2.2 Retainers via Microtransactions

Actually no, xi back then was 12.99 for the first character and 1 dollar for every character afterward. Like it oir not 99% of the population used them as mule and garden mule, nothing more.

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Originally Posted by Songi

What you're not realizing is, this is just the beginning of how a game evolves into p2w.

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No, no it is not.

I've played actual P2W games. This is not that.

I was going to tell you about Archlord, my first taste of an actual P2W game, but there's not enough room here to type it all out. Suffice to say, it was an open pvp game that sold equipment and ridiculous stat boosts, like 20%.

The P2W model is designed to fail. They launch, they attract people, and they wait for someone to spend hundreds or even thousands on the cash shop, then curbstomp the entire playerbase as an unstoppable dollar powered juggernaut. Then everyone quits and they license it to some American sucker like Codemasters or Aria Games.

It's designed around giving paying customers the ability to make nonpaying customers angry at video games. Not shaving 10 minutes off your gathering trip.

And you don't need that HQ bat fang you've been saving, clean out your retainer.

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Originally Posted by Finuve

So since one company started a trend of screwing us, we should continue to just take it

they could at least take me to dinner first

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The same can be said about anything where a precedent is set. SE is a business and if there's money that can be made while doing it without offending the majority of their playerbase they're damn sure going to do it.

Well said Oro

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Originally Posted by Orophin

The same can be said about anything where a precedent is set. SE is a business and if there's money that can be made while doing it without offending the majority of their playerbase they're damn sure going to do it.

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you said the same thing again, we should just accept it because another company did it before

this mindset needs to change among gamers as a whole

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Originally Posted by Finuve

you said the same thing again, we should just accept it because another company did it before

this mindset needs to change among gamers as a whole

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Answer this; would you rather there is zero possible way to change appearance or have the option of pay and change?

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Originally Posted by Xellos2099

Answer this; would you rather there is zero possible way to change appearance or have the option of pay and change?

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I would prefer that over a pay option yes, either way im not getting it and at least the one way it isnt getting dangled in front of me in an unfair way

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Originally Posted by Kayo

Ok can we please stop comparing this to FFXI's workaround for extra storage? I didnt play FFXI for much but iirc, you paid for an extra toon, not more bank slots. FFXI has (or at least had a very long time ago, feel free to correct me if im wrong) a cheaper sub fee for one character, then charged a slightly higher sub for more. A different version of what we have now so to speak. That is/was their pay model. Players decided to use it in a different way to have extra storage space. If they offered more space or *gasp* allowed us to make mules for those of us who pay the full $15 in FFXIV, this wouldnt be a problem. But I guess now we know why most other p2p MMO's dont restrict sending mail to alts because of "RMT." In fact, if I had my tinfoil hat on ... id say this has been planned for a while now and both SE and Yoshi have been b/s'ing us about this whole issue.

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Not going to stop comparing because it is essentially the same thing. Sorry.

There only seems to be a handful who remembers retainer monthly fee structured back in 2010. This was never implemented because monthly fee service was suspended for FFXIV 1.0 till January 2012, and even then they didn't get everything in order yet. We weren't even suppose to have two retainers, only the first one was suppose to be free.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...yopemeopw.html

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Retainers - As before, and until the release of Version 2.0, players will be entitled to employ two Retainers at no charge.
* The fee structure for after the release of FINAL FANTASY XIV Version 2.0 (including those of retainers) is unconfirmed at the time of writing.

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I can't find a primary source, but I remember it was $1 USD for 1 retainer, which spans across all your characters on your account.
http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...07785645538689

Also I remember, mentioned somewhere, the extra cost was mainly because of servicing the extra data which is accompanied by adding 1 additional retainer across all your characters. Though, I could be wrong on this.

What people should be surprised with instead, is the venture system that retainers will have come 2.2.
While little details are known, you can see that it requires some sort of in-game currency to pay the retainer to spend hours to obtain a negligible amount of raw resources.
This means the player having to do something in-game to earn that in-game currency to pay off the retainer so they can venture out to farm for you.
No where does it mention of paying real money to buy in-game gil, or another in-game currency so you can venture out.

