Give trialists more functions

[Buttobi]

They should bring back PvP for free trial accounts like they promised 3 years ago in this post https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6bd640829c1ae9

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to those who are playing on free trial accounts. This restriction will be lifted after countermeasures have been implemented, so we ask for your continued patience and understanding.

I understand they were asking for patience, but coming next month it is the 3 year anniversary of this post. Just another empty promise.

[UkcsAlias]

However this ruins the experience for a lot of trial players who because of this do not get a sense of community behavior which may be off putting to them.

This also differs a lot per server they play on. On some servers the novice network is very strict, while on others its used as general chatbox. On servers where its like a chatbox, trial players do get a good sense of the community. While on strict servers, they get more like an opposite experience.
Linkshells are nice, but thats only reachable if there is a more generic chat available, which on strict NN servers means there effectively isnt any.

It could be as easy as adding a public chat, but on that i still think its better to tie it to the NN as that allows a lot of abuse to be prevented/removed (RMT spam on its own can mostly be prevented if it requires an invite like the NN, even if someone abuses it and invites these, SE can trace it back and ban the inviter, or even just automate a system to track it automaticly and if for example over 50% of invites were RMT, an auto ban for inviting can be applied).

Without the NN community, i very likely would never have bothered paying, or even continue playing. While these days we do have a linkshell, it only exists because during patches the NN is unreliable for mentors. And yes, it does contain free trial players in it as well.

More features like FC access dont help, if there is no way to join them due to lack of interaction.
Trading through friends is still abusable as you can use f2p bots and then 'trade'.
PMs to friends however is something i do consider essential. It makes no sense they cant as it already did require a paying player to become friends. Its a similar requirement to linkshells.

[Kes13a]

hard pass. as many have stated, its already a pretty generous free trial.

many game you get a "free trial" in, they restrict your experience, they restrict your loot etc.

14 does none of that. I can see MAYBE, being able to '/reply' but thats about it. they have 70 levels on 16 jobs they can do, with zero playtime restrictions. if they like the game they can belly up to the bar like the rest of us and buy it. (which comes with I believe... 30 days free)

[Asari5]

many people have difficulties anyway to find a good community.

[sindriiisgaming]

Right now trial players can't:

- Trade
- Reply to private messages (or send them)
- Join Free companies
Amongst other choices.

However this ruins the experience for a lot of trial players who because of this do not get a sense of community behavior which may be off putting to them. If they met people in game and made friends, they would be more likely to stick around and subscribe.

I would say give them more options but limited so bot users can't abuse this:

- Allow them to join FC's, but forbid them to actually own/start one.
- Allow them to trade but only with people who are in their friendslist or FC.
- Allow them to reply to private messages but only to people in friendlist or FC.

I'm convinced that when people meet people that treat them with kindness, they will have a way better experience and the people they meet might even convince them to subscribe.

They won't because very soon a lot of vets will move to free trial so they don't need to unsub, and se has to make sure they don't feel permanent home in this. The want people to sub at all costs

[syldon]

The main thing that makes any sense is reply to people who talk to you first.
Trade is a definite nope. This just opens the door wider for RMT.
If you cannot party up, then really this should be a thing. How do you expect people to show their friends on a free trial what the game can offer.

One other thing I would say is allow those who have stopped playing for a long time (2 years for instance) access to the free trial again. I have only just repurchased FF again last week. I would have done so mid last year if I had access to the free trial again. I just wanted to have a taste of what was here compared to wow. Many are sick of the shenanigans of Blizzard atm. There will be many who played FF, when they were tired of the games Blizzard played back then, who are ripe for easy pickings to pay for this game again. Opening up the free trial should earn a lot more than it costs atm.