It's time (Option to Hide other players Glamour)

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

I know a lot of people who love Star Wars, but who are demonstrably not willing to engage in a 45-minute-long discussion with me of lore minutia from Clone Wars and Rebels. Or the various tie-in novels for the new continuity.

*sadface*

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I wouldn't mind that at all. Though I've never watched Rebels or care too much for the new continuity, but anything else Star Wars related I'm all ears.

Really easy solution: Disable players from showing up in cutscenes at all, there's literally no reason for them to be there anyway

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Originally Posted by Iscah

It does matter actually, because we haven't seen the system working "live" in the game world with other characters present, so we can't say for certain that it's built to work like that.

All we've seen is instances where we are taken out of the main game world and dropped into a unique instance where what appears to be our character is dressed in a different outfit, then returned to the overall game where we are still in the outfit we started with.

From a story standpoint, of course it's our character from start to finish.

From a game programming standpoint, the character in the instance could be just a copy of our main character model, pulled away to have new glamours applied to the outfit, then discarded once the scene is over, because (speculatively) now it has different glamours and the game has no way of restoring your old ones.

It might not be our character any more than Odin taking on the face of the last player to defeat him means he actually is that character.

We can't know how it works for sure, but we haven't clearly seen a filter system at work.

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Have you ever done any programming? Clearly not and I'll leave it alone with you. Do you realize the players see things differently on their screen depending on where they are in the story? They may or may not see NPCs, landscape, buildings.
You want to have a choice to glamour but apparently don't want others to have a choice not to see it.

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Originally Posted by CelestePinke

Have you ever done any programming? Clearly not and I'll leave it alone with you. Do you realize the players see things differently on their screen depending on where they are in the story? They may or may not see NPCs, landscape, buildings.
You want to have a choice to glamour but apparently don't want others to have a choice not to see it.

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I'm not a programmer. This is purely on my observation.

I am fully aware that people see things differently on their screens, but this is limited to things other than player characters. The world is deliberately arranged so that even if the world is different, players can consistently interact with it. (eg. The force field around Alexander that initially has rocks lodged in it, which fall away as Alexander's head moves into the same position - thus creating a functionally identical platform regardless of when you see it. They may not think you're standing on what you see them standing on, but there is solid ground there regardless.)

What you were saying is that glamours in solo instances are proof that there is already a system in place to have players appear differently to other players. I'm saying that this is not proof because for all we know your character's appearance in an isolated instance may be managed through a mechanism that can't be transferred to the larger game. That is irrelevant to what I think of the merits of such a system being implemented.

Realistically, unless something is wildly wrong with XIV's codebase, merely removing glamour entirely should not be terribly complex—provided you do it globally. (I.e., a single check, "does glamour show or not".)

Depending on how things are implemented, it might be kind of awful to try to do it conditionally; you'd think no one would put glamour-related logic in the primary runloop of an engine as opposed to in something like asset caching code, but you'd also think people wouldn't do a lot of weird things that games demonstrably do. (I'll admit to having been responsible for some such hackish shortcuts myself in those halcyon pre-crunch-burnout days when I still worked as a game developer instead of on embedded systems. I'm not proud of most of them, and someday I'll stand before the programming gods in the afterlife and be judged for those sins.)

So if any glamour-related logic is in a critical code path, you would potentially not want to make it conditional on specific characters. I.e., looking up whether or not a given character is in a glamour blacklist could have a measurable impact on framerate/performance; in that case, you would probably just want a global on/off switch where you disabled all glamour (potentially including your own) so that it's a simple boolean check rather than a lookup. Plus, a global switch could be implemented entirely client-side, whereas maintaining a glamour blacklist—assuming you wanted it to be account data like your normal blacklist—would require changing things on the server side to allow such a list to be loaded and saved.

If the glamour-related logic is all safely in code that just prepares all the assets/resources for a given instance and then it's done, then you could most likely make it per-character instead, albeit with more effort involved (since you'd probably want to modify the server to allow a glamour blacklist to be saved).

