All I Want to do is Collect Armor Sets

That it's. That's what I enjoy doing most in this game. I enjoy switching my outfits often and plenty and yet I cannot. I've crammed all my gear in every dresser/armoire slot, maxed out 5 retainers and refuse to pay for any more. I'm at the point where I have to juggle 5-6 open inventory slots because I can no longer fit anything.

2 more jobs have been added to the game and 10 more levels per job. Despite all of these new gear sets, 0 new slots have been created for these sets of gear.

Square-Enix has no issues selling me new gear on the Mogstation and it fits just fine in the armoire. Why can't anything else?

Let's really get down to it, this inventory/gear system is so archaic and calls for a revamp, but why would they when they basically get half another sub from me per month via paying for 3 retainers?

Code being built on spaghetti just isn't a good enough excuse for a company of this magnitude. This isn't a mom & pop MMORPG. The game literally advertises all this new shiny gear and I CAN'T FIT ANYMORE.

PvP gear rewards? Special Events and Collaborations? Hope you like inventory Tetris. I'm wasting away Wolf Marks and Trophy Crystals because I cannot fit anything else anymore. I gave up trying to collect all the poetic gear. And the relics I've been farming, the day I fully run out of space because I want the shiniest of shiny gear, I'll be livid.

We need REAL answers, not 2 more expansions from now, not "working on it" posts, but clear definitive solutions to this ever growing problem. Giving us 200 more glamour slots isn't going to cut it.

I wish they would just adopt a glamor system like WOW or DCUO, you equip something, the item is binded to you and the look is added to your glamour catalog and you can now safely discard it as it's stored forever as an available glamour option. Expanding our glamour slots will always just be a band-aid for a broken system.

I still want to hear a concrete explanation from them to why a glamour log is difficult if not impossible for them to implement.

They have already added numerous new systems to them game and changed existing ones, some of which interact with our inventory.

From looking at what we already have in the game, they could worst case use a mixture of achievements and item coffers to emulate the effect of an optimized glamour log.

Collect an armor set -> Present it to an npc for an achievement -> That achievement generates a item coffer/items to an inaccessible inventory -> Apply glamours from that inventory -> Delete items (so that they can't be desynthed/sold).

It's not ideal, but it servers its purpose.

It is really strange tbh. They're not even selling us expanded glam dressed item slots, so it's not like there's an interest to EARN money with the current limited system. Furthermore, we have fashion accessories and now facewear that's super free to equip. My theory is that they have some really shoddy codework that's stopping them from implementing a better system for storage- as in, the data itself for what items we have in our dressers is getting stored on their servers and taking up increasing amount of space- and the way that data is stored is INCREDIBLY inefficient. I'm only a half nerd, so don't know if the nerd facts check out on that one. Just seems to me like they have some kind of vague bad code issue. Isn't there a similar limitation where they can't implement glam dressers in any place that will have more than one player?

Unrelated to the slots for storing items. Why are glam plates in limited number and not representative of the EXACT NUMBER of jobs present in the game at any given time?

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Originally Posted by Khutulun

It is really strange tbh. They're not even selling us expanded glam dressed item slots, so it's not like there's an interest to EARN money with the current limited system. Furthermore, we have fashion accessories and now facewear that's super free to equip. My theory is that they have some really shoddy codework that's stopping them from implementing a better system for storage- as in, the data itself for what items we have in our dressers is getting stored on their servers and taking up increasing amount of space- and the way that data is stored is INCREDIBLY inefficient. I'm only a half nerd, so don't know if the nerd facts check out on that one. Just seems to me like they have some kind of vague bad code issue. Isn't there a similar limitation where they can't implement glam dressers in any place that will have more than one player?

Unrelated to the slots for storing items. Why are glam plates in limited number and not representative of the EXACT NUMBER of jobs present in the game at any given time?

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Yes, I fully suspect that the glamour dresser is just inventory slots being stored on the server as individual items still.

