$35, really SE?

[Zaene]

The game industry leaders themselves call us “Whales”

This is objectively true. Individual perception of an objective fact isn't necessarily important.

Apropos of nothing, the chocobo cart mount seems bland and uninteresting to me and I could not justify spending 35$ on it. As for my thoughts on the cash shop, I have bought a few things from it when I was feeling particularly "rich", a personal failing.

I agree with the majority of Cled-cat's points.

[Kiurai]

Honestly the funniest thread in a while, never thought I'd see a thread with the same arguments repeated 15 times every 2 pages after the Male Viera one but OF never ceases to amuse lol

[Juicymama]

Look, these cash shop exclusive items would not exist in the first place if cash shop doesn't exist.

These are not things they made during the creation of the patch and then striping it out just to put a price tag on.

Time and time again Yoshi P has remind us the cash shop design team is separate from normal story team.

So stop saying such item was originally part of the game and they take it out just to put a price on it, it's not.

Do people that ride on economy on a flight complaint about people riding on First Class? It's the same plane come on? No , because it's an optional service. Just like anything cash shop related, it's optional. OPTIONAL!
You'd still get to the same destination. Someone with a 35 US mount is not going to ride 10x faster than someone with a e4s mount.

[Skivvy]

Time and time again Yoshi P has remind us the cash shop design team is separate from normal story team.

So stop saying such item was originally part of the game and they take it out just to put a price on it, it's not.

SE gets to allocate where funding is spent, what teams are created, who does what and where their focus lies.

Cash shop items may be worked on by a separate team, but that still falls back to SE intentionally choosing to put the focus on the cash shop. They very well could have made a team that focused on creating super duper awesome in-game content that rewarded some of those very same items. Who's to say that if they didn't focus so much on the cash shop items that we wouldn't see some of that trickle down into the game? I don't think any of us here are privy to the inner workings of SE, so who really knows.

Generally speaking though, I get it. Micro transactions are a thing, and they're here to stay. I've bought plenty of things from the mogstation myself. Can't say I'm proud, but I'm extremely weak when it comes to fluff. However, that doesn't mean that I'm happy with the way they've implemented their cash shop. It's far too heavy-handed for my liking.

Combine that with getting less content in game as of late, more restrictions on how things are implemented, on top of the issues the game has already had..it feels a bit insulting to see the cash shop still chugging along at a healthy clip while the game is suffering in other places.

So here's where we come full circle with 'but the cash shop is handled by a different team!'. That's fantastic, sure. But perhaps they should put a bit more effort into the other teams who are designing game content, working on fixing bugs, responsible for adding limited races, etc...

[NanaWiloh]

SE gets to allocate where funding is spent, what teams are created, who does what and where their focus lies.

Cash shop items may be worked on by a separate team, but that still falls back to SE intentionally choosing to put the focus on the cash shop. They very well could have made a team that focused on creating super duper awesome content in game that rewarded some of those very same items. Whose to say that if they didn't focus so much on the cash shop items that we wouldn't see some of that trickle down into the game? I doubt any of us here are privy to the inner workings of SE.

Generally speaking though, I get it. Micro transactions are a thing, and they're here to stay. I've bought plenty of things from the mogstation myself. Can't say I'm proud, but I'm extremely weak when it comes to fluff. However, that doesn't mean that I'm happy with the way they've implemented their cash shop. It's far too heavy-handed for my liking.

Combine that with getting less content in game as of late, more restrictions on how things are implemented, on top of the issues the game has already had..it feels a bit insulting to see the cash shop still chugging along at a healthy clip!

So here's where we come full circle with 'but the cash shop is handled by a different team!'. That's fantastic, sure. But perhaps they should put a bit more effort into the other teams who are designing game content, working on fixing bugs, responsible for adding limited races, etc...

I wish SE would give the Devs a larger budget and bigger staff. Sorry but the mogstation may bring extra money into the game but its become clear its not enough given the amount of sacrifices they have to make at times.

