Allow us to purchase or rent retainers with gil

As an extra option this may interest players. Why not allow us to rent extra retainers with a weekly or monthly gil fee as an added option vs the $2 USD per retainer?

coz se wants dat money.

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Originally Posted by Luxx

coz se wants dat money.

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Because the extra storage literally makes you use more capacity on the servers. That means more hardware which costs money. Big surprise that you have to pay for it. -_-

because people are literally begging to throw more money at SE.

It's a subscription game, I should not have to pay more for content (yes retainers are content.)

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Originally Posted by Everdark

because people are literally begging to throw more money at SE.

It's a subscription game, I should not have to pay more for content (yes retainers are content.)

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Some people literally did. So /sarcasm on that one.

Also, you don't HAVE to do anything. You can completely ignore this for the entirety of the game to no ill effect. You don't need more selling slots, or more inventory, or another set of ventures per day. Those are all extra and completely unnecessary. If you are out of inventory you really need to re-evaluate what kind of crap you keep storing.

Or why not offer the option to to "swap" one of your (40 on standard sub) additional characters for a pair of retainers? It will be less server storage and resources demanding than running an alt as a "mule" with 2 retainers anyway and you could have anything between 40 characters with no additional retainers down to 20 characters with two extra retainers each. You're already paying for those including the additional storage so it would be only fair (and you'd actually use LESS storage this way as it would not use the additional main inventory, armory and airmore storage like on extra characters). If this wouldn't be a "good" deal for SE (in term of saving the server capacity, not in terms milking players for more money) I don't know what else would. If they'd offer this only to standard subs (or maybe for those who pay more than 1 month at a time) it would be incentive for many players to switch from Entry sub or to pay more months in advance - either way more money in the bank for SE.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Because the extra storage literally makes you use more capacity on the servers. That means more hardware which costs money. Big surprise that you have to pay for it. -_-

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They have made plenty for the extra server space, they have tons more subscribers than they anticipated, and they are trying to run a game with the server space they anticipated they would need. They have tried and tried to "fix" the issue without doing what is needed and paying for more servers. Why don't we have personal housing, why is the furniture limit for FC housing so low, because they don't have the server space. Remember just a couple weeks back when 2.2 released, instead of adding more instance servers to reduce ques, they crammed them all together giving us horrendous lag for a week. Selling retainers is just a way for SE to make the players pay for what every other subscription based game calls a business expense.
My thoughts of what goes on in the XIV developer meetings:

Programmer: Yoshi we need to pay for more servers, the game is growing more unstable by the day, we are doing everything we can to keep the players from noticing it.
Yoshi: Silence subordinate, servers cost money. You know what else costs money? Bracelets, rings, watches, I mean come on, I don't even have on thumb rings today, how can we have more servers if I don't have thumb rings?!!?
Programmer: But sir, this isn't just any game this is Final Fantasy, it is our responsibility to deliver a game worthy of the title!
Yoshi: Fool, remember who you are talking to! I am Yoshi, I am Final Fantasy! Mwa ha ha, mwa haha mwa haha!
At this point Yoshi transforms into Godzilla and starts to terrorize the city until for some reason Ferris Bueller is called in to stop him.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Some people literally did. So /sarcasm on that one.

Also, you don't HAVE to do anything. You can completely ignore this for the entirety of the game to no ill effect. You don't need more selling slots, or more inventory, or another set of ventures per day. Those are all extra and completely unnecessary. If you are out of inventory you really need to re-evaluate what kind of crap you keep storing.

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The issue comes with the new venture system and the fact that players who pay for the additional retainers get a slight advantage on the market board over others. Personally I have to agree with other people, we pay a subscription fee each month for server maintenance and updates to the game. Charging additional money for something like this is just silly.

It doesn't break the game for me personally because what can you buy with gil anyways right now? I still don't agree with the idea and think that there should be a precedence set that this kind of thing isn't ok. It's one thing for them to sell people vanity crap like mounts or Fantasia, it's another to sell people things that give them an advantage (even if it's only a slight one). If they are doing something like this already, what kind of other additional services are we going to see that give players advantages in the future?

