Mog Wardrobe 3&4 feedback.

Ambuscade is unashamed waste your time content, how many capes do you even have? unless it's 10+ it's not much of an argument.

Also you're asking for massive rewrites of code at a time when they have stated they are only going to do minor stuff, good luck with that.

I agree it's mostly wishful thinking--except in regard to combining home points and survival guides. They are probably programmed very similarly. Hey, neither even needs to be changed to the other if that's too much work, simply allow teleporting to HPs from guides and vise versa.

A treasure box is just another storage box, though it might take some new programming to make it only accessible/viewable in one zone.

In regard to other ideas: Really, I just wish they'd be practical about what players are going to do. We can have multiple capes so many of us are going to make multiple capes. They know we min-max our sets. Think ahead, be proactive.

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Originally Posted by Castanica

The server load in 2004 was minimal, it has gotten more and more complicated and far more server communication happens now then ever had before. The servers would crash if 2k people were online now, let alone 3-4

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Let's call a spade a spade - this is an outdated, horribly inefficient game engine and it's all made worse by decisions to funnel the masses into its "instanced" content like HTBF and Ambuscade. If adding two extra Mog Wardrobes brings about such a strain on the servers that they don't want everyone still playing to have access to them then why design the game in such a way that involves warping to/from zones every few minutes until you're blue in the face? I mean, we're playing an MMORPG whose strength is, or at least was at one time, its open world. Common sense would dictate they design content around some of those large, lifeless zones and keep players within those zones for extended periods of time rather than forcing them to zone every few minutes, not unlike Escha.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Let's call a spade a spade - this is an outdated, horribly inefficient game engine and it's all made worse by decisions to funnel the masses into its "instanced" content like HTBF and Ambuscade. If adding two extra Mog Wardrobes brings about such a strain on the servers that they don't want everyone still playing to have access to them then why design the game in such a way that involves warping to/from zones every few minutes until you're blue in the face? I mean, we're playing an MMORPG whose strength is, or at least was at one time, its open world. Common sense would dictate they design content around some of those large, lifeless zones and keep players within those zones for extended periods of time rather than forcing them to zone every few minutes, not unlike Escha.

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This, I seriously don't understand why they made ambuscade an instance. Why not let people pop it at VW spawns for example? It isn't as if there are not 300 of them that are never used?

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

Common sense would dictate they design content around some of those large, lifeless zones

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The memory limitations on the client state otherwise. Remember this is a game designed in the late 90s and released in the early 2000s, there's hard caps on virtually everything, including what they can do with a zone before it gets so top heavy it causes problems just initializing all of the flags and events needing to be stored in memory. Them adding VW and UC spawns likely put them at their limit as is this is also why NPCs who offer multiple quests can't reliably "read" your status and pop the correct one because they're doubling up+ on single npcs for new content and overall that's a huge burden on the servers. So while XI isn't the most optimized game out there code wise, keep in mind it's hardcapped to 56k data streams.

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Originally Posted by Vold

You know, I suspect that the excuse will be that everyone getting WD3&4 would cause too much strain(lol) on the servers so by charging for them, fewer will have access and thus, less strain. If that's the excuse it'd been better to make a highly difficult quest and deal with the whining for that, like along the lines of that afterglow shit. At least then there's no one quitting over it.

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The first is to mitigate against the increased stress placed on the servers from storage. Besides the increased loading times for items that occurs for each character, it’s very important to consider the issue where adding inventory support to all characters would cause stress on the entire server. Thus, one of the main reasons why this is an optional service requiring a fee is to mitigate as much of this server stress as possible. We’re building an environment tailored to those who wish to expand their inventory.
http://i.imgur.com/1BDaQ4h.jpg

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OH COME ON!

http://i.imgur.com/WKdKJOw.gif

I've just returned to the thread after a long break, after living with many people around me who use wardrobe 3 and 4 and just want to say that I still feel the same way about it, I dislike very much the decision to monetize wardrobe 3 & 4 use, the "reasons" for doing so they've offered do not seem genuine, and I sit here with a very full inventory, gaining 3 capes a month (due to that being the max you can max out in a month in ambuscade) and look spitefully at my unusable wardrobe 3 & 4 buttons, but still, I refuse to pay for them.

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Originally Posted by Selindrile

I sit here with a very full inventory, gaining 3 capes a month (due to that being the max you can max out in a month in ambuscade) and look spitefully at my unusable wardrobe 3 & 4 buttons, but still, I refuse to pay for them.

