Is it maybe time for a full infrastructure rebuild? (Re: Database and netcode issues)

I enjoy XIV, especially because it's the only themepark MMO I've ever seen that feels like they truly put some love and care into the storyline, characters, and setting.

But there's a worrisome trend when it comes to developer comments: technical issues tend to be the #1 reason for rejecting requests from the playerbase (even QoL suggestions that have been requested for years), citing the inadequate database as the reason these suggestions either cannot work or would be difficult to implement.

The most recent glamour log changes are sadly a good example of this. They're an improvement, but we can only store up to 200 items in the dresser, meaning this is only ever going to be a bandaid fix, especially as the game continues to expand and more and more items are added. There will still come a day when players will need to empty that dresser out to make room for new items, something they are NOT going to want to do.

This change only delays the inevitable.

Compare this to WoW's version of a glamour log, which immediately grants you access to the appearance of any item that was ever bound to your character (which encompasses hundreds and hundreds of items) and the log is shared across all characters.

There are also netcode issues in XIV that make combat less reliable with even slightly higher pings (even east coast vs. west coast players in the US notice a difference).

Take this thread for example: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...led-by-latency

Notice how not one of the replies at the time of my posting this even contested the fact that latency does indeed play a role in the game's combat mechanics? XIV is the only modern AAA MMO to have issues like these.

~6 years ago, we had two players in Brazil playing on our NA server that I raided with in WoW and they had no issues, despite one of them even being a healer.

Seeing as how XIV is the #2 sub MMO in the world right now, there's no reason WoW and even lesser known MMOs should have superior database servers and netcode.

If they wanted to take an expansion to rebuild all of this and get everything up to speed, making the game "future proof" for later expansions and all of their database needs, as well as refactoring the netcode to be more responsive and workable, I wouldn't begrudge them one bit for doing so.

Now, before the "SE Defense Force" chimes in with "YOU CAN WORK AROUND THESE ISSUES!!", please stop missing the point entirely.

There's no reason WoW should have better database servers than XIV, and when you say "You can work around it", you're acknowledging that there is indeed a problem to work around in the first place, one that modern AAA MMOs don't have and one that XIV certainly shouldn't have either.

So I'd say take the time to fix the issues you need to fix, devs, even if it means rebuilding most of the game. The game is more than prosperous enough to do so at this point and, after all, any "fixes" implemented without doing a full revamp are just going to be bandaids in the long run.

XIV is a wonderful game and absolutely worth putting this kind of love and care into. :)

PS. This is not going to be an OPTIONAL change for the game, FYI. If they're struggling this hard to make due with their current database servers, they're eventually going to find themselves up against a wall where they either cannot add new expansions or need to start deleting expansions from the game to make room for new ones.

PPS. They've also made a change like this once already, back before the game was profitable, where they were building 2.0 while keeping 1.0 running AND were adding content to it.

You can learn all about it in this awesome documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

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I mean, no offense, buuuut....

If there's literally one game in the entire history of gaming that has proven it can survive a change like that... ;)

And it's only going to get worse as they continue on the current infrastructure. A stitch in time saves nine, as they say.

It'll be less expensive in the long run to make these changes sooner rather than later, especially when every new system they add to the game between now and the inevitable change will need to be revamped to fit the new infrastructure as well.

Both the coding in the game and the game launcher/updater itself is rather outdated (the launcher is rather bad) but i agree with Valkyrie here. From a standpoint of SE it would probably not be feasible nor would they dedicate time+ resources.
It is unfortunate.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

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no it wouldn't, and this is going to be needed at some point since the wall seems to be getting bigger and bigger because of these issues.
Semi related:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-bigger-budget
might be another reason why they havn't yet

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Originally Posted by Maero

From a standpoint of SE it would probably not be feasible nor would they dedicate time+ resources.
It is unfortunate.

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It's not...optional, unless they start actually removing entire expansions worth of items from the game or something to that effect.

If the database is THIS limiting to what they can and cannot do with the game, it's literally only a matter of time before they can go no further with it and need to do a full revamp anyway.

Better sooner than later.

This is not going to happen. The game would have to be completely unplayable for them to basically start over from scratch. They didn't even do that after 1.0. They are going to continue to make improvements while the games operates, which will take time but is their best financial option. They would lose so much money if they shut down the game for that long to rebuild it. Financially that doesn't make any sense when the game is playable and they are making a profit. It always comes down to the bottom line.

