Market Wards, enough is enough

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Originally Posted by Dizmo

The problem is unfixable. However you look at it, a sea of 100s of retainers in one place is never going to be a viable system.

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i agree and the game would need to be @ 100% for the ps3 release to be effective

People in favor of wards probably would like the game to asks us every time we use an ability: Are you sure you want to use it? yes no. After all 1 more step to do something isn't a big deal, right?

If you think about it Wards is just an AH without history. As long as they don't add history i don't care if they use wards or AH. If they has a preview window of how an item would look on your character(like on Aion), i would prefer AH no history.

Any developer (or game critic) worth their salt would have realized a long time ago that there are major, fundamental design flaws with Market Wards that cannot ever be fixed and will always make inferior. The few people that are still active on FFXIV just like plugging their ears and pretending like everything's perfect.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

The few people that are still active on FFXIV just like plugging their ears and pretending like everything's perfect.

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I've yet to see someone say this game is perfect. Why exaggerate?

I don't have a problem with the wards, they just need to keep them from crashing.

Ok i just gotta state something

people didnt quit in mass because of no AH
they didnt quit in mass cuz they couldnt jump

The main killers at launch were the following

1) massive UI lag
2) combat system that coulda been alot better
3) lack of content

those are the main 3 things that matter, not silly things like "i cant jump down a cliff wah wah wah"


as for the wards right now, they are fine as is, but could ALWAYS use more improvement, and alot of those improvements are obviousnt and dont need restating

the recent crashing has gotten worse due to the fix they put in for the retainers reseting(which was in turn a minor crash bug before thats gotten worse cuz of it)
this is due to mmo coding, all mmos have this problem when they put certain fixes in, sometimes it shows up worse then others
i 99% expect something in tomorows patch addressing it

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Originally Posted by Vesperia

No I want SE to bring retainers to the streets and then I want them to fix whatever lag it causes.

Earn their pay. Do what they get paid for. Fix the bugs. Fix the lag.

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SE have no control over what would happen when your PC has to calculate and draw 200% more charecter models than now, any lag from brining retainers to the streets would be entirely based on a players PC and connection, unless you want the game offline while they downgrade the graphics to fix this client side lag.

Back on topic, the wards do badly need stabalising, however its not always as simple a job as you all seem to think, it requires more configurations, maybe new hardware for the servers, also it may not be the servers, they could need more beefy infrasructure equipment to the servers that contain the wards. What they need to do is buy a completly new set of equipment they have, build an exact replica of thier setup (isolated from the current network) and copy the configurations over, then they need to stress test each piece of hardware indevidually then they find the bottle neck and can start to find the issue, then they would beable to optimise the neccecery configurations or upgrade hardware.

All of this takes time, take psn, that was offline for 1 month to only upgrade thier security while thier network was offline, all they needed to do was test on the current network, then change configurations and upgrade firewalls and everything else. Of course all of this is speculation but it is what I would do if I was in this situation, also what needs to be taken into account is the amount of staff they put to rebuilding the game because of the bad rep.

Also lets not forget there is still no certainty over the wards because of the amount of people that want an AH, if they spend over 100k on testing and upgrading the hardware for the wards then decide to ditch them it would be a complete waste of money.

So I would say the main reason they havent been stabalised yet is the demand for an AH and the uncertanty over the future of the wards. Until it can be shown that any money spent on the servers that handle the wards can be justified the stability will not change much unless its a simple configuration change which I highly doubt because it would be fixed now.

A way to fix the issue (but it would cost alot of money is to use differant servers for each ward, then when you search the client is programed to send a multicast to all of the ward servers, this would hugely increase capacity and more retainers could be put in them (if the wards get enlarged) the downside is they need to be certain they will be keeping the wards because it would cost over $300k

For me, I feel like buying from the market wards isn't terrible (yes its not as quick/easy as an auction house, but im not ripping my hair out over it). What kills it for me is selling stuff on there. That is the real problem/hassle. Basically you have to:

1.Choose the item you want to sell from your retainer
2.Exit that menu and go to the search function
3.Figure out what category the item even falls under
4.Look at the prices of the item
5.Exit those menus and go back to retainer
6.Put the item up for sale

Now with a good UI based auction house they could reduce that many steps way down. Type in the item in a search function, check prices, put the item up for sale, done. Right now theres just way to many menus to go through just to sell 1 item, and with the UI lag, its really a hassle.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Any developer (or game critic) worth their salt would have realized a long time ago that there are major, fundamental design flaws with Market Wards that cannot ever be fixed and will always make inferior.

