Market Wards, enough is enough

[Aztecguy82]

If you think about it Wards is just an AH without history. As long as they don't add history i don't care if they use wards or AH. If they has a preview window of how an item would look on your character(like on Aion), i would prefer AH no history.

[Wolfie]

Any developer (or game critic) worth their salt would have realized a long time ago that there are major, fundamental design flaws with Market Wards that cannot ever be fixed and will always make inferior. The few people that are still active on FFXIV just like plugging their ears and pretending like everything's perfect.

[Elexia]

The few people that are still active on FFXIV just like plugging their ears and pretending like everything's perfect.

I've yet to see someone say this game is perfect. Why exaggerate?

[ArkhamNative]

Any developer (or game critic) worth their salt would have realized a long time ago that there are major, fundamental design flaws with Market Wards that cannot ever be fixed and will always make inferior.

I have been saying the same since day one. SE has done a good job of improving the experience by streamlining the browsing of bazaars and improving the speed at which the retainer models load, but at some point they will have to realize they're throwing good money after bad.

They have made it only seem less annoying by putting half an auction house in place and early-loading the starred retainers. If you want to look for a retainer by name (maybe you want to buy multiple items from the same ward without all the trips back and forth to the make-believe "search" counter) you will see it is extremely frustrating and nigh impossible, just like before the search-and-flag system. The game can still show only those retainers immediately around you. Even 1-2 steps forward will reveal many retainers previously invisible, while those close behind you quickly disappear.

This market ward system strains at the current server populations and would never scale to the number of players in a successful game. Sure SE could eventually add more servers, but surely there's a limit. I shudder to imagine 5 times the number of servers we have now, each feeling just as desolate.

The few people that are still active on FFXIV just like plugging their ears and pretending like everything's perfect.

I don't think I would have said it so harshly, but I cannot disagree with the sentiment. Even I have become a cheerleader for SE at the incremental changes and improvements. ("Yes! We got backstory and quests!!") I think that's just human nature, to be hopeful and supportive. However I hope SE understands this and realizes that "better than it was" can still be "not acceptable to modern MMO gamers".

[Wolfie]

I have been saying the same since day one. SE has done a good job of improving the experience by streamlining the browsing of bazaars and improving the speed at which the retainer models load, but at some point they will have to realize they're throwing good money after bad.

They have made it only seem less annoying by putting half an auction house in place and early-loading the starred retainers. If you want to look for a retainer by name (maybe you want to buy multiple items from the same ward without all the trips back and forth to the make-believe "search" counter) you will see it is extremely frustrating and nigh impossible, just like before the search-and-flag system. The game can still show only those retainers immediately around you. Even 1-2 steps forward will reveal many retainers previously invisible, while those close behind you quickly disappear.

This market ward system strains at the current server populations and would never scale to the number of players in a successful game. Sure SE could eventually add more servers, but surely there's a limit. I shudder to imagine 5 times the number of servers we have now, each feeling just as desolate.



I don't think I would have said it so harshly, but I cannot disagree with the sentiment. Even I have become a cheerleader for SE at the incremental changes and improvements. ("Yes! We got backstory and quests!!") I think that's just human nature, to be hopeful and supportive. However I hope SE understands this and realizes that "better than it was" can still be "not acceptable to modern MMO gamers".

I know it's harsh, but every time someone comes out with a good point against MW (and trust me, there are LOTS), dozens of people jump down his/her throat about how MW is perfect or better than AH or whatever. It gets tiring trying to explain to people why something doesn't work, only to not be heard and for them to just keep spouting the same stuff I refuted.

To expand on what you said, the following will never be possible in Market Wards, as long as SE insists that that there be physical NPCs selling your stuff in separate zones:

Retainers selling multiple categories of items without a penalty
Excessive zoning when buying multiple items
Excessive time spent performing searches and browsing
Inability to render a lot of shops (also places a big strain on weaker gaming machines)
Ward limits (and if the game ever gets more than 2000 players per server, this is going to be HUGE)
Limited sale slots and retainers (also problem combined with point #1)

Really, there is nothing that MW does now that can't be made better, faster, and cheaper (in terms of developer costs) by removing the NPCs and making everything happen from a windowed interface like FFXI/WOW/Aion/[your MMO of choice].

