[dev1019] Why not increase the number of retainers or storage/sale space?

[Azurymber]

Edit: THIS THREAD IS -NOT- SPECIFICALLY ABOUT STORAGE SPACE, ITS ABOUT MARKET DIVERSIFICATION. please read before you comment.

I'm not quite sure how the auction system (if implemented) will work, but one thing I have noticed is a serious lack of item variety. At least on my server (Wutai). I have a feeling this has to do with limited retainers + a limited population. Another major problem is that all the retainers (at least on Wutai) seem to be centralized in Ul'dah.

So as a economist i asked myself how SE could promote diversification in Eorzea's market wards. And the most logical solution I could think of is the following:

First, either
1. increase the number of retainers to 6 (and charge for the 4 extra, which would actually generate some profits for SE)
2. increase the number of retainers to 3 and double the inventory space and number of items they can sell

Next, do the following:

- Limit players to only having 2 retainers summoned in a city at a time. This is to limit the lag/connectivity/congestion in wards.

-Remove the retainer sales fee (tax) on wards that correspond with crafting guilds in the city.
For example, if your in Gridania, there would be no sales fee in the woodcutters and tanners wards.
The point of this would be to encourage ward diversification so that retainers don't all end up in ul'dah and to promote crafting at the respected guild, increasing a players sense of community, the number of friendships and the desire to keep playing.

So what are the benefits of this system?

• More items for sale
• Retainers no longer concentrated in one city
• Players spread out over the world instead of focused on one city
• As a result of above points, new players don't feel like the game is dead and quit. So increased player retention.
• More product diversification (ex. player Joe may normally only sell one type of log, but now that he has a retainer in gridania's woodcutters ward, instead of dropping or npcing other logs he may attempt to sell them via retainer)
• More people crafting at the guilds, talking, making friends, creating incentives to keep people playing.

Possible problems?

• More retainers/items may lead to ward crashes
• sales fee reduction/elimination may not be enough of an incentive to cause diversification
• In the short term, people might just sell the popular items causing a significant drop in their prices. coupled with high earnings from guildleves this could make gathering and crafting fairly useless. However this would probably balance out overtime (basic supply and demand)

Won't an AH fix all this?
No, probably not. An AH would just be a more convenient ward system if its like FFXI's. Meaning that everyone would probably concentrate sales in one city, and only popular items would be sold. The points i made here could be applied to an AH just as well as they could be applied to a retainer system.

Possible other directions?
> Open the 4th city and have an economy centered there
> Create some sort of "requesting" ah, where people can post items they request along with the gil they are willing to pay, and players can open it up and automatically see if any of the requested items match items in their inventory or retainers.

So what are your thoughts?

[Dreamer]

Redundant...

[kukurumei]

It's very bad to have any time of retainer or space increase. They exponentially increase as population increase. Can hurt a lot from clients to servers.

Not to mention trying to even name your retainer gets harder and harder.

[Grit]

Less retainers, more independent storage facilities.

[Azurymber]

I thought SE intended to have like 6+ retainers at some point regardless? Weren't they going to charge $2 a month for them?

Point is, they would bring more to the game right now with a low population and empty wards, than they would later when there are more players.

And this topic isn't redundant because its about increasing product diversification and not about increasing storage size for the sake of holding more goods.

[Impulse]

I thought SE intended to have like 6+ retainers at some point regardless? Weren't they going to charge $2 a month for them?.

That's exactly it: They're going to charge for extras beyond the initial two per character. Not everybody is going to be willing to pay the premium for extra storage space, especially if they're going with multiple characters already once they start charging.

[Azurymber]

That's exactly it: They're going to charge for extras beyond the initial two per character. Not everybody is going to be willing to pay the premium for extra storage space, especially if they're going with multiple characters already once they start charging.

exactly, so you'd avoid the problems kuku came up with, but would still get the benefits i mentioned. Plus the $2 fee would be an incentive for players to maximize the use of their retainers (ex. have items priced to sell instead of one overprices item for 3 weeks)

[MagicofGaia]

I'm not quite sure how the auction system (if implemented) will work, but one thing I have noticed is a serious lack of item variety. At least on my server (Wutai). I have a feeling this has to do with limited retainers + a limited population. Another major problem is that all the retainers (at least on Wutai) seem to be centralized in Ul'dah.