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Um... then aren't you really only punishing yourself? Also, what's this obsession people seem to have over JSE capes? No, despite your beliefs you do not actually NEED 10 capes for one job. To be honest, for some jobs you don't even need two!

Of course, it's entirely your CHOICE to have multiples, but that's precisely it. It's a choice. It's not like you can macro specific capes in for skills since they all share the same name, so it's basically something you either equip manually or play Russian roulette with. I'm not trying to insult people who've worked hard on getting multiple capes for different circumstances, but to those people who are moaning about MORE inventory space when they fill it up with gear I truly shake my head in pity.

Here's a question to those people who are moaning about having the wardrobes. If they weren't added at all, you'd be in the same situation now as you were before. What exactly was your grand plan for fixing your inventory problems if they'd never added the wardrobes?

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Originally Posted by Seiowan

Um... then aren't you really only punishing yourself?

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No, between the two options, I am happier not having paid for the wardrobes despite the inventory space I would like, the principle of the thing is more important to my happiness. But I would be happier yet if the wardrobes were not charged for, thus, I post about it.

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Originally Posted by Seiowan

Also, what's this obsession people seem to have over JSE capes? No, despite your beliefs you do not actually NEED 10 capes for one job. To be honest, for some jobs you don't even need two!

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Need is a funny word, I don't believe I NEED any capes, or any jobs, or FFXI for that matter, or a computer, I want them, and at some point the inconvenience of storing the capes will outweigh their usefulness, that point has not come yet, and it would come far later, and thus I would be happier, had I wardrobe 3 & 4, but not at the cost of feeling extorted into paying for them.

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Originally Posted by Seiowan

Of course, it's entirely your CHOICE to have multiples, but that's precisely it. It's a choice.

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Yep, and it's my choice whether to play the game or not, and right now, the choice that makes me happiest is playing while lobbying for the changes I want, if that changes in the future, I will do something differently to maximize my happiness.

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Originally Posted by Seiowan

It's not like you can macro specific capes in for skills since they all share the same name, so it's basically something you either equip manually or play Russian roulette with. I'm not trying to insult people who've worked hard on getting multiple capes for different circumstances, but to those people who are moaning about MORE inventory space when they fill it up with gear I truly shake my head in pity.

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Actually you can, equipsets can tell the difference, try it out yourself, sometimes they do get confused when you change the capes wardrobe/inventory location, but you can absolutely have different equipsets use different capes reliably. Not to mention, even if they didn't having multiple capes at least on some jobs would still be a huge deal, like melee and magic ones for Blue mage, for example.

When people don't understand how a system works while simultaneously insulting people who do, I grin in amusement.

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Originally Posted by Seiowan

Here's a question to those people who are moaning about having the wardrobes. If they weren't added at all, you'd be in the same situation now as you were before. What exactly was your grand plan for fixing your inventory problems if they'd never added the wardrobes?

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The same thing it was before, moogle storage or job limitations, however, the more things I have to store in moogle storage, the longer it takes me to job change at any time, and the lower max jobs I can play, the faster I can job change and the more jobs I can play at a level I'm happy with, the happier I am, thus I lobby for this change.

I have made the decisions that make me the happiest I can be under the current system, of course I lobby for changes that would make me happier, it would be illogical not to.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

The memory limitations on the client state otherwise. Remember this is a game designed in the late 90s and released in the early 2000s, there's hard caps on virtually everything, including what they can do with a zone before it gets so top heavy it causes problems just initializing all of the flags and events needing to be stored in memory. Them adding VW and UC spawns likely put them at their limit as is this is also why NPCs who offer multiple quests can't reliably "read" your status and pop the correct one because they're doubling up+ on single npcs for new content and overall that's a huge burden on the servers. So while XI isn't the most optimized game out there code wise, keep in mind it's hardcapped to 56k data streams.

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Come on now, you can't believe there is absolutely no room for new content in existing zones, do you? They're handicapped by an outdated engine, but they're still free to go into old zones and add/remove content similar to how they added level 80+ mobs to Grounds of Valor zones years ago.

If anything, this news only further solidifies my belief that they should have assigned an internal development team to porting this game to Unreal Engine 4 and relaunching it for PC alongside the mobile version from Nexon, who seem to have done a great job in the short time frame they were given. 60fps+, higher image quality, better draw distance - and all of it scalable via graphics settings like most modern games - no more loading between zones, larger auto-translate options, and on and on. Advertise it online and maybe with some inexpensive TV ads, throw in a couple of weeks of free playtime and it would breathe new life into the game, probably making back the development costs soon after launch. Best of all, they'd have a great deal of freedom in providing future updates. I'd be surprised if the idea hadn't been tossed around at SE already, but good luck convincing the suits to green light it after FFXIV.