They don't need to access the information all of the time and don't need to remember things like materia slots, but they're still unique items and not getting ticked off a list. You can have multiples of the same item stored and they keep track of their dye colour.

I also suspect that glamour plates are likewise storing unique items on the server for every slot – creating a clone of the item once you copy it from the dresser that becomes fully independent of the original, allowing it to be dyed separately and not reflect changes to the original item.

Glamour plates have never been marketed as a "one per job" thing, so I don't expect that to be something they ever aim for.

I assume facewear is somehow commandeering the old belt slot.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

I still want to hear a concrete explanation from them to why a glamour log is difficult if not impossible for them to implement.

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To be fair they may very well be working on that. If you will notice we went from Fashion Accessories to Faceware, and a further possible next step could be to make something like that for all visual gear. People seem to think that major system changes are as easy to do as waving a magic wand while unicorns fart rainbows. As with ANY MMORPG developers tend to start small and iterate over several expansions. (e.g. WoW MoP farms and then WoD Garrisons, further later Class Halls and such)

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

I still want to hear a concrete explanation from them to why a glamour log is difficult if not impossible for them to implement.

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It would mean keeping a database record per character (or per account) for each item in the game of whether it had been collected or not. That's thousands of flags.

That said, the game does have a similar system in place already - the crafting log remembers for every single item whether you've crafted it before. I would argue that this offers far less value than glamour collecting would, so I would repurpose this space if it's not feasible to add a new collection record.

At the very least, it would be nice to get a client-side preview book for glamour items like the furniture one. The world tour required to look through the available options only gets longer with each new gear vendor.

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Originally Posted by Singularity

It would mean keeping a database record per character (or per account) for each item in the game of whether it had been collected or not. That's thousands of flags.

That said, the game does have a similar system in place already - the crafting log remembers for every single item whether you've crafted it before. I would argue that this offers far less value than glamour collecting would, so I would repurpose this space if it's not feasible to add a new collection record.

At the very least, it would be nice to get a client-side preview book for glamour items like the furniture one. The world tour required to look through the available options only gets longer with each new gear vendor.

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Assuming that one flag can be compressed to one bit and looking at the lodestone for armors. That would be 2627 bit -> 328 byte of storage for only chest pieces. For optimization we could make it so that a flag only counts if you got the entire set of 5 pieces which would mean that for armor sets alone we would end up on that total of 328 byte of storage. Then some extra byte on how the sets are sorted. As for weapons, they could be compressed either with the armor when aplicapble, or along the same level/sets as in you would need to collect every weapon from a dungeon to save it as obtained.

Meanwhile one inventory slot need to manage minimum
item id 2byte,
glam id 2byte,
dye 1 id 1byte,
dye 2 id 1byte,
spiritbond 1byte
quantity 2byte
materia id x5 10byte

so about 18 byte per item.

We have 140 inventory slots and +350 armory chest slots so that is more than 500 inventory slots totalling at 9000 byte.

The storage needed for an optimized glamour log would be negligible compared to the inventory we already have.

And we could compress it even further. Requiring every piece of equipment for any given tier to be able to log it, that would be 5(armor pieces)*7(roles)+21(weapons)+4(accessoreis)= 60 items per bit.

As a WoW veteran and recent XIV convert, I am completely baffled at how some of the systems operate in XIV. Roleplay is such a major aspect of this game and choosing one's unique appearance and aesthetic should be core functionality not limited by archaic systems. To echo some of the previous comments here, it's not like they even have to brainstorm a solution. WoW has already figured it out. To be even more of an echo-chamber, since someone else also already mentioned this, WoW's implementation also requires less overhead because it simply checks flags against a database for ownership, as opposed to XIV's current implementation.

