SE just make a vanity slot to solve all your issues with this.

[Onisake]

The fact is, 'vanity slots' are a costly fix for a problem that doesn't exist (except in the minds of a small group of forumites.)

Fact without data? no. sorry that's your opinion. Just like what i've been saying is my opinion.

However I can back up with data/experience/history.

Number one complaint (for people who played the game and stuck with it, and didn't quit because it was 'too hard') of FFXI character creation: lack of customization

Number one praise for City of Heroes: complete and total customization. your appearance had nothing to do with stats. It was fun and exciting to see what people could come up with for a hero.

To really make a "great" game you need 2 things:

1) Technical and gameplay innovation.

2) High Quality Production Value.

for the first point, we're not getting a lot of that. it's SE so we know the campaign will be at least decent. (which is another big complaint for MMOs in general) but the UI and gameplay are likely going to be very similar to what else is already existing. largely because that's exactly what they said they were trying to do.

which leaves us with production value.

we're going to have houses and free companies that we can customize to a degree. we should be able to do the same thing with our gear.

it's not so much the need to customize our appearance as it is the need for the choice.

Hardcore gamers aren't going to care as much. but if they have the option they will exercise it. they also aren't likely going to be running around in swimsuits. in fact i'm near positive most people won't do this. although we might see an increase in people wearing coliseum gear, Vanya, and other visually appealing gear that we can't really use because the stats are garbage. It might happen for a little while. and you may have that one guy who's holding out because he really really like his Yukata and is emotionally attached to it. but eventually people will get bored with it and change their appearance.

Casual gamers however will flock to it like crazy. they will like playing dress up and running around with their friends killing monster their way. casual gamers hate feeling restricted and want freedom. being able to choose how you look is a good thing. there's nothing bad about having this option.

The new gear-set system allows you to instantly switch whatever gear you want on the fly, so you can walk around all day in your Yukata + Harlequin cap, and quickly change to your gear when you fight/craft/etc.

With this in mind, every argument for a vanity slot system can be boiled down to:

"I WANT SE TO BUILD A SYSTEM THAT WILL TURN ALL GEAR EVER CREATED INTO MERE COSTUMES JUST SO I DON'T EVER HAVE TO CHANGE OUT OF MY SWIMSUIT/YUKATA/ETC WHILE FIGHTING GARUDA."

Gross exaggeration. that's like me saying everyone who argues against vanity slots boils down to saying this:

"I HATE CUSTOMIZATION AND WANT EVERYONE TO LOOK THE SAME BECAUSE I LIKE RODEO CLOWNS. I WANT EVERYONE TO LOOK UGLY BECAUSE THEY SHOULD FEEL BAD FOR WANTING TO BE PRETTY."

(Face it, you could wear whatever you want for most other content)

you can beat all content with AF. wearing better gear is not a requirement. it's about increasing your margin of error. why wear subpar gear and increase your chance of failure? it just doesn't make sense.

it's not about what is required. it's about options. no-one needs relic gear. no-one needs darklight. heck you don't even need double/triple melds. but we get them anyway and strive for it.

in fact with vanity slots you can add vanity gear as rewards. yay! more useless crap to collect! and looking at how successful facebook games are. I can say with confidence people like collecting useless crap.

You can see the proof of that with people who bought Chocobo barding.

Gear Sets in ARR will allow you to quickly change into whatever gear you like WITHOUT marginalizing all present and future gear - That should be good enough.

why settle for 'good enough'?

that's like saying "Hey, I only need to own one pair of pants, one shirt, and one pair of shoes because it's good enough"

Everyone cares about what they look like. some care less than others, I will grant you. but we've all walked into a store. saw an article of clothing and said 'god no, I would never wear that.'

Yet it's perfectly fine to force us to wear clothing we don't' find visually appealing in a video game. >.>;;

we can just as quickly change gear with macros. in fact that's probably more efficient because you can actually share gear between gear sets without added complexity of needing aliases for gear. why not just increase the number of lines in a macro instead of adding gear sets?

oh wait. because it's easier. and adds production value. silly me.

If I had a choice between adding gear set slots or vanity slots I'd choose vanity. because macros are 'good enough' for gear swaps.


Furthermore if we're going the route of 'good enough' why do we even have more than 5 gear sets? we should all just upgrade our armor every 10 levels and then that's it. no more worries about what is best in slot. no more worries about this armor set clashing with that one. Everything is the same! so now there are no problems. I guess we can add in some additional armor past our level 50 AF set so people will keep playing.

we have multiple armor sets so we can customize ourselves and build our characters how we want to as we level. as armor during this stage is less important. but once we hit 50, we pretty much lock our appearance. this seems very backwards to me.