Well I'm no programmer but maybe the reason why wow can store glamour appearances and FFXIV can't is because wow has an ancient engine that retains some assets from the freakin WarCraft III engine. All that gear might not ammount to that many data,

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Originally Posted by RukiaFae

They are going to continue to make improvements while the games operates, which will take time but is their best financial option. They would lose so much money if they shut down the game for that long to rebuild it. Financially that doesn't make any sense when the game is playable and they are making a profit. It always comes down to the bottom line.

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You do realize that they kept 1.0 running for the entire time they were working on 2.0, up until they shut down 1.0 and switched over, right?

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Originally Posted by Balipu

Well I'm no programmer but maybe the reason why wow can store glamour appearances and FFXIV can't is because wow has an ancient engine that retains some assets from the freakin WarCraft III engine. All that gear might not ammount to that many data,

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The issue has nothing to do with graphics but the number of items the database will allow each character to "own".

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

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While you'd see less content, you wouldn't see no content. People working on art, music, level design, and even encounter design are usually not the same ones who work on server netcode and backend infrastructure. Whatever issue causes them to have to limit the glamour closet to 200 items instead of a WoW style "every item that's ever existed" one, it isn't going to be fixed by the same person that is animating the next tier of raid weapon drops.

Don't get me wrong: there's a cost to doing this kind of overhaul and everything else will have resources taken away because of it. But this is a big enough operation that it's not just 3 people working on it. Some of this stuff absolutely needs dealing with at some point, because the amount of stuff in the game isn't going down. I mean, my crafter & gatherer logs manage to track every single item I've made just fine. Do that, except for worn equipment. No need to overcomplicate it.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

It's not...optional, unless they start actually removing entire expansions worth of items from the game or something to that effect.

If the database is THIS limiting to what they can and cannot do with the game, it's literally only a matter of time before they can go no further with it and need to do a full revamp anyway.

Better sooner than later.

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In which there would be a new numbered FF MMO. It would be far easier to just focus on a new game during the other's end of life than rebuild it at this point. Since it's not at its end of life yet, why would they divert the resources to it?

Also you can't compare this to wow. Blizzard works on a select few games. They have larger budgets and resources because of this. Square Enix is not just FFXIV. Square Enix has multiple teams working on multiple games. I feel they move alot of time, resources and cash inbetween all of their projects for better and for worse.

Remember they revamped this game, but had little to no expectations of it succeeding. I think that's where a lot of the old coding and database issues stem from. Why pour money into something that could still largely fail like 1.0 did? Yes that decision is biting them in the butt now, but in the end, they did a good job with what they had for it to get this far. :)

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Originally Posted by Balipu

Well I'm no programmer but maybe the reason why wow can store glamour appearances and FFXIV can't is because wow has an ancient engine that retains some assets from the freakin WarCraft III engine. All that gear might not ammount to that many data,

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The server doesn't care what the glamour looks like. If you've unlocked it or not is a boolean value: true or false (1 or 0 to the processor & database). That's true no matter what it is. Set aside a 1KB chunk of space for every character, use a bitmask, and you can store if they've unlocked 8192 glamour items. That's how the crafting and gathering logs know every item you've made/gathered at least once to give you an unlock bonus.

(I am a programmer.)

Honestly given the monumental issues that have come up that are always blamed on the coding or server issues, and by the creators no less, I'd be entirely fine skipping a patch cycle or two for them to revamp the system. Though ideally I'd prefer they hire a temporary team alongside the main one to handle it and push the whole thing out with the next expansion instead.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

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I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all

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Originally Posted by Enla

Honestly given the monumental issues that have come up that are always blamed on the coding or server issues, and by the creators no less, I'd be entirely fine skipping a patch cycle or two for them to revamp the system. Though ideally I'd prefer they hire a temporary team alongside the main one to handle it and push the whole thing out with the next expansion instead.

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"You agree wholeheartedly withe Odile Delacroix"

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

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I’m sorry I didn play during 1.0 so I\\'m not sure of the exact time line and details but I'm pretty 1.0 was down for a few months prior 2.0. They could have did a complete overhaul during this time but the choose not for some reason. This was the best time in the cycle to do it.

They are going to have to cut resources and stop the patches we are getting now to focus on this one issue, then the game will have to be down for some time to implement and test everything. People complain about 24 hr main. It is not worth it to start over this late in the game when the game is this successful. They would rather work on the issues slowly, fixing what they can, while pumping out content to keep people subbed and attract new players.