[Skivvy]

I wish SE would give the Devs a larger budget and bigger staff. Sorry but the mogstation may bring extra money into the game but its become clear its not enough given the amount of sacrifices they have to make at times.

I really do feel for the Devs. I could be completely wrong here, but I do feel like they love the game and try their best, but probably have a lot of hurdles in their way (be that either staffing, funding, iffy coding etc).

[Nayout]

I wish SE would give the Devs a larger budget and bigger staff. Sorry but the mogstation may bring extra money into the game but its become clear its not enough given the amount of sacrifices they have to make at times.

And this is just what many have complained, that SE are rats and we have to finance by buying things in a store in a game where it seems that the increase in subscribers only serves to finance non-ffxiv projects. In the end, the only ones harmed by this are the players

[Shougun]

SE gets to allocate where funding is spent, what teams are created, who does what and where their focus lies.

Cash shop items may be worked on by a separate team, but that still falls back to SE intentionally choosing to put the focus on the cash shop. They very well could have made a team that focused on creating super duper awesome in-game content that rewarded some of those very same items. Who's to say that if they didn't focus so much on the cash shop items that we wouldn't see some of that trickle down into the game? I don't think any of us here are privy to the inner workings of SE, so who really knows.

Generally speaking though, I get it. Micro transactions are a thing, and they're here to stay. I've bought plenty of things from the mogstation myself. Can't say I'm proud, but I'm extremely weak when it comes to fluff. However, that doesn't mean that I'm happy with the way they've implemented their cash shop. It's far too heavy-handed for my liking.

Combine that with getting less content in game as of late, more restrictions on how things are implemented, on top of the issues the game has already had..it feels a bit insulting to see the cash shop still chugging along at a healthy clip while the game is suffering in other places.

So here's where we come full circle with 'but the cash shop is handled by a different team!'. That's fantastic, sure. But perhaps they should put a bit more effort into the other teams who are designing game content, working on fixing bugs, responsible for adding limited races, etc...

I would also add to your rebuttal that while they don't do it often at all they literally have taken items from the game and added them into the cash shop (without offering them via seasonals or whatever first). Person you quoted saying they haven't (unless they meant singular only, such item being just this one, though I read it in a general sense).

Exhibit Sleipnir, or the ward armor, or the main character armors. Now of course for some of the armor you might say but it wasn't in X size for X race, so aye to that- true BUT it was in the game for at least some of our races.

Similarly the chocobo carriage is clearly the main story intro carriage minus some bits and bobs, and another birb, so it doesn't take as much character data to display.

For the armors, for the carriage, they clearly did some work to modify it, but to say there wasn't something original in the game taken out, that it's never happen, well.. it sounds a little disingenuous. Perhaps some leeway on the carriage since they couldn't give it to us as it was, but I mean Krille's outfit could have been 100% ported to normal Lala players. Sleipnir of course being another example.

Which isn't me trying to bash SE, but I also don't think we need to praise something that isn't quite true either lol. This was a design in the game, then modified a bit. It's not like the main dev team was entirely hands off on items like that, like this one either. SE has taken things from the game, maybe given them a bit of a polish, and then sold it on the mog shop.

Still not end of the world or anything, I know I'm walking the fence here XD- but just wanted to be like 'no... this is clearly from the starting cutscene, then simplified, and in a general sense there are clearly a few items that (npc armors), and one in particular that is just 100% 'yoink''.

Might argue it was unlikely for the main team to spend time to simplify the carriage, and maybe for somethings that's totally true, but I would think it's way too confident to be like the main team couldn't or wouldn't have done it if given time and player desire (especially since they've already done some of the work in some cases, like this one, or that whoever made the mog shop one didn't use the currently existing concept as reference (or even potentially the literal the model).

For those that it has been ages since seeing the starting cutscene (which is clearly more cluttered, which is why Yoshida said it took too much data- and our version is simpler):



.. again... lol.. Not condemning as much as walking back 'never this/can't that' sort of stuff.

[Alleo]

Look, these cash shop exclusive items would not exist in the first place if cash shop doesn't exist.