I guess people don't really care that an NPC is playing a bit of the game for you, regardless if buy extra retainers or not.
But are more hung up on the fact that additional retainers cost extra on top of the basic monthly fee.

p2p is p2w since you have to pay to even play it's p2w because i can't even play without paying for it so if someone pays they can play all they want and i can't.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

p2p is p2w since you have to pay to even play it's p2w because i can't even play without paying for it so if someone pays they can play all they want and i can't.

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LOL, so true. If you don't pay, you can't win in a P2P game.

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Originally Posted by Razzle

When I first saw the Mog Station website I knew it was going downhill, behind that cute little moogle logo stands a marketing plan to get more cash on top of a sub fee. Under services there is "coming soon", am I the only one not wishing to find out what is "coming soon"? lol

Give fantasia as a quest reward? As a seal exchange? As a rare drop? As a treasure hunt? Why pay on top of a monthly fee for that?

Sadly the days of paying 100% p2p are gone or close to that. These days we have developers develop 100% of a game, but only realeasing 50% of it and then after some weeks release the other X2 25% as a "DLC" for more money, with the rest "coming soon".

You can't buy a 100% game and be done with it these days.

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Half of it is the issue where they haven't been accounting for inflation over the past ten years or so. People paying $15 per month back in, say, 2004, was much nicer than people paying $15 per month nearly a decade later. I'm waiting for P2P MMOs to switch to something like $17.99 a month or $20 and remove all microtransactions, but the problem with that is it's incredibly risky to assume people would rather pay an extra $5 a month to play your game than have to deal with benign microtransactions. If I was developing an MMO that was costing millions if not tens of millions of dollars, I would want to choose as safe of a pricing model as possible.

They should add something like the gobbie bag quests from XI but instead for your retainer space and max items for sale.

Until we have more information about how the Ventures work it is difficult to determine whether this could be P2W or not. If for example the gear the retainers wear increases in spirit bonding this would be a big problem, and allowing extra income in gil absolutely provides an endgame advantage early on. Many players which ignore gil as a factor may see this as having no advantage, but until you have full gear from T6-9 or new tomes (both being limited) it will matter.

Assuming ilvl90 crafted gear can be penta-melded (think level V materia), if I have fully melded ilvl90 gear I will (initially) have a CLEAR gear advantage in endgame content over your full myth/allagan gear. All my tank gear could have max parry and accuracy capped, better than current BiS etc. Any boost in gil by paying real life dollars is paying to win, in this case, since materia prices will (probably) be very high. Once more info is revealed, it will become more clear whether there will be much of an advantage at all, but discounting the fact that this could in no way be pay (with rl dollars) to win (have an advantage over others with all else being equal) is just ignorant bliss. More facts are needed to make a true judgment of course, but this is just an example.

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Originally Posted by Starlord

Not going to stop comparing because it is essentially the same thing. Sorry.

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LOL ... well I guess I cant argue with such great points like those! You heard it here first folks deliberately selling extra bank space like a full fledged F2P game while alt mail is prohibited is "ESSENTIALLY" the same as making an entire other alt you can play and level separately while being allowed to exchange items.

If you can manage the 2 retainers you have just fine I don't see the issue.

This is an optional service if you want more than 2 of them. Something that was planned and even ready at launch of 1.0.

If you wanna be super cheap, make 7 alts on your server and abuse your FC chest.

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Originally Posted by Finuve

I would prefer that over a pay option yes, either way im not getting it and at least the one way it isnt getting dangled in front of me in an unfair way

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You are entitle to your opinion, however, majority of the population would love to disagree and many people were willing to pay for appear change. AS many said SE is a business and its purpose to made as much money as possible for the stockholder without pissing off the player too much while proving a good gaming experience. If there is a way to get more money without unbalancing the game and people were begging for it.... why not?

I didn't read all the posts here.. While I don't quite know how I feel about the microtransaction aspect of MMO gaming, SE has said (a lot, unfortunately) that server space is what prevents us from having more storage in game.. If people, by buying an additional retainer, help fund increased server space - that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't like the sound of "pay 2 win", though I'm not sure paying for "additional storage" falls into that category, I guess it really depends on what retainers will be capable of and what kind of limit will be established (1 extra or 5?)

