Really tired of the inventory excuses.

[Aeyis]

"Inventory space problems?" Pah, we have dismissed that claim.

You clowns who come on here spouting the company line and telling people not be to "hoarders" are doing yourself, and all the other players of this game a disservice.

It's actually kind of funny. Altho I'm sure those with a different agenda do exist, so far all of the people claiming inventory space is fine and others are just hoarding all have bought extra retainers.

[Sylve]

You obviously don't craft...
And no, other games are not like this.

i did a second edit after i initially edited in my main post. Admittedly, you were probably writing your reply when i did that since it was only two minutes prior to your post.
I did address crafting, but my main post covers it well enough. Even including DoH/L weapons into the mix still leaves you with 23/25 usage.

No, I do not craft, yet. I will eventually when im done leveling my combat jobs. Though i don't need to craft to understand maths :P

And the last bit, No other game I've played ever had a crafting system that required you to gear it up with specific crafting gear and crafting abilities.
Hell, I don't even recall other MMOs even allowing you to do more than 1 or 2 crafts on any given character (Hell, WoW forces you to choose between Gathering or Crafting and then forces you to level it from scratch if you switch). Other games break crafting down into "Have materials, click button, get loot"
No other game has crafting like XIV does. (That I've played at least, or recall)

Also, we have retainers for a reason. I sincerely doubt anyone would have all the jobs at level cap AND carries around all the gear for those jobs at all times AND uses all those jobs regularly during a single play session.

Yoshi mentioned that they were working on something that would allow us to swap gearsets on our retainers, meaning i'd be able to save a gear set, dump the gear into my retainers bags and then use the set button to draw the gear from the retainer without needing to manually move each piece back into my inventory.
That would go a long way to alleviating any issues the crazy people (with all jobs gear on them all the time) have with Armory space. It would just take a moment of going back to a Retainer to pull out the set for the Summoner or Ninja you rarely play but feel like playing today ...

If the space exists to add extra retainers (for a price $$$), then the space exists to add inventory. Period.

Inventory Space is not Storage Space.
What people are demanding is an increase in the number of items they carry with them ALL THE TIME.

People who hoard stuff for Glamour purposes or keep odd vanity items or hold onto stacks of every material in the game can use the Retainers can hold that stuff. It doesn't need to be in your inventory all the time.
What is on your retainer is probably a few megabytes worth of data. But thats a few megabytes worth of data that the server has to fetch for you. Its a few megabytes the server has to store for you.
Now multiply that by the millions of characters (Assuming 1 sub has 1 character). Then double that figure for the fact that you get 2 free retainers. Suddenly, those few megabytes aren't such a small thing anymore.
Now increase that again for people with alts (personally i have 3 with retainers on my two servers)

The cost of the retainer service has nothing to do with profit and everything to do with making sure that only people who NEED the space get the extra space.
Why would Square set aside the space to dedicate to Retainers that maybe only 10% of the playerbase is going to utilize? For the average player, 2 retainers is fine.

If and when Square sees that the vast majority of players have to utilize the extra retainer service, they can justify the expenditure of more server space to hold that data using our standard subs and increase the free ones to 4.

Also, I have 5 full retainers and my 6th is already at 3 tabs full. Eventually, I'll run a clean-out sweep to get rid of old pointless gear and stuff that shares models and probably clear a full retainer or two of crap. I have no problem paying the extra couple of dollars a month to have 6 more retainers.

[Jynx]

I manage as a high level crafter
But expanding retainer inventories would be great. Or give us a third for free.

[Nekodar]

I was actually thinking about making a new post on this topic but someone beat me to it. The excuses about memory space blah blah are all absolute nonsense, when this company is willing to give you the same thing in the form of retainers for a price.

Retainer storage is not the same as inventory.
It's not a question about storage space needed either.
It's about bandwidth required to keep synchronizing the inventory data every 15 seconds so that as little data as possible is lost in the event of a crash.

[Aeyis]

Hell, I don't even recall other MMOs even allowing you to do more than 1 or 2 crafts on any given character (Hell, WoW forces you to choose between Gathering or Crafting and then forces you to level it from scratch if you switch). Other games break crafting down into "Have materials, click button, get loot"
No other game has crafting like XIV does. (That I've played at least, or recall)

But wow allows you to have many characters at once. Many people I knew did have all professions at max. Even multiple ones of the same.
FFXIV is extremely unfriendly towards alts. So it kind of needs to have inventory allotement for additional classes.

