Really tired of the inventory excuses.

[finalmattasy]

I for one (and i might be the only one) don't mind limited space. Unfortunately others can pay for more space (i think [buying more retainers]). But i like that a limited amount of space forces people to make choices. If space is unlimited, people will just keep everything, limiting the need to buy stuff and limiting the need to choose what is most important to you (i.e. specialize).
But it doesn't sound like this is what the creators will eventually offer. So for now, i dig it. I think unlimited space is kinda unrealistic as well. Any limitation is just part of the game to me, so long as its a shared circumstance.

[Bovinity]

I'll rephrase it because the point went completely over your head and now you're trying to be philosophical in some desperate attempt to maintain credibility. You can't price compete with someone effectively when their margins are much more flexible than yours.

It's not philosophical, it's economics. Of course, most people will never grasp the concept of Opportunity Cost because they really want to believe statements like, "Blacksmithing is so profitable for me because I have Mining and get all my mats for free!".

That or they simply place no value whatsoever on their time. Not sure which is worse.

[Mimilu]

it has EVERYTHING to do with it.

Go buy a retainer or learn to manage your inventory.
Im an Omni Crafter and gatherer and i still have PLENTY of room in my retainers. Don't hoard stuff its that simple.

I'm wasting my breath here, Yoshi already said were not getting more inventory space any time soon.

How does it have "everything" to do with it?
This game is not that game, they are two separate entities.
Just ask everyone who complains about XIV being compared to XI. >w>

Plus how would you define hoarding?
I hold onto things because I don't have every class/job at baseline 50.
Taking your character for example: Wouldn't it have been nice if held on to some of your older, healer gear to level AST? To not have to waste resources like time, material, and/or gil to get more?

Not to mention, the game has glamour. If they aren't going to account for people using it and storing pieces, that is bad design on both glamour and inventory/storage.

[Altanas]

On the issue of the Armoury Chest:

The Armoury Chest seems a redundant catalog method from when classes/jobs were supposed to be on an equal footing, and with multiple gear sets/specs for each role was in mind.

Given that, as a DRG for example, I am only going to wear DRG gear..., well whats the point of a toybox of sorts for filtering gear. In essence, I only change gear when I want to change jobs.

As more and more gear comes out I find myself just selling all the old stuff for GC seals to save space.

A dual system like this would work better:

1. When you link gear to a Gear Set then it disappears from the Armoury Chest entirely but remains in the Gear Set to allow changing of jobs.

2. At the same time each player can recall a museum of gear (unlocks upon 100% completion of each item set) so at any point in the future you may duplicate an item for glamour whether you have thrown it, used it up in a gear set or traded it away for GC seals.

[BreathlessTao]

Hm... as much as it can be argued about... here's the deal.

Fact: the Armoury Chest system, which allows players to be everything on one character is still among the first things (if not THE first thing) that is mentioned when talking about unique features of this game. That's not only 10(+3 now) battle jobs, each with their own weapons, and every 2-3 of them with their own armor set (minus AF which is different for all jobs), but also 8 crafter and 3 gatherer classes. That's 24 different potential occupations on every one character - 24(+1) weapons/tools; 4×6 pieces of armour (assuming shared sets) and 4×5 pieces of accessories for battle classes; 5 pieces of accessories for gatherers, and a mess of a number of outfits for crafters (impossible to assume either shared or unique). That in itself is probably close to 100 items. And that's assuming they're all at level cap, so no need for a "max" set, "high level" sets and "low level" sets.
Any one person might not potentially even thinks of aiming at maxing them all out, but when you're planning and creating such a system, you can't go the "eh most people won't want to have it all anyway" route, you have to prepare for the most extreme possible scenario.

