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

[Alberel]

Although a system like this would probably benefit me in several ways, it just feels dirty. I spend 90% of my time in-game making gil, and have amassed quite a fortune. I hate the idea of someone with a bunch of RL money being able to buy his way with no in-game effort to the same type of riches I've reached through countless hours of crafting/manipulating the MB.

Pretty much this. It would also completely devalue any item that takes much effort to obtain as plex sellers would be able to just buy the gil to buy the item. Feeling good about finally beating T13 and getting a dreadwyrm weapon? Well that new guy that only started playing a few weeks ago just bought a T13 carry using his bought gil and got one.

I know players already buy gil but at least we can all point at them and say 'cheater' when it's obvious that they're breaking the ToS by buying from gil sellers. Legitimizing it has been proven to do nothing to combat RMT and would only encourage players buying their way through content and completely devaluing any sense of accomplishment in clearing difficult raids or obtaining rare items.

Now, I really want to ask something for the "pay to win" doomsayers:

You say that paying real money to get in-game rewards is unfair. What about people with real time jobs and family who simply CANNOT get the rewards because they don't have enough time?

So, I shouldn't be allowed a house because I'm a filthy casual who is struggling to get his wallet past the 500k gil mark?
I mean... having more money isn't fair, but having more FREE TIME is?

Plz explain this logic.

If you don't have enough time to play you should be playing a more casual game targeted towards casual gamers such as yourself. You shouldn't be complaining that you don't have enough time to play when you're the one that has chosen to play this game in the first place (knowing full well you lack the time). If you cannot play the game within the rules then don't play the game. Don't attempt to get the rules changed to suit your playstyle.

For the record, doing the Ixal dailies for 30 mins a day can net you in excess of well over 100k a day. Dig up a treasure map in 10 mins for another 40k a day. If you lack the time to even do that then I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong genre entirely.

[AlexionSkylark]

So, in a sense, I didn't "earn" my house by playing the game for countless hours. And in your sense of judgement, that should be the only way people can have houses in the game. If I buy a house with PLEX money, that's "cheating".

OK, now... who even SAID that a house is a "reward for a massive, long effort"? AFAIK a house is just a feature of the game, which was even twisted to serve as a gil sink because of the SMAUGS that began to pop up. If anything, people selling plex would make the money that was piled up by the 1%ers of Eorzea finally have a chance to leave the economy.

You 1%ers really are very much alike your real-life counterparts. It's always all about retaining your priviledges.

[chrillix]

So, in a sense, I didn't "earn" my house by playing the game for countless hours. And in your sense of judgement, that should be the only way people can have houses in the game. If I buy a house with PLEX money, that's "cheating".

Okay, so let me start off by reminding you of the current housing situation. Currently, there are not even close to enough plots to support the demand of people who want to buy a house. Now lets suppose your plex system was in place before the massive land grab happened, or is implemented before the next wave of housing wards become available.

People who desperately want housing purchase a ton of tokens with real life money, sell them for gil, and buy up all the housing before people who want to earn gil in-game are able to do so and are able to afford to buy a house. Housing now turns into a situation where people who are essentially buying gil are rewarded, and those who want to earn it through in-game activities are screwed. You really want a system where your ability or inability to spend more real life funds on this game determines your ability to experience in-game "privileges"? That’s not a game I want to play.

Regardless of whether or not you think you should have to “earn” a house, that’s how it is. You need to expend some effort to be able to save the gil to be able to afford one. You want to be able to skip the effort part by being able to pay for it with real life money.

You 1%ers really are very much alike your real-life counterparts. It's always all about retaining your priviledges.

This point seems hilarious, as you are basically just trying to shift the "retaining of privileges" from people who acquire gil in-game through various methods (ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME) , to people who have an excess amount of money in real-life and who are willing to spend it on a game while putting forth no in-game effort whatsoever. Since this is a game, I want my effort in-game to dictate my rewards, not what I do outside of it.

[AlexionSkylark]

People who desperately want housing purchase a ton of tokens with real life money, sell them for gil

OMG, you really believe there is so many people out there willing to shell out 100s of dollars just to become a game's real state speculator? Oh wow, now we're going inside the realm of insanity. This is NOT going to happen. People who work and have jobs and family don't normally throw away money at a computer screen that easily. Unless you're talking about someone who's handsomely rich IRL. How many of those you believe there are in a single server? Please.

I want my effort in-game to dictate my rewards, not what I do outside of it.

So you go and do it! PLEX wouldn't hurt the economy in any way, if much it'd help LOWER inflation, cuz of the massive gil sink it would be. As in, the gil YOU are not sinking would be given to someone who will. Your ability to make gill wouldn't be hurt in any way thinkable. Stop worrying so much about how other people are gonna get their stuff.

Stop thinking that because you are younger or have more free time you have the right to be a special snowflake, entitled to not having more ppl into your exclusive club. Newsflash, you don't.

I could see this very easily wrecking some of the smaller servers here.

Actually, as the price for it is mostly player-regulated, a PLEX in a small server would be sold to a much smaller value than it is sold in a big server...

