Oh, so FFXIV is pay-to-win? That's... stupid.

[magdahmhara]

So, if you sell more stuff and make more gil than someone with just 2 retainers, then spend said gil on raid carries, does that make it P2W? In a round about way?

[Clawbriar]

But welcome to our new F2P golden age where EVERY game must have microtransactions, MMO or not, sub game or not.

... micro-transactions which do not affect you or your play time in any single way. Your extra retainers aren't gonna come and help you beat Twintania. Your /embrace emote from the Eternal Bonding ceremony won't quell Titan's rage. And having Sleipnir won't stop Odin from smacking you for six.

If they DID do that, yeah, that's pay to win. But they don't. They're additional and optional services or items that are just that - additional and optional. Having extra retainers for crafting or whatever reason isn't remotely close to pay to win models.

[Sakasa]

If you think about it, you would buy the space, then if you want to stop paying for it, you'll lose not only the retainers, BUT ALL THE ITEMS IN THEM AS WELL.

They're basically trapping you into another sub in a under handed disgustedly dirty way.

And that gentlemen is the problem.

You sure it isn't kicked to the reclaim function of the calamity vendor similar to room items if the FC forcible removes your room?

[Radial]

... micro-transactions which do not affect you or your play time in any single way. Your extra retainers aren't gonna come and help you beat Twintania. Your /embrace emote from the Eternal Bonding ceremony won't quell Titan's rage. And having Sleipnir won't stop Odin from smacking you for six.

If they DID do that, yeah, that's pay to win. But they don't. They're additional and optional services or items that are just that - additional and optional. Having extra retainers for crafting or whatever reason isn't remotely close to pay to win models.

Except they DO affect me and my play time in many many ways. Especially since im not primarily a raider.

[Radial]

If you're talking about the 2.0 relic, it would be faster and less effort just to buy i115 vendor gear to clear the content involved. The steps you're taking above are absolutely the slowest possible way to get the gear you need to clear content.

Well yeah this example is outdated now but i think it still makes a point. Imagine if you could flat out buy materia for your relic weapon when it was relevant, everyone would pretty much agree that is P2W, but if you go in the roundabout way of buying retainers to earn gill to buy materia its suddenly not P2W anymore.

[Cooperal]

I think I've seen the epitome here. I feared that pampered gamers would spill this far into the online scene.

You have 100 space in your inventory, 350 spaces from the combined free retainers, 25 armoury slots for each gear slot (that's 300 not counting the soul crystal slot), the ability to store unique gear gear at the armoire (or otherwise throw and reclaim from the calamity salvager) and the ability to stack probably all consumables and crafting mats up to 99 (far more for elemental crystals which don't use those slots).

100+350+300=750 + an additional slot reserved solely for each unique equippable item you have.

I think you're just devaluing the meaning of pay-to-win here. What about when we need to use that phrase for real problems? If they all used it like you did, people would stop listening.
This is more like a pay-for-crutch situation. This is really just a cost for people who still can't kick a bad habit after a really long time filling up. It will make zero difference in a fight. Nor out of a fight for people who have half-heartedly played the management game before. This game is already so generous for space that it downplays inventory efficiency as a game element when compared with most MMOs.

This game gives you tons of reasons to part ways with items that are no longer needed. Break down spirit-bonded gear! Sell materia! Turn in your non-convertible aetherial gear to your grand company. Sell or discard your peanut-valued mats. If you had been doing just those things from the start you'd barely need retainers. I only use them to hold dye pots, fantasias and a few materias that I'll probably never find need for. And I can still hold about 20-30 inventory slots open for my next wander out of a city.

Instead of holding the belief that you NEED to pay extra to "win", you could instead take a moment to consider the alternatives. You may find the above ideas to be a nice balance between paying extra and cutting your subscription.

[Dami]

Yeah because having another extra 3 retainers makes me so OP. Oh look at me I am solo-ing Ravana EX because of my retainers. Yay! So Pay2win.


lol.

[Radial]

ha ha ha, by the time you actually used your said method to achieve a perfectly melded Zeta weapon with "no effort", it's already Patch 4.0.

Stop being naive that having 8 retainers that actually gives you tangible benefits from multi ventures that will grant you an easier raid win. Lmao.

I was making 5+ mill a day on ventures with 2 fully geared gatherer retainers. So I could probably get a zeta in a week with 2.0 prices. Now its even easier.

[Radial]

I think I've seen the epitome here. I feared that pampered gamers would spill this far into the online scene.

You have 100 space in your inventory, 350 spaces from the combined free retainers, 25 armoury slots for each gear slot (that's 300 not counting the soul crystal slot), the ability to store unique gear gear at the armoire (or otherwise throw and reclaim from the calamity salvager) and the ability to stack probably all consumables and crafting mats up to 99 (far more for elemental crystals which don't use those slots).

100+350+300=750 + an additional slot reserved solely for each unique equippable item you have.

I think you're just devaluing the meaning of pay-to-win here. What about when we need to use that phrase for real problems? If they all used it like you did, people would stop listening.
This is more like a pay-for-crutch situation. This is really just a cost for people who still can't kick a bad habit after a really long time filling up. It will make zero difference in a fight. Nor out of a fight for people who have half-heartedly played the management game before. This game is already so generous for space that it downplays inventory efficiency as a game element when compared with most MMOs.

This game gives you tons of reasons to part ways with items that are no longer needed. Break down spirit-bonded gear! Sell materia! Turn in your non-convertible aetherial gear to your grand company. Sell or discard your peanut-valued mats. If you had been doing just those things from the start you'd barely need retainers. I only use them to hold dye pots, fantasias and a few materias that I'll probably never find need for. And I can still hold about 20-30 inventory slots open for my next wander out of a city.

Instead of holding the belief that you NEED to pay extra to "win", you could instead take a moment to consider the alternatives. You may find the above ideas to be a nice balance between paying extra and cutting your subscription.

no... Trying to lvl 8 crafters and 3 gatherers is impossible without retainers, and your going to be running out of space real quick with just two, and this game has nowhere near the amount of inventory space ANY sub mmo has given me in the past.

[Zorlinta]

no... Trying to lvl 8 crafters and 3 gatherers is impossible without retainers, and your going to be running out of space real quick with just two

Was perfectly doable up to level 50 (just need organizate well and discard/npc any unusefull stuff), so now im am slowly working it to level 60, so there is no need for extra ones except for being greedy and try to sell in market all your unused stuff, or well also if you are a garbage collector lol.

Edit: Certainly is slow accomodate stuff and keep organizate, also there is no need to rush. It not offer more than commodity storage space and extra market board sale slots. But that is not an "unfair" advantage because the hability of sell more stuff just means that someone without the extra retainers will need more time to can achieve the same. But also it not means that who have more retainers will have a 100% sale guarantied. So its not an advantage that will qualify into the category of pay-win.