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Originally Posted by Kayo

LOL ... well I guess I cant argue with such great points like those! You heard it here first folks deliberately selling extra bank space like a full fledged F2P game while alt mail is prohibited is "ESSENTIALLY" the same as making an entire other alt you can play and level separately while being allowed to exchange items.

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What points does this thread as a whole even have? In what way does selling Retainers ( storage space) make a player P2W? Even with this whole Retainer Venture deal, it's not like they are giving you "gear". So how in the heck is any of this P2W? Changing your character (visually) is a "Microtransaction" Are you going to tell me that people are going to P2W off of Character appearance? >.>.

450 free space (100 inventory 350 retainer spaces). Do people honestly need any more than this? >.>

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

The question, then, is what are you going to DO with all that gil?

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The real question is... What you gon' do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?

MMO'S have always had some form of micro transaction in a sub based game lol. take wow for example. £20 for a mount and about £10 for a pet £40 for an instant level 90 character.

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Originally Posted by paul1984

MMO'S have always had some form of micro transaction in a sub based game lol. take wow for example. £20 for a mount and about £10 for a pet £40 for an instant level 90 character.

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So all other MMOs instantly must jump on the same boat just because WoW did it?

So let's go over a few things:

http://i.imgur.com/2g291xd.jpg

Cost:
Retainer Ventures consume various amounts of a Token type item. The level range shown in the image is lv41-45, has a Retainer iL req of 30, and a single Venture costs 1 token and takes 1 hour to complete netting 7 Apkallu Eggs and experience. Considering the iL and level requirements and the EXP and time taken to gain that EXP - essentially makes Retainers another gathering class. Very similar to leveling a mule - but now it's mostly automated.

By having Extra Retainers you would have in theory the capacity (more inventory & more mules) to gather more in a short period of time (due to it taking an hour) but you are limited on your "max cap" by the Venture Tokens.

Basically -> EXAMPLE:
If Joe has 2 retainers and 10 tokens it would take 5 hours to use up all his tokens and let's say they'd both level 5 levels.
Jim has (via Mogstation) bought 8 extra retainers - he has 10 and he could use up all his tokens in an hour and his 10 retainers would level 1 level.

Questions you should ask:

How do I get Venture Tokens?

How often do I get Venture Tokens?

How long will leveling a single Retainer take?

How long does gearing a single Retainer take?

Jim might beat out Joe in the long run months down the road - but by having more Retainers he's got more time/gear he needs to invest in them. As it is all Jim really has over Joe is that he can blowout his tokens faster and will have more inventory space floating around.

How this system makes the game better:

Able to gather while doing actual combat content.

This really is almost exactly the same as having and leveling Mule character - except it's mostly automated and tied to your main character and doesn't come with the inhibiting factors like:

A over-camped mob; Apkallu, Sheep, Etc.

Having to memorize Unspoiled Node times and hop through your mules to manually gather.

Having to use a friend or your Free Company chest to move items/gil around.

How this system makes the game worse:

Increased devaluation of materials. Supply - no demand (currently).

Devalues the open world slightly for people that kill monsters to farm items.




Buying more retainers is far from P2W - no different than paying for additional characters as you did in previous games AKA -> Mules. Gil thus far is mostly useless - Housing being the only thing most players are willing to spend their money on.




I think this thread is ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Joshhoowah

The real question is... What you gon' do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?

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Put it on my retainer, obviously.

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Originally Posted by Bizniztyme

It's probably just going to be for storage space just like your mule in ffxi and the only retainers you can level and send out on ventures are the ones you get in game.

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From the translated interview that this thread links: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...penness-to-F2P


It seems that a lot of users are interested in sales of Fantasia (the item to change your character model), so how about that?

Yoshida: We're going to be talking about that in the LIVE producer letter on the 21st. Also, we're planning to introduce the ability to purchase an additional service which increases the number of available retainers. It'll be even more valuable with the additional retainer systems available with the patch which will make retainers more useful than ever.

