Ffxiv monthly sub isn't stretching & response to PCGAMER article

[Fatch38]

Looking at FFXIV and then ZZZ, it's a very different impressions I get of both.

Both launched early July.
ZZZ operates with patches every 40-45 days. We're already at 1.2 and 1.3 is dropping November 6th.
While there are differences in the games (ZZZ being single, gacha, and shorter instances), they both have story parts in their patches. ZZZ is roughly the same length or slightly shorter than the FFXIV type patch-story, but the quality is so much higher. The simple stand around and talk cutscene is fully voice acted, and then it also gets a lot of fully rendered cutscenes with character movements that FFXIV has never reached (1.1 patch had 7 mins of this, 1.2 had 12 mins).
On top of that, tons of events, new mini-game that's a full Vampire Survivor clone, 2-3 new characters, new combat minions.
And sure, it's F2P gacha that's meant to drain your wallet, but if you can save up the pull-currency instead of using it right away, you can easily save up for some characters that you want.

But then looking at FFXIV, it almost feels glacial in its delivery of the game and content.

simple answer is : one a (mostly) solo game and clearly is a cash grab (to me gacha aren't games, a game is all about gameplay/gamedesign first then monetized, gachas are everything about getting money first then thinking about gameplay/gamedesign) while the other isn't (debatable with how ff14 focus more and more on solo than being a MMO since shadowbringers).
second , i can say without taking any risk that ZZZ (and any mihoyo "games") bring more cash in trimester than all SE released games in a year.

[Raven2014]

simple answer is : one a (mostly) solo game and clearly is a cash grab (to me gacha aren't games, a game is all about gameplay/gamedesign first then monetized, gachas are everything about getting money first then thinking about gameplay/gamedesign) while the other isn't (debatable with how ff14 focus more and more on solo than being a MMO since shadowbringers).

I have one word for you: prejudice.

And don't get me wrong, I carried exactly the same thought as you do up until 2-3 months ago, until I took a leap of faith with modern Gacha games and saw for myself that most of my (or your) prejudice were wrong. First, there are 4 type of gacha player: F2P, Lower Spender, Dolphin and Whale. I had talked to a lot of people who have been F2P players for years and they did and have pretty much everything in the game. The low spender tier (5$-20$) will put you exactly where are regular sub for FF14 is, that's where I am and I'm plenty happy.

Ask yourself this:

how long does it take you to BiS ONE job in FF14?

how long does it take you to farm for ONE ex-mount if you're not lucky?

how long does it take you to farm for your favorite 24man glamour set?

Taking off the negative prejudice from the word F2P/Gacha and objectively, you see the time table is the same. You don't have to spend money to "get things" in most F2P/Gacha games. The difference is gacha game give you the option of forking out the money if you want it now instead of having the samething after 1-2 months of playing. Which btw, you can also do in FF14 if you willing to fork out the money to buy loot/run/carry.


In fact, now that I think about it, I feel like gacha game actually have a leg up on it:

FF14: you pay to get access to the grind, but you still have to do all the grind yourself

F2P: the grind is free if you want to put in the shift, or you pay to skip/short the grind.

second , i can say without taking any risk that ZZZ (and any mihoyo "games") bring more cash in trimester than all SE released games in a year.

That's not what make the difference. The difference is it's clearly the money in these games were re-invested to keep the momentum going. Whether the money earn from FF14 is used to invest in other fail and outperformed projects.

[Hallarem]

I hear whale noises.

[Mecia]

I feel like the MSQ and its single dungeon per patch have a chokehold on XIVs update schedule. But why is PvP taking so long when its not tied to those systems?

I hear whale noises.

Speak your truth king.