Is it time we had another free retainer?

[Moonlite]

There is a very easy fix to all this, and we do not need new retainers. All we need is a new Vendor we can add to our home (or in the home instance area in general) that holds gathering materials for Gil. This way the "vendor" can hold level 50 gathering items or lower. That alone would free up most of our space. while at the same time not needing to create "a new item" that is a catch up, as well as to not mess up any of the "Gathering" quest, leaves, logs etc.

To those who say that this would mess with the Market boards, just have the default price on the vendor = 1-2k (or what ever you guys think is fair) this way regular "Gathers" could still make money.

They have created a new leveling system that bypasses the old gathering, so XP isn't an issue. Bots are generally the ones farming thousands of old mats, so this fixes that. It creates a consistent gil sink, which in turn justifies the continued use of old mats.



The only negative to having old mats continuously added to a vendor to decrease inventory bloat is ??? The paid retainers /shocked. They can be used to bot mats legitimately and they reduce the care for in game bloat.

[hobostew]

Use the glamour dresser....

I'm not sure why you would assume that I don't. It's full and so are most of my retainers.

[Kalise]

"Something something spaghetti code... Can't add more inventory will break the game... More retainers will also break the game... Oh by the way, here's more paid inventory slots and retainers" - SE probably.

A new free retainer would be nice, especially since they've added in Viera and Hrothgar so I'd like to be able to explore making one as my new retainer without having to lose my current Au Ra and Roe ones.

Though, there are other things they can do to help alleviate space concerns too, such as:

- Allow all AF gear to be put into the Armoire
- Allow Mogstation Glamour equipment to be put in the Armoire
- Allow content reward Glamour equipment (I.e. Eureka) to be put in the Armoire
- Allow Quest reward Glamour equipment to be put in the Armoire (Why tf is the Armoire so useless...)
- Materia tokens become currency
- Old (ARR/HW/StB) Relic items become Key Items (Seriously, I think I have an entire bag full of bits and pieces for older relics while my Key Items page has like 3 and 4/5th bags of empty space...)
- JFC do we really need 1.8 billion different baits just to catch ARR fish, let alone HW/StB/ShB/Diadem fish?
- Why is crafting getting more and more convoluted with the different materials required with each patch? Why can I fill an entire bag full of different materials and STILL not be able to craft something?
- Add more space to Glamour dresser
- Turn the useless "Offhand" tab in the Armory Chest into a dedicated DoH/L tools tab with the "Main hand" tab now being a dedicated DoW/M tab (I.e. Now includes PLD shields) to give more than like 2 spaces in the first tab while the second tab is 4/5ths empty because only shields and tools go into it...

At this point, I'm glad I have a house so I can stuff it full on manequins to equip with some gear to help alleviate inventory concerns, but it's still a small drop in the bucket when my glamour dresser is full, both my free retainers are full, my saddlebag is full and my inventory only has about 1 bag of free space...

[Esmoire]

Maybe it is time to re-examine the cause, rather than the symptom. FFXIV really needs to change crafting on a systematic level. For example, maybe it's time for a dedicated crafting inventory other games have. Also, maybe start to ask yourself if recipes need this amount of stuff. Maybe limit recipes to 3 items each or something. Like, I don't think my immersion would be broken if the Warrior of Light didn't need two kinds of water in her inventory to make Triple Cream Coffee. I can just imagine she has it on her. If it's different materials across different areas or trades or whatever, that's fine. But if it's like two kinds of cloth or two of an item from the same token vendor, I rather need more of a few different kinds of item, than fewer of a wide range of items, for example. So rather than ask us for 5 of A and 5 of B, ask us for 10 of A.

All games and all software of all kinds will have constraints and limitations and budgets and yada yada, though I feel like the FFXIV team makes a lot of really bad decisions with regards to the way they work within these constraints. For example, let's ask ourselves if it's reeeeeeeeeeeally worth it to have all these kinds of dyes be separate items. Premium dyes like gold or the new ones from Ishgard? 100% makes sense. But like... do we need to carry around several shades of brown if we find we use them often in our glams? Can't we just carry a generic brown dye, generic red dye, etc., for the non-exotic colours? Even the fact that ARR beast tribes has them as rewards is moot, since then each one can just offer a distinct base hue. And like, after you simplify them, not only is it easier for the player to manage, but the data is less costly, and you can consider giving it its own inventory space like crystals.

Anyways, that's just one example. When I see stuff like ocean fishing, I feel like they really make a lot of decisions that don't consider the limitations of their own product, leading to a worse user experience and the developer ultimately spending more down the line when they have to increase storage space anyways.

[kaynide]

I went through this in Heavensward, and might have agreed at that time.. now? I’d say we don’t need it. I used to hoard everything for a rainy day and just got fed up with it and liquidated. We are talking one of my retainers with thousands of materia. 3 full of crafting mats.

Now? I just gather what I need, make the things and sell the rest. The idea of having a vendor isn’t so bad.. but ultimately it’s just the market board and gil that is necessary. They are actually quite generous with slots with the chocobo bag. Heck if you pay in advance you can make up to 8 characters for the same price as monthly, each of which can have retainers.

Truth be told the is no real reason to keep large stocks of materials because even leveling up you can just burn leves and make specific things... even easier with the beast tribe stuff.

Same with gear; you will always get level appropriate gear to drop in dungeons you are running dungeons outside of roulette (ie running the highest level you can). Lower stuff might be more random..but from around Heavansward (stormblood? I forget) you are guaranteed something for the job your running.

Food? Outside of niche things, I have been eating blocks of cheese since 70... I don’t care about the stats it gives, since I just need the xp bonus.

tl;dr: I get your point, but it really comes down to dumping g crap you don’t need. sell what you don’t need or are using for gil. Use gil to buy what you want/need later.

[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...

[Nioh]

Sure I would love another free retainer, it might happen with 6.0 but we'll need to wait and see.

For now SE should really open up the entire chocobo saddlebag to all players as it is quite useful for storing different materia's which you know you'll use eventually but don't need at that point in time. To get more players using the app it really needs more features to be added in, being able to send my retainers back out on quick ventures via the app would make it a go-to for me.

I want the app but it's not available in my country :< I've tried using Aptoide and download it from there but the version isn't up to date.

[SuperZay]

I approve this idea.