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

[BabyYoda]

In the end we are not asking FFXIV to have gatcha in it,

but we ask that 12$ monthly must be valuable like how gatcha games did it right

[Raven2014]

I already explained why I brought up Suikoden. If collecting characters is your thing, it had been done before predatory monetization entered the chat. .

And you explanation made zero sense.

Using the same logic, one could also argue Square already have 13 different main line Final Fantasy, they already know how to tell an epic story driven, having summon (or primal or whatever name you want to call it), they have been doing that for decade, so why do they need to create an MMO version like FF14 with a subscription model? I see you've been playing FF14 as long as I have, I don't know if you had played their other FF entries, and if you don't I'm sure plenty of people playing FF14 had played many of those SP Final Fantasy before. If you can figure out why people paying 15$/month to play FF14 while they also had played many SP fantasy game before, then maybe you figure out why I'm saying you're not making any sense.

In the end we are not asking FFXIV to have gatcha in it,

but we ask that 12$ monthly must be valuable like how gatcha games did it right

I know we had repeated this point for ad nauseam, but I doubt they will ever want to address or acknowledge it. It distracted from the narrative they want to push (gacha game is evil!!) despite it's irrelevant to the point, and they know without that narrative they don't have an argument.

[Voidmage]

snip

I’ll be honest with you and I don’t mean it in a bad or rude way because I wished it was like that too.
I have the feeling you want the old gaming times back when every game was a finished product and not life service.
Those times will not come back. The market changes and if things like Dragon Age are an indicator then everything will just get worse.

I think we fundamentally disagree on the topic of gacha because your whole text about how gacha sacrifice gameplay or that those games only have a short honeymoon phase are exactly not what is happening.
Fate go goes for years now stronger than ever, Genshin lives of the gameplay of overworld exploring and HSR has so many different game modes alone in events it is mind blowing.
I won’t try to change your mind.

Gachas are there and they will continue to exist. There will be bad ones but the industry learned that high quality ones bring in more and Myhoyo has become a global player in the video game industry as is china itself.
These games survive by accepting feedback and evolved to perfectly playable games that are in some parts better than established games.

Either games like FF14 learn to accept feedback and improve their quality like the top gachas or they will sink into obscurity in my opinion because more and more players will see that the other games give more for no to less money and sooner or later a gacha will exist that is the direct competition to the mmo’s. I would even bet right now players here are just waiting for an mmo that gives the old FF14 feeling in optics and play style (and catgirls probably).

One last thing on Suikoden.
Like I said. Getting all characters there is a pain and only done to get the best ending normally. Yes it was a big part of what made it popular but what is its status now? It is dead because the rest of the games was standard jrpg stuff and the characters themself did nothing really. So I don’t understand that comparison. I already played them so why should I do that again?
Collecting characters is not why I play gachas (only those who interest me) but because games like Genshin are just FUN.

That’s all I will say about that all.
Like I said I won’t try to change your mind nor will I defend the worst gacha practices.
But I will defend the good points of those games and stand by the fact that no you do not need to spend money to get all you need in them.

[KurenXIV]

In the end we are not asking FFXIV to have gatcha in it,

but we ask that 12$ monthly must be valuable like how gatcha games did it right

Don't forget thats the minimum, thats not counting players with extra retainers (an extra $2 per month). Nor is it counting the money from MogStation, merchandise, fanfests (yes they turn a profit as per SE) and soundtrack sales.

(fully agreeing with your point, just driving home how its not even like the monthly sub fee is their only source of income for the game)

[Saidosha]

Or some of us recognize "games as a service" for what they are (you'll own nothing and like it!), with both gacha and MMO pursuing that. I don't know where you're getting the idea I personally want gacha introduced into XIV. Rather, we're pointing out elements are shared that aren't player-minded. Or even things that used to exist, but no longer do or have been minimized in priority of the service model.

Either way, why they opted to make XI and XIV MMOs is simple: Money. The devs onboard might want to make the best game possible, but what makes a good MMO and a good RPG, perhaps with multiplayer elements, is going to have conflicts. Time spent is largely going to be the difference between the two. MMOs and gacha will try to sell the platitude that development takes time, so of course pay while the game is in progress. On the flip side, the traditionally offline experience is going to be one and done. If it's popular, maybe it gets a sequel/expansion/DLC. Bonus points if there's replay value. We can at least liken this to an expansion drop in an MMO, but finality is almost something implicitly avoided. A 2-3 year dev cycle isn't unreasonable, so if you're the truly budget conscious sort, waiting for a release (or an eventual sale) is always going to get you more bang for your buck than the sub model. Side benefit, you could enjoy other games in the same 2-3 year span, as I'd argue the sorts of gamers that cling to a game only being good if it's their main game are doing themselves a disservice. I think this is where Yoshida's "Play other games!" line rubs some MMO purists the wrong way, but there's still merit in concern that development is maybe being a bit to slow, lazy, uninspired, underfunded, or whatever.

