It's time to reevaluate the idea of adding a PLEX/Chronoscroll-like system to FFXIV

[Nutz]

It doesn't seem like too bad an idea to me. A lot of people are screaming 'pay 2 win' over this, but win what? You can buy some of the best crafted gear in the game? Who cares? It's good enough to get around in most anything you'd want to do, but so is just about anything else. It's generally noticeably worse than tome gear which is already easy to get. The only place where gil can thrust you to very nearly the highest tier is crafting and gathering, but there are still some things you actually have to do yourself to get your main hand equipment.

It doesn't add any gil to the system so no inflation. If it did anything to detract from RMT activity it would actually slow inflation or cause minor deflation. If you weren't interested in the system at all then it should have absolutely no effect on you. You'd have no reason to do anything differently and even if others bought and sold game time the gil circulating through the economy would be static (relative to this change), so you'd barely notice it was happening. The most dramatic impact it might make is reshuffling gil a bit. Players with little time might buy extra game time to sell to players with more time (and less money). However, they'd largely turn around and give the gil back to those same players in exchange for high end crafted gear or dump it down a gil sink (like a house).

[axemtitanium]

What will happen is that the Gold farmers will instead buy up all the "plex" resources and then sell them at whatever rate they want it to sell for so they spend less time actually farming, and more time stealing peoples accounts to charge "plex" on. That is what happens in these other games that have tried to duplicate EVE's plex system. One account gets broken into, the "stored" credit card information gets used to charge as much as the card will authorize, they sell it in the game, and then give the gold to their gold farming accounts before the stolen account gets discovered.

Except "buying up all the PLEX" is quite possibly the single most ruinous thing the RMT could ever possibly do to themselves. Think through your scenario one step further. So they've bought all the currently existing PLEX and attempt to resell it at their higher rate. Then what? Players will say "oh look, PLEX is pretty expensive right now, I should go sell some too" and undercut the LIVING HELL out of the RMT. All of a sudden, their big stock gamble has become worthless as the price of PLEX gets driven into the ground by the gold rush.

As for credit card theft, it's fairly easy to trace stolen accounts, items, and gil. SE bans RMT accounts all the time for this so there's no reason their current methods wouldn't work for it, nor do they have to change anything about it. Should people use authenticators? Yes. Should people input their passwords on shady websites like sQu@r3eniX.com? No.

[DoctorPepper]

it gets rid of rmt more or less.

This simply isn't true, I've played several games with this type of system and they all still have RMT spam and there are still RMT selling currency. They simply sell it for less than you can buy it from other players using the provided legitimate method. Based on the prices currently being sent to me via tell all the time I doubt the RMT would even need to change their practice or their prices very much at all.

It's very clearly not Pay-to-Win any more than is already possible in the game.

You're entitled to your opinion but in my opinion the ability to purchase in game currency legitimately is pay-to-win, period. You can sugar coat it all you want but you're trading real money for in game rewards. At the end of the day people who have less real money are at a disadvantage compared to people with a lot of it.

[Alipoprocks]

So basically what is being suggested is a person can buy, let's say, a one month subscription and sell it to another player for gil? Did I understand that correctly?

[DoctorPepper]

So basically what is being suggested is a person can buy, let's say, a one month subscription and sell it to another player for gil? Did I understand that correctly?

That's the idea, it allows rich players in game to play for free and allows rich people out of game to prosper with no effort.

[Laeore]

You're entitled to your opinion but in my opinion the ability to purchase in game currency legitimately is pay-to-win, period. You can sugar coat it all you want but you're trading real money for in game rewards. At the end of the day people who have less real money are at a disadvantage compared to people with a lot of it.

The way it should be! You want those filthy poor people with nothing but extra time on their hands to have the advantage?

Now where's my monocle?!

[HaiHai]

So cool, you didn't read anything that I posted. Glad to have this discussion with you!

Just because people don't agree with your opinion doesn't mean they didn't read what you posted. You act like your post is full proof of facts when in reality it's just conjecture on your part.

I'd say no one will take you seriously with that attitude but it looks like it's happening already.

Plex has benefits sure, but I've played plenty of games that used it. I don't have to sit here and explain why it is and can be abused as pay to win. Players using real life money to purchase in game gold to purchase in game items. That's really all you need to know and understand. Using real life money to buy gear/materials, ect. Still exists in every game with plex.

[Alipoprocks]

I don't think RMT would spend real money on something to sell in the game. But I do see how it could help a player that may be struggling financially or might want to save some money to be able to pay for a sub with gil. I really don't see how it would be pay to win. No one would be winning anything but more time to play.

[Necromunkey]

I kinda like this idea, I wouldn't have to hunt down time cards anymore =P.

Nonetheless, I'm skeptical, as I feel like the op only gave us all the positives and no negatives. What good argument is presented with only one side!? Many people here probably have little to no experience with plex or similar systems (myself included), and would probably like to know if there are any possible or actual downsides to this.

Perhaps RMT would buy up all the cheaper subs in order to manipulate the price. In the short term they would loose money, but they could potentially gain money buy staying vigilant and buying out the undercutters, slowly raising the price and thereby providing more gil to sell. Or perhaps it could motivate regular users to illegally attempt to sell subs bought with gil for real money.

[Sanne]

While I do work, and could use such system to get some easy money (since my in-game money is really low), it does feel pay to win, while maybe not the best items, you still can get decent enough Items to get through the content. (recently started new character, and if I had the money I would buy the best crafted gear, so I could evade a large part of the grinding.)

As for now I am trying to save up for baby opo-opo (since I don;t have that much time to farm for it) With this system I could get it pretty fast probably, but would I get the same reward feeling from it?
No.
It is that you need to put time in such things 1 way or the other that is making it feel like a reward.
Take the struggle away and you will feel nothing, because you only put some money in it to get the reward.

While the initial idea sounds nice (I really want that baby opo ) I think it will hurt the game more then it would gain from it.

So I am against this.