Darklight / Other ilvl 70 Tank Gear

This is a short thread mainly to arise the problem with the ilvl 70 Tank gear in the game.

In terms of endgame Tank gear, It's come to my attention that nobody really wants the ilevel 70 either Darksteel or Darklight gear in terms of sheer looks. In fact the only real reason most players seem to end up obtaining this gear is all down to the gear stats.

I believe this problem could be easily fixed and even give a lot more incentive for players to reach out and aim for lvl 50 simply because they want this endgame gear.

[Simple Solution]

The /visor macro should be implemented to work on these specific sets of gear. I really doubt it would take that much work to implement or another option would be for the Head piece of the body part to be hidden the same way as a normal head piece can be hidden.

It may not seem like a big deal but I feel this slight fix will make the bulky stacked Gear Sets to be far more attractive to all players that are leveling Tanks.

There was a developer post on this. Not going to happen. But they promise to try not to replicate this problem in future armours.

My biggest problem isn't actually with the looks, it's with how poorly it plays with other armor. Makes it really really frustrating to upgrade pieces as a tank (and as a magic user to a lesser extent for that matter).

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Originally Posted by Supercactoid

I believe this problem could be easily fixed....

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Apparently not.

Can't seem to dig the post up but they've stated it would require a complete redesign of the armour from the ground up and they'd rather focus on new armour sets rather than going back to the drawing board on the ones that have been in the game since launch.

EDIT: Also, at most you're going to be stuck with your Heavy DL Armour for two weeks. It can easily be replaced with a combination of CT and Myth gear or even Hoplite if you're willing to farm it.

I'm running around in the "High Mythril" head and chest piece right now at L48 (HQ of course) and I went through all the lower tiers too. The sets are ugly; they don't look very good with other equipment; and worst of all, when you get inserted into instances, cutscenes, and the like, you are an expressionless tin can - you can't see your facial expressions or even head nods when you're geared in one of these items.

It looks absolutely awful, its animated even worse, and upgrading to a new set is just a pain in the ass. Heavy Darklight is just one big middle finger to tanking classes.

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Originally Posted by Grembo

Apparently not.

Can't seem to dig the post up but they've stated it would require a complete redesign of the armour from the ground up and they'd rather focus on new armour sets rather than going back to the drawing board on the ones that have been in the game since launch.

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If that's the issue, just quickly reskin something else to make it black and red, and throw it in there instead. Darklight itself is just a lazy reskin to begin with, nothing of value will be lost.

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Originally Posted by Kiteless

If that's the issue, just quickly reskin something else to make it black and red, and throw it in there instead. Darklight itself is just a lazy reskin to begin with, nothing of value will be lost.

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What content should they delay implementing to tweak something that is weaker than the version just as easy to earn in CT, except 10 levels higher?

Seems irrelevant already, I don't see why any game developer would bother addressing this request.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

What content should they delay implementing to tweak something that is weaker than the version just as easy to earn in CT, except 10 levels higher?

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If a content ends up being delayed by a 30 second process that is literally just opening up a texture file in photoshop, hitting ctrl+U, and moving a couple sliders around; and then adding a new item listing with stats that are essentially already determined, there are some serious issues with the production pipeleine that the developers are using.

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Seems irrelevant already, I don't see why any game developer would bother addressing this request.

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Considering the lopsided spread of the playerbase against tanks as it is, I'd figure anything that could be done to even entertain the possibility of getting more tanks on servers would be at least worth consideration.

A quality of life change that involves making them not the most annoying classes to gear in the game would be a good start.

You'd think the tank DL would have been an 'issue' back in 1.0 when AV/CC dropped them, and that what it looks like would have been noticed and adjusted... if it mattered in the larger scheme of things. It does not, so it was not.

Don't like it? get the CT tank body. It's better, and can take as much if not less effort to earn.

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Originally Posted by Grembo

Also, at most you're going to be stuck with your Heavy DL Armour for two weeks. It can easily be replaced with a combination of CT and Myth gear or even Hoplite if you're willing to farm it.

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Try three. Mythology chest and legs are 800ish tomes while the cap is half that. So it's two weeks for one part of your upgrade and another week for the other (assuming going to i90 myth).

