What Would You Sacrifice for a Glamour Catalogue?

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Originally Posted by BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY

this^ i would love to some in-game bestiary. something not unlike in some other games. like you just have to defeat that particular enemy enough times to collect and store the relevant information. something like what was in FFXIII.


but if i had to choose... the hunting log, simply because they don't seem to be doing anything with this. i was rather disappointed to see nothing new with the release of Heavensward.


a galmour log not unlike the collection log we see in Eden Eternal could be very useful, and very welcomed.

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Look how long it took SE to come out with a new GC rank. Hope they have more GC ranks and hunt logs in Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Nothing. Glamour log should be a basic feature of the game.

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Agreed. SE just needs to get their crap together.

Well I would find it kinda sad if they are only able to give us something like that if we sacrifice something else for it..I mean isnt it a successful MMO with lots of income? Well if there is something that can be sacrificed than its the hunting log.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

While I can appreciate the lore and details involved in the Sightseeing and Fishing Logs, I still feel as though they're just wasted bits of data that most will look over once and be done with it. The 2.0 Sightseeing log in particular can rot for all I care. I don't want to sacrifice a Lalafell under a Bloodmoon while it rains in Mor Dhona in order to complete it

The Hunting Log became redundant long ago but PotD was the final nail in its coffin. It offers absolutely nothing tangible now so away with it I say.

Achievement items can be moved elsewhere honestly and no one would bat an eye over it.

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Sadly, SE has a bad habit of making most of what they add needlessly convoluted.

Someone mentioned Lord of Verminion, which some thought was going to be a pokemon-style minigame that could be done anywhere in the world and didn't require large scale organization; what we got instead was a section of the Gold Saucer dedicated to a strategy RPG-esque system that's both out of the way and tedious to get into.

When SE mentioned sightseeing logs, I hoped the result would be something like the exploration badges from City of Heroes (which actually gave you a lot of relevant zone lore related to the threats that you faced in each zone). What we got was a bunch of stuff that while geographically sound also has very specific conditions to find (cue jokes about how sightseeing log was the true endgame of ARR).

Concept-wise, a glamour log would be relatively simple. From a programming standpoint you have to figure out a way to insert it in accordance with SE's way of implementing stuff and keeping in mind whatever data limits SE feels they have. Easiest thing, to me, would be to add an NPC that deals with the glamour log (basically being a fashion guru that can be summoned with the crystal bell just like the hairstylist can). Allow that NPC to also store glamour prisms for you in addition to dyes (that's a ton of inventory space saved already). If you want to keep using the current system, you'd still have to keep pieces of gear and prisms/dyes in your inventory, but you also have the option of doing all your glamour via the NPC in your inn room/apartment/house.

Here's a small thing I came up with. It's not fleshed out, but a decent starting point.

We need more free retrainers... 2 free is not enought

I'd sacrifice a firstborn, most likely.

Seriously though, I'd be willing to pay extra for it. Similar to the extra retainer fee. It helps fund the server strain, and doesn't infringe upon others by eating their other systems.

I don't think the logs would be the thing to go though- from the feeble amount I know about server-side data storage, that probably takes up a rather meager amount. It's more likely that items and progression (quests 'n acheebments 'n stuff) are taking up a lot more space.
But yeah, squenix can eat an extra 10 a month from me if it gets me a damned glamour bible.

I would sacrifice 25 Lalafells and 5 Roegadyns

First off, there's no reason to sacrifice anything for more features. If the comparison here is similar content (and it appears that it is), well, let's do the math:

a.) Hunting Log. There are 529 hunting log entries, with totals ranging from 1 to 7 of each monster. That's 3 bits per entry, assuming a uniform and minimal data model. That puts all of the hunting log content at just under 200 bytes, and you could compress that further if you really wanted to.

b.) Sightseeing Log. I believe there are 142 of those. Each is a simple on/off, so 1 bit per entry, a total of 18 bytes for the current log. Obviously this will increase over time if they keep adding entries.

c.) Fishing Guide. I think there are 497 fish. Like the sightseeing log, these are a simple on/off. That's 63 bytes for the current guide, and this will definitely keep increasing in size (linearly).