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I have been saying the same since day one. SE has done a good job of improving the experience by streamlining the browsing of bazaars and improving the speed at which the retainer models load, but at some point they will have to realize they're throwing good money after bad.

They have made it only seem less annoying by putting half an auction house in place and early-loading the starred retainers. If you want to look for a retainer by name (maybe you want to buy multiple items from the same ward without all the trips back and forth to the make-believe "search" counter) you will see it is extremely frustrating and nigh impossible, just like before the search-and-flag system. The game can still show only those retainers immediately around you. Even 1-2 steps forward will reveal many retainers previously invisible, while those close behind you quickly disappear.

This market ward system strains at the current server populations and would never scale to the number of players in a successful game. Sure SE could eventually add more servers, but surely there's a limit. I shudder to imagine 5 times the number of servers we have now, each feeling just as desolate.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

The few people that are still active on FFXIV just like plugging their ears and pretending like everything's perfect.

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I don't think I would have said it so harshly, but I cannot disagree with the sentiment. Even I have become a cheerleader for SE at the incremental changes and improvements. ("Yes! We got backstory and quests!!") I think that's just human nature, to be hopeful and supportive. However I hope SE understands this and realizes that "better than it was" can still be "not acceptable to modern MMO gamers".

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Originally Posted by Dimo

For me, I feel like buying from the market wards isn't terrible (yes its not as quick/easy as an auction house, but im not ripping my hair out over it). What kills it for me is selling stuff on there. That is the real problem/hassle. Basically you have to:

1.Choose the item you want to sell from your retainer
2.Exit that menu and go to the search function
3.Figure out what category the item even falls under
4.Look at the prices of the item
5.Exit those menus and go back to retainer
6.Put the item up for sale

Now with a good UI based auction house they could reduce that many steps way down. Type in the item in a search function, check prices, put the item up for sale, done. Right now theres just way to many menus to go through just to sell 1 item, and with the UI lag, its really a hassle.

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They could change it so you can choose to type what you want to search for which would streamline it more, especially if you arent sure what catogory an item is under, the problem is, as I have already said is the uncertanty behind the future of the wards right now, admitedly this is an addition to the code so there would not be the costs involved from my other post so we could see it sometime.

Also if your gonna sell somthing wether its in your inventory or on your retainer you usually know what it is, i know few people who think "hmmm i wanna sell somthing random" which is the only time you would need to choose the item you want to sell before you check prices ans put it up for sale.

It can be changed so you just need to:
1. search for the item by catogory or text
2. go to retainer and give item (if you are carrying it)
3. put item up for sale

@ArkhamNative (couldnt be bothered to quote) when i mentioned more servers it was to releve load on the wards and rather than all the wards on 1 server they would be split to have thier own server per ward or to save money 2 or 3 wards per server. these would be added to the current server groups that make up the worlds. Yes it would cost alot and i know it wont be implemented unless its certain the wards will remain in game.

I'm just going to chime in with more nonsense that will likely get glossed over...

Honestly, when every person posts at least 2 retainers in ONLY Ul'dah and no where else, it puts a ton stress on those servers. Do you ever see the Limsa or Gridania wards crashing? No. It's only because everyone and their brother will only put crap in Ul'dah

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Originally Posted by JayvirDeforte

I'm just going to chime in with more nonsense that will likely get glossed over...

Honestly, when every person posts at least 2 retainers in ONLY Ul'dah and no where else, it puts a ton stress on those servers. Do you ever see the Limsa or Gridania wards crashing? No. It's only because everyone and their brother will only put crap in Ul'dah

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In other words. Blame the players.

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Originally Posted by Reika

In other words. Blame the players.

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in an mmo the more players you throw at something the more likely a glitch/bug in the code will surface
this is one of those cases
it is not however the players fault

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

in an mmo the more players you throw at something the more likely a glitch/bug in the code will surface
this is one of those cases
it is not however the players fault

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True. but if we know that filling up one cities MW will cause a crash, we should avoid it until server stability is increased.

