Allied Seals Merchant: How does this make sense?

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Originally Posted by AlexionSkylark

And here, folks, we have the opinion of someone who CLEARLY is not an artist. Lol.

Do you have any idea of the ammount of work involved in conceptualize, draw, build up the 3D model, TEXTURIZE IT (AKA the UVW mapping hell), rig it, animate it, test it, figuring out you need to reduce polys cuz the damn thing is sucking up processing power, RETEXTURIZE IT, rinse and repeat 400 times, then release it?

I'm gonna bet a gil here that you don't.

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And here, folks, we have the opinion of someone who CLEARLY is not a programmer, event planner, cutscene director, game systems designer, item planner, writer, translator or a debugger. Lol.

Do you have any idea of the ammount (sic) of work involved in creating a whole new set of quests, creating the events, objectives and flags, designing new UI elements for the new ranks, updating the GC NPCs' inventories and UI, creating cutscenes for the quests, creating new enemies or repurposing existing enemies for the quests if needed, adding the new gear into the game's database, creating new consumables, barding, minion rewards and also items similar to the Platinum Scales if needed, balancing current ways to obtain GC seals and adding new ways to obtain them if needed, potentially adding a new type of currency such as allied marks, potentially adding allied marks to other content after ranking up if needed, creating new artwork for the items and journal descriptions, writing dialogue for the journal descriptions, writing dialogue for the NPCs, inserting the dialogue and making sure the text fits properly, balancing the items for PvE and potentially PvP taking into account the Sanction bonuses, localizing all the text across all current supported languages, coding all this in and debugging everything across all current supported platforms including database work to store this new data, making sure the new code doesn't crash the servers, adding Lodestone entries, updating GM and support policies and tools for these new quests and items if needed, rinse and repeat 400 times, then release it?

I'm gonna bet a gil here that you don't.

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Originally Posted by AlexionSkylark

And here, folks, we have the opinion of someone who CLEARLY is not an artist. Lol.

Do you have any idea of the ammount of work involved in conceptualize, draw, build up the 3D model, TEXTURIZE IT (AKA the UVW mapping hell), rig it, animate it, test it, figuring out you need to reduce polys cuz the damn thing is sucking up processing power, RETEXTURIZE IT, rinse and repeat 400 times, then release it?

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It's not that much these days, actually. Programming and rigging would take the most work. Most toolsets these days specifically tailored to gaming or cgi movie production does a lot of the work for you effortlessly. (It still takes work but production time has been cut dramatically in recent years.)

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Originally Posted by saeedaisspecial

Because vanity gear.

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How does that make any sense?

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Originally Posted by Woggers

Boom. First reply 100% correct.

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Correct how? Why would vanity gear be so expensive? And if the gear was solely vanity.. why the hell does it have stats and an iLvl at all? Why isn't it just stat-less like the Spring Dress and the Sailor Shirt, etc?

They should just make gear that's designed for vanity be level 1. But they don't because making it ilevel 70 makes it useful for alt jobs that just turned 50. That GC gear is meant to be rare, and I guess that's the only way they can achieve that.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

They should just make gear that's designed for vanity be level 1. But they don't because making it ilevel 70 makes it useful for alt jobs that just turned 50. That GC gear is meant to be rare, and I guess that's the only way they can achieve that.

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Uh, if you have enough allied seals to buy 1 iLvl 70 GC item, you could buy an entire set of iLvl 90 gear. More than once.

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Originally Posted by TheRogueX

How does that make any sense?



Correct how? Why would vanity gear be so expensive? And if the gear was solely vanity.. why the hell does it have stats and an iLvl at all? Why isn't it just stat-less like the Spring Dress and the Sailor Shirt, etc?

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Probably because they wanted it to be representative of the GC. Given that the previous GC gear at lv50 was very low ilvl, it sorta makes sense to introduce the next tier as a higher ilvl than that, of which the next prime tier ilvl was 70 (and not some misc 55 item). They didn't have to add the stats, but it just sorta makes sense on the continuity scale. At least, more sense than a GC selling their gear that doesn't do anything for someone (whether or not its actually useful is another story... just like the old 50 stuff). And I guess, just in case someone ever needed it for a class/job, which admittedly would never really happen for more than a handful of minutes, if not an hour or so.

