Endgame DRG Armor

[Nominous]

It's far from semantics you are using the term incorrectly as it's not "Free" in any stretch of the word.

I'm using semantics correctly, because clearly you think that free has a different meaning and implication in this context than I do. There's nothing technically free in the world, everything has a cost associated. But we consider things free based on the context. If you're at Costco and you're offered free samples can that be considered free if you need a paid membership to get in? This is semantics. I relate the word free to things that aren't necessary, that we're given for no express reason, without an explicit associated 1:1 cost that can be clearly seen. Our 15 dollars can't be associated at any ratio to anything in the game. You can't say like... 10 dollars goes towards raids, and 1 dollar goes towards dungeons, etc etc. The best you can do is paint broad strokes- things that any membership would essentially help cover costs of. QoL, maintenance, repairs, additions/expansions, and general upkeep. Anything outside of that still costs money- money I don't particularly relate my 15 dollars to. If it's given to me without any expected compensation, I consider it free.

You on the other hand have nothing, circumstantial or otherwise to show me that the developers are hard pressed to keep the game in development on my measly 15 dollars a month.

I don't think you need circumstantial evidence to realize that their repeated response to a lot of problems is that they don't have the manpower to do it. Which means they aren't being given the funding to do what they'd like to do all the time. It could be PR spin, which I'd believe, but something tells me that they'd be a bit less apprehensive about adding (new) things to the store if that were true.

For all the "love" the developers show for the game every time they make players pay an additional fee is showing less and less faith in the project as a long term investment.

It wouldn't be the developers. It'd be the investors, and upper management at SE. As I've said before, I've worked at quite a few places that have outlined their sales goals, and entire stores have had their jobs on the line because of this, among other ridiculous things like not pushing extra sales of unnecessary things. It sucks, but at the end of the day, it's their job. They have to make sure QoL is the best for us, and show the people funding them that they can push extra sales. I have sympathy for that honestly, because they do their best, even though I'd imagine everyone does nothing but yell at them (including the fanbase).

"Event items are the antithesis" is absurd as the moment they are out of season they become yet another cash shop addition. That in itself is the Antithesis of your Antithesis statement,

Except for the fact that you have the choice to get it for free first. Sometimes you have to pay for not jumping on opportunities when they show up. I mean, their obvious mindset beforehand was to just never bring back events or event items, even before Cash Shop was implemented. And I'm sorry, but I'd much rather them work on new events than them continue to rotate old ones just because players miss out. Players will always miss out.

Yoshida may have grand plans for the game but it's apparant the higher ups aren't as convinced and Yoshida has done little to nothing to convince them. Otherwise we wouldn't see these cash shop shenanagins.

Yoshi can only do so much to encourage them. It's a 50/50 thing. You can beg someone all you want, but if 0 people support something nobody will care what you say. That's obviously an exaggeration because there's a lot of subscribers and support, but it doesn't all fall upon him and his development team. And really, even though it falls more on a developer to make a good alluring product, it's also up to the fanbase to show how much people want this kind of game. It's the same reason why some companies, or developers go to crowdfunding. Communities want a specific thing, and developers really can't do that under corporate structure, because they're told, based on market research, what they should be doing.

Ultimately though, it's just the state of the gaming industry. DLC started out as a pretty neat idea, but as with everything, it got out of control really quickly. There's almost no game that doesn't do it anymore, and I'm sure it's a big question mark for investors when a game doesn't follow suite. Sucks, but it's honestly just the way it is. It's a strong arm kind of tactic, but there feels to never really be an alternative. While I don't tend to buy much DLC, I understand it's importance, and how (occasionally) it can be done right, and be a major boon to a company with garbage budget.