Better communication between main characters and alt characters

Honestly, this doesn't affect me really, as I only focus on one character.. However I know people who it does affect so I have decided to bring the topic up.

The functionality of having alt characters in this game is extremely limited. I know this game isn't really designed with alt characters in mind (multi-armory system etc) however the communication between main characters and alt characters is extremely poor.

1. Unable to add them to friendlist (which means you cannot send mail) and no shared storage facility external to that of a free-company chest.

In ARR, this was brought up as a counter to combat RMT. I don't truly understand why this is in place, as I can't see any benefit of transferring items or gil from one character to another on the same account.

Furthermore, there are ways to get around this, and that is to utilize the company chest. However this option is not available to those who either don't have access to it on both of their characters, or wish to be in multiple free companies.

My point with this argument is that there are already methods of transferring items between characters on the same account, however they are extremely convoluted and are a hassle for players who wish to do something that should be as simple as sending a mail or dropping it in a "shared retainer".

2. Housing

2.1 - No access to housing between characters, due to the inability to add alt characters to your friends list.

This point is similar to the first. Because you are unable to add your alt characters to your friends list, you are also unable to give your alt full access or teleport permissions to a house you may own on your main character.

After speaking with people who own multiple houses on alt characters, they purchased these houses for the main reason that their alt characters don't have access to the housing features on their main character.

This brings me to the next point on this..

2.2 - Housing is not shared between alts, which encourages multi-house owners.

It is no secret that housing in this game is limited. Furthermore, many players are buying up multiple plots on their alt characters which in some opinions is considered rather greedy for such a scarce resource.

My belief is that housing plots should be shared completely - per account, per server.
If your main owns a house, then your alt characters shouldn't be able to own one..
HOWEVER, alts should absolutely have owner privileges including teleports.

This is a tricky topic, and there is little that can really be done about the multi-home owner plots that are already in existence.. However I am really hoping that this restriction is put in place before the 4.1 housing ward (Shirogane) is released.

A potential solution (while many current multi-home owners will likely disagree with this) is to add this feature, then give players the regular 45-day reclaim timer. After the end of the 45 days, the house with the most recent visit will be kept, and all other plots owned by the player on other characters will be forcibly reclaimed with 100% gil refund and all furnishings unbound and able to be sold on the market.

3. Shared retainers

I believe that the easiest way around the item transfer issue is to add one (free) shared retainer across all characters on the same server.

Many other MMOs do this in the form of "Banks" where you have an account-wide storage solution that allows you to place items in it that all characters have access to.

I do not believe that this system should replace the ability to store items through individual retainers per character, as inventory space is scarce in this game.

If the concern is that alt characters will be able to share unique gear, especially considering you can only purchase mog station items for one character at a time - add rules similar to that of the company chest that does not allow you to place unique items in there.

There is a second solution to your issues but its quite expensie is real money terms but allows alt to be added to firendlist with all the benifits envoled which is to create the alt on a diffrent service account than main.

1. they won't let you do it. so you will have storage issue. so they can sell extra retainers.
RMT trade face to face anyway.

2. screw housing. tons of people don't have housing of their own. that's a 2.0 features most people in 3.0 doesn't even know about. =p

3. why would they give you shared retainer if they don't want to to transfer stuffs to alt for storage?

The whole adding alts to a mains Friendlist was removed 2 years ago and it wont ever be brought back

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Originally Posted by Charlayy

The whole adding alts to a mains Friendlist was removed 2 years ago and it wont ever be brought back

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Which is a big part of my point..

There are ways around it, and it's convoluted as all hell. Why not just re-add the ability to do so, instead of people having to do convoluted work arounds?

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Originally Posted by Furiea

1. they won't let you do it. so you will have storage issue. so they can sell extra retainers.
RMT trade face to face anyway.

2. screw housing. tons of people don't have housing of their own. that's a 2.0 features most people in 3.0 doesn't even know about. =p

3. why would they give you shared retainer if they don't want to to transfer stuffs to alt for storage?

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1. As above. It's possible to do already, it's just a clunky method.

2. It would be less of an issue if two players couldn't own entire wards.
Link

3. Compare it to a company chest, but for personal accounts. Which is already in the game. The method is still the same, can still transfer stuff between alts this way, it's just a hassle.

4 Unable to even create an alt on a congested server that you already have a character on.
If the congestion is more to do with high concurrent player counts, then what difference would it make if I log out of one character and into another?? >.<

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Originally Posted by Altena

There are ways around it, and it's convoluted as all hell. Why not just re-add the ability to do so, instead of people having to do convoluted work arounds?
1. As above. It's possible to do already, it's just a clunky method.
2. It would be less of an issue if two players couldn't own entire wards.
Link

3. Compare it to a company chest, but for personal accounts. Which is already in the game. The method is still the same, can still transfer stuff between alts this way, it's just a hassle.

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1. because majority of people don't know so they end up renting retainer.
2. *face palm* SE needs limit 1 personal house per account & give people 1 months notice and just destroy any additional personal houses anyone has. Shame on SE for even allowing this to happen when they tell people to move to a different server.

Look... there shouldn't be a housing limitation from the get-go. where should be as many wards, sub-, sub-sub, sub-sub-sub division as it needs to be to fulfill player's demand for housing.

but because SE for whatever BS reason failed to do so... we need to limited things to 1 house per account.