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Some people literally did. So /sarcasm on that one.

Also, you don't HAVE to do anything. You can completely ignore this for the entirety of the game to no ill effect. You don't need more selling slots, or more inventory, or another set of ventures per day. Those are all extra and completely unnecessary. If you are out of inventory you really need to re-evaluate what kind of crap you keep storing.

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This is why I am not too mad about it, honestly I was hoping it would be a one time fee for the character you purchase extra retainers. But than there is a flaw in that logic, I can make 8 characters on each server which that gives me 16 retainers just by using my subscription benefits.

I wouldnt mind if they made two 15 subscription fees, one where you get 1 character on each server with 2 extra retainers and another with how it is now for 15 dollar subscription.

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Originally Posted by LordSliver

This is why I am not too mad about it, honestly I was hoping it would be a one time fee for the character you purchase extra retainers. But than there is a flaw in that logic, I can make 8 characters on each server which that gives me 16 retainers just by using my subscription benefits.

I wouldnt mind if they made two 15 subscription fees, one where you get 1 character on each server with 2 extra retainers and another with how it is now for 15 dollar subscription.

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Sure, that's somewhat of a flaw but how are those additional characters going to help you when there is no way to transfer items/gil between your own characters aside from having a friend trade it for you? I'm sure they're well aware that if you could transfer items between characters that nobody would pay for this service.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Because the extra storage literally makes you use more capacity on the servers. That means more hardware which costs money. Big surprise that you have to pay for it. -_-

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Yeah, right, that's the reason. It's the extra data storage costs associated with storing a set of gear and an inventory. I mean, those floppy disks cost a lot of money, and you can only store... what? A few hundred retainers or so on them? ... so yeah, there you have it.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

we pay a subscription fee each month for server maintenance and updates to the game. Charging additional money for something like this is just silly.

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Technically you aren't paying for server maintenance or anything of the sort. It's sorta gets added in.

We are literally handing them money to let us play on their servers, and they use that money for anything they need, such as salaries and yes maintenance, but even that only extends to having the server up long enough to let you play on it. The content patches and things like that are for lack of a better phrase, nice gifts. But they are in no way obligated to give us such.

I think that currently SE sees the extra retainers as both profitable and an unnecessary luxury. If they felt that players were starved for inventory space they'd probably add more with only an in game option to acquire/ maintain like they did with XI (repeatedly). This game doesn't really have major inventory problems, or at least not yet.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Sure, that's somewhat of a flaw but how are those additional characters going to help you when there is no way to transfer items/gil between your own characters aside from having a friend trade it for you? I'm sure they're well aware that if you could transfer items between characters that nobody would pay for this service.

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Well - you could - many does. One option (not available anymore sadly) - was to add your alts on your friend list - then you can just mail the items and gil. Now the only option is to add all the alts to the same FC and use the FC chest to do the transfers. Hence I'd NEVER pay a single penny (even one off payment) for extra retainers. I have 8 already, soon to have 16 but it's still inconvenient to log out and back in all the time between alts ... :(

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Originally Posted by Nutz

I think that currently SE sees the extra retainers as both profitable and an unnecessary luxury. If they felt that players were starved for inventory space they'd probably add more with only an in game option to acquire/ maintain like they did with XI (repeatedly). This game doesn't really have major inventory problems, or at least not yet.

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Do you mean like the time they doubled your on character inventory, and all you had to do was pay them for a security token? Or when they let you mail certain Rare/EX items with other characters on your account so you could store untradeable gear on your alt, and all you had to do was pay them for another character?

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Sure, that's somewhat of a flaw but how are those additional characters going to help you when there is no way to transfer items/gil between your own characters aside from having a friend trade it for you? I'm sure they're well aware that if you could transfer items between characters that nobody would pay for this service.

