Request: Crafting From Retainers

[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.