Why pay a subscription?

[Devilray]

In a few months, everyone is going to be full myth geared thanks to the "social welfare" tokens given out by doing AK all the time. And then getting relics will not be an issue anymore. Everyone will be geared, then they will release harder content that will make all the myth gear people outdated. This is only good if they don't release easy to get gear to gear up casuals for the new content. It is pretty disheartening when they basically devalue all past effort and subscription time you payed for and give new players a free ride to the position that took you a lot of effort. FFXI was very good for keeping all the gear relevant (until Adoulin).... and honestly now FFXI has died in my eyes. They turned FFXI's system into the welfare system and de-valued relics and mythics. You should have seen how many angry people were when they had the nerve to out-class the weapons that had been relevant for MANY years. It was honestly a move by SE to get people to leave and go to FF14 because FF11's "fate" wall destroying events and content updates are in the same type of model FF14 uses now.

Edit: Especially since this game, you can level multiple jobs on a character, there is no reason to outdate so many aspects of the character you have built with so many different jobs. You could have put a lot of effort into many different jobs and that much more effort is devalued by content updates that release overpowered gear.

TL;DR: SE, Don't give new players and casuals a free ride to new content. That is UNFAIR! New players and casuals have to work to get to the new content in my opinion. If they release easily-obtained gear that outclasses myth gear, it makes all your queuing and AK runs kinda pointless. Waste of time and subscription time!! You payed to put yourself through suffering only to get it outdated in a few months. Most retarded gaming model ever.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

I don't mind the $12.99/month for this game. I also love how it's so easy I can solo everything with just a duty finder and random people who may or may not know how to play. I hated having to get a guild in WoW, requiring TS/Vent and scheduling raids where you had to sign up for a spot. That was NOT fun. It felt a lot like a job you don't get paid for. It took me a year to get T1 armor fighting 4+ other same classes for it. Not to mention that every guild had a loot system and if you didn't raid enough you just weren't getting anything.

Screw all of that.. if this game ever turns into another WoW I'm out. There is a reason why this game picked up so fast. There are FAR fewer hard-core players than casual players. Casual will win.. sorry, if you don't like that then you can head to WoW and I promise you'll love that if you love taking years to get gear.

[C-croft]

I don't mind the $12.99/month for this game. I also love how it's so easy I can solo everything with just a duty finder and random people who may or may not know how to play. I hated having to get a guild in WoW, requiring TS/Vent and scheduling raids where you had to sign up for a spot. That was NOT fun. It felt a lot like a job you don't get paid for. It took me a year to get T1 armor fighting 4+ other same classes for it. Not to mention that every guild had a loot system and if you didn't raid enough you just weren't getting anything.

Screw all of that.. if this game ever turns into another WoW I'm out. There is a reason why this game picked up so fast. There are FAR fewer hard-core players than casual players. Casual will win.. sorry, if you don't like that then you can head to WoW and I promise you'll love that if you love taking years to get gear.

The game is so far removed from Vanilla. Gear is far easier to obtain now. Because the content became that much easier. Basically, you spoof your iLVL, get into the WoW DF queue up for faceroll dungeons and get tokens. The final raid for end game (at the time when I quit)Dragon soul, had a DF mode and was so easy only half the group was required to participate. Then you would get your welfare epics and more tokens. Then you were more than capable of going to normal mode gear wise. Heroic was a bit more challenging in that you had mechanics that require you to pay attention. As long as you can click a button or not stand in fire, you were good.

[Felis]

I read that they intend to make the current end game content easy when they introduce new end game content.

So why subscribe, the smart man would just pay for the subscription as they update.
So each time they add new end game content they will nerf the previous end game content.

Sounds good to me. .

Only if you want to be always a hiker (casual player)
If you want to be a pioneer (hardcore player), there would be always a new montain you can climb up without hiking paths.

You will be able to do the whole game solo or with the duty finder, no need for guilds,friends,or groups.

Best single player game in disguise

Hmm, no?
Like Yoshida said already, there would be always a new hardcore content where you need a party with hardcore players in it.
In short, have fun to do the Bahamut dungeon turn 6-10 with a df group.

