Glamour Plate and Glamour System Idea
I wanted to share some thoughts regarding glamour which are based on some assumptions and ideas that are not wholly original.
1. The Big Assumption
Yoshi P said in the Q&A that Glamour Plates are a server issue. My assumption of why glamour causes so much strain on servers is because when you glamour an item the game doesn't just keep track of the type of item, but the complete unique item, all the metadata regarding its unique id, quality, stat changes, who crafted it, etc.
But when it comes to glamour, I think all the game really needs to keep track of is: what item it is, the dyes, and visor on/off (which is coming to body armor now too). A plate should really just be a list of these three things for each slot. The problem is that this would require fundamentally changing how glamours work, because instead of keeping track of real unique items, they would have to revamp the system to look for a new generic item type that only has a couple of user defined choices (the dyes and visor system).
2. The Band-Aid Solution
Lets say changing the system is impossible, and plates put too much stress on servers to bring them everywhere you go. My first idea is this: storing plates in the glamour dresser.
At the very least, I think it would be nice to be able to have the ability to create lets say 40-60 plates at the glamour dresser, and then you can exchange the ones you want to carry around with you. At least would let you make and save all sorts of ideas, without having to replace the ones you have. When you visit other servers, you still have the same number of glamour plates.
3. The Revamp
Now, lets say changing the system isn't impossible and the original assumption is correct that simplifying glamour items would ease the burden on servers. The second idea which I think has been proposed before is basically having a sort of Glamour Book, which keeps track of all armors in the game.
- Whenever you use a glamour crystal on an item, it would bind the item to you and "activate" that item in the book. It wouldn't be a "real/unique" item, it would just be a binary yes/no for each one.
- Whenever you use a dye on an "active" item in the book, it would "activate" that dye for that item. With the dye condensation, I feel like you really only need to save binary yes/no for each dye type.
- When you make a plate / glamour something on, you just select it from the book. It only needs to keep track of the "simplified" items.
This is basically my ideal scenario, because you would create a whole new world of people trying to collect all items (without removing the same need for glamour crystals and dyes), completely erase all need to keep ever increasing the glamour dresser, and potentially help increase the plate number without increasing server stress.