Request: More Information in the Equipment Window

[Tinuviel]

Ranged Attack, please. Come on, SE, this isn't like we're asking you to redesign the game...

[Zubis]

If they changed this, you know what would happen when FFXI's client pulls server side stats?

You'd get FFXIV's lagged out UI. So no thanks.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

If they changed this, you know what would happen when FFXI's client pulls server side stats?

You'd get FFXIV's lagged out UI. So no thanks.

Then build it around client side, yes it'd take a while but not completely impossible.

[Dazusu]

low-level coding structures

Absolutely. Sending a comma delimited set of integers from existing classes requires us to get right down to the ASM. (exaggerating, but you get my point.)

Really?

The truth is that this information is (probably) already readily available in their base structs, and calling it to send for display is no different than calling it to calculate the damage for a brand new spell/weapon skill that was just added or recently altered.

[Arcon]

I'm tired of people playing the bandwidth card. How much bandwidth would that actually cost? Let's calculate.

To bring the point across I'll choose a common battle scenario, a VW battle with 18 participants. The following data is transmitted constantly, often several times within a few seconds, from the server:

• The entire alliance's HP, MP and TP. That's 18x3 numerical values.
• Every characters position within a ~50' radius around you. In crowded areas that can include over 100 characters. The x, y and z coordinates are transmitted, so 25x3 numerical values (assuming 18 people in the alliance, 1 VW mob and 6 random objects around, NQ mobs or clickable targets or whatever).
• Every character's percentual HP, as a numerical value. 25x1 values.
• Every character's movement speed, as a a floating point value. 25x1 values.
• Every character's current target, as a numerical ID. 25x1 value.
• Every status effect a character receives and loses, as a numerical ID. Depends on how many status effects change, which can be pretty variable. But considering VW, where buffs and debuffs happen all the time, including buffs that give or remove several status effects, we can reasonably assume it's always more than one, in the same time as the other events described here. Hence, 19x1 values (one for the mob).
• Every action performed and attack landed. This is probably the largest portion of all of the information, but as with status effects this is also very variable and hard to approximate. So let's floor this as well to 19x1 values.

That's 242 values that have to be sent to the client. Not once, but periodically, in a hectic battle several times within only a few seconds. I don't even think once a second is an exaggeration, but it's hard to say accurately and it is also highly variable. And note that this is still quite a conservative estimate, I could easily see this number doubled.

So you're telling me adding ten more values that are sent occasionally is costing too much bandwidth? Note that we don't wanna see them at all times, how about just sending them when we open the equipment screen? Hell, even now there's several things that are re-sent every time the equipment screen is opened, HP/MP/TP values plus max HP/MP values, attribute base and bonus values, gil amount, attack and defense values, 8 elemental resistances and up to 16 equipment items, that are all being sent whenever we open the equipment screen. That's already 46 numerical values sent every time we open the screen. Are you so desperate for bandwidth that you can't increase that to 56 values, barely a 20% increase of something that already takes up a very minor portion of the total bandwidth in the first place and in contrast to a vastly major part of it is only displayed sporadically, whenever a person checks their equipment screen, so rarely in fact, that the actual increase would be negligible to a degree that it would be indistinguishable from bandwidth noise during a battle?

Increasing this amount of information sent to the client means an increase in the amount of data traffic, so the reason it is difficult is due to the fact that we are considering the risk of lag this could cause.

Given what I just said, could you explain just how this would strain the bandwidth? I generally tend to believe that the devs know what they're talking about, but this does not make sense no matter which way I look at it.

The same reason holds true for some other requests we have seen, such as displaying party member’s status ailments and other information.

Those are often already transmitted to people in a different form, namely when it says in the chatlog who got paralyzed, petrified, etc. Why not rework it so that this isn't transfered, but instead the status effects themselves? The client could do all the translating work. That way, more sophisticated filter options would also become possible.

[bungiefanNA]

FFXI's servers are still limiting the connection to each client to 56 kbps, as if they were on dial-up. For most customers now, dial-up isn't their connection, you're dealing with broadband connections of at least several hundred kbps, and likely several mbps. It should be reasonable to raise that connection speed to each client, which would cure the lag problem in lots of events that have had it before, like Beseiged. Even the PS2 supports faster connections. We're not on Dreamcast here.

[Lokithor]

Again, we realize the necessity for these things, but please understand that at the moment it is very difficult to do.

Most people on this tread are not interpreting this response correctly. The correct interpretation is "here are a bunch of nonsense reasons but we will not do this because the 2 designers we have supporting this game have other priorities".

[Sarick]

I don't see how this could be a problem. Under the status menu have an option called detailed status. This would be the best of both worlds your normal stats would always be there. If you clicked the detailed status then it would download the stats to a full character sheet taking up most of the screen. An on demand download. It doesn't have to be a constant use of bandwidth.

This is already done in the status menu. We already have profile, job levels, combat skills, magic skills craft skills and merit points buttons. Why not add a new button for detailed status that downloads the information into a new popup or, at least echos it to the chat log.

Think outside the box, this isn't something to get worked up about. The data doesn't need to be stored on the client side. The server only needs to calculate it then send it to the a popup box or the chat box. This won't need much memory or any at all on the client side if it's sent to the chat box. It doesn't even need a menu option if the developers want to be really lazy about it. They can use a server command "/status" to get it sent to our chat box as a system message or text echo.

I assume this would work like the auction house, search feature, friend messages, and mog mail. This game information would have limits to how often it could be checked. Bandwidth shouldn't the issue if the data is called on demand for a detailed status. When you look at the region info it takes time to download. My guess is this would also take a few seconds.

The next question is, what stats etc. would you want in it?

[Camate]

I followed up with the development team about the possibility of displaying information that is already available on the client-side and they mentioned that they will be proactively looking into ways to display party/alliance TP, MP, and other information to coincide with the UI revamp timing.

[Economizer]

I followed up with the development team about the possibility of displaying information that is already available on the client-side and they mentioned that they will be proactively looking into ways to display party/alliance TP, MP, and other information to coincide with the UI revamp timing.

This is amazing news to an amount that is quite large, like the cost of a Kraken Club.

If it isn't too much to ask, was something like the Magian Specs or an NPC as a way to view extended stats as a temporary measure still unfeasible in terms of the limits of game data that can be sent?

Regardless of your answer I think I'm looking forward to more then the UI changes now, I suspect something is brewing and it doesn't cost 200,000 Cruor. Fun. Excitement.