Through of the paid retainer?Follow

People on the official forum are going insane over the paid retainer. I was like... dude, we used to paid for mule back in xi for storage and gardening mule, how is ti any different? What is everyone through?

So...I'm thoroughly confused here. Links would be appreciated. And am I the only one reading LucasNox's post as if I was drunk? It was fine until that first , then it just got all crazy sounding.

Edited, Mar 20th 2014 12:35am by Niknar

Nah, I was/am a little bit drunk, but the point is that I already posted my opinions in the other thread on this subject and nobody liked them so I'm not going to go too in depth in a second thread.

I have almost everything at 50 except for a few crafting classes. I have never had a problem with space. I'm not even close to being full.

the way the game was designed is much different than FFXI. There's no gear sets so storage space shouldn't be an issue for anyone.

the people who are struggling are simply hoarding everything they find. That's fine and all, but people shouldn't be complaining about space issues when it's their own fault they don't have space. every time I upgrade a piece of gear I throw away the old one, or trade it in for company seals if applicable. I have a full set of darklight for every class. 70% of it is on the floor now.

my advice is to save what you REALLY need or WANT, but think about what is just going to collect dust. If it's going to collect dust, your going to get just as much use out of it as throwing it away.

it doesn't effect the game in a minor way. In fact, It doesn't effect the game at all. Are you really going to argue that someone is at an advantage for having more space than someone else? With how much space we already have for the small amount of things to store, that argument is honestly a huge stretch.

I don't plan on buying an extra retainer, and neither will most people. At least not until we get a bunch of new classes, and even then I don't see my storage space maxing out. My opinion is buy it if you want, or don't . I don't see it as an advantage at all. I don't recall people in FFXI flipping their sh*t when you got a mog satchel for buying a security token. that gave you double your inventory space. Did everyone buy a token? no. did everyone get a satchel? no. yet the game balance didn't fall apart.

Edited, Mar 20th 2014 2:48am by Keysofgaruda

See I'm in two minds over this...

On the one hand, this isn't a game breaking purchase. End of the day, it's not a purchase which will make casuals or endgame raiders go "have 3rd retainer or gtfo, this isn't a n00b group". I see it as something that could be beneficial to an individual, especially crafters who store a lot of mats and/or sell a lot of finished products. This would have been fine and dandy, however....

On the other hand, we now know retainers can be classed, levelled, geared and sent out on mini quests. Little is known about the rewards/benefits of doing this, but if they are anything above negligable, this would cause an issue. All the time they are storage bins/market sellers, there is no real gamebreaker, but if they can farm decent sellable consumables, then SE are essentially saying "use real money to boost your gil!", which I do object to. Plus as an additional negative, the moment any company starts selling in game goods for real money, I think where will the line be drawn? Re-skins, additional storage, and mounts, or will they toe the line of OP low to mid range gear, purchased level ups, or competitive end game gear?

Time will tell, but as a P2P game I hope that they keep their cash shop free of any game breakers, keep it to optional goodies to please casuals and endgamers :-D

To say that a game should be strictly P2P or F2P is not a very realistic idea in this day and age. The lines are blurred and each game must have its financial model tailored to suit the needs of corporation and the core audience. Otherwise it's a profit opportunity lost.

What can and should be expected however is that the corporation provides a reasonable balance of the two that the majority of the customers can agree with. We might see SE trying to test their limits in the future in regards to this, but on the other hand let's not act like the paid retainer service is the beginning of the "cash shop". We have been given the opportunity to buy exclusive items through getting the Collector's editions as well as other services like server transfers in the past.

A paid retainer is an extremely mild approach to offering items and services for cash. I suspect it won't end here, but if the core value gained through content patches keeps being large enough then they will be able to get away with it.

We have decided on a line and the corporation follows that line. You bolded the part about the model suiting the needs of corporation but then neglected the (extremely important) part that immediately followed: the needs of the core audience.

The needs of the corporation vs. the needs of the core audience are in constant struggle and in the middle of that struggle is the line both parties have agreed to follow. When the core audience decides to abandon your game is when the lines has been passed.

You act as if the core audience (us) are stupid. If your hyperbole was actually true then there would be actual consequences. The fact is the core audience is not about to abandon ARR over mild microtransactions so P2P + microtransactions + box fee so it is clearly not an unrealistic scenario.

