Mogstation taking another step to the darkside

[Melichoir]

It has been several times mentioned that it only makes sense what SE is doing with the Cash Shop and that we aren't entitled to anything by paying for the sub and how this thread always shows up when new items get added.

I've kind of said this earlier, but I doubt anybody is actually feeling entitled to get anything, but is instead simply giving feedback on how the game should be according to them if it is to meet their satisfaction.

SE wants to make the best business descisions and things they have to take into consideration for making the right descisions is player satisfaction. These threads and posts critical of Mog Station are players expressing their dissatisfaction which can be considered by SE as a sign to tone it down. If it won't be considered by SE anyway, then you can use that as your argument, but imo don't come with saying people are feeling too entitled for this or that or that the sub we pay is only meant for this or that and that we should be silent because it only makes "sense" that SE does this.

Thats the point though about complaining about it, changing what would make sense for SE by expressing dissatisfaction.

That's the point of feedback. Make counter argument against this feedback, give why you think Mog Station should exist but don't come talking about rights and entitlement or such cause it's completely beside the point (imo).

The issue is were not seeing feedback or critiques. Were seeing a lot of misplaced rage and demands and bad faith argumentation. Feedback and criticism require some thought and care. For example, Good feed back would be like this: "The recent changes to the bard class dont work and are resulting in x, y, and z". X, Y, and Z are things we can track to a fairly decent degree. Things like DPS output, ease of play, synergy with other classes, etc. Therye more concrete and things we can address and change. They also dont resort to name calling or impuning the character of the Devs or SE. Theyre not calling SE evil P.o.S cause they made changes to bard. It's understood that SE is attempting to fix or address a balance issue and that it may not have came out the way it was hoped. Devs are human afterall. This is feedback, and proper critiquing.

This is what were seeing "Oh My god! How dare SE and the devs put crap on the Mogstation! I should get it for free. I deserve it cause I pay a sub. This is them being greedy as F and trying to take my money from me! Screw this! They should immediately change mogstation and give me that mount. Just Horrible that they want to charge money for this. Greed jerks!"

That isnt feedback. That isnt critiquing. While it is voicing a person's dissatisfaction with something, its done in the worst way possible and makes no effort to udnerstand SEs position and resorts to name calling and placing hte worst possible characterization on SE, and demands a solution that is purely for the benefit of the person speaking. That isnt a critique. its a rant. Its a outpouring of vitriol and anger. And its entitlement based on the conclusion that the person Deserves something more for simply being a standard paying customer.

You want to seriously discuss pricing and what shows up on mogstation, thats fine. But it requires a reasonable position as well as understanding and debating counter points. If people just clutch to "My opinion and point is the only correct one and if you disagree, youre just licking SEs boot", well that's not gonna fly with a lot of people and wont solve a damn thing. SE should ignore anyone who comes in here raving about "They deserve x, y, or z from the mogstation cause they have a sub." because it isnt feedback.

[SamRF]

The issue is were not seeing feedback or critiques. Were seeing a lot of misplaced rage and demands and bad faith argumentation. Feedback and criticism require some thought and care. For example, Good feed back would be like this: "The recent changes to the bard class dont work and are resulting in x, y, and z". X, Y, and Z are things we can track to a fairly decent degree. Things like DPS output, ease of play, synergy with other classes, etc. Therye more concrete and things we can address and change. They also dont resort to name calling or impuning the character of the Devs or SE. Theyre not calling SE evil P.o.S cause they made changes to bard. It's understood that SE is attempting to fix or address a balance issue and that it may not have came out the way it was hoped. Devs are human afterall. This is feedback, and proper critiquing.

This is what were seeing "Oh My god! How dare SE and the devs put crap on the Mogstation! I should get it for free. I deserve it cause I pay a sub. This is them being greedy as F and trying to take my money from me! Screw this! They should immediately change mogstation and give me that mount. Just Horrible that they want to charge money for this. Greed jerks!"

That isnt feedback. That isnt critiquing. While it is voicing a person's dissatisfaction with something, its done in the worst way possible and makes no effort to udnerstand SEs position and resorts to name calling and placing hte worst possible characterization on SE, and demands a solution that is purely for the benefit of the person speaking. That isnt a critique. its a rant. Its a outpouring of vitriol and anger. And its entitlement based on the conclusion that the person Deserves something more for simply being a standard paying customer.

You want to seriously discuss pricing and what shows up on mogstation, thats fine. But it requires a reasonable position as well as understanding and debating counter points. If people just clutch to "My opinion and point is the only correct one and if you disagree, youre just licking SEs boot", well that's not gonna fly with a lot of people and wont solve a damn thing. SE should ignore anyone who comes in here raving about "They deserve x, y, or z from the mogstation cause they have a sub." because it isnt feedback.

I agree with that it isn't a good way to give feedback, but it seems like that's unfortunately how it's usually done in gaming forums. At the moment we can't really expect for people to act civil on internet and be respectful with the formulation of their arguments.