Fact: the glamour system we were given requires people physically owning the piece of gear they want projected - on top of their actual gear. That's potentially 2×11 items, but feel free to (no pun intended) project that to the numbers discussed above, and think about how many actual pieces of gear there are that people potentially want to glamour - how many of those are actually too expensive and/or hard to obtain for whatever reason. Try to come up with a sensible number.
Heavensward only added to these.
In order to keep crafting relevant, SE created prisms. That's not only 7 different types of extra items, but each has 5 different grades too, meaning 35 potential items.
Despite all these numbers, there is no glamour log in sight on the horizon, in any way, shape, or form. Even though it is quite an obvious way to reduce inventory clutter - which is very much needed at this point. Even though it would reduce the network stress - no physical items, no need to flush their data to the servers. Even though it has been suggested numerous times already, and still being suggested every time the subject emerges.

Fact: colouring items (those that can be coloured...let's not even go there) requires dyes, of which there are...I think 96? different ones. These are all actual items too, once I suppose to keep crafting relevant, now...for whatever reason. In any one armour set, there are 6 potential pieces of items to dye, and each pot of dye is gone after one use of course. (Yes, I'm aware, it's still better than what we had in 1.x...)

Fact: crafters need an insane amount of raw materials, from simple collectibles to already crafted "middleware". The more crafter classes one wants to level up, the more things they need, obviously. It's not dozens, but hundreds of items, maybe even close to a thousand. These things share inventory space with - everything else. Just think about that a little.
Heavensward only added to these.

Fact: fishers need baits, lots of different types of baits, while leveling and at level cap as well. Though it's a rather isolated (to this one class) issue, these baits still also share inventory space - with everything else.
Heavensward, I think, also added to these.

Fact: there's a number of items, of which the existence as actual items is, at best, questionable. Gysahl Greens (cute idea on paper, by now it's just pointless not to have it a generic action to summon that bird...which let's not even talk in detail about), Ventures (even the actual in-game description says it's a currency), Alex tokens, Scrip tokens, other different tokens (mark logs, now the silver and gold feathers that come to my mind), TT cards, whatever else I can't remember right now. Items that could as well be simple data in a chart somewhere, like tomes are in the currency list, instead of being physical items that pretty much permanently occupy inventory slots. For some reason only the Twelve know (or maybe even they don't), they aren't.

Fact: rare drops, rare materials for example for housing items, that really cost an arm and a leg, and are really only obtained by sheer dumb luck besides the MB, are obviously items that people would like to hold on to, until they can use them. Let's not even talk about rare furnishing items and the clusterf××× that is housing in this game......
I think Heavensward added to this as well.

Fact: every random junk drop in dungeons, or even from open world mobs, is automatically added to the inventory. There is no inventory queue, not even a chance to immediately discard something in order not to waste a super rare drop (see this guy who lost a Terra Branford card because of this). Basically while our inventory is getting filled for us automatically (with junk for the most part), there isn't any sort of countermeasure to prevent the loss of something actually valuable. I'm not saying the game should take all the responsibility off our shoulders when it comes to managing free space, but with all this (look up), we sure as hell should have some such implemented.

Fact: with basically every event, there come items that are unique, that are untradeable, uncraftable, unobtainable in any other way than during that event. Add veteran rewards here. These items usually spend anywhere from 3 to 6 months in our (or our retainer's) inventory, before they get added to the Armoire - the safe for such special items. Because for some reason it's apparently very complicated to code that, it needs extra consideration, etc. Even though they don't come up with these items overnight, before they are actually added to the game. Even though they know these items need to end up in the armoire - they will end up in the Armoire.

Thought about all that yet? Ok, because here is the real jackpot.

Fact: all these are conscious decisions, all these are conceptual, all these are parts of the actual game design, of the system they created.

For so long (starting maybe somewhere during the second half of the first year of ARR?) people have been having inventory issues. The number of people gradually increasing, the severity of the issues gradually increasing. The concept of "hoarder" pretty much dies with the game system itself, with the design that centers on the fact that the player is flooded with items and needs to collect items - it's pointless to label people as "hoarders" and tell them to learn not to do it, so please, don't. Some argued in other relevant threads (such as this) that FFXIV has such a large inventory compared to other games/MMOs, that we really shouldn't complain about it - well, yes, but also consider all the abovementioned facts and think about whether those other games/MMOs also have all these... if not, the comparison is faulty.

