Is it time we had another free retainer?

[kaynide]

No reason for you maybe. Others like being able to craft most things as they feel like without hoping the MB has it or having to gather all the base materials, again. Especially if you're the crafter in your FC. I can decorate my house, make gear for alt classes, make anything for friends/FC, attempt the Blessed tools, sell various items as markets fluctuate. Not to mention Enix is constantly bringing old mats into new recipes or releasing new sets of mats.

Sure you don't need this, but you don't need anything in a game really. It is a detriment to your gaming experience however. The 10-retainer player has it miles easier.

Personally I don't see how they can keep us on 2 retainers forever. There will be more new glams. There will be Skybuilder part 3, maybe 4, the relic and all the associated bits, more primals+totems, a whole set of 3 star crafter mats, tome mats + sands in 5.3, maybe more mats in 5.4 ...then the next expansion with a few hundred more mats and items and so on. They'll have to give us something.

I mean, it's not really that much extra time involved in getting whatever is needed to craft the thing I want, with exception of special mats (trials, treasure chests, etc). The amount of time it took me to log out, log into alt with 3 retainers full of mats, find the mats, forget exactly what I needed again, check recipe on site, move mats, retrieve mats, craft the thing....

You can see where I'm going with this. For me it was just less of a waste of time/money to just buy what I needed and craft it rather than keeping a ridiculous stash. I just check the thing I want to make, if the mats are under 1k per item I just buy it. If not, I can gather it quick.

...All that said, people who are paying a per-month subscription..with minimal effort and a 3 month-at-a-time payment, you can get up to 8 characters, each with retainers.

[Edax]

...All that said, people who are paying a per-month subscription..with minimal effort and a 3 month-at-a-time payment, you can get up to 8 characters, each with retainers.

If it's that easy to for the player to get 16 retainers, why not just give a free 3rd one then since it's not that big a deal for a single player to own so many? It makes player storage more easier when they don't have to navigate through a bunch of alts.

[kaynide]

If it's that easy to for the player to get 16 retainers, why not just give a free 3rd one then since it's not that big a deal for a single player to own so many? It makes player storage more easier when they don't have to navigate through a bunch of alts.

That's the rub though, it would require a 3 month commitment instead of a pay-per-month. In addition, gotta level up the alt to... what? 30? And the log in-log-out is a big turn off for many.. which means less people use it, so less resources used on the server. It's kinda like the whole AI customer service "press 1 to talk to blah blah" run around that is built to have people give up.

[Solarra]

...All that said, people who are paying a per-month subscription..with minimal effort and a 3 month-at-a-time payment, you can get up to 8 characters, each with retainers.

That's 8 characters who cannot interact unless you decide to make a single-person FC or are in a FC where you have permission to use the FC chest for transferring goods and/or gil between them. Alternatively, you can ask your friends to act as go-betweens every time you want to pass items or gil from one of your characters to another. I'm not sure how anyone could define that as minimal effort. The fact you feel the need to do it is surely admitting that 2 retainers is not enough.

It feels like storage in this game is 'one step forward, one step back':
- Beast tribe currency finally goes into the currency tab - say hello to all those pretty crystals and items from Eureka
- Fishing finally gets universal baits - Ocean fishing gets it's own exclusive baits and needs some of the old ARR baits as well!

I used to play WoW. Alts did not cost extra and like a lot of players, I had one alt who was simply the 'banker', gold and most items could be freely mailed between all characters in the same faction and many items were account bound. Despite the age of the game, dedicated storage for glamour and crafting were added in. Even before we got those, I never had the storage issues there that I have with FFXIV.
This game boasts you can do everything on one character, but the lack of storage makes it extremely difficult. Alts are not the answer, they cost extra and they certainly aren't 'minimal effort'.
If FFXIV were FTP, I'd accept limited storage, workrounds or paying for extra bags and Market Board slots, but a sub should cover you for all that. I think one extra retainer is the least we should have at this stage.

[kaynide]

That's 8 characters who cannot interact unless you decide to make a single-person FC or are in a FC where you have permission to use the FC chest for transferring goods and/or gil between them. Alternatively, you can ask your friends to act as go-betweens every time you want to pass items or gil from one of your characters to another. I'm not sure how anyone could define that as minimal effort. The fact you feel the need to do it is surely admitting that 2 retainers is not enough.

It feels like storage in this game is 'one step forward, one step back':
- Beast tribe currency finally goes into the currency tab - say hello to all those pretty crystals and items from Eureka
- Fishing finally gets universal baits - Ocean fishing gets it's own exclusive baits and needs some of the old ARR baits as well!

I used to play WoW. Alts did not cost extra and like a lot of players, I had one alt who was simply the 'banker', gold and most items could be freely mailed between all characters in the same faction and many items were account bound. Despite the age of the game, dedicated storage for glamour and crafting were added in. Even before we got those, I never had the storage issues there that I have with FFXIV.
This game boasts you can do everything on one character, but the lack of storage makes it extremely difficult. Alts are not the answer, they cost extra and they certainly aren't 'minimal effort'.
If FFXIV were FTP, I'd accept limited storage, workrounds or paying for extra bags and Market Board slots, but a sub should cover you for all that. I think one extra retainer is the least we should have at this stage.

Honestly it boggles my mind too why we don't have some kind of Account-wide vault (A la Guild Wars 2 or WoW). Not being able to transfer..or even mail my alts is, I agree, STUPID. I think the problem with the +1 retainer is that hoarders are just going to fill it up and complain they need another within a year. So, it might not be ideal for most, but I can see why SqE doesn't want to give them away.

Though to be honest, I am not sure why we don't have some form of material vault a la Guild Wars which just holds crafting mats...

[Gemina]

Any additional retainers whether free or purchased will only help me hold more glamours. I don't store mats on them as it defeats the purpose of holding onto them for convenience. They do hold some mats, but those are mats that cannot be gathered.

Don't get me wrong. I would love another retainer, but what I need is more inventory space. SE does not make this any easier by current recipes requiring mats from previous expansions. They just can't seem to rinse out some residual elements from FFXI and 1.0 completely that has players work much harder than is necessary

[VenKitsune]

Agreed. I've always thought that they should atleast give an extra "free" retainer as a veteran reward, so that only those who have subbed for a certain ammount of time and thus find a 3rd retainer necessary should get it, that and because i want veteran rewards back >

[kaynide]

Agreed. I've always thought that they should atleast give an extra "free" retainer as a veteran reward, so that only those who have subbed for a certain ammount of time and thus find a 3rd retainer necessary should get it, that and because i want veteran rewards back >

Kinda unrelated to the OP, but on this.. would love if Vet reward points (The "Achievement Certificates" I think is what they are now) just let you cash them into Crysta straight up to buy stuff on Mog Station... I'm sitting on 169 points and own everything the guy offers in Gridania...

[SuperZay]

I approve this idea.

[Limecat]

Should have been +1 per expansion, or a maybe one-time fee of like $5 for a permanent one. Hell, I'd settle for an option to lose a character slot per server and one from the account max in exchange for a free retainer if SE is so hard up for the space it takes to do something that could be done in well under 1MB of space.