On inventory and storage management. [DEVS please take notice.]

Dear SE.
I realise you're primarily a business and aim to make as much profit as you can. However, I feel there is a limit to how far you should be going with it, and practically cornering us, your already paying customers, to rent those extra retainers, is just taking it too far. When at the same time we see those news about boasting such high numbers and we see those reports about profits; but keep getting the same "hardware this" and "network that" excuses again and again. Here's the deal.


All the utter junk during every dungeon run and every open-world encounter is automatically placed in our inventory, regardless of want or need for them. Bone chips, yarzon legs, etc, things that fill up the inventory we have faster than our gear breaks. This in itself would not be so bad, but at the same time there is absolutely no countermeasure to prevent missing out on actual useful items - rare weapons or armour, rare cards, and the like, things that take "forever" to get. If the inventory is full when they drop (and a roll is won), they're simply lost. They don't go in a temporary storage for any limited amount of time; there's no option to discard something else from the inventory to place the new shiny thing in its place; there's absolutely nothing to prevent the loss. With so many items and such (relatively) small inventory, this is a major design flaw.


Going further, I have to mention tomestone gear. Currently, there are three more tiers of gear beyond what can be bought for Tomestones of Law: we have the Prototype Gordian from Alexander, we have Esoterics, and we have Gordian from Alexander Savage. Add to that the fact that there is quite literally nothing to do for, what is it now, five months? at endgame except to get better gear - personally, I have 15 (yes, fifteen) Asuran/Yasha pieces cluttering up my inventory because they've been replaced by better gear and because they can't be turned in for GC seals. I understand not wanting to make top-tier gear exchangeable immediately, but in such long time, with so many more options above a certain level, there really is no reason for us to have to carry them around or dump them on a retainer to just collect dust. This is also a major design flaw.
(On a sidenote, more than two years after launch, I do believe the max amount of GC seals should also be doubled, or even tripled - increased in any way, when we've had so many items worth near, or even more than, 1000 seals.)


Then let's talk about the Armoire and the special items we get from various sources, that also have to be hoarded. You know how many items there are that really should be placeable in the Armoire? Here's a list that's probably not even all-inclusive.

Behemoth Earring, Behemoth items (7 pieces), Best Man's set (three pieces), Dawn Wristguards, Dream set (three pieces), Dress Shoes, dyes (at least venture-obtainable ones, 8 pieces I think), Ehcatl Wristgloves, Eternal Devotion set (4 pieces), Eternal Passion set (4 pieces), Extreme Primal drops (too many pieces), Friendship Circlet, Goobbue Earring, Gridanian Ring, Gysahl Ring, i90 AFs (9×5 pieces), Lominsan Ring, Mended Imperial Pot Helm, Mended Imperial Short Robe, Meteor Survivor Ring, Monoa Mask, Moogle outfit (five pieces), Odin items (3 pieces), Postmoogle Cap, Qiqirn Earring, Ring of Fidelity, Ring of Fortitude, Ring of Fortune, Ring of Freedom, Sable Death Mask, Ul'dahn Ring, Usagi Kabuto (three different colours), Voice of the Just, Weathered Shepherd's Slops, Weathered Shepherd's Tunic, Witch's outfit

I know some of you might say "but that was/is craftable" or "you can get that from duties any time" or "it's sellable/buyable" - but the fact remains that these are all special items, either because of seasonal availability (meaning not actually obtainable anymore), or because they're received during the MSQ or by achievements. Even those that we can still get "any time" can potentially end up requiring too much time, especially now that most of the content connected to these is no longer relevant. And let's face it, "glamour is the true endgame" does have some truth to it - without having a proper glamour log or catalog or any such, we are forced to keep holding on to these if we want them to be available for use. I also don't believe that there should be any reason for the rewards of a seasonal event not to be immediately placeable in the Armoire, only months later.


Another questionable category is tokens. Nobody argues their functionality, nobody says they shouldn't exist - I do think we can all agree on these. However, the sheer amount of different tokens we have by now is mind-numbing. Again, just a few I can list off the top of my head.

