Pay for your inventory.

[FriendlyUncle]

The developers said the inventory limit was a speed/safety issue. If they increase the inventory then they can only sync it to disk half as much, which means if a server crashes, you "roll back" and get a lot more customer service complaints.

In older games, "stacks" were simply represented as a quantity variable. Hence "dupe'ing" bugs, especially gold dupe bugs were prevalent in pretty much every MMO at some point. Newer games actually account for all the gold and items on the servers, at the cost of intended inventory space being reduced, and the glamour systems require the game to keep track of two items, not just one.

More to the point though, almost nobody has ever played a game where the inventory space was nearly unlimited and lived to tell about it. Everyone finds a way to work around the space limitations, even if it involves making it an extreme pain in the ass.

Because:
1) Every item requires being sent across the wire. FFXIV is so responsive because there are so few items being sent. Even not-so-old (freemium) games that let you buy expansion slots, were never this fast.
2) Searching inventory and market boards are fast (market boards occasionally time out), and searches check your Retainers.

This one time, in this one other MMORPG game, I lost my dress that I had worked so hard to get and dye the right colors... and lost it to a server crash because I had just changed gear. I will never forget that.

This might have been a valid excuse 15 years ago, but with the increase of HDD space and read/write speeds, no this is not a valid point. Servers will not be taxed by adding 1-2 more inventory tabs as compared to adding 4 additional retainers that can store 1300 additional items, has its own character model, equips its own set of gear which also has to be loaded into the game, also has to keep track of the items each of them have listed on the MB. Even just 1 additional retainer fully decked would cause more of a strain on the server than adding normal inventory slots to the player character. The fact that they added the option to buy two more retainers and then just increased it to six is just proof that SE doesn't even believe that piss-poor excuse.

Inventory storage is just a database. Adding a few more lines referencing items will not cause a noticeable degradation of performance unless they are re-using old FFXI servers from back in '98. In which case they need to upgrade their hardware. The amount of data that makes up a single slot of inventory is minuscule and the responsiveness or lack there of has nothing to do with inventory data. I'd be willing to bet just your character model and position is more data sent across to the servers than having your entire player inventory completely full, max inventory stacks.

SE is willing to add additional retainers whose inventory as far as I'm away is essentially exactly like the players data usage wise and inherently uses additional data than standard inventory because Character model, equipment, venture status, items on market, gil counts vs player inventory which just holds items. This very fact proves that SE does not think additional inventory checks will tax their back-end, rather they used an issue for some and came up with a way to try and nickle and dime sub paying players for additional inventory and monthly at that. Reduce extra retainers to 6, 3 hired in game and 3 by additional costs, increase armory slots by 3 each to accommodate the new classes, add 1 additional inventory tab to the players inventory and FFS let armor 'sets' be stored in the armoire. AF, AF2, Sets like Allagan, HA, DW. Armoire data is not called during inventory checks. Clean up the clunky glamour system to obtain item, get glamour. Crafters still get people buying their items for glamour, players don't have to cling onto the same piece in case they want to use it again or sell it and risk having to purchase it again later.

[myahele]

It also only stores some event items, not all of them meaning those of us who like to hold onto the event furniture, and random outfit pieces have far less space. I for one try to go for at-least one of every event item when events come out, and since the new summer outfit coming out will all be wearable by female characters I will be getting quite a few more items that I wont be-able to store away for some time.

Ah yes, I still have veteran's reward and some other event items that have YET to be included in what you can store in the Armoir. Seriously, they develop these gear ahead of time, so why aren't they available to store in the armoir once released?

[odintius]

Instead as someone said earlier, nearly every item has a use, and every piece of gear appeals to someone. Meaning people who like to have things on hand to craft whatever they need or those who like to change their outfits once or twice a week on each job are punished and required to pay for bag space to hold those items.

So you have to physically have an item in your inventory at all times to even consider to be able to glamour item, even if no longer a BiS etc? If you already earn it the normal ways, why not have it were you go to your <example> FC personnel room or inn were its logged as mention that doesn't take room in your inventory and freely glamour at anytime like we normally do sense can teleport easy to.