Hence my earlier suggestion that if someone honestly wanted to implement this feature, the way to do it that would probably have the least performance impact and take the least dev time would be a global on/off switch for glamour. Probably with the exception of weaponry, because I feel like people who grind relic weapons and whatnot would be Not Super Thrilled if people just turned off glam and you couldn't see that they had, say, a weapon earned via clearing TEA. Push the button, and everyone—me, you, that person over there—are in job-specific artifact gear, end of story.

I mean, I still am very meh on the suggestion—and even if I weren't, there's about fourteen quadrillion other things I'd personally prefer the devs worked on first—but if they were going to do it, I'd want them to take as little dev time as possible on it so it didn't detract from other things.

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Originally Posted by CelestePinke

Have you ever done any programming? Clearly not and I'll leave it alone with you. Do you realize the players see things differently on their screen depending on where they are in the story? They may or may not see NPCs, landscape, buildings.
You want to have a choice to glamour but apparently don't want others to have a choice not to see it.

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You realise that for testing this feature would require a mass amounts of people right? It would need to go through a phase of testing where an individual is surrounded by max amount of people on screen at once

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

You realise that for testing this feature would require a mass amounts of people right? It would need to go through a phase of testing where an individual is surrounded by max amount of people on screen at once

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Not finished phone >_>

When the client side is getting pushed to its limit you would then need it to reglam everyone on screen to the desired feature glam.

Then have everyone there use the feature at the same time to see how the servers fair handling all the different client side information since your glam would be changed on others while normal for you so each individual player which are not static in their appearance unlike npcs would have their own client side. This may very well make the servers go boom XD at least with regards to ff14 servers which are yea ff14 servers :p

Iscah is probably correct in that they use glamour plates as it is an already designed system that they can use at will (also notice these solo instance glams only appear after glamour dresser was introduced), it would be a convenient shortcut than individually changing every possible item to it as instance starts, if I know programmers they would take the shortcut so long as it is functionable no sense wasting too much unnecessary time on it.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

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I'm no longer going to advocate for or against this feature (being that it was the principles of the whole thing that got me involved in the first place), but I also feel that we shouldn't mislead people from a technical standpoint.

The client is not only a executable full of code, but all of the assets in the game as well. Seeing as to how the races, genders, levels, and jobs of other players are already transmitted to you from the server, it would be very simple for any sanely-written engine to take that already-transmitted information and make a pre-programmed decision on what other assets to load instead of the glamoured ones.

The servers would not even need to be involved.

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Originally Posted by DumdogsWorld

I'm no longer going to advocate for or against this feature (being that it was the principles of the whole thing that got me involved in the first place), but I also feel that we shouldn't mislead people from a technical standpoint.

The client is not only a executable full of code, but all of the assets in the game as well. Seeing as to how the races, genders, levels, and jobs of other players are already transmitted to you from the server, it would be very simple for any sanely-written engine to take that already-transmitted information and make a pre-programmed decision on what other assets to load instead of the glamoured ones.

The servers would not even need to be involved.

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Except this feature is altering a fluid option to players constantly. It would be different if the feature was like visual effects which can be turned off but are still happening regardless which is static data. People move, new ones appear/disappear all new data that has to be constantly updated to suit this setting thus it would require a more extensive stress test. I'm not saying it is impossible but unlikely to happen due to this.

This would increase loadtimes as you enter new areas (small increase but will increase it) and instances.

This feature may just be a switch flick for the user but for a programmer it is way more complicated than that.

The only thing fluid you mentioned is jobs since we can switch on the fly, levels, race gender are static data since you cannot alter them freely levels can only go up except in an specific instance (Eureka) that has been designed for it, race&gender require an item to flag to change and disconnect from server (do also bear in mind you have to be naked to do this as clothes are fluid data), static data is far easier to change via settings so adding them is less tenuous but fluid data is the nightmare for programmers to add settings for duoable, but way harder and require more power, client side would not be able to support it with regards to ff14 and its playerbase not with how this game is run and apparently coded (based on their excuses of 1.0 code problems).

