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

[Tridus]

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

While you'd see less content, you wouldn't see no content. People working on art, music, level design, and even encounter design are usually not the same ones who work on server netcode and backend infrastructure. Whatever issue causes them to have to limit the glamour closet to 200 items instead of a WoW style "every item that's ever existed" one, it isn't going to be fixed by the same person that is animating the next tier of raid weapon drops.

Don't get me wrong: there's a cost to doing this kind of overhaul and everything else will have resources taken away because of it. But this is a big enough operation that it's not just 3 people working on it. Some of this stuff absolutely needs dealing with at some point, because the amount of stuff in the game isn't going down. I mean, my crafter & gatherer logs manage to track every single item I've made just fine. Do that, except for worn equipment. No need to overcomplicate it.

[Lord_Zlatan]

snip

I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all

[Callinon]

I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all

Not really. Items in FFXIV really have the following volatile (changable) values:
Spiritbond level
Condition
Dye

It gets a little trickier when we start talking about pink-quality items and relics that allow for dynamic stat assignments, but for the purposes of glamour none of that matters. In fact none of what I mentioned there matters either (maybe dye, but I'd handle that differently). You simply stipulate that an item must be at 100% condition or above before it can be relegated to glamour duty, and warn that spiritbond level will go to 0. Just like the armoire actually. All you're really storing is the item's numeric ID value OR a big boolean list tied to the item database. The actual space any of this takes up is pretty small.

This is basically how WoW's glamour system works too. It just unlocks the glamour state for any item you've collected. It doesn't matter what happens to the physical item after that, you've got it and so do all the other characters on your account.

The OP's post really hits the nail on the head. SE rushed the hell out of their database and netcoding design process when they were making 2.0. And if they don't spend some time getting their act together, the whole thing is just going to collapse in on itself someday.

[RichardButte]

The OP's post really hits the nail on the head. SE rushed the hell out of their database and netcoding design process when they were making 2.0. And if they don't spend some time getting their act together, the whole thing is just going to collapse in on itself someday.

This.

It's not going to be an option, and we're going to hit the point where they'll need to start deleting expansion items from the game to make room for new ones.

Remember that chest piece appearance you're so fond of? Better not get too attached to it...

They are better off creating a brand new FF MMO at that point.

Even if, logistics-wise, that's what they'd be doing, the story, setting, and content of this game are still very much loved by the community.

We're not talking about rebuilding the ENTIRE game from scratch, just about updating database and netcode.

Again, they built 2.0 WHILE maintaining and updating 1.0, and that required rebuilding nearly everything except some parts of major cities, since the old world was built from copy-pasta.

[Tridus]

This.

It's not going to be an option, and we're going to hit the point where they'll need to start deleting expansion items from the game to make room for new ones.

Remember that chest piece appearance you're so fond of? Better not get too attached to it...

No they won't. On the server end, the database requirements for that chest are a primary key and a few bits of data. Anyone who has it will have more data tied to their specific copy of it, but that applies to every item. If you can store 200 clothes, it doesn't matter in the slightest to the server which 200 clothes they are or which expansion they're from.

They'd only have to delete it if the client couldn't handle the data requirements to have all the models, and with the PS3 gone that doesn't seem like any kind of urgent issue.

[Tridus]

I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all

Yeah. The WoW system knows if you've unlocked it, which means "had it in your possession at some point". When you do that with a lot of items, you can track that with 1 bit. So you can track unlocks on a huge number of items in a small amount of storage space. That doesn't let you track dye or anything like that, but for unlock purposes it doesn't matter (you'd need to dye it as part of the glamour process instead, in that case). AFAIK the armoire works like that right now, which is why only certain items can go in it.

The glamour closet is working more like inventory, in which case you have to store which items are in it. That require at a minimum some kind of item key to indicate what item is in that slot, and possibly also a slot number if it's not a fixed data structure like an array. In this case you don't need a quantity because you can't have more than one of a given item in the slot. But an item key is a bigger value to store, so you need more storage space to do it if you want to store a large number of things in there.

Without knowing what their backend looks like it's hard to know why they chose to go that way considering the limitations it creates. Perhaps they didn't have the budget to sort out how to do a dye on a glamour of an item without doing it on the item itself, which would be a problem in a WoW system and likely doesn't exist in this one (assuming it works the old way where you'd dye the item itself and then cast the glamour).

I bet it'd be really fascinating if we could ever get a technical talk from someone on the team about why this stuff works the way it does.

[Minako_Nightsong]

I agree with the statements of the OP but there is another option they might consider. They could age out the game. When that day comes that they can no longer make patches or expansions they simply do not make more. At that time the game has concluded it's natural life cycle and the cost of rebuilding the engine is more than the profits to be made by continuing for a few more years.

I think they do need to go through their main story questline and revamp it for new or returning players. It's a huge turn off at level 50 and cost them money on lost business. An mmo should be prepared to streamline old content as it ages. Things like a housing revamp so that everyone can get an apartment and maybe fix that animation where people appear to run in place sometimes and other times seem to slide across the screen would help attract and retain customers.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

An infrastructure overhaul of that magnitude will likely never occur. They are better off creating a brand new FF MMO at that point. We are seeing gradually deviations away from 1.0 code but a complete overhaul just doesn't happen to an active game. Citing that because FFXIV managed to recover once following 1.x's shutdown doesn't mean they can do it again without player revolt. Keep in mind, to the average player, nothing is amiss. Sure, they may want more QoL features but they likely wouldn't agree with temporarily shutting down the game or to have it remain without much content for an extended period of time.

At best, any significant changes such an infrastructure won't occur outside expansions.