Comments from the Devs

[Corrderio]

Not to mention... who gives a shit if you can hide your accessories before 2.0? They're pretty tiny.

This is why I wonder why they even bothered with accessory models. You can hardly see them so it feels more like a waste of time/resources when compared to armor/weapons

[Raldo]

I know several people who enjoy the accessories as visible entities in the game. While I agree that it probably does place some unneeded stress on the graphics card for the user, I doubt that it costs too many resources to actually create them. Unlike most gear, there isn't really much you have to do different for each race/gender combo in order to have the proper 3d model.

[Niiro]

As it's been said, accessories are barely visible as it is (rings and bracelets are usually under gloves/armor, earrings can be under headgear) but if people want a little less stress on their PC an option that doesn't load or display accessories across the board doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to implement.

Unlike the head/weapon display options we have it wouldn't need to be toggle-able or effect how other players see your character (assuming the intended purpose is for the sake of conserving the user's resources).

But anyway, the point I was trying to make was it's silly to tell us it's too complicated to do, it doesn't seem that difficult to implement a check box in the external graphics config to enable or disable accessory display universally. Just tell the game to not load those .dats and display the same default ring-less fingers/ears/etc. in all cases rather than checking for equipped items.

edit:

Well to be fair, there are a lot of basic things that they literally can't do because the engine can't handle it.; delivery box being one of them. So to try to add and accessory toggle before 2.0 may legitimately be a lot of work because of how awful the engine it runs on now is.

I don't see why a delivery feature couldn't be MacGyver'd using the model of the retainer system. Click on retainer bell and add a new option -> delivery box -> send items/receive items; that functions like an invisible retainer/bazaar. You essentially "bazaar" items in the recipients delivery box until they "buy" (retrieve) them.

While that's a bit of a hypothetical tangent, it's not a matter of the engine not being able to handle it, it's a matter of them not feeling like figuring it out and doing it.

[Jamison]

We're well past the point where anything should be MacGyver'd into the code. I don't find it particularly surprising that given how restrictive the current engine is that some things just aren't possible -- or more importantly -- are not worth the potentially sizable time and effort to shoestring them in. They should be hunkering down for 2.0.

Anything that isn't content or systems usable in 2.0, major bug fixes, or relatively easy to implement... I don't want them wasting their time. We've seen many quality patches under Yoshida, an MMO gamer himself, I highly doubt they've taken to lying to their customers because they are lazy.

[Niiro]

I refuse to believe they spend years designing an MMO with no foresight whatsoever on how a delivery system might be implemented, something so basic to an MMO that it's ridiculous it wasn't there at launch.

Idontwanttobelieve.jpg

[Spider-Dan]

It kinda hurts the discussion when you have that one guy that comes in with the "I love the system, so SE must be keeping it all for me!" nonsense.

Lets hope that doesn't happen here.

I definitely wouldn't say that I "love the system," but it's not entirely bad (compared to, say, XI). There are two things I like about the current system:

1) As has already been mentioned, it's nice to have more controlled input on HQ attempts (as opposed to simple random chance).
2) It's quite useful to be able to eliminate blowups for synths where you only care about pass/fail and not quality; the failure rate for a properly leveled synth at R50 (when paying attention) is effectively 0%. Something like this would have been extremely handy for stuff like Hakutaku Eye Clusters.

[Raldo]

Official translation of Yoshi-Ps statements regarding synthesis (rough translation was posted on the previous page):

Hi, this is Director/Producer Yoshida here again.
Thanks for all the feedback regarding the HQ synthesis revamp! Allow me to provide some more info on the topic (although this might repeat a bit from the recent Topics post…)

The Concept
To put it simply, the main idea behind the revamp is that if Quality exceeds 1,000 when completing synthesis, you’re guaranteed to create an HQ item.

Basically, you can gather HQ materials to raise the Quality to 500 (out of 1000) before starting your synth and this can be seen as the need for crafters needing to get good materials together. In the past, I did talk about crafters being guaranteed an HQ item with all HQ mats. However, after further internal discussion we wanted to leave some room for the crafter's equipment and skill/luck as a deciding factor for the final item. Therefore, we decided to go with 500 instead of the 1000.

Item Quality & HQ Success Rate
Starting in patch 1.21, you’ll be able to visually reference the chances of getting a HQ item while you’re crafting. With the level of Quality increasing in stages from 500⇒800⇒1000, the rate that Quality increases during synthesis will not increase at the same rate through the entire synthesis. The adjustments will be made so that 500-800 Quality will have a major increase in the HQ rate, and 800-1000 will have a gradual increase for the HQ rate.

