Material Bloat

[Kabooa]

Is getting pretty absurd. I forgot to do the patchly emptying of the bags and I'm feeling the strain as it is.

Do you lot see this being addressed? There are some ways to go about it, but would require a fair amount of restructuring moving forward.

For example, "Iron" and "Doman Iron", once Not-Garlemald is out, are simply just Iron - The mining points for Doman Iron moving forward just give more Iron. You'd rotate the same-sy metals in this fashion.

So Eorzea - 1 iron per hit. Othard - 2 Iron per hit. Garlemald - Magi-iron until the next expansion, and then it's 3 Iron per hit instead.

This example in particular smooths out materials that are basically the same just 'new', phasing them out much like Tomestones and also allowing new players to participate more directly in the market. They may not gather Iron as fast, but they are gathering Iron, which as a centralized resource would see more use, instead of finding niche uses for 'Iron', 'Doman Iron', and every other variation of Iron that comes out.

Likewise, Materia can be heavily reduced by simply removing Ranks of materia, and assigning those to Gear.

Stormblood Materia slots are 'Rank 6' and 'Rank 5'. Garlemald slots are 'Rank 7' and 'Rank 6'. There is no functional difference, only one that removes the need for an ever expanding item list.

Note this doesn't apply to 'components', though you could, but simply reducing the material range aids here as well. A wider range of components made from a smaller range of materials still keeps item lists compact, as components are rarely hoarded as much as raw materials.

[Cleanse]

Essentially you would like to see the 'tomestone' approach taken to the crafting materials and materia? I can appreciate the idea.

Endgame Iron and Common Iron. Endgame Materia and Common Materia.

[chidarake]

although not a bad idea there really isnt much need to keep old easily gotten mats in your inventory,

what i started doing was only keeping timed node mats and if i need something else its easily gathered or bought cheaply.

[Driskus]

It'd be really nice if they did some consolidation. I like the idea of just having a static yield increase on higher level nodes. It could have the same stat requirements the higher level items already have in order to gather too. There's really no reason to have like 10 different types of water, 4 types of lemons, etc. I have 9 retainers at this point and still have to keep clearing out stuff all the time.

[Kabooa]

although not a bad idea there really isnt much need to keep old easily gotten mats in your inventory,

what i started doing was only keeping timed node mats and if i need something else its easily gathered or bought cheaply.

Timed nodes are offenders as well, as timed nodes are what are expanded every patch.

[Nixxe]

This already happens naturally because many resources become less valuable and worthwhile as time goes on and can be safely expunged from your material stocks unless you're in some niche market. Doing as you suggest would simply take materials that might otherwise have value and eliminate it. Your example in particular would allow recipes that currently call for Doman Iron Ore to simply use ordinary Iron Ore from a vendor. Likewise, there is an advantage to using lower grade materia for crafters and gatherers, and removing those lower grade materia would make melding more expensive and wasteful. Additionally, casual crafters sometimes need poor people melds, which will include more older materia than someone like me would use.

In short, while I'd agree the game's inventory system is still pretty terrible, it's not because of the way material requirements are structured. That is a feature, not a bug or oversight.

[Elamys]

I don't think this is really necessary. Over time it's become very apparent to me what things I have to keep around and what things I don't. I keep all my materials on 3 retainers - and I could get that down to 2 if I wanted.

1.) I don't keep any processed materials around (cloths, lumbers, etc). Only raw.
2.) I don't keep any materials I can get from vendors (with the exception of Bomb/Grenade Ash just because I got tired of running around for those).
3.) I keep track of what I'm using most often. A material I find that I'm not using often (Brimstone, I think, is a notable example), I chuck it. A HUGE portion of gatherable materials I cut out by being willing to go get it as I need it. Culinarian is a major offender in this department, as about 99% of CUL's stuff isn't worth making really but those materials are only used by CUL.

Also, a number of materials are used only, or at least mainly, for housing items. So no point in keeping those around unless you're into the housing market. I sell mostly housing items though so I keep a lot of those materials (granite, limestone, marble, etc) around. But I'm not big on crafting glamour gear, so a lot of the old materials from Heavensward timed nodes have been cleared out of my inventory.

The inventory system in this game still needs a ton of improvement, but with a little diligence, it's simple enough to keep your stockpile down. Especially now that items stack to 999. And since they regularly include old materials in new recipes, your suggested change would also affect a ton of recipes.

[Ilyrian]

They want you to buy extra storage. It's hard wired into their design for the game.

[Straynge]

How about we just get a seperate inventory that will hold an infinite amount of materials for crafting. Seriously, my retainers are so full of crafting materials that I don't know what to do. Every time I do something like sell off those 999 doman iron ore I end up needing them or wish I had them for this week's fashion report or something. At this point I have NO idea what I should keep or not. I'd really love for a bag of holding or something just for crafting materials but that's probably asking for way too much. I get why they don't just give you a seperate infinite inventory for crafting goods......but I can always dream.

And yeah, I have 4 retainers. The only reason I don't have more is because I had to put my foot down....on myself. Hoarding on 4 of them is bad enough. I could easily go broke at this rate lol. I know I know....get rid of some of that junk....but I might need those black pearls some day :/ How about in-game counseling for in-game hoarders?

[CryBloodwing]

I would like a crafting bag system like what exists in Guild Wars 2 and ESO. A bag that holds all crafting materials....