Retainer storage is not the same as inventory.
It's not a question about storage space needed either.
It's about bandwidth required to keep synchronizing the inventory data every 15 seconds so that as little data as possible is lost in the event of a crash.

Yeah we all know this. I mean at this point we've heard it so often after all.
This excuse used, that is.

Retainer inventory isnt updated every 15 seconds.

[Risvertasashi]

-snip-

Yeah but... do you really want to have to make laps to your retainer every time you decide you want to switch to a certain class?

I mean, sure, you can manage your inventory if you're minimalist (hell, the game pretty much forces you to be a minimalist), but it's a pain and it's time consuming.

[SQBoard]

I was actually thinking about making a new post on this topic but someone beat me to it. The excuses about memory space blah blah are all absolute nonsense, when this company is willing to give you the same thing in the form of retainers for a price.

Retainer storage is not the same as inventory.
It's not a question about storage space needed either.
It's about bandwidth required to keep synchronizing the inventory data every 15 seconds so that as little data as possible is lost in the event of a crash.

Not sure but i think that 15sec interval is for your own character (on-hand inventory/alt info) and the one retainer (if you have it open) but don't quote me on that.

And it is partly a bandwidth problem, that's true.

That's why you can only open 1 retainer at a time. Which means it's the same bandwidth use whether you have 2 retainers for use or 8 (2+6 paid extra).

The bit about them trying to allow recalling all retainers at once has the caveat of " in certain areas" which i take to mean some area/instance where server load is minimal like in the inn or personal fc room maybe?

[Sylve]

Yeah but... do you really want to have to make laps to your retainer every time you decide you want to switch to a certain class?

I mean, sure, you can manage your inventory if you're minimalist (hell, the game pretty much forces you to be a minimalist), but it's a pain and it's time consuming.

I would do exactly as i do now. I have only the gear for the jobs i play regularly in my Armory and if i feel like playing some random (Like BLM) I'll make a 10 second trip to my DoM retainer to pick up the set.
In a single play session, I switch jobs rarely. Even back in ARR when i had all jobs to cap. I tended to stick to the jobs i liked most.

I cannot think of any reason that a 10 second side trip to a retainer to dust off a set i rarely use is "painfully time consuming".

But wow allows you to have many characters at once. Many people I knew did have all professions at max. Even multiple ones of the same.
FFXIV is extremely unfriendly towards alts. So it kind of needs to have inventory allotement for additional classes.

WoW also forces you to level the new character to max or it hard caps your professions until you reach certain levels.
WoW also has Bind on Pickup materials that require MONTHS of daily material turn ins to get enough to craft with.
WoW also uses RNG to level up with ...

If you are dedicating time to crafting something, you have the time to utilize a retainer to hold superfluous items like potions and glamour prisms while you do that.

[Gyson]

Or you can play GW2 and just shake your head at the starter bank/bag space. ><

Are you referring to the Guild Wars 2 that has a separate storage system set aside for holding every single crafting component available, every single minion-pet available, and a glamour system based on locks/unlocks that eliminates the need for long-term glamour storage on equipment and dyes?

Oh, and it also happens to be free-to-play and not require a subscription fee every month? AND lets you exchange mail between characters for additional storage space?

That GW2?

Yeah, I'm shaking my head every time I compare the two. Probably not for the same reasons as you, though. :P

Don't get me wrong.. I love FFXIV but this is one area they fail horribly at. And it's pretty insulting that all the storage-related-hurdles seem to become non-issues so long as players are willing to pay an additional $2 per retainer per month.

[Nekodar]

Not sure but i think that 15sec interval is for your own character (on-hand inventory/alt info) and the one retainer (if you have it open) but don't quote me on that.

My comment was about inventory really, since that's where the big problem is.

I don't mind waiting for them to fix things so that the items take up less data which would allow them to cram in more inventory space in the same bandwidth envelope.
If I go for only two free retainers, I'll just have to clean up my inventory so that it's enough...