Suggestion: Appearance Slots

[Valente]

I'm not sure if there's been any major push for this, but let me put it out there.

On many other MMOs out there, they have totally divorced equipment you get for stats, and equipment you wear because they look awesome. The two don't need to be the same, and trying to make them the same is a losing venture because what one person thinks is awesome, another person thinks looks tacky.

The solution, appearance slots. This is all the more feasible with our sudden windfall of inventory(from 100 to 200), plenty of room for more equipment.

In basic, give us two equipment screens. In one, the items you put in work like right now, increasing your stats and giving functionality.

In the second, the items OVERRIDE the first item's appearance, but give absolutely zero(0) stats.

If there is an item in #1 but not #2, you get #1's appearance.

If there is an item in #2, it displays.

If there is no item in either, underwear time.

If you enact this system, people will be able to wear what they want to match their vision of their character, with whatever color and material pleases them. Customization satisfaction will raise, I promise it.

[Sephr]

To be honest, I see this as one of those things that would be prevented by some variety of limitations in place within current systems but that might be possible down the line, or something.

I'm actually really behind this kind of thing, if we look at FFXI as a benchmark (I know it's not the same game, I KNOW!), we might expect side-grade items in the future as opposed to the WoW-style best-in-slot-is-the-tier-set setup. I'm a big fan of being able to switch out gear (out of combat, not blinking all the time ala XI) so that we can customise our characters more, but I do think a lot of the time you got that clown-suit look in FFXI as a result of having a bunch of different pieces from different events.

With that in mind, it would be really nice to be able to collect gear for various things on my future Black Mage job, whilst maintaining the awesome look of the job set that's coming permenantly.

On the other hand, I quite like the idea of being able to see a lot of someone's achievements just by looking at what they're wearing (ala "I managed to kill super-powered Ifrit at rank 50, here is my awesome glowing weapon to show for it), so that's the only drawback I could see to it.

Apparently WoW is implementing something similar soon, and that game doesn't have anywhere near the quality and beauty of the gear in XIV and XI, so I'd be definitely behind this overall.

[Valente]

The bottom line is, however, no matter how hard you try, human taste is too fickle. What has better stats is a number game, easy to determine. But not everyone wants to look the same. So you end up with a situation where it's clearly better to wear the hat with the floofy ball bouncing from the top cause it has +200 magic damage, but very few people WANT to have a floofy ball bouncing around their head, even if it was gained by the hardest fight in the game.

Appearance slots would fix this entirely. Let appearance be its own thing. Let stats be valued on their own, divorced from appearance.

Side note, for weapons/tools, you should have to use an appearance item of the same type. If you're using a sword, you need an sword to overwrite its appearance.

[Sephr]

The bottom line is, however, no matter how hard you try, human taste is too fickle. What has better stats is a number game, easy to determine. But not everyone wants to look the same. So you end up with a situation where it's clearly better to wear the hat with the floofy ball bouncing from the top cause it has +200 magic damage, but very few people WANT to have a floofy ball bouncing around their head, even if it was gained by the hardest fight in the game.

Appearance slots would fix this entirely. Let appearance be its own thing. Let stats be valued on their own, divorced from appearance.

Side note, for weapons/tools, you should have to use an appearance item of the same type. If you're using a sword, you need an sword to overwrite its appearance.

Yep, I agree. I also think it would be neat to go putting together your favourite sets as a side activity. General final fantasy characters went around in very unique looks, would be nice to do the same.

[Denmo]

I'm 100% for a feature like this down the line.

[Jynx]

But then I wont be able to tell what class someone is by looking at their RED HAUBS!

/sarcasm

[Valente]

I'd rather focus on what can be done, rather than complain. Complaining is a negative. It doesn't say what we want, just what we don't want, which isn't nearly as helpful to a developer.

I love the art in this game. I like the assets they've made. I just want to be able to choose which I'm showing off. I'm a solid believer in Square and have been with them way back on FF1 on my super awesome Nintendo, all through each system up to now. I want FF14 to be all the awesome it can be.