Retainer system just...there isn't space

After the merge it's impossible for me and a lot of player to find a spot in the market area where to place the retainers, it's been a weak since the last time i found a spot, and I can't sell anything because of this problem. You have created a search system and implemented the possibility to buy trough this system. So why you keep the retainer system up? It's not possible to add some spot for the retainer, or delete this system and use a simple system like the Audition House?

Audition House heh.

There's three solutions to this:

1. Place an item for max gil on your retainer once you get a spot, so it never gets kicked out.
2. Move your retainer to Limsa or Gridania and take a huge penalty on how many customers you have.
3. Shout about your wares.

The MW system will likely not see any huge improvement until 2.0 is out with the auction house. It makes little sense now with the new version being only about half a year away.

Took me about 4 days to find spots for both my retainers, my wife still hasn't managed to find any spots though.

I just hope 2.0 uses an Auction House and not Market wards >.<

I dont know why its difficult for S-E to implement the link of all 3 markets in the current version. Markets are all instanced it shouldn't be too difficult you can access the market instances of every city. Ok, do not let us to move a ward of other different city because it would be used for free teleports, but let us to buy from the market search in other city markets.

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Originally Posted by Khazar

I dont know why its difficult for S-E to implement the link of all 3 markets in the current version. Markets are all instanced it shouldn't be too difficult you can access the market instances of every city. Ok, do not let us to move a ward of other different city because it would be used for free teleports, but let us to buy from the market search in other city markets.

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It's difficult because Tanaka's team basically f**ked around for 4 years with tech demos, and then tried to make a game on the 5th year out of an incomplete engine and skeletal game design plan.

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Originally Posted by Khazar

I dont know why its difficult for S-E to implement the link of all 3 markets in the current version. Markets are all instanced it shouldn't be too difficult you can access the market instances of every city. Ok, do not let us to move a ward of other different city because it would be used for free teleports, but let us to buy from the market search in other city markets.

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The servers can barely handle what retainers are in the wards now, if you merge all 3 barely anyone will be able to store there retainers in them and they would crash constantly.

I think a nice temp. measure would be to allow only 1 retainer per character into the market wards

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Originally Posted by Khazar

I dont know why its difficult for S-E to implement the link of all 3 markets in the current version. Markets are all instanced it shouldn't be too difficult you can access the market instances of every city. Ok, do not let us to move a ward of other different city because it would be used for free teleports, but let us to buy from the market search in other city markets.

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a merge wont open up new spots either, itl just make them all the same wards

why do people think merging the 3 cities is the answer?

opening up new spots is how to solve it as is, but it could make them more unstable if too many retainers are allowed, the last raise we had was cuz they upgraded the system a bit so it could handle more

Retainers and the marketwards in general are both stupid idea's, sadly I don't see it being changed much even in 2.0, seems SE like the idea of hordes of NPC's taking up valuable server space and system memory.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Retainers and the marketwards in general are both stupid idea's, sadly I don't see it being changed much even in 2.0, seems SE like the idea of hordes of NPC's taking up valuable server space and system memory.

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It does appear as if SE are being told to keep the current systems and just expand on them which is a shame, like keeping the classes and Job system instead of just the jobs, and expanding the markets instead of just replacing it with an AH

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

a merge wont open up new spots either, itl just make them all the same wards

why do people think merging the 3 cities is the answer?

opening up new spots is how to solve it as is, but it could make them more unstable if too many retainers are allowed, the last raise we had was cuz they upgraded the system a bit so it could handle more

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I think what he means is make it so that you can item search other cities and then buy from the item search menu not actually merge the cities just link them.

EDIT; Which would be a great idea in my opinion.

Can't help but think server merge could have been planned better to be honest considering this plus the fact servers have been crashing all over the place...also Ul'duh Inn isn't temporarily restricted since it's been quite a while now.

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Originally Posted by Wevlum

I think what he means is make it so that you can item search other cities and then buy from the item search menu not actually merge the cities just link them.

EDIT; Which would be a great idea in my opinion.

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yes, thats what i tried to say.

I love how our only solutions aim us towards cheating the system, give up and leave and possibly selling wares 5 times slower, or ignore the system that's in place.

That just tells me that what we have now is no good.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Retainers and the marketwards in general are both stupid idea's, sadly I don't see it being changed much even in 2.0, seems SE like the idea of hordes of NPC's taking up valuable server space and system memory.

