It's time to reevaluate the idea of adding a PLEX/Chronoscroll-like system to FFXIV

[Duuude007]

EVE and.......

Not sub-based, it was built around PLEX, barely qualifies as an RPG. Try again.

[DoctorPepper]

Time to let this one die I think.. 37 pages of people repeating themselves over and over again.

[MomomiMomi]

Not sub-based, it was built around PLEX, barely qualifies as an RPG. Try again.

How many times are you going to edit that and still have it wrong?

[Magis]

Not sub-based, it was built around PLEX, barely qualifies as an RPG. Try again.

EVE is sub based though and I don't see why it wouldn't qualify as an RPG, especially since it's the most "free" (as in you can do anything) RPG ever made.

But yes, it was built around PLEX unlike FFXIV.

[Intaki]

Not sub-based, it was built around PLEX, barely qualifies as an RPG. Try again.

Considering the degree of customization and character building that exists in the game, some might argue EVE is more of an RPG than FFXIV.

[Duuude007]

But yes, it was built around PLEX unlike FFXIV.

Its also a successful sandbox MMO, something that flies in the face of what many companies consider realistic.

About as unlikely as a failing Sub based MMO closing doors for a year only to come back 'reborn', continuing to be subscription exclusive.

[Elleoille]

I played Eve for years and don't ever recall seeing ISK spammers. RMT is a big no-no and will get your account banned. If they are there they work very quietly.

In this game, it's pretty horrible. The farmers need to be put out of business, and the best way to do that is to remove the need to use them. Or at least a way to permanently block them from chat. It's SO ANNOYING!

It's actually my only gripe with this game. Well, that and skin textures and lighting could use an update to stay competitive with the new mmos coming out. Characters still look really good though, and the world looks amazing

Limited to 3 posts? Blah! Edit:

...By encouraging people to spend money for gil? Its a problem, let's cut out the eye to spite the face.

RMT is a problem because of people who want instant gratification, and are often willing to cheat to get what they want.
Legalizing RMT is a way to cheat without penalty.

How is this good again?

I wouldn't prefer "cash shop gil" because I like a game with a dynamic player-run economy, but they really need to do something about the gil sellers.

[Duuude007]

Considering the degree of customization and character building that exists in the game, some might argue EVE is more of an RPG than FFXIV.

Because of more customization? What does that have to do with RPGs and not thousands of other non- RPGs.

This is tangential to the topic, but whatever. I consider it an RPG if it features story-driven development of persistent characters via the making of consequential choices. But your opinion is different, great, let's move on.

I played Eve for years and don't ever recall seeing ISK spammers. RMT is a big no-no and will get your account banned. If they are there they work very quietly.

In this game, it's pretty horrible. The farmers need to be put out of business, and the best way to do that is to remove the need to use them.

...By encouraging people to spend money for gil? Its a problem, let's cut out the eye to spite the face.

RMT is a problem because of people who want instant gratification, and are often willing to cheat to get what they want.
Legalizing RMT is a way to cheat without penalty.

How is this good again?

[Ceodore]

No to this whole thread. THIS is not the way to deal with RMT gil sellers. Referring to the economy, let's put things this way. There are no gil fountains. The gil being sold by these RMTs is not being made from any super easy farmable content, because if it were, anyone could do the same content and make their business useless. These sellers are coming from accounts that are being hacked, stripped, and abandoned. So the gil they are selling is just stolen, and inflation of the economy because of it is no more drastic as the inflation of it from normal players. So no, there is no economic impact other than them selling gil that was just taken out of circulation. To even think that they are getting this gil from some magical source of super gil production is hilarious and down right moronic. PLEX on the other hand would have a major economic impact, especially since you can not base the game's economic health just on the gil in circulation, but also the items in circulation. As you add something that can be sold that was bought with real world money, you drive up the supply of an item, but when an item is deemed necessary enough (i.e. play time), then demand is never ending, thus supply can never be high enough, and inflation results due to the currency being used to originally develop these items is not from the game, but instead from another source outside the game. This results in secondary inflation that can not be reversed or kept in balance, and the economy will spin out of control. This has been seen in other games with similar systems, even those that don't sell game time. TERA is one I use to play, where the economy due to the in game store has become terrible, however, Tera is a free to play game. Guild Wars 2 is another issue. Their system allows you to by pass the market boards all together and allow you to directly convert real money into store currency and then into game currency. The result: real money still equals the same amount of store currency, but the store currency has become 50 times the value of in game currency, allowing players to directly inject real world cash into in game currency and drive up the economy. The point I am making is that these systems have no control. Even if the game were free to play, the point is that any system that allows real world money to be injected into an online game via items or currency results in an out of control system that destroys the economy and results in massive inflation of prices. Things that were once important or that held value that can not be traded on the market boards (like housing) would lose all form of importance. No gil sink what-so-ever can counter act a force of another economy (especially one so strong as a real world economy) impacting on a game economy.