Now, let's look at a glamour log. As of 3.0, there were at least 8,789 pieces of gear, not counting waist gear since that can't be glamoured. Assuming a simple on/off for that, that's just under 1100 bytes.

Conclusion: sacrificing all three of those logs accounts for less than 1/4 of what the glamour log would have required a year ago. But also, the amount of data isn't all that crazy. I would love to see a glamour log like this implemented, even if it's only accessible at certain times (like retainers) or something. But there's certainly no reason to remove anything else.

I sacrifice my money every month and my time.

Seriously, in this day this "server memory limitation" nonsense shouldn't be a thing unless you are either stuck in the late 90s/early 2000s(Ultima online and EQ era) or bad at making use of your resources. Other modern MMOs don't have this crap(that isn't there by design for cash shop)

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Here's a small thing I came up with. It's not fleshed out, but a decent starting point.

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While this solves certain inventory issues, I think we can do a lot better than coming up with horribly convoluted and seriously inconvenient systems for SE. They do that all on their own. We should be pushing them to do better.

F. I don't really think we need one.

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Originally Posted by Slirith

Seriously, in this day this "server memory limitation" nonsense shouldn't be a thing unless you are either stuck in the late 90s/early 2000s(Ultima online and EQ era) or bad at making use of your resources. Other modern MMOs don't have this crap(that isn't there by design for cash shop)

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I don't know how the FFXIV servers are setup and I'm not necessarily defending them, but you don't have enough information to make this claim. There could be some fundamental differences in FFXIV's server design than other games that do this which cause it to be impractical. It could be a tradeoff for some other feature we take for granted. They may have been given a hard bandwidth cap by their corporate overlords and designed accordingly. We don't know. But as a programmer I have an allergic reaction any time anyone tells me something they have no visibility into should be "easy." ;)

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Originally Posted by Talraen

-snip-

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Pretty much all of this.

I was once a moderator that had contact with developers/producers for a different MMO, and you'd be surprised how many things would break out of nowhere. For that particular MMO, the issue was that there were so many different versions of the game all around the world progressing at their own speed that it was virtually impossible for the developers to program for every contingency.

A minor example was that there was an event that was supposed to deliver items that could be placed on a weapon to convert all non-elemental damage inflicted to that particular element. Thing is, the gifting algorithm used was programmed in a rather odd way - first the staff had to find the item ID, and then for some reason, they had to input the stats themselves (most items within the same 'family' of items had randomized stats, which is probably why this step had to be taken). The items given out did not actually work as intended - even though the item tooltip said that it'd convert non-elemental damage to a specific element, that actually did not happen, for it turns out that the developers did not program a working 'elemental conversion' stat into the item gifting algorithm (even though the text was there).

So the staff pretty much had to take back the worthless items and award currency instead that would allow players to purchase the working items from the special currency shop.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

Title asks the question. One of the big reasons we haven't received a Glamour Catalogue/Log is due to the high amounts of data that need to be stored for each individual playable character. The topic came up with some friends over Discord and I thought I'd bring it here to see what people think.

So, what would you Sacrifice to get a Glamour Catalogue?

a) The Hunting Log
b) The Sightseeing Log
c) The Fishing Guide
d) All of the Above
e) Something Else
f) None (Don't want a Glamour Catalogue)

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Option (f), because there shouldn't need to be a sacrifice made. SE did a thoroughly atrocious job implementing Glamours; it is the most obtuse and inventory-hungry solution I've seen in a video game. Needing special Prisms? Needing to have both the Glamour item and the actual item in the Armoury at the same time? No way of recalling an old look without hanging onto the gear in question? Fucking ridiculous.

Also, that argument about 'high amounts of data' is utter nonsense, and nobody should be particularly accepting of it. It could literally be done with a bit string (one million bits would take up a single megabit of space, or 1/8 of a megabyte). It's not like they'd literally have to store the information for every potential Glamour item on a character to create a log; they just need a bit string that references a central Glamour database.