It's still feedback though, or rather a message that is being sent by a paying player. I understand however what you mean and why you would respond harshly to that.

In all honesty though I'm still not in favor of defending SE or any game developer for that matter to extend as some do in this thread. I believe a critical playerbase is better for the game's development than a supportive one, especially regarding consumer friendly practices.

[Moonlite]

You want to seriously discuss pricing and what shows up on mogstation, thats fine. But it requires a reasonable position as well as understanding and debating counter points. If people just clutch to "My opinion and point is the only correct one and if you disagree, youre just licking SEs boot", well that's not gonna fly with a lot of people and wont solve a damn thing. SE should ignore anyone who comes in here raving about "They deserve x, y, or z from the mogstation cause they have a sub." because it isnt feedback.

This has been brushed off into the server limitations. Is it reasonable to charge for each character? How does SE pricing structure for mogstation really work in the world of video games? Let us use the spriggan mount which is account wide. It is 24 USD now while taken by itself that doesn't seem bad. Let us use another SE game that comes out in a couple days FF7 checking the usa best buy quickly shows that you can get a whole game for 59.99. So just over double. Now let us look at emotes for a second 7 USD single character. I don't play fortnite so this is just stuff I grabbed from a quick check. Please feel free to correct me. An emote using a bestbuy card is 8 USD. But from what I can see is that it doesn't have any account restrictions. Epics FAQ is not the most helpful. Also I used that an example since as far I can tell it is cosmetic cash shop and no monthly sub. I do know it has a season pass system though. Also let us be honest they are probably paying for way more infrastructure then SE. In a bubble the cash shop might not look so bad. Looking at it from a video game industry it is better then loot boxes. Anything is better then loot boxes. It has a lot of room for improvement.



Now the other thing that gets glossed over(ignored). We can agree that they have said that some content limitations is staffing. The mogsation defense is that it wouldn't exist they are a separate team. Yet they have a secondary group of employee's that have at least some skill to work within the confines of the game. While not trying to fill all the needed positions on the main team. This is even if you truly believe that the cash shop is a completely different team and doesn't drain any resources away from main development. Maybe you have seen something I haven't, but I don't believe the cash shop team works in a bubble and doesn't drain resources from the main team.


The "licking SEs boot" is amusing. A lot of stuff posted seems to be in a video game bubble as if it shouldn't have to be compared to pricing of other games and SE shouldn't have to try to maintain an equal product of other companies of the same stature. What are people suppose to think when you see, it is the players fault, it is optional, or it is the companies fault. It is never poor planning or execution of the current production team we should send them a birthday gift. What are people suppose to think when they see that?

[linay]

A lot of stuff posted seems to be in a video game bubble as if it shouldn't have to be compared to pricing of other games and SE shouldn't have to try to maintain an equal product of other companies of the same stature.

A comparison is useless because the Mog Station is about FFXIV. Pricing for Fortnite emote is irrelevant because you can't use it in FFXIV. If there are enough people who would buy at SE's prices, then there is no reason for them to change it outside of sales period.

[Melichoir]

This has been brushed off into the server limitations. Is it reasonable..... for improvement.

It is reasonable to say that there is room for improvement. I agree. Everything could be better. But the question isnt whether there is room for improvement, but rather is the model so disproportionately bad and purely greed driven, or if there is some level of reasoning behind it.

I dont know enough about Fortnite myself, so ill just go on what youre saying and what Im gonna assume. Anyone is free to correct me of course, and Id welcome it. But a more apt comparison isnt to compare the mount to an emote, but emote to emote. If you compare an FFXIV emote, it is typically (not always) 7 or 8 bucks, which is the same pricing it appears as Fortnites. Wouldnt this than pretty much be a point that FFXIV is pricing the same as market value in this regards? Now you could argue that "Well, its not account wide." and that would be true but then we have two questions to ask regarding this. First is, do you always need it account wide? FFXIV is an interesting MMO in the fact that you can play every class/role from a single character, so the necessity of leveling an alt is a lot less important. Pair this with the fact that the game is built around this concept and helps you achieve this in a variety of ways (leveling gear, Being able to buy poetic gear to keep on top of things, Roulettes, etc) from a basic perspective, having it only go to one character makes sense because most players are only going to have the one that really would use it. Does it shaft people with alts? Sure. Should emotes be account wide, I dont see why not at the moment. But is this totally unexpected or out of place given FFXIV's set up? No, not really.

The second issue then is this the only way to get emotes. Like I pointed out, the majority of flavor items (glamour, mounts, emotes, etc) are in game and achievable in game. How does this compare to games like Fortnite? We arent talking about default emotes or the like, but things that are added to the game after purchase that you can get yourself. Gold dance, Yol Dance, Bread Emote, Read Emote, petticoats emote , etc etc. Does Fortnite, or other online games offer this, or is there a system in place where a money transaction is the only way to get new emotes, or a super heavily tilted system that lends itself to promoting money transactions (Loot Boxes as an example)? I would hazard, cause I think fortnite is F2P, that the answer is they offer less in 'free' content, and a lot more micro transactions simply because it's how they generate profit. And you know what, I dont fault them for that. If as long as you the player can directly purchase the exact thing you want, then that is fine to me. Prices are whatever the market determines more or less and you should be allowed to buy things on an item by item basis. Seems fair to me personally.