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Basically ^^;

It could have been a neat idea, instead of counters you have actual sellers and it feels more personalised and more like a market. But obviously they failed to ask very important questions about the system such as system demands, whether it inconveniences the player, and whether it's just a lot of effort for something that isn't worth that amount of effort.

This has led to market wards as they are, rather than fixing the root of the problem band-aid after band-aid is being applied to make market wards usable. That said I do congratulate the current team somewhat because they took a terrible system and they made it usable which is a feat in itself considering what we started with.

They're kind of stuck with it I guess. It probably took a lot of resources to make and making an AH would probably take a lot of resources too. I doubt they'll swap it for an AH as a result so all we can hope is that in 2.0 it's optimized to work better with the new engine.

What would be nice is a a way to let others know "Hey, there are retainers in the Limsa or Gridania wards." I wouldn't have an issue putting my other retainer up if there was a way for people to know he was there selling.

Allowing all 3 city markets to be accessed from the same search menu would be nice, however it would only be a temporary fix. What happens come 2.0 and we still don't have an AH? It'll fill up even if they merge the 3 city wards.

At launch I was all for the market wards system and keeping it while improving it. However because such caps exist on how many retainers can be in the wards at any given time, this issue will come up again no matter what they do. It wasn't a bad idea however there are limitations that will simply always be an issue.

One solution would be to kick empty retainers, sure you could put a 999m item on it, but many people dont, and until those people go back to the retainers then it can sit there with nothing selling forever, annoying when people end up "stop playing the game" for a while.

Or put in week resets. Or timers, give retainers maximum of 3 days until they depop, you reset it by going back to them and talking.

Dont need to do much, if only a handful can get depopped on a regular basis it would help until 2.0

I spent about 10 days straight trying to get my retainer up on Gungnir (which btw got its access locked for new chars, just shows how busy it is!) and havent been able to, completely given up now.

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Originally Posted by viion

One solution would be to kick empty retainers, sure you could put a 999m item on it, but many people dont, and until those people go back to the retainers then it can sit there with nothing selling forever, annoying when people end up "stop playing the game" for a while.

Or put in week resets. Or timers, give retainers maximum of 3 days until they depop, you reset it by going back to them and talking.

Dont need to do much, if only a handful can get depopped on a regular basis it would help until 2.0

I spent about 10 days straight trying to get my retainer up on Gungnir (which btw got its access locked for new chars, just shows how busy it is!) and havent been able to, completely given up now.

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i personaly wouldnt mind seeing a timer on all retainers to keep them up, basicaly, same thing as the stalls but for free and they last a bit longer

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Originally Posted by viion

One solution would be to kick empty retainers, sure you could put a 999m item on it, but many people dont, and until those people go back to the retainers then it can sit there with nothing selling forever, annoying when people end up "stop playing the game" for a while.

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This is happening now, and there are a TON of people who put up a random vegetable or item for 999m, myself included.

I am one of those people who has an item up for 999m also.

The only thing I can think of is if they move retainers to players homes and then when you go to a ward can summon retainers with the specific items you are looking for.

The thing I find funny is, we need a way to spread out the populace again and having filled MWs & Inns in Ul'Dah I think is SE trying to nudge us to use the other 2 city states. Having a centralized search feature would be nice but then you still have people only congregating in one area... Ul'Dah. The idea was to have 3 nations not one and 2 little holes in a wall to go level up at on occasion.

Nothing else will change with 2.0 around the corner...literally. So we all either figure out a way to bring the other MWs to life or just wait till Sept-Nov PC 2.0.

The retainer system can work, they just have to make adjustments in 2.0; they've already stated they can't do it in 1.x.

These are some adjustment suggestions:

Interconnect the cities via a real auction house system that you can type in the item you're looking for without just having to search through the ward categories. Also interconnect retainers from personal housing and guild housing with this system as well. Add great customization options to personal market presentations.

Organizing the market wards:
Increase the size of the market wards, but only allow players to place retainers in stalls. Add system that creates market wards as needed, and make sure that players can easily choose the ward their retainer is in, so that if a player has a retainer in Tanner's ward 57, Tanner's ward 57 is highlighted and easily accessible for that player. Players should be encouraged to move their retainer to their personal housing so they can do their own storefront in their house.

