Monthly fee for 3rd retainer - your thoughts?

So - after so much looking forward to the 3rd Retainer addition with 2.2 patch I was a bit cooled down by this:

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Q33: Is the $2 for an additional retainer a one time fee or a monthly fee?

A33: It will cost $2 every 30 days.

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Do you think it's "fair" price (or should there be ANY price at all) for such feature?

Will you get 3rd retainer or will you look for an "alternative" solution to expand your always cramped storage?

Would you like to have the additional retainer (or extended space on current retainers) as one of the future veteran rewards? Would make much more sense than those lazy "free" teleport tickets ...

For me personally I'd struggle to justify even one off payment of $2 for extra retainer so I'll be saddly without this option (plus I already have the alternative "storage" solutions as well).

EDIT:

It's actually 3rd & 4th retainers and those will be added to all your characters on the same account so if I'd take an "extreme" case having all 8 characters on the same server leveled up to at least lvl 17 and activated retainers on them I can have up to 32 retainers on the same server running Ventures and selling stuff in small stacks ...

Also - as per comments from Nicobo below - do you feel that this will put the players who don't want / can't pay the extra monthly amount to unfair dissadvantage for not having additional retainer to run the Ventures and create more gain / gill / collect rare items for the players?

I think the price is ok as for extra storage, not to mention it even has Market Board access.
But I feel uncomfortable for "Retainer Venture" on 3rd retainer, believe I don't need to explain for my concern.

I have the max sub anyways, wife plays when I'm at work. Thus I have 6 other alts that can have 2 retainers each, so all combined I will have 16 retainers at our disposal once I get last 2 alts leveled up. That's my alternative but I guess it's a matter of wether you will be using that extra retainer for market board too. I think $2 extra for another retainer is high though, may be better off paying for the sub I do instead.

If you are wondering how I move things between characters, FC chest :) . Only way to do so other than repeatedly trade friends 5 items at a time. Blame SE for that. I have also assigned to most of the retainers specific craft supplies : ie 1 holds Culinarian another holds Weaver etc.
8 characters = 16 retainers = 320 market board sales slots. Keeping those sales slots full is the real job :)

Why would you feel uncomfortable with Ventures when it comes to a 3rd retainer?

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Originally Posted by Wulfyn

Why would you feel uncomfortable with Ventures when it comes to a 3rd retainer?

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Since players maybe able to earn more gils or item by more retainers, It may conflict with current principle that no virtual item selling for powerup.
Some players include myself worry that later they will sell other "services" for different features directly or indirectly powerup the players same as those "free games". Then we have to pay more for full enjoyment.

$2 additional fee is such a kick in the teeth.
This is such a scummy design system SE have introduced and I am honestly quite upset about it.

We should be paying for additional features such as vanity, not functionality.

A few storage issues I would like addressing are:

• I can have 3 'unique' items at any one time.
• Locating specific items across multiple retainers is a tedious task.
  + Give us a single repository.
• Introduce a fishing tackle box already.

I don't mind the idea of paying for additional storage, but when we are limited to keeping only so few items already, it bothers me you're charging us for this, and not something aesthetic.

One thing I am thankful for is; they don't keep shards in our inventory in stacks of 99!

If you only have to pay for a 3rd retainer, then I don't care, it's ok with me, I can use my alt characters' retainers as well.
But it wouldn't be balanced between players anymore. You could "buy" more space for selling things and that's just kinda wrong to me.
If you had to pay for a minion or a hairstyle it would be something else, something that doesn't really change anything, but something you can make money with shouldn't be something you have to pay for, at least that's what I think.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

Introduce a fishing tackle box already.

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YES! Fishers are already shafted enough as they are - please add off hand tool - tackle box.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

One thing I am thankful for is; they don't keep shards in our inventory in stacks of 99!

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It would be also nice to move the Dark matter and materia melding catalysts to shards / crystals / clusters screens saving up to 10+ slots in main inventory.

I don't like the precedent it sets.

Which is that SE will charge people additional fees for items/features that increase players ability to play the game at a higher level than someone paying the base subscription fee.


As others have said, I would have no problem if SE released a "minion of the month" club that would give people a brand new, unique minion at on the 1st of each month (at a fee of a few bucks).

Minions don't really do anything outside of stand there and look cute. They are a vanity accessory (which I have no problem with).


Charging people for access to more market board slots and more inventory is ridiculous.


People are going to say, "oh, it's only $2 a month... get over it". Yea, it's only $2 a month (basically the price of a large cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts), but, it's not about the cost.


What's next? SE will allow you to purchase additional FC houses with additional gardens for $1-2 a month in perpetuity?



I don't care about the cost itself ($2 is $2), I care about the precedent it sets going forward. Anyone who isn't at least a little concerned about this needs to open their eyes.

This is a terrible decision on SE's part. If they need to generate additional revenue then there are other ways they can go about it.

I don't mind. Basically you are paying for the extra server space it uses and I suppose that is fair.

As for possibly having more retainers to go on ventures, you will still have to pay them in retainer chips, which you can buy from your free company and as awards for daily quests. But until we know how easy/difficult it is to get chips and how much chips ventures (especially higher level ones) will cost you can't say much about how much of an advantage an extra retainer will be. I'm guessing they made these chips as an countermeasure for getting too much of an advantage.