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

[AriaFairchild]

So because we don't want to play the game the way you think it's played, we're wrong.

I think that falls under "Expressions that compel a playing style".

[Archaic-Antiquarian]

I've already stated my opinion, but after loosely watching this thread continue on and on I think there is an actual alternative. Apologies if it has already been suggested.

A better option for everyone all around would be a brand new world, with the data center to itself. A world that caters to RP lore appropriate content/gear only. Where things like thongs and giant animal heads/costumes/ etc.... aren't even an option to use. Maybe loosely connected (unclear if such an thing could work) to another center, available for visiting, in case they decide they miss seeing free cheeks and giant heads, but only by choice. I think after some time such a strict world would attract enough lore lovers to it.

Better than the company risking the loss of players if they chose to implement an appearance suppressor. And they will lose people in droves, because agree with their style or not, a lot of people are using their characters to represent themselves in a way they might otherwise not be allowed to irl. A man in a dress might get beaten, left by his partner, family, etc...but here the man can now wear the dress to his heart's desire.

I understand the point that everyone has the right to control what's on their own screen, but there are real people behind the garish outfit you see, and for whatever reason, good bad, silly or sad, they wish for you to see them in it.

They are also, though maybe less in numbers, likely to risk the loss of players who feel their game has been and continues to be inundated with tawdry appearance items that have no lore background. I think this would be an alternative that might actually bring in more people without ripping apart the community of players already in existence. It's not as though separate worlds and data centers don't exist already.

[Rokke]

just play a single player game

[Krotoan]

I've already stated my opinion, but after loosely watching this thread continue on and on I think there is an actual alternative. Apologies if it has already been suggested.

A better option for everyone all around would be a brand new world, with the data center to itself. A world that caters to RP lore appropriate content/gear only. Where things like thongs and giant animal heads/costumes/ etc.... aren't even an option to use. Maybe loosely connected (unclear if such an thing could work) to another center, available for visiting, in case they decide they miss seeing free cheeks and giant heads, but only by choice. I think after some time such a strict world would attract enough lore lovers to it.

two things about your solution:
1. It's incredibly resource intensive. New data center/world would add monthly maintenance and data fees as well as possible hardware purchases.


2. Within the people who wish to have this feature there's likely to not be much consensus on what should be allowed or not allowed.

Better than the company risking the loss of players if they chose to implement an appearance suppressor. And they will lose people in droves, because agree with their style or not, a lot of people are using their characters to represent themselves in a way they might otherwise not be allowed to irl. A man in a dress might get beaten, left by his partner, family, etc...but here the man can now wear the dress to his heart's desire.

I understand the point that everyone has the right to control what's on their own screen, but there are real people behind the garish outfit you see, and for whatever reason, good bad, silly or sad, they wish for you to see them in it.

that man can still wear his dress all he likes and nobody has ANY RIGHT to tell him he cannot. Nobody should ever tell another person that "Hey I don't like what you're wearing and you should stop!". However as that man will also never know that I don't see his dress and only in a very non-direct way know that maybe someone out there isn't "experiencing" his expression, I still am agog at the insistence that not only do people have to be able to wear whatever they want (this is totally fine) that if you do not wish to experience this or don't like what it looks like you just have to deal with it even though there are harmless possibilities to rectify the situation.

Everyone is allowed to craft whatever appearance you wish but insisting that everyone has to experience it without compromise or question seems a bit ... obnoxious.


If you cannot understand that a user is literally paying for and expecting an experience and would like to control the impact others have on that experience without visibly affecting those other users, then I don't think you understand the "right to control whats on their own screen".

[F_Maximillian]

This is my first post on this forum in a very long time and I'm really not sure what made me respond to this topic but.. I've read through the bulk of this thread and the reasons for and against have taken on (from the beginning of the thread) personal reasons. Honestly it's one of the things that I truly despise about the current state of society where everything seems to need to have a personal/moral/ethical/(god help us) political spin on it for it to be relevant. How about we take a step back and just consider without personal reasons whether or not it wouldn't be worth having. Honestly it boils down to would it a) take many development resources b) tax the servers or people's clients to implement c) improve a portion of the community's experience to implement. It's hard to say at least for me on a and b because I'm not in the development field but for whatever reasons they may have, a client side toggle would benefit a portion of the community. So long as it wouldn't take unreasonable amounts of dev resources or impact game performance for the whole of the community there doesn't seem to be any non-personal reasons against it.

