Dev Tracker - Discussion

How would buying one additional wardrobe that gives 80 more slots for $2 doubling your fee? We still aren't even sure if they're offering more than one more wardrobe, people are just instantly assuming they are.

Even if they do, I would think an additional 80 slots would ease most people's inventory issues.

I was speaking of charging for wardrobes in general, and other ways revenue could be increased, rather than forcing people to pay in perpetuity for something as basic and precious as inventory space.

The two currently available wardrobes are $2 each. At those prices, four additional wardrobes (which have been datamined) would amount to $12/month total for wardrobes, making FFXI go from $12.95 to $24.95. That's just about doubling the subscription for QoL that's baseline or earned in-game in any other MMO.

Obviously, most people aren't going to want or need all 6, but the point stands. I realize their technical 'constraints', and that the fee is ostensibly there partly to throttle how many people are purchasing the extra space and increasing bandwidth, but there are surely more elegant solutions, e.g. a JSE-only wardrobe which wouldn't need to load on any other job, which would immediately alleviate all space taken up by JSE armor, JSE necks, JSE REMAs, ambuscade capes (!), etc.

Yes, I would expect an -extremely- small fraction of the player base would need all additional wardrobes, assuming the data mined files point to them adding more than 1 or 2 more wardrobes (didn't people also data mine up to rank 15 nation missions too?).

We also don't know what they'd be charging for each wardrobe. Who knows, maybe they do add 4 more wardrobes, but lower the cost of each wardrobe to $1 instead? The point is, it's too early to be throwing stones at SE when we don't know the specifics.

I really don't see me getting more wardrobes after this one and I don't plan to level any other jobs as I am happy with my Job Spread so my sub looks like it's going to be around 20$ - not too bad considering I ordered 1 salad with nothing to drink off uber eats the other day for 22$. But I agree this is a QOL change that should be free. But whatever...

This isn't affecting new players (players with 1-3 jobs) and won't help to get new players either. More than anything it's shitting on the player base that has actively supported the game during the up and downs so I understand why some people are angry about it.

If SE wanted to really make something that would bring in more revenue/Players they could do something like a mount/lock style shop, sell Dense clusters/Cats eyes, or sell Nomad bonanza weapons.

So how do you make people pay more per month without raising the price? Kinda important. Need extra money because of inflation.

This, XI has an extremely small player base for a sub MMO, either sub needs to go up or they need to add extra for the sub to stay the same.

We already have JSE invent in the form to slips a "JSE wardrobe" is probably far beyond what the dev team can put in the game. So have you actually sat down and looked at what would need to be done? The data of all the items in this so called "JSE wardrode" STILL needs to be saved with your character, invent isnt something you can turn off or on in XI, so it will still be loaded when you zone. Same with when i see this idiotic idea of "Storage can be house only" WRONG! it still needs to be saved and it still needs to be loaded.

Maybe circle back to my original post?

Holy moly there's a lot of pissing and moaning for something that's optional. Are you guys for real, crying about 2 bucks a month for a giant QoL improvement?

I said it before, and I'll say it again. That's ONE *** coffee a month.

if you have 3 characters, times 2 wardrobes, times 12 months, that's 2-3 full games per year(on top of another 2-3 full games per year for wardrobes 3-4, and another 9~ from the base sub)

it isn't about whether people can afford it, it's about the value you're getting for it

With the cost of living going the way it is, plus the last 20 years of inflation, and specifically considering how much more technical people are paid now compared to back then, y'all lucky they don't charge you $30 per month base sub.

80 inventory spaces has giant value.

They don't consider the average player to be running 3 characters solo (and they didn't make this decision with that kind of person in mind), but if you are, you've already invested in triple the cost of sub fees to play, so money isn't an issue. If it's not worth it to incur that extra cost for something you think should be free, then don't buy it? Evidently a multiboxer knows what is "worth it" best, since they have no problem playing multiple accounts to gain 'more' advantage in-game. I have never been interested in paying for multiple accounts in FFXI. It just never was my thing. But I will gladly pay a couple of bucks to have more inventory on my main account.

