Suggestions on Refining Retainer Ventures

[Amprose]

Hello, I think retainer ventures function kind of stiffly, and I have thoughts on how to make them more convenient and flexible. I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing because I have no experience with forums, but I will do my best.

I dislike the 1-hour ventures (gathering and quick), because I feel like it's a hassle to stand next to the retainer bell all the time just to constantly click the Reassign button. I've talked about it with some of my friends, and we think it could be improved if we could specify to them to gather a fixed amount of an item (like, tell them to gather 100 titanium ore, and it would cost 20 ventures and take 10 hours). Alternatively, if we do not have a target quantity in mind, we could just tell them to continually gather an item, and they will automatically return at the start of the next hour from whenever we tell them we want them to come back, otherwise they would automatically stop after a certain amount of time. Say, 24 hours as a possible time limit.

I also wonder if we could be able to tell them to specifically aim to gather HQ versions of an item, and as trade off the cost and length it takes for them to gather triples. It takes me about three times as long to gather 10 high quality items as opposed to normal quality ones, so I'm just using triple based on personal experience.

I'd also like Quick Ventures to work this way, too, in the way that they would continually gather 1 random item per hour, and present them all to us at once when we call them back. I think you should pay them in ventures when they get back in regards to how long they were out; 2 ventures per hour or 48 ventures for the full 24 hours.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, even if you disagree with me.

[ChaseNetwork]

For the 1-hour hunt/gather ventures, the problem you face there is direct competition with the 18 hour explorations in terms of leveling.
Explorations cost 2 ventures, and last 18 hours.
hunts/gathers cost 1 venture, and lasts 1 hour.
A hunt/gather venture offers 1/4th the exp obtained from an exploration.
So, if I could just set my retainer to hunt/gather for 18 hours, I would get 4.5* more exp than an exploration venture.
The cost difference in venture tokens would be effectively negligible.

Now, suppose we're talking level capped retainers, and exp isn't the point of contention. Resources are your only concern.
I see no problem with your suggestion (not to say there isn't one, I just can't visualize it at this time).

No to forcing HQ. 15% or maybe slightly better HQ rates should be expected though.

Quick-Explorations are intended to be random. Supposing Exp isn't a concern, I agree with letting them keep at it for hours on end, but it shouldn't lock an item. New item acquired each hour.

No to paying them only after they get back. All payments must need be done up front, before letting them go. If you call them back before you contracted the end of their efforts, the loss is on you.

[Beckett]

While I would absolutely love this, I assume the intent behind limiting Ventures is so that they don't outright replace Gathering classes. If they made Ventures too convenient, it could crash the economy on gatherables, and it could lead to many players getting their gatherers up to max level and then never using them again, since their retainers can just gather for them far more efficiently.

Personally, I'd be 100% okay with this. I already pretty much just have my retainers gather everything, and only go out myself if I need a big stack right away. But I think it would be a hard sell for players who gather for profit, or developers who want players to actually use the classes they worked on.

[DrWho2010]

they also need to constantly update the types of items they bring back - more updates are sorely needed. They get about 1 update per expansion mid way thru. I think it still considers some outdated Tier V battle type materia as rare and even Draconian potions from 3.0 are still "rare" items.

[Gemina]

My biggest gripe with retainers are with the 18 hour explorations. Once the retainer is capped, it can no longer benefit from the large amount of exp gained from these ventures. The returns at this point do not justify the 18 hours of unavailability, and something needs to be added to compensate for this. I'm not requesting that they bring back a ton of stuff, but toss some shards/crystals/clusters in there for crying out loud. It would help the community and probably battle bots at the same time, no?

A feature I would like added is the ability to select how long I want them gone gathering and/or hunting and pay in accordance to that timeframe. It can get tedious checking on them on the hour. I would even be ok with the ratio not being 1:1. So as an example, if I want my retainer to gather Tin ore; instead of paying 1 venture to return 30 in an hour, I pay her 2 ventures to return 50 in two hours.

One might not think it straight off, but there can be a lot of QoL improvements with retainers alone. It's a very powerful feature of the game.

[Amprose]

I agree Gemina ^^ I don't think giving players the ability to specify how long our retainers are out for will impact game balance that much, like some other people said it would, because all it would really change is removing the necessity of sitting there all day clicking Reassign once an hour. It's really tedious.

[KageTokage]

I do think they ought to just make it so your retainers can gather literally anything as long as their stats meet the requirements for it and you have the folklore books.