And Hoplite gear is a downgrade to Darklight as it is i60 gear.

That said, the devs stated they would not be making the mistake going forward so hopefully we'll never see combined pieces ever again in anything other than vanity.

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Originally Posted by Hvinire

We know also that there have been a lot of requests for hooded gear with the option to lower the hood. While some gear can be adjusted with the /visor function, each piece of gear is designed with this function from its inception, and it would take a lot of time and effort to adjust previously released gear to fit this request. Specifically this involves taking previous models, breaking them apart and inserting new frames for each.

This additional time would normally be spent on creating new gear, and when weighing the benefits of either, the Item team believes new gear takes precedent. To be clear, currently we don't have plans to adjust any of the current equipment as suggested.

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Originally Posted by Hvinire

We'll also be sure to inform the team to keep the /visor function in mind when designing new gear from the start.

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Originally Posted by Hvinire

We spoke on this topic again with the Item team and were informed that items like the black mage mask, the turban eyemask, and certain heavy armor visors were designed before the use of the /visor feature was conceptualized. As mentioned in this post, it would take a lot of time away from creating new gear if they were to go back and redesign previous gear, but the team will be looking into creating new equipment with the /visor function going forward.

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Note the careful wording, wherein the only thing they're committing to is enabling /visor on (some) new equipment, and say absolutely squat about gear that takes up 2 slots.

Oops, forgot one:

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Originally Posted by Hvinire

Unfortunately, there are no plans to separate the head portion of darklight armor or visibly remove it from the body piece.

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To be completely honest, this armor and many many others in this game just scream "rush job"... The quality of the particular sets in question are completely abysmal from totally misplaced shoulders, to stretchy rubber breastplate whenever your character tries to look at something... All together this is one of the worst armor sets I've ever seen in any game I've played over the past half decade and just screams incompetence more than anything else... Many people are specifically avoiding this gear (your content) because it looks terrible and most certainly does not fit the games atmosphere... Simple modifications like shrinking and changing the bind coordinates of shoulders, as well as chopping off the head portion of the model and replacing it with a modest variation of some other art asset in the game is in no means difficult. Making new content is great an all, but this is an armor style that shows up many times as you lvl to 50, and is represented in the only 2 viable il70 armors available to tanks. There is 100% no question that more people will experience this sub par graphical "content" than will a new il100 armor set... In the end modifying these armors to look better would not take a long time at all and could be done by 1 person over 1 week... Please SE, people are sick of seeing disgustingly designed tin can suits clogging up the game. Please clean up your messes before you make new ones.

Edit: If you're team (SE's) is lime limited, then why not put a competition out to the community to create a new armor set to replace this... There are large numbers of gamers and modders that are extremely savy with 3d modelling programs and are capable of putting out art assets that make just about anything that shows up in "professional" games look like junk in comparison... As an example, take a look at what huge numbers of individual unpaid "amatuer" modders are capable of creating in short periods of time in Skyrim...

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Originally Posted by unnameduser

In the end modifying these armors to look better would not take a long time at all and could be done by 1 person over 1 week...

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If we're talking about just the art assets for a specific piece, and no one is dragging their ass while they're doing it, we're looking about more along the lines of a few hours, days at most. If they're just reskinning things, even less.

You can't just activate /visor for darklight style armor and expect that to solve anything. Notice how the helmet doesn't pivot? Well, either your characters head would just be oddly staring at the ground in front of you instead of the target, or you would geta nice (probably buggy/clipped) view of their temple/hair because their head would be twisted and looking at the side of the helmet.

Also, just gonna throw this out there, but Darklight really grew on me. The cool little armored "coat tail" on the back, the awesome little armor on the top of the feet, and the overall beefiness/cool horn head thing... honestly was sad to see it go when I got CT loot.

I understand it's pretty ugly. But at least it is not your best gear? Be honest now, Allagan gear, Warrior's gear and Valor gear are all pretty shnazzy.

how about if Square Enix just used a different armor visual for the darklight armor. (Seems like it would take someone like 30 seconds to do this on their end)
Like:

Militia Cuirass with Militia Armet

and with /visor

just Militia Cuirass by itself without a head armor

if they wants color to be dark, maybe they can just code it so its natural colors are like they were dyed black.

