A consern about space efficieny since stormblood is not getting enough space increase

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I think the point being made was that upgraded servers might not have been necessary if Square had better coding practices.

It wasnt just server upgrades. The datacenter itself in montreal was having power issues.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have both retainers full of glamour for only one class and housing items. I would be appeased by a glamour log as it would basically empty my retainers. I play the game every day, and my ping etc. was greatly improved by the updates.

I have the same problem on one of my retainers. Like you said this could be avoided if we had a glamour log. Also stop releasing glamour from quests,events and Mogstation if you are not going to add them to the Armoire.

[KisaiTenshi]

I't still baffles me how they are preaching about having storage issues, and then go straight forward to expand on the system they have in place. I'm no expert in mass storage management, but one thing is certain and that is that you can tie a lot glamours to a single bit (1/8 byte), that one inventory slot which has to be multible bytes.
Item id, quantity, durability, dye, materia each of these things needs byte for storage. Yet with a glamour archive/wardrobe/log or whatever yo want to call it, one could add one item to a bit, an entire set to a bit which you now have saved 4 bits, or even an entire tier in which you go as far as 4 byte/64 bits saved!

The retainer/banking system is an absolute resource hog in comparison.

That is a different kind of storage.

You have
1: Memory (game client)
2: Memory (game server)
3: Disk (game server)
4: Memory and disk (cross-server instances)
5: Network bandwidth (game client to game server)
6: Network bandwidth (game server to other servers)
7: Disk bandwidth (amount of bytes that can be written, usually measured in IOPS not bytes)

So if you look at the requirements for V3 and later of Final Fantasy XIV, it's now 64-bit, that removes the 2-4GB limitation imposed by running a 32-bit binary. However the PS3 was still just a 32-bit system, thus everyone on a PS3 needs to upgrade to the PS4 or switch to PC in order for the game client memory hurdle to be overcome.

If V4.0 will not have a PS3 version, and the PC version will only run on 64-bit Windows, that removes problem #1 except for people who are running only 4GB of ram, for them they may get swap page thrashing under some circumstances.

For #2, Servers bought for V1.0 in 2010 likely were of the Quadcore Xenon X-series family. Current servers are E3 or E5 family and are roughly twice as fast,clock-for-clock than they were in 2008. That said, you can also get 24-core systems where before you could only get quadcore. The nice thing about the X-series and the E5 series of Xeon's is that they have a much much higher memory capacity, and it's usually doubled with every additional CPU. So a 4-way E5 system can likely have 1TB of ECC RAM.

Which brings us to #3 Which is how fast can that be synced to disk. Guess what you can't sync 1TB of data to disk even with SSD's. The highest you can currently get is a PCIe x8 card that can write 2GB/sec. So if that's the case, then it's likely the game environment has been sized to fit the largest possible sync size. That said...

When you start an instance #4, the more that needs to be transferred from one server to another , or some kind of "inventory and gear server" the longer it takes to sync. Since network topolgy is often defined in Gigabits (eg 10GigE) it's very likely that the amount of data that can be transferred is kept down to avoid a situation where the instance server crashes from overload and all loot acquired is destroyed.

The network bandwidth is the worst bottle neck in #5 and that is likely what will keep Square Enix from increasing fixed-inventory. If you have 100 items plus the armory and equipped gear, you have 13 gear slots for armory, so 425 items you keep on your person at all time plus 14 gear items worn, plus a quest inventory which is actually another 75 spaces. Grand total: 514 item slots. Plus the 18 crystals which are likely just stored values. Let's focus on the items though.

So every slot in the game fits any other gear, there appears to be about 20 values for gear (not including colors, colors are likely a RGB value or a "paint bucket item" color from a more limited palette.) So 514 items * 20 values = 10280 Bytes

So outside of moving around and using skills itself, every time something in your inventory changes, or you have the inventory/gear window open, about 10280 bytes have to cross the wire. Likewise any time you look at other peoples gear.

