Pay for your inventory.

[polyphonica]

Except having that much space doesn't give you any advantage over anyone else, unless you're a pack rat.

If you're a serious crafter/trader and NOT a pack rat, then 2 retainers is plenty to be just as competitive as someone with 8 retainers. The only benefit to 8 retainers (or more than 2) is for collectors who don't like to throw things away.

The main issues are more the fact you can send them out on ventures, and the fact they can each sell things.

I do think these concerns have merit... but (as the post above alludes to), people who were really intent on doing this already could by having two service accounts, and/or by creating an FC for them and their alts. It's just less convenient since you have to move things around, and you have to level your alts to the early-20s to unlock retainers. So it's probably the case that the things people are worried about were already happening, and this change just made it a bit easier for "the average person".

I do think there need to be better systems put in place to address inventory, particularly as this patch introduces a whole ton of new items.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

[*]One retainer has an inventory size of 175 - with the two we can have for free, we have an additional 350 slots. Pay for 6 more and you'll have a total of 1400 inventory slots. With the amount of items already in game, with the glamour system we have, with the crafting/gathering system we have, with the number of upcoming gear being so high the patch notes won't even list it... This could as well go straight in the definition of unfair.

In no way, shape, or form does any sane person need 1400 inventory slots of bank space. Having one extra glamour set for EVERY class (Weapon, Head, Chest, Legs, Feet, and Off-hand) results in the use of 147 inventory slots. Unless you enjoy keeping multiple dye versions of the exact same piece of gear, there is absolutely no way that you would ever need that much space, and neither does it give you any advantage over another player just because you happen to have every boot model in the game for your White Mage on hand at any time.

[*]One retainer can have 20 items up for sale - 40 for the two we can have for free. Pay for 6 more and you can have a total of 160 items up for sale at once. That's literally paying to win, considering how some people can already play the market - now they'll be able to single-handedly destroy economies (or parts of it at the very least), just because they shell out more bucks than some others. Is that a fair advantage they should have??

The problem with this logic is that anyone can make 9 character alts in their own little free company and get 18 more retainers, totaling up to 360 more items for sale at once without paying a single dime. If it hasn't already broken the market board then it won't when people can do it on a single character. If anything, you're paying for the "convenience" of not having to log in & out to check your stalls.

[*]Retainer ventures. An additional six times the chance of obtaining rare (many otherwise unobtainable!) items, again, just because some decide to pay more money than others. In a game that's already subscription based, how on earth is that alright??

You do realize you have to gear, level, and manage all of those retainers, right? Not only is this a massive undertaking in it's own right, but retainers NEVER return with relevant gear or items, and once again only benefits players who are trying desperately to get rare glamour gear like the unobtainables you mentioned. Considering that you're still severely limited by your Venture income, this doesn't make it pay to win in the slightest. Just because you "play different" doesn't mean you can go crying out on the forums and accuse a perfectly fine cash shop model of being pay to win. If you want a good example of "pay to win" look at Air Mech Arena on the PS4 where it's a competitive game that has it's best items behind a pay wall.

And still they don't even seem to consider a glamour log. And still they're bullshitting us (sorry not sorry, but after this it's clearer than daylight to see) about how difficult it is to increase our inventory because of its size and the stress it puts on the servers.

You do realize that in order to implement such a system that they'd have to completely reprogram the way that the game works, right? Not to mention the dire effects it could have on the economy since they haven't been keeping track of the gear you're putting on up until now, so you'd see a spike in old content items that have no business being so pricey.

[BreathlessTao]

In no way, shape, or form does any sane person need 1400 inventory slots of bank space. Having one extra glamour set for EVERY class (Weapon, Head, Chest, Legs, Feet, and Off-hand) results in the use of 147 inventory slots. Unless you enjoy keeping multiple dye versions of the exact same piece of gear, there is absolutely no way that you would ever need that much space, and neither does it give you any advantage over another player just because you happen to have every boot model in the game for your White Mage on hand at any time.

...right. So you farm a given dungeon for a given set (while leveling up), and you finally have the set after so many runs (well beyond the dungeon level). You're gonna throw it away because it's no longer relevant? You're gonna throw it away, because if you decide to want to glamour it again, you just farm the place again (when you'll have more important things to do)? Yeah, good luck with that. Having one extra glamour for each job is not the point in itself (you conviently forgot to count the accessories there, btw, but let's overlook that for now) - the point is having the stuff you may want to glamour. Because with the current system, that's the only way to do it. Sure, if you don't care about glamour, it's not an issue for you. That doesn't mean it's not an issue in general. And even though it might not be all that important, green (and blue) items provide quite a bit of advantage over even HQ crafted gear while leveling up. Again, some might not care, but others sure do.

