PETITION: Regarding FINAL FANTASY XIV Steam Version (Mar. 8)

[LadyBaelcrest]

Which, after sinking literal thousands of hours into the game, is not at all an option I'm willing to consider.

And possibly thousands of dollars depending on how active and what "extras" you've decided to grab over it's 6 year run.

[VirusChris]

If you bought the expansions direct from SE then you have a non-Steam account. I'm guessing at one point you bought the base game on Steam just to get it in your Steam library, but the account itself is still non-Steam so you're not affected by these changes.

You can confirm this by logging into the Mogstation and looking for one of these:



(First one is non-Steam, second is Steam)



Unfortunately not. Once an account is flagged as Steam it's forever Steam. You can't switch between the two types.

Ah! I've been on my Mogstation quite a number of times and I know it says "Standard" so a non-Steam account. That said, but I bought the base game through Steam and have to log into Steam then the FFXIV Launcher I will not be affected by these changes. Correct?

Also I will be able to continue to buy expansion through SE Story for my Account, right?

[LadyBaelcrest]

Ah! I've been on my Mogstation quite a number of times and I know it says "Standard" so a non-Steam account. That said, but I bought the base game through Steam and have to log into Steam then the FFXIV Launcher I will not be affected by these changes. Correct?

Also I will be able to continue to buy expansion through SE Story for my Account, right?

If you bought it through Steam it will say Standard (Steam) on your Mogstation and that means you can only buy expansions through Steam. If it says nothing about Steam on it you don't have to go through Steam to log in. Actually... can you even log in the Steam one with a standard account?

[Avidria]

If you bought it through Steam it will say Standard (Steam) on your Mogstation and that means you can only buy expansions through Steam. If it says nothing about Steam on it you don't have to go through Steam to log in. Actually... can you even log in the Steam one with a standard account?

I'm not sure I really understand their question, but I don't see why you couldn't log in from either version.

Could be wrong here, but my understanding was that it's the account license itself that's either tied to steam or not. I've deliberately avoided downloading the game through Steam at all for years because I don't like having Steam constantly running, and have zero issues downloading the game directly from SE's site and playing it. The game itself should be exactly the same, no?

[Astrus]

I'm not sure I really understand their question, but I don't see why you couldn't log in from either version.

Could be wrong here, but my understanding was that it's the account license itself that's either tied to steam or not. I've deliberately avoided downloading the game through Steam at all for years because I don't like having Steam constantly running, and have zero issues downloading the game directly from SE's site and playing it. The game itself should be exactly the same, no?

Currently the two versions should be pretty much the same, give or take a handful of files the Steam version may add to enable Steam functionally and pretend to know what patch it's on, and you can log into either type of PC account with either version. Until they implement the changes you can even start the game from the installation folder and bypass Steam entirely.

We know the upcoming change intends to limit Steam accounts to only being able to log in using the client provided through Steam (and specifically launched through Steam), we don't know if that client will also support stand-alone PC accounts or what exactly will change in the login process.

[Akuni]

Currently the two versions should be pretty much the same, give or take a handful of files the Steam version may add to enable Steam functionally and pretend to know what patch it's on, and you can log into either type of PC account with either version. Until they implement the changes you can even start the game from the installation folder and bypass Steam entirely.

We know the upcoming change intends to limit Steam accounts to only being able to log in using the client provided through Steam (and specifically launched through Steam), we don't know if that client will also support stand-alone PC accounts or what exactly will change in the login process.

According to the support guy/gay which answered my ticket... It seems steam users will no longer be able to log into the standalone version (which is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. Like, why?!).

My questions were [1] if, going forward with this change, I'd have to log into the steam client instead of the standalone client I'vew been using for years and [2] if there's a possibility to migrate my data to a standalone license.

tldr: Tough luck lol, gotta start over or buy a ps4 + base game + expansion if you don't like steam crashing you and being a pain.

That's the full answer from support:

Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Support Centre.

Thank you for getting in touch with us about our recent changes to how the game can be played using the Steam version.

We are really sorry for any inconvenience caused by our changes, but we can confirm that this is the plan moving forward [on 1]. Your feedback has been noted.

We can also confirm that unfortunately there is no way to move from Steam to the non-Steam windows version and keep all your progress, you would have to register the game code on a new Service Account and start from scratch. You can add a PlayStation 4 version to your existing Service Account however, if that is something you owned [on 2].

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience, but if you do find the Steam version crashes after these changes you can get in touch again and we can troubleshoot and hopefully find the cause of this issue.

If this is what you chose to do we look forward to hearing back from you.

Kind regards,
The Square Enix Support Centre team

Thank you for contacting us and for your interest in Square Enix products!
More help and information is available at the Square Enix Support Centre website.

[Astrus]

According to the support guy/gay which answered my ticket... It seems steam users will no longer be able to log into the standalone version (which is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. Like, why?!).[...]

Yes, that's the meat of the intended change.
What we don't know is what ramifications this will have on people with a non-Steam PC account who choose to use the Steam Version regardless or what exactly they will do to the login process for Steam users aside from requiring the use of the Steam client launched through Steam.

On one end of the spectrum it could be as simple as requiring the Steam client if your account is flagged as Steam, which would be a problem for the people who can't or don't want to have Steam running, on the other end of the spectrum it could be the whole works ESO got with unstable Steam authentication servers thrown into the login process that can outright prevent people from logging into the game they pay a subscription for for severals days at a time with no fix available which is a problem for everyone (potentially even non-Steam users if half their static/friends/FC randomly can't get on due to this) and is not going to garner any good PR for SE.

Alas, we'll have to wait and see. If they were going to listen to our feedback they had months to do so by now.

[Ayuhra]

I am sorely regretting buying the Steam version now. Before this, it was no trouble at all but I have not logged in via Steam for years.

Edit: just so people understand the concerns when ESO went through this it caused huge problems including but not limited to:

-redownloads of the game that take up to 24 hours
-missing characters
-authentication issues persisting for weeks at a time
-inability to access game store
-game crashing at launch
-endless load times in launcher
-random loss of controller functionality on some screens

Now obviously this game is not ESO but some of these problems might still happen. And in ESO they still happen around patch days.

[Freyar]

People are assuming there's more to this "version" and "launch" check than what htey've said.

That being said, while I can understand the frustrations given the difficulty ZOS had (and both ZOS and Steam pointed fingers leaving customers in the dark as far as I can tell), this may not be too much of a problem.

That said, the way the billing works for XIV means this can be a complex problem to resolve given that "once on Steam, must buy on Steam".

They need to let people get out of this restriction for their own accounts. Hell, I bought the core game on Steam to have the client through it and gave the key to someone else since I already had a 1.x account. That someone else? He's going to have a hard time reconciling this.

[Cicada144]

I hate that I bought XIV through steam and honestly if I'd known beforehand the crud I'd have to go through I'd have paid the extra 20 bucks. hell I'd buy it again if I got to switch over to a windows version and keep my character. but as far as I know this is impossible. I've been using the login through windows because hell half the time I can't even get steam to not kick me out every 15-20 minutes. when I switched over to the windows login way it worked fine and had no issues.. so yea I'd really like to not have to go through steam anymore please TT_TT