Retainer Markets vs Auction House

[zzapp]

I vividly and painfully recall, when I started playing this game in October, spending literally near-full days in one giant retainer ward searching for an item and best price. As most know, this entailed literally targeting and clicking on each and every retainer in the ward. Thankfully, these days are long gone. The search function was a giant step in the right direction, and for that I am grateful. However, as this game progresses it's still evident that this current retainer system is generations behind an auction house feature.

The player community was quick to devise a system that allowed visibility of HQ items vs. NQ, with the price suffix of 1/2/3. For a large part, this works fine. However, since the current search feature identifies and lists the 20 lowest priced items, when a particular item for sale exceeds that limitation, items priced 20+ never make the list. If one is selling, for example, a Crab Bow +3 on Istory it doesn't even show up, since there are currently 38 bows for sale. This is a major problem that needs to be resolved. I don't think I should have to stand in town spending my valuable game time shouting around an HQ item for sale because of a system limitation.

Further, with the current system, where everyone can see what's for sale, and at what price, you almost have to literally stand at the market to see who, in the last minute, has undercut your price. With an AH, you had a history of sales, but you couldn't see what the lowest asking price was. So, there was some reasonable element in that system that precluded direct price under-cuts. Overall, this provided for the basis of economic standard, which is not prevalent today with the current retainer system.

I'm sure there are other pluses for an AH that I've missed, but in its current state, the retainer/search function is woefully lacking. What's going to happen if this game ever does take off with the gaming community and the servers fill up? This is only going to be further exacerbated.

I've never seen an official response from SE regarding the reason for their hard stand against an AH. I assume it's a cost/storage issue. I, for one, would like to understand why we have to put up with such an inferior system when compared to a prior generation game ffxi, that worked so well.

[DoctorMog]

Dead Horse, Meet my beat stick.

Eli man, this has been discussed in excess.

While I am sure you think you have a new and fresh opinion on the matter, I can assure you all options have been spoken about already in great length all over these boards.

The devs are painfully aware of the wards vs AH debate.

[Zemeckis]

I really wished they would remove the wards system its very confusing. I vote for a market/AH system

[Trocien]

The retainer system is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. There are several reasons why FFXIV was the biggest fail game of 2010. The market is definitely one of them.

[Petori]

I think Wards work pretty well now (when compared to how it was). Maybe it's not as good and familiar as AH but it works well enough.

[Trocien]

You think they work well now compared to how they used to work... The problem with this picture is that there are fanboys who will gobble up and pay for anything that SE plops on their plate.

Square Enix has to try to sell this game to the reviewers again. People unfamiliar with the market wards are going to hate it. They are a nuisance.

[Shneibel]

all I can say is : "learn" to get use to it and stop make thread about AH crap since there are lot of it already

[KitCat]

All the wards are is a cluttered, more time-consuming, messy version of an AH. That's it.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Some people are idiots to think Wards are failure as of now, well to bad, is still being use and is still does come with steady income for me, your comments saying it failure is so over rated.

And i totally agree AH is by far superior, but in this case the Wards are functioning well enough. and i can live with that.

[thies]

Markets/Retainers: trying to be different ended up being "special". In a bad way.