QoL Suggestion: Contract Suspended! Let me take items from retainers.

[Hen-Hen]

I bought additional retainers with my first sub, because I needed the inventory space. When it came to sub renewal there was an issue and I couldn't renew the retainer service with my sub, and somewhere between the sub and retainer purchase the system decided to throw a fit and hasn't let me get my retainers back. This isn't about my billing issues.

My very last retainer I decided to get I decided to give my key items, stuff that I would want down the line but not stuff I would need right that second, stuff like allagan catalysts, midan gears, aether oils, etc., but I can't update the service, so the contracts are suspended, and those items are now completely inaccessible.

So, my suggestion, that I've spent an awful long time building up to, is to ask that contract suspended retainers still let you take items from them (and only take items from them), so that players don't have to wait the weeks it takes customer support to resolve the issue to get at items which are theirs.

[Lambdafish]

Agreed, I'm not sure how the system works because I have never tried, but by the sounds of it, if you wanted to cancel your retainer sub you would need to completely empty the retainer first, take off all their gear etc. beforehand otherwise you can't access that stuff. Which is silly IMO, just make it so you can't add anything to the retainer, they can't sell, go on ventures etc. but you can still remove items, gil, and gear.

[Atoli]

I would apprechiate that, as I had a somewhat similar issue before.
But I can see how that would be a problem. When you don't pay for the retainer, it gets effectively frozen, most likely in a way that only stores data on which items the retainer holds.
Making it possible to still take items from the retainer basically means it would have to remain active, which assumingly takes a lot more resources than the frozen state. Extra resources you are currently not paying for.
So I'd understand if SE wouldn't consider changing this.

[Sida]

Nice as this would be, it would be abused. Between people who would use it as long-time storage, for stuff they might need in the future, and people who have legitimate issues with renewing their retainer sub, the former would far outweight the latter. Even now it can be used sort of in this manner but at least those meaning to abuse it need to go through the hassle of renewing the sub to access them.

Don't get me wrong, I think we should really be given more free inventory space with the ever increasing amount of items people sort of need to stock. However the rules should be the same for everyone. It shouldn't punish those who actively use their inventory space against those who only want to make withdrawal every now and then.

Possibly viable solution would be ability to release the whole of outdated retainers inventory at once to an NPC where it needs to be removed in limited time, much like happens to furniture now if one looses their FC room. Not automatically though, but from in-game request to some npc handling it., not to punish people who are taking break from the game. This would make it possible to release assets otherwise locked in, but wouldn't let to use it as free "withdraw whenever" additional storage space.

[fumofu]

If you can't claim stuff from retainers, just because there are some issues with system not allowing you to do it for some reason - then support should help with that. Otherwise, for people who don't want to pay for retainers and still expect to somehow use their space, well...
Also, i really like that pricing for retainers service is dependant on remaining subscription time. So, if you don't plan on using retainers much and just wanna get all your stuff from them - you can simply purchase their service on the last day of subscription period very cheap. I think it's just 0.05€ per day for 1 retainer.

[worldofneil]

You should just be able to go to the Mogstation and renew the retainers by themselves (I had this happen after I added the 30 free days from the PS3 licence and therefore the retainers didn't get auto billed/extended too).

A more drastic solution (and a pretty rubbish one in my opinion, but I'm going to suggest it anyway as it might actually be an option) is to fire your retainers you do have access to, until the retainer(s) you want is available. Each time you fire a retainer it moves up a slot (2 becomes 1, 3 becomes 2, etc.) so you could technically fire 6 retainers and have access to what was 7 and 8.

Not a pretty solution at all and you'd lose all retainer level progress not to mention you'd have to find a way to store/discard the items they all hold... but mentioning it anyway in case it somehow helps...

[XiXiQ]

Nice as this would be, it would be abused.

Not necessarilly, they could just introduce a grace period of a week or so that allows removal of items only, which means people needing support of some kind aren't left hanging. There's nothing stopping people from using those retainers for long term storage as it is, the only time payment is required is when you want to access the stuff - they can already sit around storing their items indefinitely when not financial.