How would you feel if the game went free to play or buy to play?

[SenorPatty]

F2P simply means SE will inevitably make its money one way or another. If it means tweaking combat content to the point where you'll have to go the cash shop to do optimal dps, they'll do it. Capped your tomes but want to make an extra 200 a week? Here's a weekly tome pass, only available in the cash shop. Want to pentameld with better RNG? There's a cash shop item for that. Want to pentameld WITHOUT rng? There's also a cash shop item for that. Want to buy a mount that has 50percent extra speed than what the game normally allows? You guessed it, cash shop.

All this and I haven't even gone into all the big ass stat bonus they would most certainly add on gacha outfits in the shop. So, should that hypothetical come to pass, I'd say thank you FF14 for the years but I will be on my way.

[ReynTime]

I can imagine if it went free to play...

-From now on dungeons will no longer be the fastest way to level. In order to level your characters more efficiently you must do combat levequests. (Which give 25% of their original exp) You can buy more leve allowances in the mogstation, 6 USD for 8.
-By default characters only get 5 slots for glamour plates. To unlock the rest you must pay 10 USD per additional slot.
-All mogstation mounts and fashion will now be sold in lucky boxes that may or may not contain the costume or mount you want.
-Manuals and cordials can no longer be obtained in-game. You can buy them individually or in bundles of 5 in the mogstation.
-Any attempt to remove or meld materia has a risk of failure. And if you fail you have a high risk of losing the equipment. To prevent the loss you can use equipment insurance sold in the mogstation. 8 USD for 5. We have also made materia stats more important to give melding a bigger advantage. We strongly suggest you pentameld your gear if you wish to have a chance of clearing DPS checks in our next normal raids.
-The mogstation will now sell special potions and food. Including the "ultimate ether". An item that stops your MP from dropping for 10 minutes. 10 USD.

[Tranquilmelody7]

I'd still play.
I wouldn't like it, but I love this game dearly so I would remain.

For a lot of MMOs, a subscription structure for monetization simply isn't feasible and I respect that.

Why?
Simply marketing and awareness.
Some MMOS just aren't popular enough with dev's not having the resources to spread word of the games existence to sustain a subscription model.

However, when it is viable(which is definitely the case for FF14, I feel a subscription model is almost always superior.

[Shin96]

I'd stop playing. I've seen enough games go down that route to know where it'll end. That said, the game is doing extremely well so it most likely won't ever happen.

[IDontPetLalas]

Having been through how F2P absolutely destroyed one game, hell no I'd leave in an instant.

When I mean destroyed- I mean that social cohesion was obliterated - the rift between the haves and the have-nots kept widening over the years. The events that were organized got worse and worse, the choice was either to grind almost 24/7 for true F2P players to get the chance of a decent reward , playing multiple alts, or to throw literally hundreds (if not more) USD at each event in order to get a decent reward. Not to mention the cash shop purchases, whales could easily spend thousands of dollars due to the RNG everywhere. Content was released more slowly in the P2W model too and the game population dwindled.

played that game for over 10 years, starting from beta, it's still alive, but a shell of its former self- the classic version that was released about a year ago is actually far more popular than the current F2P model.

[SturmChurro]

'Free to play' is just an excuse to put a game on a near maintenance mode; low investment, high returns. "Content" is then primarily developed for the cash shop, or enticing players to use the cash shop. 'F2P' comes at the expense of not only the game, but usually also the players not willing to spend hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on the game. It is an invasive practice, and usually still features a premium or subscription service, on top of the cash shop. 'Buy to play' games are almost just as bad, things like ESO have proved that, and you can still expect a highly invasive cash shop, most of the time.

Unfortunately, this game already has shown the problems of going pseudo-f2p, with it's expansive free trial. One example would be the speculation some have here, about how our relic steps have been polluted by the design decision of making specifically HW, and ARR content, the preferred and most efficient route of completing said relic. Another could be the thread about the NN being spammed with supposed slurs, for months, by a user abusing free trial accounts.

[Shin96]

One example would be the speculation some have here, about how our relic steps have been polluted by the design decision of making specifically HW, and ARR content, the preferred and most efficient route of completing said relic.

I always felt like they did this because of making HW available for free, therefore populating content in HW and SB to give off the impression that people still spend time there. I have a bad feeling about this issue in particular regarding the future.

[Divinemights]

I don't get it.
Why is there are always people thinking this game will go free to play when FF14 is doing farwell financially and player review.
This is not some instant noodle Korean MMO

[Genz]

So in this thread we just suppose SE is incompetent and think they'd destroy the game if they were to switch to f2p ? (makes you wonder if players are serious when they say FFXIV is a good game)

It would probably run the same because they'd carefully chose acceptable microtransactions (mainly cosmetic, since it already sells), and push slowly the boundaries, the same way they made trash like jump potion "acceptable".

[ZedxKayn]

I'd be fine with buy to play. I think having BOTH to buy the game, and the expacs, AND pay a sub is super scummy and it's why I never touched WoW and was extremely reluctant to play FFXIV in the first place.