I just don't see why this isn't addressed already. Everyone benefits from it... Adventurers of Eorzea have a much better and streamlined experience where they can collect everything and make outfits that are unique to their desired expression, without having to pick and choose which articles of appearance they want to keep and which to discard. Square benefits from this by adding longevity to the game. If collectors want to "gather all the things!", they will, leading to longer subscription retention.

It's time for change. It's time to allow us to change..our outfits.

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Originally Posted by Singularity

It would mean keeping a database record per character (or per account) for each item in the game of whether it had been collected or not. That's thousands of flags.

That said, the game does have a similar system in place already - the crafting log remembers for every single item whether you've crafted it before. I would argue that this offers far less value than glamour collecting would, so I would repurpose this space if it's not feasible to add a new collection record.

At the very least, it would be nice to get a client-side preview book for glamour items like the furniture one. The world tour required to look through the available options only gets longer with each new gear vendor.

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Yet they can easily add complete one off inventory systems that will have to remain forever even though most players barely ever return to Bozja, Eureka or even the Island Sanctuary?

It's definitely not a server space issue for them, that's at best a dumbed down explanation.

And you can do many things to alleviate the bit space problem if it's real - Make us collect entire sets before we get the log flag for example.

A glamor log is a necessity. The amount of gear getting added per expansion is massive and a lot of the pieces are multi class. The game encourages us to play different jobs yet we only have 20 plates and the space for glamor becomes smaller and smaller over time.

And let's not get into how accessories are still divided by role, which bloats glamor space. Why not make them like HW where they can be equipped by all classes but can only be needed or actually used depending on the stats they provide?

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

Yet they can easily add complete one off inventory systems that will have to remain forever even though most players barely ever return to Bozja, Eureka or even the Island Sanctuary?

It's definitely not a server space issue for them, that's at best a dumbed down explanation.

And you can do many things to alleviate the bit space problem if it's real - Make us collect entire sets before we get the log flag for example.

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It's not a question of storage as far as I understand it, but a question of moving the data around with your character. That's why these special inventories are only accessible in certain places. I guess it might be possible to make such a thing that works only outside of instances and it registers any new glamours whenever you return to the world server? At that point it'd not be far off from just automatically putting reflections of everything you get into your dresser.

Don't misunderstand me - I would like to see such a thing added as well. Just that someone asked why it might be difficult so I'm speculating based on what Yoshi-P has said in past live letters.

It's just really weird how something like this doesn't seem to be a priority for them. The horizontal progression of collecting gearsets would improve the game so much for so many people, and if implemented well would also revive old content where gearsets and other glamour pieces drop from.

Right now it's a real hassle to find out what kinds of gear are even in the game and where they drop from. You'll have to visit third party sites outside of the game for that. Then when you've finally found a good looking set it becomes a struggle to store it in an inventory somewhere and add it to one of the very few glamour plates. It's just a mess.

They should just do with gear (and mounts, minions, and titles) what they already do with adventure plate frames (and triple triad cards and orchestrion rolls to a lesser extent). Have a menu were you can see previews of everything that is available and clearly say how and where you can get it. Then when you've unlocked it you can use it whenever, without having to keep the item in your inventory.

They'd preferably also use the dreamfitting tech so you can preview and mix and match gear pieces even if you haven't unlocked them yet.

Fixing whatever is still holding them back from implementing something like this should really become a priority at this point. It's honestly ridiculous how far behind other MMOs FFXIV is in this regard.

Agreed. I love collecting the gear, I love having a closet full of fashion. The overwhelming majority of my storage space is dedicated to gear.

Often it feels like there's nothing for me to do in the game, when actually there's plenty to do, I just don't have the inventory space to collect the rewards that come from doing these activities. Add a wardrobe-like system and that problem would be solved.

If they can figure out how a system like WoW with the additional dye system added (which WoW does not have, making their system a bit easier), that would add so much content for people and possibly make SE a lot of money from selling dyes in the store.

