New news, Glamour, Hardware, and 2.2

[Melkire]

iLevel and class restrictions make me sad

 

Like wise, I'll have to lug around my clawed darklight gauntlets instead of being able to stash them..

 

Wasn't it explicitly stated that you can stash gear?

 

After using a glamour prism, the gear being copied can be entrusted to your retainer.

 

Maybe I'm misreading that, but I doubt it.

[Dat Oni]

I shall wait until the Glamour system is actually implemented to draw my conclusions.

[Olofantur]

iLevel and class restrictions make me sad

 

Like wise, I'll have to lug around my clawed darklight gauntlets instead of being able to stash them..

 

Wasn't it explicitly stated that you can stash gear?

 

After using a glamour prism, the gear being copied can be entrusted to your retainer.

 

Maybe I'm misreading that, but I doubt it.

Yeah that was a bad example.

 

I meant that I [supposedly] won't be able to bind the appearance to a low level gear, so I won't be able to fart around actually wearing the "doctore" chest piece, but Glamoured to look like the Infantry chest, until I level up enough to actually wear it on my PUG, at which point it'll be moot and i'll just be wearing the Infantry gear.

 

I'm waiting to see more how the level restriction works of course, and the system as a whole, but the feelings a bit mixed.

[Naunet]

What Olofantur described is precisely one of my key complaints on these restrictions. If I'm leveling up a new class, I should be able to glamour any gear I have, regardless of level. If I want my level 10 THM to be wearing an Allagan tunic of whatever, then by golly I should be able to do that.

 

Likewise, we should be allowed to use any armor regardless of armor type.

 

With these two restrictions in place, it's almost guaranteed I will find no use for this system.

[Clover]

• You set up your appearance the way you like.
  
• You buy or craft (some number, possibly 1) Glamour Prisms based on the item level of the equipped gear.
  
• You then use the Prism, which binds to you and takes on the appearance of that gear.
  
• You do something with the Prism (equip it in a new item slot?) to assume that appearance.
  

 

We don't know if it's one prism per gear, or one outfit per prism. We don't know if the prism is something that's consumed on use to apply a saved look to a particular piece of gear, or if it's something equipped. We don't know if you'll be able to apply lower ilvl gear appearances to higher ilvl prisms.

 

All of these "we don't know"s have the potential to turn an "okay" system (which is essentially what I was hoping it would be - modular wardrobe tabs) into something utterly useless.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who's very confused about this. I thought I might have been missing something, but no matter how many times I hear about this system, I never understand how it works ^^;

 

At least, is it confirmed that neither of the gears (the one with looks and the one with stats) are destroyed upon the use of a prism?

 

Other than that, I don't mind that you can only use the looks of gear that's equal to your level. The more you level up, the more variety you'll have. Everyone eventually gets to 50 anyway ^^

[Kage]

They reused the allagan tunic according to screenshots and they mention placing items in retainers so I'm assuming items are not lost.

[Illira]

Other than that, I don't mind that you can only use the looks of gear that's equal to your level. The more you level up, the more variety you'll have. Everyone eventually gets to 50 anyway ^^

How is that any different though than just carrying around old gear and swapping it in for looks though? As is, this is already true "the more you level up, the more variety you'll have". The only difference I can see is that maybe we won't have as many armoury/inventory slots used up.

 

With a lot of items character locked as is, you can't just buy a lot of stuff of vendors/auction house or have someone else give them to you. So minimally, in order to get things like allagan, you have to have looted them out of BC, therefore having a lvl 50 class.

 

Why should alternative classes have to suffer when you've earned that gear, but can't wear (vanity it) it till you reach 50 on that class as well? It makes the implementation of the vanity system severely and unnecessarily limited.

[Clover]

Other than that, I don't mind that you can only use the looks of gear that's equal to your level. The more you level up, the more variety you'll have. Everyone eventually gets to 50 anyway ^^

How is that any different though than just carrying around old gear and swapping it in for looks though? As is, this is already true "the more you level up, the more variety you'll have". The only difference I can see is that maybe we won't have as many armoury/inventory slots used up.

 

With a lot of items character locked as is, you can't just buy a lot of stuff of vendors/auction house. So minimally, in order to get things like allagan, you have to have looted them out of BC, therefore having a lvl 50 class.

 

Why should alternative classes have to suffer when you've earned that gear, but can't wear (vanity it) it till you reach 50 on that class as well? It makes the implementation of the vanity system severely and unnecessarily limited.

