Glamour Outfits is a good direction, but...

[NegativeS]

In 1.0 forums I and some others asked for an item log, they were working on it- it came with lore quips. They scrapped the idea due to amount of work (which I'm sure was a lot, is a lot still), but man if they had kept at it that would have been amazing.

I don't even see how it would take that much work.

I'm sure they already have a database or list or variable or SOMETHING containing every equipable item in the game (and if they don't then they're stupid and this game deserves to shut down yesterday).

Make a UI window that shows all of these items in a list. Then add character-specific (or if you're feeling spicy, account-specific) flags for each item denoting that that item has been soulbound before. Doesn't have to be a ton of data, just a simple true or false. If true, the item appears in the window. If false, it doesn't. Anything in the dresser already or in inventories/retainers can be automatically grandfathered in.

Then just... connect it to the existing glamour plate system.

Unless the spaghetti is orders of magnitude more tangled than even the most pessimistic person might be led to believe, this is something a CS undergrad should be able to do in their sleep, with both hands tied behind their back. Hell, I'm a college dropout with only hobbyist game dev experience, and I could probably bust out the framework for such a system in an afternoon, tops.

The only reason I can think of why it hasn't happened yet is because of a purposeful decision.

[Shougun]

I don't even see how it would take that much work.

I'm sure they already have a database or list or variable or SOMETHING containing every equipable item in the game (and if they don't then they're stupid and this game deserves to shut down yesterday).

Make a UI window that shows all of these items in a list. Then add character-specific (or if you're feeling spicy, account-specific) flags for each item denoting that that item has been soulbound before. Doesn't have to be a ton of data, just a simple true or false. If true, the item appears in the window. If false, it doesn't. Anything in the dresser already or in inventories/retainers can be automatically grandfathered in.

Then just... connect it to the existing glamour plate system.

Unless the spaghetti is orders of magnitude more tangled than even the most pessimistic person might be led to believe, this is something a CS undergrad should be able to do in their sleep, with both hands tied behind their back. Hell, I'm a college dropout with only hobbyist game dev experience, and I could probably bust out the framework for such a system in an afternoon, tops.

The only reason I can think of why it hasn't happened yet is because of a purposeful decision.

You know how when you enter the game you get a queue? Like the game CAN handle you, but it makes you parse out into smaller numbers 'to' handle you? The issue here is making a system that players can access that has thousands of variables, wont crash the game, and fits the framework they've set up. Is a glamour system as we 'want' it possible? Yes, we've seen it like 5 times by now. With WoW being the easy hand point. Is it going to be easy in FFXIV? Who knows, but they told us it was hard, and we do know from WoW that (if I'm remembering correctly) hired a third party team to work on just that system.


With how they described code early on, and how we see they have memory limitations- it seems like they've opted for very stable, very predictable, also limited and not dynamic systems.. Instanced housing, glamour logs... these things hate static understandings. Like how they described memory management in like.. 2013 lol, was very much how I remember learning C code.. its known, its loaded, its ready to goooooo. Meanwhile later I was more like "Don't care, we'll know where we're going when we get there! We're going to ride this baby until you run out of resources" ALL YOUR RESOURCES ARE BELONG TO ME!!! (just like chrome ). Or for your 101 programming class, how a string works in C vs in C++.


Do I think SE gets a pass just because of all that? No, but I do imagine that they would have snapped their fingers already if it was possible. Just to shut us up lol.


Additional insight, Yoshida is a big fan of Dark Age of Camelot, he's an old school hardcore gamer. I imagine this is one of the reasons why our bosses are so invested (incredible music, visuals, and pretty good mechanics). Anyway, If you look at that game's housing system, its basically ours. I hate it, I think it was a bad choice, but it is what it is and we / they made it worse by allowing players in (though if they didn't let players in I'd still hate it lol, I am a diehard instanced player-- wildstar, ESO, type stuff is gold). Originally it was only FC and I think the housing system would have handled his desires / the way the system was designed far better if houses NEVER accepted players....buuuuttttttt we wanted dat housing, and thus we have many ghost wards (which defeats really the only benefit). So I think housing started intentionally to what it was, but given player desires they shifted but couldn't change the freight train's direction very well.


Also my personal thought is Yoshida can make a life raft from a coconut and two strands of rope, and this is what allowed him to save FFXIV from 1.0-- having 1.0 play while they remade it for 2.0. Efficient with what is given to him; however, I think a mix of his own style and also likely heavy clamping from above (because people like making money, not spending it) that he and 'they' have a hard time reinvesting oodles of gil or ripping the freight train off the tracks if they believe minor adjustments can be 'good enough'. Which to explains why we don't have what he might think are superfluous systems and unneeded investments in dev tools, but are, imo, what are creating a sandblasted experience where texture is only lost each expansion and we all rely on the story or dungeons. Like why in WoW when you walk on corrupted blood it corrupts you, but in FFXIV when you walk on the moon its the exact same experience as if you walked any where else. When you walk in the sludge of Ultima Thule, its just like water.


The overworld is a tunnel to lead you to MSQ / bosses. I respect the responsibility of his position, so many jobs, and players, rely on him not to mess it up... so its easy for me to be here and be like "if only they would have done X" but.. I'm going to do that now lol, and I think through all the problems / I / experience but also a very common problem I'm seeing grow can be explained through the fact that gameplay is streamlined into such narrow beams. Even when they add a new system they use the very similar beam on it, like in Island Sanctuary they hardly added any new game system (they added none if you don't count excel as gameplay). I think his ability to optimize and plan (I mean our patch cadence for years upon years was incredible), is now also becoming a problem.


The ship is not agile because it's planned out for years, the ship is not very creative because it isn't the conservative path forward. While we're told we are treading into waters unknown with a new patch or expansion, you can mentally play the whole thing out except for very specific contents which if they don't hit hard will dull the entire experience (like if the story is lacking, or if you dont LOVE the new raid). I think the exploratory zones were appreciated by some because it was new, though I think in general if I have to compare to me it just seems like a more narrowed borrowed power system from WoW... if we were going to do that I just imagine "why not have all the zones in that expansion be cool, and add new zones that are unified as an experience" instead of making an instanced that'll die with cool things that will be forgotten.


...So yeah.. I kind of get it, but I still want what I want and hope the game will be the best game that it can be (though that is obviously seen through the bias of my eyes). Also contextually I have been on the drums of instanced housing and glamour logs, consecutively, for probably the longest (seeing my absurd post count, and the majority of it being feedback / desires).