Major overhauls take time, money, and lots of planning that they would rather invest in new expansions. When the system cant handle the game they will create a new MMO.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all

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Not really. Items in FFXIV really have the following volatile (changable) values:
Spiritbond level
Condition
Dye

It gets a little trickier when we start talking about pink-quality items and relics that allow for dynamic stat assignments, but for the purposes of glamour none of that matters. In fact none of what I mentioned there matters either (maybe dye, but I'd handle that differently). You simply stipulate that an item must be at 100% condition or above before it can be relegated to glamour duty, and warn that spiritbond level will go to 0. Just like the armoire actually. All you're really storing is the item's numeric ID value OR a big boolean list tied to the item database. The actual space any of this takes up is pretty small.

This is basically how WoW's glamour system works too. It just unlocks the glamour state for any item you've collected. It doesn't matter what happens to the physical item after that, you've got it and so do all the other characters on your account.

The OP's post really hits the nail on the head. SE rushed the hell out of their database and netcoding design process when they were making 2.0. And if they don't spend some time getting their act together, the whole thing is just going to collapse in on itself someday.

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Originally Posted by silverlunarfox

In which there would be a new numbered FF MMO. It would be far easier to just focuson a new game during the other's end of life than rebuild it at this point. Since it's not at its end of life yet, why would they divert the resources to it?

Also you can't compare this to wow. Blizzard works on a select few games. They have larger budgets and resources because of this. Square Enix is not just FFXIV. Square Enix has multiple teams working on multiple games. I feel they move alot of time, resources and cash inbetween all of their projects for better and for worse.

Remember they revamped this game, but had little to no expectations of it succeeding. I think that's where a lot of the old coding and database issues stem from. Why pour money into something that could still largely fail like 1.0 did? Yes that decision is biting them in the butt now, but in the end, they did a good job with what they had for it to get this far. :)

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My guess they did 1.0 to 2.0 as more as a salvage operation since they did not know how well or bad the new version would do, so a limited budget is justified, and that brings in trying shortcuts.

But now that it is well funded, and people are spending money on the game, still running on those shortcuts is not justified.

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Originally Posted by Enla

Honestly given the monumental issues that have come up that are always blamed on the coding or server issues, and by the creators no less, I'd be entirely fine skipping a patch cycle or two for them to revamp the system. Though ideally I'd prefer they hire a temporary team alongside the main one to handle it and push the whole thing out with the next expansion instead.

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Just as long as they do it, i mean it seems really needed this point, esp to make full use of a 5.0+

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Originally Posted by Callinon

The OP's post really hits the nail on the head. SE rushed the hell out of their database and netcoding design process when they were making 2.0. And if they don't spend some time getting their act together, the whole thing is just going to collapse in on itself someday.

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Main worry, def^

The issue is they won't even fix the basic stuff like QOL changes, what makes you think they will overhaul the major part of the game? SE got burned on XIV, they're too busy funding other projects and the likes and give this game the scraps left over from the cash shop and stuff.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all

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Yeah. The WoW system knows if you've unlocked it, which means "had it in your possession at some point". When you do that with a lot of items, you can track that with 1 bit. So you can track unlocks on a huge number of items in a small amount of storage space. That doesn't let you track dye or anything like that, but for unlock purposes it doesn't matter (you'd need to dye it as part of the glamour process instead, in that case). AFAIK the armoire works like that right now, which is why only certain items can go in it.

The glamour closet is working more like inventory, in which case you have to store which items are in it. That require at a minimum some kind of item key to indicate what item is in that slot, and possibly also a slot number if it's not a fixed data structure like an array. In this case you don't need a quantity because you can't have more than one of a given item in the slot. But an item key is a bigger value to store, so you need more storage space to do it if you want to store a large number of things in there.

Without knowing what their backend looks like it's hard to know why they chose to go that way considering the limitations it creates. Perhaps they didn't have the budget to sort out how to do a dye on a glamour of an item without doing it on the item itself, which would be a problem in a WoW system and likely doesn't exist in this one (assuming it works the old way where you'd dye the item itself and then cast the glamour).

I bet it'd be really fascinating if we could ever get a technical talk from someone on the team about why this stuff works the way it does.