Which brings us to #6 , if the game simply tells your game client to connect to instance server at X ip address, then all that gear goes with you. Thus if you start fidgeting with gear during the dungeon, you are actually telling the instance server to make changes to your inventory even if all you did was switch slots. At the end of the instance presumably it syncs the inventory state then, but it's also likely it syncs it every minute or so during the instance to avoid "duping" bugs caused by intentionally crashing the server, or disconnecting and thus consumed items are rolled back.

Which circles back to the disk space and bandwidth in #7. The fastest PCIe x8 SSD you can get is about 2.2 GB/sec, and these things get slower over time, so you could never actually write 2GB in one second for 5 years, more likely the SSD's are cycled out during maintenance if that is what they are using. If they are using mechanical drives, this drops from GB's to MB's. Since the data might change in memory before it's written, that introduces lag.

Thus anyone who has been on a server when disconnected, or it starts lagging has experienced this.

So it's not really a question of why not, but what they have to sacrifice to get more inventory space. Most people could quite literately settle for having 8 free retainers, or maybe 2 that can operate a shop and 6 that have no shop access, but that doesn't solve the loot bloat problem where players (particularly with things like rings) where they can't keep all the gear needed to have a unique outfit for every class. There are 25 spaces in each armory, but there are TWO ring items needed for each, which means we actually need one for the left and one for the right, or for that space to be 50. But that also points out another problem with the main hand gear, the class requires one, the job requires another, you can't equip your job main hand weapon and some gear to the job version. So the only on-player inventory expansion justified is perhaps with the armory.

A way this can be reduced, is by imposing a few limitations too, like they could do a GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) rule with dungeons and PvP where only the stuff put in a specific inventory container comes into the dungeon, and everything else acquired during the dungeon must go into that container to take it out. Instead of taking all these crafting and farming materials into the dungeon, only allow consumables into the dungeon, and the gear the player is wearing. If they are not wearing suitable gear when the DF window pops up, warn them that they will be refused from the duty if they are wearing any unsuitable gear (eg crafting gear.)

Which brings us back to the Glamour log question, Obviously someone with 1000 different gear items that they only want to use for glamour can be "destroyed" when put into the log so it's reduced to just an item id and a color, from 20 bytes to 3. If you can't change the glamour arbitrarily during the dungeon that is one less thing to be synced. If you can only change the glamour in your inn room or house, that saves even more since it won't be changed outside of that space.

As for wallets, again, if it's reduced to only being able to see that inventory container in one location, that removes the need to sync it since it will never be in memory on the server until you're engaged with it. That's why the retainer is the easiest way to add inventory. The mechanics for it already exist. The problem I'm guessing is that if they are all "shop"'s it makes the shop system run slower since all of these shops have to be continuously running. So the solution is simply only allow two retainers to be shops at any one time, and to take down a shop all the items for sale must be returned to the retainer's inventory.

[Alleo]

They have a financial incentive to do nothing about it. Of course they are going to drag their feet.

Yes on one hand they might lose money because people need less retainers but on the other hand some might start to buy more cash shop items because they finally have a place to store it. A good ingame friend of mine would love to buy the Aymeric outfit but he simply has no space left to store them. Also with their "no more retainers in SB"-answer they kinda made him question if he even wants to continue playing because he loves to collect dungeon gear sets and other glamour stuff (as an appreciation to the work that the designers put into it) and he simply has no space left, even with an alt and every buyable retainer. So not trying to solve the inventory issue (and a glamour log would at least be a good big next step for that) might even mean that some will stop playing somewhere down the line.

