Stop with the pay to win advanages for retainers, suggestions on fixes

[MomomiMomi]

Who decides that ?

"In some multiplayer free-to-play games, players who are willing to pay for special items or downloadable content may be able to gain a significant advantage over those playing for free. Some critics of such games call them "pay-to-win" or "p2w" games. A common suggestion for avoiding pay-to-win is that payments should only be used to broaden the experience without affecting gameplay.[34]"

Per Wikipedia.

This is pretty much the only place to find a hard definition of the term. If you can find another one, feel free to provide it.

[Reynhart]

"In some multiplayer free-to-play games, players who are willing to pay for special items or downloadable content may be able to gain a significant advantage over those playing for free. Some critics of such games call them "pay-to-win" or "p2w" games. A common suggestion for avoiding pay-to-win is that payments should only be used to broaden the experience without affecting gameplay.[34]"

Having more slots to sell is still not a "significant advantage" since you still have to play more to obtain those items in the first place and no goal in this game requires that additionnal surge of gils. On a sidenote, did you read the article linked in your quote ?

The much maligned ‘pay to win’ label in the West, where users can only really advance by handing over money, is pretty much a standard for distribution and financial gain in China.

Competition drives everything, and gear purchased for real money in any number of online games bestows substantial statistical benefits, a system that hasn’t found a lot of success in attempts to open these types of games to Western audiences.

You can "advance" without paying something, and there's nothing competitive in "just earning gils".

If you can find another one, feel free to provide it.

Urban dictionnary

Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.

Let's recap something.
Buying 1.0 collector's edition gave you an item to earn more Xp before lvl10 (You can't have this without paying)
Buying 2.0 collector's eidtion gave you an free favored destination (You can't have this without paying)
Buying Stormblood collector's edition gave you an earring to earn more Xp before until lvl50 (You can't have this without paying)
You consider those pay-to-win too ?

I think enabling someone to literally own the market board is more "power" then giving someone +10000 to your primary stat. One lets you solo savage... who cares? while the other leads to making people miserable.

Ok, that was the best joke I read here since years. Sure, the world first race is followed by the whole raiding community, the dev team, the producer himself and lots of players who like to see how those people surpass themselves, ariyala and fflogs only goal is to give player the most information on how they can improve how they play the game and how they compare to each other...but it's nothing against gaining more gils when no one even know, or give a damn, about the names of the richest people in the game.
Take a like for the good laugh.

[MomomiMomi]

Having more slots to sell is still not a "significant advantage" since you still have to play more to obtain those items in the first place and no goal in this game requires that additionnal surge of gils. On a sidenote, did you read the article linked in your quote?

We clearly disagree on it being a significant advantage. It allows for 5x more item listings and retainer ventures. That is significant by any measure of the word.

I also did indeed read that article. I actually had to put it there on purpose because otherewise the link wouldn't have been there, and it would have only linked to wikipedia's citations part of the page even if it was. I also figured you would nitpick on that portion of the article, where your literal interpretation strikes again. If you've ever played one of those types of games before, you would know that you can advance without paying. It's just slower to do so.

Let's recap something.
Buying 1.0 collector's edition gave you an item to earn more Xp before lvl10 (You can't have this without paying)
Buying 2.0 collector's eidtion gave you an free favored destination (You can't have this without paying)
Buying Stormblood collector's edition gave you an earring to earn more Xp before until lvl50 (You can't have this without paying)
You consider those pay-to-win too ?

Yes, but more limited and less worrying forms of it. Once you've leveled up beyond the max level of the item, it stops giving most of its advantage. And once you've reached maxed level, there is no more advantage at all.

I also don't consider the jump potions to be very worrying for the same reasons. That doesn't mean they aren't still forms of pay-to-win, just more limited versions of it.

For the record, though I'm less worried about those, I still disagree with their existence.

[Reynhart]

It allows for 5x more item listings and retainer ventures. That is significant by any measure of the word.

Items that you have to obtain in the first place. Items that you probaby have to craft if you want a decent refill of efficient items to sale, thus spending more time to craft, more time to gather the materials or more gils to buy them, etc...basically, you spend more time in the game to have a chance to earn more gils, considering you're still dependent on everyone's strategy on how they sell their stuff, and the buyers interested in your items.

I also figured you would nitpick on that portion of the article, where your literal interpretation strikes again.

Which just so happens to be the only part of the article that actually gives context to what is pay-to-win and have similar criteria than how I define it, how unexpected...You realize that the rest of the article only says "west don't like it while in china, it's the norm". So yeah, you use something to back up your defnition, and the only part where it is defined bring out several keypoint that the app doesn't cover.

Yes, but more limited and less worrying forms of it. Once you've leveled up beyond the max level of the item, it stops giving most of its advantage. And once you've reached maxed level, there is no more advantage at all.

And once you have enough gils to buy everything you need, gils are worthless. And any serious farmer can earn enough gils to buy new items every time they're released, and nobody cares how many gils other people have so there's no competitive aspect of it.