Wards full again

[Namynyor]

I would say extend stalls to 3-day leases, and kick retainers on the floor out automatically after 24-hours unless the player dismisses and resummons them within that time frame. That would go a long, long way towards fixing the problem.

Not every player will log on every day. FFXI had a 5 day limit on items being available in the AH. But the time spent in a ward isn't the problem. People need to SPREAD OUT. There are 3 cities, and all of the problems with overcrowding are only coming in Ul'dah. I even have problems outside of the wards in ul'dah because of lag from too many players gathered in the city doing nothing. As it is now, I only go to Ul'dah when I need to for GLA guild, and to purchase new weapon for GLA, as my BSM isn't high enough to make the parts (backwards recipes, need a higher rank to create a blade for a sword than to make the sword itself, which runs on average 10 ranks higher than the GLA rank to equip it: Iron Spatha (GLA31, BSM30 to craft) made from Iron Spatha Blade (BSM37 to craft) and Scale Glue (ALC44 to craft) among other items.) If I need a weapon for CON, I don't want to go to Ul'dah, which has nothing to do with CON, I want to go to Gridania, which has CON guild and the CRP guild (used for making staves and wands). With guilds no restricting the issuing of marks to leves in their own city, retainers selling weapons/tools for ARC, BOT, CON, and LNC, and base items (hides, sinews, leather, logs, lumber, chips)for CRP and LTH should all be based in Gridania now. Granted, the lumber and leather should be in all cities, as they're used for other crafts as well, but primarily should be in Gridania, as that is the primary place for their usage, and chips are only used for leathercrafting. If people would spread out of Ul'dah accordingly, the markets wouldn't get overcrowded so badly. At a max/city of 6000 retainers, that's 18000 retainers allowed in markets total, and a player base of 9000 characters. I'm sure every world isn't at those levels yet, so the markets aren't 'full'. And people WILL go to the other cities to buy things, since they have to go to those cities for Grand Companies quests, and guilds.

Maybe if SE would cap the SP until class quests are completed, it would make people spread out more (similar to the crafting guilds of FFXI capping you every 10 levels until you did a 'test' to proceed to crafting to higher level crafts. This would slow down some of the speed-grinding that people want to do, as they will be forced to go attend to class specific quests at certain intervals, and make people travel around the world more, prompting increased use of the wards in other cities.

BTW, as to the issue of 'not wanting to use their anima to go to other cities for markets, I have traveled a good bit of the available world, and rarely have less than 90 anima, because I would rather run from point to point than use up the anima. I primarily only use anima for warping to another city. I have retainers for both of my characters in Gridania, because I refuse to use Ul'dah markets unless I'm staying there long-term (doing leves for GLA marks, which I'm not focusing on right now, in favor of LTH, CRP, CON and ARC). I also just spent 3.2k gil on crafting my own MRD 10 weapon for second char, the highest expense of which was the required color-treated leather strap which is out of range of LTH13 to make, instead of spending 45k+ at markets, even though I have almost 900k. When prices more accurately reflect the costs involved, I will be more inclined to purchase, but I can't justify anything over 10k for a r10 weapon or tool (and notice, SE charges 25k from NPC for the secondary tools for each craft, and I'll see the same tool in markets for 40-60k)