Aetheryte Ticket, Alexandrite, Behemoth Horn, Blood-spattered Mark Log, Extreme Primal tokens (9 different ones?), Gordian Manifesto (4 pieces), Ixali Oaknots, Moonstone, Odin's Mantle, Rowena's Token (6 different ones I think), Tarnished Gordian pieces (7 different ones), Unstained Mark Log, Ventures

Why can't these simply be currencies in the now-so-awesome Currency window, without actual physical items to occupy inventory slots? Or just have their own separate tab where they don't end up occupying actual inventory slots? Heck, they could as well be key items, for which we have a whole separate tab already with 25 slots, of which I doubt more than 6 or 7 is ever in use at once. Again, I understand tokens. But, again, the sheer number of these is just too high considering the overall size of the inventory itself.


I'm not even going to go into details about fishing tackles/baits as they have been discussed numerous times - a box, or putting them into the off-hand section of the Armoury Chest (which doesn't really get close to full as things are now, anyway) are just two of the possible solutions to deal with these. For one reason or another, nothing is being done about them.


There is also the issue of furniture. Not everyone has a house (...sorry but LOL), and not everyone has a room either, again, for whatever reason. Yet time and time again we have seasonal events with furniture rewards (either actually given or purchasable). Heck, even Veteran Rewards include housing items. This basically forces players to either get them when they are relevant and have them permanently occupy inventory slots, not get them when they are relevant and lose out on them if they can't be sold/traded, or get them at severely inflated prices later on when they can actually use them. If nothing else, these seasonal/veteran housing items should have their own storage somewhere, at least for those who don't own a house or a FC room, because as things are now, these people are only getting punished - when the housing system in itself is a joke and the personal rooms have too many restrictions to be viable for quite a lot of us.


Last, but not least, let me mention TT cards. I really can't even wrap my head around why these are actual items in the inventory to begin with. Yes, they can be sold for MGP - for pitiful amounts of it, which really doesn't make a difference compared to the prize prices, unless someone could dump many dozens of rare ones (of which the drop rate is also pitiful) on that NPC every week. Either the amount of MGP we get for them should be raised, or they shouldn't be physical items at all: let the RNG of whether we get them or not work as it does now, but if we get lucky, simply unlock the card directly in our deck. So much simpler, so much less of an annoyance - in terms of inventory clutter as well as having to remember whether we already have it or try in vain to use them.


Also in regards to the whole inventory debacle, this issue might be a little bit on the side but I have to mention it: reinstate the AFK auto-kick feature and make it permanent. Reinstate it, make it permanent, and tweak it so that it can "see through" fake crafting and conversations/cutscenes. Seriously, we keep hearing about the stress of network traffic, we keep hearing about this backup system that saves entire inventories of all the characters online roughly every 15 seconds.

Mind you, this 15 seconds is absolutely insane as well, it shouldn't be lower than one minute in any case; it would be even better if those rare-special-whatever items would have little flags that do trigger saves themselves, then it could be even higher like 5 minutes. The amount of stress this would alleviate would be staggering, imo.

Yet, at the same time, there is absolutely nothing preventing players to idle away, rooted to the same spot, from dusk til the evening hours - I see dozens of them every day, in every city/camp. It's quite baffling that such extra, and truly unnecessary source of network traffic and amount of data is left alone like it's not an issue. I can't believe that nobody ever does any calculation, that nobody is at all aware of the stress these ignorant AFKers cause. And still they get away with it. Please, for the love of the Twelve, change this, as it's bloody infuriating.


All in all... Alright, there are factors that don't allow increasing our inventory, even though the item pool has gotten many times as big as it was at launch. Alright, you want to extra money with additional retainers (though the fact that we didn't even get one more with the release of the expansion has really been pushing it) - let those who want them get them, instead of cornering pretty much everyone into a situation where we need them. But regardless of these, there are ways to "increase" our inventory. There are ways to ease up on all that server/hardware stress and resource requirement. I do believe the ones listed above are quite rational, and honestly, at least some of them are actually needed at this point.