Second, if you don't have the time to play this game enough to make the gil with effort, then you don't deserve the big shiny mansion with the swag. The housing wards are limited enough as it is, and only the players and free companies that put in the effort and time should be recognized. Joe Schmoe who works 2 jobs, no wife, and no kids and plays 30 minutes a week shouldn't hoard a large house in The Mist which he visits once a week to throw his 100 billion gil into his retainer's bank. The house could be in the hands of a free company which spent months and thousands of hours running content, selling items, farming nodes, and liquidating their entire company chest to come up with the gil. They are active, and will make a proper representation in the game.

On the topic of buying runs, coils, turns, primals, whatever, a system needs to be in place to prevent this type of crap anyways, but that's neither here nor there. First of all, the system for the Final Coils is retarded. 4 boss battles being separated into 4 raid fights much similar to the primals is down right sloppy design. First, Second, and Final turns of Bahamut should have been dungeons with properly hard trash pulls in between fights. Second, the looting system for coils is also a sham too. They got it right with CT and ST when they first came out and also WoD currently. There should be no reason that you can not run content, ever. It turns it from what could be a fun experience where you go in to enjoy the fights to a once a week grind fest with a disappointing loot system. What coils should have been was three 8 man raids, much like CT, ST, and WoD, with 4 bosses, some interesting trash, no lock out, but restrictions on loot limiting players to 1 piece of gear per week. Your entire raid can then work together until everyone has their piece for the week and still go for the challenge and fun of the fights if they want to. But no, what has been introduced instead is essentially 12 primal fights and limited visuals of pieces of Dalamud. I hope SE does Alexander differently.

Now, back on topic. PLEX systems simply don't work because there is simply no way of controlling it without completely breaking it. Other ways other games have tried to control this system are things like limiting how many time scrolls you can buy per month, but that doesn't stop someone from saving up the time scolls then flooding the market all at once, or purchasing multiple accounts to flood the market in other ways. Further, these systems just provide alternative avenues for RMT gil sellers to infect the markets, and obtain mass quantities of gil but now in legal ways. Even if their profit margins are minimal, they will still take advantage of a system to make a profit. Sell a time scroll at market price, then sell the gil back to players at just over the price of the time scroll. The gil still has no real set value, because the market fluctuates and changes that value. A RMT gil seller can also crash a time scroll market, driving the prices down by purchasing time scrolls with stolen credit card information. The result is a massive rebound on the market where prices sky rocket again past what they were at the start as the bubble pops. As players have more time to play to generate more gil, and with more gil in circulation, prices increase to a worse state. This was easily represented by the housing bubble, where the ability to get a house became simpler and easier, requiring a lower down payment, but then the bubble popped, and interest rates increased, monthly payments increased, and hundreds of thousands of houses were foreclosed on. If you drive down a market, you create a bubble, and when the bubble pops, the result is a massive rebound in the opposite direction. There is no perfect system where the prices can just go down and down without any consequences to any of the parties involved, it just simply doesn't exist. An ideal system is one that remains steady, with little to no fluctuation, where no one wins or loses too much or too little. Money remains in circulation without massive injections of revenue, and the wheels turn. When any of these variables are out of sync, the system loses balance. Inject too much money, the price of the product increases. Inject too much product, the price of the product plummets until supplies run out or get low, at which point, the rebound is worse. Take oil prices. The prices 20 years ago were below a dollar because so much of it was readily available, but the moment it began to become scarce, the oil prices sky rocketed, and had a massive effect on other products as well. When you tinker with a system that effects other systems, then you change all of those systems. In this cast, time scrolls would be oil prices. As you inject them, you cause their prices to lower, causing people to have more play time, making their current play time have less apparent value, and driving down the prices of all other markets in the game. The time they spent getting those items to sell now seem less valuable, so the items themselves now hold less value. However, as the time scrolls become more scarce, and believe me, they will become more scarce, because no one source can supply enough time scrolls for all the players to buy, the value of peoples' time increases, increasing the value perceived on the items they are selling and inflating the prices. There is no simple way of counter acting this system other than not tampering with it in stupid ways such as real world into game world exchanges. Gil sinks are only so strong, and their acceptance by your player base is minimal at best. No one likes to feel that their money, in game or real, was a waste. I myself am guilty of sinking gil into some things too, but for the most part, I try to avoid such things.

TLDR: Remove all forms of cash shop to in game transactions, and do not introduce any other forms of such systems, as they will not fix anything, period.

[Intaki]

TLDR: Remove all forms of cash shop to in game transactions, and do not introduce any other forms of such systems, as they will not fix anything, period.

"Dear Giant Corporation, please stop making money. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks."

Good luck with that appeal of yours. I'm sure they'll take it into serious consideration.