FINAL FANTASY XIV Letter from the Producer LIVE Part III

[Warlock]

What i like most of these live letters is Yoshi showing too much XD he probably got scolded after this letter hahaha those three sure had a fun time

[Yellow]

How amazing does the game look?

I'm so excited to try out the new crafting and gathering!! And the graphics looks pretty damn cool too (remember this is .. pre-Alpha? They still need to add in the shadowing/etc .. I mean look at 1.0 Alpha/Beta/Release. They each had significant changes to the lighting).

[Len]

What's with the glitched out log-chopping NPC animation? [X]

...

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Regarding the "Gear Set" thinggie that you guys keep discussing about;

Isn't that the reason why he ask for feedbacks? either do macro or gear sets... .

[Skies]

Regarding the "Gear Set" thinggie that you guys keep discussing about;

Isn't that the reason why he ask for feedbacks? either do macro or gear sets... .

Well... Actually he mentioned an "alias" system that I am actually hoping that people remember he mentioned and that it's used. Essentially, if I understood it right, one can equip a 'ghost' of a gear into a gearset, and when you switch to that set it moves the gear from the gearset it is to the one equipped. Of course, once you have a ton of gearsets you might start loosing control of where is what... Which was one of his big worries.

What's with the glitched out log-chopping NPC animation? [X]

...

Did he not explain that the game was working on the unstable build server and that the game was liable to crash? Development issues!

Like the zero-length tail!

[Len]

Did he not explain that the game was working on the unstable build server and that the game was liable to crash? Development issues!

Like the zero-length tail!

Yoshi-P better fix it, or else.

[Felis]

Yoshi-P better fix it, or else.

Fix is coming with beta

[Hulan]

Well... Actually he mentioned an "alias" system that I am actually hoping that people remember he mentioned and that it's used. Essentially, if I understood it right, one can equip a 'ghost' of a gear into a gearset, and when you switch to that set it moves the gear from the gearset it is to the one equipped. Of course, once you have a ton of gearsets you might start loosing control of where is what...

I had not heard this, but if true, it confirms my suspicions about the root problem that is causing this whole "one gear per set" issue. Since the items that are put into gear sets are no longer stored in our inventory, where are they? From a programming perspective, it's a serious consideration. Let's say you could put the same helm in multiple gear sets. Is each instance of the helm in each gear set a clone of the original helm? In that case, what happens when it takes damage, do you have to iterate through all sets, looking for instances of that same helm and updating the damage? Or do you just have one "real" helm, and the rest are just pointers, in which case, which is the "real" helm?

It's not that none of these questions can't be answered, it's that not limiting gear to one set per item spawns hundreds of niggling little contradictions, not to mention a cyclical pointer nightmare depending on how it's implemented. Of course all of this trouble spawns from the simple supposition "gear in gear sets is removed from your inventory". If it weren't removed from your inventory, gear sets could just be collections of references.

Sounds like this "Alias" thing implies that they are basically making the first set you equip to store the actual gear instance, while the rest of the sets just store references. That begs the question though, what happens when you remove the aforementioned helm from the first set? Does the instance get loaded into a random set that contains a reference?

I'm am also extremely displeased with the idea of one gear per set (since it really does almost completely destroy the utility of gear sets), but I can at least see why they are leery of trying to do otherwise. Seems like a nightmare I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

[Aion]

I had not heard this, but if true, it confirms my suspicions about the root problem that is causing this whole "one gear per set" issue. Since the items that are put into gear sets are no longer stored in our inventory, where are they? From a programming perspective, it's a serious consideration. Let's say you could put the same helm in multiple gear sets. Is each instance of the helm in each gear set a clone of the original helm? In that case, what happens when it takes damage, do you have to iterate through all sets, looking for instances of that same helm and updating the damage? Or do you just have one "real" helm, and the rest are just pointers, in which case, which is the "real" helm?

It's not that none of these questions can't be answered, it's that not limiting gear to one set per item spawns hundreds of niggling little contradictions, not to mention a cyclical pointer nightmare depending on how it's implemented. Of course all of this trouble spawns from the simple supposition "gear in gear sets is removed from your inventory". If it weren't removed from your inventory, gear sets could just be collections of references.

Sounds like this "Alias" thing implies that they are basically making the first set you equip to store the actual gear instance, while the rest of the sets just store references. That begs the question though, what happens when you remove the aforementioned helm from the first set? Does the instance get loaded into a random set that contains a reference?

I'm am also extremely displeased with the idea of one gear per set (since it really does almost completely destroy the utility of gear sets), but I can at least see why they are leery of trying to do otherwise. Seems like a nightmare I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

Damn, I had same opinion with you,but you explained it really well. I we want to use reference, the gear should stored in particular inventory tab, to track the actual item.

[Abriael]

I had not heard this, but if true, it confirms my suspicions about the root problem that is causing this whole "one gear per set" issue. Since the items that are put into gear sets are no longer stored in our inventory, where are they? From a programming perspective, it's a serious consideration. Let's say you could put the same helm in multiple gear sets. Is each instance of the helm in each gear set a clone of the original helm? In that case, what happens when it takes damage, do you have to iterate through all sets, looking for instances of that same helm and updating the damage? Or do you just have one "real" helm, and the rest are just pointers, in which case, which is the "real" helm?

It's not that none of these questions can't be answered, it's that not limiting gear to one set per item spawns hundreds of niggling little contradictions, not to mention a cyclical pointer nightmare depending on how it's implemented. Of course all of this trouble spawns from the simple supposition "gear in gear sets is removed from your inventory". If it weren't removed from your inventory, gear sets could just be collections of references.

Sounds like this "Alias" thing implies that they are basically making the first set you equip to store the actual gear instance, while the rest of the sets just store references. That begs the question though, what happens when you remove the aforementioned helm from the first set? Does the instance get loaded into a random set that contains a reference?

I'm am also extremely displeased with the idea of one gear per set (since it really does almost completely destroy the utility of gear sets), but I can at least see why they are leery of trying to do otherwise. Seems like a nightmare I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

Interestingly enough, something like this gear set thing is present in The Secret World (you don't need to have two items of the same to have them in the same set), and Funcom didn't manage to make it work correctly since beta.

While they're solving a ton of issues, this one continues to bug out.