The problem with this logic is that anyone can make 9 character alts in their own little free company and get 18 more retainers, totaling up to 360 more items for sale at once without paying a single dime. If it hasn't already broken the market board then it won't when people can do it on a single character. If anything, you're paying for the "convenience" of not having to log in & out to check your stalls.

And that's already a problem in itself, yes. I certainly didn't argue that, nor do I think anyone else did. The increase of the retainer numbers only adds to it - if anything, I'd say this is even more infuriating with that in mind. And let's not forget you can't really conveniently exchange things between alts even if they're on the same server, this just takes care of that as well, since you won't have to.

You do realize you have to gear, level, and manage all of those retainers, right? Not only is this a massive undertaking in it's own right, but retainers NEVER return with relevant gear or items, and once again only benefits players who are trying desperately to get rare glamour gear like the unobtainables you mentioned. Considering that you're still severely limited by your Venture income, this doesn't make it pay to win in the slightest. Just because you "play different" doesn't mean you can go crying out on the forums and accuse a perfectly fine cash shop model of being pay to win. If you want a good example of "pay to win" look at Air Mech Arena on the PS4 where it's a competitive game that has it's best items behind a pay wall.

Yeah, and you do realise that those who'll be taking advantage of this are the ones that can gear, level, and manage all of those retainers without a problem, right? Venture is dirt cheap, as someone already pointed out. Also, if your retainers have never brought back one relevant gear or item for you... you're doing something wrong. And excuse you, but I pay the same amount of money for my game as anyone else, I have as much right to "go crying out" here when I don't like something as anyone else has to whiteknight everything SE does - complacency never changed anything, and if we just cheer at everything, they'll never stop "testing the waters" of how far they can go with the extra charges. Air Mech Arena is an actual F2P game, unlike FFXIV - which is why SE doesn't dare putting the game's best equipment behind a pay wall. Or at least it hasn't yet; I'm not sure we're not on the road to that destination anymore.

You do realize that in order to implement such a system that they'd have to completely reprogram the way that the game works, right? Not to mention the dire effects it could have on the economy since they haven't been keeping track of the gear you're putting on up until now, so you'd see a spike in old content items that have no business being so pricey.

You do realise (man, I'm getting tired of these) that it would do more good than harm on the long run, right? You do realise that it is their job to reprogram and tweak the game, whether that's daily maintenance or something completely new, for it to work properly, right? Most gear pieces that most people would want to use are already way too pricey on the market. Which is also why most people hold on to them once they acquire them. And holding on to them is only creating this admitted stress on the servers, storing so much character data - with the slew of new clothes and armours, that won't decrease. And with each new expansion, or even content patch, we're only getting more and more items. Not to even mention furnitures, especially timed (seasonal) ones, that most players can't even use, because well hey guess what, housing supply is nowhere near adequate either.


All in all, it's the very principle itself that is offending - and if someone can't see that, regardless of how it might or might not affect them, they need to open their eyes (or if they don't want to, then they're just ignorant). At the core of it, it's paying extra for significantly more inventory space (as basic a f2p element as it can get) - in a game that's already subscription based to begin with. In a game that thrives on its "everything on one character" system, at that. Like it was also pointed out, many of us are here in a sub-based game to avoid such schemes.
After being told countless times how difficult it would be to increase our inventories. Because of all the item data being so big. Because of that putting so much stress on the servers/network (in itself at least questionable in 2015, when pretty much nobody else seems to have issues with this). They pull a stunt like this, effectively revealing that it isn't a problem at all, they can very much do it. Just, y'know, pay more money on top of your subscription fee. Because all the sites don't report, time after time, how successful and profitable the game has been otherwise, anyway.
But whatever, keep on saying how irrelevant, or even awesome, this is; enjoy the comfort of your ignorance.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

Snip

So to sum it all up you literally want everything in the game because you never know when you may need it (and yeah, I left out the accessories because any class can wear any ring, so most normal people who have extremely disposable income maybe have 5 or so accessories that aren't able to go into the Armoire that they use to glamour), you have a distinct paranoia and distrust for any authority that hinders you in your goal to get everything, and the fact that you think everything can and should happen at the drop of a hat to appeal to your view of the world. I can just see you on your Culinarian now:



Jokes aside, most MMOs that allow you to buy inventory space severely restrict said inventory space to the point where even an economically sound player would need more space. In FFXIV's case it is indeed a significant amount of space, but it's also an extremely excessive amount. It's perfectly fair that if you want to have that excessive space that you pay for it, and since it's only $2 a month per retainer I can scarcely believe you're this up in arms at it since it's obviously not something that the average player would ever even consider paying for. If SE actually takes your complaints to heart you must realize their solution won't be to give you 8 free retainers, it will be to once again limit it to 2 without even the option of additional retainers.