To me, the difference is that the variety we have now doesn't apply outside RP scenes. I can't do dungeons or quest in any gear I want, sadly. This system will allow you to play the game itself with the look you choose, instead of limiting you to only use that look when you afk in town or when you RP any scene.

 

PS: I've actually grown fond of the White Mage tunic *laughs*. If I think about it, seeing Clover beat a dungeon in her real RP outfit would be odd for me, since she's not supposed to go to dungeons ICly. It's still good knowing that the system is there, though.

[Naunet]

This system will allow you to play the game itself with the look you choose

 

Only if your chosen look aligns with the narrow restrictions SE has decided to set forth.

 

There's no reason I shouldn't be able to toss on the look of, say, the Allagan Tunic of Healing while leveling my SCH - or hell, even when leveling a WAR or MNK or anything else.

[Illira]

Other than that, I don't mind that you can only use the looks of gear that's equal to your level. The more you level up, the more variety you'll have. Everyone eventually gets to 50 anyway ^^

How is that any different though than just carrying around old gear and swapping it in for looks though? As is, this is already true "the more you level up, the more variety you'll have". The only difference I can see is that maybe we won't have as many armoury/inventory slots used up.

 

With a lot of items character locked as is, you can't just buy a lot of stuff of vendors/auction house. So minimally, in order to get things like allagan, you have to have looted them out of BC, therefore having a lvl 50 class.

 

Why should alternative classes have to suffer when you've earned that gear, but can't wear (vanity it) it till you reach 50 on that class as well? It makes the implementation of the vanity system severely and unnecessarily limited.

To me, the difference is that the variety we have now doesn't apply outside RP scenes. I can't do dungeons or quest in any gear I want, sadly. This system will allow you to play the game itself with the look you choose, instead of limiting you to only use that look when you afk in town or when you RP any scene.

 

I'm still not entirely sure why you'd choose to be happy with the arbitrary restriction, but to each their own, I suppose.

[Melkire]

To me, the difference is that the variety we have now doesn't apply outside RP scenes. I can't do dungeons or quest in any gear I want, sadly. This system will allow you to play the game itself with the look you choose, instead of limiting you to only use that look when you afk in town or when you RP any scene.

 

This. The entire point of this implementation, as I understand it, is so that you don't suffer unfair hits to your stats by choosing to run content in suboptimal gear for the aesthetics.

 

Case in point, I love the Pirate's Bandana. But I can't wear it in end-game content because A, as a DEX item it's not suited for my MNK, and B, it's a level 15 item with no aesthetic equivalent at iLVL 50+ (at least, not that I'm aware of).

 

That you can't use higher level gear as vanity while leveling is a shortcoming, but it's a common shortcoming. I came over to FFXIV from SWTOR about two months ago, and they can't deck themselves out in end-game gear while leveling, either.

 

Cross-class vanity is probably being held back for the F2P cash shop; it's what Bioware is doing in SWTOR, at least, and it's been proven that people will pay for it. As if Square-Enix does F2P. Pffft.

[Naunet]

This. The entire point of this implementation, as I understand it, is so that you don't suffer unfair hits to your stats by choosing to run content in suboptimal gear for the aesthetics.

 

Only if your aesthetic wants align with their narrow restrictions.

 

That you can't use higher level gear as vanity while leveling is a shortcoming, but it's a common shortcoming. I came over to FFXIV from SWTOR about two months ago, and they can't deck themselves out in end-game gear while leveling, either.

 

In SWTOR (and most, if not all, other MMOs), you can't level multiple classes on the same character, so this is a non-existent problem. You never have an issue of, "Well, I earned this Allagan tunic in an endgame dungeon but now I randomly can't use it for vanity because I happened to switch classes."

 

Incidentally, in TERA you could use ANY level gear to reskin. I had three accounts in that game and had a blast decking out a plethora of roleplay alts in desired outfits through the magic of shopping on the broker for what I wanted and then visiting the re-skinning NPC. I dumped obscene amounts of gold on purchasing high level armors off the broker just to destroy them to reskin them for a level 1 roleplay alt's outfit. It also meant that I could level in awesome looking gear if I so chose. One of the few things TERA did right (though to make it even better, they should have lifted the restriction on armor type).

[Seriphyn]

Of all the complaints, not being able to bind a higher ilvl item to a lower ilvl item seems very First World Problem to me. You're only leveling secondary classes to hit 50 anyway, so it's a fleeting and relatively trivial problem at best. 

 

The class restrictions is a bigger one IMO, but design-wise, I think this is SE's explicit decision. It's their game. In their game, they don't want the immersion broken by seeing a Scholar in the Warrior AF armour. Comparatively, TERA's devs seem to think it's OK to implement 21st century outfits in THEIR game. But I know I don't want anything to do with that. Certainly, I think it would be very odd to see a fistfighter dancing around in heavy plate armour.

