The Trial vs Standard Edition doesn't feel fair

[Rivlet]

Hello,

First of all, let us be clear: this is pure and simple feedback. It is criticism, yes, but one that we hope is constructive, generating (or not) a healthy debate. We also want to state the fact that what we did was, first and foremost, our mistake. We should have informed ourselves better. That said, let's go:

We like your game, but my wife, friends and I feel disappointed after finding out that people who buy it are not able to play for free in contrast to people who don't. Had we known, we wouldn't have bought it.

We know that buying the game lifts some restrictions, but we would rather play the base game and its first expansion for free and with restrictions than paying monthly fees to play the most tedious parts of the game.

To us, that system makes no sense. Something fair would have us going back to the no-perks play-for-free situation after the 30th suscription day, but not totally blocked and left out.

For us, the party is over. Our only option would be to create another set of accounts, do the tedious part again and avoid purchasing your game until we do that. Ideally, we would even prefer to rollback to the Trial condition and lose the game we bought.

And it’s sad, because, even though the game wasn't the best at beginning an adventure, we were having fun together and we were excited about what was to come (in the subscription-required expansions, which we know are the good part of the game).

And I know one may think: just purchase a month and rush through the boring part to make the most of it. Unfortunately, for us, it is not a solution: we don't have much time (work, travel, etc.) and, most importantly, we like to do things at our own pace. Especially when starting.

But the point here is that, again, it does not feel fair. Removing restrictions (e.g. not being able to party) is not worth 10€ plus losing the right to play for free. We write this with good heart, aiming for constructive criticism and hoping for change.

What do you think?

[Vahlnir]

A free trial is a free trial. The moment you exit said trial it's no longer a free experience. Seems pretty straight forward to me and is hardly unfair.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

You wouldn't be able to party up together without outside intervention on the trial.

You'd be gil capped, have no retainers, and a ton of other restrictions.

They want people to buy the game.

[OranKells]

a corporation prioritizing its paying customers? Heavens to Murgatroyd!

[Theodric]

I think FFXIV's free trial is pretty generous. What limitations exist are largely there to deter abuse of the systems in place as well as ensuring that the game can stand to make a profit.

Insofar as the monthly subscription fee is concerned, I think it's a pretty reasonable price to pay if someone enjoys what the game is bringing to the table. Especially if they haven't completed a lot of the content on offer - because that means they've got a lot of potential things to work through.

[Rivlet]

@Vahlnir: That's the current state of things. We are well aware. But given the chance: don't you think it would be fair-er to equal Standard purchasers who are unsubscribed to the services that Trial users enjoy? Because right now, Standard purchasers who are unsubscribed cannot play at all, whereas Trial users enjoy, with restrictions, a timeless experience.

@Valkyrie_Lenneth: Of course I understand they want people to buy the game. I also understand that those are powerful restrictions. But it's not about the purchase of a standard edition. It is about what comes next. Wouldn't it be fair-er to have standard users be able to play too, restrictions and so on included? Of course, a system would have to be in place (such as syncing max lvl to 60 when a user has bought the game and reached 60+), but I think it's doable.

@Theodric: See replies above.

[ZedxKayn]

I do think it would be fair, to allow players who are unsubbed to play with similar limitations, however I don't really see how some of the benefits given by having a purchased version could be suspended without significantly hurting the overall experience for said unsubbed players, such as gil cap, housing or FCs.

[Ayuhra]

So the issue you have is that when you buy a sub once your 30 days are up you need to resub instead of converting into a free account, even if your account is still in the content covered by the trial?

Yes, you should have done research but I can agree it's frustrating that you are forever locked into a sub without even the option of downgrading. Some of that is probably because while subbed you could have gotten the retainers or a house, or maxed out gil or joined a Free Company and the game cannot handle suddenly restricting you from those things by downgrading the account. The FC thing, it would have to know how to boot you from the FC.

Edit: I should note that while you cannot downgrade to a free account you CAN downgrade to a starter which is a little cheaper.

[dezzmont]

I think people are sorta missing the core problem here:

The upgrade is sorta a downgrade if your still in ARR or HW. I definitely think SE 'earns' the sub by how much they support the game, and the free trial is EXTREMELY generous, but it feels bad if you want to support the game and then realize your now locked into the sub even if your not really 'ready' for it.

I know a few people who just don't play anymore because I bought them the standard edition as a gift because they were getting into the game more seriously and they dropped when they hit the slow spot in Astral Era. If they had the ability to play maybe once a week for a few hours they might have gotten past it, but neither of us understanding the implications of never being able to go back to free really nuked the experience.

So its less 'Wah I don't want to play' and 'Hrmm this is a really big problem that can turn people off from the game, what needs to happen to fix this?' (Ex: Removing even MORE of post ARR because its still a slog, making it possible to go 'back' to free, ect). I suspect that SE knows this too, because the model is just plain bad for player retention and most MMOs don't use this model for a reason. It may have something to do with the spaghetti code on the back end with stuff like Mogstation. One big clue to this is how you can't be referred as a friend until you buy the game, which strongly indicates something 'clunky' is happening. I don't think people need to White Knight for SE here because most MMOs would want people who lapse to still have the ability to put their foot back in the door with restrictions to tempt them back in.

The Starter Edition especially is very confusing and not really a good deal. Its clearly emulating the 'go premium' model of many F2P games where you pay a one time fee to unlock the 'standard' account features without having to fully subscribe, but it requires a full subscription anyway and really is mostly a 'downgrade' to your account in a lot of ways. I dunno how I would fix this as SE (Especially if 'downgrading' accounts isn't possible on their back end) but it certainly is an issue overall. There are also a lot of indications that SE's handling of character data is well below industry standard (ex: Glam dresser vs collections, how housing works, very strict mail and inventory limits overall) which make maintaining a F2P player harder for them than their competitors, but the ideal still isn't the status quo. Square Enix isn't 'tricking' people, but it definitely feels like you got tricked if you sub too early, and honestly taking the time to fix things would help everyone anyway (wouldn't you love your glam dresser to have literally every item you ever collected, for example? That would probably happen if they actually figured out a sane way to store character data because its actually way cheaper than tracking individual items and their states).

[Vahlnir]

@Vahlnir: That's the current state of things. We are well aware. But given the chance: don't you think it would be fair-er to equal Standard purchasers who are unsubscribed to the services that Trial users enjoy? Because right now, Standard purchasers who are unsubscribed cannot play at all, whereas Trial users enjoy, with restrictions, a timeless experience.

Free trials aren't meant to last forever. It is given with the assumption that a portion of the trial goers will go beyond HW and 60. After it is done you can either pay to play or not. It's that simple. Nothing needs to change here. Again, I don't see what's unfair about this. I get what you're saying, I just don't agree with it. I don't know why anyone would want to continue playing with those restrictions anyway. Too many cons, not enough pros. What you are asking for is more or less a permanent free-to-play option and that is something I'd rather see them avoid.