The Armoire: an ongoing (and frustrating) mystery

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

TLDR: a new expansion just started with 2 new jobs, new limited gear, new glamour and new relics, my glamour dresser is full, my saddlebag is full, and my 3 retainers are already full of job-specific gear and relics. HELP


There’s been complaints about the Armoire for a while, but I’d like to make a thread as one big focus, hoping it will go a bit higher on the priority list of the dev team.

The Active Help window says this:

"Situated in your inn room, estate, and squadron barracks, the armoire can be used to store certain kinds of items with limited methods of obtainment. These include job-specific gear, seasonal event garb, and so forth."


Inconsistencies within the current system:

• As of today, the only job-specific gear that can be stored in the Armoire is the ARR one.
• Seasonal event garb is mostly storable, but there are exceptions like some exclusive items from the Moogle Treasure Trove events (e.g. the Great Serpent of Ringa is storable, but the Namazu Earring isn't).
• Premium items from the Online Store, which are "items with limited methods of obtainment" are not storable.
• Items from the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding are not storable, nor can they be re-acquired from a Calamity Salvager if lost.
• The crafting and gathering tools acquired through achievements are the only achievement-related items that cannot be stored, with the exception of the "...of the Luminary" ones.
• Maybe the least requested item ever, but for the sake of consistency: Manderville Earrings is a limited seasonal item, it's non-retrievable, not purchasable on the Online Store, and not storable.

This is already a pretty big chunk of items that, if you collect them, need to be stored somewhere and therefore taking precious inventory slots.

”Limited methods of obtainment”:

Maybe the criterias needed to meet this requirement should be expanded:

• Obsolete relics: custom stats become irrelevant with every new expansion, and even with the existence of Replicas it’s just nicer to be able to link the real weapon or tool in chat...
• DoH/DoL relics such as Lucis, Skybuilders' and Resplendent tools do not have custom stats, and take up 33 inventory slots already
• Deep Dungeon weapons take considerable effort to acquire, with little to no benefit apart from glamour.
• Gear specific to the Baldesion Arsenal and Delubrum Reginae (Savage) such as the Elemental +2, the Kirin/Vermilion and the Augmented Law’s Order sets. This content will eventually decline in popularity and its loot will become harder, if not impossible to acquire, thus making its methods of obtainment more and more limited.
• Lvl 1 unique and untradable gear, including all seasonal items, premium items, and items obtained through quests or other means (recently, the Sharlayan Diadema and Thavnairian Ribbon)
• Basically, any item that is unique, untradable, and can’t be acquired through Dungeons, Normal Raids, Savage Raids, Alliance Raids (all content that can be run as an undersized party), or the Market Board.

( 1 / 2 )

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

Of course, one might say “just get more retainers” or “you don’t need to hold on to all this obsolete gear, just throw it away” or “you can organize a glamour farm with 23 other people if you really want it”, but there are a lot of different types of players.
Some are collectors, some are hoarders, some can’t afford extra retainers, some just don’t have the time and energy to go through the same effort more than once. What all players have is an Armoire, and too many items that can’t be stored in it.

I understand that the Armoire is an old system preceding the Glamour Dresser by several years, and it’s likely that attempting to improve it would result in a huge production cost, but if it’s not addressed soon the problem (and the inventory bloating, and the frustration of players) will grow bigger and bigger with every new expansion, if not every new patch.

Overall, expanding the possibilities of the Armoire system would result in less inventory bloating, less need to upgrade the Glamour Dresser regularly, and less frustration from all types of players.

( 2 / 2 )

[Ardeth]

We need the wardrobe system that games like Wow and Gw2 have. And we needed it like two expansions ago. But we don't know what kind of code they are dealing with. It could be impossible for them to implement something like that. But I agree with you the current system is terrible.

[Kisshu]

For weapon relics: At certain steps in the quests you get the ability to buy replicas from NPCs. Integrate this into the Glamour Dresser so we can pull the glamour from Inn-rooms instead of having to go to each individual NPC. This would allow us to discard the main weapons when we're finished with them if we want and have a quick and easy way to get the glamours.