I have plenty of space for everything. This sounds like some special snowflake nonsense being outraged before you even get to play the game with the updates to even see if the extra inventory is sufficient. Sounds like you won't be ever be satisfied

I love posts that are like "well I dont have a problem so this problem is no problem, stop whining". Its quite simple. There are people out there that love to craft everything on one character and might not want to run around and gather material that is not that easy to get. Also there are people that love to glamour stuff but dont want to run content for x-amounts of time to get that glamour piece again if they feel like changing to it. And lets not forget that all the event items like the housing stuff is now mog station only after the event is over, so people might keep that too for future use, because otherwise they might need to pay real life money to get it again. (Lets not talk about stuff like the new PVP gear..they only changed it so you can buy the set again if you have the title after lots of complain posts) Oh and there might be people that fall in all of those categories, maybe not that intense per category but it adds up over time.

Some might not even have a paid retainer because they dont have the money or just simply dont feel like paying SE for something that they should fix. If they had given us one more free retainer in HW and another free retainer in SB the issue might be less harsh and the small increases to the inventory might be enough for the common player. .

[LalaRu]

That is a different kind of storage...

The problem of "copy and paste" of user storage when entering an instance, it maybe can lessened with a new kind of inventory, "duty inventory", that will be the one and only inventory you put with you when going into an instance.

No more all your armory and inventory taken with you.

25 slots imo are more than sufficient, and when you know that special inventory is all you can get into a duty, you will put there the things you want be with you when entering a duty. Potions are a good example. Some gear to swap mid-duty if you feels so. And the drops will go there. Have some free slots rule still and always apply.

[Hamada]

Yes on one hand they might lose money because people need less retainers but on the other hand some might start to buy more cash shop items because they finally have a place to store it. A good ingame friend of mine would love to buy the Aymeric outfit but he simply has no space left to store them. Also with their "no more retainers in SB"-answer they kinda made him question if he even wants to continue playing because heloves to collect dungeon gear sets and other glamour stuff (as an appreciation to the work that the designers put into it) and he simply has no space left, even with an alt and every buyable retainer. So not trying to solve the inventory issue (and a glamour log would at least be a good big next step for that) might even mean that some will stop playing somewhere down the line.



I love posts that are like "well I dont have a problem so this problem is no problem, stop whining". Its quite simple. There are people out there that love to craft everything on one character and might not want to run around and gather material that is not that easy to get. Also there are people that love to glamour stuff but dont want to run content for x-amounts of time to get that glamour piece again if they feel like changing to it. And lets not forget that all the event items like the housing stuff is now mog station only after the event is over, so people might keep that too for future use, because otherwise they might need to pay real life money to get it again. (Lets not talk about stuff like the new PVP gear..they only changed it so you can buy the set again if you have the title after lots of complain posts) Oh and there might be people that fall in all of those categories, maybe not that intense per category but it adds up over time.

Some might not even have a paid retainer because they dont have the money or just simply dont feel like paying SE for something that they should fix. If they had given us one more free retainer in HW and another free retainer in SB the issue might be less harsh and the small increases to the inventory might be enough for the common player. .

Exactly. +1
(Btw that person did not appear to glam at all :3

[Lycieus]

Yes on one hand they might lose money because people need less retainers but on the other hand some might start to buy more cash shop items because they finally have a place to store it. A good ingame friend of mine would love to buy the Aymeric outfit but he simply has no space left to store them. Also with their "no more retainers in SB"-answer they kinda made him question if he even wants to continue playing because he loves to collect dungeon gear sets and other glamour stuff (as an appreciation to the work that the designers put into it) and he simply has no space left, even with an alt and every buyable retainer. So not trying to solve the inventory issue (and a glamour log would at least be a good big next step for that) might even mean that some will stop playing somewhere down the line.

I agree with this point, however, it is also worth considering that SE is more concerned with short-term gains. Their investors are looking at their profits quarter to quarter, so whatever makes them more money for a given three month period is what they are gonna go with. I agree that they may be incentivized at some point to address this issue, but not if enough people don't complain.

[Alleo]

I agree with this point, however, it is also worth considering that SE is more concerned with short-term gains. Their investors are looking at their profits quarter to quarter, so whatever makes them more money for a given three month period is what they are gonna go with. I agree that they may be incentivized at some point to address this issue, but not if enough people don't complain.