Social aspects play their part, too. Having a solid friend group can be a make or break experience, and just hanging with them could get you more life out of a game it normally would have. MMOs can take advantage of this, and some players even try to normalize it through the hardcore experience because constantly rolling with randos on the same content is just gonna leave you frustrated. Other games like Among Us or Lethal Company thrive more on player interaction than game play, but it doesn't mean they don't share their own commonalities with MMOs. If I'm playing a solo game, I don't have to worry about my party wiping. If I wipe, it's usually my fault. If it's a learning experience, then I learn. If it's a grind problem, I grind. If your AI party members are Goofy and Donald, you're screwed, but you know what you're getting into. I'm a firm believer that a solid MMO actually needs a solid single-player game foundation, and even XIV isn't quite there despite people who will gnash and claw about trusts or progression after a point. Ironically, the same "you don't need that" energy is shared between raiders or the gacha-defenders when it comes to dictating what other players should want of their experience. My take has always been that content should be developed to be seen. If the only reasons why it isn't are a social or time barriers, you've still got some developing to do. Futureproofing content is also an important aspect of game development and a lot of MMOs suffer from "dead raids" often for little more than genre purity reasons instead of contemplating content alternatives/solutions.

A little less executive meddling would do gaming good as a whole.

Edit: Personally, I encourage some to dig up Josh Strife Hayes' "Worst MMO Ever" series of videos, as he's also not shy about going into predatory monetization. A sassy British voice will probably do more than my text dumps ever could even if I'm saying a fair bit of the same things.

[Raven2014]

I have the feeling you want the old gaming times back when every game was a finished product and not life service.
Those times will not come back.

I gonna slightly disagree here. There is always room for both. What you said is exactly what drive the current AAA crisis. Baldur's Gate 3, Space Marine 2, Black Myth Wukong, Cyberbunk are all example of a complete and finish experience is still highly sought after. I also played a lot of minor AA tittles as well that's perfectly functional and profitable. The reason the market is crashing is despite the high demand for single player, instead of trying to meet that demand, companies want to chase the bigger reward in the over-saturated life service game. And that means if you want to compete in such an environment, you have to be the best or close to the best.

And that's what change with FF14 and I think Yoshi's tone in recent interview. 5-6 years ago he could say with confidence that it's okay for people to stop playing FF14, play other games. He was confidence people would always come back to FF14 because in those time, FF14 was the top dog of the live service space. Your alternative was either WoW, or some 2nd string F2P (like Guildwar) or the yearly Korean F2P slops that you gonna lose interest in 3 months. But these days, that space is heavily contested, not just in number but quality as well. That's why now you see him asking people to give him time, don't retire. No longer you see the "it's ok to quit the game and come back", because if people leave to play other games this time, they may find out there are actually better games out there.


It's not like we haven't been here before. Remember when WoW was at its peak? Everyone declared SP was death .. and for a time ... it was. But not because there wasn't interest, but because every companies decided to abandon it to chase the dream of becoming the next WoW, and that last for a almost a decade. In the end, how many "WoW 2" did we see? None. Not even WoW 2 itself can be the next WoW, what we did have is a mountain of coprse of all the WoW wanna be. Many companies collapse or downscale or bought up. Heck, Bioware was a prime example of this,their gamble with MMO is what led them to be acquire by EA. So what happened after the MMORPG collapse? Single Player came back with a vengeance ... until Overwatch and Fornight came out, and the chase to become the next Overwatch begin. And honestly, we're probably at the end of that cycle now with so many live service failing. Ironically in a way I find the Hoyoverse games like Genshin in this cycle is similar to what FF14 is in the previous cycle. Just like FF14 is one of the very few survivor and eventually flourish from the "next WoW race" by finding the right balance between casual and hardcore. Games like Genshin and FGO set up to be the winner of the "next Overwatch race", and it did so by finding the right balance between F2P and monetization.

Like I said, the people arguing against us will never want to acknowledge it, but pre-datory or not, games like Genshin success because it's simply a good product. I mentioned that even now, we still get a yearly dose of Korean MMO/F2P slops. Gacha or not, most people know a pile of shit not worth their money when they see one. If the majority of gamers is as gulliable as these people are making them out to be, I figure the top ten chart in the last decade would have been dominated by "predatory" Korean F2P. I tried the last Descandant for 2h, uninstall and never looked back. I play WuWa for almost a month before deciding dropping the first 5$, because the combat, the exploration, the writing were all a league above FF14. It was like someone who eat beef jerky his whole life bite into steak the first time. And none of this has anything to do with the "Gacha" system.


Like I said, I implore people to try it out for a month. Don't worry about money, don't even worry about the Gacha stable such as "pulling new character". Just play the game for the shake of exploration. After you finish exploring the first 2 zone in Wuwa, I'm pretty confident you will find it's extremely difficult to come back and stomach the open world "exploration" in FF14. See, I'm not asking FF14 to include Gacha, but I want the FF14 dev to go play Wuwa and see the fact that engaging, interesting, meaningful, and varied open world content is not a myth. And guess what, it's a new game, it's a new story. Each characters are given a roughly 3h story arch and they are all come out better than the you know who NPC that took up a whole 40hours in DT!

[Hallarem]

Lot of gambling money and preying on people wanting the newest "hot character" funding the success and development of the game.
It's a waifu collector with gambling mechanics, all of them are. Good gameplay sure, good story, sure.