I hate to say this, but Micro-Transactions have existed in this game ever since the 2.0 release in the form of World Transfers. So complaining now that they are introducing additional services to their Micro-Transaction Service is kind of silly. If you were really upset about Micro-transactions being in this game, you should have started complaining when World Transfers were introduced to this game.

Paranoid lunatics everywhere! Hilarious.

And apparently the Fantasia Potion being an optional service is totally okay? Guess what, that's a microtransaction.

There's a little thing called VETERAN REWARDS. Use your brains, people. Where the hell are you getting this asinine assumption that they'd start selling mounts/minions as microtransactions, when they're *rewards* given per certain amount of subscribed days.
Not every *needs* several retainers. These things are going to cost extra. It's also kind of necessary considering RMT (real money traders) could *easily* monopolise on it and freely buy up multiple retainers, crippling the server economy, as if they aren't doing that already.

Seriously, people. Grow up..

EDIT: The key word here is you can send your retainers to go and gather items for you. None of you bitter folk bothered to consider that RMTers could very easily abuse that system and completely destroy the Market Board economy? No. No you didn't. There's a REASON extra retainers cost extra. The system would get abused hard if they were all simply free.

but when you think about it the retainer will be using it's own server for the stuff you want it to do so the extra cost needs payed some how. but yea if they start doing this for mounts pets and other stuff then yea it is going to fall

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Originally Posted by Starlord

What points does this thread as a whole even have? In what way does selling Retainers ( storage space) make a player P2W? Even with this whole Retainer Venture deal, it's not like they are giving you "gear". So how in the heck is any of this P2W? Changing your character (visually) is a "Microtransaction" Are you going to tell me that people are going to P2W off of Character appearance? >.>.

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I never said this was P2W, in fact I dont even care if it is, its besides the point. Although I would like to point out that this being a P2P game, whether or not an upcoming feature is P2W shouldnt even be on the table. Regardless, in this case its all the same F-U to me from Yoshi and SE. Its double dipping, selling us more content which we should have included with the sub. I love how every time some dev decides to sell us content it supporters always point out the usual services. Name, appearance, and server changes are outside of the actual game... services made to your established character offered to those who changed their mind about their character. Its not actual content nor are they exclusive to RMT since you can always reroll a new character with a new name in a new server. None of that will apply to these RMT retainers.

MAYBE, I could accept this if the retainer is accessible on all characters. Mostly because im on entry level sub and it would still come out to the standard price (assuming its $1 a month). However even then it would still be a kick in the nads for those who already pay a full sub, have multiple characters in the same server, yet still can xfer or mail items because SE decided to put that common feature behind a pay gate and milk its fans for more money.

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Originally Posted by Kayo

MAYBE, I could accept this if the retainer is accessible on all characters. Mostly because im on entry level sub and it would still come out to the standard price (assuming its $1 a month). However even then it would still be a kick in the nads for those who already pay a full sub, have multiple characters in the same server, yet still can xfer or mail items because SE decided to put that common feature behind a pay gate and milk its fans for more money.

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The key word here is you can send your retainers to go and gather items for you. None of you bitter folk bothered to consider that RMTers could very easily abuse that system and completely destroy the Market Board economy? No. No you didn't. There's a REASON extra retainers cost extra. The system would get abused hard if they were all simply free.

And you keep saying "RMT retainers". That's.. Not what RMT means.
RMT are the real money TRADERS that are bots in-game. That's who would benefit most if these bonus retainers *were* free! The bonus retainers are not *itself* "RMT". They're "optional services". See? Optional. Meaning you do not need it. Hell, I barely even have ONE retainer! Never had a need for one!

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Originally Posted by lackofwords

I guess people don't really care that an NPC is playing a bit of the game for you, regardless if buy extra retainers or not.
But are more hung up on the fact that additional retainers cost extra on top of the basic monthly fee.

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People are hung up on the fact that if paid retainers also have access to Ventures that those that choose to buy those retainers will have an advantage over those that don't, regardless how small it is.