Jjnyrr, I really liked your comment about how everyone who disagrees with you is stupid and should quit, but you do know that they're updating the functionality of retainers beyond storage/AH to include combat, letting them go on quests for you, etc. to coincide with the Cash Shop retainers, right?

Vocal minority thing doesn't work, I haven't made a post on the official forums on this subject but I see that many are annoyed and saying the same things as me. Keep pretending that it's just a few people. Maybe you are the one who's wrong here.

You pay for the game box, you pay for a monthly subscription, and now the director expects you to throw down more money on top of all that to access the game's full content. Stand up for yourselves and stop turning on other fans. Just because it's Final Fantasy doesn't mean this is right.

Edited, Mar 20th 2014 9:03am by LucasNox

Which does not change his point in any shape or form...

It's funny how you ignored my post and went on to say the same flawed things over and over again like a broken record. The fact you act like the consumers are dumb is quite telling.

Edited, Mar 20th 2014 1:10pm by Hyanmen

Actually, I said nothing of the sort. I stated that I believe players such as yourselves like to complain solely for the purpose of voicing a complaint. Smart people complain all the time.

And I was aware of the change of how retainers worked. I'm guessing most people will ignore this after about a month.



There are lots of posts in this thread as well, but I doubt its all the players. Most players are probably mostly neutral about this. I've seem more varied interest in new dungeon content and how gear for T6 - 9 than worry over storage space.



An extra retainer? That's what's locking me out of the game's full content? Its not even unlimited retainers. Its just one extra.

I'll let you know how I plan to cope with this sudden setback to my gaming enjoyment. /Discard

Absolutely no one here has said or implied that paid retainers are "game breaking."

In fact, I think most will probably agree if you ask them if having an extra retainer is going to "break the game." It won't. But just because it won't break the game doesn't necessarily mean that everyone wants to see extra incentives added to a cash shop in a pay to play game. I don't have a problem with free to play games, but I have to admit that coming from Guild Wars 2 to this game, it has been nice not to have incentives dangled in front of me trying to get me to open my wallet. I feel that free to play and pay to play can have their advantages and disadvantages, and that this is an instance where pay to play can hold an advantage. So to read this



doesn't exactly have me too excited. That they're going to be opening up an option for another retainer per character and that they'll be "more useful than ever" is something I'd expect to get in an e-mail from ArenaNet. Until now, it was not something that I would normally read from Square Enix regarding FFXIV. And I'm not trying to trash ArenaNet or sound snarky in making that comparison. What they do is fine, it's part of their business model and some like it, some don't, but it's how they make their money (apart from the initial box sale). But getting the same style of incentive I might get from a free to play (edit: technically buy to play actually, but the point is the absence of a continuous subscription) game in a game that I already hand money to every month just doesn't seem like a strong value. Maybe you think it does, and if that's the case, I can't stop you, but don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone who is against cash shops in a pay to play game is just looking talking points just because you disagree, because that is simply false.

Edited, Mar 20th 2014 5:19pm by Susanoh

Meh, I can live without it.

However, here is my biggest issue with this. IF they slow down, stop, or never add space in the Armoury Chest for all the other gears, then I will have a problem. They need to allow us to store our Myth level 90 gear in there. They should allow us to store the first set of Primal weapons too, HM only and soon Extreme, followed by the additional content. I don't want it all today but as they add gear they need to add space in there for the drop sets, not craftable gear. This seems a little jumbled so Ill explain it better below and leave this as my original thought...


To simplify what I mean...
My DL is about to become completely useless and I shouldn't have to store all that in my Retainer or Drop it. I should be allowed to store it like I can my AF, right? Maybe not this patch but soon the level 90 gear, and then Allagan, etc. Followed by or complemented with, Primal HM > Extreme > Allagan Weapon, etc.

I shouldn't be made to buy a retainer because they refuse to add alternate storage options to your hard earned gear. If you are a hoarder of materials, low level gear, drop items, current lvl 50 armor... that "it might be handy later" and never will be item (lol), then YES, you should buy a retainer (all that is what FFXI made us become). However, taking up all those slots with hard earned gear that took weeks to get is stupid, that's why I should be allowed to store them freely in my Armoury Chest, so I can remember them forever. I will never drop those items and I hope SE is no trying to bank on that fact. If they are, I will quit.