These are not things they made during the creation of the patch and then striping it out just to put a price tag on.

Time and time again Yoshi P has remind us the cash shop design team is separate from normal story team.

So stop saying such item was originally part of the game and they take it out just to put a price on it, it's not.

Do people that ride on economy on a flight complaint about people riding on First Class? It's the same plane come on? No , because it's an optional service. Just like anything cash shop related, it's optional. OPTIONAL!
You'd still get to the same destination. Someone with a 35 US mount is not going to ride 10x faster than someone with a e4s mount.

Yoshida also said (when they introduced the cash shop) that its only for old events and stuff like name changing and race changing. And yet here we are, with more and more exklusive stuff. Hmm might be because a company would not tell the truth about this right in our faces (as in making more money..). Of course they will say that the mount would not have existed otherwise, of course they will say that this goes purely back into FF14 and that it funds big parts of it..but lets not forget that this is corporate talk..just like EA and other companies want to convince us that certain stuff is necessary..

SE should make a huge amount of money from Fantasia, retainer service, world/name changing and the old event items (items that were once in the game and put into the cash shop afterwards because reasons..). If SE truly needs that money to give us the bascis like new servers than this game (with over 1 million active players...) is really not running that great..

I really doubt that all of those mounts, pets and clothes would not exist ingame if we had no cash shop (and honestly nobody can prove it anyways..) but of course its sounds much better to say it instead of "we just want to earn a huge ton of money".

Edit: It would also be nice to not compare these prices to F2P games..unlike SE who gets a sub these other games need that income to survive..

Cost is ultimately relative. Someone making $30,000 a year will value things very different than someone earning $200,000. You certainly don't have to like the Mogstation, and can readily criticise SE. But insulting others who don't share your viewpoint is just childish.

Value does not come from cost, it comes from what you yourself thing its worth. I could make 100.000 € each year and I would still think that this mount is not worth the price (its value too low) while somone barely getting by might truly want it and say that for the joy it brings its worth the money. (And the price tag of something does not mean that its good and worth that amount)

In the end people (like me) just really dislike the pratice to put these things behind a paywall when people already pay a monthly sub and expansion. Its even more horrible when its a mount that could have easily be an ingame rewards..its horrible that we did not truly get something for the veteran rewards and yet here are mounts that could be put there..I remember the Spriggan who they released with the eastern event..something which it would have perfectly fit..

I will not call someone a bootlicker fo spending their money (but the term whale is a known and used term in the industry), the blame is fully on SE for this..but I really hate the comments that we should just not buy it and accept it..no we can give feedback (without insults of course) and for those of us who wont buy it "content" is lost. I like to collect mounts and minions but I have given up..because without spending money I will never get a whole collection.

Maybe I would be less annoyed if we got much more content since the increase of the cash shop items (and the prices..) but instead we lost another dungeon in Shadowbringer, we lost a Palace of the death kind of content and we got two parts of two races who are limited..

[Delis]

Maybe I would be less annoyed if we got much more content since the increase of the cash shop items (and the prices..) but instead we lost another dungeon in Shadowbringer, we lost a Palace of the death kind of content and we got two parts of two races who are limited..

Not trying to defend SE but I see people do this all the time. Bring up that we lost a dungeon and deep dungeon but not mentioned things that we have gotten.

QoL changes. Updates to ARR content, like flying added, rework of quests, new gear sets added to the ARR dungeons. Changes to gathering and crafting systems, relics for crafting and gathering. New relic combat instance.(which they said you can level alt jobs in from level 71-80, so I look at it that it replaces the deep dungeon for this expansion) Ishgard restoration system, ocean fishing system. Unreal system. So it isn't like they took away that dungeon every patch and new deep dungeon and gave us nothing new in return.

As for the races. They said thast since it was the last time they planned on adding a race to the game, they wanted to give the community something they been asking for, the bunny race, and something more beastly. They didn't have the time and resources to do both so they figured one gender each. Looking back yeah they probably should have only picked one race and did both genders on it and completely scrap the other race.