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Originally Posted by Sheer

Half of it is the issue where they haven't been accounting for inflation over the past ten years or so. People paying $15 per month back in, say, 2004, was much nicer than people paying $15 per month nearly a decade later. I'm waiting for P2P MMOs to switch to something like $17.99 a month or $20 and remove all microtransactions, but the problem with that is it's incredibly risky to assume people would rather pay an extra $5 a month to play your game than have to deal with benign microtransactions. If I was developing an MMO that was costing millions if not tens of millions of dollars, I would want to choose as safe of a pricing model as possible.

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You have to take into consideration that bandwidth costs and storage costs are a LOT cheaper than they were 10 years ago too. It's all relative really. If anything, the extra money is covering the extra cost that game development runs these days.

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Originally Posted by Dhex

stuff

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You know just as much about the Ventures system as we do. We have no idea how fast the tokens in game accumulate or anything. So yes, anyone that has more RL money and is willing to dump it on more retainers innately has an advantage over those that can't. This is exactly what P2W is.

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Originally Posted by MattAn24

And apparently the Fantasia Potion being an optional service is totally okay? Guess what, that's a microtransaction.

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It's also an item that doesn't give anyone an advantage in game. If the paid retainers come with the ability to undertake Ventures, they do.

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Originally Posted by MattAn24

The key word here is you can send your retainers to go and gather items for you. None of you bitter folk bothered to consider that RMTers could very easily abuse that system and completely destroy the Market Board economy? No. No you didn't. There's a REASON extra retainers cost extra. The system would get abused hard if they were all simply free.

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If it's cost effective for the RMTs to drop an extra $1 a month to do this, what's to stop them from doing it anyway? From my understanding a lot of them use stolen CCs anyway.

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Originally Posted by MattAn24

And you keep saying "RMT retainers". That's.. Not what RMT means.
RMT are the real money TRADERS that are bots in-game. That's who would benefit most if these bonus retainers *were* free! The bonus retainers are not *itself* "RMT". They're "optional services". See? Optional. Meaning you do not need it. Hell, I barely even have ONE retainer! Never had a need for one!

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That all depends on how much retainers cost, how many we can have, and how efficient they are. Ragardless, botters usually hack accounts and use those to make new characters to avoid detection and/or rob the current ones blind. I really dont see much of a difference if they happen to hack an account with extra retainers. Unless retainers are super awesome and gathering, bots will still bot and use hacks for the majority of their farming.

As for RMT ive heard it as both Real Money Trading and Real Money Transactions ... regardless its just semantics, we all know whats being discussed here.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

You know just as much about the Ventures system as we do. We have no idea how fast the tokens in game accumulate or anything. So yes, anyone that has more RL money and is willing to dump it on more retainers innately has an advantage over those that can't. This is exactly what P2W is.

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I know what I've observed. I don't see anything pay to win about having additional Retainers; they aren't going to beat Binding Coil of Bahamut for you, or farm Tomes for you. It at most allows you to farm a few items in an hour with less effort - in a market where things have essentially no value. In a game where everyone can level and gear a crafting/gathering class themselves.

Paying to win at what precisely?

Edit:
P2W in regards to Retainers and Ventures, "I WIN I WIN I HAVE MORE INVENTORY THAN YOU! CAN YOU FEEL THE WEIGHT OF MY EXTRA INVENTORY SLOTS PLEBIAN!? I CAN GET 99 APKALLU EGGS AND OTHER USELESS JUNK IN A FEW HOURS WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING AND YOU CAN'T AND I ONLY PAID AN EXTRA 15$ FEE MWAHAHAHA SUCH SUPERIORITY. WEEP AND QUIT THE GAME!" - Orophin's Nightmare (Yes you have nightmares in Caps.)

Edit again: I'd much rather pay to view and access my two Retainer's inventory in the field than pay to have access a bajillion Retainers at a bell I need stand next to talk to and can't walk away from while I manage my items.

This feature isnt really needed. If you do need this feature your playing too many classes at once. Once I got all my jobs maxed out was able to toss away and store all my AF away also. Dont have space problems but I am holding alot of 1.0 items which arent being used ingame yet so that my fault holding onto those items. Also holding onto too many primal weapons I dont really use. Wish we could spiritbond those weapons like we did in 1.0.