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Originally Posted by Caraway

And Hoplite gear is a downgrade to Darklight as it is i60 gear.

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Technically not true. Myth chest plus hop lite helm combined still has better stats the DL chest.

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Originally Posted by Warrlordd

But at least it is not your best gear? Be honest now, Allagan gear, Warrior's gear and Valor gear are all pretty shnazzy.

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Allagan is very high quality art, and imo one of the most impressively designed armor sets in the game. While it's not really my style, it's certainly very well done and my hat is off to SE on this one. I've not gotten a chance to thoroughly look at the warrior's gear, but imo the valor is some what sub par... Overall the valor model is great, and there is very minimal clipping (lots and lots in this game) which is a huge plus however the major issue I have with it is the extremely washed out look it has... Allot of the texture detail compared to the il50/55 stuff is just sub par. What's needed is to have the darkness of the shading slightly increased to improve detail contrast, most especially on the extremely "matte" white shoulders. A very simple and quick thing like that would add allot to the armor set.

I hate how when fighting, my character stares at the ground because they cant pivot the neck. Breaks all my inmersion when I look at my char just staring down instead of looking in front to the enemy he's supposedly attacking.

Also, before CT at least, it was a huge problem to do upgrades because if you got say, a Myth/Allagan Chest/head/Legs/Boot, you'd have no i70 piece to pair it with. Had to downgrade to i60 Hopilite to barely scrape off an upgrade. Nowadays its still kind of a problem because CT gear came with 0 accuracy (Sans feet I think?), which means its not really a replacement if you intend on doing coils :/

The Darklight tank armour is the main reason I've been doing endgame as a DRG rather than a PLD. That armour is hateful on a PLD and I don't want to wear it for any amount of time. Hell, saving up myth as a DRG and skipping it completely until I have AF2 seems like the best option at the minute.

Yeah I started this thread earlier. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...r....-Really-!

The worst part of the armor for me isn't even the "cannot face forward" issue of the helmet being immobilized.
http://i.imgur.com/l4e0CMR.png http://i.imgur.com/oOZIDXv.png
(though it IS bad)

The worst part for me is the idle stance for Female Elezen (and others, I'm sure) just looks so unnatural and uncomfortable. Like she's caught mid-shrug, or maybe pulled a muscle in her neck and is wearing a brace wrong.
http://i.imgur.com/modwSQk.png http://i.imgur.com/KyUeEUQ.png

As someone who deals with back and shoulder pain quite often IRL, it's intensely uncomfortable to look at this. I've thankfully upgraded past it, but it's still an eyesore when I see others wearing it.

two words for you...... Vanity Slots.

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Originally Posted by Mailstrum

two words for you...... Vanity Slots.

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I'm really glad we've had those since launch.

Yeah, I think it's safe to say whoever designed the tank DL (and tank armor in general) for this game took a nap on the job. It just looks awful. And whoever said, "Just go get the CT set," get real -- it looks just as bad!

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Originally Posted by SleepingBag

Yeah, I think it's safe to say whoever designed the tank DL (and tank armor in general) for this game took a nap on the job. It just looks awful. And whoever said, "Just go get the CT set," get real -- it looks just as bad!

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I feel like I have to inform people, who came to FFXIV during 2.0 and are generally ignorant of things from 1.0, about tank Darklight.

Back in 1.0 there were two sets of these "full-body" armors: Darksteel and Darklight. Darklight was THE endgame armor of 1.0, and very hard to obtain. Not everyone liked the look, but it was still different from the hubdrub tank armors from 1~50, most of which were just whatever you could throw on and get PLed to 50, then wear Artifact along with what I think is the Cobalt set now in game.

There's the history of Darklight: A once sought-after, cool looking set, that was pretty difficult to obtain due to RNG.

How it has fallen in the eyes of those who don't know better. Glad I could inform you!

Doesn't matter how rare or sought after it may have been, doesn't change the fact that it looks like trash.

I personally just skipped dark light chest and head and saved myth tommes for myth armor. I just couldn't bear using this, it's incredibly ugly. Im hoping more gear options are introduced in the future for this level range, and CT is not enough, it takes too long to farm. Something quicker through the new dungeons maybe, and they definetly need to add more craft able armor at that level