Dev Tracker - Discussion

Isn't the packet size the key issue for the slowdowns and lag and packetloss we all experience?

Despite having servers that are likely much more powerful than the game code would need, the problem is that they are overburdened by the frequency of small packets that have to be processed. If there were less, smaller packets it's quite likely all the game would run in a much smoother way.

I think I read someone theorizing this with a lot of data to support their claim and it made lot of sense to me.

Every time you login or zone it's making a snapshot of all your inventory and comparing it to the last snapshot, to stop people duping. That's what takes up all the time "loading".

I don't think they will add more mog wardrobes, I think they will add a totally different system that can only be accessed in certain places.

Who's ready for a $25/mo sub fee for more storage boys

i feel like this isn't the first time i've heard you making completely outrageous claims that are not in any way based in fact

the server maintains your inventory, it doesn't need a 'snapshot' it's always the authority on what you actually have

it doesn't matter if you memory edit your items to something else without zoning, the server still knows what they are. if you change a remedy to an alex purse and use it, it's still going to clear statuses not give you alexandrite

i already did a write up on why it's slow, something about their prioritization or compression limits the amount of item updates sent in each udp packet, and compounding that with the low packet send rate and maximum size gets you the results we have now:
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/55065/july-2020-version-update/10/#3529435

I would buy it, Organizer/porterpacker have handled the majority of my inv issues but it would be nice to have even more space for vanity items or furniture lol.

So SE updated the front page with a new post, which states that 2022 will (barring schedule slips, of course) include reforged empyrean armor and new battle content.

They also said that new storage is coming this fiscal year.

Which would before April 1st.

No, every item has an ID the server recognizes it by, and every instance of that item has its own unique identifier. It's impossible to dupe anything without s-e being able to trace it, because duped items always have the same "unique" identifier as the one they were copied from. Whenever that unique ID shows up multiple times it's a red flag that something was duped, and they can go back through the logs to trace where and when the copies were generated. They have no need to "snapshot" inventory to prevent duping because everything item related is already right there in the logs.

This is almost certainly not true either, and you can back it up by looking at how many duped medals lasted past the bans. They have to find the event where the duped item was generated in their event logs to be able to verify it was duped. Keep in mind that dupes require a specific vulnerability on the server and are patched shortly after coming to light. If the event was too far back, or the vulnerability occured in a manner that their event logs don't make it easily queriable or noticable, then it probably cannot be detected. My impression is that SE just stores your items in a similar format to the way the client does on their own servers. (A more modern game is more likely to have unique identifiers for every instance of an item, so it's not very out there as an idea, there's just more reason to believe SE doesn't do it than there is to believe that they do.)

That said, duping has nothing to do with this topic and it's silly people keep harping on it. To the best of my knowledge, there are no active dupes in the game. You cannot simply dupe with a memory editor like some people are implying here; the server is the authority and maintains the list of which item is in each slot of your bags, how many of them there are, any extra data on the item, etc. Nothing you change on the client will make that change real on the server, because every action you do is sent as a reference to an item.

For example, when you drop an item, your client tells the server the slot the item is in, the bag the item is in, and how many of them are being dropped. The server checks if there is an item in that slot and bag, and drops that many of them. When you trade to a NPC, the client tells the server which slots the items are in, how many of the item for each slot, and how many total slots, as well as the NPC's identifier. The server verifies that the NPC is real, verifies that there are items in each of those slots and enough of them, then looks up the IDs and compares them against the table of what the NPC is willing to accept.

A few packets allow the client to say the item id and/or count, but the server will still verify the item in the slot has the same id and/or count and will either do nothing or boot you out of the game if they don't match up. Every time you delivery box, auction house, trade, etc.. the server is controlling the exchange of items. A dupe cannot occur without a failure in the server's code, and the zone servers are single threaded so you cannot create a timing exploit or race condition either. Duping is prevented by ensuring the code for handling each event has all of the appropriate error checks and cannot be abused in a way that will make the server behave inappropriately.

**every bone cracks as I sit up in my chair and raise my hand**

so 4 main takeaways

1. New inventory storage
2. New Mastery Rank levels
3. New battle content that can only be participated in if you complete the voracious resurgence storyline
4. Empyrean +3 upgrades tied to the new battle system

I wonder if we're getting new alliance content. I kind of suspect that's the case, since omen and oddy are both designed for alliances. This should encourage players to get caught up with their story progress if they've been slacking up until now.