Oh yeah, and about TERA, it had a very expressive playerbase at launch. It's selling point NEVER was the Elin porn, the majority of player characters aren't even Elin. It was the action-oriented, kingdom-hearts-esque combat with no tab targeting. Still is to this day, BTW.

[chrillix]

OMG, you really believe there is so many people out there willing to shell out 100s of dollars just to become a game's real state speculator? Oh wow, now we're going inside the realm of insanity. This is NOT going to happen. People who work and have jobs and family don't normally throw away money at a computer screen that easily. Unless you're talking about someone who's handsomely rich IRL. How many of those you believe there are in a single server? Please.

Housing was just one example of what this system could be used to ruin. Judging by the amount of people that had PF adds up to sell Platinum Bands for gil, I'd say there are quite a few people who would actually do this.

So you go and do it! PLEX wouldn't hurt the economy in any way, if much it'd help LOWER inflation, cuz of the massive gil sink it would be. As in, the gil YOU are not sinking would be given to someone who will. Your ability to make gill wouldn't be hurt in any way thinkable. Stop worrying so much about how other people are gonna get their stuff.

I agree that my ability to make gil wouldn't be hurt. In fact, my ability to make gil would probably increase as people looking to spend gil would just buy PLEX, sell it, then have more gil to spend. Do I think that's proper? Absolutely not. Not hurting the economy? You are giving someone the ability to directly influence the economy by buying gil that they normally wouldn't be able to recieve. They can then use that gil to manipulate the economy in ways they normally wouldn't be able to.

Stop thinking that because you are younger or have more free time you have the right to be a special snowflake, entitled to not having more ppl into your exclusive club. Newsflash, you don't.

That is a huge assumption on your part, and completely false. You know nothing about me. I don't have loads of free time, but I'm very good at making gil with the small amounts of time I have. How about this? Stop thinking that because you have extra money to spend, that you should be able to acquire everything in-game that you want without actually playing the game. If you aren't willing to put in the time to get what you want, then you really need to find a new genre of game to play. As for being entitled? Yes I definitely feel "entitled" to having more than someone who doesn't want to put any effort into the game, but instead wants it given to them on account of how much disposable real life income they have.

[Tiggy]

OMG, you really believe there is so many people out there willing to shell out 100s of dollars just to become a game's real state speculator?

I don't know how you went from people buying houses because they want one (which was clearly the context of his sentence) to people shelling out thousands and buying every plot. Escalate things much for no reason? Oh that's right. That how straw men are created. Keep what he said in context please since your over exaggerations don't really help.

So you go and do it! PLEX wouldn't hurt the economy in any way, if much it'd help LOWER inflation, cuz of the massive gil sink it would be.

You clearly have no idea how game economies work if you really think it wouldn't hurt the economy "in any way" and that you actually think it would lower inflation. That's really ignorant of how things actually work in the real world.

As in, the gil YOU are not sinking would be given to someone who will. Your ability to make gill wouldn't be hurt in any way thinkable.

This is why I know you don't understand how economies work. Inflation happens when too much money is spread around the economy. When other people have too much money they are more willing to spend it on items which in turn makes the price of goods increase. That is literally inflation. So yes, I do worry about how other people make money since the effect on the economy directly effects me every single day. You should care too.

Your ability to make gill wouldn't be hurt in any way thinkable. Stop worrying so much about how other people are gonna get their stuff.

This is a distraction. Trying to put up that other person as a paragon of selfishness when the first crime is you not understand how MMO economies work. As you showed us with the previous examples.

[Lamentations]

[QUOTE=AlexionSkylark;2814592]OMG, you really believe there is so many people out there willing to shell out 100s of dollars just to become a game's real state speculator?

You haven't played many games, or weren't paying attention when you did. yea they will.

One of the worst decisions ive made was deciding to buy a $300.00 lifetime sub to STO before it went F2P, that doesn't today make me feel obligated to play it now and then but hey im a trekkie.

Right after they switched to F2P they introduced special exclusive ship models into lockboxes that were opened with keys one bought from the cash shop which can "also" be sold on the market.

Some people didn't spend 100s of $ on these keys they spent "1000s", it left a very bad taste in peoples mouths, and all of this revenue, didn't do shit for content for a looong time.

The devs for that game swore they would never do anything that could be called P2W in that game, they lied.

Again, Yea they will pony up the cash.

My 31 yr old son, who is our FC leader also plays STO on F2P basis only, if they ever did this here, he would quit instantly.

Not to worry however, I don't see SE ever doing this screwy idea.

[AlexionSkylark]

I don't know how you went from people buying houses because they want one (which was clearly the context of his sentence) to people shelling out thousands and buying every plot. Escalate things much for no reason? Oh that's right. That how straw men are created. Keep what he said in context please since your over exaggerations don't really help.

Actually, that argument is not of my own crafting, it's chrillix's:

People who desperately want housing purchase a ton of tokens with real life money, sell them for gil, and buy up all the housing before people who want to earn gil in-game are able to do so and are able to afford to buy a house.

If you want to rebuke it, target it to the right person. Except I don't believe you would, since he's on the same side of the argument and you would have no reason to discredit someone who's arguing in your favor. But then again, I might be wrong. I'll give you the chance to correct your mistake.

