Glamouring w/ retainers creates a PROFIT INSENTIVE to have a BAD GLAMOUR SYSTEM +FIX

[Jahk]

Problem
I just wanted to talk about the glamouring using retainers bandaid fix for the glamour system. Although I do appreciate being able to use this system it is detached from the main glamour system and as the title suggests fuels bad game design for profit. The effects I have seen with player activity are twofold;

1) Players are pushed to purchasing more retainers and using the subpar retainer glamour system leading to frustration. And

2) People are unsubbing instead of doing content because why chase items when you have to delete the ones you just obtained. (I know I don't want to refarm the nier raids anytime I want to try a new glamour)

The Fix
Now this criticism doesn't come as a surprise to anyone (probably) because there are many problems like the market board economy to take into account when trying to fix this issue. But I what I propose is simple.

**Make a system where Blue rarity items are like tokens where you consume them and can access a menu where you can retrieve them at any time putting a copy of the item in your armoury chest.**

This fixes the following:
1)Different specs for different jobs in same class. Savage raiders wanting to maybe play a 2.3 spellspeed blackmage with materia melds but 2.5 on redmage (this applies to many other jobs that share gear). As when you unlock the raid gear you can do what you wish with melds as you can have multiple copies.

2)By selecting only Blue rarity items this limits the work to devs creating the system. It doesn't need to include the billion items in the game just the ones that take considerable effort to obtain.

3)Assuming the fact that items are stored as a physical item on squenix's side this can save on space going forward. I'm assuming that is the technical limitation causing the glamour dresser to not be infinite.

4)Help with player drought in high end content. Player's can now have fun collecting all of the high end glamour weapons and armour from the savage raid tiers, extreme trials, alliance raids, deep dungeons, and boz/eureka content.

For background, I joined just before Endwalker and completed all 3 savage tiers working on ultimate stuff now.

If anyone has any other suggestions that could fix this issue going forward that I have not considered make sure to let me know! I love the game so far and I want it to get even better going forward, but I've seen lazy mechanisms with profit incentives run games slowly into the ground before, and this game is great, I don't think anyone wants to see that.

Sincerely,
Jahk

[Kes13a]

not sure about nier things, but the calamity salvagers allow you to get previous gear you have received and tossed for your job.

if they dont have it, I do not see why they could not also add other blue gear you may have received.

[Canadane]

not sure about nier things, but the calamity salvagers allow you to get previous gear you have received and tossed for your job.

if they dont have it, I do not see why they could not also add other blue gear you may have received.

Because there's no achievement flag to tell the game you've gotten it.
If you wanted a flag for every piece of gear, then you're asking for a glamour catalogue of some sort which they said they were like 90% done at one point but couldn't put it in due to memory constraints.

[Jahk]

Because there's no achievement flag to tell the game you've gotten it.
If you wanted a flag for every piece of gear, then you're asking for a glamour catalogue of some sort which they said they were like 90% done at one point but couldn't put it in due to memory constraints.

They may be looking too large scale. That's why I'm proposing just blue items. If they could do that I don't think the game currently would have an issue. Even still though they can absolutely make a workaround for there issues it may not be the original vision they had for the changes they have made but there are other solutions it, and I know first hand how brutal it is to start over on something like that so it could be engineering team morale issue as well. Thx for the response I'm glad they have responded somewhat to this issue in the past.

[ICountFrom0]

If you wanted a flag for every piece of gear, then you're asking for a glamour catalogue of some sort which they said they were like 90% done at one point but couldn't put it in due to memory constraints.

That's what WoW said about the void chest before they invested in a product from a third party studio that worked like a dream.

Honestly, if we got a bottomless void chest, as a third tier of glam, (Tier 1, glam cabinet, saves ALL data; Tier 2 amour, saves only existence of items; Tier 3, 'void chest', retains only that you had it, requires being given a resource to "craft" the item so you can use it in the glam chest (probably crystals and a glam prism.).) I'd be one of those crazy people who would try to feed it every single item in the game.

There's two possible implementations:

1. You had it, you keep it. This is the one that will not work. This is the one WoW went with. It checks the box the instant you have it. Folks could just claim a rare item off the marketboard, pass it around, and utterly tank the value as everybody now could just pull it out of the void chest. Prices would tank. Crafters would panic. Lets say no.
2. Desynth extension. In order to retain the pattern of the item, you have to take the original and desynth it. Either the original move, or a new one of the same nature. Again, two possibilities.
2a. Attach to current desynth. Take the item, break it down into crystals, and one of them just happens to have the pattern of the original on it. Entire possible quest about somebody researching crystals from desnyth sources and realizing part of the original item is still in there, and it can be reconstructed, at least in part, from the crystals it was broken into. Add a glam prism and the quest ends with you projecting the image of something you broke down for the quest, onto another item. Void chest goes into the inn room. This could still have a catstrophic effect on the market, first a spike as people rush to buy things, and then break them down, and then a crash as the crafting materials from everything being broken down clog the market. In the long term the rarest of the rare materials used to make the rarest glam items end up slightly less valuable, as some of them are recovered in the desnyth process. Given how rare submarine and airship drop glam items are, or rare treasure dungeon drops are, this might be for the best.
2b. New form of desynth. You break it down and imprint the image into a clear prism. The prism is then mounted into the projector and with a glam prism added, the image is burned onto an item, consuming the glam prism, but not the clear prism. Either you have to do this at the chest, and you never actually hold the items outside of the quest, or it's assumed that you just dump them into a bag that is in your key items, like your wallet full of thousands of tomestones. At no time will it take up invintory anywhere, or produce more items in the game. Since it's a 1 for one and absolute destruction the market won't twitch at all. Market will treat it the same as people buying it and putting it into the glam dresser forever. Possible small short spike as fanatics buy things they always wanted but didn't have room for, but the weekly fashion show makes bigger waves each week.

But that's just the raw mechanics, lets dream a little.

Lets pretend there's an entire department that could be tasked to work on this. What would the PERFECT result be? Lets not talk of raw lists, and maybe a horrible sort system. What if when you put the item in, the item referred to it's underlaying form. There's entire sets that are just recolours and restyles of the same item. What if this system could understand this. You put in 12 versions of the same item, and you get a tree system. The item in each of it's natural colours and patterns, with and without class limitations in some cases, the ones that are dyable, the ones that WILL BE two layer dyable. What if completely new items could be unlocked this way? Put in enough forms of a particular style of armor, and unlock dyable on other versions of it. Turn some of the regular dyable ones into two tone dyable. Maybe even finally pry class restrictions off of some items. Or force them to work even when species would be in the way. This would be the place to hide or unhide the bun ears so they don't clip on helmets, or they DO clip through if you want that. Do the same with your tail. Why limit us to visor up or visor down? All of these are technically possible. And heck, company crest, give it a checkbox. Then we project all of this across to the glam dresser, put it into the plate, and save the settings. Then have that attach to the portrait system, and stop giving us errors and overwriting and erroring all the time.

Let us DREAM BIG.

A chest, that not just contains every item, but a catalog of them, arranged by styles, in trees and branches, that slowly fills in and upgrades as you feed it items, that eventually lets you put anything, onto anybody that you just happen to be right now. That integrates not just with glam, but the dye system, storing the dye pigment items, glam crystals, and dyes themselves to apply as needed to items, making everything just work. Everything, even the instant portrait system.

[Jahk]

Let us DREAM BIG.

A chest, that not just contains every item, but a catalog of them, arranged by styles, in trees and branches, that slowly fills in and upgrades as you feed it items, that eventually lets you put anything, onto anybody that you just happen to be right now. That integrates not just with glam, but the dye system, storing the dye pigment items, glam crystals, and dyes themselves to apply as needed to items, making everything just work. Everything, even the instant portrait system.

OMG what a response. YES lets DREAM BIG! Honestly even a little bit of this would be amazing ty!

[Jahk]

not sure about nier things, but the calamity salvagers allow you to get previous gear you have received and tossed for your job.

if they dont have it, I do not see why they could not also add other blue gear you may have received.

That would be nice to have but doesn't fix help sort of but doesn't fix the core problem of not being able to use the glamour system effectively without third party tools. Also, doesn't allow for different specs on shared armour for highend content. But in the meantime would be nice! ty for the reply

[HermitUK]

Because there's no achievement flag to tell the game you've gotten it.
If you wanted a flag for every piece of gear, then you're asking for a glamour catalogue of some sort which they said they were like 90% done at one point but couldn't put it in due to memory constraints.

Indeed, I think this is the reason they said they wouldn't do it in the past. Don't get me wrong, I would love a proper catalogue system for glamour. But there are over 23,000 items that can be put in the glamour dresser - including all armour, accessories, weapons and tools. There are ways to rationalise the list somewhat, like one necklace unlocking the idential appearances for the other roles, but it's still going to be a way longer list than the 800 cap per player on the glamour dresser.

If they can figure out a way to do it though it would be lovely. We can always dream.

[Jahk]

Indeed, I think this is the reason they said they wouldn't do it in the past. Don't get me wrong, I would love a proper catalogue system for glamour. But there are over 23,000 items that can be put in the glamour dresser - including all armour, accessories, weapons and tools. There are ways to rationalise the list somewhat, like one necklace unlocking the idential appearances for the other roles, but it's still going to be a way longer list than the 800 cap per player on the glamour dresser.

If they can figure out a way to do it though it would be lovely. We can always dream.

The dream is alive and well! I'm suggesting they downscale their previous efforts to just a portion of items in the game. It will be years before we get dawntrail hd textures on arr gear for instance. Hell they might even have the system pretty much made! Just include the hard to achieve items and let us sort out the rest until they get a real fix!