My attempt to fix our glamour troubles

[Shurrikhan]

So this is basically the same system that is used in games like Rift. It's nice, but the biggest hurdle is most likely that it'd take up too much data since you're having to load twice as many gear images in (one for the base equipment, one for the glamour style). The only way those games can pull it off is because they normally have the visual quality of a Sega Saturn and gear doesn't take up anywhere near as much data.

The glamour system we use works instead by removing the base gear look and replacing it with the look of the intended glamour item (which is also why you can't use a glamoured item as a glamour), and the glamour plate system we have now is about as close as it'll get. It just requires the resources to expand on it, preferably starting with a glamour dresser housing item so we don't have to keep going back to inn rooms.

Graphics have nothing to do with the amount of data being sent from the servers, though. The server supplies only the IDs. The client draws them accordingly.

At worst, it repackages the information in a way that would require an extra module compared to the sent item carrying the glamour tag as it would an augmented secondary stat or the like.

[Kazrah]

Graphics have nothing to do with the amount of data being sent from the servers, though. The server supplies only the IDs. The client draws them accordingly.

At worst, it repackages the information in a way that would require an extra module compared to the sent item carrying the glamour tag as it would an augmented secondary stat or the like.

It determines size though, and the OP's system would effectively double it.

[Shurrikhan]

It determines size though, and the OP's system would effectively double it.

I still don't know what you mean by "size", then. You're only loading one image per slot, and these images are loaded solely by the client according to client-side (e.g. .dat) data. In total, each slot would still request two IDs (one for base stats, the other for appearance), dye, condition, and materia. It's just that the glamour could now be applied to the gear slot on a job by job basis if one wanted, rather than to the gear itself, and could easily swap between using the item original or applied appearance, circumventing the need to so frequently return to your inn room or consume glamour prisms.

You either receive apply and save or receive (from a gearset save) as little as one module with 3-8 tags each per slot (depending on if all attached materia is considered additively and under a single string, or if the secondary stats are each queried and sent separately), or as many as two modules per slot, one with just two tags (appearance, dye) and the other with 1-6, still for a total of 6-8.

[Kazrah]

I still don't know what you mean by "size", then.

Every image has a size. Yes, it has an ID for appearance, which is attached to an image with a set data size on it. It's exactly why we don't have a glamour log: because of the data size required to load in all those ID's, even the recycled ones. In fact, that's one reason why the art team recycles so many gear appearances.

I'm saying that unless the OP's system permanently alters that appearance ID like glamours do now (and how glamour plates work now), it's going to require the game to have to load both appearance ID's at the same time for one piece of gear. This is what I mean by effectively doubling it.