And while I guess some will argue that some of the things seem "optional", considering all the facts, systems, and content that we have in the game right now... They are quite a significant chunk of what we can occupy ourselves with, while the storage options are just as significantly limiting - especially in a game that prides itself on "everything on one character".

I know changes can't happen overnight, I know the team is small, I know there always are other, "more pressing" things on those priority lists. However, I also believe that, again, at this point, the question of the inventory should be pretty high on those same lists. I hope these things at least have been "in consideration" at the very least, and the changes will come with the upcoming patches. I would like to look forward to it.


Edit: dark matter, carbonized matter, glamour prisms - as pointed out here and in other threads, also come up to a pretty great pile of pointless inventory waste. Grades could be done away with, at the very least, or simply not have them as physical items either would be even better.

The server situation that causes all these problems is what really makes me wonder about what's going on behind the scenes with this game between the development team and the higher ups at SE who decide the budget. One can't help but get the feeling Yoshida & co simply don't get the support (and the budget) they need to tackle all these problems. It's as if the higher ups at SE saw the success ARR was with its current budget and said: "You did it before with yoru current budget, you can do it again and keep doing it with that budget size, you don't need an increase." If that situation doesn't change (and soon) I can ultimately see it being the cause of the game's second downfall.

That, and PS3 limitations, of course.

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Originally Posted by LaurelinKementari

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I think it's quite clear why they're not willing to increase their budget, people are paying for retainers and in large numbers otherwise they wouldn't be charging for it. People keep claiming that it's going to be the downfall of the game, but is that really the truth? No, people aren't "voting with their wallets" and money is the only thing that talks, instead we come here to the forums and complain and nothing changes. If SE has to invest too much into FFXIV they'd likely drop it altogether, FFXIV made 6 approximately 6 billion yen in its first quarter, while Dragon Quest Monsters (a mobile game) made 16 billion yen in the same quarter. Looking at those numbers it's quite clear why SE isn't willing to invest much more into FFXIV.

I do hope they wise up, FFXIV has the potential to be the biggest MMO if Legion is a flop and could eventually be SE's gem, but they just don't seem to be looking for that. They're happy with it being a consistent source to fund their other major projects.

I agree with the limitations of inventory issues and SE resolutions are slow and undermining to say the least.

Desynthesizing items were introduced to counter the cluttering of unwanted items to mediocre response and uninteresting system. It has limitations in itself that ironically is supposedly to counter limitations on our inventory space.

For so long have we push for FF11 approach of furnitures with storage capabilities within the housing system. Or even the armoire without any restrictions on items specifications with simply quantity limits. Even a slight increase of our inventory space to 110 is a god-sent blessing with a gobbie quest (again like FF11) will counter the stress of having everyone but only those that have completed the quest this luxury of extra 10 storage.

These are minimal solutions without stretching any budgets or game systems. No need for new retainer. Simply a slight alterations. It is doable. It is minimal. But by the Twelve, it needs to be done!

A good example of how SE designs are inventory killers is Scrips.

Red gathering scrips which are currency and do not take space, are limited to only 500. There is exactly ONE thing that these scrips can be used for - purchasing Rowena's Token - which, you guessed it, takes up inventory space and can only be used as another defacto "currency" to purchase other things (favours, gear). Why the intermediate step that has no use other than to burn inventory?

An easy way to relieve inventory space would be to increase the maximum stack size from 99 to 999.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE!

When my retainer fee is more than my subscription fee, you have a problem!

A Kingdom for the SourceCode of the game!
I just like to look at it for teaching others "how you should not programm it".