[Moth]

I don't have a problem with the wards, they just need to keep them from crashing.

[TheVedis]

Ok i just gotta state something

people didnt quit in mass because of no AH
they didnt quit in mass cuz they couldnt jump

The main killers at launch were the following

1) massive UI lag
2) combat system that coulda been alot better
3) lack of content

those are the main 3 things that matter, not silly things like "i cant jump down a cliff wah wah wah"


as for the wards right now, they are fine as is, but could ALWAYS use more improvement, and alot of those improvements are obviousnt and dont need restating

the recent crashing has gotten worse due to the fix they put in for the retainers reseting(which was in turn a minor crash bug before thats gotten worse cuz of it)
this is due to mmo coding, all mmos have this problem when they put certain fixes in, sometimes it shows up worse then others
i 99% expect something in tomorows patch addressing it

[Dimo]

For me, I feel like buying from the market wards isn't terrible (yes its not as quick/easy as an auction house, but im not ripping my hair out over it). What kills it for me is selling stuff on there. That is the real problem/hassle. Basically you have to:

1.Choose the item you want to sell from your retainer
2.Exit that menu and go to the search function
3.Figure out what category the item even falls under
4.Look at the prices of the item
5.Exit those menus and go back to retainer
6.Put the item up for sale

Now with a good UI based auction house they could reduce that many steps way down. Type in the item in a search function, check prices, put the item up for sale, done. Right now theres just way to many menus to go through just to sell 1 item, and with the UI lag, its really a hassle.

[Delsus]

For me, I feel like buying from the market wards isn't terrible (yes its not as quick/easy as an auction house, but im not ripping my hair out over it). What kills it for me is selling stuff on there. That is the real problem/hassle. Basically you have to:

1.Choose the item you want to sell from your retainer
2.Exit that menu and go to the search function
3.Figure out what category the item even falls under
4.Look at the prices of the item
5.Exit those menus and go back to retainer
6.Put the item up for sale

Now with a good UI based auction house they could reduce that many steps way down. Type in the item in a search function, check prices, put the item up for sale, done. Right now theres just way to many menus to go through just to sell 1 item, and with the UI lag, its really a hassle.

They could change it so you can choose to type what you want to search for which would streamline it more, especially if you arent sure what catogory an item is under, the problem is, as I have already said is the uncertanty behind the future of the wards right now, admitedly this is an addition to the code so there would not be the costs involved from my other post so we could see it sometime.

Also if your gonna sell somthing wether its in your inventory or on your retainer you usually know what it is, i know few people who think "hmmm i wanna sell somthing random" which is the only time you would need to choose the item you want to sell before you check prices ans put it up for sale.

It can be changed so you just need to:
1. search for the item by catogory or text
2. go to retainer and give item (if you are carrying it)
3. put item up for sale

@ArkhamNative (couldnt be bothered to quote) when i mentioned more servers it was to releve load on the wards and rather than all the wards on 1 server they would be split to have thier own server per ward or to save money 2 or 3 wards per server. these would be added to the current server groups that make up the worlds. Yes it would cost alot and i know it wont be implemented unless its certain the wards will remain in game.

[Nikita]

I'm just going to chime in with more nonsense that will likely get glossed over...

Honestly, when every person posts at least 2 retainers in ONLY Ul'dah and no where else, it puts a ton stress on those servers. Do you ever see the Limsa or Gridania wards crashing? No. It's only because everyone and their brother will only put crap in Ul'dah

One thing to consider, however, is even if they somehow managed to disperse retainers to the different city-states, would the same problem arise when the PS3 version is released and the population rises? Though they still have sometime to come up with a counter to that issue.