Feeling punished for having alts...

[Melichoir]

People are really calling alts being extra inventory an exploit? I have to laugh.,...

No, the point being made was that just because you want something doesnt mean it doesnt have detrimental effects. Using alts for bank space and what not is just an example of what that means. To summerize:

lets say they did decide to change how mailing works and you can now mail to alts. Again, the rational thing for most people is to create bank alts. This means less retainer purchases. So either SE does one of two things if they want to keep that option open - Make storage account wide, so now all alts share the same storage space, OR raise the cost of the sub from 15 to something else (possibly 20 as a throw away average).

Both of those have pretty negative impacts, no matter how you cut it. If you make storage account wide, every time you have an alt, you 'divide' your storage space (so if you have 100 storage, an alt would make that 50 storage effectively between your main and alt, 3 alts would make it 33, 4 is 25, etc), eventually ending up with less overall storage than a person who only has one characters worth of items. You also screw over people who dont want shared bank inventory space.

If you raise tuition, you screw over people who do have the bigger account size for other purposes rather than wanting alts to play. Not to mention you create a higher barrier of entry for players which may disincentive people keeping their subs.

To further that point, SE has put in place purposefully means to prevent easy trade of items to alt characters. This is because the game is designed a certain way, particularly because the game is built around being able to do it all with 1 PC. This isnt like how some other MMOs operate, like WoW, where youre expected to have multiple alts.

Beyond that, people keep repeating the same point thinking that it justifies the position. "Oh, I can do some things to get around those road blocks, so therefore it's stopping nothing and we should allow it." Or a variation about how RMTers do it therefore everyone should.

I just want one person to address the following with a legit well thought out response other than recycled "RMTers Do it, or I can use a few ways to get around it so it's all moot.":

If you remove restrictions on who you can mail to, the rational thing to do is make bank alts if you want more storage. This means that buying the extra retainer services would be greatly impacted. How does SE address this problem now because it is an issue of revenue now?

I really don't get why you can't add your own alts as friends anyway.

Might have more to do with spam/harassment filtering. A lot of the systems are intermingled specifically to prevent certain actions from the player side. So to add a friend, they have to be online, and to mail someone, they have to be a friend. So Youre not gonna get random mail for harassers or spammers, or tons of 'friend' invites every time you log in from Gold spammers looking to advertise. Or from people you dont know or dont like. Is it perfect? No not really. Is it complete trash? No not really either. It's just a heavy handed filter.

Melichoir I have a question. You'er saying they do not give us the Mail to Alt option purely for money reasons. Are you also saying that you do not what this option added to the game?

If you could vote Y or N to have the ability to mail to alts what would be your answer? I don't care about why they don't have it, I care about "Noise" from the fan base to "Yes please give us this option".

Just curious.

If they can resolve the monetization issue with out severely impacting other people, itd be yes. Why not. It would be a QoL improvement. Im not opposed to it cause "Nyah, dont mail to alts cause its bad and wrong and stoopid!!" Im trying (probably poorly) to say that just because we want things doesnt mean that it wouldn't come without a price. The whole mailing thing was just the most immediate example of why some of this stuff doesnt add up. And that only came from people suggesting "Well WoW does it, so it's no problem if FFXIV does it" which ignores the fact that how WoW and FFXIV are designed at a foundation level arent the same. And those differences affect how the game operates and is monetized. Losing monetization means either making up for it in other spots (higher sub fees or more mogstation exclusives) and cutting development and operating on an even lower budget.