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

[ArnoMorley]

I would say that this is by far the stupidest comment i've ever seen, but sadly there is worse.

If you think a games economy doesn't matter in an MMO, you're wrong. dead. wrong. The economy is everything related to trading, whether it be consumables, armor and weapons, rare items for decorating your house... everything. When the economy goes to crap, no one is able to find the armor they want, no one can find the food they need to do well in those hard fights like garuda, and everyone's experience takes a turn for the worse. This means people will actually quit due to how sucky the game is to play, frustrated they can't find anything in the wards they need.

As for the STF? they did a heroic job, to be sure... but RMT still existed and thrived. When they banned bots from the endgame scene, they took to botting normal mobs, camping lesser NMs, spamming annoying tells at people, and poshacking and mining underground in mount zalyolm. I even found one in freaking fort karugo-narugo doing that with the cacti there for nopales. Its like the war on drugs, you can do all you can to fight it, but they are far more numerous and will find creative ways to get around you.

And just because other games do it doesn't mean its a good idea? Maybe not, but when 2 successful MMOs do it, it's a good idea to look into. It's called industry standards, man. If other companies are doing a PLEX system and are finding noticable improvements to subscriptions while hurting RMT activity, don't you think it at least has some merit? Certainly it doesn't warrant being called "stupid".

It doesn't matter as in it didn't really affect much, yeah the price of everything went way down but it was across the board, everybody adjusted to it. An MMO isn't a real economy where you have your life savings in the stock market that can become worthless if the market crashes, most people don't save their money on these games. The people that did save their money were suddenly a lot richer but it didn't have an impact on most people.

This threads idea doesn't eliminate RMT, it creates it. The STF is a better way to go if you want to fight RMT, and plus SE has years worth of experience with fighting RMT now, they could be even more efficient than they were in XI.

[Abriael]

Why incorporate ideas relating to subscriptions from two dying MMO games? I'm not trying to troll or anything. I'm genuinely curious.

Maybe because none of those two games is dying. I'm quite sure SE would LOVE for Final Fantasy XIV to be "dying" like EVE online.

This threads idea doesn't eliminate RMT, it creates it. The STF is a better way to go if you want to fight RMT, and plus SE has years worth of experience with fighting RMT now, they could be even more efficient than they were in XI.

SE has years of experiences in whacking moles. Whack-a-mole remains whack-a-mole no matter how much you play it. RMT firms have access to unlimited free accounts, and will continue to have it no matter how many SE bans (reportedly catching innocent people in the middle too).

The ability to trade money for gil in itself is no real problem. It doesn't influence other people's enjoyment of the game in any way or form, and doesn't influence the economy as it doesn't inject a single gil into the market.

The problem with RMT is the catastrophic effects of its workforce on the economy, as they *create* gil and insert it into the market at a rate that cannot be balanced, creating a bleeding inflation that cannot be countered and affects everyone.

This method hits RMT where it counts (their income), reducing their budget, and with it the workforce they can dedicate to this game, potentially bringing the inflation they cause back to a manageable level.

[Psion]

It doesn't matter as in it didn't really affect much, yeah the price of everything went way down but it was across the board, everybody adjusted to it. An MMO isn't a real economy where you have your life savings in the stock market that can become worthless if the market crashes, most people don't save their money on these games. The people that did save their money were suddenly a lot richer but it didn't have an impact on most people.

This threads idea doesn't eliminate RMT, it creates it. The STF is a better way to go if you want to fight RMT, and plus SE has years worth of experience with fighting RMT now, they could be even more efficient than they were in XI.

I'm not talking about deflation here. I'm talking about economy being important. Deflation isn't always a bad thing, unless it's a huge amount. But the economy itself does matter. If there's no economy, or an unhealthy one... it's not a matter of prices, it's a matter of supply. If prices are terrible, if people don't feel it's worth selling anything because the time involved is too much for the gil earned, or if people don't have enough gil available to buy anything, the economy tanks, and this affects everyone. Want some buttons in a blanket for your black mage on Garuda? too bad, no one want's to farm/sell the ingredients to make them, much less sell the food itself. Want to buy some cobalt claws+1 with materia on it for your fresh 50 mnk until you can get something better? too bad, no one sees a profit in cobalt claws, or can't find the materials to make them.

That's what i mean by economy matters. If the economy is bad, then it affects you and everyone else's experience, enough that it can make people quit. Trust me, i've played on hades server when it first came out in FFXI. it was... HORRIBLE. Nothing was on the AH, what little there was sold for ridiculously high or low prices, because people couldn't grasp the concept that the server was new and no one had any gil yet. (this was after beastmen got nerfed to drop a pittiance of gil too, so gil coming in was really slow, while the gilsinks like chocobo rentals stayed the same.) This is on top of the fact that supply of everything was very low, and demand equally low because no one could sell anything to buy other goods.

