Is it time we had another free retainer?

[Solarra]

...All that said, people who are paying a per-month subscription..with minimal effort and a 3 month-at-a-time payment, you can get up to 8 characters, each with retainers.

That's 8 characters who cannot interact unless you decide to make a single-person FC or are in a FC where you have permission to use the FC chest for transferring goods and/or gil between them. Alternatively, you can ask your friends to act as go-betweens every time you want to pass items or gil from one of your characters to another. I'm not sure how anyone could define that as minimal effort. The fact you feel the need to do it is surely admitting that 2 retainers is not enough.

It feels like storage in this game is 'one step forward, one step back':
- Beast tribe currency finally goes into the currency tab - say hello to all those pretty crystals and items from Eureka
- Fishing finally gets universal baits - Ocean fishing gets it's own exclusive baits and needs some of the old ARR baits as well!

I used to play WoW. Alts did not cost extra and like a lot of players, I had one alt who was simply the 'banker', gold and most items could be freely mailed between all characters in the same faction and many items were account bound. Despite the age of the game, dedicated storage for glamour and crafting were added in. Even before we got those, I never had the storage issues there that I have with FFXIV.
This game boasts you can do everything on one character, but the lack of storage makes it extremely difficult. Alts are not the answer, they cost extra and they certainly aren't 'minimal effort'.
If FFXIV were FTP, I'd accept limited storage, workrounds or paying for extra bags and Market Board slots, but a sub should cover you for all that. I think one extra retainer is the least we should have at this stage.

[kaynide]

That's 8 characters who cannot interact unless you decide to make a single-person FC or are in a FC where you have permission to use the FC chest for transferring goods and/or gil between them. Alternatively, you can ask your friends to act as go-betweens every time you want to pass items or gil from one of your characters to another. I'm not sure how anyone could define that as minimal effort. The fact you feel the need to do it is surely admitting that 2 retainers is not enough.

It feels like storage in this game is 'one step forward, one step back':
- Beast tribe currency finally goes into the currency tab - say hello to all those pretty crystals and items from Eureka
- Fishing finally gets universal baits - Ocean fishing gets it's own exclusive baits and needs some of the old ARR baits as well!

I used to play WoW. Alts did not cost extra and like a lot of players, I had one alt who was simply the 'banker', gold and most items could be freely mailed between all characters in the same faction and many items were account bound. Despite the age of the game, dedicated storage for glamour and crafting were added in. Even before we got those, I never had the storage issues there that I have with FFXIV.
This game boasts you can do everything on one character, but the lack of storage makes it extremely difficult. Alts are not the answer, they cost extra and they certainly aren't 'minimal effort'.
If FFXIV were FTP, I'd accept limited storage, workrounds or paying for extra bags and Market Board slots, but a sub should cover you for all that. I think one extra retainer is the least we should have at this stage.

Honestly it boggles my mind too why we don't have some kind of Account-wide vault (A la Guild Wars 2 or WoW). Not being able to transfer..or even mail my alts is, I agree, STUPID. I think the problem with the +1 retainer is that hoarders are just going to fill it up and complain they need another within a year. So, it might not be ideal for most, but I can see why SqE doesn't want to give them away.

Though to be honest, I am not sure why we don't have some form of material vault a la Guild Wars which just holds crafting mats...