mailing alts

[worldofneil]

I agree it would be nice to have but it's probably tied into coding of the game saying that you need to be online in order to receive an invite of some sort. In order to bypass this they would most likely have to change the way invites work.

Like everyone else I have no idea what the official reason is, but it's very likely by design.

When 2.0 came out there was a small period where you could add your alts as friends (by exiting the game in a dungeon, signing in to the other character, sending a friend request to the person in a dungeon, swapping back, coming out the dungeon and accept it), but within a few weeks SE patched/fixed it so you couldn't send friend requests to people in instances. So the way I read that is it's not so much the system couldn't do it, they just don't want us to.

I have no idea what happened to people who added their alts during that window though and if they're still on theirs own friends list etc (I didn't have an alt at the time so never tried it).

[LandricFrey]

If we could easily mail to our alts, then why would we pay for retainer services?

[Zojha]

This all tells me this isn't a very alt friendly game due to the lack of convenience in terms of alts.

And that's kinda the exact reason why people ask them to make alt-ing more convenient and the game more alt-friendly.

It's similar to glamour requests, really: The item you'd like currently isn't in the game, so people ask them to please put it in. If it already was in the game, you'd not need to make the request. Same goes for content. Or new dyes, housing... you can paste any kind of feature here.

As such, the OP simply gets my like. Maybe something will come of it, maybe not. I doubt it, for the same cynic reason as most - Retainer sale revenue.

[Aylis]

And that's kinda the exact reason why people ask them to make alt-ing more convenient and the game more alt-friendly.

I know, and I agree with the requests fully. Its just when I see SE trying to beat around the bush, make excuses and everything else under the sun as to why they can't do such things, or just flat out ignore them. It makes me really wonder if they are just flat out against people playing alts period.

[Callinon]

If we could easily mail to our alts, then why would we pay for retainer services?

Ding ding ding!

That's it right there.

There was some nonsense when the game launched about this being an RMT-prevention measure.................. lol. Worked well hasn't it?

No, a far better explanation is that if you could pay the sub fee for 8 characters on a server, there'd be absolutely no reason for you to pay extra sub fees for extra retainers. I did the math on this a while back and I'll dig it up if anyone is interested but suffice it to say the data involved in 8 full blown characters on a server is far in excess of the data extra retainers on a single character creates. So it's not a data issue... it just isn't. AND we've already been told that full character and retainer data is sent to the server and saved every 15 seconds whether it needs it or not, so the bandwidth use with a bunch of extra retainers is also far greater than it would be if you had 2 retainers each on 8 characters. Nope. It's all about the extra retainer fees. They found a way to make us subscribe to bank space and they've decided to milk that.

[Solarra]

I believe not many people use paid retainers (can't find the quote, sorry) so, I'm not sure this is purely a cash grab. It might simply be their vision for the game is single character, which sucks if you like your alts or RP. I have two alt characters I play regularly and an extra paid retainer. The assumption people would go back to two retainers if the allowed us to mail alts might not be true. I've no intention of ditching mine, they're too useful.

We already pay extra for our alt characters and not being able to mail them or share houses with them is a major pain. As it is, the more expensive sub that lets you have alts doesn't offer great value for money.

[Alisi]

It would create a pretty massive balancing issue for people who don't really use alts, since you'd have a ton more extra storage and MB slots to sell stuff. Yea you can "work-around" it now, but if it were easier it would be abused as everything tends to be. Consider payment practices too. They'd likely lose some money from people who have a lot of retainers as they wouldn't be as required, you can have up to 8 characters on a server or something right? That's a lot cheaper per month than hiring 7 additional retainers or whatever.

They do this already though. The work arounds aren't hard. They're simply annoying. People with alts and extra retainers are already here and they haven't destroyed the game. Most people deal with this by creating a personal FC or using friends. You can send money to alts very easily by having your alt put something very expensive up on the MB and then you buying it on your main. You simply lose 3% in taxes.

I also think you're very unfamiliar with endgame crafting/gathering. There's only so many hours in a day and crafting endgame stuff takes a lot of time. I have 8 retainers in total and I spend a huge amount of time crafting, and I only fill one or two, four retainers at the max, with stuff to sell. I can't see that increasing because having the ability to mail my alts isn't going to magically give me 5 more hrs each day to craft. I mean, there's a reason why endgame gear is expensive and it's not because crafters are greedy. There are two endgame crafters on my server who craft the 320 stuff. Me and another. The other sells way more but that's only because he literally (and I kid you not) has underling crafters and gatherers that work for him to get him what he needs. And even he only has three or so retainers selling stuff at any given time.

We live in a game where this is the reality already. Giving us the ability to mail stuff to alts isn't going to magically destroy things. And, yes, if you buy extra retainers, you get them on all your characters.

[Alisi]

Nope. It's all about the extra retainer fees. They found a way to make us subscribe to bank space and they've decided to milk that.

The value of a retainer goes way beyond the storage. I find the notion that one gets extra retainers only for their extra space to be silly. I'm not giving up my retainers if they allow us to mail stuff to alts. I don't even have them for their extra storage or MB slots. Those two things are the things people focus on but, imo, they're the most minor things about retainers. They're an army of people to send off and get you what you need. I don't think most people utilize retainers to their full potential.

[Callinon]

The value of a retainer goes way beyond the storage. I find the notion that one gets extra retainers only for their extra space to be silly. I'm not giving up my retainers if they allow us to mail stuff to alts. I don't even have them for their extra storage or MB slots. Those two things are the things people focus on but, imo, they're the most minor things about retainers. They're an army of people to send off and get you what you need. I don't think most people utilize retainers to their full potential.

The tangible benefits of extra retainers:
- Storage
- 20 extra market board slots
- Ventures

Those are the things retainers do. But when I'm talking about alts instead of retainers, we're really still talking about the same thing because each alt would have 2 of its own retainers which would still be doing all of those things. Admittedly farming ventures for alts might suck but if you're reaping a good benefit from ventures, then you'd just do it.

[Final-Fantasy]

If we could easily mail to our alts, then why would we pay for retainer services?

Although I think that it was once answered as to why we cannot have access to mail our alt characters, even though it was possible by using the dungeon exploit mentioned previously, I think this quote above explains exactly why it isn't a feature and why it never will be.

It doesn't affect me though, I have my own Company full of my alts, I use the guild bank to transfer items and large sums of Gil, I don't need to pay for more retainers as i have 16 for free this way.