Alternative solution to glamour log

[Abriael]

follow your own advice?

Oh I already am. I don't demand developers to follow my "suggestions" and call them liars or accuse them to pull excuses if they don't.

How is my list so different then this thread? Why are you attacking me for no reason? Yes you are being toxic to me, I am not being toxic to you, nor anyone, i was attacked first for no reason

You may have not noticed it (people tend not to), but by following your definition of "Toxic" you're being rather Toxic to Yoshida and the development team, accusing them with absolutely zero evidence of giving "excuses" and not implementing a feature with the objective of making players "spend more on retainers."

You're entirely free to offer feedback, but don't expect everyone to offer smiles and a pat on the back if you're not able to do it respectfully. Considering how hard this development team worked to steer a completely failed game into a successful one, and how hard they still work, the negativity they receive from some is absolutely stifling, and deserves a pushback.

[Niwashi]

While I can't be 100% sure because I have no insight on how the inventory is coded, that is probably incorrect (almost surely, considering Yoshida's answer). An inventory item is normally stored as a numerical ID in a table that calls on a database with all the item's data. For each character only the ID is stored, not the whole item data, which is already present in the database, and is common for all characters. To store the fact that the item is available for glamoring, you'd have to store the same numerical ID in a dedicated table. This means that the memory footprint of the data would most probably be the same.

A gear item in inventory has not just its own item ID, but the item ID of it's glamour, another for its dye, 5 item IDs for what materia is on it, a character ID for who crafted it, a counter for tracking spiritbond, and another for tracking its condition. And while we don't know details like how many bytes each of those identifiers is, we do know that they all have to be multi-byte fields, since there are a lot more than 256 items in the game, characters on a server, and actions towards spiritbonding or dropping condition to 0.

A tick in a log, on the other hand, takes one bit. That's nowhere near the same size as an item.

A glamour log of the 9099 visible gear items currently in the game would take up 1138 bytes of storage, though of course they'd need room for new items being added, so it would probably be more like 2kb or so (which would be enough to hold 16,384 items). At a reasonable guess at the size of gear in inventory as 44 bytes each, that would be enough space to hold 46 of them.

Out of all of that, the only parts I was estimating without knowledge of their specific coding practices are:
1) I guessed 4 bytes per item ID, character ID, or counter.
2) That an an 80% increase from the amount of current gear allows them enough room for adding new items through the next couple expansions or so.

While either of those guesses could be a little off, it's unlikely that either would be off by more than a factor of two, so that 16384 to 46 ratio is reasonably close, no matter how their system is set up.


Besides which, there was the other interview, where Yoshi pointed out that it was possible, but that it was their UI team that was too busy for it at the time. That's an explanation from him that actually makes sense. I'm perfectly willing to accept what he says when he makes sense, but not when he doesn't.

Server memory footprint should be the same regardless of how many times it's accessed. Lower frequency of access probably means lower server CPU load, but that normally isn't the problem.

The issue on this is the transfer between the game servers and backup servers. *Active* data, the kind that can change while playing, is backed up every few seconds that you're logged in. Our characters also have other data, though, (like armoire storage or retainer inventory) that can only change while interacting with that feature and isn't accessible while out adventuring. That data is only backed up when we interact with it, and not all the rest of the time.

There have been multiple suggestions regarding a glamour log, and while some (like automatic inclusion of items whenever we get them) would require it to be classified as active data, others (where we manually place items there, like the armoire) would allow it to be backed up only on access and not the rest of the time. (Note: the limited access would only need to be on adding new items to the log. Using them for glamour could still be available from anywhere, since that doesn't change the contents of the log so doesn't require additional backups.)

[Naunet]

By the way, it took 4.5 years after the addition of transmog (added in December 2011) to WoW for their appearance catalog to actually be implemented (added in July 2016), despite it being pretty much a day one request as a response (their original approach was Void Storage as a way of holding on to gear you wanted to use for glamour).

Once again: WoW is not the only MMO with an appearance log and many other MMOs have been able to implement it much earlier on in their life cycles. WoW added their appearance log AFTER it had become hugely popular in other MMOs. Stop pointing to the time it took WoW to add one as some excuse.

Their concerns are BS, by the way.

[Abriael]

Besides which, there was the other interview, where Yoshi pointed out that it was possible, but that it was their UI team that was too busy for it at the time. That's an explanation from him that actually makes sense. I'm perfectly willing to accept what he says when he makes sense, but not when he doesn't.

Both explanations make perfect sense, and both can coexist. The fact that the amount of resources required for each item on a log may be lower (depending on how it's coded) than that of an inventory slot, doesn't mean that the explanation isn't valid, as much as it's a simplification due to talking to a generalist crowd. The point is that it takes server resources, as an inventory slot does, and it's up to the team to judge whether those can be stretched further or not. Yoshida is not a programmer, so he's simply relaying to the press what his team tells him.

Once again: WoW is not the only MMO with an appearance log and many other MMOs have been able to implement it much earlier on in their life cycles.