Different strokes, folks

I can see why they would be upset, to me the amount is nothing but its principal. I can also understand why they look for new ways to profit from the game to justify its existence, which I don't mind. I just think if they continue they should look at things like race changes or something instead of creating content exclusively to sell, which XIV does a lot of now. I think most gamers like that these days tho, just showing how I'm getting older I guess.

This. It's not about how cheap the QoL improvement is. It's the fact that you have to pay for it in the first place when games as old as this one (WoW is 1 year younger) get this stuff all the time for free. Most you do in WoW is pay in-game gold for bigger bags.


Source? I know less single boxers than I do multiboxers. Anecdotal or not, most people I know play 3+ toons.

Multiboxers pay extra for the entire character because most are better than trusts and for additional Trove orbs. Just because somebody shells out extra for that, why milk them for every penny? Some fast food places raised their prices. Now many of them (in my area) are asking for tips on top of that. I get the whole inflation thing but man...

Again, awkward conversation when you have to try explaining to someone that the older MMO is more expensive to upkeep than the newer ones.

Honestly, it's kind of unusual how low prices have stayed for video games over the decades in general.

20 years ago, consoles used to be $200, now they're $500-600. However, games are still $30-60, barely having experienced inflation at all. Subscriptions are still on the order of ~$15/month as well.

This really shouldn't be a big deal. Implementing additional storage options actually increases the cost of operation for SE. More items that need to be stored server-side, more packets that need to be sent+received for each user... it's not a tremendous operational cost, but there is absolutely zero reason for them to introduce something like this for free.

With games like this, balancing finances is always going to be a tightrope. I think they've done a pretty good job of keeping things in check over the past 10 years. The surefire sign of "danger" in this game is gonna be server merges. We're not there yet, which indicates some sustainability in their financial strategy, AND these paid QoL changes are all things that players have been requesting already. Why not hit two birds with one stone here?

I really don't think this game is gonna get a cash shop. It's just too much work to implement for a 20-year old game. The closest we'd ever get is some bootstrap to an existing "service option" or whatever-the-*** is currently in-place that allows for Mog Wardrobe payments. Furthermore... the game wasn't designed with a cash-shop in mind, and I have a hard time imagining a huge return on cash-shop-only costumes and mounts. FF14 always had this kind of system, and as a consequence, there is always this desire to "look cool" and style on others in-game. The market is there and is fundamentally a part of the player culture.

"Looking cool" in FF11 has always been tied to in-game achievement: having a relic or mythic was so desirable not so much because they looked cool, but because those items signified some level of skill or investment that most other players didn't have. I just don't think the FF14 notion of "buying items with $$$ for pure aesthetic value" would ever catch on over here. At any rate... well, this game just isn't as pretty as FF14 is. Costumes and vanity items are inherently going to be seen as less valuable over here.

"Paying extra $$$ for inventory space" is about as straightforward of a revenue stream for SE is you can get. It satisfies an actual demand that players have and isn't just stealing some idea from FF14 that just doesn't make sense for a game like FF11. At least in this regard, the devs know what the players actually want, so why not subsidize the future of the game on monetizing the solution we want?

Maybe put more simply...

In FF14 I glam a cash-shop scary ghost costume because it looks funny in cutscenes and no gear drops are really "hard to get" enough that they feel like true trophy items. (The "valuable" items just have a ***drop rate on older content, that's about it. Even Savage/Ultimate content isn't "that hard.")

In FF11 maybe I could pay $$$ for a scary ghost costume, but that might mean I can't show off my R15 Ryunohige that I worked very hard for and am proud of. This is the kind of thing that really FEELS like a trophy item and I want the world to see it. Much more-so than some silly aesthetic item that has no intrinsic value assigned to it.

That's the thing...


I can't see them making a lot of money on this so in reality, they are only milking their long time players

Then don't get it.

I understand why some would feel taken-advantage of because this doesn't affect new players, but still, you don't have to get it.

It's not like this is a tax or a price-hike. FMPOV, in a way, a new wardrobe is a thing that actually makes this game more fun, for me, as a veteran. The less time I have to spend moving ***around is less time spent stressing out whenever I need to job change, as well as more time I can spend doing actual stuff.