You know another thing I wish had its own storage of sorts. Dark Matter. I carry around all the time in stacks. It takes up space. There is 6 kinds of dark matter that could just go into it's own storage or bag. Right now the only inventory item that does that is shards, crystals, and clusters. Add some dark matter to it's own storage and I know you'll make a lot of people happy.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

I think it's quite clear why they're not willing to increase their budget, people are paying for retainers and in large numbers otherwise they wouldn't be charging for it. People keep claiming that it's going to be the downfall of the game, but is that really the truth? No, people aren't "voting with their wallets" and money is the only thing that talks, instead we come here to the forums and complain and nothing changes. If SE has to invest too much into FFXIV they'd likely drop it altogether, FFXIV made 6 approximately 6 billion yen in its first quarter, while Dragon Quest Monsters (a mobile game) made 16 billion yen in the same quarter. Looking at those numbers it's quite clear why SE isn't willing to invest much more into FFXIV.


I do hope they wise up, FFXIV has the potential to be the biggest MMO if Legion is a flop and could eventually be SE's gem, but they just don't seem to be looking for that. They're happy with it being a consistent source to fund their other major projects.

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It's true, as much as gamers who love Triple AAA games love to rail on Konami for focusing away from the Triple AAA market, it's just the simple truth that mobile games and the likes are a better profit margin compared to the ever increasing cost of Triple AAA titles to keep up with technology.

When a games goes from 2mil, 20mil, 40mil to 80mil to make while the cost of selling said game goes from 50-60/70 there is a huge rift in the profit margin earned from said game. Top it off they don't even get that full 50/60, taxes, store, shipping and handling of moving merchandise all that fun stuff that takes the cut from that pie and maybe honestly thought 40, but apparently for a 60 dollar a dev is lucky to get 27 per game. So whatever we think as the cost to break even is actually double because of that. 80mil cost game is like 3mil to break even, 1.5mil for 40 mil game, 750k for 20mil, and 75k for a 2mil game. Notice that huge increase in breaking even because of how much more it's cost to make games? It really isn't fair to blame gaming companies for shifting focus on a mobile market when the profit margin is way better than what Triple AAA offer now.

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Originally Posted by Airget

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It's not just the rising costs with the tech. We have studios that are blowing so much money on fidelity and marketing and whatever else that we get cases like Tomb Raider 2013 where the game sold a heck ton of units, but it was also considered a failure. There needs to be better budgets all around rather than throwing more money at everything and praying it works.

In light of that question and answer in today's live letter... I think this has become even more glaring and relevant. :(

What's really insulting is that apparently renting retainers is all they can do, because any other option means they have too many limitations. Magical.

I don't think I've ever seen an MMO with such expensive inventory space. All others are either one time purchases (mostly in F2P games) that guarantee you keep your expanded inventory forever, bought with in game currency, or space is adequate for the amount of clutter from the get go.

And here in an extremely popular, very profitable subscription MMO, we're unable to get any inventory expansion but with nearly every patch bloating an already very bloated inventory even more, because of "limitations". Unless you pay extra every month to rent them and are prepared to lose them if you can't pay that extra at any given time.

SE at least add more retainers we can buy one time. Or at least add something like a loot filter so I don't have to dedicate what's left of my inventory to junk drops I don't want but get so often I may as well not bother deleting them.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

It's not just the rising costs with the tech. We have studios that are blowing so much money on fidelity and marketing and whatever else that we get cases like Tomb Raider 2013 where the game sold a heck ton of units, but it was also considered a failure. There needs to be better budgets all around rather than throwing more money at everything and praying it works.

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Tomb Raider 2013 was only considered a failure because someone at SE thought it would make Call of Duty sized profits, and were planning on using said profits to fund another dozen tech demos for games that will never be released. Same thing with XIV, they can't spend money improving the experience when they are busy blowing it on tech demos of photo realistic food in the never-to-be-released FFXV.

Can't support this thread enough.

There's just not anywhere near enough inventory space in a game set up to have such an elaborate crafting system involving numerous sub-crafting ingredients and both HQ and NQ versions of materials (don't forget non-stackable collectables while you're leveling gatherers!).

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Originally Posted by Oriens

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE!

When my retainer fee is more than my subscription fee, you have a problem!

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This
Right
Here...


It's getting ridiculous, and I really enjoy this game but I'm starting to get fed up with the excuses.