They release an expansion, which increases the number of items, of crafting materials, of housing items, of pretty much everything so much that it's mind-boggling. Yet, the size of our inventory remains the same; heck, we don't even get an additional retainer. It's "explained" by such huge data sizes that increasing those is practically impossible at this point. (Really makes me curious about the actual code, how they handle all this data, etc - the technical side. Because I'm starting to think it's really far from optimal.) It's "explained" by that ridiculous full-inventory-save-every-15-seconds thing, that is so incredibly insane I can't even comprehend what actual expert honestly believes it's alright, in such a game, with such massive amounts of data. Heck, I wonder how the hard drives of the servers don't die every 3-6 months. Just because someone somewhere cried once about having lost some item. I'm not sure they even thought of other solutions to this - like, set a special flag on actual special items that trigger a flush to the disk. A simple check before the save - is there anything new in that inventory? Keep the auto-kick feature permanent, make it so that it detects fake "crafting" and "convos" - all those characters that idle away all day in the same spot also contribute to the size of those inventory flushes. Actually improve the hardware, the network infrastructure, everything - heck, drop the PS3 support already. (Sorry, but with how long we've been given these things as reasons for why everything is so difficult, I just can't believe they're doing this; same for how often things are traced back to the PS3 simply being weak - then again, they could also give up on this notion of wanting everything to be the same across all the very, very different systems.)

Fact: we can rent additional inventory space. Not buy, like practically every other F2P game does this, pay once, have it for as long as you play. Nope, here you have to pay an increased sub fee every month if you want to keep that extra space.

Fact: before, we could have 2 extra retainres, the total number to own being 4. With Heavensward, the number of additional ones we can have was tripled, now we can have a total of 8 retainers - double the amount than before. 350 extra inventory slots for "free" - a potential max of 700 before, a potential max of 1400 before. Thought about all that I've talked about so far? Consider that and tell me that's not at least borderline pay-to-win. Even with the best of intentions. A really grey area. (And let's not even talk about the ventures-side of it...)

Fact??: all the difficulties about increasing the inventory goes away if we just pay a little more. All that about data sizes, network stress, bandwidth whatnot - it's not there anymore. Apparently?? Like I pointed out, they have to prepare for the extreme scenario - planning to implement something like this, it can't just be shrugged off with "ah well probably only a few players will max this out anyway".
We're told increasing the inventory is being considered, carefully even, but until then - well, they're gonna make managing retainers much less frustrating. This is something that could have been done ages ago, because, really, managing the retainers has also been a hassle since basically day 1. For some reason though, it's being done now, after the additional content of HW, after tripling the number of additionally-available-for-extra-monthly-fee retainers. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a better-late-than-never thing, and I'll be as appreciative of it as anyone else. But it can't be argued that the timing is a little bit ... weird.

Fact: I do think we have all the reason to be tired of the inventory-related excuses. And not only all the reason, but we also have every right to be tired of them. Crafter or not, glamour-holic or not, personal preferences and playstyles are irrelevant. Because the core of it is that that this situation did not happen overnight. It was not an accident. And I, personally, will not for a moment believe from any sane expert that it was "not expected" either. Not with all the abovementioned things considered.

[nssixn6]

Seriously, I already made a thread about why SE can't upgrade anything:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...er-clusters%21

[Nyalia]

Here's what I really don't understand. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

SE claims the reason they can't expand the player inventory is that they save it to the server every five seconds, and more space equals more network traffic equals more server load and everyone suffers. Okay, that's an explanation that I can follow, even if I find it absurd that they save all data that often even if nothing has changed. But, they've used this same explanation when explaining why they can't expand the armoire, give people free retainers, or provide other forms of off-character storage. Huh? Do they really save the contents of your armoire every five seconds with the rest of your inventory data? Even if you haven't accessed it in weeks? Why isn't this an on-access connection? Remove an item from the armoire, and your armorire data is saved to the server and so is your inventory. Store an item, same thing. Is this really being stored every five seconds?

