Suggestion: allow sharing one or more retainers with alts

[Silverbane]

I'm not sure whether the current difficulty in moving items between characters in the same account ("alts") is 1) a game-design decision (to forestall certain exploits that might be possible otherwise) or 2) a result of performance considerations or memory space limitations.

But if it is #2, then perhaps we could make moving stuff between alts easier by allowing sharing of one or more retainers. Here, you would hire a retainer nicknamed "Ret" on one character in the account, and then hire "Ret" from another character in the account as well. An additional menu entry at the Retainer Vocate, "Hire an existing retainer of this account," would be added, which when selected would ask for the retainer's nickname.

In the software, this might be implemented by simply having two pointers (one for each alt) pointing to the same retainer data structure. There should be no increase in memory use, no increase in the amount of data that needs to be loaded, no performance decrease.

There might be some necessary restrictions on a shared retainer, such as not allowing bound gear to be stored in that retainer, and you might not be able to equip it for ventures either, to prevent transfer of bound gear between characters. I'd be OK with that on one retainer.

Of course, there might not be much benefit to SE in doing this. I'm not sure how many people play alts, or how many would do so if it was easier to transfer stuff between them, or whether that would increase SE revenues.

[Cyrusskorrey]

it would be nice to have easier access to my alts and mains items.

[Malzian]

While it would be nice, the standard rationale applies here for most every other reason it's more difficult to move items/currency around... RMTs and mules.

[Ragology]

It would be restricted to server-bound alts, right? So that people from high gil servers wouldn't be able to buy from low gil servers and sell on high ones?

[CUTS3R]

Kinda off topic but since we're talking about sharing stuff with alts, i just want to be able to share my house with my alt from the same account and server.
As you know we cant add alts from the same account to our friend list so it makes us unable to share a house with them.

[Shadygrove]

Seeing how easy moving stuff between alts was in FFXI I am positive the current difficulties in XIV was intentional.

Indeed, for a short time in 2.0 (I think, maybe some 2.0x) you could FL an alt. Then they "fixed" it

[BARDS_ARROW]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-stuff-to-alts

A related topic about mailing gear etc to alts! But I agree. If it was server bound/locked, something like this would be fantastic.

[Kosmos992k]

How about simply creating a special 'locker' that only unlocks for characters on the same server/account, and allow you to place up to 20 (plucking a number from thin air) things in the locker that will be accessible to all characters on a specific server/account.

[Tyrn]

Call me jaded but all you need to ask yourself when making a suggestion is "Can SE with this suggestion milk more money from frustrated players?" if the answer isn't yes then it probably isn't going to happen.

In this case people would have fewer reasons to pay for additional retainers if transferring items to other characters on your account was actually somewhat feasible so it's sadly not going to happen.

[TaleraRistain]

This game *not* having a shared bank like pretty much every other MMO on the market has actually made me scratch my head a lot. Now, those other games do have a design that forces you to alts to experience different classes so it's more necessary there. But for me it's such a facet of MMOs that it makes FFXIV feel behind the times on this particular point.