[Jlol]

Well, I would guess the OP is right in some ways, if you already have all the best gear for your job, and know how the expansion system works...then you could take a break from the subscription. I personally am going with the 1 character/server sub, since I plan on leveling up many different classes just because its fun. I can't imagine someone getting to lvl 50 with every class they are interested within one month unless all they do is play ARR all day every day for 30 days. So i'll subscribe, max my BLM, tinker with other jobs, crafting, gathering, and see when I get bored with the content they have. Then maybe I'll come back when the new stuff is added, but I don't have a ton of time to play, so I can't max everything I want to within 1 month...

[Alhanelem]

Well while I totally agree that the bots and spamming are completely out of control and Square doesn't appear to give two shits, some people like to do the content while it's still challenging. The negatives you mention do suck but they haven't prevented me from playing the game.

They give a lot more than two shits, and it's a lot more under control than it used to be. There is definitely less spam than there was a few weeks ago (where RMT were flooding every town with a million messages a second). You can't expect them to stop it completely, it's simply not possible. It happens in every MMO.

Also, adjusting older content doesn't mean everything becomes instant easy mode. Less difficicult doesn't mean you can press 2 buttons and it's done. Every single MMO in existence makes older content easier over time. Why do people act like this is something new? It's either done directly by modifying it, or indirectly by the game getting more levels or better gear available.

Fact. I would get tells in WoW to buy gold. The easiest part about it is the right click to report function. A feature desperately needed in this game.

that would certainly be convenient, but it's not like filing a report is that difficult right now.

[C-croft]

They give a lot more than two shits, and it's a lot more under control than it used to be. There is definitely less spam than there was a few weeks ago (where RMT were flooding every town with a million messages a second). You can't expect them to stop it completely, it's simply not possible. It happens in every MMO.

Fact. I would get tells in WoW to buy gold. The easiest part about it is the right click to report function. A feature desperately needed in this game.

[Rikudou-Sennin]

They needed to make WoW easier. I remember being in a raid of 40 ppl in Molten Core when the game was young. If you lost just 1-2 people that was it, the raid was over. Try getting 40 people to work together.. or even finding 40 people who can spend hours upon hours in one dungeon. It got so ludacris with the time needed they actually started assigning dungeon ID's so it would be a work in progress and you could spend 3-5 days in one dungeon. It was non-sense. I can seriously remember gear taking a year or more to get. Then they would patch and BAM, in one second you're tier gear was now junk. It took you several months to a year or so to get a full high end tier set and then it was made garbage in one content update. I wasted a lot of my life with that game. I played for four years and never obtained anything better than partial T2 armor.

I'm happy in FFXIV RR that I already have relic gear. It's supposed to be fun, not make me want to throw a cup up against the wall.

[C-croft]

They needed to make WoW easier. I remember being in a raid of 40 ppl in Molten Core when the game was young. If you lost just 1-2 people that was it, the raid was over. Try getting 40 people to work together.. or even finding 40 people who can spend hours upon hours in one dungeon. It got so ludacris with the time needed they actually started assigning dungeon ID's so it would be a work in progress and you could spend 3-5 days in one dungeon. It was non-sense. I can seriously remember gear taking a year or more to get. Then they would patch and BAM, in one second you're tier gear was now junk. It took you several months to a year or so to get a full high end tier set and then it was made garbage in one content update. I wasted a lot of my life with that game. I played for four years and never obtained anything better than partial T2 armor.

I'm happy in FFXIV RR that I already have relic gear. It's supposed to be fun, not make me want to throw a cup up against the wall.

Yeah, Vanilla was bad in that sense. But easy and trivial are two separate things.

[The-Alchemist]

They needed to make WoW easier. I remember being in a raid of 40 ppl in Molten Core when the game was young. If you lost just 1-2 people that was it, the raid was over. Try getting 40 people to work together.. or even finding 40 people who can spend hours upon hours in one dungeon. It got so ludacris with the time needed they actually started assigning dungeon ID's so it would be a work in progress and you could spend 3-5 days in one dungeon. It was non-sense. I can seriously remember gear taking a year or more to get. Then they would patch and BAM, in one second you're tier gear was now junk. It took you several months to a year or so to get a full high end tier set and then it was made garbage in one content update. I wasted a lot of my life with that game. I played for four years and never obtained anything better than partial T2 armor.

I'm happy in FFXIV RR that I already have relic gear. It's supposed to be fun, not make me want to throw a cup up against the wall.

40 man raids are epic and the casual players ruined it.. Waahhhh too many people too hard to work together with 40 Wahhh takes too long to complete waaahhh only some guilds could finish it.. Now we are st stuck with mostly 8 mans which are hardly epic