SE Please implement a Chonoscroll/PLEX system in FFXIV: ARR

[Nakiamiie]

Totally against it for the reasons mentioned above.
It will only give gil more "power" and make people more fanatic about it.
Sure, the real money was paid by someone else, but there will be people playing free because of it.

I can afford to sell my wares cheap or simply give them away (loss of gil profit on my side). If this system is introduced, every time I'll be doing that, I'll be effectively granting free time to another player. I can't do that.
I'm giving away things, incurring losses of gil profit because I want to help a player knowing that everything is sealed in the game, for entertainment.
The moment it stops being the case and game time can be bought with gil, I'll be put at a disadvantage while pushing up that person to be able to play for free. Heck, I'm not rich in real life. I would like to play for free too! So, I'd increase my prices, stop giving away stuff and try to charge everyone and anyone for services in-game whenever possible. I might even become irritated when I'll be missing gil near the end of my subscription. FFXIV won't be a game for me anymore then and I'll simply end up quitting (and sell my account, why not).

That's not what I want. I want FFXIV to remain an occasion of entertainment for me and remain the generous player I am now.

So, no.

[debola]

TERA is dead in europe because frogster handled it terribly. It has nothing to do with Chronoscrolls, even just because, as a matter of simple fact, chronoscrolls are only available on US tera, which is alive and well. They're not available in Europe at all.



Guess what? Helping to get people to play and stay is exactly the primary purpose and effect of this system.



Personal taste is a tad weak as an economy-related argument. Telling that something is "bad" or "unfair" doesn't make it so.

Like i said in about two posts, the reason why i'm against this isn't economical related. If you read my first post, you'll clearly see my reason.

Another reason why i disagree is that this system would devalue hard to get in-game items, by allowing people who dont put the effort in to be able to get them.

I like using in-game examples so here's another.

The luminary achievement items.
When I'm walking down uldah and i see someone crafting with a luminary item, at first i go like "whoa"

But then i go
"pffft.. 50% chance its some botter who cheated his way into it."

but

WHen I'm mining at halatali and i see someone walk by with a luminary gathering tool (which you can't bot for), I'm like

" /bow "

Point being. Introducing or allowing systems that could ruin the even playing field of everyones chances at getting things they want shouldn't be allowed.

[AhmeraMae]

If the system is implemented and monitored correctly there won't be any way of exploiting it.

As Abriael stated earlier:

EVE Online is a truly player-driven economy where exploit is part of the sandbox system and where people infiltrate corporations for years in order to spy, steal their assets or destroy them.

The fact that the PLEX system isn't exploited in that kind of environment is plenty insurance that it could be safely used here.

I'm sorry (and I don't mean it as a positive thing anyway, it's one of the reasons why I hate part of the EVE community), but the FF playerbase is made of harmless infants in comparison, exploit potential-wise.

We don't have Goonswarm here, thank goodness. If a large number of them were to move here for some reason, they'd own the economy in a month.

They were, and still are, unable to find a way to exploit this system. If they can't find a way, the FFXI/XIV-playerbase won't be able to find one, aswell. You may not like the idea of Abriael, but he sure knows what he is talking about.

I spent my 2,5 years in EvE with Pandemic Legion, well known pioneers in the field of exploitation, and i dislike the game for the same reason he does: The average EvE-player's mindset is destructive and agressive.

[Huginn]

In TERA Chronoscrolls have completely destroyed RMT. In EVE it didn't, but it still serves as a rather large obstacle, in fact RMT is a lot less widespread in EVE than in any other MMO (besides TERA).

Economy isn't mumbo jumbo, it has rules.

It took me less than one minute to find 35k gold for sale on tera, as well as chronoscrolls for sale less than the original purchase price. This shows that RMT is alive and well and profiting off of chronoscrolls through recapture. Adding this sort of system might be convenient for some players, but i would much rather just see us be able to trade Crysta to our friends if they happen to be behind one month (except that would lead to linkshells forcing members to pay for certain other members).

Economics is indeed not mumbo jumbo, unfortunately it seems that you are a bit naive as to how an economy actually functions. Wealth creation is not a zero sum equation, even in this game.

