Live Letter XIV Discussion Thread

[Larin]

I personally wanted to make dyeing equipment one of the special perks for crafters, but the reason for reusing designs for crafted equipment is more related to resource management.

There is something I don't understand. I was happy to be able dyeing items until I realized it's completely useless, sad there are 94 different colors. There are so many nice looking items and NONE of them is dyeable. Here I want to say thank you.
But hey! There is the glamour system. Crafted gear as vanity items? Of course I'll spend my Gil to get the Battlemage set for my BLM just to dye it yellow and put it on a useful item? This is a very nice idea. I would like the Sailor set, but there are no gloves. You also didn't have enough resources for a pair of gloves?

[abzoluut]

We were bound to have a repsonse on this matter since so many of us are disappointed in the gear design team. SE is on the right track with the game, I love what they're doing. However, gear can make this game feel soooo much better. To sum our frustratoins up:

- some gear have the same model (only another color), yet they are for a different job (mnk & brd, mnk & drg, healer & caster etc..)
- some gear have (almost) the same model as gear that came out months ago
- we sometimes have to look at ones weapon to determine what job it is (remember the Vanya Robe of <X> guys?)
- there is little choice when it comes to same iLVL glamour
- pre lvl 50 gear is almost never good looking (= less glamour options)
- dyeing gear seems to be extremely restricted to one section of the gear piece

With Susuki's response it's save to say they are going to try to be more versatile. Let's hope they give crafters recipies to craft amazing looking gear, not for stats, but just for the looks. They'll catch two birds with one stone: more glamour options, crafters can look forward to new recipies and feel like actual crafters having a little business going on.

[Siven]

I have no problem with gear designs, really, but I'd love to see ALL gear be dyable. That would make my life.

[Pacifyer]

I do not use Glamours system just to show off my raid gear. I like that people understand what class am I and how far am I progress wise.
But some decisions like making High Allagan Robe of Healing RED make me cry. I would be so much happier if I could just dye it white! And I am not up to crafting Cashemere robe for 600k gil just for vanity. It looks much more simple and not representative.

[Bluevann]

I'm a little confused on this debate... If you think your high ilvl gear looks dull and not unique, why not just glamour it into something you like? I prefer unique-looking stuff that can be glamoured at any level and class, rather than unique-looking gear that can only be equipped by one lv50 job.

[Velo_Vandore]

I think the confusion here is regarding what is meant by resources. I don't think this means time/money available to design and model new game assets. It means system resources (RAM specifically) and how many separate models the entry level machine can cope with rendering under "normal" conditions.

Those on PS3 or an older PC will be familiar with all the player characters loading gradually as you move to new areas. This is because the data (assets) for each seperate character and each piece of gear need to be loaded from the hard drive to the RAM (Random Access Memory). Something can only be rendered on the screen if it's on the RAM first, and the RAM is highly limited (particularly on PS3). I think square-enix learned to stop saying "PS3 Limitations" since it evoked a negative reaction from many who felt the PS3 version should be abandoned since PS4 is here.

Imagine if every piece of gear looks unique. Also, with Glamour system many players will be wearing different looking gear in the same area (say Mor Dohna or any main city, or a busy fate). Each piece of gear has a certain file size, and there's only so much space on each user's RAM. Not only does it take time to load each piece from the HDD to the RAM so it can be rendered on the screen, it's likely that the RAM will quickly become full, and only a limited number of players will be able to appear at a particular moment. Think about Odin fate and how it taxes the machine. This kind of rendering lag could happen even more, and in less populated area's if there was even more unique gear in the game.

Bear in mind also that the developers have to consider the long run. If they make have your system running to it's full potential now, how will it cope in 5 - 10 patches when more gear is added? That said, eventually (for this reason) I'm sure PS3 / older systems will be phased out and they can work to higher system specs, but it's not time for that yet because I can't afford a PS4 :P

Hope this explains the situation for those who were a little confused.

EDIT: One further note - you may be thinking, "how come older crappy MMO's have much greater variety in gear then?" The answer is that the graphics are less detailed so the file size of each asset is much smaller. More can be packed on the RAM at once and it's quicker to load.

[Ghastly]

That's no excuse...
Examples come in the form of games like Black Desert and Blade & Soul. They render amazingly dinstinct models and clothes and remain intact.

Square could adopt the use of more channels for example.

[MGunns]

If they are already having resource issues (ram, item database limitations) for armor models after not even hitting the year mark since 2.0 then we are in for some serious issues down the road. I seriously don't accept that as a reasonable excuse for them being lazy. This game is growing at a substantial rate according to most sources including the SE team. If they don't have the "in-house" resources to design and implement new armor/items for each class, then again that is their fault and SE is not planning ahead as needed for the actual growth rate of the game. There really should not be a reason for them to not be able to design new armor sets for the different jobs in game. What are they going to do when they release more jobs? Are they just going to keep using the same models for multiple classes and just change a few colors here and there?

[Velo_Vandore]

That's no excuse...
Examples come in the form of games like Black Desert and Blade & Soul. They render amazingly dinstinct models and clothes and remain intact.

Square could adopt the use of more channels for example.

It is a fair excuse in a way because Blade and Soul couldn't run on PS3's low RAM. I think they made a good decision to support PS3 (personally, since I use PS3), and think the tradeoff is worth it.

If they are already having resource issues (ram, item database limitations) for armor models after not even hitting the year mark since 2.0 then we are in for some serious issues down the road. I seriously don't accept that as a reasonable excuse for them being lazy. This game is growing at a substantial rate according to most sources including the SE team. If they don't have the "in-house" resources to design and implement new armor/items for each class, then again that is their fault and SE is not planning ahead as needed for the actual growth rate of the game. There really should not be a reason for them to not be able to design new armor sets for the different jobs in game. What are they going to do when they release more jobs? Are they just going to keep using the same models for multiple classes and just change a few colors here and there?

I don't think they are saying they hitting resource limits just yet, but because they are planning ahead, they can't just add a lot of gear now. I'm sure they have plans in a few years to faze out PS3 and increase the minimum required system specs of the game, and I'm sure they have planned for enough resources to be available for a "reasonable" amount of new gear to be added in patches till then.

Of course "reasonable" is subject to opinion, but I wouldn't say they have been lazy at all. Just making choices to keep graphical quality high for low spec machines / PS3 at cost of less unique looking gear. I'm not saying anyone has to agree with the decision, but I don't think it's fair to call them lazy when the issue is clearly complex and they can't just "add more gear" because people play on PS3 and they need to save resources for future patches.

EDIT: I do think channels is a good suggestion though Ghastly! I wonder if they have plans to add this, or reasons not to. I'm not sure how fates would work with channels, i.e. people hopping to party leader channel whilst mid way through a fate already. Shouts for Odin, etc - would the shout be cross channel? Would Odin be cross channel? I'm sure it could work somehow though. Personally I would love to see Odin fate far less populated so I don't get lagged to death.

[Coldbrand]

Greetings,

Below is a message from lead designed Takeo Suzuki in regards to a comment that was mentioned during Letter from the Producer LIVE XIV.

My feedback is hire more artists so you can have a truly distinguished game that doesn't constantly reuse assets like a certain other MMO that became exponentially more lazy with recycling assets. Put all these subs you love to brag about to good use.