Is it maybe time for a full infrastructure rebuild? (Re: Database and netcode issues)

[Callinon]

Heh, funny story: I actually saw an accountant post on a game forum and ask that people stop blaming them. He was all "We just tell them how much money we made. We don't tell anyone how they should go about making it. Please stop blaming us and blame the executives who actually make these decisions!"

That's funny, but they're right. The accountants are not making decisions, they're just doing math.

[Belisaire]

You can build a better platform/database structure while maintaining an existing product on an old platform. It would not require some sort of massive pause on playability. It definitely would not be a trivial amount of work. I work in tech though and we have a product running on an old platform that isn't scaling right because it was made when our business prospects were much lower. But we've been crushing it and now we're building a new platform, set to go live in a couple months, and at no point are we taking our platform down for months (and we collect infinitely more data than XIV does).

They closed down 1.0 when they did because frankly, they needed their entire staff operation on 2.0 to make sure it was launched on time and to create content. 2.0 was not a database/platform switch. It was a completely new game, and at some point due to staff resources they needed to abandon 1.0 and go all into 2.0 with every person they had.

[Vstarstruck]

You can build a better platform/database structure while maintaining an existing product on an old platform. It would not require some sort of massive pause on playability. It definitely would not be a trivial amount of work. I work in tech though and we have a product running on an old platform that isn't scaling right because it was made when our business prospects were much lower. But we've been crushing it and now we'rebuilding a new platform, set to go live in a couple months, and at no point are we taking our platform down for months (and we collect infinitely more data than XIV does).

They closed down 1.0 when they did because frankly, they needed their entire staff operation on 2.0 to make sure it was launched on time and to create content. 2.0 was not a database/platform switch. It was a completely new game, and at some point due to staff resources they needed to abandon 1.0 and go all into 2.0 with every person they had.

thanks for this post, maybe this can be realistically done if they hire a few more hands sort of speak. FFXIV makes money, can we see some of that put back in the game please? bigger budget please.

[KageTokage]

The game really does seem limited in ways that other MMOs aren't, the strange way it handles AoE damage/heals being the one I tend to notice the most often.

The fact that there's a hard cap on how many players can even be struck by a single AoE kind of takes some of the fun out of the SB S ranks when they can only damage a small portion of the players present.

[Krotoan]

I enjoy XIV, especially because it's the only themepark MMO I've ever seen that feels like they truly put some love and care into the storyline, characters, and setting.

But there's a worrisome trend when itcomes to developer comments: technical issues tend to be the #1 reason for rejecting requests from the playerbase (even QoL suggestions that have been requested for years), citing the inadequate database as the reason these suggestions either cannot work or would be difficult to implement.

The most recent glamour log changes are sadly a good example of this. They're an improvement, but we can only store up to 200 items in the dresser, meaning this is only ever going to be a bandaid fix, especially as the game continues to expand and more and more items are added. There will still come a day when players will need to empty that dresser out to make room for new items, something they are NOT going to want to do.

This change only delays the inevitable.

I don't see 200 as being their final number though. This looks like an initial foray into their glamour idea with possible expansion as they see its impact. Yes it still has a limitation, but we aren't aware of what the "final cap" is. I remain optimistic about this particular feature and see it as a good start. I would LOVE a GW2 type solution for dyes and wardrobe with items being unlocked account wide and forever as long as you've touched something that used that model once, but that's a whole other system and would have to be coded in as such.. which you did touch on and I'll continue on that point later..

If they wanted to take an expansion to rebuild all of this and get everything up to speed, making the game "future proof" for later expansions and all of their database needs, as well as refactoring the netcode to be more responsive and workable, I wouldn't begrudge them one bit for doing so.

Now, before the "SE Defense Force" chimes in with "YOU CAN WORK AROUND THESE ISSUES!!", please stop missing the point entirely.

There's no reason WoW should have better database servers than XIV, and when you say "You can work around it", you're acknowledging that there is indeed a problem to work around in the first place, one that modern AAA MMOs don't have and one that XIV certainly shouldn't have either.

