Insane theory: Without an overhaul, FGO will end when they run out of item IDs in the current framework (but it still won't happen any time soon)

Not a doompost. Just an insane theory.

I was browsing Atlas Academy DB to update my own planning spreadsheet and pulled in some information from the materials list. When looking at the raw data, I noticed the "priority" variable that seems to be used for sorting materials in-game. Each type of material has a pattern for the priority variable. Relevant to this theory is that all of the values for skill/ascension materials are three-digit numbers starting with 2. Bronze materials start at 200, silver at 230, and gold at 270. Lores are 299. The current highest values for each material rarity are 213, 255, and 289. That means there are only enough values left for 16 bronze, 14 silver, and 10 gold materials. Without a change in the framework, they will run out of space after 10 more gold materials.

This doesn't mean the end is coming any time soon. With a total of 20 gold materials since launch, that's an average of about 2 per year. And it's taken since Babylonia, released in December 2016, about eight years ago, to add the last 10. So there's still plenty of room to work with. But using such small, close values would at least imply that they weren't fully considering how they might update the game in the long run. If the pace of new story chapters had continued the way it was in the first few years, this "priority" variable would be in much more danger of reaching its limit today.