It took years for hades to resemble anything approaching a normal economy, and until it got merged with another server, it was usually the very bottom of the economy rankings in FFXIAH.com. My own experience with that server ended fairly quickly, because out of frustration i moved to another after several months. Phoenix server had been around for a very long time, and its economy was a breath of fresh air compared to hades. Suddenly, i was able to sell my silk threads, crystals, and other items for enough gil to buy armor for my red mage... and actually find it on the auction house.

And this is just one case of where one realizes how much the economy matters in a game. Anyone remember the rampant inflation when RMT and players were fishing rusty gear then repairing/npcing them? I do. Suddenly haubys were selling for millions, and the price kept rising faster than you could earn the gil to buy one. It took many months for the economy to recover from that. Certainly the STF helped on that, by banning RMT accounts loaded with billions of gil spread between them, but the RMTers just found some other thing to take over.

The STF is a great thing to have. They are like emergency workers, rushing to put out blazes as they occur, treat the wounded, and catch the offenders. But they are NOT the only method used to fight RMTers, and they should not be. Prevention is just as important as intervention, and a PLEX system is a method of prevention. Does it create RMT? in a sense, yes. It is essentially a "sanctioned" RMT. But it does so by creating competition for the middlemen, the RMTers, causing them to either lower their prices (lost profits) or quit altogether. And it does this without introducing new gil into the system, affecting people's gameplay by hordes of claimbots, or annoying /tells in the game. I think we can all agree that the root of our hatred for RMT lies mainly in issues like these that arise from third party RMTers.

[Sasanctus]

I'm in favor of this.

If it were to work out like eve it would take about 2-3 full days of play to pay for sub (based on mining in eve).
I would be a person who would fund my play time this way not because I can't afford to pay the sub because I can but because it adds another objective to my play. Alot of people in eve have multiple accounts because dual boxing can be very beneficial but also they like to specialise there characters into particular roles and alot of them fund the extra accounts using plex's. Wether this would come into play in this game depends on how 2.0 turns out.

Being as this system puts a player driven cap on gill value you may see RMT company's switch more into the service side of there bussiness like selling pre-made characters but with increased compitions in those area's those prices will fall as well.

Having played a fair amount of different mmo's and looking at how developers make there revenues you have games like ffxi which rely on subs at one extreme and planet entropia universe at the other with a direct $ to game curreny conversion and everything else is in the middle. For me this system seems the best with one focal item that anyone can choose to use to there advantage if they wish to and there should be no malice towards sellers, buyers or developers in this system if you understand it.

Even if you chose not to buy or sell this item you should benefit from the increase of exchange of currency in the game and better item availability. If you do harbour malice towards this system then you should stop and think about how you can turn it to your advantage unfortunately I wouldn't be able to explain how to do that unless it was implemented.

Now I know some of you are going to be looking at this as the person who is selling game time as being fast tracked into stuff because he is buying curreny but you should also take into consideration that the person he is buying stuff from is benefiting and the person he in turn buy's stuff from is also benefiting and so and so on. Consequently eveyone is being fast tracked not just the person who put his hand in his pocket.

Just to be clear this system does not add currency into the economy but it does speed the economy up increasing the number of transactions completed daily.

[ArnoMorley]

Maybe because none of those two games is dying. I'm quite sure SE would LOVE for Final Fantasy XIV to be "dying" like EVE online.

The ability to trade money for gil in itself is no real problem. It doesn't influence other people's enjoyment of the game in any way or form, and doesn't influence the economy as it doesn't inject a single gil into the market.

So when wealthier people can instantly have the most gil simply because they can buy more "chronoscrolls" that's not a problem? It's ridiculous and unfair on every level, basically just because somebody's parents are well off a bunch of spoiled children are going to be walking around with triple/quadruple melds.

The current system works fine, just because a few people want to find a way to play for free doesn't mean SE should ruin this game before it's even relaunched.

Edit: if you think it won't drive up inflation you're mistaken, it's not that gil is added it's that gil becomes concentrated, if I suddenly have a billion gil and want to x4 meld gear then I could buy everything up and suddenly none of the normal players can afford the gear.

[Alhanelem]

It's a completely different feature. It really has nothing to do with it.

Apples aren't oranges, yanno.

The comparison is relevant because both features were aimed (at least partially) at eliminating RMT.

So when wealthier people can instantly have the most gil simply because they can buy more "chronoscrolls" that's not a problem? It's ridiculous and unfair on every level

I have to agree with this.