You clearly have no idea how game economies work if you really think it wouldn't hurt the economy "in any way" and that you actually think it would lower inflation. That's really ignorant of how things actually work in the real world.

Citation needed. This is just an empty, passive-agressive response with no actual points given. The real argument is in the next quote, so it's best if I adress it where it's due:

This is why I know you don't understand how economies work. Inflation happens when too much money is spread around the economy. Why other people have too much money they are more willing to spend it on items which in turn makes the price of goods increase. That is literally inflation.

And that's how YOU prove you don't know nothing about economics. I could say I laughed at your statement, but that would be me being passive-agressive, and I rather not step to that level. Anyhow, Let me give you an Economics 101 about it, since you clearly have no idea: Inflation, in general, is devaluing of currency, most often because of an oversupply of money in the system. As the laws of supply and demand tells us, if you have too much of a thing available, its value lessens. When that happens to MONEY, that's called inflation. It's not the value of stuff that went up, it's your money that's worth less and the prices went up to make up for it. In the real world, it happens, among other reasons, when governments print too much money, something that happens for a multitude of reasons that do not pertain to that discussion.

ANYHOW, in MMOs, inflation is kept at check with a careful balance of money fountains (ways money is created out of nothing into the game, like quests, mob drops, etc.) and money sinks (ways money is ERASED from the game, like NPC shops, and house-buying). It's a system pretty well illustrated in laymen's terms in a wonderful and didatic video by the guys at Extra Credits, available on youtube right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W39TtF14i8I

The TL: DR; of this topic is: people hoarding gil are much more hurtful to the economy that your so-called "distribution" of gil, which is actually healthy. The 1%ers have a tendency to turn everything in-game into a luxury market, excluding most people from the markets and inflating prices to unbeliavable levels. You really cannot argue that 2.5 million gil for a 2-star crafting material is a sign of a healthy economy.

Now, I'm just gonna reiterate my argument, for the sake of staying on topic, that PLEX would help the economy by taking money that would be piling up in someone's wallet, and giving it to someone who will most likely spend it on a money sink, erasing that sum of gil from the economy and helping lower inflation. Now check that argument against your new-found knowledge, and understand what I was really talking about. No need to thank me.

This is a distraction. Trying to put up that other person as a paragon of selfishness when the first crime is you not understand how MMO economies work. As you showed us with the previous examples.

Actually, it is what it is: an 1%er trying to keep his clubhouse exclusive. Nothing more, nothing less.

[chrillix]

Actually, that argument is not of my own crafting, it's chrillix's:



If you want to rebuke it, target it to the right person. Except I don't believe you would, since he's on the same side of the argument and you would have no reason to discredit someone who's arguing in your favor. But then again, I might be wrong. I'll give you the chance to correct your mistake.

In my example, I did not mean one person buying up an entire ward. That is actually *almost* impossible. I mean't several PLEX buyers, each buying their own plot.

[KayoZ]

Now, I'm just gonna reiterate my argument, for the sake of staying on topic, that PLEX would help the economy by taking money that would be piling up in someone's wallet, and giving it to someone who will most likely spend it on a money sink, erasing that sum of gil from the economy and helping lower inflation.

Your argument here is full of holes and hypothetical assumptions. Saying the mere transference of gil (minus whatever % the AH keeps) is somehow adding to the gold sink of the game is flawed.

For starters, whats to stop a greedy gil hoarder from buying up his own "sub token" and fattening his pockets even more? Also, do you really think only the 1% will be able to afford this? Wildstar sold their CREDD for $20 and they sold for anywhere between 15k and 20k. Thats next to nothing to high level players there and easily obtainable in a few days. I even read posts of players claiming to have multiple months worth of CREDD tokens saved up. Anyone greedy enough to hoard such amounts of gil could easily use this to hoard even more. Not to mention how the fact you only need one of these per month means it would hardly make a dent on the filthy rich.

Second, just because Player A buys a sub token from Player B doesnt automatically mean he's going to now spend all that in gold sinks. What if he becomes the gil hoarder now spending his hard earned RL money to become the new 1%er? Everyone has the same gold sinks available to them ... thats why theyre there. Everyone needs to repair, everyone who buys in the AH needs to pay the tax. I dont understand why you think the rich have any less of a gold sink available to them than a regular player. Sure, Player B may suddenly be able to buy a 2.5 million gil house, but those arent exactly readily available are they? SE cant even keep up with demand.

Third, what one player does, affects the other. Maybe now that Player B has all this gil, he'll craft even less. Why bother leveling and crafting things to sell when you can just pay SE and you get a hot ticket item and sell it for a large amount of gil? So now someone else has not only less things to buy, now he's seeling less mats. Yes, im building assumptions just as big as yours but both are just 1 of thousands of alternative consequences that can happen which may or may not make things worse. The only way to really fix inflation is with real gold sinks in which players want or need to spend gil on.

THis idea is good on paper for the possible effect it could have on hackers and bots ... however thats already been proven ineffective. Whats left is a 'legal' way of buying gold.