Give trialists more functions

Right now trial players can't:

- Trade
- Reply to private messages (or send them)
- Join Free companies
Amongst other choices.

However this ruins the experience for a lot of trial players who because of this do not get a sense of community behavior which may be off putting to them. If they met people in game and made friends, they would be more likely to stick around and subscribe.

I would say give them more options but limited so bot users can't abuse this:

- Allow them to join FC's, but forbid them to actually own/start one.
- Allow them to trade but only with people who are in their friendslist or FC.
- Allow them to reply to private messages but only to people in friendlist or FC.

I'm convinced that when people meet people that treat them with kindness, they will have a way better experience and the people they meet might even convince them to subscribe.

There is an easy solution if they get to the point of wanting those things, which is to buy the game. It is a free trial, and one of the most generous a game could provide, giving them enough content that many trial players will take years to get through it all.

Being in an FC allows them to do submarines for RMT purposes.
Being able to trade, even with friends, allows them to trade gil for RMT purposes.

The being able to reply bit is probably alright, but the chat restrictions in general are to prevent RMT spam unless they pay SE money.

I do think that people on free trial should be able to use /reply but not /tell. Other than that, I think the free trial is more than generous enough. Remove any more restrictions and you're basically creating a free 2 play tier rather than a free trial.

I never stated they would get all options as trialists, obviously some options should remain grayed out.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

I do think that people on free trial should be able to use /reply but not /tell. Other than that, I think the free trial is more than generous enough. Remove any more restrictions and you're basically creating a free 2 play tier rather than a free trial.

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It's already a free 2 play game. There is no limit on the free trial next to the fact that you get none of the expansion classes/guilds.
But to make the game too handicapped is to give new players the impression the game is supposed to work like that... flawed in design.
It may potentially give the wrong impression and ruin the experience to the degree where you wouldn't subscribe. I still remember 10 years ago... I held off on subscribing for almost a year based on not enjoying the game... till I got tempted to subscribe the game felt so much different to the point where I didn't understand why I didn't subscribe earlier.

the only thing I could say to be able to add for free trial is the option to make a party and thats all they want the rest do like any other and PTP simple they have more content to do then the one that pay to play

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Originally Posted by SXTC

It's already a free 2 play game. There is no limit on the free trial next to the fact that you get none of the expansion classes/guilds.
But to make the game too handicapped is to give new players the impression the game is supposed to work like that... flawed in design.
It may potentially give the wrong impression and ruin the experience to the degree where you wouldn't subscribe. I still remember 10 years ago... I held off on subscribing for almost a year based on not enjoying the game... till I got tempted to subscribe the game felt so much different to the point where I didn't understand why I didn't subscribe earlier.

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If it was a free 2 play game, I would still be able to play if I stopped paying my sub.

It's a pay 2 play game with a monthly subscription fee. There is a very generous free trial in place to allow players to try the game before deciding if they want to buy the game and take on a subscription to gain access to the full range of features. I don't want this to become a free 2 play game because I don't want the anti-consumer monetisation that comes with the f2p model.

The current free trial is more than enough and does not need to be expanded. If someone is on free trial and feels that they like the game but wishes they had access to more social features, they can buy the game.

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Originally Posted by SXTC

It's already a free 2 play game. There is no limit on the free trial next to the fact that you get none of the expansion classes/guilds.

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The game is NOT free to play, it is a pay to play service with a very very generous free trial.

Once you buy the game, you have to pay the subscription to continue playing, hence, it is not free to play. I think this is a very important distinction to make so as not to give the wrong impressions.

They can join link shells. They can have a 3rd person create a party for them. The 300k gil limit is enough to fund the teleportation fees you need to finish the free trial MSQ.

Honestly, the free trial trial already provides a lot of content. That's more than enough. If that's not enough to convince them to purchase, nothing will be.

The main reason why they have so many limits is because of the RTM bots and business going on. They used to have all of those rights but yeah..