An infrastructure overhaul of that magnitude will likely never occur. They are better off creating a brand new FF MMO at that point. We are seeing gradually deviations away from 1.0 code but a complete overhaul just doesn't happen to an active game. Citing that because FFXIV managed to recover once following 1.x's shutdown doesn't mean they can do it again without player revolt. Keep in mind, to the average player, nothing is amiss. Sure, they may want more QoL features but they likely wouldn't agree with temporarily shutting down the game or to have it remain without much content for an extended period of time.

At best, any significant changes such an infrastructure won't occur outside expansions.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

The OP's post really hits the nail on the head. SE rushed the hell out of their database and netcoding design process when they were making 2.0. And if they don't spend some time getting their act together, the whole thing is just going to collapse in on itself someday.

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This.

It's not going to be an option, and we're going to hit the point where they'll need to start deleting expansion items from the game to make room for new ones.

Remember that chest piece appearance you're so fond of? Better not get too attached to it...

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

They are better off creating a brand new FF MMO at that point.

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Even if, logistics-wise, that's what they'd be doing, the story, setting, and content of this game are still very much loved by the community.

We're not talking about rebuilding the ENTIRE game from scratch, just about updating database and netcode.

Again, they built 2.0 WHILE maintaining and updating 1.0, and that required rebuilding nearly everything except some parts of major cities, since the old world was built from copy-pasta.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

This.

It's not going to be an option, and we're going to hit the point where they'll need to start deleting expansion items from the game to make room for new ones.

Remember that chest piece appearance you're so fond of? Better not get too attached to it...

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Now you're being dramatic. That's not going to happen. You're trying to cause panic where there is none. Just like any other game once this game hits it's max of where they want to take it, it will fade over time while they create a new game. For example FFXI which is still active.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

If the database is THIS limiting to what they can and cannot do with the game, it's literally only a matter of time before they can go no further with it and need to do a full revamp anyway.

Better sooner than later.

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They more then likely won't do another full revamp, they already did one at a large cost revamping from 1.0. In the future once things reach a point where they can go no further, if anything they'll just let the game go the way XI did, take what they learned from here (hopefully) and work on their next MMO from the ground up.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

This.

It's not going to be an option, and we're going to hit the point where they'll need to start deleting expansion items from the game to make room for new ones.

Remember that chest piece appearance you're so fond of? Better not get too attached to it...

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No they won't. On the server end, the database requirements for that chest are a primary key and a few bits of data. Anyone who has it will have more data tied to their specific copy of it, but that applies to every item. If you can store 200 clothes, it doesn't matter in the slightest to the server which 200 clothes they are or which expansion they're from.

They'd only have to delete it if the client couldn't handle the data requirements to have all the models, and with the PS3 gone that doesn't seem like any kind of urgent issue.

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Originally Posted by Aylis

They more then likely won't do another full revamp, they already did one at a large cost revamping from 1.0. In the future once things reach a point where they can go no further, if anything they'll just let the game go the way XI did, take what they learned from here (hopefully) and work on their next MMO from the ground up.

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I agree. They rebuilt 1.0 because it was a main title Final Fantasy game. Simply put, they did not want that blemish in the brand.

Even with its limitations, this game is not a blemish on the Final Fantasy name.

Before you get mad, I agree there are problems from the things you listed, I don’t see them redoing it again. Even if we complain.

Just throwing it out there that SE as a whole still hasn't recovered from XIV 1.0 and Fabula Nova Crystallis (XIII/XV).

Would the game be better off with some overhauling? Yup. Will it actually happen? Nope.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

I agree. They rebuilt 1.0 because it was a main title Final Fantasy game. Simply put, they did not want that blemish in the brand.

Even with its limitations, this game is not a blemish on the Final Fantasy name.

Before you get mad, I agree there are problems from the things you listed, I don’t see them redoing it again. Even if we complain.

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Oh I'm not mad at all ^.^, but yeah exactly like you said, they didn't want to, or even could not let 1.0 blemish the name and had a very short time to save things. A full rebuild from scratch wouldn't have worked in that light. Despite my own personal feelings of FFXIV I can't lie, for what they had to work with, they did okay. Yeah, all the complaining and requesting in the world is never gonna change that the very soul of this games coding is still the 1.0 engine. No matter what Yoshida's vision may be. Tanaka's vision will always be at the games root. It will never be remade. They'll just spend that funding to launch another MMO. One director/producer, one vision. Not two visions clashing forever.

