Stop Online Store Items

[Alicie]

Problem:

• There are a lot, way too many items that are unobtainable in game that you can only get using cash.

Why is this a problem:

• We already paid $60 for the game, then $15 per month for subscription and $40 for each DLC every 2 years, totalling approximately $200 per year. It's simply not ethical to lock cosmetic items behind paywall in a paid game with paid subscription and paid DLC.
• Essential cosmetics do not have alternatives in game. Emotes like dote, loveheart, costumes that cosplay NPCs, they are only available via online store.
• In-game content seriously lacks rewards. Instead of online store, these clothes could be rewards for doing in-game content. For example, it would only be fitting if Cruise Chaser mount was available via The epic of Alexander ultimate, and Ryne's attire was available via Futures Rewritten.
• Emotes and cosmetic items that present in game often are inferior to these that are online store only.

But it's only cosmetics!

• But cosmetics is a crucial part of FFXIV gameplay and it even is acknowledged by Square Enix themselves. A lot of cosmetics are obtained via in-game means and while they do not give stats, I could argue that cosmetic items are even more important than items that give stats because cosmetic items do not become obsolete with new patches.

Possible solutions to this issue:

• Introduce rewards that are currently available only via online store to older content deemed "dead" by now due to lack of rewards, such as variant and criterion dungeons. Periodically rotate these rewards to keep content alive.
• Bring into the game ability to acquire items from previous seasonal events during current seasonal events.
• Introduce weekly "Bingo Card" that would contain various challenges and mini-qeusts such as completing certain duty. Crossing a line could give you one online store credit that you could use in place of, for example, 100 yen to obtain items from online store. Include duties that players rarely unlock such as hard dungeons, old raids, old alliance raids, optional trials to give more incentive to unlock and run this kind of content. Keep these cards limited to one per account and not available on free trial.

Positive outcomes:

• Players are incentivized to keep their subscriptions and keep playing even during content drought, which in long run could bring more money than attempts to squeeze cash out of players via online store
• More content is being unlocked and played, issues that some trials and dungeons take forever to fill or don't even proc in roulettes are significantly reduced
• Square Enix and FFXIV gets better reputation because they are not trying to squeeze every last penny out of their players anymore

[Kahnha]

Problem:
[*]We already paid $60 for the game, then $15 per month for subscription and $40 for each DLC every 2 years, totalling approximately $200 per year. It's simply not ethical to lock cosmetic items behind paywall in a paid game with paid subscription and paid DLC.

Be a player of XIV since 2016 or before you bought HW for 50+ you paid 60 for SB you paid 60 for SHB 60 for EW and DT and if you are a sucker like me not letting your sub lapse you paid over a grand to support and play the game only for the director to tell you that they are worried they do not have the resources to keep the MMO active after their corporation used the funds for the game you and so many others supported to fund failed projects like forespoken, failed NFTs, FF16 and etx.

Meanwhile the game has a rewards issue and the cash shop is flooded with assets that are already in the game that could have just been rewards mainly talking about the hairs and npc outfits, and the story writing quality; the main thing the game boasted about with HW goes into a free fall post SHB.

even selling progression feels scummy to me tbth and it is the reason why they want new players to catch up to their friends through 300hrs of MSQ xD

[CCheshire]

I agree with you, but a majority of cash shop items were specially made for other servers like China and Korea, who have separate clients, and brought over to be sold in the global shop.

We do have upcoming outfits as seen on certain sites, but they would have always meant to be sold in the cash shop or would never existed for us. I do say if the future Tactics collab event is just selling the cash shop glams then it's a terrible event.

@Kahnha: The FFXIV base expansions have always been $40 from when I bought Stb-DT...

[Alicie]

@Kahnha: The FFXIV base expansions have always been $40 from when I bought Stb-DT...

Perhaps, they have purchased collector's editions

[TheRealDesastr]

I will thumbs up because I very much agree, but I feel like they won't due to greed :/ Granted, the game is losing players, they gotta do something...

