Stop band-aid fixing the glamour system and just fix it for real

[Larirawiel]

I can imagine it as simple as making a table of all item IDs and 0|1 if obtained or not - only accessible inside an inn room whatever. Then glam plates as we have now just storing item IDs and dye IDs. I understand its still thousands and thousands of "item IDs" but I dont really understand how they can store these so inefficiently to have issue with it

If you assume, that they use a relational database then yes. With a relational database, a glamour log is easy going. But we know literary nothing about their infrastructure. I have asked it in the current newsletter. But my questions were not answered by the devs.


Cheers

[DPZ2]

I can imagine it as simple as making a table of all item IDs and 0|1 if obtained or not - only accessible inside an inn room whatever. Then glam plates as we have now just storing item IDs and dye IDs. I understand its still thousands and thousands of "item IDs" but I dont really understand how they can store these so inefficiently to have issue with it

You are under the impression that that information is "stored" somewhere. I am under the impression that such storage has two IDs - what the item actually is and what the item should look like. These IDs are attached to the slot for each item (on yourself, or transferred to inventory) and accompany the item throughout its life. Glamour plates convert one ID in each slot position on yourself. This is much more efficient than also creating a table that has to be sent to your console/PC each game session. And no, I wouldn't trust such a table to be loaded to your system once and be done with it. That's way too easy to hack.

It's a pretty easy bet that such a feature is low on their list of "Things That Must Be Done" since the current Glamour system is working as intended.

[Dhalya]

You are under the impression that that information is "stored" somewhere. I am under the impression that such storage has two IDs - what the item actually is and what the item should look like. These IDs are attached to the slot for each item (on yourself, or transferred to inventory) and accompany the item throughout its life. Glamour plates convert one ID in each slot position on yourself. This is much more efficient than also creating a table that has to be sent to your console/PC each game session. And no, I wouldn't trust such a table to be loaded to your system once and be done with it. That's way too easy to hack.

If I understand correctly you are talking about armor pieces while they are still in inventory or storage. Those need to store a lot of information like item ID, glammed item ID, dye, soul binding status, repair status, HQ etc. I don't think anything can be changed about those.
(Except people will stop hoarding so many of them and paying for X extra retainers if log was introduced)

What I ment is basically a system that is already in the game - crafting log. The log shows all of the possible thousands of acquirable items and a status check if you ever crafted it or not. That's it. Could be the same with all armor appearances.
In no way is it connected to what you actually have in your inventory or storage right now. The only addition then would be loading these items into UI inside inn room when you approach the dresser even if loading took 1 minute, whatever just please!

But as I read in previous similar threads, they had issues especially with low level pink-grade gear that had randomly-rolled stats and somehow probably generated tons of possible items for just one appearance, also the dying system... I don't know and honestly I am very curious to see their architecture that has caused so many limitations over the years it must be quite something.

[Eriane_Elis]

15 current plates, plus the 5 new ones, equals 20 plates total. There are 20 jobs including BLU, so that's one plate each.

Crafters and gatherers are technically classes, not jobs

That's the problem. They waste a lot of dev time on making life skill glams that nobody can ever use because which omnicrafter will use all of their glam slots them? They need to fix the dumb glam system for crafting and gathering and make it available to be used on ALL classes. I can't use a great looking fishing costume because I don't have 3 separate glam slots for fisher, miner and botanist and never will have at this rate.

My point being is that this community is heavily RP involved but we're stuck with 15, 20 glam slots. We shouldn't be limited or if we are, it should be 99 and be given custom categories for them. SE might say that it's a memory related issue with how much data can be moved around with the player but I think instead it's a core design problem and should be addressed and eventually fixed. And what's the deal with not being able to use any glam on any class? It doesn't break immersion to do so, if anything, it would be more immersive. It's not like you don't see players in undies playing as a tank already.

Ps. Why does unequipped glam have to be saved server-side? Just save it client-side and do something like what the /isearch system does to verify the glam/color combo exists in the dresser. There might be a 0.2s lag but who cares? It would give us unlimited glam power at the expense of possibly getting rid of magical girl transformation macros.

[Eriane_Elis]

If you assume, that they use a relational database then yes. With a relational database, a glamour log is easy going. But we know literary nothing about their infrastructure. I have asked it in the current newsletter. But my questions were not answered by the devs.


Cheers

I could be wrong but a long time ago I had read that they used Microsoft SQL to store player data. That doesn't mean that they use it for everything. Guild Wars uses Microsoft SQL and WoW uses Oracle RDBMS. A lot of the data has to be ACID compliant and the go-to without having to reach for some obscure technology that requires specialists is either going to be Microsoft or Oracle for "online" databases. For a game as old as FF14 which started development probably around 2004, I would presume it isn't any new modern thing.

[Ransu]

*looks at glamour dresser with only 30 items in it*

I guess I can understand some people using it as storage, but it blows my mind people can fill up 800 slots so easily.

[Dhalya]

Ps. Why does unequipped glam have to be saved server-side? Just save it client-side and do something like what the /isearch system does to verify the glam/color combo exists in the dresser. There might be a 0.2s lag but who cares? It would give us unlimited glam power at the expense of possibly getting rid of magical girl transformation macros.

Exactly, the glam log has to be server side but the plates could be unlimited and client-side, same as currect gear sets. When you click the gearset without owning some of the items registered to it, it just skips them.

[ClaudeHerel]

Interpretation:

"Adding more space (as requested by many players) + allowing use of plates outside of major cities (as requested by many players) is a BAD THING, because it doesn't work like World of Warcraft's Trasmogrification system."

Imagine defending a system that is objectively worse than WoW's LOL

[Ransu]

Part of the reason I hope they are going to have another MMO being worked on not "AT 10 years from now" but sometime from now to then, such that it's well and ready when it's time to phase FFXIV like they did to FFXI. It's not a statement of death to the game, as the game is going to be fine for quite some time longer- just like WoW was, but as it ages it'll get harder for multiple reasons (competition, difficultly implementing features, too much familiarity making everything seem like an 'old idea' even if it's not (you can see this as increased rate of burn out), etc. But the game easily has a few more successful years even if they didn't do well, so again it's not the death of the game in a general sense, heck look at FFXI still making them money lol.). Alternatively they may try to make it work in FFXIV, it's possible- just sounds extra scary. But then again releasing a new mmo is probably also extra scary. Everything is scary XD.

WoW's failure's are self inflicted and have nothing to do with the age of the game and everything to do with the toxicity of the dev studio.

Don't count on a new FF MMO any time soon with FFXIV getting graphical upgrades come 7.0 and continued support for the game easily going for another 10 years.

[Minthe]

*looks at glamour dresser with only 30 items in it*

I guess I can understand some people using it as storage, but it blows my mind people can fill up 800 slots so easily.

I call them glam collectors, well at least that's what I'd consider myself. I save almost every decent outfit piece from dungeons, raids, the mogstation- everywhere. I easily filled the 400 in the glam dresser and still have my retainers jam packed with all kinds of gear. I just really like fashion I guess idk lol