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

[reiichi]

Yes. Balmung has a horrible economy due to having too many people that is not at all representative of most servers.

How do people afford those multi-million prices then? ...outside of RMT. It seems like it'd be the norm for prices to get lower because who has 10+ million gil in a game that drops it by maybe the 10,000 accumulate so much?

[polyphonica]

A win is not required for something to be pay-to-win. You're using a sketchy definition of pay-to-win. It has been defined many times what Pay-to-Win means within this thread. If you don't agree with the definition, you are simply arguing semantics.

The whole thing was arguing semantics from the start. Even if they dropped all market-related features from retainers, you could just create more characters. Even if they removed any market advantage of creating more characters, you could just create more accounts. Even if they remove any conceivable advantage that money could present directly, any game that is time-locked will still advantage people with more money, because time is money. Worst case, someone with money can just pay someone to put in the time ("power leveling services"), or can pay other players to help them clear content ("buying clears"). There is no conceivable way to remove the advantage money brings, no matter what. Life itself is "pay-to-win."

So this thread is entirely about the semantics and minutia of how blatant/obvious/easy the opportunities to spend money are, people's feelings that Square Enix is wrongfully pressuring them into spending more money when they believe that everything should be included in a single price for a subscription game, and general dissatisfaction with the "value-for-money" of their FFXIV subscription as their interest in the game wanes for a variety of reasons. There will be no resolution to these issues here; the only reason the thread exists is because people hope the Dev Team notices negative feedback and re-evaluates their decisions, whether or not that is likely to actually happen. That's why there's no interest or desire to arrive at understanding or compromise -- just keeping the thread bumped serves the purpose just fine. (And I guess this is my own contribution to that end...)

[MomomiMomi]

No, those people are making their definition to back-up their point, willfully ignoring the actual words contained in the term.

The term itself is hyperbole to emphasize the negative aspects of the practice. It is not meant to be taken literally.

How do people afford those multi-million prices then? ...outside of RMT. It seems like it'd be the norm for prices to get lower because who has 10+ million gil in a game that drops it by maybe the 10,000 accumulate so much?

Because prices are high on our servers, it is also easier to make gil. It's actually harder to afford housing on Balmung because that price is set by the game, not by the players.. Thus, it has a horrible economy.

Also, there are less players to compete with, so it is easier to sell your items. Balmung has more demand, but market board prices are primarily set not by demand, but by competition, because there's only one main place to make your sales and everyone is directly competing in the same place to have the best price.

[Reynhart]

The term itself is hyperbole to emphasize the negative aspects of the practice. It is not meant to be taken literally.

Who decides that ?

[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.

[Vstarstruck]

Who decides that ?

people not blind? I mean it was obvious from the start what pay to win means. I also shown how even wiki has it (I had in my mind that pay to win meant paying real money for an advantage in game play before I even looked it up, I just wanted to make sure) basically anyone with a brain, is "who said" You are just being nitpicky over semantics because you want to defend SE doing these pay to win acts, for some reason.. why are you? anyway?

speaking of which:

The whole thing was arguing semantics from the start. Even if they dropped all market-related features from retainers, you could just create more characters. Even if they removed any market advantage of creating more characters, you could just create more accounts. Even if they remove any conceivable advantage that money could present directly, any game that is time-locked will still advantage people with more money, because time is money. Worst case, someone with money can just pay someone to put in the time ("power leveling services"), or can pay other players to help them clear content ("buying clears"). There is no conceivable way to remove the advantage money brings, no matter what. Life itself is "pay-to-win."

So this thread is entirely about the semantics and minutia of how blatant/obvious/easy the opportunities to spend money are, people's feelings that Square Enix is wrongfully pressuring them into spending more money when they believe that everything should be included in a single price for a subscription game, and general dissatisfaction with the "value-for-money" of their FFXIV subscription as their interest in the game wanes for a variety of reasons. There will be no resolution to these issues here; the only reason the thread exists is because people hope the Dev Team notices negative feedback and re-evaluates their decisions, whether or not that is likely to actually happen. That's why there's no interest or desire to arrive at understanding or compromise -- just keeping the thread bumped serves the purpose just fine. (And I guess this is my own contribution to that end...)

No it is not, it never was meant to be a semantics argument. People turned it into that because they do not understand basic concepts sure, but originally? na it wasn't esp when it has the definition in the first post, that people flat out ignored and wanted harp on my back what win means. People got so focused on what win means they completely missed the point of this thread to begin with.

