Of Retainers and Auction Houses

[Tetsaru]

I already posted my thoughts on how I think player shops should be handled...

In comparison to PSU again, your Partner Machinery, or PM (pretty much the equivalent of a retainer in FF14), could be leveled up in terms of what items it could synthesize and battling alongside you, but its battle level was pretty much irrelevant due to the horrible AI on that game, other than changing what model PM you had (some PM models required a certain level battle stat in order to turn them into that model), plus the fact that each PM model had fixed gear that couldn't be changed. As such, if you weren't using them to store or sell items, they were pretty much used only as meatshields in battle, some of them casting random weak buffs and heals, some using a special attack at the most inopportune times if they somehow managed to live long enough. One of the main reasons why PSO veterans are raving to see MAG's again in PSO2, but I digress...

Having your retainers go to different areas sounds like a cool concept, but I think it would be largely unnecessary. I think it would be easier for everyone to manage their items for sale through their own personal housing that could easily be instanced, rather than confusing, crappy-looking Market Ward hallways filled with retainers, or grouping tons of players in one spot at an Auction House where prices aren't listed, and multiple AH's may not be able to interact with each other, meaning that Ul'dah would most likely remain the center of the game's economy, and server load would continue to be an issue. Besides, most people I know always use their personal bazaars for extra storage space rather than sell things through them, because let's face it: no one's going to search through every single player's shop just to see what they have, especially without a proper search function, which we don't even have in the wards yet. If you're wanting to buy or sell something, there should just be a designated place for it.

That said, if the AI was done properly, and we could change their equipment, I wouldn't mind being able to have retainers (or hell, our Path Companions from the main storyline quests... is SE going to do anything else with them?) assist me in battle when soloing. I'm just not too keen on the idea of item-selling being so automated and inefficient.

[OMEGA_HACK]

I think if you attepted it, most of these ideas would make you put a gun in your mouth once you realize how "okay" ideas sound good until you impliment them then see how many issues you never thought of can occur.

That, and frankly, I feel your ideas are massivly overcomplicated concepts of much simpler and easier to manage systems that could be put in there place.

Care to elaborate on the bold? Or are you speaking of the current method of having to browse through bazaars manually and have to be within a certain range to purchase (like 2 ft from them) although you can "browse" from 15ft...then have to make sure they are not running away because you cannot move when you Browse a Bazaar--being the simpler and easier system? This is a discussion so all ideas are worthy of mention, hell it would be nice to suggest and refine to what we want so if/when SE does it, it's what we asked for rather than just a random stab in the dark.

retainers are not being put out of commission, you will still set up what you are selling in your retainer just like you do now, the search system will still be checking through a database of retainers, and will still show the results of the retainers that have the items you want, at this point you will be able to go for a run in the MW to find the retainer you want, or buy direct from teh search counter. you still need a retainer to do business

You are correct in every way, but honestly, if we have an Auction House-like system take effect in 1.20 then why even bother with the MW? Just make it a full-blown AH system, if it works like an AH, smells like an AH, but doesn't look like one...might has well change the appearance and seal the deal, no? Also why can't retainers do both? Why cant they become personal house merchants, wherein you can tell them to add a certain item to the AH, as well as search people's bazaars?

I wouldn't mind a little mini game for leveling up your retainer, with each level giving it certain perks. My big issue had always been devising a way that would keep people from gaming the system.

If leveling up with based upon the number of transactions, I could ask a bunch of my friends to buy everything on my retainer and I'd gladly pay them back. And in under an hour, I'd get enough transactions to max out my retainer.

I never could thing of a fun and interesting way to level up a retainer.

Sadly transaction numbers were the only way I could think to level it up as well...which sadly can be broken by what you've pointed out. So any suggestion to better this would be welcome! ^^;

I like the idea, but I do agree with another poster that being bombarded with offers could be annoying. I would simply make it pop up as an option in aetheryte range to 'View Bazaar' to see all the current retainer offers for that camp.

Are you proposing that 20 be the max level? If so then you may want to recalibrate it so that you can search three cities at max rank, since to me that would be one of the biggest benefits of leveling the retainer.

Well the notification, was not for the entire region, I should have clarified, it was purely around the camp (near the Aetheryte) not out in the wilderness, also there were the conditions to get the notifications, if you leave from the notification area then they disappear, they do not remain, kind of like how when you get near the Aetherytes the icon pops up in the menu. Could also make the cities just in the Adventurer's Guild or near the Aetheryte in the city as well.

Yes I was proposing 20 being the max level, I was on the fence with the 2 or 3, then thought to allow some competition? But if the general consensus believes 20 should be all cities then a change like that is no biggie.


Thanks for the feedback, also thanks for the non-inflammatory discussions!

[grandm]

OP maybe your ideas (although i do agree with some1's post earlier, it could be simpler) but your ideas could be something for 2.0, i can't see it before then purely for this one reason, yoshi said hardest job the programmers have had for this patch is the market ward revamp, (i think it was the last letter from the producer i read this) anyway this made thing think of 2 things. first this suggests that what they have done is the most they could possibly do, so your ideas would be far to hard to program, and secondly the server is rubbish, and only when it is replaced can they make the market system they want.

of course i could be way off, but that is what i think

[Nakiamiie]

Why don't we actually wait and hear about the plans of the reworking of the market wards? Yoshi-P said they were working on reworking it completely, I'd really like to hear from that first and then submit suggestion to help stir that in the right direction. I doubt he didn't plan something for the retainers already.

Maybe OP's ideas fits in too, who knows.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Well originally I thought that was the purpose of the forums /blush (Oh how wrong was I, right?)

But yeah, this would be a 2.0 idea/suggestion if anything, as knowing a little bit about C++ coding (I'm in no way good enough to program anything like an MMO though! lol) it would be a lot of coding, something I think this current system/server cannot handle due to all the unnecessary stress the system puts on the server (from what Yoshi-P has mentioned lightly I'm not too sure on details of course).

But I will always encourage anyone and everyone to suggest ideas no matter if they don't make sense or don't fit with the plan, at the very least it might spark an idea in someone else's head that would work with the current setup of the game. So I would have to disagree about the wait until we know more (and I mean no offense). But honestly I feel if we waited until they say "hey we have this coming new thing coming out next patch/two patches from now" all we have left to do is complain or like it, since it is so far into the development already. You know what I mean?