Also, new mastery ranks is pretty huge. The next tier of mastery ranks will up the sub jobs beyond level 55, which means melee jobs are going to have significant upgrades. Dark knight sub gets both smite III and damage limit III, while dragoon sub gets weaponskill damage boost II in addition to a fully powered super jump. The +40 to all stats will in itself be a crazy difference between M rank 40 and non M rank players. We're talking 80 attack and close to 80 accuracy, in addition to the weaponskill stat mods. That's akin to wearing an entire extra piece of Ilvl gear in one of the main slots.

More inventory is always welcome. Nothing much needs to be said about that. Look forward to it soon (tm).

The problem with games like this is that people treat them purely as a video game, and don't get there are people who take it far more seriously. If you find a good exploit, you can make tens of thousands of dollars in a few days from it. This is why they rip apart patches the day of the updates, and why they can't wait for new features to be added.

These people don't care if they bring the server down, they don't care if they increase development costs in order to security check everything, they don't care if they cause rollbacks. They only care about getting some more money in the bank.

Duping happens when you can fool the server into thinking you didn't do something when you did, such as using an item, trading or moving it from one slot to the other. The game does lots of checks to stop you doing this and that causes a lot of the slow loading issues.

They've previewed their loose concept (it wasn't functional at the time, so really more of a proof of concept?) in a Freshly Picked from about a year or so ago.

It was a mog wardrobe that they had filled with Artifact/Relic/Empyrean sets for a single job. They also didn't really dig deep into what it was about, was just a "hey look at this, this is the general idea of what will happen"...
So it seems like they might be trying a "slip you can equip from" type thing?

But again. They've only shared the most barebone, loosest of concepts without any depth or explanation to it.

Not for nothing you aren't describing this you're describing human life. *** everyone, and everything, get money. Then get more money.

honestly dude, stop doubling down on ***you don't understand

inventory loads slowly because of the amount of data per packet and the rate at which packets are sent, neither of which is limited by server cpu time, which is the only thing being consumed to do these checks(which don't require meaningful development time to begin with, btw)

there are a lot of ways to fix inventory loading, either by adjusting prioritization of packets, removing the need to reload inventory when you zone, increasing packet frequency, but they all require significant amounts of development (and none of them are *IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER* related to duping or security checks)

have you ever once stood back and considered that you have no idea what you're talking about..?

Lol wow. The irony here is astounding.

Never miss a chance to make a one-dimensional attack on me, but could you show me where on this page anything I said was incorrect?

Just the truth and you set yourself up for it. Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house.

Do you know anything about the historical dupes in FFXI? I know there have been a few but it seems like there have been fewer than other MMOs I've followed. Races being a considerable cause to these makes sense, but if the FFXI servers are indeed single threaded, I'm curious what the origin of the few dupes in FFXI were.

They've always been pretty tight lipped about this sort of thing, but I've always wondered what they looked like.

The old salvage one was the biggest, and it was because the server code generated the loot for every treasure pool in the battle field instance. Meaning that if a six person party was to suddenly split into 2 three person parties, then there would be two treasury pools and both would get the dropped loot, if the party disbanded then we would have six treasury pools and thus all six would have loot generated into them. This wasn't technically a "dupe" as the players didn't actually do anything to copy an item, but instead the developers never planned for multiple valid treasure pools in an instance.

This may not be as viable or optimal a solution, but what if they added a Mog...Armory/Dresser that is accessible and has the same characteristics like wardrobes, specifically so that you can put your lockstyles inside and therefore get past the issue of lockstyles not working because they're in the mog safes (adding onto the idea that we just don't load the mog storage/safes/etc without the use of a mog house or nomad moogle).

Still, it would be slow as hell if you were in a mog house or an area with a nomad moogle, but it's gotta be worth considering at least

Your lockstyles don't work because you have them in your Mog Safe? /comfort

One day you will learn how to read, but I do not think this will be that day.

Seriously, enlighten me. I must be missing something and can't seem to see it.

Specialkid was piggy backing off of Sechs’s idea of not loading every storage. You took his post way out of context and bolded only the part that wouldn’t make sense if you didn’t read what was also quoted.

It absolutely has to happen server side anyways, right now.

If everyone already has the rare item, it won't drop at all, no packets even get sent for it dropping because it didnt drop.

That is clearly a server side check that happens already.

They just need to rework the "an item has dropped" packets to include the "Can I lot on this?" data (which will be set to "false" if you have the rare item in an inventory already)

thank you.

Almost all the problems with the game are because of people trying to exploit things for real world cash, they would not even need to load inventory every time if not for that.

Every single patch or new feature that gets released is ripped apart by people who already have more than enough money, but need more because that is the game to them.

The wait on new content is partially because they have to test everything out the *** to make sure there isn't some exploit some loser can make $10 off of.

i give up, clearly trolling at this point