Voting with my wallet

[Freyar]

Who really cares about this? Lvl cap means nothing in wow-style MMO and personally i would like to have an option to pay some $$$ instead of necessity of mindlessly grinding another class to 50th through the same old content of leves/roulette/fates.

If you're paying to bypass content, then your content isn't interesting. It also means people are paying $60 to get past learning how to play a class putting a massive strain on post-level-cap dungeons. You can argue the the effectiveness of this purchase all you want, but it does change the strength/power of a character in exchange for real-world money. This is a buy-power-with-money scenario.

[Felessan]

If you're paying to bypass content, then your content isn't interesting. It also means people are paying $60 to get past learning how to play a class putting a massive strain on post-level-cap dungeons.

As with my experience on 50 level - a lot of people learn nothing about how to play properly during their "run to 50" stage. No real correlation, because pre-50 content is either too easy or completely skippable. And most people just use a basic class guide "how to play at 50 level", that can be used regardless of whether you exped there by yourself, or you abused the system and just spammed fates, leves or whatever "go easy to 50 without learning anything" route you might choose. I exped some classes to 50 in about lvl30 gear without even acquiring job - it might really helped me to play properly in those classes.
I saw another day a SMN in ~105ilvl (!!!) gear that was a completely disaster in expert roulette and the whole party have a hard time because of it. He just failed at every corner, and this shows that even rather high ilvl obtainable at zero skill, so there is no point in blaming cash shop for it.

And when you do the same route in fifth time - it's understandable that it's not interesting. There are not much variety in low level content and there is no real plan for expanding it for obvious reasons.

You can argue the the effectiveness of this purchase all you want, but it does change the strength/power of a character in exchange for real-world money. This is a buy-power-with-money scenario.

Yes, it is bypassing content, But this content is not even a midcore ground, it's straight in the casual territory, and I really don't think they there should be so much anger and hussle about content lying in the casual crowd territory.

[Freyar]

Look at Guild Wars 2 cash shop, from the beginning they said that the shop was cosmetic only, and after two years it still is, the only thing close to p2w are the resource tools

I'd disagree here. You have boosters you can buy (though admittedly they are available in-game too), and the tools still break that tenant of "Cosmetic Only". The severity is irrelevant.

[Snugglebutt]

Actually selling vanity items is like selling lvl 50 cap or twintania win in 2.4. yes, it can be considered as P2W, but it is content nobody really care about and it's not touch current relevant content, even those that are old but not yet very old, like T9.
And quite a lot of people cheat the proper way of attaining win anyway by buying Twintania run.

Yes, it is bypassing content, But this content is not even a midcore ground, it's straight in the casual territory, and I really don't think they there should be so much anger and hussle about content lying in the casual crowd territory.

Buying a level capped character through real life money transaction even from the developer is very much a P2W and not vanity which is damaging to the community and the game.

The point of leveling other classes to level cap is you help both the economy through gathering and crafting lower level items while leveling it (DoL/DoH) which benefits other players who did not cheat their way to level cap. Leveling a new class helps new players by also having someone to play with and do lower level dungeons and such when in the sense of DoW/DoM classes instead of lacking in people to play with or help along the way for those who didn't buy their max level characters. Those who buy their way to max level tend to avoid low level content and focus only on the endgame they cheated their way to with real life money.

So buying a max capped character is damaging to the entire game in many ways and especially damaging to the new players who do not P2W in buying their characters at cap level with real money.

WoW has had a steady decrease in subscribers for a long time but the exodus was only hastened with P2W options such as buying level skip to 90. If SE added such an option to FF14 I would quit too, if they keep it pure vanity only items such as pets, mounts and such then I am fine with it. WoW is not an example that should be followed these days unless you to wish to do more damage than good upon this MMO, it is still hemorrhaging players at a very high rate. Do not repeat the same mistakes WoW made.

[Corfish]

If everyone is so upset for even the smallest idea of Pay 2 Win, then shouldn't they have quit right from the beginning? The Warrior of Light Helm gives a 10% EXP increase from lvl 1 to 10, and you get it by spending extra money. That's pay 2 win in essence, is it not?

But really, the whole point is moot since at the moment there is no reason to assume we will have pay 2 win items. Let's freak out AFTER we know it will happen.

[Freyar]

If everyone is so upset for even the smallest idea of Pay 2 Win, then shouldn't they have quit right from the beginning? The Warrior of Light Helm gives a 10% EXP increase from lvl 1 to 10, and you get it by spending extra money. That's pay 2 win in essence, is it not?

But really, the whole point is moot since at the moment there is no reason to assume we will have pay 2 win items. Let's freak out AFTER we know it will happen.

How many games with cash shops didn't dip into pay-to-win? The only one that comes to mind is Path of Exile, and even that is walking a very fine line with storage tabs.

[Riviere]

How many games with cash shops didn't dip into pay-to-win? The only one that comes to mind is Path of Exile, and even that is walking a very fine line with storage tabs.

When most MMO's are doing bad, they either shutdown or become F2P with a cash shop. In order to survive, they need to add a lot of attractive items to their cash shops so that people will buy them, even if it means adding Pay to Win or Almost Pay to win items or a Premium subscription mode which gives them advantages over other players.

FFXIV 1.0 was a disappointment to many, but instead of shutting down or switching to a F2P + Pay to win model, they removed the subscription for a time until they fixed many major issues, then they decided to make a massive overhaul of the game and release it again. How many of these games did that? Most of the games that I played and went F2P with a cash shop were pretty much "We're not doing so good anymore, let's not try anything new and just go F2P with a cash shop."

Why do you compare games that didn't try with this one?

[Freyar]

Why do you compare games that didn't try with this one?

Because the likelihood of FFXIV managing to pull off the impossible twice is not high.

[Asierid]

If you're paying to bypass content, then your content isn't interesting. It also means people are paying $60 to get past learning how to play a class putting a massive strain on post-level-cap dungeons. You can argue the the effectiveness of this purchase all you want, but it does change the strength/power of a character in exchange for real-world money. This is a buy-power-with-money scenario.

Do you say this while you make another PB&J sandwich for the 100th time?

Look at this bread. That is some interesting bread. The way the jelly spreads...Mmm.

It gets old.