[AhmeraMae]

It took me less than one minute to find 35k gold for sale on tera, as well as chronoscrolls for sale less than the original purchase price. This shows that RMT is alive and well and profiting off of chronoscrolls through recapture.

In what way does an "offer" show you how well gold and scrolls are selling? How do you know if the person buying or selling won't be banned for RMT? EvE, as well as TERA, actively ban ppl who spend real money on any ingame-item outside of the game's boundaries or via 3rd parties.

Most players involved are afraid of losing their account due to a EULA violation anyway. Those who take the risk may get away with it once, twice or trice but they'll never be safe buying from 3rd parties.

The problem that is RMT won't disappear by itself. This way SE profits from it because the good used for such transactions is limited in supply. Also the amount asked from RMTers is hardcapped due to the fact that SE is "RMTing" aswell, which makes it less profitable.

sorry for bad language, not a native speaker.

[Zantetsuken]

From the perspective of the player who would buy the scroll, it can make the game effectively F2P (provided they spend the gil to keep their subscription up)

On the surface, it seems like a great alternative way to generate revenue and increase playerbase in an MMO game. It allow gamers who have more time than money to actually play the game. -- I'm sure we each know of a person or two in this situation.

Not only that, but supply and demand will definitely keep the gil transfers in check. (ie, a player might put $5,000 into *Crysta* for trade, but flooding the market would drop the gil value, and he might end up getting no more than 10gil per $1 invested)

I'm sure SE would do some serious analysis of the benefits vs drawbacks before they implemented something like this, but I from what I've seen, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it.

It really seems like the best of all worlds~

[Yoona]

I have read through the first some odd pages of this thread, so I have to apologize in advance if this has been raised already. But, I have to get to work soon and I'm dying to ask the question below.

I have played TERA and other MMORPGs myself, and I have seen the PLEX system in TERA. I have not played any other game which had a PLEX system, so I will just use TERA here as an example since it's been raised so often. I think it is much easier to farm gold in TERA than it is to farm gil in FFXIV. Because most of the top-level gear in FFXIV is untradable and only obtained through instances such as primals and raids, the rate at which one can earn gil in FFXIV is different to that of TERA. I remember just mindlessly killing anything around my level for a few hours and I would have some gold I can spend in TERA, but in FFXIV you are limited to ways of making fast money. Whether you choose to gather, meld, sell materia or farm using DoW/M, I still think the two games are hard to compare because of the vastly different ways you have to go about making money in them. Actually, I would argue even further that it is hard to compare FFXIV to most other MMOs I've played. In most games, monsters drop gear/money directly that you can sell or pocket for money. In FFXIV, you have to level DoL, DoH or at least a job you can take to spiritbond to gain cash.

I believe SE has already said that materia will be changing in ARR. Given that materia is one of the largest source of income presently, I expect there will be lots of changes to the economy in ARR. There are a lot of questions that one cannot answer for at the moment as far as a PLEX system goes. How do you price these PLEX items? If you price them too high, veterans will benefit more than others. If you price them too low, you are likely to cause a disturbance within the economy. What is "just right?" Given that FFXIV is a complex game, and likely to become even more complex, you don't simply sit there and kill any monster to make money like you do in other MMOs. While everyone does have the freedom to take up crafting and gathering, not everyone has the time to do this. Yet, without a gathering or a few crafting jobs, it is really difficult to make money. You can spiritbond but we don't know how materia will handle themselves in ARR. If you choose to ignore DoL/DoH, then you have to farm monsters for crafting materials to sell. You will have to compete for these camps in ARR, and I imagine on a much larger scale than you have to do now.

Are we then splitting the game into those with money can just sit and relax while watching their bank grow, but those without have to farm and compete? We are creating very different experiences, and I don't think that is how a good MMO should be. There are a lot of MMOs like that thanks to a pay-to-win system (cash shop) or whatever other form of real-money system in place, and they phase out overtime. They have no lasting appeal because of the ability to pay to win.