Unless all the MW on those servers simultaneously crash...

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Originally Posted by Reika

True. but if we know that filling up one cities MW will cause a crash, we should avoid it until server stability is increased.

Unless all the MW on those servers simultaneously crash...

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we should
but we wont

i foresee an attempted fix for this in tomorows patch though so lets see what that brings

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Originally Posted by JayvirDeforte

I'm just going to chime in with more nonsense that will likely get glossed over...

Honestly, when every person posts at least 2 retainers in ONLY Ul'dah and no where else, it puts a ton stress on those servers. Do you ever see the Limsa or Gridania wards crashing? No. It's only because everyone and their brother will only put crap in Ul'dah

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One thing to consider, however, is even if they somehow managed to disperse retainers to the different city-states, would the same problem arise when the PS3 version is released and the population rises? Though they still have sometime to come up with a counter to that issue.

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Originally Posted by ArkhamNative

I have been saying the same since day one. SE has done a good job of improving the experience by streamlining the browsing of bazaars and improving the speed at which the retainer models load, but at some point they will have to realize they're throwing good money after bad.

They have made it only seem less annoying by putting half an auction house in place and early-loading the starred retainers. If you want to look for a retainer by name (maybe you want to buy multiple items from the same ward without all the trips back and forth to the make-believe "search" counter) you will see it is extremely frustrating and nigh impossible, just like before the search-and-flag system. The game can still show only those retainers immediately around you. Even 1-2 steps forward will reveal many retainers previously invisible, while those close behind you quickly disappear.

This market ward system strains at the current server populations and would never scale to the number of players in a successful game. Sure SE could eventually add more servers, but surely there's a limit. I shudder to imagine 5 times the number of servers we have now, each feeling just as desolate.



I don't think I would have said it so harshly, but I cannot disagree with the sentiment. Even I have become a cheerleader for SE at the incremental changes and improvements. ("Yes! We got backstory and quests!!") I think that's just human nature, to be hopeful and supportive. However I hope SE understands this and realizes that "better than it was" can still be "not acceptable to modern MMO gamers".

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I know it's harsh, but every time someone comes out with a good point against MW (and trust me, there are LOTS), dozens of people jump down his/her throat about how MW is perfect or better than AH or whatever. It gets tiring trying to explain to people why something doesn't work, only to not be heard and for them to just keep spouting the same stuff I refuted.

To expand on what you said, the following will never be possible in Market Wards, as long as SE insists that that there be physical NPCs selling your stuff in separate zones:

Retainers selling multiple categories of items without a penalty
Excessive zoning when buying multiple items
Excessive time spent performing searches and browsing
Inability to render a lot of shops (also places a big strain on weaker gaming machines)
Ward limits (and if the game ever gets more than 2000 players per server, this is going to be HUGE)
Limited sale slots and retainers (also problem combined with point #1)

Really, there is nothing that MW does now that can't be made better, faster, and cheaper (in terms of developer costs) by removing the NPCs and making everything happen from a windowed interface like FFXI/WOW/Aion/[your MMO of choice].

From the latest letter it doesn't sound like they're trying to improve the wards much, I'd say an AH is coming or something more convenient, before PS3 release.

My server has more than 500 people, and that's why you see us on the lodestone everyday for our MW(uldah) going down lol [Selbina]

only way to fix the current system is to merge MW and stabilize them, I dont see it happening. They should stabilize current system now, then change it to AH or w/e after people have a need, right now our economy isn't the best so the MW are on the back burner. Once people have something to seriously effin sell (and some people do now, I won't act ignorant to those selling nm leve gear and crafters and such), but when most of the population has something to sell, they'll all be complaining about it, and I think that won't be till after 1.18 and 1.19, due to the play style of people. Right now I go hard on this game for three months, and then quit for three months, half due to monotony, half due to a new semester starting. So they need a way to pull me from my school work, which they haven't done, which is sad.

Another point is a lot of people don't have two retainers, they have 4, 6, 8 or more because they've taken advantage of being able to make new characters or use their buddy pass for free. I currently have 4 retainers fully stocked and I'm thinking about setting up another 2.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

Another point is a lot of people don't have two retainers, they have 4, 6, 8 or more because they've taken advantage of being able to make new characters or use their buddy pass for free. I currently have 4 retainers fully stocked and I'm thinking about setting up another 2.

