it so if the person who cleared for the week wins the roll (after automatically rolling), it automatically goes into a void and gets destroyed, to maintain the concept of loot not being guaranteed.
Would be nice but after playing long enough you realize there's just hundreds more days in the game to get these bonuses. Plus the game would stop feeling casual if you had a backlog of 100 roulettes to do so there would at least need to be some limit to reduce this pressure.
I feel like limits on these, leves, and custom deliveries are pointless. I don't understand the purpose. Per-NPC limits, sure, but general limits don't make sense to me with how many we have in the game now.
All I know is Yoshi-P said he could write a book about why this cap was needed. Which says a lot about how determined he is about this cap.

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To address your points made: It's not really the point that it doesn't take "that many weeks" and even if it were the point, I'd still need to disagree. Just getting the chest and legs piece already covers an entire month (4 weeks). In the grand scheme of 9 months for each tome, yeah, the few months probably don't matter, but I'm addressing this not from a "it takes too long" perspective but from a "I understand why certain things are limited, but here are some ways to have your weekly caps while also making it okay to not play for a bit" perspective instead.
Of course you will eventually have more tomes than you know what to do with, but you won't if you take a break as suggested.

I think having each player who already cleared do a forced "void roll" is an excellent solution, actually. Props for that! If we were to go a step further, you could probably turn it into some kind of bonus reward that doesn't relate to gear. But not materia - we have enough of that as it is.

For Roulette Charges, I already addressed this. Just a few days is fine, this is one of those systems that need a bit more delicacy. Think of it like Rested Bonus: it caps eventually, but it incentivizes slowing down and taking a break. Just upwards of three roulette charges is fine, really.
Again, arguing there are "hundreds more days to get these bonuses" is ignoring the main point - these are hundreds of days of *feeling like you have to play* because the system itself disincentivizes taking breaks.

As for the supposed book, fine then! Take one convention trip less and write the book if you're so sure, because maybe then us lowly player peasants will finally understand the reasoning for this cap :')
You can even sell the book as merch with a funny lil minion or emote code. lol

He doesn't actually want us to take breaks--people taking breaks are lost sales of sub time, and lost sales on SE's biggest cash cow is a threat to the company. He only says that for good PR, and because American consumers (specifically the types that would play FFXIV) are too parasocial for their own good.

I would like to take 3-4 months off but that would mean losing my house, so I give a damn about his taking a break mentality when you get punished for it... and also getting punished for staying subscribed in a dead world where everyone queues into instances from their house or whatever city state/player hub prefered.

You don't get around in the areas of world on daily/weekly basis... you just hit a button and wait somewhere....

Add to the list the PVP battlepass where the rewards have not been repeated, so you have no way of earning those if you miss it.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

He doesn't actually want us to take breaks--people taking breaks are lost sales of sub time, and lost sales on SE's biggest cash cow is a threat to the company. He only says that for good PR, and because American consumers (specifically the types that would play FFXIV) are too parasocial for their own good.

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I've been thinking a lot about this and I just don't buy that it has a net positive effect. What team tells people not to play their own game? I mean really.

There are niche theoretical situations where this may be practical or good advice, but here it just seems completely self defeating.

the reason they say "take a break with other games" is because they know they can't produce the content and they know people online will defend the game on their behalf. thats really all there is to it.

When it comes to the beast tribes, and they will always be the beast tribes no badly they want to shove this allied societies nonsense down our throats, they should just not have caps on them at all, outside of the 3 per tribe we already have. The only ones this would be a problem for are the ARR tribes that unlock up to 9 a day, but at this point, its 10 year old content, just let us do the 9 a day if we want.

Restricting something further that is already restricted is just silly and really shows a lack of forethought.

"Take breaks and play other games" Means "Don't Unsub and play other games, preferably other Square Enix games if possible if you're getting bored"

An MMO that doesn't want you to play it constantly (Not by predatory gameplay design, mind you) is not an MMO in my mind. This game needs more content, plain and simple. Gameplay content, things to grind, more rng, more excitement.

What you have listed are all FOMO-based practices that a $15 a month + expansions + mog store game practices, and the community will defend it and say its not FOMO. If you don't log in for the day the miss your roulettes, if you decide to take a break, you are behind 450 tomes from where you could've been. Its all F2p mobile garbage

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

"Take breaks and play other games" Means "Don't Unsub and play other games, preferably other Square Enix games if possible if you're getting bored"

An MMO that doesn't want you to play it constantly (Not by predatory gameplay design, mind you) is not an MMO in my mind. This game needs more content, plain and simple. Gameplay content, things to grind, more rng, more excitement.

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It really boggles my mind. The most predatory thing they have going is hosing, which hasn't been updated in how many years(?) outside of basic neighborhood additions that reuse tons of assets. So even their predatory behavior is uncreative and lazy.

If their goal is simply to manage an online mainline FF RPG, they need to just drop the subscription. They never had any business charging it. This game is more suited to a B2P model at best, where players front the money for expansions every two years.

Considering the game posts declines in profits outside major expansion quarters, I'd assume a sizable number of players treats the game this way already.