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

[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.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The dyes are not unique and retainers can bring them. All of the orchestrion rolls were available in game, other than the ones that came with soundtracks, if you did the events. In fact, 90% of the stuff on the mogstation was available in game to those who were playing at the time.

I have no opinion on level boosts as I never have jobs that can use them. The glamour items on the shop that aren't former event items are either npc items that had to be converted or items from other regions shops that people requested for ours.

As for minions, only people who bought the before meteor soundtrack and all art books, plushies, and other soundtracks will ever be able to have a complete collection.

The mounts are mostly recolors, except for the Odin mount and moogle.

I'll give you the emotes, and I have a few, but honestly, I use them so sparsely that I wouldn't notice if they were gone.

I'm honestly confused why people think they don't give us much lol, after making this list the mogstation really kind of sucks on unique things XD

[Usho]

I explained why it is pay to win and you sit here just to attack me and call me a troll? 10/10, no the only one is trolling and trying start flames is you

Star, I like you but I must ask that you do not feed the White Knights. They will defend the game to death while being fully aware of the obvious flaws and obvious pitfalls. SE is walking a slippery slope with moving their transactions beyond glamour/cosmetics etc on mogstation. Heck, they even added a shopping cart. Soon Mogstation will become HSN or QVC network and that's something that makes me cringe. They already passed a line with the Jump potions, but adding more micro transactions like what the live letter showed us will further degrade this amazing game and will be met with a lot of backlash. The economy is already rampant with undercutters...please don't make this any worse than it already is SE...for the sake of the game.

[Shouko]

Snip

Is it P2W if someone has 7 retainers now over the basic 2?

I know I have 3 retainers and while not rich by omni crafter/owning multiple house standards, I can afford nearly anything in the game other than the most expensive minions and newest glam, but I don't need either or to enjoy the game. Someone that's an omni crafter might make what I have total in a day but that's just fine. This isn't an issue folks, people need to stop whining about every little thing SE does that you don't like.

[LastFireAce]

may no be P2W, you no wrong. Kupo currency is lame, we should't need to pay a sub for app game. hell even Destiny app is free you can do as much and more then everything they listed in the live letter.

[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.

[Sarynth]

I have to agree with the op here. SE keeps tacking on little things like a cash shop with services and cosmetics, a few paid retainers here, and now an app that gives you the ability to change the marketboard constantly by paying real life money for more kupo coins. Keep defending this and FFXIV will eventually reach the point that dungeons and dragons online got to where each individual dungeon and raid past a certain level required you to pony up cash just to unlock it. And also for some people crafting is their endgame and this is going to affect their gameplay when someone can just throw money at the screen to get stuff like more retainers and inventory space. For me personally I feel lied to by SE constantly saying that they couldn't add more space due to server limitations, but now it's become "pay us $5 a month for this app and your choco bags get doubled". What makes this even worse is that SE is blatantly funneling the proceeds into other projects almost like FFXIV is nothing more than a cash cow. I'll close with there used to be a time when subscription mmos only charged a subscription and at most a little extra for server changes or extra chars. What makes all this nickle and diming ok now?

p.s screw 1000 char post limits

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I have to agree with the op here. SE keeps tacking on little things like a cash shop with services and cosmetics, a few paid retainers here, and now an app that gives you the ability to change the marketboard constantly by paying real life money for more kupo coins. Keep defending this and FFXIV will eventually reach the point that dungeons and dragons online got to where each individual dungeon and raid past a certain level required you to pony up cash just to unlock it.

People have been saying this since the cash shop released. "Next thing you know, raids will be $15 on the mogstation. Still havent even seen a hint of movement that way. In fact, the only services that are on the mogstation are retainer based. (i dont count the jump potions as a service).

This is one of those fallacies people like to say "white knights" only use. The mogstation actually sucks for real unique stuff, which is good.

[Callinon]

(i dont count the jump potions as a service).

Oddly selective

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Oddly selective

Maybe service is the wrong word to use, but you don't pay monthly for jump potions. (at least I hope not, who needs to jump that many jobs?!)

That would be like claiming the mounts are the same way, or npc glamour items, or fantasias (though some people do use these monthly or even weekly or daily lol)