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This is a very good point, actually. Are the MW servers prepared to handle 8 retainers from every player on the world? How about just one? I doubt MW can even support 1000 retainers right now, much less 8000+ when server populations fill out more.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

This is a very good point, actually. Are the MW servers prepared to handle 8 retainers from every player on the world? How about just one? I doubt MW can even support 1000 retainers right now, much less 8000+ when server populations fill out more.

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Which is where my suggestion comes in, each ward on its own server would beable to handle this easily, did I not post that idea on pg 5? most of the issues posted since would be fixed by my suggestion

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Originally Posted by Delsus

Which is where my suggestion comes in, each ward on its own server would beable to handle this easily, did I not post that idea on pg 5? most of the issues posted since would be fixed by my suggestion

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That's possible sure, but is it feasible? What's the current retainer limit in a ward, 200? That would be like dedicating ~40 machines just for a single world's market system. That's ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

Which is where my suggestion comes in, each ward on its own server would beable to handle this easily, did I not post that idea on pg 5? most of the issues posted since would be fixed by my suggestion

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That's not a solution. Say they even increase the capacity of a single ward, Wolfie said it was 200 retainers, say they make it a thousand and stabilize each ward, how is that a feasible solution? What is the point of walking into a ward where there's thousands of retainers and your only going for one? its not a solution. The ONLY reason SE is holding onto the wards is so they can charge you extra for retainers in the future, and I will keep saying this until people on here see that down the road. Nothing about the wards is good imo, the only solution is take the wards and make them a counter.

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Originally Posted by Mack

That's not a solution. Say they even increase the capacity of a single ward, Wolfie said it was 200 retainers, say they make it a thousand and stabilize each ward, how is that a feasible solution? What is the point of walking into a ward where there's thousands of retainers and your only going for one? its not a solution. The ONLY reason SE is holding onto the wards is so they can charge you extra for retainers in the future, and I will keep saying this until people on here see that down the road. Nothing about the wards is good imo, the only solution is take the wards and make them a counter.

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It does seem like that, and what is sad is if they had an AH but still kept personal NPC's for storage, people would still pay for a bunch of them lol Because its all about the storage not how much items you can sell.

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Originally Posted by Nikita

One thing to consider, however, is even if they somehow managed to disperse retainers to the different city-states, would the same problem arise when the PS3 version is released and the population rises? Though they still have sometime to come up with a counter to that issue.

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This is what I'm most concerned about. In the most recent Letter from the Producer Yoshi-P clearly states that they are still working on fixing stability issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this something that they said they've been working on for a while now?

If they can fix the issues we're having now, great. But will that fix matter once PS3 version is released? Or will we see the same problem all over again? It just seems that this is a difficult problem for them to fix, given that it's existed for a long time now and has gotten worse recently.

It just makes sense for them to draw the line and say that the way the market wards are currently implemented is not worth their time trying to diagnose and fix. Sure Auction Houses crash too, as would any market system I would imagine. But this frequently? SE has spent enough money on this game already. This is one of the areas they can cut costs a bit and still have a functioning market system, if they decide to go with an AH.

wards are fine, player base isn't.
Reason for the crashes is players are all in the same ward area, AND in the same wards. Too many people put to much stuff in the same few wards or do not take out their retainers. In some cases no one is using the wards as intended and screwing over others. Too many retainers handing in very few wards is too much for the server.

Some suggestions are:
1 make all the wards for MISC instead of trying to have catagories.
2 instead of a narrow hall, make the ward one large room that is 6 stalls x 9 rows.
3 have 3 cloors for each ward

I think that is stuff SE can do to help the server.

But most of the problems are with the playerbase. We do need to spread out more and not congrigate into 1 town. Which is part of the crash.

Do not go by the 30K player base number as it may be more considering even a 1 chocobo server has full wards in Ul'dah. 3 chocobo server ( high populated server) had very full wards in ul'dah.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

wards are fine, player base isn't.
Reason for the crashes is players are all in the same ward area, AND in the same wards. Too many people put to much stuff in the same few wards or do not take out their retainers. In some cases no one is using the wards as intended and screwing over others. Too many retainers handing in very few wards is too much for the server.