Therefore, if you collect HQ materials and go for quality of 500, and use abilities at the right time, you will get around 80% HQ success rate at worst, and if everything goes well it can increase up to 100%.

So basically, if you take time to prepare all of the materials ahead of time, and so long as you don’t relax while crafting, it means that you should get 80% - 100% on your first HQ craft and create an HQ item. (I am really sorry about this, but keep in mind that the numbers will be adjusted right up until the last minute…)

Touch Up
Even with an 80% chance of success you still might end up with NQ. Of course, even with a 95% chance of success, there will still be the unfortunate 5% that will get NQ. Even if you think “Oh no my item turned out to be NQ”, you can still try to turn it into HQ with the new adjustments to Touch Up.

Since the success rate can already become 80% or 95%, having the exact same rates again would mess up the balance of total HQ output. Therefore, we think that for this second chance the HQ success rate should be about half. For those that feel very strongly about this kind of thing and say “Darn, I don’t want a NQ item and if it isn’t HQ it’s just like losing the item”, we think it would be good to let these people have one more chance.
I would just like to say again, if you follow the typical flow for creating HQ items, I think you will be able to craft HQ items at a decent rate. So, you can think of the new Touch Up as a little “extra”.

Elemental Instability and Abilities
Elemental instability will be adjusted in accordance with the coming patch as we plan on lowering occurrences of elemental instability to make things less stressful. In patch 1.21, we won’t be making any major changes to the details of the abilities, but adjustments will be made to the proc rate of the abilities.

I look forward to hearing your feedback!

[Kaylia]

I don't see why a delivery feature couldn't be MacGyver'd using the model of the retainer system. Click on retainer bell and add a new option -> delivery box -> send items/receive items; that functions like an invisible retainer/bazaar. You essentially "bazaar" items in the recipients delivery box until they "buy" (retrieve) them.

There is two reasons why it's not a good idea

1) 1.0 is going to get scrapped very soon. Implementing something like this take a huge effort and the benefit would be relatively small...not to mention that they could probably use McGuyver on the 2.0 team.

2) This kind of feature can be incredibly risky since they open up many possibilities of duping, item loss glitches and the like. It's one thing to have something that work 99% of the times, it's another to have one that works 100% of the time. While you could McGuyver the first one just fine, the 2nd one requires a lot more planning and testing.

2) It's quite useful to be able to eliminate blowups for synths where you only care about pass/fail and not quality; the failure rate for a properly leveled synth at R50 (when paying attention) is effectively 0%. Something like this would have been extremely handy for stuff like Hakutaku Eye Clusters.

That's not true. It's entirely up to them to decide the rate at which your craft explode. If they wanted to give "standard" spam (with occasional wait on unstable) a 95% rates, they could. They could also make hakutaku eye clusters lv 55 if they wanted people to fail on it.

Level for level, FFXIV rates are higher, but it has nothing to do with the minigame.

[Niiro]

2) This kind of feature can be incredibly risky since they open up many possibilities of duping, item loss glitches and the like. It's one thing to have something that work 99% of the times, it's another to have one that works 100% of the time. While you could McGuyver the first one just fine, the 2nd one requires a lot more planning and testing.

The reason why I said use the retainer/bazaar model is because it's an already existing and functioning system.

It would only be possible to dupe using them as delivery means if it were possible to dupe with them already.

[Kaylia]

The reason why I said use the retainer/bazaar model is because it's an already existing and functioning system.

It would only be possible to dupe using them as delivery means if it were possible to dupe with them already.

I'm not sure how you can say that, you're going to need a wide set of rules and exceptions to handles every possible abuse or bugs.

What if the retainers is being moved when something is mailed? What if the retainers is deleted or created? What if one side lag out, or fill its inventory when the item is transfered? The list of "things that can go wrong" is incredibly long, and it would need to be tested thoroughly. They would probably need to create an inventory buffer to handle item overflows, and it's something that doesnt seem to exist right now and could potentially come with a ton of issue.

If you look at the history of duping glitches in mmo, you would realize that they come in every form and shape. Adding something to an existing system doesnt automatically make it glitch free. Just takes Salvage dupe for example. Drop systems were working fine for years, but in a different environment (instanced area), it fell apart.

