Whats with people hating F2P?

[Atoli]

P2P also gives developers the chance to plan in the long run, because they have a certain amount of monthly income just from the monthly fee alone that they can plan with.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a fun, enjoyable game with a F2P model, but the likelihood of things going well and especially of big, groundbreaking new systems getting introduced over the passage of time goes down by like 99%.

Oh, and something else:
The price of one month of FFXIV playtime equals the price of one cinema ticket for one person, not including drinks or popcorn. Basically that means if I have even just 2 hours of enjoyable playtime per MONTH, it's already worth it.

[Andres_Lonegrief]

If a game is F2P, then it is a non game. A trap for mices where developers are asked to insert pay-wall or things to actually force (at least) a part of the users to pay. In a F2P, skills are not required, you either need to be patient or not smart enough to see their "tricks". There is not a single F2P that can be actually fun and enjoyable without paying.
Basically, F2P are ruining the game industry as far as quality is concerned. Lots of studio are focusing on this model and on games for mobile and the scenario is getting really depressing.

Currently, at the price of two Ps4 games per year you can enjoy the game and its major paces. It's not that bad.

[Lexia]

Why? You like spending loads of cash and wasting money every month/two months/three? I hate it. Its a waste but I do it because I like the game.

If you only going to play the bare minimum of the game otherwise f2p games usually end up costing you even more money that you are "wasting". Also you can't say it a waste of money and say you like the game at the same time you contradict yourself, cause people don't usually view their money as wasted if it going to something they enjoy doing.

[Pence]

I've not read any other comments.

My personal opinion: Some games if I don't pay $x per month I will not get the full game/experience. Other games focus more on the glamour, which deteriorates from the actual content. While I'm not happy with XIV at the moment, I do appreciate the dedication, time and effort they put in - which is something F2P lacks.

[Immut]

Alright folks, I'm gonna enlighten you on some of this F2P shit.


First off: watch this video.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An

It's a lecture on the chinese web gaming industry.

The TL;DR is that in China, you get shit like Wizard 101. You sell powerful equipment so hopefully some rich jerk will drop $100k on your game and kill everybody. Then the game dies and you make a new one every couple weeks.

Now, the cardinal rule for F2P games in America is you NEVER SELL POWER. He actually talks about this. Americans do not like to buy power. You know what Americans buy? HATS. You've seen TF2. You've probably bought the Odin mount. At the very least I know some of you are thinking of dropping $10 to get some jet black dyes on the cheap. That shit works.

A lot of the F2P games we get here are actually imports from China and Korea. Companies like Aria Games pick up the licenses on the cheap because they already failed over there, and while they aren't web games, many of them follow the same design philosophy: Find a whale and let them run wild. That's why F2P doesn't seem fair, because for most F2P games, it isn't MEANT to be.

Now contrast this with purebred american F2P games like TF2, Planetside 2, Hawken, or even Dungeons and Dragons Online. They all use different models of "freemium" content without directly selling you a +9001 Stick of Truth.
TF2 sells you hats and weapons that randomly drop during gameplay anyway, and you can trade them. They even have an in game currency where you destroy drops you don't want. Then they have super rare unusual hats that you need to pay $2.50 for a 1% chance to get. But you can trade in game items for those $2.50 keys too.
Planetside 2 simply gives you bonus exp for paying a membership fee. Granted it's a lot of bonus exp, but in a first person shooter game where the default guns are pretty decent, it's not that bad. Takes about two weeks of totally free play to really be competitive, everything on top of that is just gravy. I've never felt like I was at a disadvantage over paying players. Or at least not more of a disadvantage compared to fighting those fucking Orion users. Or you can directly buy new guns and attachments with money. They also have money-only cosmetics.
Hawken had serious problems. They locked all the alternative mechs behind an unbelievably steep grind. The difference here is Planetside 2 has 5 classes to choose from and gives you a free additional gun at the start, and prices for upgrades or new equipment varies greatly from 100 certs to 1000 certs. In Hawken you have no choices until you grind for weeks on end. They have the same philosophy but the execution is LOUSY. Not to mention the default mech sucks statistically so you just get farmed. Not an enjoyable game experience.
DDO is probably the closest comparison to a hypothetical F2P FFXIV. They sell exp and drop rate boosters, as well as some fairly strong starting equipment and potions, but nothing beyond level 10. They also sell content. Dungeon access, premium classes and races, things like that.

The thing these all have in common is they sell SHORTCUTS. There isn't a tier of paying customers that lords over the f2p plebs. Everyone is on the same level at the end, you can just pay to get there faster. FFXIV could sell loot boosters from mobs. I know leatherworkers would love it if all the amphteres and wyverns suddenly dropped 3x hq skins every time. We already HAVE various ways to boost exp, they could sell an item that fills your rested exp to the max. Stuff like this would not harm the game any more than someone with 3 alts and 24 level 60 retainers does.

That said, FFXIV will never ever go F2P. FFXI didn't and it's been dead for years.

[Sensual]

It's a lecture on the chinese web gaming industry.

The TL;DR is that in China, you get shit like Wizard 101. You sell powerful equipment so hopefully some rich jerk will drop $100k on your game and kill everybody. Then the game dies and you make a new one every couple weeks.

China worst example. FFXIV There sells lvl 50 and other boosters. Many of them have limited internet like paying by minute and stuff like that, so their MMO thing is a little faster passed in compensation, and that's to help those with minutely payed internet connections so people can still enjoy themselves in case they have barriers like these, to make their little time to play more rewarding. China =/= West

[XgungraveX]

because if it went f2p there will be a sharp drop in content release.

[SpiritTamer]

If it's something you enjoy, it's not a waste of money.

[Noshpan]

The thing with free to play games is that what they offer in their cash shops goes above and beyond cosmetic items such as cosmetic garb, new hair styles/appearances, pets. Some offer items that boost experience gains to an insanely high level. Others provide equipment that isn't fluff equipment. Basically their cash shops provide items that make it practically a necessity to progress in a free to play game. And, thus, free to play games, as a whole, tend to get an oft-deserved bad rap. Oh, and game quality tends to be sub-par because of freemium models. Bugs and exploits don't get fixed, etc. I've played a few free to play games that had potential at their core, but were effectively ruined by the necessity of having to purchase items from their cash shops.

[Tarta]

When a feature gets implemented in Free to Play, the thought process is "How will this drive users to do more microtransactions" instead of a Pay to Play model of "How will this feature retain our players longer, but not quit".
See Grind:
On F2P models, the grind is crazy rough, but then you *can* skip most of it with real life money.
On P2P models, the grind is there, but can't be too crazy as the users would quit.