I like the idea but I think it is premature to assume it will work out well in FFXIV. FFXIV is a unique MMO where many aspects doesn't follow traditional MMO roots. I'd hate to wake up one day and find that a Final Fantasy game has been infected with a cash shop or cash shop-alike system. PLEX is a cool concept, but maybe it is more the more traditional MMO setting where anyone can make a feasible income without having to commit to crafting/gathering. The way it is right now, I believe a PLEX system will allow those with crafting and gathering jobs to completely dominate the market, because they have the ability to make a large sum of gil very easily. While it is fair in the way that everyone can level these jobs, not everyone has the time to do so and I believe the economy will not be balanced. Imagine crafters buying out every chronoscroll on the market and just re-selling them for profit. What's there to stop them since you have to allow these scrolls to be tradable?

It would certainly benefit me as I have nearly all DoL/DoH maxed, but I think it would cause a lot of newer players to turn away to other games, and since I love FFXIV, I would rather just not have a PLEX, at least for a long while.

[Aenarion]

It may work well for other games, but it won't work well in FFXIV for many reasons. One is, SE need the funds from the subscriptions at the game's launch to float happily and be able to pay costs. After such a terrible start with v1, I don't know how anyone can not realise the significant importance of this fact. They lost a lot of money and need to recoup costs, get subscription numbers up and drum up interest for new players. You might argue they'd get the funds eventually, but until all the transactions are sorted out ... the money technically doesn't exist. "Free" subscription fees certainly don't help here either.

Huh? you're not making sense here. The PLEX system does not REPLACE subs, it exists in tandem WITH subs. PLEX doesn't create "free" subscriptions that the devs have to deal with, it is actually exactly the reverse - the PLEX system gives the dev money for subscriptions that doesn't even exist yet, as a PLEX is in effect a promissory note guaranteeing future service.

This right here tells me you actually have no idea how the system functions even on a basic level.

After seeing the debacle with Atomos gil-hoarding and selling what is effectively a win on certain fights (Garuda, Rivenroad - Hard), I have no desire to see these people earn even more gil and certainly not real-life money.

Huh? The PLEX system does NOT allow conversion of gil into RL money, so how will those players earn RL money through the PLEX system?

Oh right, they can't

Again, you show a complete lack of understanding of the system.

You've all seen how an over-saturation of gil raises prices in general, because sellers start to get greedy and the rich are too rich to care.

Except a PLEX system doesn't saturate gil, as it doesn't create a single gil - yes, the PLEX system injects less currency into the in-game economy than if you go out and killed a lv.10 human mob.

I'd drop the line about you having no clue about the system here, but it's starting to get repetitive.

we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Of course, except one side has logical reasoning, while the other side is doing nothing more than "LALALALALA I can't hear you lolololol"

Not saying FF14 will or even should use the PLEX system, but if you're going to debate the issue, at least understand what you're debating against.

[Huginn]

My apologies, the reference i made to trading crysta was not meant to be for RMT. I realize it will not be permitted because it could encourage RMT. I guess the real solution for this is having ultimate pay let you use one credit card for more than one account or allow you to buy crysta for someone else without kicking it back incessantly and claiming that you can call customer service who ultimately is unable to help you at all. I only meant crysta trade for things such as helping a friend who cant pay for a month.

Real world money for in game (non U/U)items/money destroys a game. It really does not matter if the company who owns the game runs the trade or not. It destroys a level playing field. in XI, if you wanted a scorpion harness or peaock charm circa 2006, you would either need to spend $20 real life money or farm and craft and sell rare items for months to gather up the 40million gil (unless you were one of the few obtaining the items or in a good HNMLS which would make you the top 3% of players for gil/item generation) So how is it fair to let someone pay real life money to circumvent playing the game normally in order to have what is generally unobtainable to the rest of the players?

What would happen if best korea were able to use the souls of its citizens to get resources from the Æther, making it able to destroy all other nations on the earth? in effect, this is what happens when you allow RMT. RMT means real money trading, it is not explusive to illegal RMT endeavors (all of which are currently illicit in this game, even though they are permitted in some other games.)

[debola]

Of course, except one side has logical reasoning, while the other side is doing nothing more than "LALALALALA I can't hear you lolololol"

Not saying FF14 will or even should use the PLEX system, but if you're going to debate the issue, at least understand what you're debating against.

THe opposing side isn't lalala'ing. We do know what were debating against nd if you read thru this you'd see the many reasons that have been brought up.