[Niiro]

In my original suggestion I said the delivery box would be it's own "invisible" retainer, meaning it doesn't have an NPC attached to it nor can it move, be deleted, etc, it's just accessed similar to retainers at the bells and the interface functions similarly to a retainer's bazaar.

Also everything you just described that could go wrong applies to current retainers and bazaars and we don't have issues with duping.

[Kaylia]

In my original suggestion I said the delivery box would be it's own "invisible" retainer, meaning it doesn't have an NPC attached to it nor can it move, be deleted, etc, it's just accessed similar to retainers at the bells and the interface functions similarly to a retainer's bazaar.

I'm not saying it's not doable, I'm not saying that reusing some of the existing infrastructure is impossible, I'm simply saying that it's a lot more works than "ctrl+c, ctrl+v".

Also everything you just described that could go wrong applies to current retainers and bazaars and we don't have issues with duping.

As retarded as the concept of "physical presense" is, have you ever traded items with someone in another zone (even something like a city zoneline)? Have you ever traded something to a retainers that isnt summoned right next to you?

I can't speak with certitude, but this game seem to handle communication in a very stupid and inneficient way. You have to be right next to your target to interact with it. The only notable exception would be the search/buy command, but it's probably the reason why it took so long to implement, and I wouldn't be surprised if the actual code for this is incredibly messy.

You say these issue exists already, but from a programming standpoint, they aren't identical.

[Thiefami]

They could barely add instant purchase to the wards without breaking the entire game. I do think 'unable to do this with this engine' is a gigantic cop out. My stance remains on why they have no idea to work with the current client, and that stems from the fact that it was developed by a 3rd party. Obviously on the hush, but it wreaks of proprietary coding with someone who went out of business or someone who they no longer hold a contract with. I face a lot of the same problems with our software at work when our geniuses at the helm refuse to put a major project through our inhouse engineers, and instead opt for hiring a 3rd party.

[Vuitton]

I thought mailbox and AH systems were intentially left out of the designs of the engine ON PURPOSE by Tanaka as part of his grand plan? It's no surprise then why Yoshida is having such a hard time with 1.0 and decided to scrap the entire engine for a new one that can what he wants to do with it.

[Lordender]

So even with all those crafting changes its still going to be a turd, just with less peanuts in it.

[Lucavi]

I definitely wouldn't say that I "love the system," but it's not entirely bad (compared to, say, XI). There are two things I like about the current system:

1) As has already been mentioned, it's nice to have more controlled input on HQ attempts (as opposed to simple random chance).
2) It's quite useful to be able to eliminate blowups for synths where you only care about pass/fail and not quality; the failure rate for a properly leveled synth at R50 (when paying attention) is effectively 0%. Something like this would have been extremely handy for stuff like Hakutaku Eye Clusters.

Nothing wrong with either of those, SD. I just feel that a little more foresight would have served SE well in this situation.

@Vutton: SE can spin it as "grand plan" all they want, but they are simply words. I'm more inclined to believe things through sheer evidence - what they've done in the past and what they've done in the present - and evidence dictates that they have no idea how to incorporate features that are standard in other MMOs.

[Kaylia]

I thought mailbox and AH systems were intentially left out of the designs of the engine ON PURPOSE by Tanaka as part of his grand plan? It's no surprise then why Yoshida is having such a hard time with 1.0 and decided to scrap the entire engine for a new one that can what he wants to do with it.

Tanaka was clearly incompetent, but the real culprit are most likely the shareholders who wanted a quick release. There was about a year between the announcement at E3 and the actual release of the game, and for a mmo, that's incredibly short. It's probably why the game felt so...incomplete. I hope.

It would probably have been a train wreck regardless with Tanaka leading the project, but the game could have been more tolerable than it was.

[Corrderio]

I definitely wouldn't say that I "love the system," but it's not entirely bad (compared to, say, XI). There are two things I like about the current system:

1) As has already been mentioned, it's nice to have more controlled input on HQ attempts (as opposed to simple random chance).
2) It's quite useful to be able to eliminate blowups for synths where you only care about pass/fail and not quality; the failure rate for a properly leveled synth at R50 (when paying attention) is effectively 0%. Something like this would have been extremely handy for stuff like Hakutaku Eye Clusters.

Pretty much. I don't mind crafting too much, what I mind though is watching the same damn animation loop 2-3 times before I can select another option.

[Lordender]

Tanaka was clearly incompetent,

He still is, just read the FFXI dev tracker thread, shit will make you laugh and feel sad for those who still play it >.>

[Kaylia]

Really? I feel sorry for them if he still have his word to say...