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Originally Posted by SXTC

Right now trial players can't:

- Trade
- Reply to private messages (or send them)
- Join Free companies
Amongst other choices.

However this ruins the experience for a lot of trial players who because of this do not get a sense of community behavior which may be off putting to them. If they met people in game and made friends, they would be more likely to stick around and subscribe.

I would say give them more options but limited so bot users can't abuse this:

- Allow them to join FC's, but forbid them to actually own/start one.
- Allow them to trade but only with people who are in their friendslist or FC.
- Allow them to reply to private messages but only to people in friendlist or FC.

I'm convinced that when people meet people that treat them with kindness, they will have a way better experience and the people they meet might even convince them to subscribe.

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Sadly there is too many problems with this.

Say you wanted to add your own alts to a FC but don't know who to ask, just make a Alt, Invite it from a Free Account, then just add your main account alts.

Or make a bunch of free accounts, and have them be in a FC By Themselves. take over buildings run by Free Trial Players once the Paying Account is gone.

There is merit, but there is also the risk of opening new floodgates for issues. you'd need to really comb through all potential drawbacks. Which they might not even want to open up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SXTC

But to make the game too handicapped is to give new players the impression the game is supposed to work like that... flawed in design.
It may potentially give the wrong impression and ruin the experience to the degree where you wouldn't subscribe.

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If they like the game, they'll subscribe.

I'd argue that the free trial terms are well documented, they're not trying to mask anything that could ruin the experience.

FFXIV Free Trial Terms

Besides, as others have stated, it's not F2P, it's a trial, which is designed to give you a glimpse into what you can enhance by paying for it.

You'll probably find that there's plenty of people out there who are content with what they have, restrictions or no.

The two thing I would change is that I'd let free trial players A) use the /reply command as the way to be able to respond if they are directly addressed, and B) be able to receive items from other players, like a one-sided trade, they would still be a closed system in the sense nothing can leave, but they'd be able to accept more indirect help from other, willing service account players.

Honestly one thing I don’t understand the restrictions for is pvp.

How about "trialists" just buy the game like normal people if they are enjoying it. It's a trial, not free to play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

The two thing I would change is that I'd let free trial players A) use the /reply command as the way to be able to respond if they are directly addressed, and B) be able to receive items from other players, like a one-sided trade, they would still be a closed system in the sense nothing can leave, but they'd be able to accept more indirect help from other, willing service account players.

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Sounds Like A Drop Box Waiting to happen.

Specially if the FC thing the OP wanted, occurs.

It's kinda like the whole gifting players stuff from the mogstation.

SE is the one ultimately responsible to make sure it can't be used for illicit things.

But it's also players that need to stop buying from illicit sources.

[Which sadly, enough players who don't care to actually enjoy the game as intended. Do that.]

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Originally Posted by SongOfTheWind

Honestly one thing I don’t understand the restrictions for is pvp.

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That was a recent restriction. It was imposed as an emergency temporary measure in 2021:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6bd640829c1ae9

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

That was a recent restriction. It was imposed as an emergency temporary measure in 2021:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6bd640829c1ae9

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The funniest parts of that post you sent :

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These persistent incidents involve a small number of individuals obtaining and exploiting more than 100 free trial accounts while intentionally changing their devices and setup. While we are considering systemic countermeasures, implementing them will require some time.

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Therefore, as a temporary emergency measure, we will be restricting free trial accounts from participating in PvP content.

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This restriction will be lifted after countermeasures have been implemented, so we ask for your continued patience and understanding.

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Just as a reminder, we are now in 2025, sure looks like it's "requiring some time".

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Originally Posted by Clockworks

Just as a reminder, we are now in 2025, sure looks like it's "requiring some time".