All in all, it's the very principle itself that is offending - and if someone can't see that, regardless of how it might or might not affect them, they need to open their eyes (or if they don't want to, then they're just ignorant)

[FriendlyUncle]

Lots of stuff

The issue I have with this is the inventory space in this game is limited a great deal. Once all crafters are leveled your inventory will clear up a bit more aside from specific recipes you might use for profit there will be a few low end materials you keep around, Mythril, Steel, Toad/Boar leather in addition to the higher end materials.

Back during ye old materia rush for Relics, I made most of my gil selling the junk i49-50 accessories. So you have 2-3 different gems and probably a mix of NQ and HQ same with Electrum. Then theres the high-end stuff. Mosshorn DoH/L gear, Dodore leather gear. CUL for Risotto, Deviled Eggs, Buttons.

And thats just 2-3 crafters that I use for making Gil, and there are times when I switch things up depending on the market. That doesn't mean Im holding onto Animal skins, Bone chips or any super low end fairly worthless items that can be bought from vendors only when I need them.

Then look at a game like WoW, very simplified crafting system where you can only have two crafts, additional characters do not cost an additional bump in the sub, banks can now be shared between characters on the same server (I think), you can mail items to you alts(even cross server now), has a glamour system that does not require clinging to items that I am aware of(Pretty sure its near identical to Diablo 3) and they have 267 slots per character assuming max bags and people on WoW still want more inventory slots.

WoW has increased the maximum available inventory each expansion via bag size increases despite an extremely watered down crafting system that does not require many mats, does not require you to hold onto gear if you want to use it to look pretty later, and puts mounts and minions into a menu rather than inventory just like 14 but they still feel the need to increase inventory space. They even have the same vertical gear progress system for the most part.

Case in point inventory is an issue, maybe no for everyone but for some people and that does not mean they hoard. People who are interested in a wide variety of glamours or multiple crafts at multiple levels should not feel 'punished' by restrictive inventory space because SE wants to blame the server. Hell even FFXI increased storage albeit that had a very mixed gearing system.

There is a lot they can do to alleviate this issue. Add more weapons and armor to the armoire, particularly 'set' items. Allagan, High Allagan, DW, i90 relic armor. Finish and implement the Arms Guide system to tie into Glamour.

Allow us to transfer our mail with items to alternate characters, make Retainers or at least one(like a 'shared' bank) cross character (This digs into their potential money from additional retainers though and WILL NOT happen), if we have a room in a FC house allow the furnishings to actually matter. If I have an Armoire/Dresser allow it to hold x amount of armor. You cannot count the FC inventory as a player inventory unless the player expressly made their own FC and leveled it just for this, meaning it is probably a small or one player FC. Those in sizable FCs I highly doubt they are allowed to just sock away their personal crafting items in the company chest.

This is a requested feature, highly so. Just because some people do no have inventory issues does not mean that SE should be able to skirt around the issue and charge people for additional space. Taking in crafting, fishing, glamour, multiple class system the inventory space I can see the inventory system being extremely restrictive for those who are glamour happy or are primarily crafters/gatherers. There are people who pretty much only craft Mithrie Menethil is a well-known one.

SE needs to find a way to reduce the need for inventory in the glamour system, slightly increase armory slots/inventory slots, or create an inventory for crafting materials/gathered materials/fishing lures and baits. We all ready pay a sub every month, asking for additional inventory which should cost next to no time to add into the game and the load on the servers minimal compared to the option for people to have 8 retainers with full inventories including a full equipment set on them.

Stop telling SE that what they are doing is justified because it is not. Other games have given in-game only methods of increasing inventory alongside paid methods, WoW, FFXI, etc. SE needs to start following this example and not wall it entirely through cash methods. Keep retainers at 50:50 split, If you can have 8 total retainers, 4 are hired with gil, 4 with cash. 6 retainers, 3 with gil, 3 with cash. Just like how we have 2:2 right now.

Sorry for the long post but SE has been dragging their feet on this for a long time and it is very reminiscent of the 'Eternal Bonding' bomb shell was that some of the features would be hidden behind a pay wall what, a week before drop? How is this different, Yoshi P has been saying for a while inventory has been a problem and a week before drop it turns out they have corrected it if you feel like giving them extra money.

