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

[Voidmage]

Oh, you think *getting* the character is the end of the grind? no, no, you are critically misunderstanding how gachas work, first you need to get the character you want, then you need to spend the next 40 hours, split between weeks to months due to energy systems, doing the most braindead grind imaginable, stuff that makes Shared FATE grind seem exciting and thrilling, to get enough materials to level them up and rank up all their skills, then you need to spend... at minimum 80 hours, but depending how hard you want to go for it effectively limitless, hours grinding gear for that character, until you eventually settle for something that's like maybe 70% of the way to ideal, then you go online, be it reddit, Twitter, whatever, and see someone posting the absolute most pristine piece of gear imaginable with the title "First time doing domains, is this any good?".

Realistically, the bulk of gacha currency grind happens almost passively while doing all that other stuff, they get you with *everything else* by intentionally making all the necessary aspects of engaging with the gameplay miserable.

Genshin I pull a character, get them leveled up and ascended to maximum in about 3 hours because I naturally farm the resources by just doing my dailies. If I don’t have them I just do my dailies anyway and explore the world to get the gathering resources. Boss drops I just farm them about 5x a day but I could go far more because I have so much resources to replenish my daily resin limit anyway.
Furina took me about a week to get to maximum because her materials where introduced in the same new map.
Then I do the domains to get artifacts if I don’t have them anyway. Weapons I have so many I just take them from another character if I don’t even have copies lying around.
Not the perfect ones? Eh doesn’t matter because the game is easy anyway.
You get all you need by doing dailies and events and if you explore the world.
Because I don’t pull for every character I have still about 300 pulls, more money ingame than I ever need and so much upgrade materials I could level up some characters twice.

Honestly with all respect I don’t think you completely know what you are talking about.
You saw a bad gacha system and push it on every other one without being neutral.
It’s the same as saying every MMO is the same hardcore grind it was so many years ago.
If you think the grind in Genshin or Honkai is anywhere near for example fate go then I don’t know what to say.
There is a reason why gachas are so successful for f2p players and low spenders because there are those that are NOT a huge grind.

And in FF14, you can pay 30$ over two month trying to get your savage BiS. Or you can pay PF around a hundred million to get everything in one week. Or employ RMT service if you want to spend real money.

Wish I could agree more.
That’s what annoys me the most. Saying Gacha is bad while defending MMOs.
Both are systems on a scummy principle and both have bad sheep and good quality games that are completely fair.
You can take the expansive shortcut in both types of games but it’s not needed in either of them.