The new Expanded Inventory View design

[Zhexos]

Greetings,

We'd like to share a comment from Hiroshi Minagawa from the UI team in regards to the inventory display adjustments made in Patch 4.2.

Greetings, this is Minagawa from the UI team.

I'd like to discuss the two big requests we've been seeing from the community:

A) Keep the previous expanded display method and make it available as an option.
* Including requests to revert back to the previous display method.

B) Make the expanded inventory display as a single tab 10x14 (140 total).

Option A would be extremely difficult to do, so I'm sorry to say that there are no plans to revert it or make an option to choose. I'll explain the reason why it would be difficult in a moment.

As for option B, we're planning to implement this as an option for the PS4 and Windows 64-bit version.

* I'll go over the reasons below; but if you only want to read the conclusion, you can skip over the following section.

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Why is it difficult to revert to the previous display method?

The reason behind the new item layout goes back to when we expanded the inventory slots during 4.0 development, and goes even further back to when we designed the UI for the A Ream Reborn (ARR) version.

When we considered increasing the a character's inventory slots, we looked into the following two methods:

1. Keep the previous database which treats 25 items as one group, and increasing the number of groups from four to six (150 items).
2. Increase the number of items in a group from 25 to 35. If there's no stress on the load, assume we can increase the number of items available in one group.

I imagine everyone would agree that the first method is the way to go, as it would feel most natural for everyone.

During the structure development for the ARR version, we had planned to increase item slots in increments of 25. When we announced ARR, the concept screenshot showed six groups of 25. However, while ARR development continued, in order to speed up development as much as possible (while also increasing the efficiency of the save data storage) we incorporated temporary item storage (i.e. items attached to Moogle letters and items for trading with others) into the player's storage capacity to implement item-related processes and storage capacity together.

This ended up affecting us later (now). At a cost of development speed and space efficiency, it became difficult to add inventory slots in groups.

It became difficult because we need to fix (more like rebuild) features such as the Moogle letters and trading, which doesn't seem like it would be related to the addition of inventory slots.

For the first method, the parts that are affected are numerous, and the engineers involved are different, and there are many features which carry over from the original program. For this reason, we needed to actually try it out to estimate how much development time would be required for this. (There were strong concerns of this not being able to make it by the expansion's release.)

On the other hand, the estimate for the development steps for the second method was much clearer.

As a result, for the 4.0 expansion, we abandoned the first method to increase the number of groups, and decided to go with the second method, to increase the number of inventory slots available by increasing the number of items per group.

Once 4.0 went live, we calculated that the server couldn't handle the amount of communication stress that the additional increased inventory slots and character item data brought with it.

Therefore, we switched our direction to adding other methods to increase the inventory, or by converting items to a different format to store them, and stopped adding spaces to inventory and the Armoury Chest with the 4.0 expansion.
* Methods such as the chocobo saddlebag and glamour dressers.

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The introduction was a bit lengthy, but with the above in mind, I'd like to explain why we changed the display and why it is difficult to revert back to the previous method.

Because we applied the second method, during 4.0 the item information managed on the application side display and the server did not match; however, as a temporary measure until we decided how to increase additional inventory slots, we used a program to maintain the consistency of the display to make it work.

It is extremely difficult to keep using such a program to add item-related processes as we wouldn't be able to ensure the stability of the program.

So this time we made improvements and have matched the display method for the application into the database structure which was changed to increase the number of item slots, and made improvements to temporarily arrange it so it can be used on a program which can be easily expanded in the future.

Due to these reasons, it would be difficult to bring back the previous 5x5 display as there are numerous negative consequences. This is why I mentioned we have no plans for this.

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Expanded Display: Displaying 140 items at once

We believe we can do this for the PS4 version and the Windows 64-bit version and we are looking into it. We cannot do this for the Windows 32-bit version or the Mac version, as there isn't enough UI memory required for displaying the icons. As this requires a different process for each OS, we would require more time than usual for when we add new features, so if you could please wait for this.

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And that is the explanation as to why the expanded inventory display method changed.

I'm very sorry that this has caused an inconvenience for things that you have long since grown accustomed to, or how it was displayed. However as a UI Lead, I made the decision to move forward with this, as I believe this was required in order to continue adding various features.

I'm sure there will be those that won't agree with this explanation, but I wanted to explain the thought process from the development team's perspective for features being added or changed.

We'd appreciate it if you all to continue to leave your feedback.

[Callinon]

Total insanity

I cannot imagine the level of spaghetti code you guys must be dealing with to arrive at an explanation like that. My inner programmer has, in fact, curled up into a ball and is in the corner sucking his thumb. It's not pretty.

It does seem to re-emphasize the need to correct the underlying issue though. Your original database design was pants-on-head and that needs to be fixed. I appreciate the position you're in now having to work on a live product with this kind of design handicap, but that's the reality you're living in and if you ever want to make it to 7.0 you're going to need to address this sooner rather than later.

In the meantime I'll definitely take displaying everything on a single pane. I don't like tabs. After that, I recommend drinking.. a lot.

