Pay for your inventory.

[BreathlessTao]

In no way, shape, or form does any sane person need 1400 inventory slots of bank space. Having one extra glamour set for EVERY class (Weapon, Head, Chest, Legs, Feet, and Off-hand) results in the use of 147 inventory slots. Unless you enjoy keeping multiple dye versions of the exact same piece of gear, there is absolutely no way that you would ever need that much space, and neither does it give you any advantage over another player just because you happen to have every boot model in the game for your White Mage on hand at any time.

...right. So you farm a given dungeon for a given set (while leveling up), and you finally have the set after so many runs (well beyond the dungeon level). You're gonna throw it away because it's no longer relevant? You're gonna throw it away, because if you decide to want to glamour it again, you just farm the place again (when you'll have more important things to do)? Yeah, good luck with that. Having one extra glamour for each job is not the point in itself (you conviently forgot to count the accessories there, btw, but let's overlook that for now) - the point is having the stuff you may want to glamour. Because with the current system, that's the only way to do it. Sure, if you don't care about glamour, it's not an issue for you. That doesn't mean it's not an issue in general. And even though it might not be all that important, green (and blue) items provide quite a bit of advantage over even HQ crafted gear while leveling up. Again, some might not care, but others sure do.

The problem with this logic is that anyone can make 9 character alts in their own little free company and get 18 more retainers, totaling up to 360 more items for sale at once without paying a single dime. If it hasn't already broken the market board then it won't when people can do it on a single character. If anything, you're paying for the "convenience" of not having to log in & out to check your stalls.

And that's already a problem in itself, yes. I certainly didn't argue that, nor do I think anyone else did. The increase of the retainer numbers only adds to it - if anything, I'd say this is even more infuriating with that in mind. And let's not forget you can't really conveniently exchange things between alts even if they're on the same server, this just takes care of that as well, since you won't have to.

You do realize you have to gear, level, and manage all of those retainers, right? Not only is this a massive undertaking in it's own right, but retainers NEVER return with relevant gear or items, and once again only benefits players who are trying desperately to get rare glamour gear like the unobtainables you mentioned. Considering that you're still severely limited by your Venture income, this doesn't make it pay to win in the slightest. Just because you "play different" doesn't mean you can go crying out on the forums and accuse a perfectly fine cash shop model of being pay to win. If you want a good example of "pay to win" look at Air Mech Arena on the PS4 where it's a competitive game that has it's best items behind a pay wall.

Yeah, and you do realise that those who'll be taking advantage of this are the ones that can gear, level, and manage all of those retainers without a problem, right? Venture is dirt cheap, as someone already pointed out. Also, if your retainers have never brought back one relevant gear or item for you... you're doing something wrong. And excuse you, but I pay the same amount of money for my game as anyone else, I have as much right to "go crying out" here when I don't like something as anyone else has to whiteknight everything SE does - complacency never changed anything, and if we just cheer at everything, they'll never stop "testing the waters" of how far they can go with the extra charges. Air Mech Arena is an actual F2P game, unlike FFXIV - which is why SE doesn't dare putting the game's best equipment behind a pay wall. Or at least it hasn't yet; I'm not sure we're not on the road to that destination anymore.

You do realize that in order to implement such a system that they'd have to completely reprogram the way that the game works, right? Not to mention the dire effects it could have on the economy since they haven't been keeping track of the gear you're putting on up until now, so you'd see a spike in old content items that have no business being so pricey.

You do realise (man, I'm getting tired of these) that it would do more good than harm on the long run, right? You do realise that it is their job to reprogram and tweak the game, whether that's daily maintenance or something completely new, for it to work properly, right? Most gear pieces that most people would want to use are already way too pricey on the market. Which is also why most people hold on to them once they acquire them. And holding on to them is only creating this admitted stress on the servers, storing so much character data - with the slew of new clothes and armours, that won't decrease. And with each new expansion, or even content patch, we're only getting more and more items. Not to even mention furnitures, especially timed (seasonal) ones, that most players can't even use, because well hey guess what, housing supply is nowhere near adequate either.


All in all, it's the very principle itself that is offending - and if someone can't see that, regardless of how it might or might not affect them, they need to open their eyes (or if they don't want to, then they're just ignorant). At the core of it, it's paying extra for significantly more inventory space (as basic a f2p element as it can get) - in a game that's already subscription based to begin with. In a game that thrives on its "everything on one character" system, at that. Like it was also pointed out, many of us are here in a sub-based game to avoid such schemes.
After being told countless times how difficult it would be to increase our inventories. Because of all the item data being so big. Because of that putting so much stress on the servers/network (in itself at least questionable in 2015, when pretty much nobody else seems to have issues with this). They pull a stunt like this, effectively revealing that it isn't a problem at all, they can very much do it. Just, y'know, pay more money on top of your subscription fee. Because all the sites don't report, time after time, how successful and profitable the game has been otherwise, anyway.
But whatever, keep on saying how irrelevant, or even awesome, this is; enjoy the comfort of your ignorance.