Feeling punished for having alts...

[Iscah]

Alts are a cheap but pretty time-consuming option to the current mess the inventory system is. Transferring stuff between your own characters via FC chest is an exploit? If it was, then the devs would've done something to make it so the game detects and prevents transferring items from a character you own into a different character you own. Someone here will probably blame it on spaghetti code, though.

I don't know if it counts as spaghetti code or just practicality, but they're not going to track ownership of items like that. You put it in the chest; it stopped being yours.

[Eric_Riot]

Melichoir I have a question. You'er saying they do not give us the Mail to Alt option purely for money reasons. Are you also saying that you do not what this option added to the game?

If you could vote Y or N to have the ability to mail to alts what would be your answer? I don't care about why they don't have it, I care about "Noise" from the fan base to "Yes please give us this option".

Just curious.

[Eric_Riot]

https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv

Also 19 mill+ sub's.. what % of those subs have alts do you think?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv

Also 19 mill+ sub's.. what % of those subs have alts do you think?

No, it's not 19 million subs. It's 19 million registered users. Meaning number of accounts created. Not concurrent subscribers or players.

[Eric_Riot]

It's 19 million registered users.

Okay, of those 19 million registered users how many are alts?

"HOW MANY PEOPLE PLAY FINAL FANTASY XIV: A REALM REBORN?
We estimate that 1,845,284 people play per day, with a total player base of 19,424,044."

[Melichoir]

People are really calling alts being extra inventory an exploit? I have to laugh.,...

No, the point being made was that just because you want something doesnt mean it doesnt have detrimental effects. Using alts for bank space and what not is just an example of what that means. To summerize:

lets say they did decide to change how mailing works and you can now mail to alts. Again, the rational thing for most people is to create bank alts. This means less retainer purchases. So either SE does one of two things if they want to keep that option open - Make storage account wide, so now all alts share the same storage space, OR raise the cost of the sub from 15 to something else (possibly 20 as a throw away average).

Both of those have pretty negative impacts, no matter how you cut it. If you make storage account wide, every time you have an alt, you 'divide' your storage space (so if you have 100 storage, an alt would make that 50 storage effectively between your main and alt, 3 alts would make it 33, 4 is 25, etc), eventually ending up with less overall storage than a person who only has one characters worth of items. You also screw over people who dont want shared bank inventory space.

If you raise tuition, you screw over people who do have the bigger account size for other purposes rather than wanting alts to play. Not to mention you create a higher barrier of entry for players which may disincentive people keeping their subs.

To further that point, SE has put in place purposefully means to prevent easy trade of items to alt characters. This is because the game is designed a certain way, particularly because the game is built around being able to do it all with 1 PC. This isnt like how some other MMOs operate, like WoW, where youre expected to have multiple alts.

Beyond that, people keep repeating the same point thinking that it justifies the position. "Oh, I can do some things to get around those road blocks, so therefore it's stopping nothing and we should allow it." Or a variation about how RMTers do it therefore everyone should.

I just want one person to address the following with a legit well thought out response other than recycled "RMTers Do it, or I can use a few ways to get around it so it's all moot.":

If you remove restrictions on who you can mail to, the rational thing to do is make bank alts if you want more storage. This means that buying the extra retainer services would be greatly impacted. How does SE address this problem now because it is an issue of revenue now?

I really don't get why you can't add your own alts as friends anyway.

Might have more to do with spam/harassment filtering. A lot of the systems are intermingled specifically to prevent certain actions from the player side. So to add a friend, they have to be online, and to mail someone, they have to be a friend. So Youre not gonna get random mail for harassers or spammers, or tons of 'friend' invites every time you log in from Gold spammers looking to advertise. Or from people you dont know or dont like. Is it perfect? No not really. Is it complete trash? No not really either. It's just a heavy handed filter.

Melichoir I have a question. You'er saying they do not give us the Mail to Alt option purely for money reasons. Are you also saying that you do not what this option added to the game?

If you could vote Y or N to have the ability to mail to alts what would be your answer? I don't care about why they don't have it, I care about "Noise" from the fan base to "Yes please give us this option".

Just curious.

If they can resolve the monetization issue with out severely impacting other people, itd be yes. Why not. It would be a QoL improvement. Im not opposed to it cause "Nyah, dont mail to alts cause its bad and wrong and stoopid!!" Im trying (probably poorly) to say that just because we want things doesnt mean that it wouldn't come without a price. The whole mailing thing was just the most immediate example of why some of this stuff doesnt add up. And that only came from people suggesting "Well WoW does it, so it's no problem if FFXIV does it" which ignores the fact that how WoW and FFXIV are designed at a foundation level arent the same. And those differences affect how the game operates and is monetized. Losing monetization means either making up for it in other spots (higher sub fees or more mogstation exclusives) and cutting development and operating on an even lower budget.

[dinnertime]

No, the point being made was that just because you want something doesnt mean it doesnt have detrimental effects. Using alts for bank space and what not is just an example of what that means.

