À la carte MMO (Another Paid Retainers Complaint Thread)

[Lurkios]

Though a small one, these paid retainers are a step in a direction I have no desire to see this game go.

À la carte MMO: Back in the day we used to pay for "expansions" in MMOs. Huge updates that added new areas, quests, classes... Some people argued that their subscription should buy them the entire game for the life of the game (think EVE), others didn't mind so much. Personally, I never made any noise about it. Not that it would have made a difference, but I regret that now. I'm sitting here watching an MMO I love going À la carte - only pay for the parts you want* (*plus your subscription fee).

"All subscriptions are created equal, but some subscriptions are more equal than others."

Pay2Win: I've made a ton of money off my retainers. They bring back housing items easily worth 100k+ almost hourly. I also have a stack of unspent ventures which I continue to bring in far faster than I can actually spend them on two retainers. And before anyone tries to tell me that other players having a gil advantage doesn't degrade my experience I'll remind you of the marketboards and everything that can be purchased from them, which those with the extra gil/storage have a definite advantage in. More gil means more incredibly expensive materia to meld to my relatively expensive gear which means better items I can make with that melded gear, and back to more gil, fancy crafted gear, etc. etc. (Were I to partake in PvP I'd be furious, however I don't, so I'll leave that to someone else.) Where does it stop? Services that give me a definite advantage are in. Gear next? Maybe exp? How about my relic Animus - I'm tired of ATMA grinding, can I buy that?

tl;dr - I don't like paid retainers so I made a thread about it.

[Ilitsa]

I can see where you're coming from, but honestly I don't think a retainer or two is as game breaking as you're saying. Yes, it will make those that can afford to use them to their fullest ability richer in the end, but, really, isn't that how EVERY MMO ever has been? using that argument would be like wanting SE to gate every other player's time spent in game to a standard and then block their access, because those with more time will be more well off than those without. I honestly doubt they'll sell exp or gear ever, at most, maybe they'd sell stat-less glamour gear that looks like other random classic FF jobs (which would be kind of cool imo)

tl;dr: Paid retainers aren't that big of a deal, in the larger scope, and gear/exp won't be sold