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

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You still said nothing of why the servers need to be involved.

Let's say the server sends a "load player model here" request, sending things like coordinates, the job of that player, their gear (including glamours), their race, their gender, their name, etc etc etc. When the model loads and begins to render, it uses the glamour information. If you keep some default gear for each job loaded at all times and use that instead when the option is checked, then the server would not have to do anything.

I doubt it'd be a huge strain on resources or development time, especially due to it being a feature that can already be toggled on during certain quests. Even if it were an issue due to spaghetti code, the development team have been gradually going back and adjusting that code over time to make it easier to work with. Plus we always get quality of life changes in each new content patch, so I could see it being something implemented at some point in the future.

I'd rather have the devs answer in those terms, if it's the case, in any case. People don't need to answer the question for them and rule it out prematurely.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I'd rather have the devs answer in those terms, if it's the case, in any case. People don't need to answer the question for them and rule it out prematurely.

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"It is possible, we can consider it."

There. That will be your answer. It's a parent telling their kids "I'll think about it."

It's not a yes, not a no. Any one over the age of 10 knows it's a "no" and anyone optimistic can consider it a possibility in 4-5 years. Official response is given, and then there will be those who are upset it's not a bold "yes" and will continue to complain in a separate thread for 50 pages.

I'm from the future, trust me.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I doubt it'd be a huge strain on resources or development time, especially due to it being a feature that can already be toggled on during certain quests. Even if it were an issue due to spaghetti code, the development team have been gradually going back and adjusting that code over time to make it easier to work with. Plus we always get quality of life changes in each new content patch, so I could see it being something implemented at some point in the future.

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Addicted to the game, not like you'll unsub if this isn't added. So why would the devs add something of no consequence.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Addicted to the game, not like you'll unsub if this isn't added. So why would the devs add something of no consequence.

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I'm not sure what you're getting at. If the game reaches a point where it stops being appealing to me, I'll take my leave of it. I've also never stated that this proposed feature is something that is a make or break situation for me. It'd be a nice convenience to have since I like the idea of players having additional options to make their game experience more to their liking. Furthermore just because it isn't an appealing feature for you it doesn't mean it is of no consequence to everybody else.

That aside, didn't you state a few pages back that you would be making your 'last post' in this thread or am I thinking of someone else? Oh, wait...what was it you were saying about addiction?

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Originally Posted by Gula

"It is possible, we can consider it."

There. That will be your answer. It's a parent telling their kids "I'll think about it."

It's not a yes, not a no. Any one over the age of 10 knows it's a "no" and anyone optimistic can consider it a possibility in 4-5 years. Official response is given, and then there will be those who are upset it's not a bold "yes" and will continue to complain in a separate thread for 50 pages.

I'm from the future, trust me.

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Seeing as they have actually given more affirmative/negative answers than that in the past, it is up in the air whether it would fall in the middle of a perpetual "maybe". But when it comes to the question of how feasible it is in resource terms, I'd rather get an answer from them first, as opposed to people claiming it can't be done, when in reality, we don't know that.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Addicted to the game, not like you'll unsub if this isn't added. So why would the devs add something of no consequence.

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This could apply to quite a few additions to the game that have been implemented eventually and even some that people said they'd unsub if it did get implemented which did eventually get put in. .

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

This could apply to quite a few additions to the game that have been implemented eventually and even some that people said they'd unsub if it did get implemented which did eventually get put in. .

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But did they actually go through unsubbing? Probably not.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

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I did say it would be my last post, but I find it too joyous not to post. Especially when this thread is a futile effort.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

I did say it would be my last post, but I find it too joyous not to post. Especially when this thread is a futile effort.

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There's nothing suggesting that it's futile. Though each to their own, I guess. Personally I'm very much in favour of the approach of agreeing to disagree on such matters.

