The conpainon app

[Luna-M]

Is everyone on discord and willing to share even that much communications details outside of the game? I use discord myself, you'll notice I said as much in my post. But I can see why some people wouldn't want to hop in. Is Discord as popular in Japan, also? Because that could help explain the rate disparity.

And mind you, that part was the only thing I played Devil's Advocate for. I agree with you about the rest of it. Going to get my emote when it hits and that'll be that.

I think LINE is their big messaging plattform. My understanding Discord is pretty non existent in japan.

[KisaiTenshi]

What gets me the most is that you can't switch characters after you signed in the one time. Like, really?

A consequence of them wanting to monetize it. Speculatively speaking, the app appears in the Mog Station account-type list, so it's very likely they can't make it account-wide (eg all characters given an additional retainer), nor can you register more than one app with an account, even if you have multiple devices.

The chat component would be horribly over-complicated, if permitted to login to all your characters at once, though it probably should have done that. Perhaps they didn't want to create a situation where players see other characters on the same server they're not friends with being in a merged contact list. Or maybe it would just be too bandwidth intensive to keep connected. Kinda surprised they didn't just make it so that linkshells are relayed through it. That would have, at the minimum, made it more useful than simply discord or other external chat tools.

[Bebekurenai]

Very disappointed with this app. Could have been fantastic, able to talk to players in the whole data center, what am I saying, the entire server list, since we can't PM on Lodestone and these forums (I mean, for real SE? it's 2018 soon 2019...) but nop. Only same server, chat is like the worst feature, takes ages to connect, send etc, and omgosh, the options tab is just about language hehe.
I don't know if we are being trolled or what. Whoever pays for the extra nuts and whatnot needs to reconsider their lifechoices. And those who play more than one character, poor guys, can only use one character and never change it.
Very bad Yoshi, much fail, no wow.

[Alrin]

In its current form it is usable only by few players. However there is a potential in it and if it will be expanded it can be really good (and not charging these incredible prices for it...some payment can be justified but this is to much for to little)

[Hamada]

The retainer is free at no additional charge, according to the premium list in the app. Here is the exact text: "Hire an extra retainer in-game for no additional cost."

then explain to me why an AAA company has translation problems when releasing information? When they first announced the app they made it sound like you needed to pay more for the retainer after buying the premium. Regardless my point still stands, it costs too much money for a sub model, and all that extra fees is not going into the game otherwise it would be 1000 times better.

[LadyKairi]

Snip.

I could care less if it was advertised or not. It’s sad a far older game was able to do a fantastic app YEARS ago, all while being completely free. This app could have been so much better. There are plenty of typical app to app messaging apps out there, we don’t need more. What we needed was a way to communicate with people online while on your phone. What is the point in an app for an MMO if you can’t do that?


I don’t care to try and understand why people wouldn’t want discord. Frankly it’s none of my business, and if someone doesn’t want it I won’t try to change their mind. That’s their choice, even if I find it odd myself. The best solution that would’ve made everyone happy is to have communication from app to game. That way those who wanted to keep using discord can, while still able to keep in touch with people in game that don’t have it.

I dunno, just my opinion. It just could’ve been better.

[Niwashi]

Speculatively speaking, the app appears in the Mog Station account-type list, so it's very likely they can't make it account-wide (eg all characters given an additional retainer)

Actually, the fact that it's registered to the account means it would be far easier to make it account wide, just like extra retainers you buy are account wide, platforms registered are account wide, collector's edition benefits are account wide, veteran rewards earned are account wide, etc. They went to extra effort to make this one (and only) piece of account information limited to a single character. It makes no sense.

Between that and not letting you use the app while logged in to the game, they've pretty completely eliminated any usefulness from this app. I've often been interested in something for one character and wanted to check whether one of my alts already has it, but both the one-character restriction and the not-while-in-game restriction eliminate that possibility. As someone mentioned earlier, it would also be nice to check MB prices while out gathering, but you can't do that either.

So with both the inventory view and the MB view made useless, what's left? Chat? With such a plethora of messaging apps out there, the only difficulty in getting your FC, static, or any other group of friends to use one is getting them all to agree on which one to use. Adding one more generic chat app into the mix doesn't help that. (Now if this made use of the fact that it's supposed to be associated with the game, so could give us access to the same FC and Linkshell chat channels that are used within the game, then it might have something to recommend it, but apparently it doesn't.)

I'll probably still go ahead and download and register the app, just to get the favored teleport destination, but I don't anticipate ever actually using the app for anything. It doesn't even offer the nice item/recipe/quest database that Libra Eorzea did.

[KisaiTenshi]

Actually, the fact that it's registered to the account means it would be far easier to make it account wide, just like extra retainers you buy are account wide, platforms registered are account wide, collector's edition benefits are account wide, veteran rewards earned are account wide, etc. They went to extra effort to make this one (and only) piece of account information limited to a single character. It makes no sense.

It takes no effort to see how it works. The App is registered at the account level, which means they could have added the additional retainer/free teleport account wide, regardless if it's used. However the APP itself can't have other characters logged in, or at all. It warns you straight up that only one character can ever be registered to it. Like I said earlier, it likely operates on SOAP protocol, so they likely can't serialize multiple character updates because it can only maintain the state of one character. It could probably be chalked up to developer cheapness/not-wanting-to-put-the-effort more than anything else.

Between that and not letting you use the app while logged in to the game, they've pretty completely eliminated any usefulness from this app. I've often been interested in something for one character and wanted to check whether one of my alts already has it, but both the one-character restriction and the not-while-in-game restriction eliminate that possibility. As someone mentioned earlier, it would also be nice to check MB prices while out gathering, but you can't do that either.

Yes, it's basically not useful other than setting of some kind of raid schedule for players who don't use other communication tools.

[worldofneil]

It takes no effort to see how it works. The App is registered at the account level, which means they could have added the additional retainer/free teleport account wide, regardless if it's used.

And they have done. I have 6 services accounts on the same account, but as you know in the app I could only select a single service account/character.

However, both of my service accounts that are currently active has the additional free destination. My service accounts that aren't active don't have it enabled, but then I'm guessing if I were to start their subscription up again, they'd get it too (see below).

Also just to confirm, I've only ever installed the application the one time, and only ever selected the single service account/character.

So the big question I'm wondering now, is the premium sub per actual Square Enix account, not per service account? I still hate the idea of a sub within a sub... but it's slightly more palatable if its per main account.

[K3KW4RCHILD]

I'm afraid of getting banned from these forums if I say bad things about anything SE does. So let's just leave it at this: This app is useless in its current state. It's in the 1.0 stage and I am fully confident that FFXIV Companion, the App Reborn, will at least be useful. As far as cash grabs go, this one is not only blatant, but it is also inept.