DO NOT SELL POWER! at ANY kind of level, sell an advantage that impacts balance in some way. For people auguring making muti accounts and chrs is the same thing, not it is not and this app should make it glaring so why.. TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can't manage that many accounts without having some kind of bot. this app puts a lot of power in a single account, more so then a duo boxer due to the streamline it gives, and being a duo boxer with this app just makes it exponentially worse. This app makes it too easy to price adjust, as you do other things, and costing a IRL money fee only harms it more. You really can't make an app to price change your in game items, when the economy is based on spam undercutting.

[Mahrze]

DO NOT SELL POWER! at ANY kind of level, sell an advantage that impacts balance in some way. For people auguring making muti accounts and chrs is the same thing, not it is not and this app should make it glaring so why.. TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can't manage that many accounts without having some kind of bot. this app puts a lot of power in a single account, more so then a duo boxer due to the streamline it gives, and being a duo boxer with this app just makes it exponentially worse. This app makes it too easy to price adjust, as you do other things, and costing a IRL money fee only harms it more. You really can't make an app to price change your in game items, when the economy is based on spam undercutting.

This would've been a great opening argument for the post, albeit it still misses a few nuances and dropping the hyperbole but its much easier to draw a guided discussion vs the 37 pages of the community not deciding on what is pay to win.

[polyphonica]

DO NOT SELL POWER! at ANY kind of level, sell an advantage that impacts balance in some way. For people auguring making muti accounts and chrs is the same thing, not it is not and this app should make it glaring so why.. TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can't manage that many accounts without having some kind of bot. this app puts a lot of power in a single account, more so then a duo boxer due to the streamline it gives, and being a duo boxer with this app just makes it exponentially worse. This app makes it too easy to price adjust, as you do other things, and costing a IRL money fee only harms it more. You really can't make an app to price change your in game items, when the economy is based on spam undercutting.

Are you really actually worried that people are truly going to be sitting there with an array of smartphones on multiple game characters/accounts and spending MogCoin without care just so they can edge out their competition on their server's FFXIV marketboard, who can't possibly keep up because multiboxing and price adjusting in the game proper is slightly more tedious (even though it's at no transaction cost)?

[MomomiMomi]

Are you really actually worried that people are truly going to be sitting there with an array of smartphones on multiple game characters/accounts and spending MogCoin without care just so they can edge out their competition on their server's FFXIV marketboard, who can't possibly keep up because multiboxing and price adjusting in the game proper is slightly more tedious (even though it's at no transaction cost)?

It's already bad enough, we don't need it to get worse.

[Melichoir]

DO NOT SELL POWER! at ANY kind of level, sell an advantage that impacts balance in some way. For people auguring making muti accounts and chrs is the same thing, not it is not and this app should make it glaring so why.. TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can't manage that many accounts without having some kind of bot. this app puts a lot of power in a single account, more so then a duo boxer due to the streamline it gives, and being a duo boxer with this app just makes it exponentially worse. This app makes it too easy to price adjust, as you do other things, and costing a IRL money fee only harms it more. You really can't make an app to price change your in game items, when the economy is based on spam undercutting.

P2W has been broadly understood (regardless of wikipedia) as advantages in teh cash shop that give player 'power'. Depending on the type of game, what defines power VARIES. In the traditional sense of MMOs, it is literally selling the player advancements, items, buffs, or special access to events/content that would give them a strategic end game advantage over players who would do not purchase said items. That is, if SE sold an item called "God Avenger", and it gave you +10000 to your primary stat, and was only available on the cash shop, that would be selling power. that item alone would give you a strategic advantage over ALL the other players i the game who do not have that item.

Now, the app is a touch different because having extra retainers or teh ability to change market board pricings does not provide some definitive advantage to the games power structure. GIL, for what it is, does not directly translate into Power in FFXIV. Even though some BiS gear which can be crafted and sold/bought with gear exists, it doesnt immediately translate into end game power. It can be argued that it indirectly could result in an endgame advantage by making it easier to get gil, which then could translate into crafted items for certain tiers. But even then you still have the same issue of "direct power transfer." Being able to have more retainers or adjust price does not equal you will get more gil that will guarenteed get more money.

There in lies the disconnect. Some people view P2W as direct power gains, while others see it as any advantage no matter what.

I mean we could say Glamour is p2w cause you can argue the true endgame is fashion. Most people wont take that argument seriously though.