A warning to FFXIV players

[Evergrey]

Since talking about other MMOs cash shops, I did like with ESO you earned cash shops currency passively just by subscribing. I know one thing perhaps less cool though is they will put up cash shops only houses for limited time, so if you don't have enough built up passively you'll have to supplement that with active purchase. Though I guess they're supposed to come back occasionally. I believe ever quest has a thing similar where you get benefits to the store passively. I kind of had hoped the new veteran system would be akin to that.

That practice is somewhat of a double edged blade.
One side you can get a piece of the cake just by subscribing.
But on the other side the taste could pull you into spending money that you otherwise wouldn't have done since you never bothered with the store before.

Ofc that differs from person to person.
But one of the reasons such practice exists is to give people that taste in hopes that they will want more and not wait for the next months sub-bonus.

[RitsukoSonoda]

That practice is somewhat of a double edged blade.
One side you can get a piece of the cake just by subscribing.
But on the other side the taste could pull you into spending money that you otherwise wouldn't have done since you never bothered with the store before.

Ofc that differs from person to person.
But one of the reasons such practice exists is to give people that taste in hopes that they will want more and not wait for the next months sub-bonus.

Yeah... you get addicts started by giving them a small taste. Just look at most F2P mobile games. You get that that fair amount of free candy... then ppl want more after the gatcha addiction sets in XD

[ForteNightshade]

I'm personally fine with cash shops if they're cosmetic and the funds generated result in more content in the game. SE has been good on that.

ShB, while amazing in terms of story, however has disappointed me in terms of volume of content. Dungeons cut, deep dungeons cut, Hildebrand cut, Beast tribe conclusion cut, many missing DNC/GNB weapons, still no healer designer on the team, nothing invested into tackling bots and crafting just no longer fun. That's just personal opinion, but while I'm happy paying my sub I don't feel like it's worth my money supporting them with extra funds.

Hopefully it's just Covid and bad resource management and things will pick up in Endwalker. Still enjoying the game so I'll keep optimistic until proven otherwise.

To be fair, they put their resources into other content. As noted earlier in this thread, Bozja as a whole took a substantial amount; essentially replacing Deep Dungeon and extra dungeons. Then you consider a lot of the more RP aspects they focused on throughout Shadowbringers and you see where their investment. The problem is it sort of narrowed the scope. If you enjoy Bozja, fantastic. If, on the other hand, you aren't that keen on it, then amount of content sacrificed really starts shows. With that said, there is absolutely no excuse for the lack of GNB/DNC weapons, the lack of hair proper head gear for Viera and Hrothgar, none of the promised Glamor Dresses features being added and etc. The former two are essentially bad because it's cosmetic. If they could iron out flying in ARR, they could add Primal and Ultimate weapons for GNB/DNC. They actively chose not to and rightly deserve criticism for it.

I sincerely hope their take away from Shadowbringers despite in its overall success is to not put all their eggs in a single basket and to improve their time management.

[VelKallor]

They arn't gods you shouldn't worship them they did good with their game but the cash shop is actually awful.

Bluntly

The cash shop is all cosmetic items, nothing that alters the game in any way shape or form. I LOVE the glams they sell, my characters have the Ward Knight set which is awesome.

I got two Chasers actually, one for me and to to gift a friend, and quite frankly, given the absolute joy of the game, the dedication of the devs and designers and artists, I am more than happy to get these. The shop is fine and I dont see an issue.

The utter delight of my friend when they got it was even more of a reward. No one is making you get it, no one is forcing you to buy it, you dont want it dont buy it.

Again, i dont see a problem here.

[VelKallor]

Flashbacks to Rivendare's Deathcharger, Raven Lord, Ashes of A'lar, Mimirron's Head, Invincible......

Oh GOD please dont remind me...

[VelKallor]

As for people buying jump potions to catch up to their friends I will reply to that with my stance on all forms of skips in games regardless of what someone buys them for they shouldn't be in a game cause what's the point of making a grind if you can skip it.

Because you already did it before? I have done the FULL MSQ all the way to the end TWICE.

As for WOW...yeah ugh...

I got Ashes of Alar after FIVE YEARS so dont anyone talk to me about grinds, Raven Lord took me four. Thats YEARS with an insanely low drop rate..which goes back to Blizzards "keep them paying and playing" metric.

[Clover_Blake]

The day I consider that the cashshop has become toxic, I'll complain.
Until then, it's been several years already and the game's quality has not diminished; quite the opposite.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I pay to play games and be rewarded for that: content in game.
A weird concept. Paying for a service, being provided said service. Amazing.

And no, mounts are not optional services - Are features of the service already provided: Rendering the cash shop only an extra fee, a predatory extra fee.

So is that going to change because a large handful of items are put in a cashshop? The answer will shock you: NO
You are paying to play the game, and you are rewarded with more content in the game. Its been what, 8-9-10 years that FFXIV has been around? Can you tell me that the game stopped giving you rewards for playing and now everything is in the cashshop? I can tell you in the 5-6 years ive been playing this game, Im to this day still being rewarded for playing the game. Nothing has changed because of a handful of Premium Mounts put in a Cashshop.

People scream Corperate Greed and Predetory Practice.
No, you just dont want to pay, because you just want everything for free.

[Liam_Harper]

To be fair, they put their resources into other content.

They did. Bozja was this expansions Eureka though and using it as a Deep Dungeon replacement was double dipping. So we didn't gain new content there. Bozja does contain 3 raids and CE's/Duels have more mechanics than Eureka Fates (although Eureka had larger zone space in total), but as you said if you don't enjoy Bozja, that's a massive amount of resources that don't apply to you. Ishgard also took considerable resources, but neglected experienced crafters, trying to string them along and waste their time with insane grinds for very little, while the rewards for casual crafters were obtained so fast it didn't keep them occupied for long.

Dungeons I'm prepared to forgive as we got Trusts although I wish they'd stop being so stubborn on Hard Modes. They pour so much developer time into something that becomes a 15 minute zerg chore for tomes after the first run.

It's not like they've been lazy, it feels like they've been working flat out but have less to show for it. That's very likely poor resource allocation and management. Hopefully they're learning lessons for Endwalker.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

No, you just dont want to pay, because you just want everything for free.

No, i pay i subscription for in game content.
I want to get things in my game, well, in game: not a cash shop.

In the end cash shop defenders are nothing more than spiteful greedy individualistic people, we are not even talking about closing it or anything - Some of us actually like the game and want to get rewarded by: playing the game.

They could perfectly add a color variant of the Cruise Chaser for the cash shop. But as long as the only option to get a mount is the cash shop: we got a problem.