I think you are severely underestimating how much people enjoy chasing lockstyles, even in XI. There's an absolute ton of people who lockstyle to things that aren't "achievement-based", e.g. event-given costumes, login point costumes, irrelevant old gearsets, etc.

Just think of how many people you see lockstyling their male characters shirtless with the summer event item, or lockstyling female characters into bathing suits, or Santa costumes, or riding relatively obscure mounts.

A cash shop that monetized things like costumes, mounts, race/gender/name changes, etc. would be far more lucrative than these wardrobe surcharges, and be far less intrusive with nickel and diming the playerbase for a basic amenity that no other MMO charges for, and which makes the game more enjoyable to everyone.

I do agree that XI is unlikely to ever get that, and continued paid wardrobes are just an extra expense we'll have to suffer if we want a modicum of convenience as multi-job players. But if we're pretending to care about the game's finances so that it continues on or whatever, there are more profitable ways for them to go about it that don't involve charging people for basic QoL.

But for all my disagreement, I'm not furious at SE or anything, like some people are trying to paint; it's the principle of the thing that frustrates me, but it's not a "big deal." I'll obviously buy in for at least 1-2 more wardrobes like any self-disrespecting addict to the job system.

Yes you've been indoctrinated into the XIV and modern day gaming loot box simulators, so of course you wouldn't get it. Praising cash grab ***, cmon lol. I'd rather they sell us a new expansion or they can increase the monthly fee if they would use the funds to support the actual game (yeah right, probably funnel it right into XIV.) Most veterans aren't about that mindset here, so it makes sense why they are complaining and probably not what they wanted when SE said they were working on inventory solutions (they said that ages ago, all this time just to add another wardrobe)

For ***'s sake, at least wait for the patch notes before complaining.

By the way, we were told last year that there would be a premium for whatever inventory solution they were going to come up with. The surprise from people really is laughable.

I must be missing the surprise. Who is shocked? This was exactly the low bar most people expected from SE. Doesn't mean people can't express disagreement with the choice.

Shaddap

This is an expansion of the same service that has been premium since it launched. Why are people still disappointed almost 8 years later? It wasn't the slippery slope then and certainly won't be now.

I feel like the I'm the only person just straight up excited at the prospect of having more wardrobe so I can gear another job

The thought of fees and anger doesnt even cross my mind

Love all the armchair economists in here tossing around inflation and how thankful we should be that XI doesn't cost $5068 a month because of it while simultaneously ignoring the fact that XI has only gotten cheaper and cheaper to maintain as the years go by.

They haven't upgraded the server hardware in a way that has required an extended maintenance since before abyssea. They have a skeleton crew and have to temporarily poach engineers from other games just to try to put bandaids on the ancient, broken code. Most months are just a revolving door ambuscade refresh (probably not even done by hand considering how often it gets *** up in the same ways every single month) with maybe a couple of new TVR missions or a few extra parameters added to an existing system.

They don't need to "adjust for inflation" to keep XI profitable. The game's age has already done that for them, not to mention the fact that theyve done nothing and never will do anything to prevent people like myself from paying for multiple accounts to cheese their exploitable reward systems to double/triple/etc. daily/weekly/monthly loot and multiply progression and personal profits more or less in exchange for $$$. Official RMT.

If they want an influx of cash so papa Matsui can take a vacay, make an expansion or, more realistically, a mini expansion. I'd gladly pay for a big chunk of content akin to the "free expansion" RoV gave us (nothing is free when you're actively paying monthly for something btw) if it meant more frequent, quality content in lieu of nickel and diming me for inventory space and barren monthly updates.

Toward the end of Guild Wars 1's life, they released a series of paid for mini scenarios that added unique storylines, battle content, and challenges related to individual characters in the game and to flesh out some lore behind the main campaigns. Adding things like that to XI for $10/ea every few months would make me happy. XI has a glut of interesting characters, places, and loose ends that it can use for these sorts of mini scenarios. Add an item or two at the end similar to acp/moogle/asa and voila.