The only thing that pisses me off is that you can't discard items in a retainers inventory (unless I'm missing something), you have to remove it from a retainer, then throw it away one by one. Whyyyyyyyyy

They should implement a system like WoW has where items are mailed to you if your inventory is full.
That said, one more retainer as standard for everyone would go some way towards easing the issue. I'd be happy if they introduced that in the future. I've only been playing for a few months but I craft and I like to collect the seasonal gear; my bags and my retainers' bags are permanently stuffed.

More storage for Free Companies would be nice, too. Maybe they could introduce higher ranks and have unlocking more storage as one of the perks.

My main issue at this point in time is... We didn't get a third or possibly even fourth retainer as part of the expansion. I'm happy with the on character inventory slots as is. But give me an extra retainer or two so I can keep the things I actually want to keep.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...stion-is-over-!

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Originally Posted by AltanRapsied

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...stion-is-over-!

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They outright said no to a glamour log, saying it takes just as much inventory space even though plenty of other games can do it. c:

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Originally Posted by Colorful

They outright said no to a glamour log, saying it takes just as much inventory space even though plenty of other games can do it. :)

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That's why I keep upping it, 'cause if others games can do it and not FFXIV team, this means they don't try to do it. Or at least not enough.
I want proof that they really tried to do it, and a real and big explanation of why they can't. "It's not possible" and "PS3 limitation" are not valuable arg to me.

I'm pretty sure 1 more retainer would outright solve this issue for the majority of players and for the ones that still have extra needs, paying starts to make more sense. The issue is a lot of people were just getting by on 2 retainers before HW. Then HW released and dumped 3 new jobs and a ton more items on use with no where to store stuff. The game's content continually expands but our inventory size hasn't changed at all. It's 2015. Why am I still mailing stuff to mules characters.

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Originally Posted by Kaela

You know another thing I wish had its own storage of sorts. Dark Matter. I carry around all the time in stacks. It takes up space. There is 6 kinds of dark matter that could just go into it's own storage or bag. Right now the only inventory item that does that is shards, crystals, and clusters. Add some dark matter to it's own storage and I know you'll make a lot of people happy.

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Why don't you just keep a stack of Grade 6 and leave it at that? Sure you spend a little more gil (not a whole lot) using Grade 6 to repair low level gear, but you will gain an extra 5 inventory slots.

Bringing this back again because it seems with the new patch we once again get some more much needed new inventory clutter. /vomit

With the new gear from Void Ark, Exploration, Gold Saucer, Crafted Gear and new dungeon, my inventory gonna boom as soon as possible :(

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Originally Posted by AltanRapsied

I want proof that they really tried to do it, and a real and big explanation of why they can't.

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Your idea to simplify character data is to literally add every possible ounce of data to every single character with a "yes/ no" flag on every single point. If you can't figure out why that doesn't fix inventory congestion, then I don't think any amount of hand holding is going to help you wrap your head around it.

"But other games do it" is because other games were coded differently from the beginning. That initial code can make or break a lot of things that are possible later in the game's life. Even Wow still has a simple 16-slot default inventory bag, which cannot be altered due to the integral role it has in the game's original source code. They've added additional storage through various means, but they've never been able to change the way that first bag works.

The FFXIV team designed the basic inventory and armory around limitations they had, both with their servers and data limits on console. The retainer system (as well as achievement and FC chests... really anything that you can notice has a loading time before displaying the contents) requires additional server capacity which they are struggling to expand on the budget they are allotted by SE. They can alleviate some of that server cost by charging for extra retainers. They don't have the budget to implement a massive system, like the one you suggest. They don't want to talk too much about budget issues in letters to subscribers, but are aware of requests. End of explanation.

Hi, I have 8 retainers and... It's ... NEVER... Enough.

I'm all-arounder, I like to have all my classes geared up, I have some gear that I still need for leveling, I have crafter and gathering gear, I have crafting materials, I have things I need for glamours, I have tokens and other misc items... I have PvP exclussive gear for some classes, even if BLM is my main in PvP....