If nothing else, I appreciate your efforts to keep the thread active and visible.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

There's nothing suggesting that it's futile. Though each to their own, I guess. Personally I'm very much in favour of the approach of agreeing to disagree on such matters.

If nothing else, I appreciate your efforts to keep the thread active and visible.

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Gotta keep them posts coming, or else I wouldn't have anything interesting to read :(.

Still not likely to happen though, this topic is far too controversial. Press could potentially have a field day if this was added, they will find a way to twist it around into a negative light. "Final Fantasy 14 adds an option for players to disable other players glamour. Are the devs quashing individual freedom of expression?" And I'm almost certain the devs would like to avoid that at all costs.

I know this is a troll thread but. Have you even seen the awful combos of leveling gear? Purple pants, green hats, red shirts, yellow boots, blue gloves,

More immersive having people running around in Speedos than it is having clowns everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Still not likely to happen though, this topic is far too controversial. Press could potentially have a field day if this was added, they will find a way to twist it around into a negative light. "Final Fantasy 14 adds an option for players to disable other players glamour. Are the devs quashing individual freedom of expression?" And I'm almost certain the devs would like to avoid that at all costs.

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I doubt that is a concern that the development team have. The feature wouldn't be considered even remotely controversial to most people - especially with it being a client side option.

Some of the usual suspects are flocking to Twitter to complain about it, of course, though it's ultimately just hot air - and the game's been getting very positive press across the board given that the press opt to focus almost solely on reporting content rather than quality of life features.

Not that I doubt that some exceptions exist, given the habit of some 'journalists' stirring the pot to generate clicks and controversy but I doubt it'll amount to much at all in this case. Especially if the content of the game continues to be of a high, polished quality.

It's not like gaming "journalist" outfits are taken particularly seriously when factoring in whether to buy the game or not. Very few people listen to the gaming press, and their general image amongst gamers is dismal. Given the leaps of logic it'd take to arrive at such a headline, though, it'd probably emanate from social media first... but again, it's an echo chamber largely preaching to itself.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I doubt that is a concern that the development team have. The feature wouldn't be considered even remotely controversial to most people - especially with it being a client side option.

Some of the usual suspects are flocking to Twitter to complain about it, of course, though it's ultimately just hot air - and the game's been getting very positive press across the board given that the press opt to focus almost solely on reporting content rather than quality of life features.

Not that I doubt that some exceptions exist, given the habit of some 'journalists' stirring the pot to generate clicks and controversy but I doubt it'll amount to much at all in this case. Especially if the content of the game continues to be of a high, polished quality.

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Negative press is more powerful than positive press.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

It's not like gaming "journalist" outfits are taken particularly seriously when factoring in whether to buy the game or not. Very few people listen to the gaming press, and their general image amongst gamers is dismal. Given the leaps of logic it'd take to arrive at such a headline, though, it'd probably emanate from social media first... but again, it's an echo chamber largely preaching to itself.

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Give definite proof of your claim.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Negative press is more powerful than positive press.

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Not necessarily - mostly for the reasons outlined by Lauront above. There's a growing push-back, thankfully, against those who seek to make mountains out of molehills. It's also often the case that many supposed 'issues' are not actually all that widespread or relevant outside of the social media sphere. I'd point to the situation related to the missing genders. I'm very much wanting to see male viera added to the game at some point in the future, provided they're designed well.

Yet as soon as it was announced that there would be no male viera or female hrothgar there was a lot of volatile outrage and attempts to smear the reputation of both the game itself and the development team.

It amounted to very little - since the game is doing better than ever before. Given how much more minor the outrage over the proposed toggle is I doubt very much that it would be factored in when deciding whether or not to do it.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Give definite proof of your claim.

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Go find it for yourself. I am not here at your beck and call. If you're not familiar with how these outfits are viewed, it is not my problem.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Go find it for yourself. I am not here at your beck and call. If you're not familiar with how these outfits are viewed, it is not my problem.

