Long overdue feature: FSH Tackle box.

[DrWho2010]

basically if you had a tacklebox that was accessible at any time anywhere that's yet another piece of information that is attached to your character that has to be checked, moved and loaded everytime you move zones, etc. i mean this is also part of the reason we don't get more inventory slots more often and why they're doing the chocobo saddlebag instead of just straight up giving us more inv slots.

[Wintersandman]

basically if you had a tacklebox that was accessible at any time anywhere that's yet another piece of information that is attached to your character that has to be checked, moved and loaded everytime you move zones, etc. i mean this is also part of the reason we don't get more inventory slots more often and why they're doing the chocobo saddlebag instead of just straight up giving us more inv slots.

And your point is? They didn't have Saddlebag either just a few patches ago. We also had 100 inventory slots up to 4.0. So within Stormblood we saw a rework of an inventory system plus an addition of a saddlebag. I don't see why you're trying to make up excuses for the devs when SE has basically countered every argument you have provided thus far by proving it can be done otherwise.

[Hasrat]

They were also planning to add even more inventory slots (filling out those old "blank" slots we had before they redesigned the inventory UI), but they determined that it simply wasn't possible within the constraints they were limited by, forcing them to go the route of the saddlebag. Adding extra inventory isn't nearly as trivial as you want to believe.

[Wintersandman]

They were also planning to add even more inventory slots (filling out those old "blank" slots we had before they redesigned the inventory UI), but they determined that it simply wasn't possible within the constraints they were limited by, forcing them to go the route of the saddlebag. Adding extra inventory isn't nearly as trivial as you want to believe.

I am not saying it is trivial. But to say they can't do it is also a flat out lie. 2.0 we have been asking for more inventory slots. It took 3-4 years for that to happen. But guess what we also got a saddlebag which wasn't asked for. Can you tell me the technical difference between a saddlebag and a tacklebox?

[Hasrat]

Sure. One is somehow limited to a single class, and one is available to the player regardless of chosen class. Further, for smooth integration, your proposed tacklebox would need to communicate with FSH's Bait skill, which currently only calls up items in the main inventory, complicating matters on whether it will only call on one inventory or the other or both. Since we already know the skill can't communicate with the saddlebag we have now, and since we know the implementation of the saddlebag is separate from actual usable inventory that can immediately be called on, it seems unlikely that it would be a simple matter to change this for use as a tacklebox.

Bonus, here's a dev response from back during the UI change, to get a glimpse into why more inventory can be so problematic.

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:

Keep the previous database which treats 25 items as one group, and increasing the number of groups from four to six (150 items).
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.

[Wintersandman]

You are implying your own limitations on what people are asking for. No one has asked for it to draw from the bait skill. It could easily be existing inventory but the tacklebox functions similar to the saddlebag. I am only using one bait at a time. But here is the challenge i face. I have over 2+ pages of bait on a retainer. If I am going fishing for multiple things I can easily take up one page of my inventory or saddlebag (which I use for other things like sigma tokens, materia, etc.). I can easily cope with having to bring a bait into my inventory to use it from a tacklebox. It's like walking back to shore to get extra flies that you don't have in your pocket.

Lastly as Maximum Powerful already said they didn't want one job to have an advantage over another. FSH is at a disadvantage with the current system.

[Hasrat]

So, you just want another saddlebag, but one that can only be used by FSH?

Advice I'll give is something I picked up around here a while back. If you can easily buy the bait from NPC shops, there's zero reason to hold onto excess. Vendors in housing districts sell a good chunk of them.

Fishers are no more disadvantaged than crafters when it comes to inventory. How are your fisher's inventory problems any worse than a culinarian's?

[Wintersandman]

Weak argument. As a crafter I am taking multiple items and turning them into 1 which I do all the time and CUL is the one I use the most. As a fisher I am having 1 item that may or may not diminish in quantity getting turned into multiples.Everything crafting wise is combining items. It is also not like mining where I can go and select the item I want. Fishing is completely RNG based so even if I want I am stuck gathering everything that I come across. Release and even Veteran's Trade has their limitations. Also the Tacklebox could be used by anyone just as the crystal page can be used by anyone. It only provides a bonus for fishers. Also NPC's only carry some tackle and often don't carry lures.

Also lastly why would I want to sell my excess for less only to buy it for more from an NPC vendor.

[RojGardoth]

So, you just want another saddlebag, but one that can only be used by FSH?

Advice I'll give is something I picked up around here a while back. If you can easily buy the bait from NPC shops, there's zero reason to hold onto excess. Vendors in housing districts sell a good chunk of them.

Fishers are no more disadvantaged than crafters when it comes to inventory. How are your fisher's inventory problems any worse than a culinarian's?

Other than you're flat-out wrong, good point.

[DarthRok]

Now that you can stack more than 99 items, I’ve had no trouble using the saddlebag as my tackle box. I have all the bait and lures I need and I have the saddlebag right there on my hotbar next to my bait selection button. I am an omni crafter and gatherer and have everything leveled to 70 and fish quite a bit. I go after all the big fish and have completed Feast of Famine, so I’m not casually using the system and need to have bait on hand to hit open windows. I would love to have a dedicated tackle box, but I doubt that’s going to happen. But for now the saddlebag works amazingly good as a tackle box and is a huge QoL upgrade for fishers.