I play this game off and on with my husband. It isn't particularly my cup of tea but it's fun to play with him so I partake while I wait for FFXIV. It isn't a bad game, as I said, I have enjoyed my small amount of time but I don't care about lvling up the armor and weapons. I don't play it enough. Last night my husband found out why I hate to F2P because he never really understood it. He is trying to unlock lvl 4 weapons and crafting them takes 5 days unless you want to spend money. Ok, I understand that F2P needs to make money somehow (through vanity items are preferable to what they are doing). However, the math doesn't add up to what I would pay for a sub. 15 bucks unlocks everything...the highest lvl craft might take a day. To craft everything the husband wants to craft and not use all his crafting slots (so he can play other frames while he waits) will take 2 months (for one frame)! It's going to take two months no matter how much he plays. Unless, he wants to pay 100 bucks. How is this "cheaper" than a sub? I just don't understand. To be clear, this is not getting to max level in 2 months...this is getting equipment one lvl higher. He currently has lvl 3 gear.
Anyway I just told him welcome to the world of F2P and he said he didn't see himself playing the game much longer. If the price were more reasonable (closer to a sub fee) he would happily pay that. He isn't interested (nor would I allow him) in spending $100 bucks now only to discover if he wants to craft something for another frame it's going to cost him another $100.
I understand that there are people that love F2P but I haven't seen a shining example of it yet. GW2 was B2P and it was fine because everything in the shop is vanity or convenience. I suppose you could argue that it is convenience to buy time to speed up your craft but when something takes 5 days it's beyond ridiculous. 12 hours, fine. A day, fine. 5 days is stupid and the only reason to make it that long is to make people pay. So why not just have a sub? Or at least go B2P. My sub to FFXIV will cost me $179.88 for the year. My husband in FF can't even get two frames with weapons maxed out for that. I don't really want to start a whole F2P/P2P argument, though I know that is what is going to happen. I just don't understand why some people continue to say it's the best model. It's the most used model right now, sure, but is it really what's best?
Obviously I can't speak for all gamers. However, I can speak for me, and this is the used car salesmen like feel I keep saying F2P games stink of.
Few issues you've missed here. For starters, you don't have to craft at all. You can loot gear, or buy looted or crafted gear on the market. Secondly, you have no reason whatsoever to research every single item at top level for all frames. Once you get to that stage, you pretty much know the couple of things you want to have crafting access to for specific frames, along with any common pieces you might want. Lastly, it doesn't take 5 days to craft. It takes 5 days to research.
Not sure, exactly what frame he needs to research 12 frame specific pieces at stage 4, though. So I'm kind of puzzled. Main weapon, HKM, Passive, plus 3 abilities and possibly a plating if the frame is one with specialized plating gives 7. But then most people aren't going to be running stage 4 on all their slots due to constraints, and many things are cheaply bought that are better than crafted in all ways other than durability. So... I'm seeing something being called a problem that's really not.
Comments
Few issues you've missed here. For starters, you don't have to craft at all. You can loot gear, or buy looted or crafted gear on the market. Secondly, you have no reason whatsoever to research every single item at top level for all frames. Once you get to that stage, you pretty much know the couple of things you want to have crafting access to for specific frames, along with any common pieces you might want. Lastly, it doesn't take 5 days to craft. It takes 5 days to research.
Not sure, exactly what frame he needs to research 12 frame specific pieces at stage 4, though. So I'm kind of puzzled. Main weapon, HKM, Passive, plus 3 abilities and possibly a plating if the frame is one with specialized plating gives 7. But then most people aren't going to be running stage 4 on all their slots due to constraints, and many things are cheaply bought that are better than crafted in all ways other than durability. So... I'm seeing something being called a problem that's really not.