Retainers and lootbox gambling

[Necrotica]

Specific issue comes up with items that can only be obtained via ventures. Like Young Water Lilies.
These can only be gathered by retainers.
The only way to get MORE retainers is spending real money.

Spending more IRL money, equals more 'rolls' on the venture lootbox, and a higher chance on getting an item you cannot get anywhere else.

Is this pretty much a lootbox scenario that other games get bashed for?

[Deveryn]

Specific issue comes up with items that can only be obtained via ventures. Like Young Water Lilies.
These can only be gathered by retainers.
The only way to get MORE retainers is spending real money.

Spending more IRL money, equals more 'rolls' on the venture lootbox, and a higher chance on getting an item you cannot get anywhere else.

Is this pretty much a lootbox scenario that other games get bashed for?

More rolls is just more rolls, not a higher chance. Without much context for the lootboxes, I'm going to say no it's not the same. There's nothing a player needs for progression.

[Packetdancer]

More rolls is just more rolls, not a higher chance. Without much context for the lootboxes, I'm going to say no it's not the same. There's nothing a player needs for progression.

While each roll is itself not an increased chance, the fact that you get to roll multiple times does (sort of) improve your overall chances. (I say "sort of" because statistics are weird.) I suspect that's what OP meant by "increased chance".

That said. I don't think it's quite the same. I do think it's a side effect -- and an unfortunate one -- of the fact that our 'personal storage bank' is the inventory of retainers, and that obtaining extra storage means obtaining extra retainers... and that obtaining extra retainers thus means extra venture slots.

But loot boxes in most games are designed to inspire FOMO as much as possible. "You want this shiny mount/outfit/whatever? Well, it's only in these loot boxes for three weeks!" And then you can spend X real-world currency for Y more 'pulls' (to use gacha terminology) on said loot boxes.

Retainer venture loot tables are neither time-limited, nor can you 'speed up' the venture. If things like retainer-venture minions were time-limited, or if you could spend real-world money to send the retainers out repeatedly very quickly (e.g. if there was no upper limit on how many 'chances' you could purchase) -- or especially if both were true -- I think it would be that same sort of problematic, yes.

But I'll point out that a standard subscription gives you 8 characters per world, and there's multiple worlds per data-center; if you really wanted to game the system, you could have your freebie retainers across a whole bunch of alts, all running the ventures to try to get the drops you wanted, and then funnel them back to your original character. (Yeah, it's a pain-in-the-butt, but if they belong to the same FC you could use the FC chest to transfer items, and otherwise you could ask a friend to hold on to things or mail them to your alt for you, or whatever.)

Arguably, that gives you more potential concurrent 'chances' at the thing than just buying more retainers does. And that's the main reason that, even if I think it's unfortunate that stuff works out this way, I do think the additional venture slots and thus additional shots at getting something you want from that loot table are more a side effect of the (admittedly irritating) way this game handles personal storage than an actual monetization strategy.

I mean, if it is a monetization strategy, it's a really bad one (and by "bad" I mean "honestly not likely to be that effective by the standards of horrible lootbox systems").

[Hurlstone]

I can kinda see what you mean, and I do feel like Retainers need a bit of TLC and updating (Such as making switching jobs easier) but I think comparing them to the predatory nature of actual lootbox games is a bit of a stretch. One thing to keep in mind, and I could be wrong, is that everything found via Retainers can be sold for Gil on the marketplace.

[Conadrium]

Specific issue comes up with items that can only be obtained via ventures. Like Young Water Lilies.
These can only be gathered by retainers.
The only way to get MORE retainers is spending real money.

Spending more IRL money, equals more 'rolls' on the venture lootbox, and a higher chance on getting an item you cannot get anywhere else.

Is this pretty much a lootbox scenario that other games get bashed for?

No because you get two free. (Three if you pay for the remote app). Loot boxes are typically scorned (Diablo immortal) when they are the ONLY way to get things in a game. Besides your own example shows these are all cosmetics. Basically no player power comes from it.

[Jojoya]

Most definitely not the same as a lootbox.

A lootbox gives you a single chance to obtain random loot, which may or may not be desirable.

The retainer gives you:
Additional storage space
Marketboard listings
The ability to choose between ventures that target specific loot or ventures that can yield random loot
Multiple attempts at loot for the single fee paid (theoretically up to 720 in a 30 day period though more realistically 30-120 chances depending how long the player is online)

I'm hardly familiar with all the games out there that sell lootboxes but I suspect none of them are giving you that many loot chances for just $2 not to mention all the additional functions.

[WP1990]

This is the biggest stretch I have ever seen to tie in a loot box scheme. Where can I cash out? Oh wait you can't.

[Zaniel]

Is this pretty much a lootbox scenario that other games get bashed for?

Lol, you could buy the entire mogstore 5x over for the price required to hire enough retainers to gain any noticeable benefit.

[Packetdancer]

Lol, you could buy the entire mogstore 5x over for the price required to hire enough retainers to gain any noticeable benefit.

Plus there's a cap on retainers; you get two for free, one for paying for the mobile app access that lets you use the market remotely et al, and then you can add on 7 more to your subscription... but that's it. 10's the max.

And if you really want to get max benefit from doing ventures on them, you're going to have some who are botanists, some who are miners, some who are fishers, and some who are combat jobs... and since some of the rare minions are scattered across various venture types, it means you can't even use all 10 to try for whatever thing you want to get.

[Necrotica]

Plus there's a cap on retainers; you get two for free, one for paying for the mobile app access that lets you use the market remotely et al, and then you can add on 7 more to your subscription... but that's it. 10's the max.

And if you really want to get max benefit from doing ventures on them, you're going to have some who are botanists, some who are miners, some who are fishers, and some who are combat jobs... and since some of the rare minions are scattered across various venture types, it means you can't even use all 10 to try for whatever thing you want to get.

I assume that is to help push the sales of the retainer level up stuff on the store. Buy a bunch of retainers, pay to get them leveled, then try and get what you are after in ventures. Repeat. I would never spend that money on the process but they have that stuff for sale so I am sure someone is.

Which realistically at that point I suspect a person would be debating waiting the weeks to level them slow, spending a lot of money to do it fast for a chance, or going a more dangerous route to get the funds to buy what they need off the market board.