With how it stands, if an item doesn't say "All Classes" on it, then I don't consider it for Glam at all. I just don't waste my time and effort on the logistics of organizing and planning my plates according to the specific needs of my glam. I know you can individually glam things, but that just makes it messier and prone to more headaches, just in my opinion.

It's a shame really because I would love to collect and glam with some of the armor sets around, they look cool, but when I get the drive to start to organize and get ready for it then I quickly think to myself "am I really going to want to do this 2 months from now?" and then I stop and don't care anymore.

It's funny really, the ONLY reason I keep a sub to a certain other MMO is because the have a system for collecting and keeping track of it and I will periodically get on to add to it. I prefer this game, but glam just makes my head hurt and not a fan of it.

If they changed the glam system to be a collection log/book to keep track of things you have earned/equipped before (soulbinding the item in the process) and then more freely equip gear from other jobs (remove restrictions). . . I would probably happily spend another 1000 hours + just wanting to collect it all.

For those wondering about the logistics of adding a wardrobe, I made a thread awhile back on that topic, and it got some thoughtful replies: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...system-in-FF14

I don't want anyone to feel pressured to read all of that though, so I'll give you the quick summary of what people pointed out (and my subsequent research verified): the cost of data storage is negligible, but the cost of moving and accessing data is much steeper and more prohibitive.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

For those wondering about the logistics of adding a wardrobe, I made a thread awhile back on that topic, and it got some thoughtful replies: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...system-in-FF14

I don't want anyone to feel pressured to read all of that though, so I'll give you the quick summary of what people pointed out (and my subsequent research verified): the cost of data storage is negligible, but the cost of moving and accessing data is much steeper and more prohibitive.

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I mean, I get it but they could just add to the same system they have. Just put ghost spots in the Glamour dresser for every item in the game. If you collected it, it isn't "greyed out" anymore and remove restrictions when it gets put into the dresser. You could literally keep the same system that way and just keep it to an on or off state depending on if the item is stored. Since all this is doing is adding a bit to the number of items you store and not how you use it, this literally could be put in pretty quickly and you would probably not even have to extra glam plates (would be preferred though) for swapping between things.

Sorry if this sounds argumentative, I just wish that we could have this because I get so tired of just selling or throwing away cool armor T.T

edited to add* As far as dyes for armor to store, you could just store multiple items of one type if wanted but with different dye. I am not a fan of restricting things, but i would prefer even restricting it to one item of each type but you can store it with a custom dye if wanted.

yeah this game is a god damn nightmare for hoarders like us

While you're at it, make armor sets for those extra dungeons too, instead of making them drop bracelets, earrings and other accessories. Don't they have enough people working at SE?

I feel like a lot of the quality of this expansion was sacrificed to address the graphics update. The story felt weirdly paced and contradictory and definitely had more running between cutscenes vs running between events. Some of the vocal performances weren't directed well and some of the audio was inconsistent. Just a lot of little noticeable things did not have the care or consideration that I feel this team has proudly proclaimed to adhere to in previous expansions.

All I can hope is that we get a nice chunky QoL update before the next expansion that helps deal with the glam inventory bloat since I too have a main character maxing each job and I just don't have the space. Let us at least put all the AF in the Armoire. I'm also a viera so I'm hoarding hats I will probably never get to wear but maybe, MAYBE, I can wear AST af pieces.. someday (probably not).

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

For those wondering about the logistics of adding a wardrobe, I made a thread awhile back on that topic, and it got some thoughtful replies: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...system-in-FF14

I don't want anyone to feel pressured to read all of that though, so I'll give you the quick summary of what people pointed out (and my subsequent research verified): the cost of data storage is negligible, but the cost of moving and accessing data is much steeper and more prohibitive.

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I don't think those costs would be quite as bad if we assume we're only meant to read/write this data while interacting with the Glamour Dresser itself. Turn the Glamour Dresser into a proper armor collection. Instead of "moving" the item into the dresser, make it so you destroy the item to retain the raw glamour appearance (no dyes).