[drebbe]

I cannot imagine the level of spaghetti code you guys must be dealing with to arrive at an explanation like that. My inner programmer has, in fact, curled up into a ball and is in the corner sucking his thumb. It's not pretty.

It does seem to re-emphasize the need to correct the underlying issue though. Your original database design was pants-on-head and that needs to be fixed. I appreciate the position you're in now having to work on a live product with this kind of design handicap, but that's the reality you're living in and if you ever want to make it to 7.0 you're going to need to address this sooner rather than later.

In the meantime I'll definitely take displaying everything on a single pane. I don't like tabs. After that, I recommend drinking.. a lot.

Basically this comes down to SE needs to hire more people to make up for the spaghetti code. Making a design decision due to lack of resources is sad (This happens all the time in software dev).

[Syrehn]

Snip.

That wall of text though... it's blowing my mind that the underlying code is so terrible. Also, regardless of the reasoning I still hate, loathe and despise the new "expanded" view. It's not even remotely expanded at all.

Put everything on a single plane and get rid of the 2 extra key items bags. Like seriously, why would we ever need that many key items. Actually, better yet, turn them into additional bag slots instead since they're already there.

[Vstarstruck]

Greetings,

We'd like to share a comment from Hiroshi Minagawa from the UI team in regards to the inventory display adjustments made in Patch 4.2.
We'd appreciate it if you all to continue to leave your feedback.

It gets old that you can't do this, cant do that because of the 1.0> 2.0 thing and still had to use 1.0's code as a base to cut corners and get it out faster. "Haste makes waste" as they say, and this will only continue to cause you problems in the future. Can you guys rework the code .. the core,, fixing all this while 4.xx is running and basically have a better structure for 5.0 +? How can you guys keep expanding this game with such a poor base? As you give us more items, we need more inventory space to hold those items. Your servers need more breathing room. I am sure this is also the reason Why we can't have a proper glam log and other things? If data usage is so bad with this spaghetti code why not remove repeated items in the game (may have to relay to the different development teams that are responsible of what materials go in the game and stuff along that nature) the meany copies of item icons for different items gets confusing too.

Does this mean our bag is stuck on 140 items forever? What is going to happen in the future? Future expansions? Right now using the dresser and chobobo bag is a chore, are there plans to improve this moving forward to 5.0 and beyond?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Shut down the servers and recode the game properly then. It gets old that you can't do this, cant do that because of the 1.0> 2.0 thing and still had to use 1.0's code as a base to cut corners and get it out faster.

I think about 90% of your posts have been complaints, why are you still here? They won't shut the game down, that would be a disaster. It was one thing to shut down the failed 1.0 server in the transition to 20. It would be a completely different thing to shut down a functional game just because. They would lose a ton of players.

[Vstarstruck]

I think about 90% of your posts have been complaints, why are you still here? They won't shut the game down, that would be a disaster. It was one thing to shut down the failed 1.0 server in the transition to 20. It would be a completely different thing to shut down a functional game just because. They would lose a ton of players.

I do not see them losing a ton of players if it means improving the game. From the sound of that post they may have to at some point. It is not a matter of IF, more like when. (Unless they can work a ton of magic while the servers are running, like preparing and releasing big changes for 5.0 as 4.xx is running.

What I do is none of your business though and sounds stalkerish (yeah i know public blahblah but you do not need to talk about my personal agendas in this thread)

Are we supposed to be happy and understanding that despite shutting down the servers these problems are still biting them? You can't rely on a flawed core if you want to keep growing. We're struggling to have the responsiveness that WoW had back in 2004 in a lot of areas still. No, shutting the servers down again won't fix it faster, they just have to actually work on it.

The wonders of these kind of games mostly having a skeleton crew between expansions.

My point said by someone else^

Weird, What I am reading is a general hate for the design of the core game and not hate for the comment. Also a question as to why SE hasn't put some priority into fixing this so the game can grow properly.

These are actually the real kind of answers we should see about housing and inventory it is very Blizzard. It doesn't mean it is going to be fixed. But it also means paying customers can voice their desire to have X function prioritized. This is literally a million times better then some figurehead trying to sell plushies.

Also if technical limitations(server load) are based on the actual inventory you are carrying. Why didn't the people in charge discuss alternative solutions that might require more storage but less server load? Chocob bag is an excellent example of alternative storage. Why people would like the moon. They would settle with just extra retainers, player storage chests and better itemization. This is a sign that one team refuses to work within the limitations of the game.



But all in all nice answer and Thanks.

That would be correct, and asking what can be done about it.

[Texa]

What I do is none of your business though and sounds stalkerish

[savageink]

I would prefer 4 up like the old view, but 2 up isn't that annoying. they did get rid of the useless slots that couldn't hold anything in the old view on the second tab. What I don't get is why they didn't add a chocobo bags tab to the inventory, instead of making it a completely separate window i have to dig through a menu to get to.

[Iscah]

What I don't get is why they didn't add a chocobo bags tab to the inventory, instead of making it a completely separate window i have to dig through a menu to get to.

That annoys me too, though on the other hand I'm guessing that since we have to transfer items between the two systems, having them display separately is what lets us have both inventories open at once while we do that.