No, the REAL reason that there isn't a Glamour log is some combination of incompetence, disinterest, and penny-pinching. It's impossible to say with any certainty how blame should be allocated across these three categories, but there isn't some magical technical barrier. They somehow managed the Crafting Log, after all, which, while not precisely the same size as a Glamour log, is of an equivalent order of magnitude. Let's stop letting SE off the hook for an inept Glamour implementation by accepting their ridiculous excuses for why it just can't be done.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

I don't know how the FFXIV servers are setup and I'm not necessarily defending them, but you don't have enough information to make this claim. There could be some fundamental differences in FFXIV's server design than other games that do this which cause it to be impractical. It could be a tradeoff for some other feature we take for granted. They may have been given a hard bandwidth cap by their corporate overlords and designed accordingly. We don't know. But as a programmer I have an allergic reaction any time anyone tells me something they have no visibility into should be "easy." ;)

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There's absolutely nothing about FFXIV's construction that I haven't seen in other games in some form or another. If SE made trade-offs, they were bad trade-offs. If their server design allowed for extensive Crafting Logs but not Glamour Logs, they really cut it close to the margins.

It's true that there might be factors beyond the control of the development team, but that's all the more reason not to accept their excuse. Corporate overlords will be much more inclined to ease up on any restrictions if they see complaints from the community. Accepting the dev team's hard-to-believe explanation just gives corporate more of an excuse to tightly ration resources, if that's indeed what they're doing in this case.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

While this solves certain inventory issues, I think we can do a lot better than coming up with horribly convoluted and seriously inconvenient systems for SE. They do that all on their own. We should be pushing them to do better.

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I agree with this, but my post, like with every one of my suggestions, keeps in mind the way the devs implement things and the reasons they give for not doing things.

I could easily tell the devs to copy something from another game completely because it works, but Yoshida's already addressed copying WoW's transmog log and how that would cause problems for them when it comes to data per character. My suggestion, while convoluted, nips the data issue in the bud because the glamour log would only involve interacting with a summonable NPC, and would be limited to inn rooms/housing. Which means the checks between server and client for something like a glamour log wouldn't take place all the time, but under specific conditions.

No, they need to fix whatever is causing these ridiculous "character data" problems, because they are clearly dragging the game down. There's really no excuse for SE to struggle so much with features that really have become basic game systems across MMOs.

SE is a high-tech software company running one of the most lucrative MMOs in the market. They shouldn't be citing character data storage issues as a reason that they can't deliver something that much smaller, much worse games can do easily. We shouldn't have to sacrifice anything in order to get a simple glamour catalogue system. If we believe in SE's ability to deliver a solid and enjoyable game (which we obviously do), then we need to believe in SE's ability to deliver something as basic as a standard feature.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

No, they need to fix whatever is causing these ridiculous "character data" problems, because they are clearly dragging the game down. There's really no excuse for SE to struggle so much with features that really have become basic game systems across MMOs.

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I agree, but when someone gives you a bullshit excuse for not doing something, you have the choice of calling them out on it to their face (something no interviewer will do) or suggest things with said bullshit excuse in mind (which gives them no outs on why they can't/won't do something).

If added, the glamour log should be account-wide, not per-character. This alone would save a vast amount of resources post-implementation.

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Originally Posted by Slirith

Seriously, in this day this "server memory limitation" nonsense shouldn't be a thing unless you are either stuck in the late 90s/early 2000s(Ultima online and EQ era) or bad at making use of your resources. Other modern MMOs don't have this crap(that isn't there by design for cash shop)

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It shouldn't by here we are and with FFXIV is a thing.
Yoshi doesn't tell us the whole truth about that because of many reasons.
He can't risk his job and his reputation inside the company.
Or the game's engine is poorly written in some parts so it's hard to implement some things without sacrificing manpower from other more important thing like future dungeons etc.
Which bring us to the next obstacle that is his given budget and manpower.
At least they did upgrade the servers.
They take slow steps.

http://i.imgur.com/xqkc5ZB.jpg?1

We really really need something like this even F2P mmos have it a book=a catalogue=a outfit system ANYTHING would do

-Unlock appearance upon acquiring item NO NEED TO HOARD ITEMS

-Able to save outfits with ability to set a outfit to each spec

Im not sure how much money is being made off people with additional retainers since introducing this type of system would surely lower those numbers by some. Even a money hungry MMO like SWTOR has this type of system but rather than IRL money you use the in-game currency to SAVE an outfit.