Inventory is not enough, retainers... Are not enough (Please don't make it that next retainers are, again, paid)

We really need an urgent rebump of the system regarding this, and that's why, this thread should get the importance and attention that it deserves.

Someone needs to translate this and post it in the JP forums. If we can get them on board with this too we may get at least some of what the OP is asking.

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Originally Posted by Gunspec

"But other games do it" is because other games were coded differently from the beginning.

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Both Guild Wars 2 and Lord of the Rings Online (plus possibly others) have added cosmetic clothing systems after release so a change in inventory handling can be done in an MMO. Now, is it as easy, quick or simple as some people believe? I highly doubt it, but it's not true to say it is impossible. Can the staff that currently works on FF14 do it, and do it within a reasonable time frame, is the real question.

This really needs to be taken care of. With the release of the 3.1 patch there are even more armor pieces to glamour. I really don't know how they expect us to be able to do that beyond a job or two when you've got all the crafting and gathering classes as well.

lack of inventory is a huge issue that i hope gets addressed

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Originally Posted by Colorful

They outright said no to a glamour log, saying it takes just as much inventory space even though plenty of other games can do it. c:

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The sad thing is, Blizzard announced today at Blizzcon a fairly robust log. It even has the ability to look at all the quest you've done and auto flag all the rewards (Even the ones you didn't choose) and mark them int your log....
I normally give blizzard all sorts of crap about their dev cycle and SE all sorts of praise, but if they can pull it off....

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Originally Posted by Lego3400

The sad thing is, Blizzard announced today at Blizzcon a fairly robust log. It even has the ability to look at all the quest you've done and auto flag all the rewards (Even the ones you didn't choose) and mark them int your log....
I normally give blizzard all sorts of crap about their dev cycle and SE all sorts of praise, but if they can pull it off....

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Yep, heard about that too. So much for the excuse some of the players have been throwing around that the game wasn't built with it in mind, when WoW clearly wasn't and the code is 11 years now, yet they can manage to change it to allow the best glamour log I've seen in a game thus far, while SE can't even give us more retainers (I'm a little salty about that).

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Yep, heard about that too. So much for the excuse some of the players have been throwing around that the game wasn't built with it in mind, when WoW clearly wasn't and the code is 11 years now, yet they can manage to change it to allow the best glamour log I've seen in a game thus far, while SE can't even give us more retainers (I'm a little salty about that).

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I will point out though, that the transmog system was something Blizzard patched in many years after the game launched so it's possible the code was much easier to re-write as it's not part of the core systems. On the filpside and the topic of core systems, they haven't quite been able to figure out how to make the default backpack any bigger. (They said they tried, only for items to vanish from it, only to end up being mailed back to the owner.) Their inventory was designed to be modular aside from said backpack so they're able to slowly increase it in size (Their bank is too, as it has bag slots), unlike our inventory which has a pretty clearly defined size. The two of these things may explain some of our issues (A set inventory size that is drilled into the core of the system and hard to change without breaking something)

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Originally Posted by Lego3400

I will point out though, that the transmog system was something Blizzard patched in many years after the game launched so it's possible the code was much easier to re-write as it's not part of the core systems. On the filpside and the topic of core systems, they haven't quite been able to figure out how to make the default backpack any bigger. (They said they tried, only for items to vanish from it, only to end up being mailed back to the owner.) Their inventory was designed to be modular aside from said backpack so they're able to slowly increase it in size (Their bank is too, as it has bag slots), unlike our inventory which has a pretty clearly defined size, which may explain some of our issues.

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Can that argument not be made for a glamour log too? There exists no such system, and as such it would be a completely new addition. It would take quite a bit of work but not to the point of reworking the entire game, just the glamour system and considering this game is almost a dress up game with the variety it has, there's no discussion to be had whether or not that effort would be worth it (a definite yes). I believe the glamour system was also added in 2.1 (correct me if I'm wrong), meaning it's not attached to the core code of the game in anyway, just an addition. It all boils down to SE not wanting to give them more money to host the data I'd think, without a return why bother? Even with Activision having a merger with Blizzard they still doubled their development team, and throw huge money into the project even when it's not as popular as it used be. FFXIV only gets more popular without an increase in budget (can't say I've heard a business not expanding on a successful venture before).

