Retainers and lootbox gambling

[Conadrium]

Specific issue comes up with items that can only be obtained via ventures. Like Young Water Lilies.
These can only be gathered by retainers.
The only way to get MORE retainers is spending real money.

Spending more IRL money, equals more 'rolls' on the venture lootbox, and a higher chance on getting an item you cannot get anywhere else.

Is this pretty much a lootbox scenario that other games get bashed for?

No because you get two free. (Three if you pay for the remote app). Loot boxes are typically scorned (Diablo immortal) when they are the ONLY way to get things in a game. Besides your own example shows these are all cosmetics. Basically no player power comes from it.

[UkcsAlias]

No because you get two free. (Three if you pay for the remote app). Loot boxes are typically scorned (Diablo immortal) when they are the ONLY way to get things in a game. Besides your own example shows these are all cosmetics. Basically no player power comes from it.

Most games that offer lootboxes, also offer free ones. This is not diffirent here.

But the effective way to measure here is how much gil it generates. And each retainer for that reason does generate some. So on that part it is a pay to win or lootbox mechanic where paying gives advantages. But a key aspect is: you dont need the retainers to obtain most items as they can be put on the market. And retainers are usualy still significantly slower at generating gil than crafting/gathering can generate. Sure they do take some of your time for this, but getting actual money also does.

But i do not see it as a lootbox mechanic because the retainers involve more features that matter more (selling slots and inventory). The ventures are just a bonus and a way to supply some resources. And it involves similar rng to trial/raid runs into getting rare items (except not demanding skill).

Lootbox mechanics often involve psychological issues in them, which cause people to retry and become jaleous etc. That is the reason why they are a problem. And in this game the treasure maps are closest towards a lootbox (and when buying with gil are truly a gamble). But this is also an expectation in an RPG. An rpg without random loot will just not feel satisfying to play as it makes the entire thing predictable/linear.