optical variety of in-game items

hey there, i am pretty new to this game and i have plenty of questions.

but lets start with something ordinary.. actually there are many things i love when it comes to rpgs. one thing of course is the ability to customize the optical appearance of my character. so far i am impressed by the great looking design of armors and weapons in FFXIV, but lets talk about diversity..

are there possibilities to change the look of items? like dyeing or transmuting the optical appearance of various items? and what is the overall variety of outfits and item optics form level 1 to level 50 and in endgame?

i'm just curious because i saw level 50 players wearing pretty much the same stuff like every one gets at the beginning.

Gear can only be dyed. The overall appearance can't be changed, but sometimes I wish it could be. You can dye gear starting at level 15 after you do the quest "Color Your World" In Vesper Bay (Western Thanalan). You can't dye almost all unique gear though. There's some level 50 stuff out there that looks like level 10 gear for some unknown reason.

A 'vanity' item system is planned to be added to the game eventually where you can switch one piece of equipment's appearance with another, but when that will happen is unclear at this stage. Most level 50s usually wear either 'Darklight' gear, or a combination of Artifact Armour sets 1 and 2, which is definitely not the same gear you get at the beginning, in appearance or stat wise though. I prefer AF though myself as it's the traditional appearance of that Job from past FF games.

A lot of armor looks the same at lower levels. Weapons too. Someone got lazy... But they do look entirely different when you get Artifact gear, darklight gear, etc..

Darklight gear: http://www.ign.com/wikis/final-fanta...Darklight_Sets

But, yep, most people look all the same because of lack of customization. Here's hoping for vanity slots and more haircuts soon.