A glamour catalogue will save me over 100 slot lol

Surprised no one said this yet:

Cash Shop

That's the problem with this game people worrying about glamour an not game play or new game content, I would want more challenging things in the game / things to do than doing two of the same dungeon in expert roulette

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Originally Posted by Nesoi

That's the problem with this game people worrying about glamour an not game play or new game content, I would want more challenging things in the game / things to do than doing two of the same dungeon in expert roulette

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My problem is : iv too much glamour i want keep so , i have not a lot of slot for craft / gathering :/
I do think a catalogue could help me .

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Originally Posted by Nesoi

That's the problem with this game people worrying about glamour an not game play or new game content, I would want more challenging things in the game / things to do than doing two of the same dungeon in expert roulette

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It's fine that you want that, I want that too, but I also want a glamour catalogue, so that I can be assured I will have a place to store all the shiny rewards I get from running that new content. Really, this sort of attitude is inevitable for a game where your primary reward for doing anything is clothing; it's not a problem, it's working as intended.

Fortunately, the people who would be putting together dungeon assets are probably not the same people who would be working on programming a log like this, so both of these desires can coexist peacefully.

What would I Sacrifice? Lalafels of course.

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Originally Posted by DarkSlayerGrimm

http://i.imgur.com/xqkc5ZB.jpg?1

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Damn this is awakening my collector spirit. It's all what I ever wanted since the start of this game.
Spending my time filling that catalogue would rent my sub so bad. Contrary to now.

I also believe that with a glamour catalog at least some people would start to try to complete it which would mean more time playing the game thus also more time staying subbed. Also this could help at least some content to stay alive longer. I have a friend ingame that likes to collect dungeon sets. He says that he knows that they put a lot of work behind creating the gear and wants to collect them to show his love for that.

I just thought it was worthwhile digging this thread up to point out that... WildStar is increasing their Holo-wardrobe appearance save limit to 2000 appearances, up from 500. Patiently awaiting additional costume sets beyond 12 to purchase and quite confident they will do so.

Now, SE, when are you going to follow other games into the modern world?

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Originally Posted by Naunet

I just thought it was worthwhile digging this thread up to point out that... WildStar is increasing their Holo-wardrobe appearance save limit to 2000 appearances, up from 500. Patiently awaiting additional costume sets beyond 12 to purchase and quite confident they will do so.

Now, SE, when are you going to follow other games into the modern world?

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Lol, 2000 XD.

Said it in another thread but might as well add it here too:

GW2, glamour log afaik saves every skin in the game (every single one)... so.. that's a lot lol.

WoW, just found a more recent example (still not sure it's up to date though), 741 saved skins.

Edit: my 741 number is off, it's much higher~!

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Originally Posted by Natsuno

Actually, it's more than that. That screenshot only shows how many cloak skins there are. If you look at DarkSlayerGrimm's post (#62), you'll see another 2 figures 242 & 371. The 371 relates only to how many plate chest pieces there are. This does not include cloth/leather/mail chest pieces, or other slots. I am unsure if the 242 is for just 2H swords, or all usable sword by that class shown (looks like a retribution paladin?), but needless to say, it's a lot. The glamour log does not include white/grey items though, just Green, blue & epic gear (stuff that binds when equiped).

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Thanks Natsuno :)

https://i2.wp.com/felkinblog.files.w...&h=&crop&ssl=1https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/t...robe_Panel.jpg

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Lol, 2000 XD.

Said it in another thread but might as well add it here too:

GW2, glamour log afaik saves every skin in the game (every single one)... so.. that's a lot lol.

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Rift and WoW do the same as far as unlocking everything in the game. I'd prefer it like that tbh, but WildStar's 2000 limit should tide me over for a long time to come (and I'm comfortable in knowing that Carbine is receptive to players' pleas). But yeah, so many ways to do Glamour better than what we have... @_@ Same with housing...

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Originally Posted by Naunet

@_@ Same with housing...

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/comfort /cries with.

I know we talked about it before but I just recently looked at GW2's halls again. They're so big and have so many features to fiddle with @_@... Oh and you can be part of 5 guilds at once, and no house issues again.

