Final Fantasy 14 App

[Launched]

Every extra cash grab like this puts me closer to unsubbing. When I chose to play a sub game I was expecting pretty much everything to be available without any extra fees.

[ValentineSnow]

So.... A sub fee to ffxiv with 8 extra retainers and the premium companion app is $33 a month. Do people realise they could start a second account for that kind of money, getting 8 new characters that they can befriend and use them and their retainers as storage mules, get the recruit a friend campaign rewards off them and it will actually cost you $9 less than this crap?

[Berethos]

So.... A sub fee to ffxiv with 8 extra retainers and the premium companion app is $33 a month. Do people realise they could start a second account for that kind of money, getting 8 new characters that they can befriend and use them and their retainers as storage mules, get the recruit a friend campaign rewards off them and it will actually cost you $9 less than this crap?

I'd be surprised if most pay for any extra retainers, much less 8 of them.

So while that's a valid point for those that do essentially min/max their account and the money spent on it, I don't think it applies to as many players as you might be assuming...which means less people care about it than you might be assuming.

[Friske]

Aaaand the line's been pushed once again. It's all part of the long road of microtransactions, of extra retainers, of glamours/ emotes etc sold on the mog station, of ingame emotes attached to 100+ dollar figurines, of ingame outfits linked to fanfest streams. It's absolutely sickening and shows the lack of respect that SE has for their playerbase and for themselves. What happened to paying only a subscription fee to allow us equal access to all ingame content? Do they realise that having extra inventory space and retainers allows people, and crafters especially, to hoard and sell more items? Thus impacting the game economy itself?

[Riardon]

Aaaand the line's been pushed once again. It's all part of the long road of microtransactions, of extra retainers, of glamours/ emotes etc sold on the mog station, of ingame emotes attached to 100+ dollar figurines, of ingame outfits linked to fanfest streams. It's absolutely sickening and shows the lack of respect that SE has for their playerbase and for themselves. What happened to paying only a subscription fee to allow us equal access to all ingame content? Do they realise that having extra inventory space and retainers allows people, and crafters especially, to hoard and sell more items? Thus impacting the game economy itself?

You mean the same players who use botting on gathering nodes for years now and SE never ban. The game became a P2W with a monthly sub.
A true non P2W game with a sub should only have the monthly sub cost, the cost of the expansions and base game and the only extra paid services should be things like character name change and server transfer which can't be in-game rewards.
What we have now? Dyes, skins, emotes, housing items, mounts and now a freaking app with a monthly sub (which is overpriced) which gives actual advantage in game.
I will not even discuss how SE little by little gauged the prices in Mog Station for things like mounts and emotes and how they started limiting those items from account wide to per character only.
They keep pushing the red lines. It will not be too long before people realise how they overdone it and how crossed the lines.
They keep adding items that should be in-game rewards from quests/achievements to the store and that with a high price as well.
And now a freaking sub based mobile app with special currencies and the obligation to log in every day just like any F2P game on mobile.

[KisaiTenshi]

Y
A true non P2W game with a sub should only have the monthly sub cost, the cost of the expansions and base game and the only extra paid services should be things like character name change and server transfer which can't be in-game rewards.

Dyes has been a thing in asian games since the 90's. It was the first item to become microtransactions.

Realistically, I'm willing to pay for the following:

A monthly sub at 5-15$/mo depending on type (I would not pay any money for a open world PvP game, nor one with permadeath)
I will pay an additional one-time amount to unlock all inventory slots as I need them.
I will pay an additional one-time amount to add a character, or change the look of an existing one.
I will pay a one-time amount to buy an expansion pack at retail price.

I will not pay more for a subscription to get any kind of P2W benefit.
I will not pay more to rent inventory space, items, mounts or glamour slots.
I will not pay one-time to rescue a character from permadeath, I will quit the game and not come back.
I will not pay one-time for cosmetic items (dyes, emotes, limited-time outfits) if they are consumable/destroyable. If I buy these, I want them to be available perpetually if I lose the item or create a new character.

Most MMO games figured out that renting inventory space is a cash cow, but they have yet to discover how many people quit the game because the inventory is too small. Yes some people are packrats/hoarders, and the developers need to recognize that if you don't provide a solution (eg the glamour dresser was kinda half-baked) to address the reason for the hoarding, people start going neurotic over having to throw things away because of sunk costs.

FFXIV however is not really that generous when it comes to space. It is for what you get for free, but other games realized that locking down the market beyond the subscription service was actually the better solution, as it destroys RMT's ability to operate in the open. So you charge people one-time for the additional inventory slots/pets/retainers/bank-space/housing-shop/etc, but put the ability to put anything on the store/market behind the basic monthly service charge.

Recurring charges are the quickest way to kill any MMO game, primarily because when people realize how much money they sink into something like FFXIV or Netflix, or Amazon Prime, Spotify or whatever other TV/Music/Game service they pay for, most people are only going to pay for one of these, and if Netflix is cheaper than the MMO, then the MMO is the first to go when money gets tight.

[RubyCirha]

Not realy pay to win cas my understanding was the moogle buys items at random so it would be rng if anything but idk correct me if im wrong

[Steviejd]

Not realy pay to win cas my understanding was the moogle buys items at random so it would be rng if anything but idk correct me if im wrong

You're wrong.

[Berethos]

Not realy pay to win cas my understanding was the moogle buys items at random so it would be rng if anything but idk correct me if im wrong

It just lets you buy/sell the same way you can in-game, just a limited amount of times and while away from the computer/game client.

And now a freaking sub based mobile app with special currencies and the obligation to log in every day just like any F2P game on mobile.

Is it really sub based if you get 90% of what the app offers for free?

I mean, I'm not a fan of the pay side of it, but I also don't see what you get for paying as being all that extensive in terms of what is offered.

And by all means, if you feel you absolutely must login every day to list or buy from the MB that one extra time per day when you're not near your computer/game client, then have at it. That's totally going to have a massive impact on your gameplay experience.