[Krotoan]

no.. you got it right. It'd be REALLY REALLY nice if we could have AF sets stored in it. I think the current reasoning is they all are re-acquirable reasonably easily, some free. It's weird though that we gotta go to the calamity salvager for one set, sharlyan for another.. etc.

would be very very nice if they'd expand it though. There's probably some sort of tech limitation making them hesitant to dump things in it.

But as someone else suggested, just having an NPC link in one place to purchase all of the ones we've unlocked would be awesome.

[Phaty]

We need the wardrobe system that games like Wow and Gw2 have. And we needed it like two expansions ago. But we don't know what kind of code they are dealing with. It could be impossible for them to implement something like that. But I agree with you the current system is terrible.

It's not impossible. The functionality is already in the game with the "try on" system and dye previews. Its just dev time to make a UI for it to save sets like glamour plates (which there's plug-ins that do that already)

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

It's not impossible. The functionality is already in the game with the "try on" system and dye previews. Its just dev time to make a UI for it to save sets like glamour plates (which there's plug-ins that do that already)

The "try on" and "dye preview" features are client-based (you are the only one seeing them on your screen).
The reason glamour plates can only be applied in city hubs, glamour dressers only exist in inns and GC barracks, and armoires and FC chests only exist in specific areas is because this is all information that has to be stored online and shared to all other players as well as the Lodestone, and it would cause way too much stress on servers if we could use these features everywhere all the time. That requires a lot more production resources than "just make the UI for it".
Additionally, a lot of requests have been made in the past to improve the UI or other systems that have existed since 2.0 or even 1.0, and the dev team has already explained that it was virtually impossible because the original structure they're working with can't support it, or they can't justify the enormous production costs required to basically rebuild that structure from scratch.

The "plug-ins" you mention are third party tools and against Terms of Service, so it's not a good idea to discuss them on an official forum.

[Deceptus]

We need the wardrobe system that games like Wow and Gw2 have. And we needed it like two expansions ago. But we don't know what kind of code they are dealing with. It could be impossible for them to implement something like that. But I agree with you the current system is terrible.

Yeah we do, the code is utter sh!t.

It's the reason for damn near every limitation in the game. Start with sh!t, End with sh!t.

IMHO they need to stop allowing Glamour everywhere because it's causing a strain on the system. Only allow it in Inn's where it can properly load an expanded Glamour Dresser. Even if it takes 10s or so to rebuild everything you have, or query it.

The devs have stated the reason they can't expand the Glamour Dresser is because our data has to go with us wherever we are. If they made it so that data is only accessed in very limited capacity it would lessen the strain.

For weapon relics: At certain steps in the quests you get the ability to buy replicas from NPCs. Integrate this into the Glamour Dresser so we can pull the glamour from Inn-rooms instead of having to go to each individual NPC. This would allow us to discard the main weapons when we're finished with them if we want and have a quick and easy way to get the glamours.

Except the Skybuilders DoH/DoL relics. For some reason those can't be obtained via NPC so you have to keep 8 items if you want the glamours.

Yay, more item bloat!

[Fhaerron]

^ All these pointless band aid fixes.

Get rid of it and just make a log. Once you obtain and item and equip/bind it to yourself mark the item entry as 'true' in the log.
You can still use the glamour commodore to create glamour plates and instead of putting items in it it's just the log and you can select whatever items you have as 'true'.


Would use far less data as well.


But hey, they need to make money on people who buy extra retainers and put their armors on them.

[Risvertasashi]

The glamor system has needed serious improvements for a long, long time. More than just a few extra plates and a little extra dresser space. Mods have stepped up for some of this (like additional glam plates and easier at-a-glance seeing if you have something with the same appearance), but there's only so much that can be done client side and, of course, we aren't supposed to use mods.

But, sadly, I don't think we're ever going to get more than maybe a token improvement every few years. It's just going to be one of FF's downsides I guess, "Does most things better than the other big MMOs but glam is worse." And, of course, SE makes more money when you buy additional inventory from them...