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Originally Posted by Aylis

Oh I'm not mad at all ^.^, but yeah exactly like you said, they didn't want to, or even could not let 1.0 blemish the name and had a very short time to save things. A full rebuild from scratch wouldn't have worked in that light. Despite my own personal feelings of FFXIV I can't lie, for what they had to work with, they did okay. Yeah, all the complaining and requesting in the world is never gonna change that the very soul of this games coding is still the 1.0 engine. No matter what Yoshida's vision may be. Tanaka's vision will always be at the games root. It will never be remade. They'll just spend that funding to launch another MMO. One director/producer, one vision. Not two visions clashing forever.

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Oopsie!

My mad comment was really directed at the OP. I missed the call out before that line.

But, I’m glad your not mad just the same.

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Originally Posted by RukiaFae

Now you're being dramatic. That's not going to happen. You're trying to cause panic where there is none. Just like any other game once this game hits it's max of where they want to take it, it will fade over time while they create a new game. For example FFXI which is still active.

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FFXI is still adding new content and items with every patch (monthly). Also a lot of FFXI's "technical limitations" turned out to not really be limitations once the dev team stopped making excuses and started finding solutions.

Maybe the OP is being a little dramatic, but their point is 100% on target. The number of times Yoshi P has come out and said they can't do some basic expansion of a particular in-game system after only 2 expansions is, frankly, alarming. Do you remember back in 2.0 when SE said your entire character data including all your retainers is sent to the server every 15 seconds and that's why they couldn't expand retainer storage? The number of cut corners and band-aids revealed in that statement alone made alarm bells go off in my programmer brain. And that was in 2.0. What happens in 7.0?

The point is this needs to be addressed now while it's a manageable problem and not later when it's a behemoth of a problem.

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Originally Posted by Istaru

Before you get mad, I agree there are problems from the things you listed, I don’t see them redoing it again. Even if we complain.

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The game is eventually going to succumb to its own database limitations, and long before its life as an MMO has run its course.

XIV could go on for well over another 10 years thematically, but it's not going to survive that long technically.

Not only is the database going to continue to present a problem, but more and more features (like glamour logs) that become standard and even expected in MMOs are going to feel notably missing from XIV.

For example, how long have they been promising some type of mobile device companion, now...? Even Destiny 2 has one of those, and it's more of a janky skinner box simulator than an MMO.

I didn't make this post with the intention of saying, "YOU BETTER FIX YOUR STUFF!". I made it to establish that I, as a player, fully understand that a revamp like this will be necessary and I wouldn't fault them for doing it and to see who else would feel the same way.

WoW's "glamour log" is, frankly, amazing (it actually makes collecting glamour in old content fun and enjoyable), and it makes the one they're rolling out now in XIV look awful by comparison. If it would mean no longer having to deal with half measures like the dresser that are also going to become outdated, I'd rather they just go ahead and do the revamp work they clearly need to.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

FFXI is still adding new content and items with every patch (monthly). Also a lot of FFXI's "technical limitations" turned out to not really be limitations once the dev team stopped making excuses and started finding solutions.

Maybe the OP is being a little dramatic, but their point is 100% on target. The number of times Yoshi P has come out and said they can't do some basic expansion of a particular in-game system after only 2 expansions is, frankly, alarming. Do you remember back in 2.0 when SE said your entire character data including all your retainers is sent to the server every 15 seconds and that's why they couldn't expand retainer storage? The number of cut corners and band-aids revealed in that statement alone made alarm bells go off in my programmer brain. And that was in 2.0. What happens in 7.0?

The point is this needs to be addressed now while it's a manageable problem and not later when it's a behemoth of a problem.

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Exactly.

It's like leaving a pile of dirty dishes in the sink: sure, SE may not have to deal with it right now, but letting it sit for too long means those dishes are going to attract bugs and mold.

The issues with the database that we're seeing now are the flies circling the pile of SE's unwashed dishes. The longer they wait, the more awful it's going to be when they finally DO decide to clean them.

IMHO, both of these backend issues stem from the same core issue:

SE have historically shown that they are hugely adverse to anything that could potentially inflate server costs beyond the bare minimum.

This extends to both CPU power (which defines the slow tick rate, it's also visible in the sluggish manner in which aoe effects appear to radiate outwards) as well as storage (FFXI's efforts to skimp on every last MB were legendary, even going so far as to prune inactive characters from the live servers after a certain amount of time, a move which likely actually cost them a considerable amount of return custom before they implemented a come back campaign of sorts).

