Quote Originally Posted by Callinon View Post
You'd think so (because that's how a normal person would design it) but no. We know from SE's previous communications that all inventory data is updated and written every 15 seconds with the auto save tick regardless of whether anything about it changed. Now I don't know exactly how their database is structured, but I promise you it makes no sense.
Yup. It was a monumentally poor design decision in 1.0 that we've been stuck with ever since. Crafting actually locks your state while you're doing it. So, no retainer access, no accepting invites, no rearranging items in your inventory, no nothing. That's all due to the initial mistake of not using an event model for state.

Technical debt like that is hard to fix after so long. Important, but hard. I'm not sure they have the will to actually do it at this point given how many things it could affect and how it could caused reduced stability initially (even if it'd pay off massively in the long run).

It should be a simple enough matter to load and edit retainer inventory during crafting. But given what SE has done lately, I'd expect there to be "technical issues" with doing it that magically disappear if you pay more for your subscription.
Or they'll just put crafting itself into the phone app, which doesn't carry the same technical debt and would likely be easier. Plus then they can charge $2/crafted item for it.