So I'd say take the time to fix the issues you need to fix, devs, even if it means rebuilding most of the game. The game is more than prosperous enough to do so at this point and, after all, any "fixes" implemented without doing a full revamp are just going to be bandaids in the long run.

XIV is a wonderful game and absolutely worth putting this kind of love and care into.

PS. This is not going to be an OPTIONAL change for the game, FYI. If they're struggling this hard to make due with their current database servers, they're eventually going to find themselves up against a wall where they either cannot add new expansions or need to start deleting expansions from the game to make room for new ones.

PPS. They've also made a change like this once already, back before the game was profitable, where they were building 2.0 while keeping 1.0 running AND were adding content to it.

You can learn all about it in this awesome documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4

This whole game is a workaround. They took the poorly cobbled together mess that was outsourced code and resources and made the game we know and love today. How they convinced someone at the top that "hey, this was a promise to our fans and we failed them, please let us try and give them what we presented and save the face of our company and the world we envisioned" is a miracle in and of itself, let alone creating the experience we enjoy today out of the sludgepile they were given to work with.

Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing against you. I am one of those that would patiently stand by for a year ("one or two patch cycles".. is not enough time) with NOTHING added. No gear, no dungeons, no patches beyond fixing game breaking bugs (like locking players out of actually playing) , no new events, no NOTHING. Just fix it.. please!... but I don't see that happening.

The effort and money involved , from the point of view of someone who does cost/risk analysis as part of their job, is not something you could convince a company bigwig of. At that point I'm pretty sure , as has been pointed out several times in this thread, we would just get FFXIV 2 (.. I dunno.. I mean.. FFXIV II looks weird.. then again the 2 does too.. ). I'm reasonably sure that they would rather as a company spend the money on the continuation of this world in a new engine/framework and game before they reworked the entire thing. Especially since they'd be able to sell the new game and make that initial gob of money instead of handing out a years worth of work for free. .. maybe not totally free if SE gave them more budget from the subs.. but I don't know the actual financials on sub to cost of server maintenance and operation ratio.

Also the majority of the playerbase would REVOLT. Outright. People cry when they don't get enough content or enough unique content already. Imagine the outcry if they announced NO content. Which is what I believe it would take. People would leave in droves and the money they had to make these changes would dry up. Investors would get scared, THAT money would stop as well, people would get fired and the project would die.

In the eyes of an investor or a business person this is optional though. Keep the goose pooping those golden eggs and keep it pooping till they stop coming. When the goose collapses it's time to go look for another one. Bummer about that old goose but there will always be more.

They turned off 1.0 for a quite a bit while it was revamped into 2.0. Just off. I imagine the crunch time was incredible for that. No money coming in, just paying for work that may have been a black hole in the end. That was insanity!




TLR: you are asking for another miracle to happen and that's very unlikely. I hope it does though.

[Tridus]

I don't see 200 as being their final number though. This looks like an initial foray into their glamour idea with possible expansion as they see its impact. Yes it still has a limitation, but we aren't aware of what the "final cap" is. I remain optimistic about this particular feature and see it as a good start. I would LOVE a GW2 type solution for dyes and wardrobe with items being unlocked account wide and forever as long as you've touched something that used that model once, but that's a whole other system and would have to be coded in as such..

There's no reason to assume 200 isn't the final number, either. This is a new thing, they had the chance to do it right (having apparently abandoned the armoire), and what they came up with has what is an already low limit and will continue to feel lower as they keep adding more stuff to the game.

What restriction is in place on the backend that would necessitate a 200 limit right now that won't still exist in a year? None of us can answer that question, and until someone can, the idea that the limit is a temporary "new system" thing and not the actual limit is just optimistic speculation. With how restrictive SE is on server resources, I have a hard time finding anything to suggest we'll see that limit change in the medium term.

