The sad state of customization

[Naunet]

I wonder what they'd have to sacrifice to give us more character customization. Anyone else played Black Desert? Plenty of character customization, but the amount of different armor, and how they appear on the character, is awful. The only other comparison I can think of, similar to FFXIV, is Guild Wars 2 - I don't remember the character customization being all that great either, but then they have up to 3 dyes on a piece of armor and a bank/wallet thing going on.

Character customization in GW2 is WAY more than in FFXIV. WildStar is another game with better character customization and just as much (actually more, when you consider dyes and the wardrobe system) armor customization as FFXIV. Heck, Rift even has more customization.

I know what point you were trying to make, but I don't buy it.

[DPZ2]

Character customization in GW2 ... WildStar ... Rift even has more customization.

Customization in GW2?! Not much different from FFXIV, actually. Sure, 9 faces instead of 4, but they're all pretty much the same, and aesthetically there are maybe 4 worth choosing. Only thing it's got going for it is 'body types', several of which don't fit the Final Fantasy genre image.

Wildstar? Deliberately cartoonish and the selections were unsatisfactory for me. Might have been a lot of them, but I wasn't enamored by my character's possible looks.

Rift? Nice armor/glamour system.

The thing is, they may have a couple more options [not THAT many -- I checked], but then everything looks pretty blah going forward (with the possible exception of my Kelari mage in traditional garb).

FFXIV is the best looking game I've encountered over the years.

[Naunet]

Only thing it's got going for it is 'body types', several of which don't fit the Final Fantasy genre image.

What the hell does this even mean?

Not sure how you can say that those games are "not much different from FFXIV" though. That's simply not true. Whether you personally LIKE the options or not is irrelevant.

First and for most, no other game has graphics like XIV.

That's a load of nonsense. FFXIV doesn't even have high resolution textures.

Also your assessment on WoW is dated. Blizzard has been steadily and significantly improving their graphics - both on the character models and in the zone design - ever since Wrath. The difference between a WoD or Legion zone and vanilla zones is incredible. It's also a GREAT example of a game dev doing something absolutely right. Blizzard recognized that the product they presented didn't look all that great compared to what else was out there and so they put effort into improving it.

[Razor]

Also your assessment on WoW is dated. Blizzard has been steadily and significantly improving their graphics - both on the character models and in the zone design - ever since Wrath. The difference between a WoD or Legion zone and vanilla zones is incredible. It's also a GREAT example of a game dev doing something absolutely right. Blizzard recognized that the product they presented didn't look all that great compared to what else was out there and so they put effort into improving it.

Perhaps I wasn't quite clear enough, I was not criticising WoW for it's development process. I would agree and say that WoW has done a great job continuing to try and keep it's game relevant to the modern competition, but Blizzard has also completely rewritten the game's engine at least once, within it's lifetime of 13 or so years. In it's prime it competed (or rather, was tried to be competed with by) FFXI which took on the traditional SE mantle of "Premium graphics, and we'll swing the rest". Vanilla FFXI was gorgeous for the time period compared to WoW, but suffered in many other ways as a result.

Blizzard chose to upgrade WoW's engine and continue the game, SE chose to cut their losses with XI and start an entirely new game, which we well know had a very bad false start with 1.0. To what degree ARR suffered as a result, is up for discussion, but the begging question is will this development style continue. FFXIV has just received it's second expansion, and does that mean that the next FF MMO is currently being planned out in secrecy? ARR to some degree helped save SE's hide from financial strife, but that doesn't necessarily mean XIV has an open checkbook. Resources could be stipened for XIV because it is being diverted to the next FF MMO, which will use a completely new and up-to-date engine that XIV may never recieve.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

BDO has good character customization and... Thats about it.

[Avatre]

As much as more customization would be awesome, personally I think their priorities should be with keeping the content they release challenging(which is hit and miss...and not on topic at all) and fixing some of the issues with some of the classes(I haven't experienced any myself, but from some of the threads I can see there are issues).

[usalia]

People it about the customization not game play.in bdo the problem is the p2w. In a mobile game the same. But you can MAKE the hair you want out of 153 parts.

[Vidu]

People it about the customization not game play.in bdo the problem is the p2w. In a mobile game the same. But you can MAKE the hair you want out of 153 parts.

But both customization options and gameplay require time and attention of the dev-team. If they put more attention on customization, there is less time for gameplay/new content. Very simple, really. You cant have everything, basically and the team stated several times that their ressources are limited (not only because they might not get enough foundings but also because they actually had trouble to find new, good and qualified people to hire).

Now, I dont play any of those mobile games you're talking about, but as I said before: If those were build with the idea of "Oh, we want to offer people lots of different hairstyles!" in mind their code will reflect that and make it easier to implement this. The code of this game is somewhat of a mess and isnt build around the idea of lots of customization.
But please, tell me: What do those mobile games offer beside customization? Again, without having played any, I would kinda expect a mobile game to lack on aspects that this game is strong(er) in - such as: a good story, general better graphics, different types and amount of content, cutscenes and so on - because those are the things this game focusses on.
Take a look at your f2p-mobile-game and see what FFXIV has that this game doesnt - money and time of dev-teams are always limited.
And as much as I would like more customization-options (and specially no clipping...) I understand that they need to set priotities. And we can ofc agree with those and voice our opinions about what we'd rather see, but we need to be aware that its always gonna be a trade off. If ressources are going one way, they cant go the other one. If your f2p-games says "Hey, our strong side is customization" that most likely means they're lacking something else, that FFXIV might have because the devs considered that more important.

Personally I'll take new armour and a new raid over a butt slider every day - even though I'm playing a Roe who looks a bit ridicolous in some outfits being kinda bulky but with a flat butt...

[Naunet]

But both customization options and gameplay require time and attention of the dev-team. If they put more attention on customization, there is less time for gameplay/new content.

See my post above. You CAN actually have both. It's not like MMOs are updating their character customization options with every patch, making that compete with other content. NORMALLY character customization development is frontloaded and then doesn't have to be worried about unless adding a new race or something. Thus it should NOT be an either/or situation.

We deserve a bit more work from SE to improve customization aspects of this game.