[Nyalia]

Honestly, the thing I was most looking forward to in HW was more inventory space. I'm a completionist and a collector. That's what I consider to be fun. I know not everyone is a completionist or a collector. That's totally irrelevant. I was hoping for at least some token extra inventory space - one free retainer, or three additional armory chest spaces per category. It didn't have to be much. Right now, there is barely enough main hand space to switch between all 24 jobs without stopping at a retainer to swap out main hands. With only 25 spots, this means you can only have an alternate weapon (such as for PvP) for a single job at a time.

I am really disappointed by this decision because SE is showing us that they can handle more inventory space for us, they just don't want to (without us forking over a much higher monthly fee). [comment on SE's income sources deleted in an attempt to avoid another ban], I'd think they could afford to give us at least one more retainer for free, or even just those 30 more armory chest spaces to offset the new jobs. Or, they could just let us mail our alts items so we can use mules with less hassle - that wouldn't even require any more server space than is already allocated. Of course, equipment is character bound, so you still couldn't collect one of every armor piece for glamour/completionism...

As much as this upsets me, of course, I'm not going to rage quit over it. I'm not canceling my subscription or my pre-order. I'm trying to decide how i'm going to handle the lack of inventory space. This kills a lot of my drive to play as much as I do, so I'll certainly play less after the initial excitement of 3.0 fades (that's not a threat or a whine, just a fact). The sensible decision would be to find an MMO that's more collector/completionist-friendly (this one seemed perfect because of the Armory system, but that didn't hold up), but, i'm not a terribly sensible person and I do like this game otherwise. I can either stop collecting equipment entirely (I have over 175 equipment items stored on retainers for glamours, plus a completely full armory chest), which would let me also cancel my third retainer. It would also make me run content less since I'd have no drive to collect gear from it, leading to me losing interest in the game much faster since there's less to do. Or, I can cancel my third retainer and instead upgrade my subscription so I can have 8 characters per server instead of 1. I can then use the other character slots to mule items and sell them on the MB in mass quantities. This wouldn't be an insurmountable hassle since my wife also plays and can bounce items for me, but it's still quite the hassle. My last option, which I really don't like, is to choose 2-3 classes to keep and drop all equipment for all other classes. That'll free up tons of space and still let me collect, but... it would cultivate the collector in me while killing the completionist.

I really don't like any of those options. Man, all my floon for the expansion just went poof =\ What's the point of cool new classes and gear (to a collector and a completionist) if you can't collect it all?

Really, for me, I guess this decision is a moot point now anyway. I'm going to be a mother in four months. This decision just leads me to quit the game when that happens rather than try to juggle MMOing with an infant. So, I guess this decision is triggering not an instant rage quit, but a slow, four month long "eh" quit.

Meh. Back to jRPGs for me, I guess.

[Lexia]

Some people will use all retainers they can get and be paying $30 a month to play.

[KisaiTenshi]

So, after talking dozens of times in interviews and Q&A about inventory problems with all the new recipe materials, gear and jobs in 3.0 the solutions is...

You can pay more retainers.

So it's impossible to adds a few more spaces to the armoury chest or increase the retainer capacity but it seems that allowing us to basically pay twice as much per month is completely doable.

Well, the aspect I don't like is that it's a monthly service, not a one-time service. This is freemium-grade nonsense targeted at hoarders. SE needs to provide other kinds of storage options (eg closets/bags) that have nothing to do with the retainer that simply aren't accessible without being in it's own instance (inn, room in a house, etc.)

Like the Glamour system is one reason why people keep otherwise-unusable items around.

[Sho86]

A friend of mine I mentioned this too actually thought of a interesting concept for it (and they don't even play lol). If SE doesn't want to hand out inventory space that easily, give a free retainer after X amount of months of sub time. That way people who are playing longer and have more stuff piled up will have the room. Meanwhile those who -must have- the extra retainers ahead of time can pay for them until their sub time catches up. Obviously not a perfect solution but I thought it sounded pretty good.

[Kuurei]

A friend of mine I mentioned this too actually thought of a interesting concept for it (and they don't even play lol). If SE doesn't want to hand out inventory space that easily, give a free retainer after X amount of months of sub time. That way people who are playing longer and have more stuff piled up will have the room. Meanwhile those who -must have- the extra retainers ahead of time can pay for them until their sub time catches up. Obviously not a perfect solution but I thought it sounded pretty good.

Would rather have this than SOME of the veteran fluff, that's for sure. Some of it's nice, but those Cascadier thingies...I never needed those.