Anyone else just feeling really disapointed this expansion?*vent*

[Deveryn]

Try being any sort of competent crafter with no retainers

Retainers are literally “pay real money to buy more inventory space” and that is one of the most predatory things an MMO can do outside of BDO style RNG upgrade weapon is destroyed if you fail

Competent crafter here o/

I bought one retainer once for a couple months when I first got to top tier crafting, while also just getting into farming different things like extreme trials. Now that there are no more HQ harvests, it doesn't pay to hold on to very much, aside from crafted components.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Try being any sort of competent crafter with no retainers

Retainers are literally “pay real money to buy more inventory space” and that is one of the most predatory things an MMO can do outside of BDO style RNG upgrade weapon is destroyed if you fail

Tried it. Hated it.

[Striker44]

I mean at the end of the day free games need to have some sort of monetisation in order to recoup the costs, whether that monetisation is fair is another matter entirely, but it's not something that they can just take out.
With XIV you have to pay for the base game, then pay for the latest expansion and then pay a monthly sub fee on top of it all. There is absolutely -no- reason for this game to have a cash shop as extensive as it is currently.
Plus it's not like XIV doesn't also run its own limited time events, which are fine and all but the fact that if you miss one of them you then have to pay for the rewards you missed in the cash shop rather than just having it be available again the next year is kind of baffling.
And this is on top of all the other questionable tactics the game pulls to wring some extra bucks out of you. Yeah, Yoshi-P can pretend like it's all fine and dandy for you to take a break and unsub if there's nothing to do, but that doesn't stop the devs from putting a bunch of content in that's time gated just long enough to make sure it takes over a month for you to complete it all like the beast tribes and the tome limit. The biggest pisstake here was definitely with 5.5 when they had those weekly NieR quests that took like 6 weeks to complete for absolutely no reason.

The cash shop thing would make sense if it was actually using any sort of P2W model. FFXIV's shop doesn't. It's cosmetics. It can be as "extensive" as it wants. As long as it isn't actually giving one player an in-game advantage over another based on paying extra real money, it's meaningless.

[FireMage]

Try being any sort of competent crafter with no retainers

The two the game gives you are more than sufficient for crafting

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

The cash shop thing would make sense if it was actually using any sort of P2W model. FFXIV's shop doesn't. It's cosmetics. It can be as "extensive" as it wants. As long as it isn't actually giving one player an in-game advantage over another based on paying extra real money, it's meaningless.

Could argue that hiring the maximum number of retainers and sending them all out to gather mob mats (skins and leathers) gives one an advantage over someone who has only 2 retainers. It also allows someone to have more than 40 market listings.

[Jojoya]

Try being any sort of competent crafter with no retainers

Retainers are literally “pay real money to buy more inventory space” and that is one of the most predatory things an MMO can do outside of BDO style RNG upgrade weapon is destroyed if you fail

You can be a competent crafter with the default 2 retainers. You don't need to keep every crafting material you come across. Find yourself a niche market and stick to it. My crafting materials take up about 100 slots on one of my retainers and that's it. I'm still making several million gil a week. Buy only what you need as you need it if you want to make something outside of your niche.

It is a bit rougher to juggle when you're leveling crafting but getting rid of leftovers as you move onto the next expansion's recipes helps - and recovers a lot of the gil you've spent. Anything sitting unused in your inventory that can be sold on the marketboard is gil lost.

Could argue that hiring the maximum number of retainers and sending them all out to gather mob mats (skins and leathers) gives one an advantage over someone who has only 2 retainers. It also allows someone to have more than 40 market listings.

But it's only a negligible advantage and not a win condition for the game. The amount of gil a player needs to play the game is very small. It's more of a convenience feature than a necessity. It's the most helpful below level 50. Once you hit 50, all sorts of options open up for ways to avoid using gil.

[VelKallor]

Ameela:

You are missing one very salient point. A LOT of the stuff on the shop is for items that were from previous events ( with a few exceptions ), the shop items make sure there isnt a feeling of missing out, people where werent here for these can still obtain them.

I know that there are some who dont like cash shops , and I do get the point on that, however the flipside is that there isnt any FOMO issues with FF 14. Not all items, I grant you, but the vast majority. Suits, mounts, emotes etc...from my POV I find that a good thing. Its all OPTIONAL, so from that perspective the shop is fine.

[kaynide]

Well clearly,at what point I say give it all ?
But things make Sense at some point or don't. Things like the island you can give when ever as no one cares for it for real,you can make me believe any one that say they do are not just trolls.
As for important time based progressions like relic it's stupid to give it's first step this late.nsame for the new content like the new dungeon. Then over the expression life do the normal patch bs. Msq/dungeons/raids.

To the point of SE "miss the timeing for the content" . The people say they are not miss the point. Take what we get in 6.25,why it's so late when it need to be content that relevant at the start of the expression not mid of it. Same for the new deap dungeon, why it's in 6.3/4 and don't 6.1 . It's things like this that are a problem.

You are asking for almost all non MSQ content chunks to all be released on 6.1. (Relic, Deep Dungeon, Criterion dungeon, Island...etc)

For the record, relics have been released, like clockwork, on the x.25 patch since 4.25.

As we can see from other posting, a lot of players don't necessarily enjoy or want to stay on for JUST the MSQ. SE knows this, and drips content for everyone over the course of the expansion. So a little MSQ here, and little endgame raid/grind there.

[Raoabolic]

however the flipside is that there isnt any FOMO issues with FF 14.

Not subbed for an event? I guess you better wait until next year to buy the reward. Speaking of which, a new event is going to happen soon. Don't want to miss that! You might be stuck waiting until next year and have to run Mogstation EX~!

[Deveryn]

Most event items are no more than 5 USD, so even if you did miss an event, you're not paying for the full month you missed. One exception would be the polar bear mount, but even that's likely to be on sale when the next event comes around.