Some suggestions are:
1 make all the wards for MISC instead of trying to have catagories.
2 instead of a narrow hall, make the ward one large room that is 6 stalls x 9 rows.
3 have 3 cloors for each ward

I think that is stuff SE can do to help the server.

But most of the problems are with the playerbase. We do need to spread out more and not congrigate into 1 town. Which is part of the crash.

Do not go by the 30K player base number as it may be more considering even a 1 chocobo server has full wards in Ul'dah. 3 chocobo server ( high populated server) had very full wards in ul'dah.

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In Selbina all the wards are used properly and packed to the brim and the wards crash all the time.

The simple fact is that all the zoning searching and activity on the wards cause of the cumbersome system they have in place put to much strain on the server. And as population increases the problems will only worsen. Add more wards or splitting them up to smaller or whatever will not change the fact that it causes to much strain on the servers. They are going to move to an AH type system in the end cause an AH doesn't put nearly as much stress on the servers as the current ward system.

They should impliment a buy feature at the search menu so i dont have to even run in the ward rooms unless im putting my retainer there to sell it would make it closer to an AH which is a basic feature seen across pretty much every mmo....someone was very drunk when they thought of the market ward system. and where the *^&# is my mailbox.....well my moogle mail carrier

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Originally Posted by Mack

In Selbina all the wards are used properly and packed to the brim and the wards crash all the time.

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that isn't true I was on the server. and did look for gear.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

that isn't true I was on the server. and did look for gear.

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Just because they didn't crash in the extremely short window you played on Selbina, doesn't mean they do not crash at all.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

that isn't true I was on the server. and did look for gear.

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I've been on the server since the game was launched I think I would know.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

wards are fine, player base isn't.

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Its nothing to with the games design is it?

I'm talking main story, but also ease of transportation to everywhere else. Those 2 facts have caused a convergance on uldah.

Its design flaw upon design flaw. Domino effect. w/e..

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Originally Posted by Hiemdall

So when the backend database becomes unstable due to it being in heavy development you want the entire town if not the server to go down with it? This is by far not stable code. The game engine is new, as is the game itself which again is in heavy development. So the logical thing to do is separate systems so if one goes down it does not bring down the whole thing. Think of it as modules to an OS's kernel.

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Can you say it in english? not everyone has a doctorate in cybernetics.

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Originally Posted by Vesperia

Can you say it in english? not everyone has a doctorate in cybernetics.

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They store the data and coding for the market ward separate from the data and coding for the rest of the game so if the wards crash the rest of the game can go on.

It wasn't hard to figure that out.

A few ideas I had about the system:

1) Adding more wards to fight stability. Either Battlecraft 1, Battlecraft 2, etc. and/or maybe Linkshell owned wards? A gil sink where LSs can rent out wards or downright purchase them. (By renting that ward, it allows members of that LS to put up their retainers in stalls free of charge. But I would imagine it would be pricey to rent.)

2) Adding more stalls, a lot more, and making it required to be in one. This limits how many people can be in a ward as well as helps to get gil out of the game. The developers can work out what is a stable limit to each ward and make only that many stalls available in each.

3) Slightly off topic, allow players to see what others are trying to purchase from their retainers. That way we can see more than what people are selling, but also what they are seeking.

4) How about instead of just having the marking of the retainer option, maybe there is a choice to mark, or for the player to zone to the retainer. (Or possibly a stand where the retainer comes out to meet you.) Marking is good for people who want to search for several of an item. Insta-retainer would be good for people that just want to get in and out.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

They store the data and coding for the market ward separate from the data and coding for the rest of the game so if the wards crash the rest of the game can go on.

It wasn't hard to figure that out.

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So in other words SE puts crappy servers for the market wards and doesnt care about fixing them because if they crash it's no big deal.

SE needs to employ better servers and better network coders so they can actually start to implement P2P-quality mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Vesperia

So in other words SE puts crappy servers for the market wards and doesnt care about fixing them because if they crash it's no big deal.

SE needs to employ better servers and better network coders so they can actually start to implement P2P-quality mechanics.

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No, in other words the main game doesn't crash even if the wards do.

Don't put in words that aren't there just to bash the company :/