The sad state of customization

[usalia]

So lets talk about the customization in this game in 2017.
We got realy limited options for customization for the cherecters.
4 faces? No customization of them as well?
No body shape?
Cliping problems on long hairs?
Why is this so in a p2p game?
Here some game that have good customization:
BDo
BNS
Elder Scrolls Online.didbt start as f2p but is now.
Toremonline, you can creat a hair from 3 parts. Each part have 51 options.
Now all f2p games and one is a mobile mmo.why they can do more that a p2p game?
Why you think SE dint want to give more that the minimum for cherecter customization?
LETS MAKE SE KNOW WE NEED MORE.

[Fredco191]

I really just want a weight slider. :c

[Vidu]

This isnt so much about what they "want" but what they "can" do.
I'm not great with all the technic-details, so if anyone can explain them better than me - please do so!
The general problem of this game is that its build on a not-so-great code from 1.0, so quite a few things are rather limited because the code wouldnt need to be different for them.

When it comes to your character model there is only so many variables that are possible to keep the data at a limit that the server can still handle - so for example: elezen can adjust their ear-size, but Mi'qos and Au Ra cant (but can instead adjust their tail). Its almost a trade off for each race how those limited number of variables is "filled", so to speak.
Pretty sure they would love to give us more options, but they cant because the code (that cant easly be changed) doesnt allow for it because for whatever reason the 1.0-team didnt build it that way.

Now, however if a f2p starts with a "fresh" code and wants to aim for more customization thats easier for them to do because, well, they can just write the code that way from the start.

So, yeah, as much as I would like to see some more customization myself, they've explained that thats rather difficult because of the fundamentals of the games code - nothing, they can change easly (or probably at all without having to sort of rebuild the game from scratch)

[usalia]

Its want .
How can a f2p mobile game give more customization that this p2p one?
What in the code prevent them from adding new fsces to the game at last? The onlly code thst is bad in this game is thw net code and the servers. I will ask ones more. How a f2p game have stronger servers that can have this things?

[Solica]

Cliping problems on long hairs?

This triggers me everytime.... Personally i find most hairstyles in the customization horrendous. Those that i find decent have this problem...

[KisaiTenshi]

This triggers me everytime.... Personally i find most hairstyles in the customization horrendous. Those that i find decent have this problem...

That's why I keep the short pig-tails style. Clipping on long hair and Au Ra/Miqo'te tails I find distracting. My Au Ra alt has below-the-shoulder straight hair and every piece of body gear clips through it.

Its want .
How can a f2p mobile game give more customization that this p2p one?
What in the code prevent them from adding new fsces to the game at last? The onlly code thst is bad in this game is thw net code and the servers. I will ask ones more. How a f2p game have stronger servers that can have this things?

A lot of things this game has however is for more flexibility elsewhere, lest we all have "Mass Effect Andromeda's creepy face animation" due to customization removing flexibility.

We have 4 face styles per race, each of heads are capable of doing like 100 something emotes and conversation animations with the eyes and eyebrows being independent of the mouth/jaw in animation. Look no further than Hildibrand to see where this gets used to some stylistic exaggeration. Also some NPC's have their own head model like most of the storyline NPC's we see involved with the storyline.

So I'll take that over the customization that results in little or no animation in pretty much all other games.

That said, some of the customizations that we lack, we seem to lack due to gear being complex. V1.0 actually had even less customization, and the breast size of the female characters was actually linked to another attribute. What we got in V2.0 was a height and bust sliders, but the difference between the largest and smallest setting is almost negligible. I'm not expecting Lalafell sized Miqo'te but I'm disappointed that you can't make a buff character that isn't a Roe. If you want to be androgynous you pretty much have to play Lalafell, sometimes that works for people, sometimes that doesn't.

Aion (and several games based on the same CryEngine family like Archeage) have some fantastic customization, but ultimately these games have practically no character cutscenes, and hence most of the flavor text is just a text window, no animation. Other games like Blade and Soul, TERA and Lineage II are based on Unreal engine, and are much less flexible, but still offer a degree of customization that FFXIV does not offer.

We seem to take for granted that every living thing in FFXIV at least looks like it's living, even if it's glued to the floor. You approach a NPC, it looks at you, you talk to it, it's eyes, eyebrows, and mouth all move along with hand gestures. My largest complaint with this, is that there are no props. When you're asked to take item X to give to NPC Y, you are just shown handing nothing. If you pick up anything large, well let's not show you actually picking it up, click on it and it disappears. This makes it look like most NPC-Player interactions are mime'ing like two children would pretend, rather than actually having such props. The reason I make a special case about "lifting large objects", the game does have you do some quests that change your animations (like getting the bath water in Kugane) , sometimes there are props, it's just rare to see your character interact with anything like it's actually there. Meanwhile look at all these NPC's wandering around carrying large objects like it's an in-joke, the animation for it clearly exists in the game.