I think their thought is "we DID re-develope the game for PC, and name it Final Fantasy 14! Just switch over already so we can concentrate on 1 game." Not saying I agree with it, but there it is......

The extra wardrobes would seem like a more reasonable option if their price was closer to that of extra characters, since storage-wise you can get a lot more benefit out of using one as a mule, like more AH slots. If the price were the same, the amount of potential slots would even out with the convenience of not having to switch characters to get stuff done.

I want to game to stick around for a long time and there are things I wouldn't mind paying for, but as it stands the cost-benefit ratio doesn't really work well considering the option already available.

Maybe after I clear some room by turning in my bonanza marbles, if inventory is still a problem for me, I'll consider getting my first mule to help with that pitch in slightly toward XI's financial effort. If the wardrobes were a better deal, maybe I'd go for those instead.


Not sure which is more (un)likely, SE bumping up the cost of extra characters on an account, or lowering the extra wardrobe prices...

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Originally Posted by Loona

The extra wardrobes would seem like a more reasonable option if their price was closer to that of extra characters, since storage-wise you can get a lot more benefit out of using one as a mule, like more AH slots. If the price were the same, the amount of potential slots would even out with the convenience of not having to switch characters to get stuff done.

I want to game to stick around for a long time and there are things I wouldn't mind paying for, but as it stands the cost-benefit ratio doesn't really work well considering the option already available.

Maybe after I clear some room by turning in my bonanza marbles, if inventory is still a problem for me, I'll consider getting my first mule to help with that pitch in slightly toward XI's financial effort. If the wardrobes were a better deal, maybe I'd go for those instead.


Not sure which is more (un)likely, SE bumping up the cost of extra characters on an account, or lowering the extra wardrobe prices...

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Personally I hate logging off to my mule and then sending things back and forth 8 at a time. Instead I gained a ton of inventory space with just wardrobe 3. If I get into playing any more jobs I'll get wardrobe 4. It's $2. I work at Pizza Hut and that's still not a significant number to me.

Yeah, the price isn't really an issue. Although I agree that in comparison with everything else in the game it's fairly overpriced for what it is. But again it's only 2-4 bucks so, yeah.

Now if that money ended up going to XIV, XV or the mobile garbage they are releasing then I would not get them even if they were 10 cents a month. I'm sick and tired of seeing XI being bleed to death to feed other projects.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

Yeah, the price isn't really an issue. Although I agree that in comparison with everything else in the game it's fairly overpriced for what it is. But again it's only 2-4 bucks so, yeah.

Now if that money ended up going to XIV, XV or the mobile garbage they are releasing then I would not get them even if they were 10 cents a month. I'm sick and tired of seeing XI being bleed to death to feed other projects.

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That's not how these things work at all in the basic sense.

A gaming company sets out at yearly financial meetings how much each game gets per year in a mass budget (all lead devs levy for a bigger budget and fights against other titles they run at these meetings to justify why they should get whatever they get), they get a chunk of money set to that project for the whole year based on how much it's earned in the last year and potential for growth of income from further increased investment. If a game adds a pokemon GO outfit for $10 and it makes a 10 million dollars, NONE of that money goes back into the game directly. It's all pure profit that goes direct to the mother company (although as stated, if it's shown the game has more potential to make money it's in a far stronger position next year at budget meetings for an increase next year)

If a lead developer can show at financial meetings that a game has made more money this year they are in a far better position to levy for an increased budget or continued support going forward, if the game has made less money it's more likely to have the budget reduced for the following year.

Every game they run gets a set budget no matter what it does or how much money it makes, none of the extra money any game makes goes directly back into the games at all.

Both XI and XIV has seen their yearly budgets reduced because of falls in profits, player drops and little true possibility of that changing going forward (both games are losing players year on year) has lead to this (Although xiv fully embracing the cash shop is boosting it's profits up). The sad fact is that the level of content XI is getting right now is based on a few things and unless they can think of ways to increase the profitability of this game above and beyond what they are currently doing, next years financial meeting won't usher in an increase at all. If anything it will be reduced for very obvious reasons (less content = more people quitting and a vicious circle on and on).

