Has there been any word about increased inventory space?

[Riepah]

Hi there.

One of the biggest questions about Heavensward that's been on my mind for several months, is whether or not we'll get more inventory space to make up for the flood of new items. I've had inventory space issues for the longest time, and with the expansion around the corner, I just know I'll be in major trouble if there's no increase.

I've heard rumors about a free extra retainer for everyone, I heard they'll increase the armoury chest size a while *after* Heavensward comes around, but were there any official statements about anything like this?

[Evergrey]

Not what I have heard of... But I think I read that we might get another retainer.

[Twilite]

I think there's something wrong with how this game's item management is, if you run out of space from 4 retainers + player inventory. I'm constantly having to delete mats I don't use anymore to free up space.

[Gralna]

I'd really like some kind of glamour catalog/library, currently using up over 100 slots of inventory on items I constantly cycle through for glamours, that's even with throwing out a lot of items I like, but rarely glamour.

However for crafting mats, I find I can easily keep most of what I need on 3 retainers, course I don't store mats I can buy from vendors, since they are super cheap to buy. Also with mnk/min/bot/fsh retainers, I can have them gather 90% of all the mats I'll ever need.

One of my biggest concerns atm though, is the armory. With 3 new jobs being added, it's going to be getting really full for people who use all jobs/classes, especially for weapon armory.

[MageBlack]

I think at the niconico event they mentioned they are aware of the lack of space and they were looking at ways to handle it without making data packets too big (or something like that). I'll find the quote.

Edit:

Found it!

They are aware that the capacity of the current Armoury Chest is too low. Right now, since there's no way to add to this without increasing the write time to the back end servers, it will take a bit more time to work this out. (Yoshida)

The number of items you can store in your Armoire will increase. (Yoshida)

Source

[Conradus]

Hi there.

One of the biggest questions about Heavensward that's been on my mind for several months, is whether or not we'll get more inventory space to make up for the flood of new items. I've had inventory space issues for the longest time, and with the expansion around the corner, I just know I'll be in major trouble if there's no increase.

I've heard rumors about a free extra retainer for everyone, I heard they'll increase the armoury chest size a while *after* Heavensward comes around, but were there any official statements about anything like this?

The only real complaint I have about the armoury chest is that there's only one ring catagory. It should have two, perhaps right ring and left ring. because 25 slots when each armor set has two rings just isn't enough.

[Riepah]

But I think I read that we might get another retainer.

I think I read that same thing, but I've no clue where I read that. Do you happen to remember? Because I can't tell how trustworthy that source was at all.

If possible, I'd like to know a good bit before Heavensward comes out so I can adjust. If they give us more room, everything's peachy - if they don't, I must cut ties with some of the stuff I store in time, because otherwise there is no chance I can enjoy Heavensward at all.

[KisaiTenshi]

I think at the niconico event they mentioned they are aware of the lack of space ...



Source

Because certain issues crop up with inventory management... and we have seen it show up...

1) Too many "inventory", as in on-person, spaces means that everytime you do something, it has to be written back to the disk on the server.
2) The retainer only has this limitation while the retainer is open, and the Retainer has 175 spaces plus 20 market spaces and the 13 gear spaces. So clearly it's possible to have more, just the conditions where the retainer is used is different from that of the player
3) Other games have tried to work-around this by having "bags" that open into more inventory spaces, with limitations on the bags that they can only store a certain kind of item, and it just works like a super-stack (eg instead of stacking to 99, it changes the stack to 999, 9999 or something) , this is generally useful when the game has a limited number of types of crafting materials, but FFXIV doesn't do this, so it can't and unlikely won't do this.
4) The entire reason there's limits has to do with latency between the player and the server. Because every time something changes in the inventory, everything in the inventory has to be updated (eg synced to disk) and that results in higher round-trip latency.

Without naming the game, I'll mention off hand what happens when you have too much inventory via "expansion bags"
- There is latency, usually a very very long latency that is incurred every time the bag is opened, this is because the server has to update the quantities in the bag, and it's a huge source of item loss or item duplication when the server crashes.
- When items are used that stack inside the bag and the main inventory, the game client can run out of sync and think you no longer have items to use because the remaining quantity is in the bag, because the item is just in a shortcut bar.
- The same game has pets/mounts that have their own storage space. I think this is more appropriate in the context of FFXIV, as it can work the same way as retainer space, but at the same time, it causes latency in summoning the mounts/companions for the same reason there is latency when the bags are opened.

So unfortunately the only real solutions to inventory space involve finding ways to compress the needed space down.

One way of solving this is by directly connecting the market to the crafting process. eg have your retainer automatically summoned when crafting items you don't have the needed materials in your inventory, and allow the retainer to operate like an extended part of your inventory while crafting. When finished crafting the retainer would then sell any unneeded materials back to the market if they were pulled from the retainer's store space.

Another minor solution would involve adding inventory to "minions" that "help" with DoH/DoL jobs. eg having a Goldsmith minion would let you store anything desynthed from the Goldsmith job, having a Miner minion would let you store materials gathered from mining, etc. They would all "share" a common minion inventory so only crafting materials are stored to a maximum of one stack.

[MageBlack]

I'd really like some kind of glamour catalog/library, currently using up over 100 slots of inventory on items I constantly cycle through for glamours, that's even with throwing out a lot of items I like, but rarely glamour.

I like this idea, like a bestiary. Have a log that records all armor purchased, found, or crafted that you can look through, try on, then glamor. This would save space in inventories but we couldnt equip it for stats and would still need to have the item if we wanted to equip it. I just wonder if this would make it harder or easier for the write time back to the servers.

[KisaiTenshi]

I like this idea, like a bestiary. Have a log that records all armor purchased, found, or crafted that you can look through, try on, then glamor. This would save space in inventories but we couldnt equip it for stats and would still need to have the item if we wanted to equip it. I just wonder if this would make it harder or easier for the write time back to the servers.

It would have to be a different mechanic entirely. Like with the Armoire. Anything you "drop into" the glamour Armoire would have to be completely repaired first, spiritbond reset, and unable to be removed from the Armoire without the "key" (to prevent items from being accidentally thrown away, or account-stripped.) Then when you want to change the glamor of an item you just use the key with the gear you want to switch and you get a more generic catalog of "item available for glamour/item not yet stored"

What causes latency in the game is the actual keeping items in the players inventory. With the wearables, the other players can't see the glamour items themselves (when you examine the player), only the name of the item glamoured onto it if you wait a few seconds. So as far as everyone else is concerned, you're wearing the glamored item. From your perspective you're wearing the glamored item with the stats of the underlying item applied to it. It takes up no additional space because the number of objects you're wearing is unchanged. Likewise if a "catalog" is available, those items in the catalog can't arbitrarily be removed, so there's no disk syncing concern.