But at face value based on what you mention regarding fortnite, and what I would assume their model is business wise for an FPS, I dont see FFXIV being super unreasonable with their pricing structure as we get a metric ton of goodies in game that could easily have been monetized and sold on mog station in bits and pieces. This is a consideration that isnt being pointed out typically by the outrage crowd regarding mogstation. Some of the very best mounts in the game that I personally feel are superior to 99% of the mogstation mounts are achievable in game. So as are the emotes. I effing love teh bread emote. I think its adorable. You can get that in game by doing gathering or crafting. FFXIV couldve sold that on mogstation and probably made a killing, but we have it in game for the price of time and a sub. The new dance emotes...theyre kinda meh to me. Id buy them on a sale, but Im not thinking "Gee, I need that in my life."

As for server limitations, I said thats one possibility, and that is a real possibility. It's probably a mix of all 3 of the factors Ive listed to some varying degree honestly. Server limitations are a tricky thing because that is a technical side issue with a lot of factors that go into it. Im no tech wiz myself, and only have very basic understanding of server related stuff, but from what I do know, it is a very expensive aspect of corporations as not only is there hardware limitations, but apparently 'architecture' and security limitations that need to be addressed to along with compatibility wiht what your doing with the servers and the programs that operate off of them. I have no doubt that Fortnite server costs are probably pretty nuts, and would guess that there server costs are probably more than that of FFXIV in regards to gameplay. But FFXIV is probably dealing more with information retention that fortnite doesnt have to deal with. As an example, dont htink fortnite has player housing, but ffxiv does and has to have that function correctly and consistently. But these are just some considerations for the issue.

Now the other thing that ...... doesn't drain resources from the main team.

I was informed that some of the cash shop stuff is contracted out, so it doesnt take away from the main development's team, which would make sense in that regards. Contractor work can be more efficient if you only need someone around part time to do one thing. However, it would not surprise me if they had some kind of 'flex' team on staff too. A team that can move between IPs or projects to complete tasks or help with workload when necessary. In either case, youre not draining time and money from FFXIVs primary dev teams to create mog station items typically. Then it comes down to cost analysis, which I went over. If it costs 25k to make spriggan mount, and they can get a 100k return, that is a better use of that 25k than to push it into ffxiv's development budget and not get that much out of it efficiently.As I said, sometimes mogstation items (and cash shop in general) is good for the game. Sometimes. The disconnect I see is people saying its either all good or all bad. Businesses dont operate that way. They diversify their revenue to hit niche markets or get the best bang for their buck. Why should we assume FFXIV is any different or that the cash shop is somehow a net drain on SE. Let me put it this way: If mogstation was a financial flop that lost SE money on the regular, Do you think SE would keep that thing up? And conversly, if it was substantially more profitable than anything done in game, do you think SE would keep feeding us goodies or move a bulk of the items over to cash shop. The simple truth is their walking a tight rope in this regard trying to maximize profit. SE I believe fully understands that going to heavy on cash shop is toxic to long term profits, and that for FFXIV to be profitable, people need to get a good satisfying experience out of playing it and staying subbed.

The "licking SEs boot" is amusing ..... when they see that?

While being a bit hyperbolic, the sentiment is that if you defend SE in any fashion regarding mogstation, youre just fanboy-ing or boot licking. It's an emotional knee jerk determination that ignores the points and positions of people countering their point. There isnt any need to go there. If we want to discuss poor planning on SE's fault, thats fine. As Ive said a few times already in this thread or various other ones, I have my gripes about SE and they range from personal nitpicks to failures on their part. As an example, I dont like how they handled Viera and Hrothgar. That is a shortsighted absolute mess they made by poor decision making. It needs to be corrected IMO. Sometimes the company get's things wrong. Its run by people after all and sometimes they over or under estimate something.

However, what I tend to see is entitlement regarding some of these things. It's not discussing fixing a problem we can measure objectively to some fair degree, but rather a "Gimme stuff cause I deserve it" attitude that is incredibly self serving. This Gimme stuff attitude is explained away as "I pay sub, therefore I deserve all the things" and refuses to see nuance in the situation and legitimate counter points. It also, on a more personal note, irks me to no end because legitimate criticism for SE and FFXIV gets drowned out or disregarded because of shenanigans like this. There is plenty to discuss and critique regarding FFXIV and SE, but IMO this is not one of them. Lastly, I typically do see people make comparisons in market. WoW is a frequent talking point. The "Have you seen what WoW charges for mounts" point. And based on your own point regarding Fortnite, it seems the pricing model isnt that far off when you compare emote to emote.