YoshiP stated that MMOs are trending toward F2P

[ckc22]

players are getting pulled thru it without anyeffort.. at least in T13 (even with echo), a noob could not get pulled thru without haveing routined it well...

and farming ponies is a joke..., at least you could still wipe a bit in the past, and to really had "mastered" it to certain dagree..

.. if they allowed the unsyced, at least only for players who've completed it once withou an unsynced group.., its detryoing the game for new players.. , ex primal farming and scob and fcob lost all their epicness

Who cares if 1+ year old content is easy...
It's better than the alternative where no one would do any of the content/it would be impossible to find a full group for. Then it would be in the same situation as CT which is effectively dead content that you can't even participate in.

This feels like more "But I'm special cause I did it the old way and now people who did it the easy way have the same stuff as me...." whining.

[Bishop81]

P2P games use grinds to keep players subbing month after month.

F2P games use grinds to get players to pay to ease the grind.

At least someone is getting my points.

The OP is suggesting that this somehow makes the two equal in terms of how they go about getting your money but this could not be more wrong. Find me a F2P MMO that allows you to buy everything in the cash shop for the same price as a monthly subscription. You won't find one.

The very nature of the F2P business model means the majority of players pay nothing for the game and typically get a horrific grind 10x worse than any P2P game and a far shallower experience to boot. These players usually don't play for more than a few months as they burn out on the free content and move on. This causes the developers to target only the rich 'whales' that play the game when making things to sell in the cash shop. The result is a hugely over-priced cash shop that supports the game by relying on a very very small 5-10% of the playerbase spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a month on the game.

Whether the game is P2W or not is irrelevant. The fact is with a subscription MMO everyone gets all the content at a fair price, whilst in a F2P MMO you would spend 10x as much money to get that same amount of stuff. I should also point out that F2P games tend to focus much less on releasing actual content and much more on releasing random cosmetic items in the shop to sell for quick money. The entire F2P business model is built on making as much money for as little effort as possible; they don't care if they lose 90% of their players because they don't pay anyway. In comparison a P2P MMO has to release regular, high quality content to maintain all of its subscribers.

I don't know about you but I think it's fairly obvious why P2P is a much better deal for consumers. F2P is an illusion used as a marketing trick to lure in naive players, nothing more. Anyone advocating for it has unfortunately been duped and lacks the capacity to actually see how much more expensive it is.

You are generalising a lot about F2P games though. Different games charge for stuff differently.

Also, free players burning out? Sure if you rush through everything. But I can see most people playing causally - log in when they feel like it; after all there is no pressure to log in since you aren't paying per month.

On a side note, I always found YoshiP's assertion that subs allow a steady stream of income to be somewhat dubious. If you look at WoW, you will see their sub numbers raise and fall in lockstep with patch and expansion releases. Players sub for the content, once it runs out, they bail until more content gets patches in.

Currently I'm bored out of my skull in FFXIV. Actively considering unsubbing until 3.1 hits. Can't bring myself to craft anymore. DOLs at Lv60 but can't be bothered to do the red script grind. Not happy with my character (still no Carbies) so tome grinding is 100% chore.

That fact that I bothered to go searching for other games is a sure sign.

I spend more time messing with my 16x16 Minecraft-ques plot in Trove than in FFXIV at the moment. Helps that they have a pet class with a cute pet [1] - as cute as a bunch of voxels can be anyway. I will probably get bored sooner or later when the grind hits full force but it helps kill time until 3.1.

[1] A dragon whelp that eats stray embers when you attack enemies with your basic attack. Once it has its fill, you can command it to fire a fireball - slightly better pet interaction that WoW/FFXIV's pets IMHO. It's not targetable so you don't have to worry about it getting hurt and dying - it can never be a liability. Really wish FFXIV will clone such a system instead as I much prefer it to WoW's.

[Shiroe]

People were being pulled through T13 before. That was the entirety of the carry business model.

of coure, there'll allways be as few "pulled" thru some fights.. but not in such masses and not without knowing the fight enough

now you can get pulled thru such things as T9 and T13 in Party Finders without knowing half the fight and with ramdoms fast and easy..., cause you can do it with only 7 players with ease unsynced

many are not going thru the real experience of scob and fcob. but just poping in unsyned and getting the first kills within a few hours, like T6 and T7 on the same day for the first time...

its imo breaking the game for new players..., those epic raids have become something of the past many (if not most) new players

those were some of the best game/raid expriences... (and ex-primal farming is also dumbed down too much with unsynced)

[Gilraen]

.. if they allowed the unsyced, at least only for players who've completed it once withou an unsynced group.., its detryoing the game for new players.. , ex primal farming and scob and fcob lost all their epicness

You've never played XI recently I assume. There they've made older story content somewhat more accessible but, well, noone wants to run it. It's a slog even when you're overpowered. Even here the older dungeons are a slog. So how do you take the slog out of the slog so people want to run it again with those who haven't? You, get this, take the slog out of it! Nothing is as cathartic as a slaughter, and those who want to run it for the experience (and by experience I mean the story, yes Coil has a story. You'd have noticed if you weren't busy skipping cutscenes) can sit back and enjoy the ride. Some would call that a win-win.

Append: Also, if you'd bothered to keep up with patch notes you'd know that unsynced removes all but random drops. The only reason to even do unsynced is to either enjoy the story or farm the random pony drops. That's it. No gear, no weapons. Just fun (or mindless farming).

[GabrielK]

If FFXIV ever considers the F2P model, I can only hope it will be in tandem with subscription and we get the full game with all features and options if we're subscribed.
Also, the shop better not offer stuff that buys progression that goes beyond the subscribed capability..
Then again I doubt there's a mmo out there that has this, even the best VIP sub on F2P mmos are weak compared to what you get if you shell out a ton of money for various bonus packs.

Overall I have a distaste for the the F2P market due to the aggressive "monetization" that takes any sense of accomplishment out of the game and gives the power to those with the most money.
However I don't shun it, but it does feel... less comfortable, to me.

[Vurtney]

Where is this article? I'd like to read it.

[Tuathaa]

Just been...breezing around this thread.

I want to know what ass backwards F2P mmos you all are playing.

Wondering this myself but to be fair the only f2p games I have played are gw2 and swtor. Neither of which are p2w games.

[Altera]

If FFXIV goes F2P, I genuinely consider giving the game up and MMOs in general as well. I rather pay 15USD pr month for steady content patches, minimal stuff on Mogshop etc than free to play, but run into Paywalls here and there, which probably will cause it to cost more than 15usd.

[Thayos]

I also read an article in which Yoshi-P says SE hired a French consulting firm to survey players about P2P vs. F2P, and 82 percent of FFXIV players said they wanted the game to stay P2P.

Yoshi's reaction to that in the article is that SE would consider taking FFXIV in the direction of F2P if the players eventually started feeling differently, but until then, the game will stay as P2P.

In other words, no need to panic. XIV is still safely P2P.

[Cakekizy]

players are getting pulled thru it without anyeffort.. at least in T13 (even with echo), a noob could not get pulled thru without haveing routined it well...

just recently, a sol bonus was pulled thru it without trully know the full fight..., others are just gearing up fast (with heavenwards done fast) then goingn back and doing the scob and fcob fast for the first time then farming it off the bat, without ever really experiencing what made it cool...

and farming ponies is a joke..., at least you could still wipe a bit in the past, and to really had "mastered" it to certain dagree..

.. if they allowed the unsyced, at least only for players who've completed it once withou an unsynced group.., its detryoing the game for new players.. , ex primal farming and scob and fcob lost all their epicness

And this is a bad thing because?