Feeling punished for having alts...

[Melichoir]

The only players who are currently actually "punished" (or we can consider who play with some kind of penalty) are fair players who play with one account. Trading with alt is available in others MMOs without causing any arms (in my experience it is really not what is calling for RMT and bots since in F2P you can have a lot of accounts, you just need several emails)

This isnt accurate. You are ignoring the structure of those games vs how FFXIV works.

Look, the model that SE has set up for FFXIV is that it is designed around 1 PC. You can do everything you want in this game with just 1 PC. This means class options, storage options, gameplay, etc is designed around this aspect. That means some of the payment and monotization that is part of this game is designed around that factor. This isnt how some of the other mainstream MMOs operate. The go to example being WoW. They have a game designed where it is expected for you to have multiple characters per account because to play the game to it's fullest, see the most of the world, see the storylines, etc, youre gonna have Multiple Alts with different roles because each character you create is locked into 1 class and the limitations of that. This matters a great deal because it changes a lot of how things are approached. For example, it makes sense that you can mail gold and gear to alts in WoW because its a soft work around for players whove leveled to max and want to leverage what gametime they've already put into the game to get their new alts off to a stronger start. Alts that you are expected to make. FFXIV is not designed to haev a player create multiple alts. This doesnt mean you cant, but that the game doesnt expect the average player to do this on a regular basis, unlike wow. And the game and it's structures demonstrate this.

Lets think realistically about what happens though if you do import stuff like mailing alts from WoW to this game. If you decided to change the system, what you will see is people make the rational decision that instead of buying extra retainers, theyll just buy the 15 a month sub (if they havent already) and use the retainers on alts to get additional storage (This happens in WoW as it currently is, among other MMOs with game structures that are very close to WoW). With 7 Alts per server, thats an additional 14 retainers for an extra dollar or two. Now you could do that currently but there are road blocks in the way which discourage a majority of the player base from engaging in that practice. People have figured out ways around it, yes, but that does not mean that it is an intended feature.

This is just one example of why certain things dont play out. As Ive said I havent read every single response in the thread, but I dont recall seeing any point addressing this directly outside of something a long the lines of "Well, a handful of people exploit these loop holes in the current system, therefore its fine if everyone does it. There is no consequence to this." But there is. Whether you agree with it or not, SE makes money from retainer services for additional income. Advocating for you to be allowed to mail stuff to alts and the like would cause people to start creating bank alts because it is the rational thing to do, and shut off that revenue source for SE and the Devs. They would have to change monetization practices to make up for that shortfall. That could be anything from increasing the amount of items that are exclusive to mog station to increasing the cost of the full size account sub, hurting everyone who has it.

What is the work aroudn to this? Why does this point just get ignored or handwaved cause "Oh look, a small handful of people do it, therefore its not a legitimate point." It's pointing to statistical outliers and saying the whole thing is bunk.

That is my whole point. Would it be a great QoL improvement for people who do have alts? Yes. It would be pretty good. But it also comes with consequences that, at times, I feel people are turning a blind eye too cause it's inconvenient to what they want.

The limit of 20 letters with up to 5 attachments here would make the mail far less practical as an additional storage and transfer system. Alts are already being created and used for additional storage because there are already ways to transfer items. Allowing players to mail items between their alts won't start something that isn't already happening.

Except I think you and many others are overstating how often this is done. Im not saying its not being done, but that youre using the same argument as everyone else is: "Everyone is doing it already via loopholes so its all for nothing; therefore just make it allowed."

The simple reason why I dont think this is nearly as prevelant as is being argued is because this practice would directly cut into the Devs (and SEs) bottom line. If it was as widespread, they would change the monetization model to compensate OR put in more stringent safeguards to dampen the activity. They havent done either, which means theyre operating on a margin where they expect a certain % of the player base to abuse the loopholes, but the broader base to not due to how much effort is necessary and just settle for more retainers.

The common complaint I see is "SE is greedy and Money Grubbing!" and yet they would let such an 'easy and widespread' loophole that cuts directly into their profits remain in the game is contradictory.