Retainers for money

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

None of this is pay to win. None of this increases your power. None of this helps you beat any content in the game. I cast extreme doubt that you're getting any items of meaningful economic value frojm the retainers- mainly just stuff that is already common,making it purely a convenience, not paying for power.

exclusive mounts in WoW isn't pay to win either- no power, no economic advantage.

This is no more "pay to win" than using additional characters as mules, which has been around since the dawn of MMORPGs.

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Retainers can sell items, increases your economic power.


Retainers can do chores getting you items, increases your economic power.


Retainers can hold items, just increases your game benefit.


P2W games offer things for you to enjoy the game better by paying. Winning is not excluded to just combat, imo though like I said that part is my personal take on it. I believe enjoying the game and being the top is winning and that means any exclusive items is included in winning - like exclusive mounts therefore p2w, but thats not the usual definition lol. (and you are right similar to buying extra account characters, I dont disagree with you on that)

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Originally Posted by Shougun

The full edge is unknown right now but having chores to gather materials, being able to sell more at a time, and being able to hold more does indeed lend an edge.


You can argue its for the good of the company but I guess I don't really care. I'm not a fan of out of subscription cost edges. And while its not a huge win its still p2w, not like you are suggesting.


If you get benefit outside of normal game means, its p2w sell. You can argue that expansions are p2w as well :P, but they are generally accepted for their mass amount of content added (unlike say buying exclusive ability packs or double exp tokens).

Like I said a bit ago I'm against p2w but if there was one to be had I'd be least upset about one that had content obtainable in the game that isnt useful in winning (like mounts) that you could also rush acquire through money. So say WoW's exclusive unicorn mount could be gained through a long quest chain or you could just buy it - something similar to LoL's payment system where it really doesn't matter.

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I appreciate your values, I actually dislike P2W with a passion to and believe there always needs to be an in game alternative. I've played League of Legends and it's not my kind of game but I'm familiar with their payment method and the sales they have on putting discounts on certain characters every so often to get ppl to buy them.

To me retainers only sell what you earn in game. Having more slots to sell or store stuff isn't a game changing edge. At least I don't see it that way.

I suppose you would be happier if like in XI, they had quests for gobbie bags which would expand your retainer inventory and player inventory a moderate size. Then you could either earn it in game or buy it! However, one can not expand upon the other. where as If you pay for the storage and then do the quest you can't get the storage benefits of the quest and the retainers.

And I only say pay for retainers because that is how 1.0 was setup. They have neither said Yay, or Nay about paying for retainers for 2.0. So we shall see.

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Originally Posted by Linkurrra

I appreciate your values, I actually dislike P2W with a passion to and believe there always needs to be an in game alternative. I've played League of Legends and it's not my kind of game but I'm familiar with their payment method and the sales they have on putting discounts on certain characters every so often to get ppl to buy them.

To me retainers only sell what you earn in game. Having more slots to sell or store stuff isn't a game changing edge. At least I don't see it that way.

I suppose you would be happier if like in XI, they had quests for gobbie bags which would expand your retainer inventory and player inventory a moderate size. Then you could either earn it in game or buy it! However, one can not expand upon the other. where as If you pay for the storage and then do the quest you can't get the storage benefits of the quest and the retainers.

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I agree to you that you have to earn what you want to sell - although with many retainers you could sell much faster but to be honest in 1.0 I always had more slots to sell then I had stuff to sell lol


However the thing I am curious about is the chores, I'm actually worried XD


If retainers can do chores daily to a point you can make a small income, * that by 8 (2 per character, 8 characters). I made my many mil of gil just through slow steady actions, giving me a freebie source like that... its definitely a p2w. though then again we know crap about this so.. who knows maybe you can only have 1 set of chores for your whole account and not per character, that would solve it in most cases (some people may buy two accounts but that's as Alhan said has been around forever).

And I would 'ok' with them introducing purchased content like mounts and such if you could get it through longer process in game. I think that is a better system, one I hope Yoshida examines if he is interested in micro transactions.

(+1'd because it was a very nice read even though we dont 100% agree :P)

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Retainers can sell items, increases your economic power.


Retainers can do chores getting you items, increases your economic power.


Retainers can hold items, just increases your game benefit.

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Additional character mules can do all of these things. None of this increases your economic power any more than is already possible with mules, which again have been around as long as MMORPGs have existed. I guess all MMOs are pay to win then!

pay2win is a derogatory term. You can't "win" or "beat" anything with extra mules, or extra retainers. I really don't give a rats behind about economic power. pay2win implies that people who have lots of money can "win" more easily. This is true in many games where you can buy stat upgrades, gear enhancements, etc. This is not true in games where that is not possible. FFXIV will not be branded pay2win if extra retainers are not free, because nobody has ever called a game pay2win because you can use additional characters/accounts as mules. If I'm really rich, I can buy 8 FFXI accounts and sell 8x16 characters worth of stuff at once. That's a huge boost in economic power, but you don't see anyone calling FFXI pay2win.

The whole chores notion is probably not as extreme as you are thinking it is. They probably got the idea from SWTOR.
In SWTOR you would earn companions to aide you in your quests. Much like Followers in XI and XIV. They would be a character that would participate in the main story with you.