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I'm sure they will let us eventually pay for the service of an NPC that will let you trade items to him, then retrieve them from another character on your account.


SE is all about making us pay for server space, I say waste as much as we can, make as many characters as it will allow, get as many as you can to the retainer quest, get them, name them, then never play the character again, so all your alts and all their retainers are taking up precious server space, I mean, we have to pay for more retainers because of the extra server space, well let's use up and waste all that space we are already paying for.

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Originally Posted by Mcshiggs

At this point Yoshi transforms into Godzilla and starts to terrorize the city until for some reason Ferris Bueller is called in to stop him.

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Sorry, it's his day off.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Sure, that's somewhat of a flaw but how are those additional characters going to help you when there is no way to transfer items/gil between your own characters aside from having a friend trade it for you? I'm sure they're well aware that if you could transfer items between characters that nobody would pay for this service.

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thats besides the point lol, I am just saying what can be done if you wanna look at it from different points and angles. Can I make 8 different characters on each server because I pay 15 dollars a month, yes I can- But will I is the question. So I feel they should offer another option for extra retainers since those extra retainers are additional fees to your monthly payment. Why not allow us to scrap our extra characters on the servers and go down to one character per server with 2 additional retainers for my account. That would only give me one character on each server that will now have 4 retainers at their convenience.

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Originally Posted by LordSliver

This is why I am not too mad about it, honestly I was hoping it would be a one time fee for the character you purchase extra retainers. But than there is a flaw in that logic, I can make 8 characters on each server which that gives me 16 retainers just by using my subscription benefits.

I wouldnt mind if they made two 15 subscription fees, one where you get 1 character on each server with 2 extra retainers and another with how it is now for 15 dollar subscription.

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That sounds like an awesome idea! (Hint, Hint SE)

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Originally Posted by LordSliver

thats besides the point lol, I am just saying what can be done if you wanna look at it from different points and angles. Can I make 8 different characters on each server because I pay 15 dollars a month, yes I can- But will I is the question. So I feel they should offer another option for extra retainers since those extra retainers are additional fees to your monthly payment. Why not allow us to scrap our extra characters on the servers and go down to one character per server with 2 additional retainers for my account. That would only give me one character on each server that will now have 4 retainers at their convenience.

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You already have an option to pay less and only have 1 character on each world instead of 8. I don't know the exact amount you save because I'm legacy and that's not an option for me but it's the option my ex girlfriend was using and I believe she was saving about $2/month. So technically you can already choose to have 1 character and 1 retainer for the same price as 8 characters, you just can't have 2 additional retainers for the same price and I don't think that's going to change.

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Originally Posted by Everdark

because people are literally begging to throw more money at SE.

It's a subscription game, I should not have to pay more for content (yes retainers are content.)

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You are paying for extra, you get your two free retainers. It's much like paying a basic sub and only be able to create one character vs standard that allows 8.

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Originally Posted by Bluetaro

As an extra option this may interest players. Why not allow us to rent extra retainers with a weekly or monthly gil fee as an added option vs the $2 USD per retainer?

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I'd rather not. I would rather have it be a feature that you either pay extra for in game, or via mogstation. One or the other. Equality for all, sort of.

Methinks it's connected to gold sellers and them taking over the crystal market (buy low sell high no one can mine crystals in time). Notice retainers can mine crystals for you? You don't have to buy crystals on the market board (gil goes to gold sellers) anymore or be forced to botany/mine all day long. Between leves and your two retainers there will be enough crystals for you to craft. Don't go persecuting the crystal market sellers because of my speculations they might be legit players.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

You already have an option to pay less and only have 1 character on each world instead of 8. ... So technically you can already choose to have 1 character and 1 retainer for the same price as 8 characters.

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This.

I was paying for the 8 char/server sub simply to pay more than one month in advance. Didn't feel like paying in advance anymore so I switched to single char sub and added in one extra retainer so there was no change in my monthly price.