It's no different than buying gil, since you can buy as many of these scrolls yourself with no intention of using them yourself. People pay money to get an advantage. It's sanctioned RMT.

[Abriael]

So when wealthier people can instantly have the most gil simply because they can buy more "chronoscrolls" that's not a problem? It's ridiculous and unfair on every level, basically just because somebody's parents are well off a bunch of spoiled children are going to be walking around with triple/quadruple melds.

Aside from the fact that the number of buyable scrolls in a period of time can be limited to avoid abuse, like in TERA, I'm very curious to hear how exactly someone else having a lot of gil or more melds affects your enjoyment of the game.

The current system works fine, just because a few people want to find a way to play for free doesn't mean SE should ruin this game before it's even relaunched.

LOL. "ruin the game". How overdramatic (and random).

The current system obviously doesn't work that fine, looking at how straight up pay to play games are bleeding like wounded deers.

This gives the game a better chance to stay pay but still compete against the allure of F2P games.

Edit: if you think it won't drive up inflation you're mistaken, it's not that gil is added it's that gil becomes concentrated, if I suddenly have a billion gil and want to x4 meld gear then I could buy everything up and suddenly none of the normal players can afford the gear.

Again, purchase can be limited. It's been done. Besides, I advise you study a bit of economy. While someone's purchase power increases, someone else's decreases. The total effect is the same = No inflation.

It's no different than buying gil, since you can buy as many of these scrolls yourself with no intention of using them yourself. People pay money to get an advantage. It's sanctioned RMT.

You're assuming that you can buy unlimited scrolls. Which you can't.

[Firon]

Maybe because none of those two games is dying. I'm quite sure SE would LOVE for Final Fantasy XIV to be "dying" like EVE online.



SE has years of experiences in whacking moles. Whack-a-mole remains whack-a-mole no matter how much you play it. RMT firms have access to unlimited free accounts, and will continue to have it no matter how many SE bans (reportedly catching innocent people in the middle too).

The ability to trade money for gil in itself is no real problem. It doesn't influence other people's enjoyment of the game in any way or form, and doesn't influence the economy as it doesn't inject a single gil into the market.

The problem with RMT is the catastrophic effects of its workforce on the economy, as they *create* gil and insert it into the market at a rate that cannot be balanced, creating a bleeding inflation that cannot be countered and affects everyone.

This method hits RMT where it counts (their income), reducing their budget, and with it the workforce they can dedicate to this game, potentially bringing the inflation they cause back to a manageable level.

Sorry but this where you are dead wrong cause RMT will offer better deals for game money so it wont effect them at all, the better price will always win. This wont get rid of rmt,.

Edit: Also 97% of the inflation in FFXIV is caused by legit players.

[ArnoMorley]

Aside from the fact that the number of buyable scrolls in a period of time can be limited to avoid abuse, like in TERA, I'm very curious to hear how exactly someone else having a lot of gil or more melds affects your enjoyment of the game.



LOL. "ruin the game". How overdramatic (and random).

The current system obviously don't work that fine, looking at how straight up pay to play games are bleeding like wounded deers.



Again, purchase can be limited. It's been done. Besides, I advise you study a bit of economy. While someone's purchase power increases, someone else's decreases. The total effect is the same = No inflation.

When somebody has things they didn't earn it affects others, basically a high powered piece of gear is like a trophy. You work your ass off and eventually you earn this trophy, if somebody who hasn't done a bit of work can obtain something that you worked hard for, and can obtain it easier than you, it not only makes your trophy worthless it spits in your face.

and you didn't know games could be ruined? Look at what happened to XI


And even IF they limited purchases there's no way to stop the abuse, all a wealthy person would have to do is buy multiple accounts. Hell if I was a millionaire I wouldn't mind buying 10 accounts. There is no way to stop the abuse.

[Abriael]

Sorry but this where you are dead wrong cause RMT will offer better deals for game money so it wont effect them at all, the better price will always win. This wont get rid of rmt.

And you didn't even notice that you just contradict yourself.

In order to offer better deals, RMT firms have to lower their prices considerably, on gil that it'd take exactly the same resources to gather.

Same resources used + lower prices = less gains.

Less gains = Less budget = Less available workforce (people have to be paid).

it's not rocket science.

When somebody has things they didn't earn it affects others, basically a high powered piece of gear is like a trophy. You work your ass off and eventually you earn this trophy, if somebody who hasn't done a bit of work can obtain something that you worked hard for, and can obtain it easier than you, it not only makes your trophy worthless it spits in your face.

So you're basically just envious.