Do yourself a favor, and never try these games, save your money. You hear these people talk about "F2P is the way" while dropping "When I dropped my first 5 dollars" in the next sentence.
It's the scummiest way to monetize and hooks you in. Protect your bank and be wary of harpoons, brothers and sisters. The Emperor protects.



Also the logic of comparing gacha lootbox mechanics gambling games of chance VS direct purchases where you know what you get is the wildest take I've ever heard.
If this is a troll, it's the best one I've seen in a while, it's totally devoid of logic and some under the bridge topsey turvey trickery.

Spending a hundred dollars abusing gambling addicts and young people who want waifus on pulls to get a character you like and materials you like to skip PURPOSEFULLY GRINDY MECHANICS vs buying a 5 dollar shirt on a cash shop, like buying a 5 dollar shirt in a real shop. I WONDER WHICH IS MORE PREDATORY, HMMMMMMM! I wonder which company makes more money for development HMMMMMMMMMMMM!
I'm not even arguing which game is better, that's up to opinion, but trying to gaslight the forums into thinking gambling is somehow on equal level to direct purchases is some wild copium whale-oil merchantry.

[Raven2014]

Gambling is gambling.

Lot of gambling money ... with gambling mechanics ...

I'm curious ... for someone who has such a rigid definition and an obsessive fixation on gambling ... what are you doing playing FF14?

In case you don't see it, let me spell it out for you:

- You pay 12$-15$ a month for a chance of "four rolls a month" on the items you want in savage. If you're lucky, you can win it all in one month. Not that lucky, better do another sub. Still not getting it? Better do another sub and congratulation, after 3 subs you're now guarantee a full set of BiS even with the worst of luck because of the pity system. So 39$ to 45$ for a guarantee set of gears, less if you're lucky. And I hope you're lucky because what is that I hear? You want to BiS out a second job? Oh boy.

- You want a house? The most sought after feature of the game? Ready to participate this fun mechanic that we literally, officially call the housing LOTTERY!! Like ... how often do you visit the Housing subsection of the forum? Do you know how often you find someone who keeps an active sub just to get a house, they do nothing but to log in, place a bid, log out, log back in a few days later to collect the bid you lost, rise and repeat. Some people got lucky first try, but there are also some who've been doing it for months, years even. You look at them and they look miserable, defeated. But hey that's all fine right, after all because FF14 doesn't have the word "Gacha" in the name so I guess even a lottery system wouldn't be consider gambling.

- OHHH, before I forget, even that win come with a catch. Now you get hosed into the game that no matter how much you want to take a break or bored of it, even though you know in the next 3 months you won't have anything to play. But hey, keep that sub money running 'cause if you dare to take more than one month break, you can kiss that house goodbye.


So ... for once, again, what are you doing here playing this game, are you a hypocrite? And for two, it's one thing if we're discussing this on a general gaming forum. But like I said, to play FF14 and then trying to take a moral high ground attacking the practice of F2P/Gacha game to the extend you do ... like seriously, you don't detect even a hint of irony?


To be clear, I'm NOT complain about FF14 monetization policy or scheme, at least not in the same angle you're attack F2P game, it's a dime in a dozen. I'm just trying to point out that for your case, I don't think you're realizing your attack is just a classic example of the pot trying to call the kettle black. I said it before, I'm at a point where the question is more about what do I get in return and less about how much I give out. If I spend 5$ and getting ****, that's still a waste of money. But if I spend 15$ and receive a premium service, that would still be money well spent. And FF14 at this juncture feels like I'm paying 15$ AND getting ****, that's what I'm complaining about. I'm not complaing about the money they're trying to get out of me, I'm complaining about the return of my investment for that money.

[Hallarem]

Its not a "rigid definition" of gambling. Its THE definition. No matter how much you try to gaslight the sun is the moon, that wont change.

"Actually from the right angle, and they both are round" lol get outta here.

Real money rolls being AVAILABLE vs a regular mmo grind? You dont use actual money for rolling on gear in FFXiv. You cant compare a solid sub to that. Thats like saying netflix is gambling. Im not going after your precious games gameplay or story.
Im going after its real money gambling mechanics.
Cash shops are scummy, sub without proper content scummy. Gambling mechanics for real money scummiest. Not the same level, scummy but not the same level.

[Voidmage]

Do yourself a favor, and never try these games, save your money. You hear these people talk about "F2P is the way" while dropping "When I dropped my first 5 dollars" in the next sentence.
It's the scummiest way to monetize and hooks you in. Protect your bank and be wary of harpoons, brothers and sisters. The Emperor protects.

It’s honestly pretty scummy to gatekeep others from forming their own opinion and the thing with the 5 dollars and f2p is completely out of context to make it sound different.
If anything f2p are perfect to try out because they are free.
Those 5 bucks are also not regarding a pull or anything but for a “you just log in daily reward” kinda like a sub.

But anyway it’s fine to hate gacha and the more predatory ones but let people form their own opinions on them. At least by watching videos to see how they work or to see how they present story and such.

The emperor would also not care what game you play because he is busy with war… and Deus vulting space abominations.