Yoshi Interview at PGS

[Oscura]

Today I learned Lyse's face is too real and lost the Final Fantasy appeal to it.

[Paladinleeds]

Only thing is that many might just not want to be bothered with it on their phone or spend the access fee but that would surprise me if hardcore gatherers and crafters won't be all over it.

Even as a casual one, I'd be all over it. And given I use my phone 24/7 and am getting a new phone in the fairly near future with much better RAM so I can multitask better (plus using Go+ so I can keep my steps and stuff going in-game), expect me to spend more time on that than in the Pokémon Go app (in the foreground). I'd be checking it practically every waking minute.

[Skivvy]

So if we would get more scars and stuff like that the servers would explode from the stress? How in the world will this game last for a long time if we cant even get some more customizations? Are they at least working on changing that over time or will we hear "server limitation" as a reason forever? Come on you are one of the most successful P2P MMOs out there and one of the big cash cows for your company...you should be able to do so much more.

Also why would FF lose its appeal if we get more faces? That does not make any sense? (And lets not talk about a lot of glamour stuff that destroyed the fantasy feel anyway...like those Yokai things..)

[But at least they put their time and money in making an app..I just feel my salt rising]

My thoughts exactly. Perhaps it's time for them to actually upgrade their servers so they can account for something as basic as more face options. Wouldn't new armors factor into this as well? They claim that more facial customization would kill data servers, but then they bring in more variety with all the new armor that has to be accounted for.

Also, new hair styles. How can they introduce more hair styles that somehow don't cause incredible stress, but can't justify a new face or expanded customization features?

It's getting a bit predictable and sad at this point :X

[dotsforlife]

I just love all of the armchair devs.

[reiichi]

My thoughts exactly. Perhaps it's time for them to actually upgrade their servers so they can account for something as basic as more face options. Wouldn't new armors factor into this as well? They claim that more facial customization would kill data servers, but then they bring in more variety with all the new armor that has to be accounted for.

Also, new hair styles. How can they introduce more hair styles that somehow don't cause incredible stress, but can't justify a new face or expanded customization features?

It's getting a bit predictable and sad at this point :X

I tried to explain how that works earlier, but it has to do with how that character information is stored and then handled in the server software and the database. Things like race, face, and lesser features are basically given less storage. Most options were given a single byte (8 slots max) for options. Some, like hair, were probably given extra storage up front, like a 32 or 64 bit integer (4 bytes / 8 bytes). Since it was designed like that initially, there's extra space to add more options without having to massively remake the database (modifying this improperly can cause data integrity errors, or their database solution might not allow for them to casually modify a column's properties).

To separate faces and horns, as an example, they'd need to add a a new column to the database for EVERY character out there, whether a value is set or not. This is why aside from the height slider, all the "uniqueness" sliders are usually race and/or gender locked, like muscle slider, tail length, etc. It takes up the same space in the database and keeps the amount of data needed to send/receive for a character small and easy to process. Things slow down when there's more data to transfer. And more data to process. And more data to copy (really slow) from one database to another. (Like say, every time your character zones to an instance. Or is copied to a relay server for the lodestone sync. Or is backed up to the main database so you don't lose all your progress and items upon logout.)

So what would happen if you tried to stick a 9th value into something that could only hold up to 8? Well...it crashes. Or overwrites -other- data if we're being extra unsafe.

Now, SE isn't maxing out these options. And some values could definitely store more information. (Like, instead of using a byte for a single slot like 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0, they could process it like a number, which would use a little more cpu, but would honestly be minimal in most tasks.) So they could probably expand our existing features a bit. ...assuming that the spare values aren't used for something else internally like NPC appearance that isn't hardcoded client-side. But those are details we don't have access to.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Apparently the full quote about char customization is being ignored, and people are only focusing on the first line. Found this on reddit.

"Q: I'd like you to increase the number of character face options available!
Yoshida: There's currently no plan to increase the range of option categories available. This is partly because players expect a certain "FF quality" to characters in the game and giving too wide a range of options might compromise that by allowing players to create characters that don't fit into a Final Fantasy setting. This is something that is important to many people. Also, if you broaden the range of options there's a risk that it could impact gameplay as the data sent and received per character increases upon loading a new area.
However, since I think this is more of a request for more available customization options within the categories currently available, we'd like to add more options based on your feedback!"

[Iromi]

I am glad they are changing up the glamour system I really hope I can wear some of the tank outfits on my Summoner, mainly the Stormblood PVP body..I love it so much ;~;

[dinnertime]

However, since I think this is more of a request for more available customization options within the categories currently available, we'd like to add more options based on your feedback!"

So...basically they can add more face types and facial feature options? Well that's fine.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

So...basically they can add more face types and facial feature options? Well that's fine.

Basically. What they are saying is they can't add more categories, not options.

[SaitoHikari]

However, since I think this is more of a request for more available customization options within the categories currently available, we'd like to add more options based on your feedback!"

Well, that pretty much changes the context of the answer entirely, like, damn. People were only really asking for more face options anyway.