And if retainer data is being saved that often, that's just as bad. Yes, when you access your retainer, the game appears to treat your retainer's equipment and inventory exactly like your own, even unequipping items into your armory chest. It makes total sense to do the "save every five seconds" thing to your retainers while they are summoned. Does it really save the data that often when not engaging with retainers? If it's done the sensible way, then doesn't it take the same exact network traffic for one retainer or fifty, if only the currently active one is being saved?


Either the reason they give for not expanding off-character storage is incorrect and there's really another reason behind it, or there's some serious efficiency issues with their data storage. And I mean, worse even than most people thought.


Also, in regards to on-character storage, why are we limited to 99 items and not 250 (or 255)? 255 items take up exactly as much space as 99. Is it just limited to 99 and compounding the inventory woes just so it's more "visually appealing?" Because I can't think of any other reason for it... It's just a number as far as the computers know, and that number goes from 0-255, not 0-99. Unless they're allocating space for negative items? Computers don't use the decimal system. 99 is not a multiple of 2, nor a multiple of 2^8.

[nssixn6]

Stuff.

I can't remeber the name, but a while back I remember a Chinese F2P mmo that gave you exactly 254 inventory slots.

[Nyalia]

Yeah, this is my take on it too. They can either find ways to optimize the existing system (which they've said they're working on) or they can completely recode it and god knows how much work that would be.

But there are other solutions. Or at least, partial solutions, especially for people who glamour things. Here's four of them:

1. They can expand the armoire to include all glamour items, all dungeon sets, all token sets, and all relics (including lucis/supra).


2. They can create a new currency tab for "Tokens" and make it so you can "use" a token to have it added to your character sheet.


3. As I just said in my post above, they can expand stack size from 99 to 250.


4. They can streamline items as well. Why are there five grades of clear glamour prisms? I get why they might want five grades of the actual glamour prisms, but what purpose does having five grades of the clear ones serve? They are all bought from the same NPCs and they all cost the same. What about Gyshal Greens? What purpose do they server? They're so cheap, summoning/dismissing your chocobo is hardly a drain on anyone's coffers, even newbies. Why are Gyshal Greens an item that must be stored and not just an action? What about Dark Matter? Sure, they don't all cost the same, but seriously, who cares? Why are they not all just one item? And what about Coke/Potash/etc? These can only be used 9 at a time, so why not introduce a new item that replaces them and counts as nine of them (as in, you can trade in 9 coke for this new "pile of coke" item, all places where coke can be bought or found, it costs 9 times as much for the new item and coke is removed, or you find 1/9th as much of the new item as you found coke and coke is removed)? Suddenly, we don't need five inventory spaces per airship part just for the coke required, and we don't have to store leftover bits when we don't have an exact multiple of 9.

What I'm saying is, they can save a notable amount of space without making game-changing changes to items. There are things that can be compressed without really changing them.


None of these suggestions are asking for anything new. It's all existing functionality that is being underutilized, compounding the inventory space problem. I can't speak for other people, but for me, if I didn't have to store glamour items and tokens, I'd have no inventory space issues.

[Xerius]

It's not philosophical, it's economics. Of course, most people will never grasp the concept of Opportunity Cost...

Opportunity Cost isn't a difficult concept to comprehend. TL;DR If you can make more money doing something else, do something else. Which is what I do, I don't make money through crafting, I do it through other avenues. I simply enjoy crafting and when it's a hobby and not a primary source of income you want the lowest bottom line that you can. That being said gathering is so easy, it's almost always cheaper to gather your own mats than to buy them off of the MB.

P.S. When I said you were being philosophical, what I meant was that this was going to turn in to a debate about how economics work instead of addressing the original point of how it's harder to compete when you have a higher bottom-line than the other guy.