IMHO the only way SE will truly get FFXIV's back end performance on a par with WoW would be to go poach some of Blizzard's talent whilst also investing in much more capable server hardware. That is never happening for a multitude of reasons.

Don't buy into the nonsense that this game is hitting the limits of how scalable it's back end is because that just isn't the case, whilst I raised my doubts about the performance and reliability of this game's infrastructure at ARR's release, no one could argue with how well it scaled once SE managed to fish the chequebook out of the piranha pool. You'd think that someone at SE loses their life every time they add another spindle to the server rack, that's how adverse they are to it.

You can build a better platform/database structure while maintaining an existing product on an old platform. It would not require some sort of massive pause on playability. It definitely would not be a trivial amount of work. I work in tech though and we have a product running on an old platform that isn't scaling right because it was made when our business prospects were much lower. But we've been crushing it and now we're building a new platform, set to go live in a couple months, and at no point are we taking our platform down for months (and we collect infinitely more data than XIV does).

They closed down 1.0 when they did because frankly, they needed their entire staff operation on 2.0 to make sure it was launched on time and to create content. 2.0 was not a database/platform switch. It was a completely new game, and at some point due to staff resources they needed to abandon 1.0 and go all into 2.0 with every person they had.

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Originally Posted by Belisaire

You can build a better platform/database structure while maintaining an existing product on an old platform. It would not require some sort of massive pause on playability. It definitely would not be a trivial amount of work. I work in tech though and we have a product running on an old platform that isn't scaling right because it was made when our business prospects were much lower. But we've been crushing it and now we'rebuilding a new platform, set to go live in a couple months, and at no point are we taking our platform down for months (and we collect infinitely more data than XIV does).

They closed down 1.0 when they did because frankly, they needed their entire staff operation on 2.0 to make sure it was launched on time and to create content. 2.0 was not a database/platform switch. It was a completely new game, and at some point due to staff resources they needed to abandon 1.0 and go all into 2.0 with every person they had.

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thanks for this post, maybe this can be realistically done if they hire a few more hands sort of speak. FFXIV makes money, can we see some of that put back in the game please? bigger budget please.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Pretty much!

The bean counters are pretty much everyone's worst enemy, be you a creator or consumer ;)

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Heh, funny story: I actually saw an accountant post on a game forum and ask that people stop blaming them. He was all "We just tell them how much money we made. We don't tell anyone how they should go about making it. Please stop blaming us and blame the executives who actually make these decisions!" :D

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Heh, funny story: I actually saw an accountant post on a game forum and ask that people stop blaming them. He was all "We just tell them how much money we made. We don't tell anyone how they should go about making it. Please stop blaming us and blame the executives who actually make these decisions!" :D

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That's funny, but they're right. The accountants are not making decisions, they're just doing math.

The game really does seem limited in ways that other MMOs aren't, the strange way it handles AoE damage/heals being the one I tend to notice the most often.

The fact that there's a hard cap on how many players can even be struck by a single AoE kind of takes some of the fun out of the SB S ranks when they can only damage a small portion of the players present.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

I enjoy XIV, especially because it's the only themepark MMO I've ever seen that feels like they truly put some love and care into the storyline, characters, and setting.

But there's a worrisome trend when itcomes to developer comments: technical issues tend to be the #1 reason for rejecting requests from the playerbase (even QoL suggestions that have been requested for years), citing the inadequate database as the reason these suggestions either cannot work or would be difficult to implement.

The most recent glamour log changes are sadly a good example of this. They're an improvement, but we can only store up to 200 items in the dresser, meaning this is only ever going to be a bandaid fix, especially as the game continues to expand and more and more items are added. There will still come a day when players will need to empty that dresser out to make room for new items, something they are NOT going to want to do.

This change only delays the inevitable.

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I don't see 200 as being their final number though. This looks like an initial foray into their glamour idea with possible expansion as they see its impact. Yes it still has a limitation, but we aren't aware of what the "final cap" is. I remain optimistic about this particular feature and see it as a good start. I would LOVE a GW2 type solution for dyes and wardrobe with items being unlocked account wide and forever as long as you've touched something that used that model once, but that's a whole other system and would have to be coded in as such.. which you did touch on and I'll continue on that point later..