[hydralus]

[*]Introduce weekly "Bingo Card" that would contain various challenges and mini-qeusts such as completing certain duty. Crossing a line could give you one online store credit that you could use in place of, for example, 100 yen to obtain items from online store. Include duties that players rarely unlock such as hard dungeons, old raids, old alliance raids, optional trials to give more incentive to unlock and run this kind of content. Keep these cards limited to one per account and not available on free trial.

Not a fan of this solution. Putting a cash value on things you do in-game will introduce thoughts like, "Spending 3 hours to get 100 yen sucks, I'll just buy it" and is in fact used that way in many free to play games. It encourages people to do the mental conversion of "Do I spend 10+ hours and wait 2 months farming enough tokens OR spend 2 minimum wage hours in pay on an item." which I suppose if your goal is to encourage people to buy more stuff from the cash shop this is a great idea.

[Alicie]

Not a fan of this solution. Putting a cash value on things you do in-game will introduce thoughts like, "Spending 3 hours to get 100 yen sucks, I'll just buy it" and is in fact used that way in many free to play games. It encourages people to do the mental conversion of "Do I spend 10+ hours and wait 2 months farming enough tokens OR spend 2 minimum wage hours in pay on an item." which I suppose if your goal is to encourage people to buy more stuff from the cash shop this is a great idea.

While I personally would of course much prefer that all in-game items are available via in-game means only, I do understand that asking them to go that far is not realistic. And on top of that, there are already such items - level skips, retainer level skips, MSQ skips, dyes, and yet still people are levelling, and doing MSQ themselves, and gil market for dyes is thriving even though farming 5 million gil to get 10x jet black usually takes a lot more time than half an hour required to get $7.5 at typical job.

Hybrid approach like this will let company keep earning additional money while not making players feel as tense when they add yet another item into cash shop. Besides it enables people who can not afford cash shop items at all to actually be able to get them instead of being permanently locked out.

Either way - no matter which way - it's really about time to start at least somewhere, at least with something. Even if it's not the perfect idea.

[hydralus]

While I personally would of course much prefer that all in-game items are available via in-game means only, I do understand that asking them to go that far is not realistic. And on top of that, there are already such items - level skips, retainer level skips, MSQ skips, dyes, and yet still people are levelling, and doing MSQ themselves, and gil market for dyes is thriving even though farming 5 million gil to get 10x jet black usually takes a lot more time than half an hour required to get $7.5 at typical job.

Hybrid approach like this will let company keep earning additional money while not making players feel as tense when they add yet another item into cash shop. Besides it enables people who can not afford cash shop items at all to actually be able to get them instead of being permanently locked out.

Either way - no matter which way - it's really about time to start at least somewhere, at least with something. Even if it's not the perfect idea.

Yeah I agree it's better for the sake of people being able to acquire things they normally would never get, but it still doesn't feel right to essentially funnel players into a flawed system which will very likely just increase the revenue of that system. As for the examples used yes it's already quite scummy. There's a reason MSQ skips and dyes are consistently among the best sellers on the mogstation. The fact that there are people who actually want to play the game is notwithstanding.

[CaptainLagbeard]

A lot of the Online Store outfits are mostly made for the Chinese and Korean versions of the game which are monetized differently. But then when they bring it over to the rest of the world, they just dump it onto the store.

[Silren]

Be a player of XIV since 2016 or before you bought HW for 50+ you paid 60 for SB you paid 60 for SHB 60 for EW and DT and if you are a sucker like me not letting your sub lapse you paid over a grand to support and play the game only for the director to tell you that they are worried they do not have the resources to keep the MMO active after their corporation used the funds for the game you and so many others supported to fund failed projects like forespoken, failed NFTs, FF16 and etx.

Meanwhile the game has a rewards issue and the cash shop is flooded with assets that are already in the game that could have just been rewards mainly talking about the hairs and npc outfits, and the story writing quality; the main thing the game boasted about with HW goes into a free fall post SHB.

even selling progression feels scummy to me tbth and it is the reason why they want new players to catch up to their friends through 300hrs of MSQ xD

And now we have 42 bucks outfit on the cash shop. Enjoy people! Square needs more money for FF17! :P