Changes to retainers:
Currently retainers can only sell 10 items on the bazaar at one time. This protects and hurts the seller, but also does the same for the customer. Changes should be made that prevent people from flooding a market, but also to increase diversity among the items sold. Perhaps limiting players from making more than 5 stacks of an item on a retainer, but up to 20-30 bazaar items could alleviate this issue. So if a player had 6 elm canes and 4995 warped arrows then the player could post 5 elm canes and all 4995 arrows on his retainer. This prevents market flooding, but also allows sellers to craft for more level ranges with an increase in the bazaar cap.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

This is happening now, and there are a TON of people who put up a random vegetable or item for 999m, myself included.

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Myself included to.

Easy solution is that one person can only have one retainer active in Market Wards at a time. That should drop numbers considerably.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

Myself included to.

Easy solution is that one person can only have one retainer active in Market Wards at a time. That should drop numbers considerably.

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That and having a time limit before being kicked would help a bit. That was inactive or barely active players wouldn't be clogging the wards with their retainers.

Took me 3 days to get a space for 1 of my retainers in wards so yeah I do the 999mil trick too.

Also Ul inns are broken because...something...servers...something...limitations...something, not to nudge us away although that is a funny theory.

There are reasons why everyone is clustered in Ul and it's not entirely fair to just blame the community. Ul is where all shouts take place (unless we get a way of checking Ul shouts in other cities I don't see this changing), Ul is closest to Ifrit for cheaper teleport costs, and everyone hangs around in Ul so people are going to use wards in Ul since they want their things to sell (I don't see this changing unless we can start 'internet shopping' at other cities). Hubbing always happens but SE can take steps to allow us to get the benefits of hubbing without taking up space in the hub city. (Hub doesn't look like a word anymore.)

I do find it hilarious though that lore-wise Ul'duh is the money obsessed state and that's where all transactions are taking place.

Personally for convenience I would much prefer a Broker such as we had in Aion rather than an Auction House.

http://anaionpage.blogspot.co.uk/200...on-broker.html

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

There's three solutions to this:

1. Place an item for max gil on your retainer once you get a spot, so it never gets kicked out.
2. Move your retainer to Limsa or Gridania and take a huge penalty on how many customers you have.
3. Shout about your wares.

The MW system will likely not see any huge improvement until 2.0 is out with the auction house. It makes little sense now with the new version being only about half a year away.

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It always surprises me to find players willing to do the dirty public-relations for SE. It's the company's place to say this, not ours... even if it seems obvious.

It's negotiations 101: You don't grant any of the points your opponent is trying to make, unless they make them, lest you run out of chips to negotiate with, or fail to earn the leverage owed to you for the granting of the point.

The OP is right: As the game stands today, there should be an equitable way to obtain spots for our retainers. All the rest is just us compensating for SE's failure to provide it.

R

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

It's difficult because Tanaka's team basically f**ked around for 4 years with tech demos, and then tried to make a game on the 5th year out of an incomplete engine and skeletal game design plan.

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Whereas I commented not so positively on your earlier post, this one I completely agree with. You're my new best friend!

R

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

The MW system will likely not see any huge improvement until 2.0 is out with the auction house. It makes little sense now with the new version being only about half a year away.

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Time for me to eat my own shoe.

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Originally Posted by Khazar

I dont know why its difficult for S-E to implement the link of all 3 markets in the current version. Markets are all instanced it shouldn't be too difficult you can access the market instances of every city. Ok, do not let us to move a ward of other different city because it would be used for free teleports, but let us to buy from the market search in other city markets.

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:D

Bon Apetit Wolfie! xD

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

1. Place an item for max gil on your retainer once you get a spot, so it never gets kicked out.

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This is actually (what I feel to be) the main reason the Market Wards are like they are now. Because your retainer never leaves, it's always just there taking up space.

On top of that, far too many people use the market wards to flood the market with junk. Unfortunately, with the way gathering works in this game, it's far too easy to get materials. This means there are more people selling the same crap, so unlike the AH in FFXI, we have literally hundreds of Copper Ore available.

The Market Wards need to have a penalty/fee similar to FFXI. You HAVE to pay a percentage to place the item for sale, and it expires after a certain amount of time, like 7 Earth Days. When that time expires, the item is no longer "in bazaar" on your retainer, so you have to reset the price. When all items are sold, the retainer is removed from the wards, so there will be room for people to place theirs to try and sell their junk.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Time for me to eat my own shoe.

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I'll be happy to share one of mine as well. lol So much for trying yet again to figure out what SE's "direction" is with fixing/moving on is going to be. :p