Yeah you sadly have a point. Even though a MMO will always be something like a long time investment but they probably dont want to put too much money in it after what happened with 1.0.

Well then we should just continue positing about that issue. Maybe they will one day listen to that. (Or not x))

[Mature]

I just want to be able to stack 9999 items like crystals

[Niwashi]

A simple solution to this would be for the glamour log to only absorb an item when you choose to do so. That is to say, add an option when right clicking to 'learn' that appearance. Until the appearance is 'learned,' you may still use the item.

No, that would mean I wouldn't be able to glamour it until I'm willing to part with it. Glamour log doesn't have to destroy the item.

This would be assuming that you can still glamour from an item in inventory, just as you can now. The glamour log would simply be an additional place you could pull appearances from, not the only place. So there's two viable ways it could work:

1) Every item that's bound to you would automatically be added to your glamour log, while you'd still keep the item itself. You'd then sell it, convert it, trade it in, or whatever once you're done with it as real gear. All glamouring could be done from the glamour log.

2) You can add items to your glamour log manually, but destroy the item in the process (or at the very least spiritbind it in the process). You can glamour from either the log or from actual items.

Either way, you can keep any gear you still want until you no longer need it for stats. The second has the advantage that access can be restricted to certain places or situations. If it's automatic as soon as you get or spiritbind something, then it can change at nearly any time and needs to be part of the data that's being continuously backed up. If access to it is always manual, than it can be restricted to only changing when we're at a certain place interacting with a certain feature. Since SE is continuously backing up our active data every few seconds and one of their big concerns with inventory space is making sure their servers can keep up with those backups, keeping the glamour log fixed somewhere that its contents cannot change while we're out adventuring could be important to them.

IMO anything that lands in your inventory should auto-save in the glamour log (or if we want to be really picky, so long as it is soulbound).

They'd have to be that picky. If it went to your glamour log without binding to you, a single outfit could keep getting passed around from person to person indefinitely. Everyone could have it with only one of the items having ever been created. Any of the level one gear items designed exclusively for use in glamour would have a total demand of just one item to permanently satisfy the entire server, with no need for anyone to ever make more. It would completely destroy one of the major purposes of crafting. (Which is why glamouring an item now will bind it to you.)

We have a wardrobe, why not just put a second section in it for "complete outfits", drop whatever gear you aren't wearing any more into it, and it gives you a "generate a glamour outfit" that takes one item slot in your "glamour" inventory instead of having to keep all the pieces around to generate it. Removing items from the outfits tab pulls the full outfit out. That at least reduces the complexity of this.

It cannot be based on full outfits, because that's neither the way gear comes, nor the way it's used. (For instance, what would be the "complete outfit" for something like my Behemoth Mask? And I glamour Baron Earrings to just about every outfit I have, at least any I'll be keeping around long enough to glamour anything.) It would need to store individual items, so that we can always mix and match them however we wish at the moment.

But one viable way of handling the glamour gear issue would be to simply expand the current armoire from holding only a few select items to holding any sort of visible/glamorable gear. It's extremely efficient space-wise and only accessible a few places, so doesn't need to be constantly backed up, only when we're there interacting with it. They'd just need to update the UI for it to so we'd be able to sort through and find items when there's far more of them included.

Excluding belts, soul-stones, and off-hand tools, the Eorzea Database lists a total of 9099 other gear items. Being able to hold any of them would take up a little over 1 kb (1138 bytes to be exact) of data storage/transfer with the way the armoire is implemented (or with a similarly implemented glamour log). Of course, they'd need some expansion room for the additional items coming not just in SB but the next several patches and events, so figure they could do that with maybe around 2 or 3 kb per character. And that's 2 or 3 kb that only needs to be transferred and backed up when you're there interacting with the armoire.