[Krotoan]

There's no reason to assume 200 isn't the final number, either. This is a new thing, they had the chance to do it right (having apparently abandoned the armoire), and what they came up with has what is an already low limit and will continue to feel lower as they keep adding more stuff to the game.

What restriction is in place on the backend that would necessitate a 200 limit right now that won't still exist in a year? None of us can answer that question, and until someone can, the idea that the limit is a temporary "new system" thing and not the actual limit is just optimistic speculation. With how restrictive SE is on server resources, I have a hard time finding anything to suggest we'll see that limit change in the medium term.

As your statement is pessimistic doomsaying. I'll walk in hope while you wallow in negativity.

You are correct though, we don't know their developmental decisions or reasons and can either hope or condemn. I DO however know that if you introduce a new feature that uses bandwidth, you do it a bit at a time. It's a bad idea to just open the gates and just hope it doesn't break anything. This is what I base my assessment on.
Lets say the conversion of items to simpler flags of model, color and restrictions instead of tracking stats, soulbinding , and durability reduces the average bandwidth used by each player by 5%. Using this knowledge they may be able to adjust our glamour dresser to have a higher capacity since it uses less bandwidth. Once they know the server can handle it, estimates and projected numbers hold nothing on actual live implementation.

[Tridus]

As your statement is pessimistic doomsaying. I'll walk in hope while you wallow in negativity.

Could be. I'd be pretty happy to be wrong in this case.

You are correct though, we don't know their developmental decisions or reasons and can either hope or condemn. I DO however know that if you introduce a new feature that uses bandwidth, you do it a bit at a time. It's a bad idea to just open the gates and just hope it doesn't break anything. This is what I base my assessment on.

If you plan to scale it, you also design it to scale. In this case, the UI doesn't look suitable to holding 3000 items since it'll be a giant collection of icons on display you have to find, rather than a list with text and icons (like the crafting log, which covers a huge amount of recipes if you're an omnicrafter). Maybe it'll work better in practice, we'll see. A search box would certainly be nice.

Lets say the conversion of items to simpler flags of model, color and restrictions instead of tracking stats, soulbinding , and durability reduces the average bandwidth used by each player by 5%. Using this knowledge they may be able to adjust our glamour dresser to have a higher capacity since it uses less bandwidth. Once they know the server can handle it, estimates and projected numbers hold nothing on actual live implementation.

To me, knowing what they've said about how their backend works, this looks like a glamour themed version of the chocobo saddlebags we're also getting. Both of them are restricted availability inventory, in that they're inventory that isn't always accessible and for which the server (and client) doesn't have to keep data loaded all the time.

The primary value in that approach is that when you transfer data to an instance server (because you're doing a roulette or something), none of that data has to go with you. Your saddlebags and glamour closet are both unavailable in that zone, so there's no need to use bandwidth or RAM on them. That means they don't have to worry about the instance server load changing at all, aside from wherever inn rooms are handled, and even then it's only if you specifically interact with it (ditto with housing if there's one you can put in your house, but it's still an on demand load).

They've called out character data transfer requirements more than once as a reason to not expand things like base inventory, and this approach avoids that problem. That doesn't mean they can scale it up infinitely the way WoW's system does (in that it covers basically every item in the game), but if the on demand loading requirements prove to be manageable then there could be room to grow it.

Hey look at that, I ended up talking myself into agreeing with you!

[Krotoan]

Could be. I'd be pretty happy to be wrong in this case.

Sounds like you have hope for this game yet. We'll hope it all turns out for the better together. Meanwhile, happy adventuring. =]

[Aomine1992]

I totally agree with this becuase these limitations are getting out of hand and hem trying to blame the PS4 like it's the PS3 is not a great excuse...

And eventually this will blow up in their face so the time is now for them to start fixing that crap now especially with relics coming out that will be time enough for people to time sync while they release minimal content or just do the with the new expansion that's plenty of time for them to dig themselves out but they need to really start hitting the games actual infrastructure...and throw the whole launcher away I'm tired of waiting almost 5-10mins to get to the character screen lol