Other games, barely do anything but make NPC's nod their head.

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.

Square Enix likely would just as soon build a new MMORPG using Unreal Engine if it wasn't for the fact that all these game engines (Unreal, Cryengine, Unity) are hamstrung from not being purpose-suited MMORPG-grade engines. They simply can not have large worlds, and usually what you see as being pretty graphics, stops at character creation. Unity is especially bad and shouldn't be used for MMORPG's. Unreal uses really small zones. Cryengine (if you've played anything else using it) actually has very large maps, but even it isn't seamless. But Cryengine has just as many problems with lag as Unreal does. You have to remember that Unreal engine was originally designed to 'beat Quake' (id software's engine.) You'll note that no MMORPG has ever used the Quake engine (which was forked into the GoldSource engine, which was then forked into the Source Engine, which HAS been used for MMORPG's, which again have small zones.)

FFXIV and WoW have their own game engines that are tailored specifically for MMORPG use, and that is why they are the top Fantasy MMORPG's out there and the only ones that have a sustainable subscription model.

It's entirely possible, and that is in fact what happened in 3.0 with the switch to the DirectX11 engine for them to rewrite the engine again if they need to, but it's pretty clear that the game supports much higher resolution models and textures, they just choose not to ship it that way, and my guess is that if they were to do so, the game would probably be 100GB and the loading time would be 4 times longer with much more "pop-in" problems.

If they decided to retroactively give us another face, there is nothing stopping them from adding it. What is currently stopped by the current game engine is other body shapes (eg a fat shape) because that requires a different walk cycle. Take note of how characters walk when they have stupid amounts of gear on them like Zenos yae Galvus, and Grynewaht.

[Pori_Dessu]

As stated before, the game runs on an engine built on top of the 1.0 engine, which was released in late 2010, but the actual coding probably started in 2004-2005, as the first tech demo for what became FFXIV (Rapture was the name shown on it) was showcased in 2005. Even with all the changes made to the engine over the course of the 4-5 years prior to 1.0 release, the game was built on the Crystal Tools middleware from SE, which was used for FFXIII, with only a few adjustments for use in XIV, so there were still many limitations on what could be achieved on a technical level.
2.0 (Or ARR) was then re-coded somewhat in the course of 1.5-2 years, but it's not realistic to expect the team could've made drastic changes to the core of the engine in so little time. I'd really like more customization options as well, but as a programmer myself, and having studied some game coding, I know it's not something we can expect unless we get a complete overhaul in the game coding on a future expansion.

[Synrin]

So lets talk about the customization in this game in 2017.
We got realy limited options for customization for the cherecters.
4 faces? No customization of them as well?
No body shape?
Cliping problems on long hairs?
Why is this so in a p2p game?
Here some game that have good customization:
BDo
BNS
Toremonline, you can creat a hair from 3 parts. Each part have 51 options.
Now all f2p games and one is a mobile mmo.why they can do more that a p2p game?
Why you think SE dint want to give more that the minimum for cherecter customization?
LETS MAKE SE KNOW WE NEED MORE.

Let me add: Elder Scrolls Online

The faces still resemble their race but they can be costumised regardless. Also bodies have amazing sliders.

This triggers me everytime.... Personally i find most hairstyles in the customization horrendous. Those that i find decent have this problem...

Your hair on your avatar is clipping C: P.S. As someone with big horns, I know the pain.

[Vexander]

I hate to say it but, at this point, the server and code limitations make me wish they would just build the game up from scratch. Do another Realm Reborn kind of thing. I know that'd take literally years upon years with very, very little content updates, but I think FFXIV is a game that is worth it.

[Vidu]

I hate to say it but, at this point, the server and code limitations make me wish they would just build the game up from scratch. Do another Realm Reborn kind of thing. I know that'd take literally years upon years with very, very little content updates, but I think FFXIV is a game that is worth it.

And you dont think that years of very limited content updates would simply just kill the game? How long do you think people will hold out with little to no new stuff, hearing "Yeah, but in 3 years, when we have this code sorted out, you'll get 8 faces to choose from! Na? isnt that worth holding on for?!"

If they ever go for a third MMO we can only hope they'll learn from this one - but I doubt that re-starting this game from scratch is a good solution, neither for the buisness nor for the playerbase tbh.
Even with the "little" customization we're having I enjoy the game - and I wouldnt want to look at years of no new content for the sake of a butt slider.