None of which is Final Fantasy XIV or coded like Final Fantasy XIV. Might want to drop the "other MMORPGs are doing it" as it was some kind of evidence that it's easily doable here. As it's not in any shape or form evidence of anything.

[Valinis]

None of which is Final Fantasy XIV or coded like Final Fantasy XIV. Might want to drop the "other MMORPGs are doing it" as it was some kind of evidence that it's easily doable here. It's not.

Just curious how you are so knowledgeable about how exactly XIV is coded, are you part of the programming team?

[savageink]

I literally have NO motivation to run content right now because I cannot store any more effin' armors for glamour.

To put this in perspective, I resubbed to WoW about 5 months ago after being away for 4 years. I've not even bought Legion yet. But I've remained subbed and happy just slowly farming up old armor sets and things to unlock in the transmog log. If you want to maintain subscriptions, encouraging people to farm armor appearances is THE way to do it. There is a reason your players say "Glamour is the real endgame" - because it is the CORE motivation that keeps players going back into content long after they've mastered it. However, what point is there in doing that when I cannot actually store any of the potential armors that I could get? Why would I ever want to go in and farm Dun Scaith or whatever when I have no room for the gear? Why bother with farming Alexander, or buying the numerous crafted items? Why bother making any Mogstation purchases? I have no room to store any of it, so I don't do it!!!

Absolultely! It's like no matter how many times we try to point out that people like collecting things, not using them and throwing them out, they just seem to stick their fingers in their ears and go "Lalalala!" Then a few months later they add to basic inventory which fixes nothing but shuts some people up for a few weeks until it's full again. My armor literally takes up half my armory and half my on hand inventory. Once Stormblood starts, my armor will probably have enough space to move into the armory but then new stuff comes. My 2 retainers (i refuse to pay for more) are full of crafting and house and special items that they haven't put in the chest for no known reason. Since I'm not hardcore on crafting and only do it when I feel like it, I can live without a crafting bank, but I feel sorry for crafters. A real glam log, though, would fix every storage problem I have, now that Apartments are getting an item bump.

Anyway, the collector urge is what drives people to go back in to get the full set of armor, and there is a significant number of people who want to collect them all. Ignoring that is a disservice to the players.

[Berethos]

Once again: WoW is not the only MMO with an appearance log and many other MMOs have been able to implement it much earlier on in their life cycles. WoW added their appearance log AFTER it had become hugely popular in other MMOs. Stop pointing to the time it took WoW to add one as some excuse.

I know of only one other AAA MMO that has a similar large scale appearance catalog, that being GW2, and quite frankly they had some of the best talent working on their backend (as evidenced by their mega-server tech as well as their ability to patch while the game is live and simply require a quick restart of the client to apply the changes)...and my point with the time it took WoW (and GW2 in development, which took 5 years to come release) was that it's not an easy thing to put together on a larger scale.

Other games tend to use what are essentially costume panels. You can save 1-8 outfits (depending on the game) by essentially equipping a gear piece in that slot on the cosmetic panel menu, then choosing to display that piece of gear over another. This approach is the more common approach. None of those games simply save the appearance in a catalog for you to use later.

So, given how infrequently the catalog has been implemented, a logical discussion is going to look at not only which games have added it but also how and when it was added. That it took 4.5 years for WoW to actually implement it is absolutely relevant, as the difficulty of designing and implementing such a system is relevant to the discussion...assuming it's feasible (could technically be added, but ends up with some nasty side effects, which means it's possible but not feasible) or possible at all.

[Abriael]

Just curious how you are so knowledgeable about how exactly XIV is coded, are you part of the programming team?

I most certainly am not. And I never claimed I did. A *fact* is that those accusing Yoshida of lying or pulling excuses aren't as well, and when one throws accusations around, he should probably comes with substantiated evidence, of which I saw one.

On the other hand, I have plenty of experience in interacting with Yoshida over several years due to my job, and he certainly does not strike me as someone who would intentionally lie or pull excuses. He has never been afraid of making unpopular statements, and his team is one of the most hard-working in the industry. So yeah, if they tell me something is impossible or problematic to implement, I certainly give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Berethos]

Ignoring that is a disservice to the players.

Unless you count not implementing it as the sole criteria for not ignoring it, they haven't.

They just haven't given the answer certain individuals have been fishing for. Unless you buy into a conspiracy theory that they are doing this just to make people spend extra money on retainers, then we ultimately have to accept that they will work toward the solutions that they can feasibly implement and continue to provide constructive feedback on the kinds of systems/features we want to see added...

Instead of immediately accusing them of excuses and lying and shady tactics designed solely to make a buck at our expense, as some posters here are wont to do.

[savageink]

I know of only one other AAA MMO that has a similar large scale appearance catalog

With out digging too much other than GW2 and WoW, I can think of Wildstar, DC Universe Online, SWTOR (clunky but has a ton of collections). I'm sure I'm missing some but I don't play every game.