A lot of the argument against it has to do with other people controlling what your character appears as and denying your freedom to express yourself and so forth but.. you really most likely won't know they're using it. Someone repeatedly brought up streaming and screenshots as flaws to that argument but how probable is it that you're going to run into someone who is using this feature and encounters you in-game and takes a screenshot with you in it and that screenshot will actually make it into your line of vision? I'd say pretty low. As for streamers there may be a higher likelihood of you appearing on someone's stream but it's still quite a low probability and in case of streamers unless someone has some personal vendetta against you to clip the specific frame where your character was on stream in generic gear due to this option being enabled then it's even less likely that you will be made aware of it than a screenshot. Not to mention the fact that most streamers wouldn't disable everyone's glamour if they're trying to showcase the game to attract viewers.

A lot of you are against this feature because you feel personally attacked by it for whatever reason but just because someone can use a feature for negative reasons (such as to discriminate against a certain population) doesn't mean that feature shouldn't exist. A fence can be used to keep people off your property, a fence can also be used to hold a certain population captive. Should we abolish fences because they can be used for negative reasons? What about a chatbox in-game? A chatbox can be used to harass someone so should we remove chatboxes? At the end of the day for whatever reason the likelihood that a reasonable portion of the community would enjoy having this feature is much higher than the likelihood of you being negatively impacted by it. It theoretically could happen but you could theoretically walk past a building tomorrow and be hit by a falling air conditioner.

There is the possibility of this leading to a slippery slope in allowing people to block out certain races or whatnot for whatever reasons they may have (most likely negative) but again just because someone can go to an extreme doesn't mean it should nor should we deny anything that may possibly lead into something worse when it by itself is benign. Some people have also suggested that they would find it preferable to outright hide their character over having it appear in generic gear. I personally would like to see both options enabled. Plenty of other games allow other player characters to be hidden to improve performance and while FFXIV is unusually good with performance in high population areas it would still be beneficial to free up the clutter, if not for performance reasons then for visual clarity reasons.

[Packetdancer]

Sometimes, the gear I get as a healer—or, regrettably, any role where they have gender-differentiated clothing appearances—lacks pants. In fact, there's a downright alarming amount of leg armor in this game which appears to basically be underwear (occasionally with stockings of some form). It's quite possible to have, say, the YoRHa legs for something and a shirt or tunic top if that happens to be the best gear you have available for a class. This would not be a good look.

I personally prefer to run a dungeon/raid/trial with pants, which glamour prisms allow me to do even while leveling a job when you might have mismatched gear. Please do not take my pants. Thank you.

More seriously, I'll admit it does bug me on some level. If I'm in a dungeon or a raid with someone who's streaming and they've modified my appearance—such as removing my glam so now I have no pants—now I've got my character name attached to some image out there which isn't how I prefer them to be portrayed. (Namely: not running around without pants.)

And yes, that can already be done by those willing to violate ToS and mod the game, but there's a difference between "I hacked the game's resources to do this" and "the game gives me a button to remove your pants." Trying to use one as a justification for the other strikes me as a bit like saying, "Well, because banks can be robbed, every bank should just give you other people's money if you ask for it."

(Also, one scenario is considerably more likely to end up in someone's stream than the other.)

I could probably semi-tolerate it just putting you into the role's iconic outfit—duellist outfit for RDM, abyss armor for DRK, the cleric's robes for WHM, etc.—as opposed to just stripping glam away. (Provided they all have pants. Or a skirt. Or something.) I admit still don't like it much, though. My Ala Mhigan Highlander is a combat healer; she'll wear sturdy/comfy boots, a nice jacket, and pants. The iconic white mage outfit just doesn't entirely suit my mental image for her. But with that, my dislike is more like just an irritating itch, rather than "great, now I have to think about what my outfit looks like without glam and make certain I'm either wearing a dress/long chestpiece or something that resembles pants."

(In conclusion: pants are important. Please give us more pants and fewer actual armors that appear to consist wholly of underwear; I enjoy having options when it comes to pants. Also, please do not take the pants I do get. Again, thank you.)

[Krotoan]

Sometimes, the gear I get as a healer—or, regrettably, any role where they have gender-differentiated clothing appearances—lacks pants. In fact, there's a downright alarming amount of leg armor in this game which appears to basically be underwear (occasionally with stockings of some form). It's quite possible to have, say, the YoRHa legs for something and a shirt or tunic top if that happens to be the best gear you have available for a class. This would not be a good look.

I personally prefer to run a dungeon/raid/trial with pants, which glamour prisms allow me to do even while leveling a job when you might have mismatched gear. Please do not take my pants. Thank you.

More seriously, I'll admit it does bug me on some level. If I'm in a dungeon or a raid with someone who's streaming and they've modified my appearance—such as removing my glam so now I have no pants—now I've got my character name attached to some image out there which isn't how I prefer them to be portrayed. (Namely: not running around without pants.)