I honestly don't see how this is any different from XI's practice of muling (buying character slots to use as storage and sometimes played to repeat quests for rewards). Paying for another retainer just adds 175 more storage slots and, with the Venture system, the opportunity to gather materials through quests that likely prevents access to said retainer for the duration... wait, this sounds familiar. Ah, SWTOR's companions! Remember that SWTOR started as a subscription MMO, too. Also remember that there was DLC that added more companions, if I recall the DLC wasn't free.

That aside, even if you don't buy more retainers, the ones you already have can still do Ventures free of charge so... I don't see what the fuss is about. So someone buys another retainer, the benefit is incidental at best.

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Originally Posted by Gilraen

That aside, even if you don't buy more retainers, the ones you already have can still do Ventures free of charge so... I don't see what the fuss is about. So someone buys another retainer, the benefit is incidental at best.

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Incidental they may be. But benefits at all, they be.

Buying extra retainers with real money was planned since 3rd beta of old XIV. The planned price was 1$ each month for each additional retainer. It only never came because of the problems XIV had after first launch. But I always wished that I can buy a third retainer.
http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...07785645538689
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...s/post/3867586

At least, we don't need to buy extra character slots for 3$ each month anymore.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

I hate to say this, but Micro-Transactions have existed in this game ever since the 2.0 release in the form of World Transfers. So complaining now that they are introducing additional services to their Micro-Transaction Service is kind of silly. If you were really upset about Micro-transactions being in this game, you should have started complaining when World Transfers were introduced to this game.

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Since 1.0 to be exact. Each character slot have cost 3$ extra. Someone with 2 characters could have do 8 leves more each day than someone with only 1 character. 3$ extra for the double content.

Okay since people don't realize the potential problem with something like this and no one wants to explain it clearly:

The issue is NOT the fact that you can buy more retainers. The issues is what these retainers may be able to do. If they can go on Ventures, then it's 100% P2W no matter how miniscule the advantage is and only benefits RMT. Unless there's a limit on how many retainers you can buy, you can drop $100 and have all 100 retainers go out on ventures and farm stacks of mats for you. It would actually just be SE providing the bots at that point. Though from what it seems like, it takes these tokens to go on ventures which means that it wouldn't matter how many retainers you bought because they all have to go on ventures using the same token pool. However, this problem could appear again if SE starting selling Tokens in the cash shop.

The second issue is more of a gray area. Can these retainers sell to the MB? The MB largely limited by the inventory space of the retainer. If you can buy more retainers that can sell to the MB, that is an advantage. As a business owner IRL myself, I can tell you that is 100% an advantage and would be P2W. If you can only sell 50 items, but the next guy can sell 100 items then the next guy is going to end up making more money than you.

If the added retainers were JUST mules, then it would not be a problem. Yet, we have no idea what they are so SOME concern is valid.

I, for one, welcome my extended inventory overlords.

As said before, it was planned for a long time, and as well pointed by Dhex, it seems like tokens have a good chance of being acquired at the same rate for every person, no matter how many retainers you have, which would make things even more fair.

And even if it isn't, retainers bringing 7 Apkallu Eggs per real-time hour won't break the game. More storage isn't P2W. What's "winning" in a MMO? Getting "a thing" first to point on other's people noses? How is an extra retainer going to destroy the balance of that? What the hell are those individuals posting here thinking? This thread is a new level of bad.

Sometimes I wish we could use a flamethrower on forum databases.

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Originally Posted by Skyhound

Okay since people don't realize the potential problem with something like this and no one wants to explain it clearly:

The issue is NOT the fact that you can buy more retainers. The issues is what these retainers may be able to do. If they can go on Ventures, then it's 100% P2W no matter how miniscule the advantage is and only benefits RMT.

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I have 4 retainers already on the same server, connected with the LS storage. You don't need to buy extra retainers to abuse the ventures (which nobody know what it do exactly) if you can have already 16 retainers without extra costs (if your LS leader allow it to bring 7 twinks into the LS).

And beside this. I think each retainer need to be leveled separat. And if they have the same level speed like the Chocobos, then nobody would level up more than 1 or 2 retainers in short time.