Appearance Tab Please

[Amineri]

Well your welcome to your opinion, but if your going to post against it, would you mind at least giving a logical reason to support your perspective?

Since you ask so nicely ... sure!

The first part is primarily just that it is my personal preference. Much like I like the color green, but cannot give a logical reason supporting my like of this color, neither can I give a logical reason supporting my personal preference. ^-^

Now, I can hear the counter-argument : "If you don't like appearance tabs, then you don't have to use them!" To a certain degree, that is true. However, I DO have to deal the consequences of seeing OTHERS make use of the feature. Seeing a Lancer running around wielding a giant fork does impact on my view of the game world, whether I choose to make use of such a feature or not. Even worse, seeing fulled armored gladiator in a Santa Suit.

But, that is merely personal preference. It doesn't really count for a lot, except in my recording my personal "vote" on the matter.

Now, what did Yoshi-P have to say about this:

Within MMORPGs, being able to individualize a character is a very important element that makes people continue to play for long periods of time.

However, individuality is a really difficult theme for developers.
Especially with equipment, the appearance and the stats need to be inextricably linked.

Now, from a purely mechanic sense, it is clearly not the case that appearance and stats need to be linked. I'm granting some amount of "Lost in Translation" here, and am thinking he is saying that appearance and stats should be linked in his view. Games like DCUO, Aion, and the upcoming game Secret World show that item appearance can be unlinked from item stats.

However, DCUO and Secret World are different genres (superhero and modern), and the inclusion of this game mechanic in Aion very arguably made the setting feel "less fantasy". Whether you think this is a "big deal" or not is a matter of personal preference, not right or wrong. However, it is Yoshi-P's vision that will guide us here:

When trying to allow freedom for both performance and appearance, it becomes very difficult, because the concept of classes must also be considered for battles.

In order to allow all gear to be equipped freely based on appearance with no worries about performance, every item must have the same stats. The following is an extreme example.

If a mage wearing full-plate armor is able to continue to cast spells with ease while being attacked by numerous monsters, I think there is something wrong. In addition, a third person watching this scene will not be able to distinguish whether the player is a mage or warrior. The individuality of the character itself will increase, but the individuality of warriors is lost. It is even safe to say that this game will not feel like an RPG.

Bold added for emphasis.

Final Fantasy is a fantasy setting. This means that there are certain conventions, a theme to the world that the development team is trying to establish. This in turn requires certain limitations on the completely free expression that you are shooting for. Other settings may not require them (e.g. superhero, modern), but Yoshi-P and the development team feel that the FFXIV setting does need them.

To use a very crude analogy, a person has freedom of speech (in the U.S., anyhow ), but that freedom does not extend to slander, or the ability to yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theatre.

So, if SE were to allow the separation of the gear appearance from stats, they would lose their ability to maintain the sense of visual theme that creates their vision of Final Fantasy XIV.