Stop with the pay to win advanages for retainers, suggestions on fixes

[LeoLupinos]

Pay to win? How is it exactly pay to win, what does your character do better in combat or anywhere else to make your character stronger? You have time to explain.

How is it pay to win?

What is the prize? What are you winning from the retainer?

What pvp advantage does the retainer give to make it pay to win?

Is this retainer giving out EX mounts?

Do you both already played Fair games that become Pay to win over the time? They started with simple moves like these ones from SE. Anything more than cosmetic/glamour is somewhat pay to win. Retainers can control economy, so you pay to win at economy. You can have a lot of retainers, so a lot of ventures, a lot of gill and mats, so pay to win more. As you can see, only with these examples, it's not only cosmetic, while there's much more examples.

[Derio]

Do you both already played Fair games that become Pay to win over the time? They started with simple moves like these ones from SE. Anything more than cosmetic/glamour is somewhat pay to win. Retainers can control economy, so you pay to win at economy. You can have a lot of retainers, so a lot of ventures, a lot of gill and mats, so pay to win more. As you can see, only with these examples, it's not only cosmetic, while there's much more examples.

By that example. FFXIV went P2W a long time ago. If someone has 9 retainers compared to someone who has only 2. App or no App, if that person has no life and can stay on ffxiv all day, then they win

[KisaiTenshi]

Do you both already played Fair games that become Pay to win over the time? They started with simple moves like these ones from SE. Anything more than cosmetic/glamour is somewhat pay to win. Retainers can control economy, so you pay to win at economy. You can have a lot of retainers, so a lot of ventures, a lot of gill and mats, so pay to win more. As you can see, only with these examples, it's not only cosmetic, while there's much more examples.

The reason cosmetic stuff isn't "P2W" is because they can't affect the game, but in some games (*cough*mabinogi*cough) they in fact do as a way to drive sales of those "cosmetic" items. I could list off every Nexon P2W trick but it would be probably be a few pages.

An item is only cosmetic if the item can specifically be purchased as-you-want-it. Which means that if "Cute Dress with Hat" is in the shop, and I want it for some reason, I can buy it, and it will only piss off the people who collect things. If it's hidden behind Gachapon/Lootboxes, then it's straight up gambling and are Skinner boxes.

Here's where SE has screwed this up.

- There are 21 minions in the cash shop, they can be used in Lord of Verminion, and "collecting them all" is something people do. 21*5=$105
- There are 10 mounts in the cash shop, collecting them all is something people do. 4*12 (per character), 5*24 (account wide), 29.99= $197.99
- There are 8 Orchestrion Rolls in the cash shop, if you are collecting them all, well you're out of luck. 8*3=$24.

So by putting these in the cash shop, you're already squeezing at least $300 out of players who must have everything to complete their collection/achievements, especially those who missed the opportunity to get them from an event.

- There are 16 emotes in the cash shop that you can't get in the game any other way. It may not be P2W, but it's still a kick in the face.

- There are 54 character outfits. Since there is no progress attached to these, these, yes are optional and do not affect the game. However, certain outfits should have been in the game, like the Blackbosom attire (eg PotD) , and the Scions outfits (for 2.0/3.0 content.) Is it annoying they aren't? Yes a little, but it's not something to lose sleep over.

- 72 Unisex seasonal items plus 24 womens/mens gender-locked items. Miss out on an event? So sorry, you can buy it.

- There are 40 dyes in the shop, you can not make them in game, where is the logic in that? They are split between single dyes and stacks of 10. So really 20 colors that you can't normally use in the game. I was considering buying these before when I couldn't find a color that fit an outfit, but then decided to just use another outfit I could dye normally.

Then finally we have the Level boosts and Scenario skips
- Boost your retainer, this is sheer P2W. $9/ea or $40.50 for a stack of 5. Absolutely P2W
- Boost a job, 13 x $25/ea, also note they come with 30 Platinum Allagan pieces so 300,000 gil. Absolutely P2W.


The retainers are a "rental" system, so you are paying more per month just to have them.
A maximum of 7 retainers can be hired per service account, $2.00 for 30 days/each.
So someone can optionally pay $14/mo to be an enormous packrack or crafter. So just like screwing people with low compulsion control with lootboxes, this is screwing with people with OCD that have anxiety about throwing things away.

Really they should have broken the retainer system in half, by making it a one-time charge for each additional retainer, but maxing out the number of retainers that can be selling at once to one with a longer list. Or redesign that so that there is a separate single "store" that all the retainers are a part of, and instead "rent" additional slots in the store to conserve resources and keep RMT from being able to monopolize a market on a server. I'm not even sure why they assign retainers to separate areas, when you can buy from all of them regardless of where the marketboard is. Perhaps that's still a hold over from V1.0.

[Callinon]

The retainers are a "rental" system, so you are paying more per month just to have them.
A maximum of 7 retainers can be hired per service account, $2.00 for 30 days/each.
So someone can optionally pay $14/mo to be an enormous packrack or crafter. So just like screwing people with low compulsion control with lootboxes, this is screwing with people with OCD that have anxiety about throwing things away.

I'd like to point out here that not even free-to-play games make you SUBSCRIBE to bank space. You buy your bank space or your AH slots and you're golden. You never have to pay for them again. Subscription Game FFXIV? Keep paying.