lets talk about subscription

[Vidu]

At the risk of being accuse of white knighting, I want to take a look at at least some of that messy wall of text you've written up there:

FFXIV is one of the most enjoyable games to "Play" i do agree with that however now the subscription for this game is one of the priciest out there for any MMO rpg . now to justify that payment monthly ? yes i agree They have one of the best production crew for music / animation / story etc. however that doesnt justify it to be 40% more expensive.

Great, you seem to think that you're getting your moneys worth then! So, what more is there to talk about? If you dont think that you're getting enough value for your subscription, there is an easy solution: Cancel the subscription.
But alright, you wanted to talk about it, so lets look at your talking points instead...

Lets start with the one you open up here: 40% more expensive than other MMOs. Can you elaborate where you're getting this number from? I did a quick google search and it seems that at least WoW charges about the same amount. Same seems to go for some of the MMOs that have a Free2Play option, but an additional subscription model (Star Wars, for example). So... what MMOs with a subscription offer said subscription at 40% less than FFXIV?

Now the 2nd comment is the customer service : Square enix's customer service i would say is ranked the worst customer service in any entertainment companies history within last 43 years . For example . issues with your account ? cool its a premium paid subscription based game / service so i am guessing their customer service "Should" be better than a free to play MMO RPG games right ? ur account is locked ? no access ? contact customer service for SQUARE ENIX and after 3 hours of hold the cutsomer service person will tell you " sorry we dont have any direct contact with the other team that helps you restore your account we cant do anything you just have to wait for email we cant even escalate your call to anyone we cant do anything" after 2 weeks of no action and you still dont have your account restored guess what still no updates on your support ticket and even then after 19 calls to square enix's customer service phone they still keep saying "we dont have any connection or any way to reach the other team you have to keep waiting it takes 1 month to 2 years for it to be done based on volume and "IF YOU DONT HAVE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION PAID" this whole time while ur ticket is up we wont resolve your support ticket or fix your issue" thats literally what they said to me after 19 phone calls and 2 months of waiting . i had to pay my subscription for a game i cant play and they wont resolve my issue and has no way to even get an update . and No you will NOT get your days reiumbursed for the days you lost of paid subscription!

I'll be honest: I've had no experience with their customer service in the... almost 8 years I'm playing FFXIV now. I've seena few posts on the forums from people who complaint about the customer service, so I wont doubt that its not always going as smooth as one would like it to go, but on the other hand a lot of those posts also showed that the person who had such trouble did a rather poor job of informing themself what steps to take in regards to the issue. So, sorry to hear if you had a bad experience with them. You're also probably correct that part of our sub-money goes into funding the customer service department. However: I would dare to say that its a rather small amount.
It would also be intresting to compare your bad customer service experience here with that of cheaper games or even those that are free tp play - its my understanding that a lot of those free to play games dont have a real customer service to begin with. So... maybe the service here isnt great, but it could - sadly - be still the best one out there. (Which doesnt mean that they shouldnt work on improving it, of course.)

lets get to the last point it is maintanence : after every update the company finds a way to not once not twice not thrice but quadriple times (4 times) mess up something every patch. so we have to always lose a whole half a day of playtime 4 times in a row after EVERY UPDATE . they never in history landed a clean patch without a BUG or a glitch . every time theres a patch i know ill lose approximately 24-36 hours of them shutting down and not getting my moneys worth of playtime because theyll mess something up and shut it down to fix it another 8 times in a row then the next patch drops and you know youre about to lose another 36 hours of 6 hours each to fix the first patch they dropped .
justify most expensive sub fee ?

At this point I have to ask: Are we even playing the same game here?
I'm not gonna go through the update-history so we can only compare "impressions" at this point, I guess, but I cant recall an instance when a patch needed 4 (let alone 8) hotfixes. I also cant recall a hotfix taking half a day...
The world visit problem that was caused with the last patch was very unfortunate and annoying, but its the biggest issue I recall happening in... years, probably?

Most bugs and hotfixes that occur after a patch are minor things, often fixed without shutting the game down at all, let alone hours. I'd rather have them fix these things btw. Them fixing these issues is part of what we pay for - bugs will happen, problems will occur and that they work on fixing them swiftly instead of shrugging and saying "Well, thats it for world visit then, neat idea but we'll shut it down now" is part of what we pay for - at least thats how I see it.

As a little reminder here: When you signed up for the game you agreed to them shutting down the game without getting any money back.
Long maintance happens for less frequent than you claim, aswell - the only ones that last for "half a day" are the ones for new patches and those drop only avery 2-3 months. So, every 2-3 months you'll lose half a day of playtime that ultimatley results in more content.

In the end it all really boils down to the question: Do you think you're getting your moneys worth here? If not, there is an easy solution: Not paying them anymore and looking for a better (cheaper?) game. If I think about how much entertainment I get for my ~13€ a month, I can say I'm getting my moneys worth - specially if I compare it to other entertainment options out there.

[MilkieTea]

You're upset because... the game devs regularly update and fix the game?

[LianaThorne]

You're upset because... the game devs regularly update and fix the game?

I think their issue is more that maintenance isn't completed to the speed they would like and has too many bugs. There can't be any bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't mind me, just gonna sit in the corner with one of my gacha games that has maintenance 1-2 times a month and 99% of the time will be pushed over the estimated time by 3-6 hours and still come out with tons of bugs. Especially ones that take my money and don't give me anything for it. ^_^ (They're pretty good with refunds tho so that's why I stick around).

[MilkieTea]

I think their issue is more that maintenance isn't completed to the speed they would like and has too many bugs. There can't be any bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't mind me, just gonna sit in the corner with one of my gacha games that has maintenance 1-2 times a month and 99% of the time will be pushed over the estimated time by 3-6 hours and still come out with tons of bugs. Especially ones that take my money and don't give me anything for it. ^_^ (They're pretty good with refunds tho so that's why I stick around).

Why does this remind me of cocoppa play... lol.

[AkaeiNox]

World of Warcraft still charges a bit more though. So I think Square Enix uses it as their reference for the sub prices. Also you don't have to sub every months.

[Sotaris]

World of Warcraft still charges a bit more though. So I think Square Enix uses it as their reference for the sub prices. Also you don't have to sub every months.

Not to mention wow is usually, from my experience more broken on patches than this game.

You're upset because... the game devs regularly update and fix the game?

tldr, yes.

[strawberrycake]

World of Warcraft still charges a bit more though. So I think Square Enix uses it as their reference for the sub prices. Also you don't have to sub every months.

With current WoW you dont even have to pay a sub after a while, you can pay your WoW sub with in game gold

[AkaeiNox]

Someone still pays for that sub though. The company still gets the money.

[Sotaris]

Someone still pays for that sub though. The company still gets the money.

Plus people buy in masses the token thing for €20 or how much it is. They get their money for sure.

[Liam_Harper]

Someone still pays for that sub though. The company still gets the money.

Indeed, they get more than the sub cost, every token is €20. It's interesting SE chose not to adapt the token system because there's no doubt it's massive profit from a business perspective.