Low to No Memory Glamour Solutions

Glamour space seems to be a consistent problem in FFXIV and the main impediment to implementing it, as stated by Yoshi-P, seems to be server space. I was curious how much thought was given for low to no memory glamour solutions? In particular solutions that use already existing database tables to cover some of the need for a "transmog" like system.

For instance, the market board and crafting logs contain tons of equipment that characters can try on, and are already stored on the servers. Rather than have separate storage for each players, have the server query the table that stores either the market board equipment or the crafting log tables, and allow players to apply those items to their glamor plates similar to how the armoire can be used.

As far as the question of what equipment characters are authorized to access, you could have each character store a list of the equipment they've spiritbonded with at some point. However, the problem with this would be each character could have potentially hundreds of entries to indicate everything they've encountered, which may or may not be too much data for the system.

Another solution would be similar to hunting and crafting books that players unlock. Have level/job range books, probably crafted by alchemists or sold by merchants, that players read once, and that unlocks a range of items they can see, similar to how difference jobs and levels can be filtered when using the marketboard.

I acknowledge there are intricacies in the code that I am not familiar with and cannot claim there won't be problems with this solution, but I am curious if using data from either the marketboard or the crafting logs as sources for glamour plates would be viable? It would definitely reduce a lot of space in the glamour chests, which characters could dedicate to dungeon gear or other untradeable gear.

There's also some items that can't be put in the dresser at all (Changing stuff like Relic items, meaning you need the replica items of those stages to actually glamour them)

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Originally Posted by Mahogany

I acknowledge there are intricacies in the code that I am not familiar with and cannot claim there won't be problems with this solution, but I am curious if using data from either the marketboard or the crafting logs as sources for glamour plates would be viable? It would definitely reduce a lot of space in the glamour chests, which characters could dedicate to dungeon gear or other untradeable gear.

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Viable? Sure.

Easily implementable being the problem.

Any sort of log is going to have to rework the way the system keeps track of your items and their appearance from the ground up. I'm pretty sure that is the roadblock. We are riding a boat that is basically the original log raft but with a full carnival cruise liner built on top of it.


It seems like you'd just be able to stick an extra propeller on that motor.. but that sucker is running on coconuts and hopes and is doing all it can already and barely gets by.

The way the database itself works has to be changed to implement anything new and there are some pretty big roadblocks to overcome to get that done:
Severe content drought while it's developed : All new content would have to work with the new system so the new system would have to be in place before any new content is dropped or they'd just be adding more work on top of the rework as new content released before the change would then have to be made compatible.

Heavy investment into the game for very little change in profitability initially. While I'm sure Yoshi-p would cut off a pinky in a second if he knew it'd make the game that much better for all of us, it's not up to him to pull the lever. The bigwigs have to say OK and they're interested in what can be squeezed out of us to increase profits.. not drop them.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

The way the database itself works has to be changed to implement anything new and there are some pretty big roadblocks to overcome to get that done:
Severe content drought while it's developed : All new content would have to work with the new system so the new system would have to be in place before any new content is dropped or they'd just be adding more work on top of the rework as new content released before the change would then have to be made compatible.

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I don't agree with this statement.

If the developers were able to leverage the market board tables or crafting tables to pull the data, then they wouldn't have to change anything database schema wise. They would only add an additional call to the database to pull the information. Any new data that would be put in the market board or crafting tables would already be put in to continue supporting the existing features.

I admit this won't be a complete solution, but it would at least handle the tradeable items.

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Originally Posted by Mahogany

I don't agree with this statement.

If the developers were able to leverage the market board tables or crafting tables to pull the data, then they wouldn't have to change anything database schema wise. They would only add an additional call to the database to pull the information. Any new data that would be put in the market board or crafting tables would already be put in to continue supporting the existing features.

I admit this won't be a complete solution, but it would at least handle the tradeable items.

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There's the problem with the way the game is written to check our inventory (and likely any glamours on anything in it including equipped gear) every couple seconds, so now we'd have to have connectivity to marketboard/crafting databases even in an instance to maintain appearance. So that'd have to be changed at least. A lot of people theorize that the glamour problem is bandwidth and not database storage, mostly because of these constant references to server data.

I came up with this a few weeks ago:

The problem with a "Glamour Log" is that the game has to constantly check your character to see what you have because you can glamour in so many places.

What if you couldn't?

What if they restricted glamour to only certain areas, an Inn room perhaps. That way, the game wouldn't have to CONSTANTLY check to see what you have?

Even if it took 30 seconds or so to scan your log to load it, that would be preferable to what we have now.

My suggestion: Allow glamour only in Inn Rooms. When you get a piece, you load it into the Glamour Dresser there and it gets logged. That is the only place the game can check for glamour and apply it.

A properly implemented and compact glamour log shouldn't take any more data than our minion, mount, triple triad or blue mage logs takes.

There isn't a need for them to check if you got every single item, since almost all equipments comes in sets and tiers they could set the requirement that you have obtained (and presented it to someone) to get those items logged. One raid tier with 35 different items could all be logged to one bit of data.

The long and short of it is this: for those of us that glam seriously, and have more than a few 80 jobs, the current glamour system has basically been on life support since the start of Shadowbringers. I want to emphasize: I am out of room. I am COMPLETELY out of room. I have no space left in my bags; I have no space left in the dresser; my plates are maxed. This system was only ever going to work as a stopgap - it is the appearance modification equivalent of a spare tire. And we have now been driving on that spare for 20,000+ miles. It's the end of the damned road.

As a customer who has seen 1) the game's population explode of late, 2) glamour continually trumpeted by the development team as 'the endgame,' and 3) a massive ratcheting up in the sales of very expensive store outfits (of which I own about half now), this system is a disgrace. This is not a small, indie company; this is not a new game; these are not people who are new to software development. This is a solvable hurdle, and has rapidly become a NIGHTMARE for me and many others to juggle, and it needs to get the same priority as any other aspect of this game's development. You've taken my money, now reinvest it in the freaking product.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

A properly implemented and compact glamour log shouldn't take any more data than our minion, mount, triple triad or blue mage logs takes.

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Things get funny when the amount of data exceeds hundreds, if not thousands, because you have to deal with paging issues and the like. For example, I know with Pokemon Go you start noticing problems in the UI and loading when you have a couple of thousand pokemon stored on the server, especially when you do searching. I suspect part of the problem with custom user organized data is not having a good index whereas a static list would have a nice index and could even cache some of the queries that different users perform.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

My suggestion: Allow glamour only in Inn Rooms. When you get a piece, you load it into the Glamour Dresser there and it gets logged. That is the only place the game can check for glamour and apply it.

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That's how the glamour dresser already works, and people complain bitterly about it.

I would give up spiritbonding for a proper glamour log.

I'd be fine if they just threw the whole glamour chest/prism/plate system out the window and just created a catalogue.

What about a system where an infinite (or at least arbitrarily large) number of glamour plates can be created within an inn room, with a sizable increase to dresser capacity, but where you could 'assign' 15 plates to use outside of the inn room? I wouldn't mind having to return to an inn room to reapply, say, any crafting glamours I'd apply like once an expansion, or switch out my loadout of White Mage glams, as long as I could create glamours to my heart's content and experiment with what works and what doesn't. If anything, the current system is stopping me from whaling even harder, as I'm already almost out of dresser space. I will say though that allowing Mogstation items to be stored in an armoire would be a semi-acceptable compromise for now.

ps4 limitations /s