Alternative solution to glamour log

[Abriael]

Firstly, I didn't accuse Yoshi-P for lying, do not put words in my mouth.

You didn't. The OP did, and I was commenting about that.

Read and write frequency is not an entirely predictable quality. You can probably say that it'll be used less than items in inventory, but how much less? Even if you strip the item down to the minimum amount of data, you're probably just saving a small string that potentially isn't that much smaller than the ID itself, assuming that the database isn't coded badly.

Yoshida's response was obviously simplified because he was talking in an interview on a generalist site. Context matters. You don't go much in depth in this kind of technical issues when you talk to that kind of crowd, unless the interviewer prompts you to. As a simplification, his answer is entirely valid, as it captures the essence of the problem. While it probably wouldn't use the same amount of data per item as the inventory, it still works essentially in the same way, with each piece taking up server storage and data bandwidth when accessed.

Knowing first hand the quality of the interpreters that went on the European media tour (since I was there myself, I have worked with them plenty in the past, and I understand Japanese well enough to catch mistakes), I can tell that I doubt something was lost in translation unless the site misquoted/mistranslated on its own. Since translating from English to French is extremely easy, the possibility of big omissions and mistakes in that part is very low. There were two interpreters working in tandem supporting each other so that any mistake made by the interpreter on shift for each interview would be corrected on the fly by the other.

Try telling me you can store thousands of gear within 215 slots.

No. I'm telling you that calling the Director of this game a liar without a shred of evidence is extremely rude, not at all constructive, and not too smart either, considering that you know nothing of how the game is coded.

There are some issues preventing this game to expand further.
I think their dev team is not big enough for such changes and they have to come out with excuses to hide their corporate weaknesses.
It boggles my mind we can't have things other MMORPGs with way smaller budgets and teams already have and enjoying.
Their budget/team must be really limited and you can see it as they reduce the number of dungeons in 4.XX once again.
We will get 1 new dungeon every odd numbered patch now because the team wants to focus on other type of content.
This tell me that there are some issues inside the team which prevents them from implementing things like the glamour log
and other things Yoshida said coming but never made it.
Same for the character creation options. They refused more options because of "memory limitations".

Sorry, but this kind of completely baseless allegation is laughable. Final Fantasy XIV has notoriously a rather big team compared to most MMORPGs, and Square Enix has been consistently hiring for it through 2.0 to now. Which is unsurprising, since the game is one of SE's biggest recurring revenue drivers.

That's also why it gets three fanfests a year in different areas of the world, plenty of events, concerts, and big media tours in luxury venues like the one that just happened. That kind of thing doesn't happen for games with small development teams, budgets or "corporate weakness."

The only "issue" I see is people talking like they know what's going on, when they really don't.

[SokiYagami]

Then I do apologies for my mistake, but I do think your post is kinda misleading (due to the quotation) as of who you're calling out to accusing Yoshi-P as being a liar. But that's enough sidetracking of the topic.

Considering that none of us know how the back-end code works, I still highly doubt that saving the glamour data is identical to increasing inventory slots because if their database are so efficiently optimized to the point that a single item object is similar in size to a string class (it's very unlikely, actually I'm not sure if it's even possible in the case of a RPG item), they probably wouldn't have run into the current situation. And I still believe that many of the current codes are recycled 1.0 assets that are full of spaghetti codes. However, I do agree that calling Yoshi-P a liar for that might be a tad overboard.

[Naunet]

For people asking the source it is a Q&A in a french article made during the Press Tour which the embargo ended the may 31th



Translation (by me)


http://www.jeuxonline.info/article/1...-naoki-yoshida

This is... awful. Yoshida, no. Just... no. I refuse to believe your devs are that incompetent that they can't figure out how to design a glamour log when many other MMOs manage this with absolutely zero issue.

Also to address his other points...

People are not purchasing million+ gil crafted items to glamour them once and then throwing away the item. THEY ALREADY ONLY BUY THINGS ONCE. Not having a glamour log is literally only HARMING your playerbase. It strains our inventory and retainers to the point of bursting. It adds stress and frustration as we try to navigate the overly convoluted process of glamour and accessing inventories. The limit of what we can store also puts a steady pressure to ultimately NOT engage in content. I literally have NO motivation to run content right now because I cannot store any more effin' armors for glamour.

To put this in perspective, I resubbed to WoW about 5 months ago after being away for 4 years. I've not even bought Legion yet. But I've remained subbed and happy just slowly farming up old armor sets and things to unlock in the transmog log. If you want to maintain subscriptions, encouraging people to farm armor appearances is THE way to do it. There is a reason your players say "Glamour is the real endgame" - because it is the CORE motivation that keeps players going back into content long after they've mastered it. However, what point is there in doing that when I cannot actually store any of the potential armors that I could get? Why would I ever want to go in and farm Dun Scaith or whatever when I have no room for the gear? Why bother with farming Alexander, or buying the numerous crafted items? Why bother making any Mogstation purchases? I have no room to store any of it, so I don't do it!!!

[Twinsoul]

It's like Yoshi doesn't appreciate the work his artists put into the armor and doesn't think we'd want to collect it. We should all just throw it away if we're not using it right now.

[DarkDedede]

I'd be happy if they added a solution for 24-man raid gear and augmented tome gear. Those pieces took far too much time, effort and RNG to just toss.

Another thing I'd like to see is the the ability to glamour straight from items that you have stored in the armoire. It would definitely save some time, seeing as searching through the armoire interface is a chore in itself.

[Arutan]

Talking about WoW, how come a game old from 2004 can handle that kind of feature but not FFXIV which have been remade in 2013? And they also have full open world (limited to continent) and still they don't encounter so much issue on the data transfer.

[Abriael]

Talking about WoW, how come a game old from 2004 can handle that kind of feature but not FFXIV which have been remade in 2013? And they also have full open world (limited to continent) and still they don't encounter so much issue on the data transfer.

Because they are coded differently, being different games, designed to support different platforms. It's pretty amazing that this needs to be explained.

[SokiYagami]

Because they are coded differently, being different games, designed to support different platforms. It's pretty amazing that this needs to be explained.

Adding to it, I believe it took Blizzard quite sometime to setup the glamour system over there as well.

But still, it can be done, and should be done at some point of time in FFXIV as well.

[Naunet]

Adding to it, I believe it took Blizzard quite sometime to setup the glamour system over there as well.

But still, it can be done, and should be done at some point of time in FFXIV as well.

Don't even need to look at WoW. They are not unique, nor are they the first to have a log of appearances. Other MMOs implemented it fairly early on.

[SokiYagami]

Don't even need to look at WoW. They are not unique, nor are they the first to have a log of appearances. Other MMOs implemented it fairly early on.

I still stand firm on my speculations on the 1.0 spaghetti code returning from the grave to hunt the coding team. If it's true then it might be faster to start designing a new system from scratch. The time and resources required though...