Even the sale prices in the store are prohibitively expensive.

[Nethereal]

I have no interest in purchasing fantasias, level skips, story skips or last year's event items that I already have.

This is the only time when things I want to buy go on sale, but they are still outrageously expensive despite the sale.

Are you telling me every year (since you started playing), at the exact same event, near at the exact same time you've consistently failed to make financial decisions that would allow you to purchase something costing $60 or below?

[Jadedsins]

Why should I hold empathy over someone not able to get an item in a video game? The value you get out of this game is amazing compare to the cost of most things in life. If the cash shop items are required for you to enjoy the game. Maybe you need to not play this game.

[Doozer]

I'll take a small discount on specific items over deep discounts on loot boxes like other online games have. Back when I played Guild Wars 2 I spent more money than I care to admit trying to get specific items out of their version of loot boxes because that's where they put the actual good stuff. I don't miss it. There was an item I've been eyeing for a bit but couldn't justify spending $15 USD on it. Now it's on sale for $10, so I said sure. It was worth that amount to me. If you're unsatisfied with the price of an item still, maybe you don't really want it that bad after all.

[Nishira]

I’m not a fan of cash shops. Personally I feel things should just be a result from playing the game itself, and usually there’s a trade off in some way. Less effort at in game mounts, mogs or minions compared to the cash shop ones, offers that prey on FOMO or dopamine rushes… funnily enough I find the FF14 cash shop quite innocent, and just fun fluff. You can play perfectly well without it, the things that are in there are simply cute and a nice treat if you feel like it. Just like you could go out for a meal or a movie, or buy yourself some great chocolate, flowers or a book. And it’s pretty much in that price range too. So no, I don’t find it ridiculously expensive, and yes, it’s entirely optional and can be safely ignored. There’s plenty of great/cute/fluffy fluff that can be obtained in game, so if you can’t or don’t wish to spend extra money, you’ve still got a good amount to enjoy

[RitsukoSonoda]

I'll take a small discount on specific items over deep discounts on loot boxes like other online games have. Back when I played Guild Wars 2 I spent more money than I care to admit trying to get specific items out of their version of loot boxes because that's where they put the actual good stuff. I don't miss it. There was an item I've been eyeing for a bit but couldn't justify spending $15 USD on it. Now it's on sale for $10, so I said sure. It was worth that amount to me. If you're unsatisfied with the price of an item still, maybe you don't really want it that bad after all.

The lootbox thing on other games has been a source of other issues or attacks on microtransactions. The part I don't really like about lootbox/gatcha type things in games is the ones they appear in generally leave them as the only option to get things from their shop. The ideal structure to me IMO would be a mix between something like mogstation and the lootbox/gatcha. I would most likely have new items available for direct purchase individually for set prices, then have bundles at set price that discounts the total cost since it's a bundle, then a cheap lootbox/gatcha that people can play around with if they want to press their luck in getting the thing they want from random draws. Then again I'd also have some method in game to sell the unwanted items either to other players in game or exchange them with an NPC for a type of points balance that could be used in place of RL currency to buy specific items from the cash shop.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I’m not a fan of cash shops. Personally I feel things should just be a result from playing the game itself, and usually there’s a trade off in some way. Less effort at in game mounts, mogs or minions compared to the cash shop ones, offers that prey on FOMO or dopamine rushes… funnily enough I find the FF14 cash shop quite innocent, and just fun fluff. You can play perfectly well without it, the things that are in there are simply cute and a nice treat if you feel like it. Just like you could go out for a meal or a movie, or buy yourself some great chocolate, flowers or a book. And it’s pretty much in that price range too. So no, I don’t find it ridiculously expensive, and yes, it’s entirely optional and can be safely ignored. There’s plenty of great/cute/fluffy fluff that can be obtained in game, so if you can’t or don’t wish to spend extra money, you’ve still got a good amount to enjoy

Even with all of the sales over the years, still don't own a mount off the cash shop. My favorite mount is the dumb trash can from shadowbringer's "super fate"

[Genbe197]

Compared to other mmos FF14 store is pretty cheap...

[Kes13a]

Compared to other mmos FF14 store is pretty cheap...

and you can buy what you want, unlike the rng box experience with a .001 drop rate of anything decent, and spend 100's to get