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

If they wanted to take an expansion to rebuild all of this and get everything up to speed, making the game "future proof" for later expansions and all of their database needs, as well as refactoring the netcode to be more responsive and workable, I wouldn't begrudge them one bit for doing so.

Now, before the "SE Defense Force" chimes in with "YOU CAN WORK AROUND THESE ISSUES!!", please stop missing the point entirely.

There's no reason WoW should have better database servers than XIV, and when you say "You can work around it", you're acknowledging that there is indeed a problem to work around in the first place, one that modern AAA MMOs don't have and one that XIV certainly shouldn't have either.

So I'd say take the time to fix the issues you need to fix, devs, even if it means rebuilding most of the game. The game is more than prosperous enough to do so at this point and, after all, any "fixes" implemented without doing a full revamp are just going to be bandaids in the long run.

XIV is a wonderful game and absolutely worth putting this kind of love and care into. :)

PS. This is not going to be an OPTIONAL change for the game, FYI. If they're struggling this hard to make due with their current database servers, they're eventually going to find themselves up against a wall where they either cannot add new expansions or need to start deleting expansions from the game to make room for new ones.

PPS. They've also made a change like this once already, back before the game was profitable, where they were building 2.0 while keeping 1.0 running AND were adding content to it.

You can learn all about it in this awesome documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4

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This whole game is a workaround. They took the poorly cobbled together mess that was outsourced code and resources and made the game we know and love today. How they convinced someone at the top that "hey, this was a promise to our fans and we failed them, please let us try and give them what we presented and save the face of our company and the world we envisioned" is a miracle in and of itself, let alone creating the experience we enjoy today out of the sludgepile they were given to work with.

Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing against you. I am one of those that would patiently stand by for a year ("one or two patch cycles".. is not enough time) with NOTHING added. No gear, no dungeons, no patches beyond fixing game breaking bugs (like locking players out of actually playing) , no new events, no NOTHING. Just fix it.. please!... but I don't see that happening.

The effort and money involved , from the point of view of someone who does cost/risk analysis as part of their job, is not something you could convince a company bigwig of. At that point I'm pretty sure , as has been pointed out several times in this thread, we would just get FFXIV 2 (.. I dunno.. I mean.. FFXIV II looks weird.. then again the 2 does too.. ). I'm reasonably sure that they would rather as a company spend the money on the continuation of this world in a new engine/framework and game before they reworked the entire thing. Especially since they'd be able to sell the new game and make that initial gob of money instead of handing out a years worth of work for free. .. maybe not totally free if SE gave them more budget from the subs.. but I don't know the actual financials on sub to cost of server maintenance and operation ratio.

Also the majority of the playerbase would REVOLT. Outright. People cry when they don't get enough content or enough unique content already. Imagine the outcry if they announced NO content. Which is what I believe it would take. People would leave in droves and the money they had to make these changes would dry up. Investors would get scared, THAT money would stop as well, people would get fired and the project would die.

In the eyes of an investor or a business person this is optional though. Keep the goose pooping those golden eggs and keep it pooping till they stop coming. When the goose collapses it's time to go look for another one. Bummer about that old goose but there will always be more.

They turned off 1.0 for a quite a bit while it was revamped into 2.0. Just off. I imagine the crunch time was incredible for that. No money coming in, just paying for work that may have been a black hole in the end. That was insanity!




TL:DR: you are asking for another miracle to happen and that's very unlikely. I hope it does though.

I agree with the statements of the OP but there is another option they might consider. They could age out the game. When that day comes that they can no longer make patches or expansions they simply do not make more. At that time the game has concluded it's natural life cycle and the cost of rebuilding the engine is more than the profits to be made by continuing for a few more years.

I think they do need to go through their main story questline and revamp it for new or returning players. It's a huge turn off at level 50 and cost them money on lost business. An mmo should be prepared to streamline old content as it ages. Things like a housing revamp so that everyone can get an apartment and maybe fix that animation where people appear to run in place sometimes and other times seem to slide across the screen would help attract and retain customers.

I totally agree with this becuase these limitations are getting out of hand and hem trying to blame the PS4 like it's the PS3 is not a great excuse...

And eventually this will blow up in their face so the time is now for them to start fixing that crap now especially with relics coming out that will be time enough for people to time sync while they release minimal content or just do the with the new expansion that's plenty of time for them to dig themselves out but they need to really start hitting the games actual infrastructure...and throw the whole launcher away I'm tired of waiting almost 5-10mins to get to the character screen lol