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Got a genuine question, why do you never post on your main character? Theodric over there gets on everyone else about not posting on theirs, what makes you the exclusion? I already know the answer, but please explain to the masses.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Got a genuine question, why do you never post on your main character? Theodric over there gets on everyone else about not posting on theirs, what makes you the exclusion? I already know the answer, but please explain to the masses.

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I doubt you know much of anything, but frankly, it is none of your business in any case. I suggest you stay focused on the topic at this point.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I suggest you stay focused on the topic at this point.

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In fairness, if someone can't even keep to their word when it comes to making their final post in a thread then it might be a bit much to expect them to remain on topic.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Go find it for yourself. I am not here at your beck and call. If you're not familiar with how these outfits are viewed, it is not my problem.

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I'm sorry you seem to have mistyped "I don't have any proof and am making false claims to prove a personal point."

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I doubt you know much of anything, but frankly, it is none of your business in any case. I suggest you stay focused on the topic at this point.

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I know that you and Theodric are two peas in a pod.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Got a genuine question, why do you never post on your main character? Theodric over there gets on everyone else about not posting on theirs, what makes you the exclusion? I already know the answer, but please explain to the masses.

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Yeah Lauront explain how this hinted nebulous involvement with another poster has any bearing on your or their arguments presented thus far! The masses must know!
Thread's fallen apart this badly huh? Neat.

In any case, I am not in the habit of responding to demands from others to provide the proof to make someone else's claim stack up. If one wishes to claim that some gaming "journalism" outfits blowing hot air will have any real negative effect on the game sales, when so far it has not put a dent in this game's success even when they took controversial decisions to not include the "missing genders", the burden is on them to provide that evidence, and not me. I am simply familiar with how poorly received they are in gamer communities.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Got a genuine question, why do you never post on your main character? Theodric over there gets on everyone else about not posting on theirs, what makes you the exclusion? I already know the answer, but please explain to the masses.

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How do you know he's on an alt?

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

I know that you and Theodric are two peas in a pod.

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We're rather tightly linked, yes. I'm not at all sure what the relevance of that is meant to be in the context of the thread, though. If you're trying to somehow link it my earlier question in relation to asking another poster if their character they were posting on was in fact their main character...I know who Lauront is and who he plays in-game, so I have no need of asking him whether or not he is posting on an alt. It's also entirely at someone's discretion as to whether or not they answer such lines of questioning in the first place.

I would've thought that was all rather obvious, though given that you're opting to bring it up now I suppose it is a sign that you have exhausted lines of debate. Which isn't too surprising given that you have been unable to stick with taking your leave of the thread as originally stated.

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Originally Posted by Canada_bangs

How do you know he's on an alt?

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Lauront posts about level 80 content despite the character linked in the forum profile having only WAR at 60, SAM at 50, and WHM at 30. Either they haven’t actually seen any later content they post about, or the character linked is an alt. That part’s not hard to figure.

Now, I have no clue why posting on an alt or a main character is particularly relevant to whether or not someone’s opinion on glamour holds weight or not, so I think this whole digression is weird. But it takes all of however long the Lodestone character page takes to load to draw the conclusion that it’s an alt character linked there.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

But did they actually go through unsubbing? Probably not.

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Doesn't matter. The team still went through with implementation even with the explicit threat of losing players. This shows that they're willing to implement something if it has merit regardless of possible backlash.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I doubt that is a concern that the development team have. The feature wouldn't be considered even remotely controversial to most people - especially with it being a client side option.

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Not at all controversial > page 132

Ok =(

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

Negative press is more powerful than positive press.

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Wouldn't that make negative press sometimes more appealing to companies than positive press? Isn't there a saying "all press is good press"? Or is this only applicable to politicians? In this case in particular I think that if there were powerful negative press with implementation of this option, there will also be a lot of discussion because people's opinion will for sure differ from it (as seen in this thread) --> even more publicity. Gaming journalists are far from being respected figures in gaming communities so I think it would be free publicity for FFXIV and draw in more players in the end.

Will end up with net positive even if some people leave the game because of this option (highly doubt there will be many).