This game is in need of character customization

[Lycieus]

I'll preface what I say, by stating that SE has gotten a lot of things right with customization. Namely, there are some pretty unique things you can do with housing, provided you can afford it. The aesthetician and dye systems are also very nice touches, as well as the upcoming glamour system.

As you may have picked up on however, there are issues with housing and the dye systems that have been talked to death here and elsewhere, and they aren't even the most important in terms of what players should be able to customize.

Here is a list of things that need to be changed for the good of the game, in my opinion.

1. Traits

These are all just handed to us. They might as well just apply when we equip a job. Why do they have their own menu? If we can't change traits or pick them then this seems a waste of space. I think we should be able to pick from a variety of traits similar to WoW's talent system.

[Lycieus]

2. Attribute points

Again, these might as well be handed to us. Stat allocations on gear to not really permit players to do anything unique or out of the box with their stat points. These choices should be meaningful, or they shouldn't exist.

3. Cross-class skills

Really, I don't need to say anything here, its basically the same as the two previous items on my list.

[Lycieus]

4. The dye system

This was a fun idea, and in beta I think we all thought this was amazing. Then we learned that you can't die high level armor. It has been mentioned before in these forums that allowing high level gear to be died could be a boon to the economy, I tend to agree with this sentiment. I understand the technical challenges with such a robust system, a unique texture map for every color variation on new armor that is added to the game, but this was already done on low level armor. The process might take a lot of time and isn't more important than the above items, but I think it worth noting here.

Not even gonna touch housing as SE has made an honest effort to address this even if its perhaps too little, too late.

[Lycieus]

The reason I bring this up is because I've been observing a lot of MMO's that are due to launch soon, namely Wildstar and TESO. I think the level of customization in these games and even in the new WoW expansion, Warlords of Draenor, pose a serious threat to FFXIV's ability to attract and retain new adventurers.

To be clear, I like the well-defined class archetypes that FF is known for. I just think a lot of these systems for customization already seem to be at least partially in place, and it would be a shame to not exploit them to sway people who might on the fence about FFXIV.

[Lycieus]

Yay character limit -.-.

[myahele]

EEven being able to choose different color of high level gear is better than none.

[Battlewrench]

Can edit your posts to post more than 1000 characters.

Thanks for the heads up, my first thread since beta. I'm a newb -.-

No problem, we all have to learn somehow and were all once in similar shoes.

[Lycieus]

Thanks for the heads up, my first thread since beta. I'm a newb -.-

[Varhaatus]

I dislike the high level armour colour limit it should be dyeable (then everyone wouldn't look the same/copy and pasted )

I also hate how I spend time making my characters face to look unique, but as I play a tank in darklight gear im forced to wear that god awful helmet constantly as its attached to the chest piece so unable to hide it.

[Fawkes]

Traits, attribute allocation, and cross class skills are all leftovers from version 1.0. Those things made sense back then, when the game was trying to be a unique butterfly, and I think the only reason they came into ARR was to keep old players from getting mad about all the changes.