I can just imagine the inventory space issues a few years from know with this mindset of having to have physical gear to be even able to glamour after you earn it already, it will never be solved if this is the case sounds like a case of gamer type hoarding disorder.

[Naruil]

Why not just do in game retainer contracts were you can buy with gill or make with a maker class and have the option to buy with cash off mogstation that last like 30days or longer if bout from mogstation? Idk..just a thought..-.-

[Ashgarth]

This game has more inventory space than any other MMO already. Just saying.


It will never be enough space for those who like to collect/horde.

Horders gonna Horde.

First, that's not true.

Second. Is any other game designed around the fact that every class is leveled on the same character thus creating a huge inventory problem for people, specially crafters who do what the game is suposed to be about?

Lemme think... oh yeah, FFXI.

Can you guess what other game besides XIV had enourmous inventory issues that they "solved" by making us pay for more and more every month?

Hell, even XI had a secondary inventory you could pay with ingame currency.

[Lillia]

First, that's not true.

Second. Is any other game designed around the fact that every class is leveled on the same character thus creating a huge inventory problem for people, specially crafters who do what the game is suposed to be about?

Lemme think... oh yeah, FFXI.

Can you guess what other game besides XIV had enourmous inventory issues that they "solved" by making us pay for more and more every month?

Hell, even XI had a secondary inventory you could pay with ingame currency.

I also remember XI had storage problems as well at one point or another, people would mannequin their gears to save space and some still ran out I believe.. :x

[Silverbane]

I am not happy about that either. So they want $13~15 a month and then another $12 to get max inventory. That's a freaking joke!

You do not need max inventory to fully enjoy the game. Even if you craft, you can get by with the two free retainers -- it just means you have to put more effort into inventory management.

Larger inventory is just a convenience. I have all crafters to 50, so maxing my inventory out will let me not spend time sorting out what I really need and what really has value from the junk I should vendor or put on the market. It's a convenience for lazy people.

To me, even $30 a month to play FFXIV is a bargain. That's around 20 cents an hour, a far better deal than a movie or typical $60 game.

It would be nice if it were cheaper. But it would also be nice to have even more FFXIV. I will be happy to toss an extra $12 a month to the FFXIV team so they can continue to produce great expansions, and to say "Thanks!"

YMMV.

[Catwho]

Inventory management in XI was a nightmare because each job also required multiple gear sets for maximum effectiveness. My black mage alone required 60 individual pieces of gear, pulled in via XML and later the LUA files, to fine tune elemental damage, magic accuracy, etc. Heck we changed our weapon depending on what spell we were firing off until it got replaced by a universal weapon via a quest, FINALLY (which was then replaced by better ones at level 99. Mmmm, Lehbrailg +2.) I literally had a different gear set depending on whether I was standing still or running, haha.

Add in 22 jobs x 16 gears slots x 2-3 gear sets and you're basically stuck with only 2-3 jobs you can gear properly before running out of room. I kept my BLM, my BRD, and my THF fully geared because there just wasn't room for anything else.

[Souljacker]

XI added a lot of inventory and didn't tie it to retainers, though. They didn't ask us to open our wallets. You did quests, paid with in game currency, they gave us a free mog satchel with token, had NPCs all over the place that stored our older gear sets - they really tried.

XIV? Nah, nevermind that we have newer technology. Just make 'em pay for more retainers.

The folks willing to just toss their money at a company who is not coming up with solutions just baffles me.

[Silverbane]

The folks willing to just toss their money at a company who is not coming up with solutions just baffles me.

I had only one problem with retainer inventory: there wasn't enough of it. They solved that problem by doubling it, and it will cost me an extra $8 a month to take full advantage of their solution. That's fine with me, the game is still a bargain.

It doesn't matter what the extra inventory is costing SE: does Apple price iPhones based on its costs? No. All that matters is whether enough of your customers see sufficient value in what you are selling.

Well, I do, so I will buy extra retainers (but not an iPhone). You may legitimately think the opposite: that an iPhone is worth the price premium but extra retainers are not. That's how markets work, value is always in the eye of the beholder.