Retainers: More than just “send away/delivery”

[Vencio]

Happy Sunday fellow Eorzeans!

Just curious…..since some of us heavily invested in our retainers, why won’t the Devs allow us to use them for dungeons like followers & companions for solo xp/fates like the chocobo?

I personally feel more connected to my retainers & it would be great if that option came to be,

After all, we can gear them up & would make great asset to use them as an option for dungeons (instead of followers) & companionship for PvE content like FATES.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Ive been saying this for quite some time. SE please allow us to bring our retainers as battle companions.

[Raoabolic]

Because then the squad system really will be worthless if they do this. Not saying that the squad system is being utilized to it's fullest, but it's been kneecapped due to trusts, this change would leave them dead and buried. That said, why not. I prefer customized NPCs over "Yishtoela" with a new hat.

[Vencio]

Because then the squad system really will be worthless if they do this. Not saying that the squad system is being utilized to it's fullest, but it's been kneecapped due to trusts, this change would leave them dead and buried. That said, why not. I prefer customized NPCs over "Yishtoela" with a new hat.

Couldn’t agree more!

If anything, I don’t think most players use or even bother with the squadrons & I honestly couldn’t careless about using the major characters as dungeon followers,

It just kills me you know, most of us has heavily invested in our retainers & also developed some canonhead story lore for them; it brings more fruit to our gameplay style overall

[KurohNeko]

There used to be an argument about player interaction in dungeons or some bullshit but we literally have a complete NPC duty system now so why not?

[Enkidoh]

Because that was never their purpose in the first place - retainers were basically originally an extrapolation of the tendency of players in FFXI to create extra characters nicknamed 'mules' for extra item storage space, and SE realized during FFXIV 1.0's development that they could incorporate that into gameplay, by having specific storage characters instead of having to hire an extra character to increase your storage (not to mention mules were often used by RMT for moving their ill-gotten gains around, hence why you cannot send items to characters not on your Friend List in ARR).

Retainer ventures are merely a means of getting rare items not available otherwise (or old dungeon/tome gear), they're not a replacement for other players in a party (and this is even underlined in the lore where retainers are bluntly stated as just being dogsbodies as they're not really the sharpest tools in the shed and thus not actually adventurer material - when a retainer was hired in 1.0 the levemete outright told you that - basically they're Baldricks to the player's Blackadder ), and it's pretty clear this is how SE regards them too. We now have not just the Grand Company Squadron, but Trusts and Duty Support as well for many dungeons and trials in the game, and SE are increasing the amount of duties the later two can be taken into, and there is the Chocobo Companion for non-instanced content.

And as the player actually had a NPC fighter back in 1.0 that showed up to help them in battle during story events but which SE abandoned when Yoshi took over and has never returned, I think SE's made their choice about this, retainers will remain gophers getting items for their employer (you) and selling stuff on the market board. And as some of the items they bring back are very suspicious (like parts of houses), it clear they're stealing things and passing them off back to me, so I definetely would not trust them at my side in the heat of battle!

So I do not see SE changing this at all I'm afraid.

[EagleDynamics]

Happy Sunday fellow Eorzeans!

Just curious…..since some of us heavily invested in our retainers, why won’t the Devs allow us to use them for dungeons like followers & companions for solo xp/fates like the chocobo?

I personally feel more connected to my retainers & it would be great if that option came to be,

After all, we can gear them up & would make great asset to use them as an option for dungeons (instead of followers) & companionship for PvE content like FATES.

reminds me of mercenaries from diablo. that would be cool.

[Jybril]

I was very disappointed that the new Trust's didn't include our Retainers.
I would be so happy to have my Retainers in dungeons.

[sagacious]

I was very disappointed that the new Trust's didn't include our Retainers.
I would be so happy to have my Retainers in dungeons.

My retainers are all copies of me so I'd have a twin running around with me? ahhhhh no

[Limecat]

The thing is, it doesn't even have to be that complicated. Simply choose the role each will take going in, whatever class you have them set to as a retainer be damned. Keep them in their glams, using a generic weapon model if you put them on a different role. All we need is for them to be skins for the trusts.