What I would do for something like this in FFXIV...
=(

http://i.imgur.com/0ppkqe1.jpg


Edit before posting: I guess you were talking about the inventory? Even then, they've shown that they're capable of more retainer space, so they really have no excuse there.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Edit before posting: I guess you were talking about the inventory? Even then, they've shown that they're capable of more retainer space, so they really have no excuse there.

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Bit of both. We don't know how core to the system the glamour stuff is, a lot of the features patched in during 2.X were stuff they wanted in during launch but didn't have time for. You are right it was added in a patch, but we have no idea if the groundwork was laid and the finishing touches were added, or if it was created whole-cloth during that time. I'm just speculating at random here really (Also I'm about ready to fall asleep). That said retainers however are clearly designed to be modular in number. You don't have to hire any if you don't want to.


Also Blizz doubling their team did not work out. It's why the game is in the state it's in and all the massive content droughts they've had.

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Originally Posted by Lego3400

Bit of both. We don't know how core to the system the glamour stuff is, a lot of the features patched in during 2.X were stuff they wanted in during launch but didn't have time for. You are right it was added in a patch, but we have no idea if the groundwork was laid and the finishing touches were added, or if it was created whole-cloth during that time. I'm just speculating at random here really (Also I'm about ready to fall asleep). That said retainers however are clearly designed to be modular in number. You don't have to hire any if you don't want to.


Also Blizz doubling their team did not work out. It's why the game is in the state it's in and all the massive content droughts they've had.

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Fair enough, no one knows for sure whether the glamour system was planned or not, did 1.0 feature a system similar to it? From what I've been told they used the scraps of 1.0 and put together 2.0 in a short timeframe, so if there was no glamour system in 1.0 I do doubt it already almost complete before 2.0's release, but put off until 2.x for whatever reason. But as you said, just speculation. About the retainers, that's my point. Why are we forced to not only forced to pay for them, but rent them. Renting inventory space is a concept unheard of in even F2P MMOs.

I believe the content droughts were a thing far before they doubled their team, but that's more so due to poor management and the fact that they don't work 16+ hours a day like the FFXIV development team (I mean, Yoshida and the core team didn't even get that 1-2 week vacation). There is no denying that they have been far more ambitious and every system they've implemented since then has been on a far larger scale than beforehand, not to mention the significant engine improvements, along with the updated visuals that would not have been possible without the increased development team. Regardless, that wasn't my point. It's that if even Activision Blizzard is willing to put a significant amount of money into a project that's losing popularity while SE isn't willing to give the development a single extra dime even with the increased profits and growing popularity of the game.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

I believe the content droughts were a thing far before they doubled their team, but that's more so due to poor management and the fact that they don't work 16+ hours a day like the FFXIV development team (I mean, Yoshida and the core team didn't even get that 1-2 week vacation).

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They were, but Blizzard has spefically said increaseing the size of the wow team backfired between MoP and WoD and caused an increase in production time instead of a decrease. Also, staff can't get a vacation? D: That's terrible.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Another questionable category is tokens. Nobody argues their functionality, nobody says they shouldn't exist - I do think we can all agree on these. However, the sheer amount of different tokens we have by now is mind-numbing. Again, just a few I can list off the top of my head.

Aetheryte Ticket, Alexandrite, Behemoth Horn, Blood-spattered Mark Log, Extreme Primal tokens (9 different ones?), Gordian Manifesto (4 pieces), Ixali Oaknots, Moonstone, Odin's Mantle, Rowena's Token (6 different ones I think), Tarnished Gordian pieces (7 different ones), Unstained Mark Log, Ventures

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I agree with the OP's sentiments, but as an FFXI player I do find it hilarious that 35 tokens is "mind-numbing". Of course, FFXI's hundreds of token types don't take up inventory space. They're basically treated the same as tomestones, wolf marks, and the other currencies.