Retainer Level?

[HiirNoivl]

Mihana whats to stop people from multipluing their retainers and mailing the goods to their main account to sell?

Retainer gathered items should be untradeable

[Celia]

I think people are going overboard here. This is what my guess is they have in store for it:

A retainer can be sent to a certain area within a level range. As their level goes up they can gather in more higher places. For example, let's say they have 5 levels: Lv. 1 lets then gather from spawn points in level 1-10 areas, Lv. 2 is 11-20 areas, Lv. 3 is 21-30, and so forth up to Lv. 5. You can choose a few items you want them to specifically look for and as their level increases so does their chances of successfully finding that item. They'll pick up random junk along the way as well of course. Now the catch of this is while a retainer is out gathering their storage is inaccessible to the player and they cannot run a bazaar. The more dangerous/difficult the area you send them the longer they'll be away.

So overall it really evens out, you can have your retainer gather items for you but while they're off doing this you lose the rest of their functions. It's either set up shop and have access to your storage, or send them off foraging. Full/Part time gatherers will still have a job because after all, people will probably only send one retainer out at a time to gather and it's unlikely they'll come up with a big haul anyway. This might just be for potential areas where you've got nothing to sell and might want or need a specific item but nobody's selling it. Send your retainer off to go fetch it for you.

People are allowed to have two retainers though, and since the amount of items that retainers can have on their bazaar is being increased in ARR it's not quite as necessary as it was in 1.0 to have both retainers selling your items if you were a frequent Market Ward user. Now they can have one selling just as well in ARR as two did in 1.0 and one gathering items to be sold. It's not really a sacrifice provided that we still have our two retainers like we did in 1.0.

[Jacien]

I have a small update regarding retainer levels to share with you.

Based on the feedback we collected in the past, the dev. team is looking to implement different features for your retainer as they level up. For example, we are looking into allowing retainers to perform chores, such as gathering.

As soon as we receive detailed information on leveling up your friendly caretakers and the tasks that they will be able to perform at certain levels, we will be sure to let you know!

Aw yeah, my kawaii waifus will now grind for me!

[Rylock]

To the people saying that they will just come back with random garbage... what good does that do anybody? If you sent your retainer out for the night, and came back in the morning and all that had happened was you are now -5 inventory slots until you npc the trash, would you send them out again? Just gathering what people gather anyway runs into the problems of either it is pointless, or it is too good. Either way, people complain, hell even if they strike a good balance people will complain.

So why not try and make the system more interesting by having them do something players don't already do better.

[Zenaku]

To the people saying that they will just come back with random garbage... what good does that do anybody? If you sent your retainer out for the night, and came back in the morning and all that had happened was you are now -5 inventory slots until you npc the trash, would you send them out again? Just gathering what people gather anyway runs into the problems of either it is pointless, or it is too good. Either way, people complain, hell even if they strike a good balance people will complain.

So why not try and make the system more interesting by having them do something players don't already do better.

because it would help out RMT and the market would be full of stuff and everyone would undercut and not one would make any gil. It should be where it come with junk and sometime good stuff but not always that the point. The retainer getting item should just help you get enough gil to get you by not make you rich.

[Westers]

Personally when i see this, I don't think of my retainer going out into the open world to gather stuff from gathering points.
I think it would apply only to the garden you have outside of your house (stuff you grow yourself in your backyard).
Anything else imo would be kinda silly.

[Nikita]

Wow, that's pretty cool! I have to laugh at any "easy mode" comment. Nothing about gathering was hard, it was rather time consuming however. If you liked gathering, you can still gather yourself to see much higher returns for any time invested. This seems like a nice alternative for people that don't like gathering but do like to craft.

I didn't see anyone arguing that retainers selling items while the player was offline was breaking anything, I mean, without an auction house wouldn't it be less "easy mode" (lol) for the player to have to sell the items themselves and be logged in with their bazaar open? I don't see why people are so afraid of change, and it is getting rather annoying to see people cherry picking which items seem to magically break the game/their immersion.

It's a game, have fun with it! Don't like a feature? Don't use the feature!

[Sakasa]

This reminds me of SWTOR in a way since you could always send crew mates to get stuff that would have been to time consuming compared to overall net worth. Now FFXIV gathering nodes are much more centralized and respawn at a faster rate but the system is still handy for those that need iron ore but don't feel like hoofing it out to La Noscea when they are waiting at the Garuda/Ifrit Node.

Also about the market being flooded maybe it was a balmung thing but all basic materials were always flooded. If anything even got below 20 pieces a price hike followed by a under cut flood would occur. So I doubt this will effect the economy anymore then people being there normal money grubbing selves. But sending out a retaining to gather might be counter intuitive if profit is your gain because if they are doing "chores" they might not be able to host AH spots for your stuff to sell.

[LlenCoram]

The two comments above say exactly what worries me the most. "They can do this if you don't feel like it" or "it gets done if you're busy." I'm a gatherer, I like gathering, and I like supplying what I gather to other people. That's what makes an economy work. With this SE sanctioned botting, it turns gathering from an actual profession to "just some nuisance. Let the bot handle it."

I'm usually too busy gathering to ever bother with crafting. Therefore, my retainer should craft for me.

So far exactly what I predicted would happen is happening. All the people who've said they like this proposed system, or the new gathering system, are generally people who enjoy crafting or fighting far more than gathering, if at all. Unfortunately these are the people I feel the new gathering system is aimed at, instead of people who actually enjoy gathering. Please try to put yourself in our shoes. If tomorrow they released a brand new combat system - one where you run up to a mob, click it, and a dice roll decids whether you kill it or not - as a way to "streamline combat because who cares about that, crafting is far more important," the people who like combat the most in the game would be up in arms. It's a similar thing here.

[Rylock]

because it would help out RMT and the market would be full of stuff and everyone would undercut and not one would make any gil. It should be where it come with junk and sometime good stuff but not always that the point. The retainer getting item should just help you get enough gil to get you by not make you rich.

That doesnt make any sense at all...