It's not detrimental. It's actually a reasonable and free way to get more storage. "Bank alts" aren't an exploit and there's nothing that prevents it. Extra retainers are also an optional service and they're not actively trying to prevent or discipline players from using alts as extra storage either just because it might affect their revenue there. Again, if they want to prevent these things from happening, they have ways to do so by making items untradeable to your own characters. The theories you've quoted are just theories and I doubt they'll do it unless you keep giving them more ideas to be stingy about the storage/inventory problem.

The only reason I've heard of as to why they don't allow friending your own characters (which is actually not the case. You're just not able to add offline players) is because of RMT. I don't even know if that's actually the statement they gave though. Still, that statement is really flimsy when there are workarounds to it and the 'problem' still persist, only because they wouldn't go for the actual root of the issue. There's really no point in keeping it up anymore and it's a stupid restriction in the first place.

Might have more to do with spam/harassment filtering. A lot of the systems are intermingled specifically to prevent certain actions from the player side. So to add a friend, they have to be online, and to mail someone, they have to be a friend. So Youre not gonna get random mail for harassers or spammers, or tons of 'friend' invites every time you log in from Gold spammers looking to advertise. Or from people you dont know or dont like. Is it perfect? No not really. Is it complete trash? No not really either. It's just a heavy handed filter.

Friend invites being spammed is something I've never witnessed in this game, and that is something gold spammers can already do whenever they wish. If that's really a problem, there should be settings to allow only certain people (mutuals from FCs, LS's or your own party/alliance, or mutual friends) to add you or have it disabled entirely, and only being able to add someone as a friend once at for a certain time, while having the option to add people who are offline available.

[Melichoir]

It's not detrimental. It's actually a reasonable and free way to get more storage..... The theories you've quoted are just theories and I doubt they'll do it unless you keep giving them more ideas to be stingy about the storage/inventory problem.

Gonna just reiterate - The problem isnt mailing to your alts in of itself. The problem is how if you were to allow a direct trade to alts, the rational pragmatic thing the entire player base to do is create more alts to get more storage space. That is a purely rational decision people would make, as you are saying. But in doing that, people will also rationally say "Why should I pay $2 a month more per extra retainer when I can simply pay 1 for 14 extra retainers." So most people do not purchase retainers for extra storage space.

That is a direct revenue loss for SE and the Devs. That loss translates into impacting the game - Either by cutting development in places or compensating the loss into bigger sub fees. This is the 'downstream' effects of just one change in the system. Ironically, You are actually agreeing with me and my point about alt banks and providing SE a financial incentive not to allow mailing between alts.

As for punishing players, the reason why they probably dont is because its not cost effective and hard to prove. So they compromise. Knowing that there are loopholes in the design, theyve put up walls that make it difficult or inefficient to use alts as storage for most players. Theyre likely operating on the concept of simply saying "Yeah, we know you can do this method and turn alts into storage, but most players would rather just spend a few dollars more and not deal with the hassle."

Beyond that, how do you expect them to 'stop' a trade between alts? Lets say you want to transfer items between alts and you have a friend act as the intermediary. What is a realistic way for SE to stop that? Create a special invisible flag that denotes whom the item originally came from? How long does that flag stick around? Does it stick around if the item gets placed on the MB. When its purchased does the flag go away? Or how bout the item is traded through a few people. Not to mention now you have a new and completely separate background tagging system that the servers have to manage and track.

Lets think this in reverse though. Forget the monetization issue - why dont they just straight up allow you to mail/trade to alts? Afterall, it would be a QoL improvement. What reason would they exactly not allow it - especially if the "It stops RMTers" is bunk and RMTers are getting around the system anyways without issue? I mean, we're not gonna assume that the devs are sitting there being like "Yeah screw these players who want alts! They suck! hahaha so fun to make things bad for them," right?

[dinnertime]

I'm not going to repeat myself after this because this will just go on back and forth and nobody will agree with each other. And no I'm not agreeing with anything you've said. By alt banks I meant alts being used as more storage, not another paid inventory system that is shared between all characters.

As for punishing players, the reason why they probably dont is because its not cost effective and hard to prove. So they compromise. Knowing that there are loopholes in the design, theyve put up walls that make it difficult or inefficient to use alts as storage for most players. Theyre likely operating on the concept of simply saying "Yeah, we know you can do this method and turn alts into storage, but most players would rather just spend a few dollars more and not deal with the hassle."

Again another assumption. The only "walls" they've really placed is being unable to add anyone who is offline. If they're truly bothered with losing revenue, they will actually make those walls, but they haven't.

Beyond that, how do you expect them to 'stop' a trade between alts? Lets say you want to transfer items between alts and you have a friend act as the intermediary. What is a realistic way for SE to stop that? Create a special invisible flag that denotes whom the item originally came from? How long does that flag stick around? Does it stick around if the item gets placed on the MB. When its purchased does the flag go away? Or how bout the item is traded through a few people. Not to mention now you have a new and completely separate background tagging system that the servers have to manage and track.

It's already a thing with untradeable items, which are coded to be untradeable no matter what other than the person of origin who's obtained it. There's also coding where a crafted armor/weapon has the name of the crafter. I'm sure there are ways they can make it so any item you obtained in one character is untradeable to another character you own, but it's not worth doing to be honest.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

> Points fingers at others' assumptions
> Their arguments hinge on assuming SE passively endorses it, because they don't go 100% on closing every loophole.