I never used alt chars and never planned to, not even for inventory space since i don't want to have to log in and out and then have to worry about how I'm going to transfer the items on top of that. With the extra retainer, lol at lack of inventory space (for now at least)

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Originally Posted by Orth

This.

I was paying for the 8 char/server sub simply to pay more than one month in advance. Didn't feel like paying in advance anymore so I switched to single char sub and added in one extra retainer so there was no change in my monthly price.

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Well my idea allows you to pay one dollar less to have 2 extra retainers vs if you do the single char with 2 retainers. Its like paying 7 dollar monthly subscription for Psplus or Xboxlive vs just paying one time 60 dollar fee for a whole year, but its not exactly that either. Point is you will save yourself some money doing it that way vs paying extra retainers plus the 15 dollar fee for 8 characters per server or 1 character per server with 2 extra retainers.

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Originally Posted by Lurkios

Yeah, right, that's the reason. It's the extra data storage costs associated with storing a set of gear and an inventory. I mean, those floppy disks cost a lot of money, and you can only store... what? A few hundred retainers or so on them? ... so yeah, there you have it.

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You're condescending tone does nothing to change the fact that hard drive space on enterprise servers is not as cheap as home solutions for the same amount of space. You have to pay for redundancy which means you're buying several drives as backups for the primary drive. So please, keep acting like it's cheap and using a floppy drive as some ridiculous comparison.

Think SE employees will take gil on their paychecks?

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

You're condescending tone does nothing to change the fact that hard drive space on enterprise servers is not as cheap as home solutions for the same amount of space. You have to pay for redundancy which means you're buying several drives as backups for the primary drive. So please, keep acting like it's cheap and using a floppy drive as some ridiculous comparison.

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I remember when I was looking to upgrade to an SSD, a tech video on YouTube explained the differences between enterprise storage drives vs personal storage drives. The astronomical price difference is because of the fact that the enterprise drive is expected to run consistently at the expected performance point 24/7 vs the normal HD in a home PC. Of course there are other factors, but it's a whole different level of performance expectations for server hardware. Many people think they can build a PC for cheap, and a server should be just as cheap.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Because the extra storage literally makes you use more capacity on the servers. That means more hardware which costs money. Big surprise that you have to pay for it. -_-

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lol... This is wrong in so many ways...

Let's say that's true (lol) if we go by that, and that legitimates additional fee on top of a subscription, if I was SE I'd tell that excuse for any new content being added... "ohai i have dis awesome new content but um i lack the server space... so pay yes?"

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Originally Posted by Razzle

lol... This is wrong in so many ways...

Let's say that's true (lol) if we go by that, and that legitimates additional fee on top of a subscription, if I was SE I'd tell that excuse for any new content being added... "ohai i have dis awesome new content but um i lack the server space... so pay yes?"

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Last time I checked, I never paid an additional fee for the new contents I received this patch.

Retainers are an optional service. Similar to how an advanced or basic subscription works. Simply put the subscription fee we're paying atm is the basic subscription.

And lastly, nope, the third retainer is not a new content (you already have two of it), it's simply an additional service SE is offering.

Would you rather they just increased the subscription fee and gave everyone 4 retainers? even though its only people actively playing multiple crafters that need them....

Notice how you pay extra to have an extra character too????

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

Because the extra storage literally makes you use more capacity on the servers. That means more hardware which costs money. Big surprise that you have to pay for it. -_-

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I can tell you for sure that it doesn't use $2 worth.

"how do you know that? lol"

Because I am a server maintenance specialist. $2 is a rip. That equates to 10GB+ of space.

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Originally Posted by Issachar

I can tell you for sure that it doesn't use $2 worth.

"how do you know that? lol"

Because I am a server maintenance specialist. $2 is a rip. That equates to 4-5GB of space.

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Rip off or not, no one's forcing anybody to avail the said extra service.

If the venture content is only available with the 3rd retainer, then yes, it's totally unfair because we're already paying for the content. But nope, it's already available to the two retainers regardless we avail the 3rd or not.

