No increase to inventory space

[Vrankyl]

They need to increase the inventory or move monster drops/etc into a separate inventory of its own. It's actually very criminal how small the inventory is with no means of upgrade. If they cannot do this, they need to increase retainer space or offer another option to buy them in game. If even that's too much, they need to introduce a storage chest in the inn.

As for them saying they "can't" do this and that, why? Have they actually said why it's not possible, or is it more along the lines of "Shareholders said no, so we can't"?

Criminal? As it stands, out of the big three MMOs FF14 has the largest on hand inventory system that you start out with, and even at max is one of the largest period. ESO only slightly edges it out due to their crafting mats tab. That said, max purchasable on person inventory in ESO? 210 slots. WoW? About 150 slots. FF14 you start off with over 500 inventory slots between your bag and your Armory Chest, and this isn't counting the Saddlebag.

Now, obviously there are things that are done better, such as proper glamour logs in WoW and the crafting tab in ESO. But to say that the storage space is criminally small is an over exaggeration of a pretty high order. Even as a max level Omni-Crafter and Gatherer that routinely crafts things for gil and all jobs leveled with 5 of them geared up, the only times I struggle with bag space is if I forget to consolidate my materia or hold on to one too many housing items.

[alibutterfly]

This has been several expansions now of no inventory increase with what I would guess are probably thousands of new items added per expansion (at minimum).

Now, do you need to hold onto all of those things, let alone simultaneously? No.

The longer you play this game and the more classes you level up, would you typically find the more things you "need" or at least want to hold onto? Probably so. Crafting materials, gear sets that you like, gear sets that you went to some trouble to obtain, consumables, etc. I know this has been an increasing problem for me. Even just adding a proper glamour log (one that unlocks appearances when you first pick up the item) would massively help, but that seems like something the tech will never be able to handle, either.

It typically irritates me whenever I see them doing a recolored, maybe newly-dyable, maybe cross-classed version of a previously released armor set in a new expansion as "new" gear, but maybe it's good that they're not giving me 5 dungeons full of fully new sets that I'll like and want to collect for every class for future cosmetic purposes, if this is going to continue to be the case...

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Can't increase glamour dresser or inventory space, but they have shown that they can add retainers in a pinch for a profit. Hmm...

Because not everyone will pay the $2 for an extra retainer, is why. Thus the increase to Server I/O load stays within expected margins than ballooning out of control in an instant. It's the same logistic behind why ISPs could theoretically give unlimited plans to every customer they want while not being able to actually handle everyone's bandwidth, because the average GB/consumer isn't going to be ultra skyhigh, and why it suddenly goes above their expected bandwidth load, they start throttling people.

It's been insanely clear to me the bottleneck for extra inventory is server I/O load for a long time now, this post just all but confirms it. Their server hardware itself is reaching its maximum I/O load operating capacity if too many people queuing with full inventories is causing slowdowns on the back end. Giving everyone extra free inventory would just skyrocket the slowdowns, or even possibly cause other issues to arise.

However, they absolutely should offer a third free retainer, especially as this wouldn't impact the servers as they mention above. Likewise, the Glamour Dresser should increase for the same reason.

A) I'm not sure where you're seeing 'retainers dont affect the servers' from that snippet, as they only talk about your main inventory.

B) Retainers -do- affect Server I/O load. How do you think it knows how many items are on each of your retainers the moment you interact with the summoning bell, or what's for sale on the marketboard or has sold to display information accordingly? That data isn't stored locally. All data for all your retainers is pulled from the server the instant you interact with that summoning bell, and is constantly streamed between your client & the server for as long as you're in the retainer interface. Adding in a full extra Retainer free retainer for everyone in the game adds up to an instant 33% extra server I/O load in the pie slice of the server load that is being dedicated to handling Retainer <-> client interactions.

C) When you design systems like these, you have to account for the worst possible situations. Otherwise, you get issues like Raubahn EX. I actually wouldn't doubt they could give everyone a third free retainer if they wanted, but it would be an insanely risky play without proper testing, optimization of server <-> client interactions, etc. Because at that point, it could be very easy to crash the servers or bog them down intensely if too many people have their retainers open all at once.

Hence their last sentence - They want to increase the inventory space at some point, but in order to do so they would have to optimise servers which will take time. They need better hardware and to better optimize their code so adding in more inventory or retainers doesn't just instantly burn down the servers, or cause situations to arise like Raubanh extreme through artificial bottlenecks by bad design. The reason it'll take time is because they have to do it for all 3 of the datacenters their hardware is hosted at, which can take tons of time in the business world.

[Ultaniku]

Just gimme the ability to craft from my retainers inventory and I’ll buy more retainers. Then I won’t carry as much. I craft a decent amount so I usually have some mats on me even if I don’t intend for them to be there usually.

[EaMett]

Any mention of the glam dresser anywhere?

Also, that comment really highlights how poorly coded the system is. Yikes.

[ForteNightshade]

A) I'm not sure where you're seeing 'retainers dont affect the servers' from that snippet, as they only talk about your main inventory.

B) Retainers -do- affect Server I/O load. How do you think it knows how many items are on each of your retainers the moment you interact with the summoning bell, or what's for sale on the marketboard or has sold to display information accordingly? That data isn't stored locally. All data for all your retainers is pulled from the server the instant you interact with that summoning bell, and is constantly streamed between your client & the server for as long as you're in the retainer interface. Adding in a full extra Retainer free retainer for everyone in the game adds up to an instant 33% extra server I/O load in the pie slice of the server load that is being dedicated to handling Retainer <-> client interactions.

Because they specifically said "your inventory" and made no mention of your retainer. And the stress testing they referred to which caused issues happened when they were in instanced content. They weren't interacting with a Summoning Bell. So I don't know where you're drawing this correlation from. The referenced paragraph implied queuing into instanced content with a full inventory led to bottle necks. Which implies the items on our character specifically are the issue not those stored on a retainer.

[Kyu-Momo]

Well, at least gathering HQs and belts are being removed, so there's that at least.

[Arzalis]

They need to do something. I'm pretty much maxed out on glamour wardrobe on my main and that's after going through and removing anything that's easy to get. The game ends up sort of punishing you here for playing more since a person with all the jobs unlocked is going to use more glamour space.

As an aside, I know several people who've stopped buying armors from the mog station since they just don't have anywhere to put them. I'd wager there's a lot of overlap between the type of player that buys glamours from the mogstation and people who end up filling up their glamour wardrobe. So from a purely financial standpoint, it's probably hurting their bottom line on some level too.

[DreadCrow]

I feel anyone complaining about a lack of inventory space is desperately needing to clean out their inventories. I'm holding on a lot of stuff I don't need and I still have space. Throw. Things. Away. You likely have things you're holding on to that you haven't used in months.

[kaynide]

Fun Fact:

For the base price, you can have up to 8 characters, each with their own inventories and retainers. You might need to organize a way for them to trade (through a friend or using the FC chest), but anyone who seriously needs more space should be considering this.