The memory issues in this game hurts me, like first world problem triggering lol. Worse still because I love SE/FFXIV's graphics so its not like I hate the whole thing, the house decorations are beautiful and if their system itself was competitive they'd clearly be the best or near it, just so sad the system has the issues it has (and isn't as customizable/large). Although part of me respects that its probably due to the fact they went from massive issues part of 1.0 to a lot less 2.0, but I imagine under the surface due to the required speed of being remade that there is still old/non-optimal code.

If we honestly believe that they can't account bind Mog shop purchases then it must be something like that. I just hope that at some point they can get rid of those issues, banish them and send them away forever.. plz Yoshida Senpai lol.

On the glamour, I think the seasonal items are still outside of the wardrobe in WoW - isn't it? I think almost but not quite all items. That'd be something that would probably drive FFXIV players up the wall lol, but 741+ glamour slots is better than none. I do like the interface though, with the tabs and filters I appreciate that (GW2 has tabs too, but I like WoW's presentation more).

Edit: I had the incorrect idea about the slot count it is much higher than 741:

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Originally Posted by Natsuno

Actually, it's more than that. That screenshot only shows how many cloak skins there are. If you look at DarkSlayerGrimm's post (#62), you'll see another 2 figures 242 & 371. The 371 relates only to how many plate chest pieces there are. This does not include cloth/leather/mail chest pieces, or other slots. I am unsure if the 242 is for just 2H swords, or all usable sword by that class shown (looks like a retribution paladin?), but needless to say, it's a lot. The glamour log does not include white/grey items though, just Green, blue & epic gear (stuff that binds when equiped).

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Thank you for the info Natsuno :)

I would sacrifice another diadem or lord of vermilion, that's for sure....

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Originally Posted by Stitches1974

F. I see no reason for it. My personal opinion.

EDIT: I would rather see a new expanded hunt log though.

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Not from Balmung. Wouldn't understand.

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Originally Posted by Stitches1974

F. I see no reason for it. My personal opinion.

EDIT: I would rather see a new expanded hunt log though.

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Why? the need is inventory bloat, something this game has a huge issue with.

With that said, remove them all if they need to, but I do not see why that has to be done.

So both
d) All of the Above
e) Something Else

for me, they can remove that + more to address inventory bloat if they need to.

Why do people believe this is a memory issue and not a development resource issue? They have so many developers and so much time which has to be spent wisely. The vast majority of time goes into getting content finished so its ready when the next patch rolls out. Everything else is lower priority.

My Horns and Scales

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Originally Posted by Vexander

Title asks the question. One of the big reasons we haven't received a Glamour Catalogue/Log is due to the high amounts of data that need to be stored for each individual playable character. The topic came up with some friends over Discord and I thought I'd bring it here to see what people think.

So, what would you Sacrifice to get a Glamour Catalogue?

a) The Hunting Log
b) The Sightseeing Log
c) The Fishing Guide
d) All of the Above
e) Something Else
f) None (Don't want a Glamour Catalogue)

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I don't think any of these thing are even related to the lack of a Glamour catalog.

The principle reason why it doesn't exist is because certain mechanics in the game have to remain stored in RAM, or synced between the server and the client. Those logs are not things that the player can change, they are read-only, so the player's client only needs to go "show me the X log" and it will update whatever the game client has, regardless of it needing an update. Only things related directly to inventory the player carries have a limitation, because every time you touch something in the inventory, a sync has to be done. If you start opening inventory windows while in combat, you will increase the latency on your end, and if you start changing your gear in a group of 100 people in the immediate area, it forces a sync on them as well. So 100 people changing their outfits simultaneously requires 100^2 (10,000) data syncs to happen simultaneously.

The thing that would solve the glamour system is simply having a way to deposit it into a "gear-set bank" of sorts and thus removing it from the player inventory as something that ever needs to be synced again. This way the glamour applied to something is reduced to a few variables against the equipped gear and not synced to all the other data about the gear if it remained available.

From an engineering perspective, each inventory item is probably 256 bytes consisting of id's, stats, colors, melds, durability and so forth. If reduced to a glamour it would only have an id, and color.