So as a economist i asked myself how SE could promote diversification in Eorzea's market wards. And the most logical solution I could think of is the following:

First, either
1. increase the number of retainers to 6 (and charge for the 4 extra, which would actually generate some profits for SE)
2. increase the number of retainers to 3 and double the inventory space and number of items they can sell

Next, do the following:

- Limit players to only having 2 retainers summoned in a city at a time. This is to limit the lag/connectivity/congestion in wards.

-Remove the retainer sales fee (tax) on wards that correspond with crafting guilds in the city.
For example, if your in Gridania, there would be no sales fee in the woodcutters and tanners wards.
The point of this would be to encourage ward diversification so that retainers don't all end up in ul'dah and to promote crafting at the respected guild, increasing a players sense of community, the number of friendships and the desire to keep playing.

So what are the benefits of this system?

• More items for sale
• Retainers no longer concentrated in one city
• Players spread out over the world instead of focused on one city
• As a result of above points, new players don't feel like the game is dead and quit. So increased player retention.
• More product diversification (ex. player Joe may normally only sell one type of log, but now that he has a retainer in gridania's woodcutters ward, instead of dropping or npcing other logs he may attempt to sell them via retainer)
• More people crafting at the guilds, talking, making friends, creating incentives to keep people playing.

Possible problems?

• More retainers/items may lead to ward crashes
• sales fee reduction/elimination may not be enough of an incentive to cause diversification
• In the short term, people might just sell the popular items causing a significant drop in their prices. coupled with high earnings from guildleves this could make gathering and crafting fairly useless. However this would probably balance out overtime (basic supply and demand)

Won't an AH fix all this?
No, probably not. An AH would just be a more convenient ward system if its like FFXI's. Meaning that everyone would probably concentrate sales in one city, and only popular items would be sold. The points i made here could be applied to an AH just as well as they could be applied to a retainer system.

Possible other directions?
> Open the 4th city and have an economy centered there
> Create some sort of "requesting" ah, where people can post items they request along with the gil they are willing to pay, and players can open it up and automatically see if any of the requested items match items in their inventory or retainers.

So what are your thoughts?

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of more storage space.

However!!!!

This is a dual sided coin.

Coming from XI, you were maxing out at what.. 120-140 slots with a satchel.

From Aion, there was around 100, but even that game had multiple quality items, plus potions which don't mean crap in FF.


I think it is annoying only for the fact that we have +1, 2 and 3 rank items. But currency, crystals, shards, etc are all given their own separate storage systems. From xi's point of view that's rediculous because any crystals/shards were factored into your base inventory count.

I think it's a little greedy to just say, I want more storage space. You have a total of 300 right now.

[MagicofGaia]

Also, this is a snowflake. you should have done some searching through the system menu's, or actually read back more than one page to see if there are other topics about storage space, and post your ideas there. At this exact moment, about 5 posts down, there is an exact thread about storage space. By the post count, it is older than this one too. Case closed.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-your-bag-full

[Azurymber]

Also, this is a snowflake. you should have done some searching through the system menu's, or actually read back more than one page to see if there are other topics about storage space, and post your ideas there. At this exact moment, about 5 posts down, there is an exact thread about storage space. By the post count, it is older than this one too. Case closed.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-your-bag-full

Do you people actually read the post? or just the title?
This thread has almost nothing to do with storage space. Its an economic solution to solving the problems of -retainers- being concentrated in one city and only selling certain "hot" materials. Its also a solution to spreading the diminishing population out over the three cities as opposed to the current 1-city-hotspot that has developed on most servers. Storage space is essentially irrelevant to the entire argument in this thread.

edit: btw when you make the comment "I think it's a little greedy to just say, I want more storage space. You have a total of 300 right now." it just tells me you didn't bother to read anything in the post since i'm arguing for a retainer increase for the economy, and nowhere do i argue for increased storage space out of greed.