Then you can create plates or glam over your items from the dresser itself. You can have a client-side stored read-only menu to check your currently acquired items, since it will only update when you sacrifice items for the dresser and that will be the only read/write operation.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

And let's not get into how accessories are still divided by role, which bloats glamor space.

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Because they don't want tanks fighting DPS over STR accessories. That is literally why they changed it in the first place.

I'm at ~650/800 slots filled in my glamour dresser but it still feels very sparse looking at each individual job/category when I go to make a new plate. I'm not even someone who's super into collecting glams, so that should tell you something.

Collecting gear in FFXIV is such an important feature to players that "glamour is the real endgame" is one of our most common jokes. I actually started savage raiding because I wanted the dyeable Asphodelos tank set... Does it count as a joke at this point?

With DT, there aren't even enough glamour plate slots to cover all the combat jobs alone, not to mention DoH/DoL which have a huge amount of class-specific glams that will never be used by most people. If they keep adding 2 jobs per expac, we're eventually going to find ourselves with literally double the amount of jobs vs plates. And this is after they sacrificed an entire gear slot to marginally expand plates/dresser slots.

The current system is... mediocre to bad but fine, I guess. It's better than it used to be (did yall know glamour prisms used to be job and level specific?) and it's functional, if archaic and tedious like every other menu-based thing in FFXIV. But looking at what devs have told us regarding server strain and gamebreaking bugs over the past couple years, it seems inevitable that they're going to be forced to change the glamour system sooner rather than later.

I'm sure we would all love something akin to WoW's appearance log but I'm not holding my breath. I just can't see any way the current system will be sustainable going forward, so I have some hope they'll overhaul it somehow in 8.0.

I believe the dev team would have already put into place what World of Warcraft has for the wardrobe system if it was simple but this isn't the case. It would be nice to get an update though on what the future plans are for improving the glamour system. I just doubt we will ever get anything close to what World of Warcraft has for the game.

Looking at it from a developer perspective here, and honestly, unless they have some really dumb way of handling data and networking then this shouldn't be too hard. I think its more that they are so stuck in their content delivery schedules that there is 0 room to actually meaningfully upgrade the game outside of smaller QoL. Any programmer working on this either have their hands busy with the 1 big thing they can do (like trying to make data center PF work), or they are on battle content/smaller stuff, or they get pulled to other projects that CS3 is working on now, so you are stuck with a junior programmer who is still trying to wrap their head around the codebase to do anything meaningful (I mean, look at the new dye window, its literally a new window to pull up the old dye window twice).

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Because they don't want tanks fighting DPS over STR accessories. That is literally why they changed it in the first place.

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I feel like they could condense it down a little more, though. At minimum, merge casting and healing accessories to put them on par with striking/maiming and scouting/aiming in sharing one set between two roles.

I'd like WoW's collection tab system too please. It'd be a huge QoL even just for appearance.

I really do wish they'd adopt a more modern and sophisticated collection system. the bandaid solution of gradually expanding glam dresser space is being massively outpaced by the rate of newer models coming out. I honestly would've rather had them spend development time on this than their lighting and graphics overhaul

If they can't get a modern collection system up, at least do the following:

After collecting one of each piece from a dungeon for a slot (ie: 1 tank piece, 1 caster piece, etc.) all these can be crafted together to a single "omni" piece that you can put in the glamor dresser.
If there are different looks for this set per job, the omni piece will transform to that look as you switch jobs. That way my glamor plates are not filled up and I don't need like a new plate per job I'm playing.

This would also be a nice thing to get people to farm old dungeons to collect sets or something.

Just look at the Garo sets.

Get whole set, talk to NPC, get achievment.

Go to vendor which checks for achievment and you can buy the whole set back.

They just need to expand it for every gearset in the game. The system is already there and works.

Not perfect but better than nothing.