And yes, that can already be done by those willing to violate ToS and mod the game, but there's a difference between "I hacked the game's resources to do this" and "the game gives me a button to remove your pants." Trying to use one as a justification for the other strikes me as a bit like saying, "Well, because banks can be robbed, every bank should just give you other people's money if you ask for it."

(Also, one scenario is considerably more likely to end up in someone's stream than the other.)

I could probably semi-tolerate it just putting you into the role's iconic outfit—duellist outfit for RDM, abyss armor for DRK, the cleric's robes for WHM, etc.—as opposed to just stripping glam away. (Provided they all have pants. Or a skirt. Or something.) I admit still don't like it much, though. My Ala Mhigan Highlander is a combat healer; she'll wear sturdy/comfy boots, a nice jacket, and pants. The iconic white mage outfit just doesn't entirely suit my mental image for her. But with that, my dislike is more like just an irritating itch, rather than "great, now I have to think about what my outfit looks like without glam and make certain I'm either wearing a dress/long chestpiece or something that resembles pants."

(In conclusion: pants are important. Please give us more pants and fewer actual armors that appear to consist wholly of underwear; I enjoy having options when it comes to pants. Also, please do not take the pants I do get. Again, thank you.)

I have arguments against some of your points but your hopeful plea to just have pants has touched my heart.

If it helps one of the suggestions was to replace your model completely with a different "generic" character of the same race/gender and a generic gearset.... hopefully with pants.

[Tranquilmelody7]

Explain why this is OK and every other option is not. Simply because it "punishes" the user?

How does an all nothing negation of glamour punish anyone using it?
I don't want to have people hold up duties to cancel every man in a bunny suit they encounter.
At some point someone wouldn't hesitate to be outspoken about it and say 'Sorry for the wait, I had to block some glamour.' or anything of similarly ilk.

I'm not particularly well versed in technology but to be able to toggle anyone's glamour on or off in an instant sounds like it would very difficult to implement as well.

[Packetdancer]

I have arguments against some of your points but your hopeful plea to just have pants has touched my heart.

My soul resounds to the words of that old Cartoon Network sting with a Legion of Doom meeting, where Brainiac insists "All I want is a decent pair of pants!" followed by "SOLOMON GRUNDY WANT PANTS TOO!"

If it helps one of the suggestions was to replace your model completely with a different "generic" character of the same race/gender and a generic gearset.... hopefully with pants.

Everything else aside, replacing my character with the generic female Hyuran highlander model makes me uncomfortable in different ways and for other reasons. *glances over at her character image to the left, glances at default Highlander woman, considers difference in skin tones*

I mean, I know that wouldn't be the intention behind a "replace everyone with the default character for that race/gender/background combination" feature, but... it would still be the effect, to literally whitewash the entire game. If something like this was implemented, I would vastly prefer it just replace the outfit with the default racial outfit, or the iconic job outfit (i.e., their AF1 gear, or for jobs introduced later, whatever their first artifact gear is). As opposed to replacing the entire character.

Aquaman, Brainiac, and Solomon Grundy all speak truth. Vote Aquaman 2020: pants for everyone.

[Krotoan]

How does an all nothing negation of glamour punish anyone using it?
I don't want to have people hold up duties to cancel every man in a bunny suit they encounter.


I'm not particularly well versed in technology but to be able to toggle anyone's glamour on or off in an instant sounds like it would very difficult to implement as well.

Punishment in the sense that if they wanted to get rid of something they didn't want, they'd have to remove their own options on their OWN computer for customization.

It would be as simple as a checkbox in a control panel that says "hide other players customizations" or "Enable placeholder avatars for other players" that tells the client to load generic avatars for all characters that aren't NPC's or the player.

Whenever the game client loads someones appearance it's loading maybe 3 tags per piece of gear and maybe 10-20 about the character itself (I don't have access to go look up the actual number of character customizations atm). Making it so the client instead loads a default appearance based on : Race, gender, job, level threshold would be very simple.

At some point someone wouldn't hesitate to be outspoken about it and say 'Sorry for the wait, I had to block some glamour.' or anything of similarly ilk.

Why would you even bother to say anything beyond "Gimme a sec" if you had to do something like that? Why would you indirectly insult someone with that information? Most players understand you don't say things like "Hold on gonna mute the idiot" when you don't like what someone is saying.

Everything else aside, replacing my character with the generic female Hyuran highlander model makes me uncomfortable in different ways and for other reasons. *glances over at her character image to the left, glances at default Highlander woman, considers difference in skin tones*

OK.. maybe randomized skin tone? I honestly did not consider that.