Outside of the main quests, you they would fight along your side. More importantly they would go out on their own quests assigned by you. Depending on the roll of the die and an allotment of time they would succeed or fail the mission. You could buy (with in game money) items that would increase their skills so they would be better on their quests. They would level up with you depending on much you used them. They of course had their own set of skills so that when they fought in battle you could tell them how to attack. Along with their own equippable gear! Which was not the same gear that you used on your character.

The key element to why it wasn't that helpful was the quests to gather/craft stuff required X amount of time to complete. While you could have up to 3-4 different companions and send all of them out of crafter/gathering quests they only brought back 1-2 items on equal level quests. More if they were higher level. But never as much as if you just did it yourself.

What this does is free you up to not spend so much time crafting/gathering and can focus on lvling up your character and doing the story.

How this ties in with the fact that XIV has crafting and gathering as their own separate class,I don't know. I don't think it makes much difference. Other games limit you to only a couple crafting/gathering classes. In FFXIV that doesn't exist, you can be anything you want to be, you just switch weapons to do it.

So I imagine Retainers are going to involve into something like that, but Squenix is making retainers fully customizable.
SWTOR they are just little subsets that only allowed you to upgrade them in very specific ways. They were much more unique and had their own attitudes. XIV seems to be going to more flexible and versatile route.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Additional character mules can do all of these things. None of this increases your economic power any more than is already possible with mules, which again have been around as long as MMORPGs ahve existed. I guess all MMOs are pay to win then!

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Buying extra characters imo is such, I already told you that - and I am aganist it (I believe that you should be given X characters and that's it). When they add gardening you can further argue it, such that a person with mules can garden much more efficiently (assuming gardening is profitable).


The chores of retainers is a new aspect I'm most worried about.

If just but 500 gil a day extra, someone with more characters will have more gil per day - it will add up.

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Originally Posted by darios

LOL Retainer trafficking

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omg all i can hear is Kissam saying "get it" .... lol miss ya guys a ton

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Originally Posted by Shougun

If just but 500 gil a day extra, someone with more characters will have more gil per day - it will add up.

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40x500 = 20,000 per day, 140,000/wk, 600,000/mo (40 = Legacy or premium)

Not too shabby in ARR's gil value.

jc

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Buying extra characters imo is such, I already told you that - and I am aganist it (I believe that you should be given X characters and that's it). When they add gardening you can further argue it, such that a person with mules can garden much more efficiently (assuming gardening is profitable).


The chores of retainers is a new aspect I'm most worried about.

If just but 500 gil a day extra, someone with more characters will have more gil per day - it will add up.

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As I stated before, this wasn't exclusive to FFXI. You can buy a second account in ANY game and use that to store stuff and get an economic advantage. There's no way to prevent someone from buying another account/copy of the game, so again, I guess all MMOs are pay2win because you can get another account. Hell, FFXIV must be pay to win because u have to buy it before you can play it.

What I'm trying to get at here is the term "pay2win" should be reserved for games that actually let you pay to win. e.g. has a cash shop with items that boost your power. With your loose definition, all MMOs are pay2win.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

As I stated before, this wasn't exclusive to FFXI. You can buy a second account in ANY game and use that to store stuff and get an economic advantage. There's no way to prevent someone from buying another account/copy of the game, so again, I guess all MMOs are pay2win because you can get another account. Hell, FFXIV must be pay to win because u have to buy it before you can play it.

What I'm trying to get at here is the term "pay2win" should be reserved for games that actually let you pay to win. e.g. has a cash shop with items that boost your power. With your loose definition, all MMOs are pay2win.

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I was using the term local, like "this is a p2w idea" not global like "Blah is a p2w game". Buying extra characters that can passively earn you money (chores) is a p2w idea.

But I can see how you dont like it :P. Also a subscription isnt p2w, that is p2p, because you cant play if you dont pay - and everyone is paying it. I'm not a fan of paying for more characters, I think all rates should have the same amount of characters - and you cant buy more. But of course that is a bad idea for making more money so its not going to happen lol - marketing team will probably try to kill the dev suggesting that unless he is also owner lol.

But if you ever bought and used your mule as potent as you could you would know that you would make more with a mule, and more if you used a separate account - these options do indeed give you a benefit exclusive over normal paying players.

"But the benefit isn't that big"

A. I dont care, it is a benefit that you get through paying extra - and just that is enough for me to call it a p2w idea.
B. I dont care even more because over a long period of time it will matter a lot, 600 extra K a month will add up over 5 years of play (since a lot of people plan on playing the game more then 3 days.


I like monthly fee games because it reduces the amount of p2w ideas, thats why whenever f2p is suggested here I'm glad it gets pounced on and trashed.. lol I'd 90% likely not play FFXIV if it was f2p.

The monthly fee imo should be the -only-* thing you pay for and everything else earned in game is from in game and never out of game. Skill and dedication (time) should be the only factors for game ability imo.

*Like I said before expansions are kind of like this since players who dont pay will be disadvantaged, but this system is usually accepted because of the large mass of content added which would normally not be funded otherwise.



(Edit: I agree you cant stop someone from buying many accounts, because if you did it by IP or credit card then families would be screwed and that is a jerk move, so you cant do anything about that)

Edit2: WoW actually makes all accounts have the same amount of characters, last I checked.