[Reika]

So why do we even need housing. Isn't the addition of player/company housing slowing down production of ARR? We should get the dev team to put a stop to it and focus on.... the game.

[Zantetsuken]

@Onisake

You fail to address my point.

Any player can wear whatever they want at any time -- right now (provided their jobs/classes fit the bill).

Your vanity system does nothing but allow players to engage in endgame content wearing (what is currently) garbage/underpowered gear.

The devs said its a no-go, so the onus is on you to make an extremely solid case for it (something better than variety/customization for its own sake)



@Reika

Housing adds functionality via storage, gardening, chocobo raising, as well as a bit of realism / immersion enhancment to the game. You could hardly say the same about a vanity system.

[Duelle]

And there is one reason why i dont want them, i just dont wanna see Rogadyn Paladins in a Yukata tanking, sry but thats something that would destroy the flair of the game.

No, what would destroy the flair of the game would be seeing the return of the Optical Hat+Scorpion Harness/Haubergeon army.

Any player can wear whatever they want at any time -- right now (provided their jobs/classes fit the bill).

And a vanity slot system would not change that aside from giving the player an option in how they look. Gear change macros are just that, and you're attempting to present them as an alternative when it is not much of an alternative in the first place.

[Zantetsuken]

And a vanity slot system would not change that aside from giving the player an option in how they look..

As if players can't change how they look now by simply equipping a different piece of gear.

Also, Scorpion Harness - optical hat armies were a result of poor gear design, and AFAIK it's a problem that no longer exists in FFXI, so its a straw-man argument as far as I'm concerned.

[Duelle]

As if they can't change how they look now by simply equipping a different piece of gear.

It's not the same. Never has been and never will be. If I want to fight using a steel longsword appearance over my Ifrit's sword because I think the graphic for Ifrit's sword is ugly as hell, then I have every right to be able to do so without my performance in PvE suffering. Likewise, if I end up with a really ugly chest piece and I instead want to keep the look of my PLD AF chestpiece because I feel it better-fits my character, then I should be able to keep the appearance I like without PvE performance suffering.

[Zantetsuken]

It's not the same. Never has been and never will be. If I want to fight using a steel longsword appearance over my Ifrit's sword because I think the graphic for Ifrit's sword is ugly as hell, then I have every right to be able to do so without my pefrormance in PvE suffering. Likewise, if I end up with a really ugly chest piece and I instead want to keep the look of my PLD AF chestpiece, then I should be able to keep the appearance I like without PvE performance suffering.

Well, many of us have the 'right' to be able to look at a player and get a reasonable visual representation of the power level of their gear.

And the dev's agree with this.

So outside of battles you can look however you like, but while fighting, you have to wear your real gear.. Thankfully we have a wide array of viable choices for endgame gear (with more to come in ARR.)

[indira]

@Onisake

You fail to address my point.

Any player can wear whatever they want at any time -- right now (provided their jobs/classes fit the bill).

Your vanity system does nothing but allow players to engage in endgame content wearing (what is currently) garbage/underpowered gear.

The devs said its a no-go, so the onus is on you to make an extremely solid case for it (something better than variety/customization for its own sake)



@Reika

Housing adds functionality via storage, gardening, chocobo raising, as well as a bit of realism / immersion enhancment to the game. You could hardly say the same about a vanity system.

this contradicts its self. you talk about realism / immersion but want to exclude it. wearing what you want is what real people do.
why do we even need a player creation or a possible barber at the start that takes up time adding new stuff to make your character look different, that not needed you just want to play the game right? there nothing important about how you look in game it affects nothing to play.

[tymora]

Not into vanity slots as implemented in other games.
But I certainly don't mind vanity slots if they "add" on to existing looks...like ribbons on my tail, a half cloak on my back, a sash across my chest, a chain on my sword...etc

[Duelle]

So outside of battles you can look however you like, but while fighting, you have to wear your real gear.. Thankfully we have a wide array of viable choices for endgame gear (with more to come in ARR.)

Darklight, multi-melded cobalt gear and militia gear =/= wide array of gear. As for your first point, that's what /check is there for.

I'm sick of gear designs going to waste due to stats or lackthereof. FFXI suffered plenty from that, so I'm not sure why you'd want more of that here.