Vanity goods are always a highly desired commodity. The mere fact that people get angry or frustrated at it being high in cost is a testament to that. Vanity with gear serves the same purpose that vanity with mounts or other non-essential goods carry. People want to be unique, they want to stand out from the crowd. If primal mounts were guaranteed drops from kills, do you think they'd feel as special to folks that have it now? Likewise, if the vanity goods from Hunts were cheap, do you think the folks that have them now (or want them) would view them as valuable as they do now? Questioning cost of vanity just means that you are either A) not the intended audience to acquire this good, or B) just QQing because you "want it now".

Don't forget that most GC gear is cross class as well. So while it may be expensive, all your DOW or DOM classes will be able to share it. Plus, it looks cool as heck.

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Originally Posted by TheRogueX

How does that make any sense?



Correct how? Why would vanity gear be so expensive? And if the gear was solely vanity.. why the hell does it have stats and an iLvl at all? Why isn't it just stat-less like the Spring Dress and the Sailor Shirt, etc?

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the actual nosense is not the vanity's price but the i90(and log).

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

2) it's not i100 or i110 with useful stats because they want gear of that level to have somewhat meaningful content behind it. Roris wasn't saying designing art takes no time, but designing an entire tier of content like Coil or Crystal Tower to go along with earning that gear takes significantly more time.

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You lost me at the meaningful content part since just by farming the allied seals, you earn soldiery which nets you i100 gear that can be upgraded to i110. Granted, it will take you longer to get the gear due to caps.

Vanity gear is the only reward SE seems to deem worth while in this game.

Raid gear? Naaa, here, have a truck load.

Vanity gear? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YOU CANNOT HAZ! Unless you want to spend millions of gil or spend months collecting it, vanity gear is virtually unobtainable in contrast to raid gear! Vanity is the best and no one else can have it!

Well said Meier, Taru and others.

If Yoshi P had been open to having more Relevant / Interesting Stats (Side Grade) on Gear, these new Allied Seal Gear Sets *could* have been USEFUL *and* GLAMOROUS. :)

Look at the new Maelstrom Allied Seals Gear:

http://i.imgur.com/UJYRvVG.jpg
(Courtesy of The Wutai Clan.)

Imagine if that gear was Item Level 110, except it had different Stats than High Allagan or Unweathered Gear. For example, imagine if the Tank Set in the picture was:

(QUICK example (numbers are placeholder))
Item Level 110
* The Same Defense, Magic Defense as HA: 162.
* The Same STR and VIT.
* Block Rate: +10%
* Enhances "Rampart" (turns it to Area-Of-Effect Buff for any Party Members in Range)
* Enmity: +47
etc.


If Yoshi P was willing to look at more interesting Stats / Effects on Gear, this could have EASILY been a relevant, useful "End Game" Gear Set that some people would be willing to save up for, *and* it looks AWESOME.

Instead, it's just Vanity Gear (visuals only) and a waste for a portion of the gaming population.

I seriously hope he changes things up when 3.0 launches. Please.

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Originally Posted by Kikosho

You lost me at the meaningful content part since just by farming the allied seals, you earn soldiery which nets you i100 gear that can be upgraded to i110. Granted, it will take you longer to get the gear due to caps.

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There's always going to be one set per iLv that's pure grind, so yes Soldiery has the Weathered set. but they can't add more i100/i110 sets without designing an entire system around it, a system like Second Coil or Syrcus Tower.

Hunts were designed with two main purposes in terms of gear.
1) another option to gain myth gear once myth gets phased out
2) a way for players to upgrade their Soldiery gear

they're not going to put another i100 or i110 set off that same system. they can't do that and justify a 1 loot per week lockout on ST items. even now it's a pretty stretch.