starting to lose interest in this game sadly

[Colorful]

None of which is a reliable alternative. It also requires a minimum of one hour or upwards of eighteen. You can clear dungeons in less time, which then boils down to who gets luckier. That said, I don't particularly like how they're handling retainers. The fact we have yet to get another one or see them improve the armoire despite a wealth of new items sucks. But I wouldn't associate it with a pay to win model. To me, that is a system that would allow players to buy experience or Relic weapons.

Selling gil through a gambling system in which you have a chance to win either 1-1,000,000 gil every hour wouldn't be reliable, but it would undeniably be buying gil. Buying gil isn't pay to win in FFXIV (good thing too), but there's no denying that you have the ability to indirectly buy gil from SE and ventures aren't exactly difficult to come by.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'll concede to you both. That is a fair argument. While I don't necessarily have a huge issue with extra retainers myself, I'll admit it does lead to indirect gil buying. Suppose the biggest problem I have is whenever the devs claim to not have enough memory/server space for additional free storage, yet charge for retainers.

[Iagainsti]

Retainers aren't a "Reliable" alertnative to making gil? Could have fooled me.

While I do agree that having 3 retainers bringing me back 45 titanium ore an hour makes me more gil, but the real benefit lies in freeing up my gametime to do other things than mine titanium ore. You're Pay 2 Win theory by having more retainers is unsubstantial due to all actual progress items(DoW/DoM/DoH/Dol) are locked behind duties, tomes and scrips; items that cannot be bought with gil; and even when we consider that you can use gil to buy off the MB materials needed to craft for red scrips, you're paying for the convenience and time management, since you can technically go gather these mats yourself. The Pay 2 Win system you are trying to paint retainer ventures into does not exist, especially when you believe 25k an hour is a large sum of gil as per your example.

Even if we were to say that a player who did nothing but craft, had 6 retainers pumping the ventures, and bought/crafted all his own gear and pentamelded it perfectly, spending millions in gil to achieve......i185? This cat can't even get into Thordan Ex, and you've surpassed him in Ilvl by a margin doing roulettes for free. I see no Pay 2 Win scheme here.

[Mimilu]

There are a lot of things that should make you loose interest in this game, the purely-cosmetic cash shop should not be on the top of the list... >w>

[NastyGnarles]

That makes no monetary sense unless you are the type of person who spends over a certain threshold on Mog Station stuff a year. What you are asking for essentially means paying for glamour items that you may not even want, over time.

For instance, if the sub fee is raised by $3 a month, that's $36 a year. Depending on what's released throughout the year, one might not even want to buy $36 worth of Mog Station glamour stuff; but if it's lumped into the sub fee, they're paying for it regardless.

This ^^^^^^

[NorthernLadMSP]

This game already has a pay to win feature. If being able to buy more retainers isn't pay to win I don't know what is.

I totally agree. I know that the extra inventory space and near-worthless items they bring me is instrumental to my victory in Alexander Savage and Thordan EX.

[Iagainsti]

I totally agree. I know that the extra inventory space and near-worthless items they bring me is instrumental to my victory in Alexander Savage and Thordan EX.

That one liner gets all my likes xD

[Zojha]

I totally agree. I know that the extra inventory space and near-worthless items they bring me is instrumental to my victory in Alexander Savage and Thordan EX.

Wait, doesn't that technically mean that Heavensward is pay to win, because it brings you items and skills that are of huge significance to your success in Coil?

Expansions are pay to win confirmed.

[Kuwagami]

I totally agree. I know that the extra inventory space and near-worthless items they bring me is instrumental to my victory in Alexander Savage and Thordan EX.

But it gives you extra space to win the glamour game D:

(seriously now, they were talking about the fact that more retainers allow for more sales and ventures which may or may not result in huge profits depending on plain dumb luck or steady low profits. You can then use those gils to buy a run in AS3/4/what have you, and that becomes borderline with P2W. Not that I agree, gils being utterly pointless as it is now besides run buying, but that was their point)

[Kaurie]

Contrary to popular belief, forums make up a incredibly small fraction of any fanbase. Even if the majority here loathed the Cash Shop with a destructive passion that makes Bahamut blush, it would be a drop in the bucket. The fact Sleipnir has garnered over half a million dollars suggests people don't hate the Cash Shop all that much.

It may be a small sample size, and is hardly representative of the whole, but that does not equate to all feedback on the forums being negligible or irrelevant. Similarly, feedback given to a cell phone call center is only a small percentage of subscribers, but the feedback is taken very seriously for future planning. (I use this example, because I used to work in a cell phone call center and can attest to it.)

Or, or! Those funds are now being diverted to another section of the game. It's almost like they need to constantly provide content or upgrades at regular intervals. But even if their motivations were solely profit. Welcome to business 101. A company's primary interest is to make money. Despite that, they appeal their customers by restricting the Cash Shop to vanity items that have no influence on the game. FFXIV is actually an example of precisely how a Cash Shop should be managed. Dislike the color swapped Magitek Chocobos? No worries! You have a black one that functions in the exact same way, and it's free! If someone else wants to pay $12 for it. That's their prerogative.

Your argument starts off very dismissive and condescending, and there is no need for that. We can all have a mature discussion here.

Firstly, your failing in your duties as a consumer. That is a consumer should be looking after their own self interests, and not defending the interests of a company. This is how we arrive at appropriate market prices of assigning value to products.

Secondly, studies have shown that increased profits don't result in money trickling down. Increased profits just result in the rich executives getting richer. Conversely, decreased profits do trickle down and result in layoffs / budget decreases. It's fair to assume that the increased profits from the cash shop are then not trickling down, and are simply going to executives.

Looking at this document, http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/pdf/ar_2015en.pdf, it appears that SE received increased profits from 2014 to 2015 and saw a decrease in things like salaries from 2014 to 2015. There is a lot on there though, and I am no economics major. I'd be more than interested to see if anyone else has anything enlightening to say from it.

FFXIV is actually an example of precisely how a Cash Shop should be managed.

Going back to this point, I disagree. I think that Guild Wars 2 does the best job with their cash shop. Nothing is necessary to play the game (the same here), but you can purchase gems with gold or real money. Conversely, you can use this to buy gold with real money, which helps reduce RMT and provides an appropriate real world market price for gold. People can decide whether farming gold is more important to buy items, or if using real world money is more appropriate for buying items/gold - resulting in a balanced market value of money, time and gold.