 

This is a deliberate choice that I support, but I think it's legit people aren't so crazed about it. I'm just personally sympathetic to SE's 'vision'.

[Naunet]

"First World Problem"? We're talking about a video game. It's all "First World Problems", my friend. You'd do well to not denigrate another's opinion.

 

It's not even just alternate classes. What about alts? As I said, in TERA I could have a large number of characters purely for roleplay and didn't have to worry about them being stuck in some god-awful newbie clothing. There's a lot of gear in this game that's BoE, so there would be ample opportunity to outfit a low level alt with a nice set of clothes for roleplay. As we're roleplayers here, I would hope you could understand such a thing.

 

Your comment about TERA is irrelevant, as that type of armor isn't something we're likely to see in XIV - though I'll point out, we do have some very ridiculous outfits, such as the snowman one, the reindeer one, and the giant chocobo outfit.

 

As for your second point: It is not our job to roll over and take everything SE does as the Will of our Developer Gods. It is our job as consumers to point out when something is implemented in a way we do not like. It doesn't matter that it's their game. It's my money. It's everyone else's money. We're the ones funding "their" game. We always deserve a say in decisions like this.

[Illira]

Of all the complaints, not being able to bind a higher ilvl item to a lower ilvl item seems very First World Problem to me. You're only leveling secondary classes to hit 50 anyway, so it's a fleeting and relatively trivial problem at best. 

 

The class restrictions is a bigger one IMO, but design-wise, I think this is SE's explicit decision. It's their game. In their game, they don't want the immersion broken by seeing a Scholar in the Warrior AF armour. Comparatively, TERA's devs seem to think it's OK to implement 21st century outfits in THEIR game. But I know I don't want anything to do with that. Certainly, I think it would be very odd to see a fistfighter dancing around in heavy plate armour.

 

This is a deliberate choice that I support, but I think it's legit people aren't so crazed about it. I'm just personally sympathetic to SE's 'vision'.

 

Why is "not being able to bind a higher ilvl item to a lower ilvl" a very First World Problem to you? I'm not really sure how that makes any kind of sense, especially as you're not not taking into consideration how others might wish to use the vanity system.

 

I'm probably of a minority here that actually loves to have alts, and really dislikes the overdependence of cross-class, everything on one character approach that SE's taken. Is it too much to ask that my alts, who I use mostly for RP can wear character appropriate gear without say, leveling them to 40 to grind a dungeon for the one robe that I want for them so that they're not stuck being RPed in a sack or subligar? Similarly, the only reason I've tried to level my main to 50 in weaver, is because I want the weaver AF for sheer vanity. I don't actually want to be a weaver. I just want their coat! (eventually I ran out of steam and gil...) So I don't think its quite fair to say that "You're only leveling secondary classes to hit 50 anyway, so it's a fleeting and relatively trivial problem at best."

 

As for TERA, the modern outfits are cash-shop vanity items that really started to take over after they went f2p. What Naunet was talking was their "remodeling system", that ate the armor as a template when you applied it to another piece of armor.

 

Edit: Apparently Nau is a faster responder than I...

[Ildur]

The only purpose of this vanity system seems to be allowing high level characters to use the looks of lower level gear on their level appropiate items. I doubt Squeenix even thought of alts, or even alt-classes for that matter. It's a thing for endgame.

 

At least we won't lose our gear, I guess.

[Erik Mynhier]

This is PRECISELY the system I was hoping for--copying an item's appearance without ruing said item.  Now I can walk around without that hideously garish Curtana on my hip.

 

Don't get me wrong, that weapon is absolutely my favorite considering how hard I worked to get the damned thing...but whoever designed it seems to have a fundamental lack of how swords are constructed.

 

Did it say we could glamour our weapons? I have not bothered to update my sword and shield to zenith because I hate the glow with a glowing passion.

 

Also did they say we could change out prisms or are they set like materia?

[Ildur]

The letter says "any gear", so I would assume that includes weapons. Unless...it doesn't. I guess we'll find out soon.

 

Also, I think prisms are consumables. You store an appareance on them and then consume them to apply that appareance on something else.

[synaesthetic]

Basically all I can do with this system is prevent "rainbow pimp gear" from setting in when wearing best-in-slot, by keeping my gear glamoured to match a specific set despite wearing mixed set pieces.

