Request: Crafting From Retainers

[Tridus]

To reiterate, they aren't sending or writing unchanged retainer data. Retainer inventory is only ever checked when you summon a retainer, as far as I can tell.

The reason why retainer inventory has to be seperate is because they sync and save all data so frequently, including unchanged data. It's also why chocobo inventory was implemented the way it was: it's specifically unavailable in lots of situations so they don't have to sync it when they sync your main inventory. The main inventory works as he describes: the server is overly frequently sending the entire state back to the client and saving it, including everything that's unchanged. That's the problem that causes all this other stuff.

If they treated retainer inventory as part of your main inventory, it'd get synced constantly as well, and since it's so much bigger, it would create tremendous load problems.

More generally, the way they bend over backwards with stuff like the /isearch implementation to avoid making extra server calls definitely supports the claim that they are worried about server limitations.

Right, but fixing the underlying problem so they don't constantly sync and save unaltered data would eliminate the problem at the source. That's the reason why games like WoW can give you so much more bag space. It's not because Blizzard has unicorn powered servers: it's because they don't create unnecessary traffic and load in the first place.

"Server limitations" has a hardware connotation to it, but it's really a software problem. Do the hard work required to fix the underlying issue with how the client and server are interacting on this, and you'd see a vast improvement in what can be done.

[Talraen]

...

Oh I agree that a different server setup would potentially alleviate these issues. But that's not going to happen anytime soon (or ever), and we should be realistic about whether requests like this will be implemented as a result. Criticizing their years-old design doesn't solve any problems. I'm not sure it's at all practical to ever change basic server design issues for a running game anyway, because they've likely taken advantage of this design in other ways that a redesign would end up breaking. I do hope FF17 or whatever has a better basic design, but I'm not holding my breath for this game.

[Tridus]

Oh I agree that a different server setup would potentially alleviate these issues. But that's not going to happen anytime soon (or ever), and we should be realistic about whether requests like this will be implemented as a result. Criticizing their years-old design doesn't solve any problems. I'm not sure it's at all practical to ever change basic server design issues for a running game anyway, because they've likely taken advantage of this design in other ways that a redesign would end up breaking. I do hope FF17 or whatever has a better basic design, but I'm not holding my breath for this game.

Yup, for sure. It's a hard problem to fix now. Very hard. It'd be worth doing, but that's not to sell short the scale of the work.

[DeadMoroz]

Why not to just add something like 'dedicated crafting material inventory'? Something where obtained crafting mats would go to, when you buy/gather/monster-droped/quest-rewarded them. Mats used directly from that inventory when crafting. Cannot be dragged to main/retainer/saddle-bag inventory, but can be put on market (from retainer dialog)/sold to vendor/disgarded. Pure server-side - no data send to client, except chat log notice and gathe/drop rnotification. No need in constant client-server syncronization. A lot of space will be cleaned in main inventory, which also will reduce syncronization data.
This crafting materials inventory could even have category tabs for better UI, usability and network bandwidth (logs, minerals, alchemy,cooking, e.t.c) - so not all mats will be requested from server at once, when you open inventory, but only those in active tab.