Terrible Payment System

[Finneli]

I remember when the implemented the verified by visa payment method in FFXI, they announced it and the very next day after announcing the new payment plan, they implemented it. Sadly at the time I was waiting for my new credit card to arrive in the mail. It was the worst timing ever cause I was forced out of the game that I have been playing for like 6 years. Couldn't pay play their game cause my Bank did not support this new payment method.

SE told me to ask my mom and dad for their cc but I have a job and in my late 20s, I will not ask my mom and dad to borrow their cc to play video games. The next thing SE told me to do was to get a new bank. Really get a new back to play a $13 a month game. So anyways this horrible payment plan only effects US PC users, I eventually got a hold of a ps2 and was set.

Why cant SE just be like every other mmo company or better yet look what Blizzard does with World of Warcraft, never have I ever had a problem with their extremely easy to use payment system.

[Bahn]

I just went and set up the automatic payments using ClickandBuy.

It seems nothing has improved.

The whole process was beyond convoluted because of the number of fricken menus you had to click through. I was clicking all over the place looking for the "start my subscription again!" button, but the default login screen didn't make it obvious where that is. You'd kind of figure, that if Square wants your money for XIV, they'd make it damn easy to just one-click and enter your credit card info and get things going.

Nope - you get redirected to ClickandBuy where you have to register another account with them, just so you can set the thing up. After you register your payment method, it's not enough. You have to dig into the Services menu and go through 4 pages to tell Square that you want to reactivate your FFXIV automatic payments again.

I get the feeling whoever designed this convoluted payment system was at least partially responsible for the convoluted ingame FFXIV UI. There's just so many clicks to get the job done whereas in most other MMOs, the sub payment page has everything you need to get things started at the front page. This brings back REALLY bad memories of when FFXIV launched and having to register service accounts and putting in a gazillion codes and activating characters and whatnot just to get things started.

It doesn't look like this page changed in any other way, despite the numerous calls from users to make the payments easier to do and to allow us to directly charge to our account rather than using a third party. Also, what happened to the PayPal option?

Seriously - if this is the same thing that's going to be in XIV a year from now, you're going to have some players who start off with a bad first impression because of the horrible billing system design.

The billing system needs to:
* Have all of your billing info available on the main page.
* Have the ability to enable/disable services from the front page, or at worst, be an extra click away to a subpage where you do it.
* Allow us to use our credit cards to pay for our subscription directly with Square.
* Abolish the Crysta system. It's unneeded. Just use regular money native to the account holder's currency.
* Have a clearly obvious "Renew/Cancel subscription" button on the main page.
* Other functions should take no more than 2 clicks to get to, such as change of address, password, etc.

I got everything set up now, but I dread having to walk a friend who wants to try this game out through this crap again.

[ZhangoSqu]

* Have all of your billing info available on the main page.

Yes, within reason. They should not display your full account number as this would be a security flaw.

* Have the ability to enable/disable services from the front page, or at worst, be an extra click away to a subpage where you do it.

No opinion on this, their setup seems to relate billing to individual services and therefore actually does make sense, the different pages aren't too confusing, but there is some unnecessary confusion that could be addressed.

* Allow us to use our credit cards to pay for our subscription directly with Square.

Never going to happen. First off, unless the company in question is also a financial institution you will never directly pay for a subscription with them. Even other large companies like Blizzard have a merchant account which handles all of their billing transactions on the back end. What SE should do, and what would amount to the same thing that you're asking for, is to make the payment process seamless so that you are not forced to navigate away from Square Enix's Account Management site in order to enter payment information in. I'm honestly surprised if ClickAndBuy does not have a better integration strategy than what is currently being used. If they do not, then SE should find an international partner that does support a more seamless integration, there are plenty of companies out there that do.

* Abolish the Crysta system. It's unneeded. Just use regular money native to the account holder's currency.

It may seem unneeded, but I believe they use Crysta for other services as well (or intend to at least). Its a company specific currency where, if you don't use all of it, then SE makes money off the deal. If you don't like Crysta, don't use it. Edit: Although, that being said their really aren't any good options, ClickAndBuy charges SE--which in turn charges us--petty fees, which is just anti-consumer, and for some people the idea of Crysta is just as bad. I don't know much about UltimatePay.

* Have a clearly obvious "Renew/Cancel subscription" button on the main page.

Especially with the changes that went in and the need to set up billing again a more obvious link to renewing/canceling subscriptions should have been placed on the main page, I agree.

* Other functions should take no more than 2 clicks to get to, such as change of address, password, etc.

The account management system is more convoluted then it needs to be. The hierarchy makes sense in some places, but, other places it just seems strange.

[Baxter]

I read an official response somewhere ( cant remember where, but it wasnt too long ago ) that said they are looking into direct cc payments, and will update sometime soon

[Catapult]

I read an official response somewhere ( cant remember where, but it wasnt too long ago ) that said they are looking into direct cc payments, and will update sometime soon

Yes, by late fall in fact.

[Bahn]

Yes, by late fall in fact.

Late fall of this year or next year? :/

[Catapult]

Late fall of this year or next year? :/

I'll let you draw your own conclusions. >_>

We all get to be cynics occasionally.

[Khazar]

i have already crysta in my account and i cant pay with crysta. PERFECT S-E

[Kio]

I had crysta as well from the original registration, when I was prompted to reactivate my character this morning it didn't take me through all the steps as seen in the guide, yet still activated my character. I'm hoping that it is smart enough to deduct the crysta already present once needed.

However, once that crysta runs out I don't think I'll reissue any more. I may return to playing once a true CC based subscription service is available.

[Wevlum]

So from what I've seen in 1.20 I don't mind paying but the payment methods are terrible. What was so wrong with the ffxi method, it was pretty pain free compared to this. =/