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Originally Posted by Thorauku

Rip off or not, no one's forcing anybody to avail the said extra service.

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I hate this line of argument.

"No one is forcing you to do Atma quest"
"No one is forcing you to raid"
etc etc

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Originally Posted by Doo

I hate this line of argument.

"No one is forcing you to do Atma quest"
"No one is forcing you to raid"
etc etc

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Why so if I may ask? It's all up to themselves to avail/experience X.

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Originally Posted by JemC

Methinks it's connected to gold sellers and them taking over the crystal market (buy low sell high no one can mine crystals in time). Notice retainers can mine crystals for you? You don't have to buy crystals on the market board (gil goes to gold sellers) anymore or be forced to botany/mine all day long. Between leves and your two retainers there will be enough crystals for you to craft. Don't go persecuting the crystal market sellers because of my speculations they might be legit players.

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Yh I had this idea aswell. My retainers bring me 120 shards every 50 mins, it's great =D

Does it seem like a good idea?

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

You're condescending tone does nothing to change the fact that hard drive space on enterprise servers is not as cheap as home solutions for the same amount of space. You have to pay for redundancy which means you're buying several drives as backups for the primary drive. So please, keep acting like it's cheap and using a floppy drive as some ridiculous comparison.

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Because acting like a few dozen $1600 hard drives is some insane expense when you have 2 million $9.99 - $14.99 monthly subscriptions makes more sense?

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Originally Posted by Lurkios

Because acting like a few dozen $1600 hard drives is some insane expense when you have 2 million $9.99 - $14.99 monthly subscriptions makes more sense?

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To add to that, if they are paying $1600 for hard drives then they're retarded. Even high performance SSDs are down to about 60 cents per GB now and high performance 15k SAS drives are down to about half that at most. I just finished installing 16 1TB SSDs into servers at work and they were under $600 each with the hybrid drive carriers included for our 3.5" SAS bays.

I'm sorry but anybody trying to make the argument that it's going to cost SE $2 a month per retainer to purchase additional drive space is just wrong. The only reason they're doing it is to maximize profit, not because they have to in order to provide the service.

I can't believe they would try to make profit, especially when they donated all the extra money from the collecters editions to charity. Extra retainers are far far from a necessity and people act like they are charging $2 to enter coil. If they just gave everyone 4 retainers the market board would be completely flooded and the economy would get worse. There is plenty of inventory space with 2, if you want to hoard then you can pay more.

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Originally Posted by CYoung187

I can't believe they would try to make profit, especially when they donated all the extra money from the collecters editions to charity. Extra retainers are far far from a necessity and people act like they are charging $2 to enter coil. If they just gave everyone 4 retainers the market board would be completely flooded and the economy would get worse. There is plenty of inventory space with 2, if you want to hoard then you can pay more.

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I don't think anybody is debating the fact that you do not need extra retainers because a lot of people are content just having 2 of them. The issue people are concerned about is the fact that SE is offering an optional service that actually gives people who pay more money a slight advantage over other people who don't. No, it's not a game breaking advantage by any means but it is still a tactic to make profit and I'm sorry you can't believe that SE of all companies wants to profit on something unnecessary. Every large company donates money to charities in order to save money on taxes and get good publicity in the process, that's pretty much common sense isn't it?

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

I don't think anybody is debating the fact that you do not need extra retainers because a lot of people are content just having 2 of them. The issue people are concerned about is the fact that SE is offering an optional service that actually gives people who pay more money a slight advantage over other people who don't. No, it's not a game breaking advantage by any means but it is still a tactic to make profit and I'm sorry you can't believe that SE of all companies wants to pr /snip

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I just don't see the problem with them adding options. It offers a very small advantage that does not effect others gameplay. Everyone plays in different ways, some people play to collect mounts/minions/etc. But I haven't heard any complaining of why can't everyone have a coerl mount?

Do you want them to just eliminate the option and nobody gets it?