3/ that's the whole point.. make it a hassle so you will rent retainer.

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Originally Posted by Furiea

Eh?

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Eh? Your point is a little lost.. Let me get this straight..

You are ok with SE limiting basic functionality in favour of them making money from it - in an already subscription based model?
You do realise that many people already pay additional sub fees for more character slots, no?
Hell, if this is your point, charge $2 for a shared retainer slot. I am sure they would make tonnes from that alone.

I mean I agree with your housing point, however that doesn't fix the problem of alt characters not having access to the house on the main character.

Well, I could add one ( two :rolleyes:) ) thing(s) : events achievments for alts and cash shop items for -at least- alts if not account.

I would love to being able to Friend List my alts or at least be able to mail them and share my personal house with them. I like your idea of a shared retainer, too.
Much as I like having alts, they do cost extra on top of the basic subscription and with so many restrictions compared to other games, I don't think I'm getting great value for my money.

Best solution is use the FC chest, but without proper communication and permissions, that could backfire.

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Originally Posted by Altena

Eh? Your point is a little lost.. Let me get this straight..

You do realise that many people already pay additional sub fees for more character slots, no?
Hell, if this is your point, charge $2 for a shared retainer slot. I am sure they would make tonnes from that alone.

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You don't actually pay more for extra characters the one that gives you 8 characters per server is the standard sub and is the only sub that a time card can be used on.

I'd love more communication between my alts, since they're mostly just storage at this moment. Just friending them would be enough. I've gotten complaints about my use of the FC box for transfers because it spams the crud out of the log and makes it harder for the leaders to keep track. Shared housing would be nice too.
and in my opinion I DO pay more for having alts, just because the way you pay is limited doesn't mean I am not paying more for the privilege. I had to make a conscious choice to pick the 8 char sub. I could have payed less, but I don't. I pay more because I want those slots.

A person has to choose the entry level sub otherwise the game will want to default account to the standard sub hence why is called standard. And no I don't use time cards and we'll never accept the "I pay more to have alts" cause person does not. I know of very few people that actually use thge entry level sub.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

A person has to choose the entry level sub otherwise the game will want to default account to the standard sub hence why is called standard. And no I don't use time cards and we'll never accept the "I pay more to have alts" cause person does not. I know of very few people that actually use thge entry level sub.

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.. so you just are denying that it costs more to have alts? I'm not sure what your point here is. Do you have alts? if not why are you paying the higher price? if you are.. that's what the more money is for. Just because it defaults you to something doesn't mean it doesn't cost more for that option. Of course they WANT you to pay the higher price, but you don't have to.

In XI a person paid for extra alts if person wanted 7 extra characters on top of their main it was $7 extra dollars. Be glad they did away with that system. I call the entry level sub the gimp sub cause person actively denying themself the complete package to save couple dollars? It such a small difference to not even worth noting which is why I will stand behind my view that person does not pay for alts and yes I have alts but don't have all 8 slots filled up cause of my stance on the subject. I also pay 6 months at a time so when broken down monthly it cost me $12.99 A month same as entry sub so no I don't pay extra for my alts.

I understand your position, however I really disagree. 2 bucks is 2 bucks. 24 bucks at the end of the year. some people that will make all the difference. And that's really all that extra money buys. More characters. I disagree with your position that it doesn't matter, it's money. Someone had to earn it and you don't have to spend it if you dont want to. It is trivial, but it's money you have to pay for the privilege. My extra Retainers cost the same amount per month, and I chose to have them, would you say that isn't a paid service just because it's cheap? or if you actually had to ELECT to have less retainers and you could save money.. would you not be paying for those retainers?
It's a difference in price in the end, default choice or not. I remember distinctly debating keeping just the 1 character per server, and decided the small amount of money was worth the increase . I payed for them.

Well if you choose to pay monthly then you make the choice to pay extra for your alts. Also your point about retainer does not really pertain to the topic you pay extra for each extra retainer you have, you don't pay per character like retainers are. A person can pay in advance to get lower sub yes it might not be a option for some people but the option still there just like the option to choose entry or standard sub. I do have a extra retainer but since I pay in advance I pay $14.99 a month for my account with alts and a retainer instead of $16.99

I would love shared retainers. Like right now? I want to use my Fantasia on an alt, but it's stuck with my main. I have no intention of changing my main at all, so that's one slot taken up for something that could be used elsewhere..

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Originally Posted by Furiea

Look... there shouldn't be a housing limitation from the get-go. where should be as many wards, sub-, sub-sub, sub-sub-sub division as it needs to be to fulfill player's demand for housing.

but because SE for whatever BS reason failed to do so... we need to limited things to 1 house per account.

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Actually, there is real world overhead involved in providing "infinite" database storage for housing, since item properties, placement information, and other data has to be stored on a per-house basis.
This is also why they limit the number of characters you can have and why you have limited inventory space.
Even if they actually had infinite disk storage available, the DBMS response times get abysmal once the data gets into the multi-terabyte range even with good normalization.

Still, I agree that perhaps they are a little TOO stingy with it.

I'm still not clear on how sending things between my own characters on the same account is an avenue for real money transfers.

Why would I want the stupid share retainers? If I pay for extra retainers, my alt char would also get same number of retainers?