 

It's a waste. It's a missed opportunity. If every piece of armor was open for every job or class combination, then we could design some really neat outfits even among the limited armor models we have. I'd personally really enjoy rocking the battle-mage look on BLM with armored gauntlets and boots combined with the Foestriker body, or the sexy labcoat-and-skirt Alchemist AF. That would be so cool, but because of this completely arbitrary restriction, I can't do that. It's absolutely stupid, absurd, ridiculous that the system would be restricted this way.

 

For those complaining about immersion, you do know that the restriction is the same as the equip restriction. This means that warriors and paladins can run around in robes and wizard hats, but nobody else can run around in plate. That's entirely unfair. Everyone should be able to use glamours on any piece, regardless of what class it requires, so long as the slots match up.

 

These restrictions are totally arbitrary and unfairly set in the first place since plate-wearers can wear virtually everything and DoM classes have an extremely limited pool of options to choose from. Some restrictions are to be expected; the inability to modify the appearance of multiple-slot items (Darklight cowl and tank armor, for example) with single-slot items is likely due to technical limitations in the graphics engine. The roundabout use of "glamour prisms" instead of a stand-alone vanity paperdoll tab in the character sheet has its roots in the PS3's limited RAM; the system simply cannot handle any more UI elements.

 

But the level and class restrictions are arbitrary. They do not need to exist. They serve no purpose but to inexplicably limit the enjoyment players can derive from the system. It's completely inane.

 

... I'm still happy I'll be able to get rid of the face-hiding BLM robe, though.

[Dat Oni]

Do you guys have any fun on this game? Seriously, it seems every update you're all complaining!

[Seriphyn]

All right, I'll concede the First World Problems jab was highly unnecessary and apologize, but it just seems for all the things to call Squeenix out on, not being able to use higher ilvl items on lower ilvl items seems to be a lower priority nitpick IMO. More importantly, being able to use higher ilvl items on lower levels for the vanity system would undermine the whole process of "Get more powerful, get cooler looking gear!". As someone has already said, it's for endgame use anyway.

 

As for melee fighters being able to use mage robes but mages can't use fighting gear...well, it's not arbitrary. Being able to move around comfortably in heavy armour is something that takes training. But a swordsman donning a half-robe or robe is relatively straightforward. 

 

Again, I'm confident it's a lite RP decision by Squeenix. Keep in mind Squeenix have a lite RP plot device for EVERYTHING in the game. I'm more laying out the logic they're going by (or I think they're going by), rather than try to 'convince' anyone that it is 'right'. I just think Squeenix don't want Summoners in WAR AF, keeping the design of their 'world' intact.

[Ildur]

If we had no fun at all we wouldn't waste our time complaining every time Squeenix fails to understand they don't need to reinvent the wheel. We would have moved on to something that deserved our criticism and showed signs of wanting to improve in not stupid ways.

 

I should also mentiont that I do not like that the vanity system was designed for end-game use. It's pretty silly, and it punishes people who haven't reached level 50 in all their classes, not to mention it strangles player creativity by forcing the AUTHOR's HOLY VISION upon them.

[synaesthetic]

I have fun with this game; if I didn't, I would stop playing. However, I will not be silent when I think the developers are making a boneheaded move such as this. The only way to ensure that we as customers get our money's worth is to be as hard to please as possible. Square-Enix is a business. They are in it for the money. We have to be vigilant, critical and skeptical of anything and everything they do if we don't want to get screwed over.

[Seriphyn]

Again, I don't think it's boneheaded. They want to keep the character design of their world intact. So no breakdancing monks in heavy plate armour. That's their logic, and ofc we are free to disagree with it. But it's not boneheaded IMO, depending on your point of view.

 

EDIT: Like Ildur notes it's the 'author's holy vision', but still disagrees with it on the grounds of creativity. I can dig that.

[synaesthetic]

As for melee fighters being able to use mage robes but mages can't use fighting gear...well, it's not arbitrary. Being able to move around comfortably in heavy armour is something that takes training. But a swordsman donning a half-robe or robe is relatively straightforward. 

 

By this monumentally stupid logic, lalafell should not be allowed to play any jobs except spellcasters, or they should have such tremendous penalties to HP, defense and attack that they'd be totally useless in any real content. 

 

Oh, and by your logic, roegadyn males would be the only race worth playing if you wanted to be a tank and all other race/sex combinations would absolutely pale in comparison.

 

By your logic, only one player per server should be allowed to be a Dragoon or a White Mage.

 

There is a thing called "Gameplay and Story Segregation" as well as another thing called "Acceptable Breaks From Reality." You clearly do not understand these things.