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It’s ok, I am sure it is coming after the hats for viera and hrothgars

Giving Free trials trade is a bad idea. RMT use throw away accounts for advertising, moving gil and items. These accounts have subs that are paid with time cards, the cost means little to them of course. But giving free trials trade will allow RMT to ditch the time card cost and expand the number of throw accounts they have by a massive amount. It would become a throw account paradise for RMT's, if your intent is too make the RMT problem worse your on the right track.

They should bring back PvP for free trial accounts like they promised 3 years ago in this post https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6bd640829c1ae9

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We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to those who are playing on free trial accounts. This restriction will be lifted after countermeasures have been implemented, so we ask for your continued patience and understanding.

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I understand they were asking for patience, but coming next month it is the 3 year anniversary of this post. Just another empty promise.

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Originally Posted by SXTC

However this ruins the experience for a lot of trial players who because of this do not get a sense of community behavior which may be off putting to them.

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This also differs a lot per server they play on. On some servers the novice network is very strict, while on others its used as general chatbox. On servers where its like a chatbox, trial players do get a good sense of the community. While on strict servers, they get more like an opposite experience.
Linkshells are nice, but thats only reachable if there is a more generic chat available, which on strict NN servers means there effectively isnt any.

It could be as easy as adding a public chat, but on that i still think its better to tie it to the NN as that allows a lot of abuse to be prevented/removed (RMT spam on its own can mostly be prevented if it requires an invite like the NN, even if someone abuses it and invites these, SE can trace it back and ban the inviter, or even just automate a system to track it automaticly and if for example over 50% of invites were RMT, an auto ban for inviting can be applied).

Without the NN community, i very likely would never have bothered paying, or even continue playing. While these days we do have a linkshell, it only exists because during patches the NN is unreliable for mentors. And yes, it does contain free trial players in it as well.

More features like FC access dont help, if there is no way to join them due to lack of interaction.
Trading through friends is still abusable as you can use f2p bots and then 'trade'.
PMs to friends however is something i do consider essential. It makes no sense they cant as it already did require a paying player to become friends. Its a similar requirement to linkshells.

hard pass. as many have stated, its already a pretty generous free trial.

many game you get a "free trial" in, they restrict your experience, they restrict your loot etc.

14 does none of that. I can see MAYBE, being able to '/reply' but thats about it. they have 70 levels on 16 jobs they can do, with zero playtime restrictions. if they like the game they can belly up to the bar like the rest of us and buy it. (which comes with I believe... 30 days free)

many people have difficulties anyway to find a good community.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SXTC

Right now trial players can't:

- Trade
- Reply to private messages (or send them)
- Join Free companies
Amongst other choices.

However this ruins the experience for a lot of trial players who because of this do not get a sense of community behavior which may be off putting to them. If they met people in game and made friends, they would be more likely to stick around and subscribe.

I would say give them more options but limited so bot users can't abuse this:

- Allow them to join FC's, but forbid them to actually own/start one.
- Allow them to trade but only with people who are in their friendslist or FC.
- Allow them to reply to private messages but only to people in friendlist or FC.

I'm convinced that when people meet people that treat them with kindness, they will have a way better experience and the people they meet might even convince them to subscribe.

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They won't because very soon a lot of vets will move to free trial so they don't need to unsub, and se has to make sure they don't feel permanent home in this. The want people to sub at all costs

The main thing that makes any sense is reply to people who talk to you first.
Trade is a definite nope. This just opens the door wider for RMT.
If you cannot party up, then really this should be a thing. How do you expect people to show their friends on a free trial what the game can offer.

One other thing I would say is allow those who have stopped playing for a long time (2 years for instance) access to the free trial again. I have only just repurchased FF again last week. I would have done so mid last year if I had access to the free trial again. I just wanted to have a taste of what was here compared to wow. Many are sick of the shenanigans of Blizzard atm. There will be many who played FF, when they were tired of the games Blizzard played back then, who are ripe for easy pickings to pay for this game again. Opening up the free trial should earn a lot more than it costs atm.