Oh and the mobile version of XI isn't run by Square at all anyway, it's run by a totally different company and it's going to be a complete joke when you see it. Nexon have a track record.

Oh and interesting bit of infro was posted from the mog lottery:

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1,074,002 mog lottery balls sold.

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1,074,002 sold, lets say everyone bought 10.

107,400 characters, let's round it up to 110k (even though it's probably more) because some don't know about mog lottery or didn't bother with it due to space / low chance etc.

110k characters, making an educated guess I'll say that maybe 50k are main accounts and 60k are mules.

50k x $12 (not counting that eu players pay $18) = $600k
60k x $1 = $60k

$660k per month.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

Yeah, the price isn't really an issue.

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The question of value for money is, if the new option costs more than an existing one while providing only a fraction of the benefit, although it does have something unique to it that maybe not that many people have an actual use for...

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Originally Posted by Castanica

1,074,002 sold, lets say everyone bought 10.

107,400 characters, let's round it up to 110k (even though it's probably more) because some don't know about mog lottery or didn't bother with it due to space / low chance etc.

110k characters, making an educated guess I'll say that maybe 50k are main accounts and 60k are mules.

50k x $12 (not counting that eu players pay $18) = $600k
60k x $1 = $60k

$660k per month.

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The problem is your guess isn't any more informed than mine or anyone else's.

A lot of people have more than one mule. A number of people have all 15 so if we assume the average is 2 mules:1 main, that becomes
36666 mains * 12 = $440,000~ ($439,992)
$73,332 from mules.
$513,000 total

But if the average is 3 mules to one person
$27,500 mains * 12 = $330,000
$82,500 from mules.
$412,500 total

I do not think the average could be higher than 3:1, but we don't know.

I mean, if we total up the number of players playing at peak times on their respective servers, it might not total 15,000. There are 16 active servers and a few are peaking at sub-500 range (356 on Valefor, 6PM Chicago, USA Time [CST]), it's rarely over 500.

The point I was making is that the game is still pretty profitable given their own numbers, also peak numbers are irrelevant on worldwide servers. As people log off in one region others log on, these are not all NA servers. They are JP, EU, NA, AU etc etc

It was just a very rough idea given an educated guess of how the playerbase of this game is, not many people have more than 1-2 mules.

Whatever estimate you use, they'd probably be thrilled with a few extra dollars per month.

You think that $660k - operating costs is PROFITABLE? You can't just quote a companies sales as profit....there are expenses as well you know.......

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Originally Posted by Castanica

The point I was making is that the game is still pretty profitable given their own numbers,

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But it's not an educated guess. I don't want to be rude, but it's not informed by anything. "I dumped 500 marbles into that box, some are clear. How many are pink?"

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Also peak numbers are irrelevant on worldwide servers. As people log off in one region others log on, these are not all NA servers. They are JP, EU, NA, AU etc etc

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I meant servers' respective peak times, whether it's mostly NA (like I hear Asura is), JP (I've been told that's Unicorn), or a more distributed balance.

A lot of people also never log out for bazaaring or just laziness.

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Originally Posted by ibm2431

Posting this with my second account before I cancel it as well:
I just canceled my account of 11 years.

I am not going to tolerate SE wanting to charge 30% of the monthly fee for a couple extra kilobytes of storage. I won't put up with SE giving themselves a financial incentive to avoid giving us ways of better managing our inventory (Storage Slips, combining similar items, etc). I won't abide trying to charge the playerbase extra instead of just fixing the underlying game engine so we don't have inventory loading problems in the first place.

Think about it, the more situational single-use pieces they add to the game, the more they encourage players to spend more money. How long until we see the return of (ilvl) Elemental Staves? Will the question of, "will this reduce our Wardrobe 3/4 subscriber count" be asked while considering whether or not to add something to a Storage Slip? When will they add single-job only earrings?

Rather than fix our inventory burdens with better design choices, they want to squeeze extra money from us while doing nothing more than expanding a data field. We should not be expected to be willing to pay an extra 30% to get around the game's technical/design problems. Players who like to play multiple well-geared jobs, of varying types, shouldn't be told that they'll need to pay more for the privilege of providing more utility to their linkshell.

This is outrageous. And it just cost SE a subscriber of 11 years.

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Right there with you, I'm not quitting the game though. I just won't pay for it.

LOL, you'll be back.......

Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't, but, they lose more revenue for a cancelled sub than the extra cost of the wardrobe, I'm not sure how it impacts their bottom line, but, it's unlikely we'll ever know on this end, but they'll know.