Glamour Plate Mechanics

[Talraen]

I've been playing Final Fantasy MMOs for a long time, so I expect every new system to be hopelessly convoluted, but I admit the Glamour Plate system is even more convoluted than I expected. I know a lot of people are upset that it doesn't work the way we all assumed it would (i.e., being a temporary glamour overlay on all your gear), but I think it's worth digging into how it actually does work, because there are a number of advantages to the system as it was actually implemented.

A quick disclaimer: I didn't actually investigate any of this before the emergency maintenance, it's based on my observations while playing and some of the threads on the forums. So if my basic assumption on how the Glamour Plates work is incorrect, please point and laugh and ignore this thread.

So in a nutshell, all the Glamour Plate system does is let you glamour items exactly the same way you used to, except without using more glamour prisms, and with the ability to do multiple pieces at once. Which means any changes are just as permanent as other glamours. As I mentioned, this has a lot of upsides and downsides, and I'll list the ones that come to mind.... here:

1. Pro: You don't actually need to keep Glamour Plates around after you use them, so the limit of 10 is a bit misleading. You an glamour a gearset you don't expect to change any time soon, then replace that Glamour Plate with something else and the original glamours will not be lost. It would probably be wise to leave one Glamour Plate mostly blank to be used for one-shot glamours in this way.
2. Con: By the same token, if you want to use Glamour Plates on shared gear, you must have a Plate that covers each piece of gear used. If you have all three tank jobs at 70, share all gear except weapons, and glamour your Paladin set, that glamour will apply to your other tank jobs whether you want it to or not. You have to make separate Dark Knight and Warrior plates to make this work. And if you want to use the actual, current gear in a glamour for any of these, you can't do so (unless you manually use a glamour dispeller each time you switch) because that's not how the system works. Similarly, if you want to use multiple glamours on the same job for whatever reason, you run into the same issues.
3. Pro: This system actually already lets you glamour retainers. Just take their gear, equip it on yourself, and apply a Glamour Plate, then give it back to them. Voila! Retainer glamour. This is probably a good use case for non-permanent Glamour Plates, too. (Also this may work for squadrons as well, depending on what happens if you use a glamoured item as a glamour. Do you get the base item appearance, or the glamoured appearance? If the latter, then this would work there too. And even if it doesn't, they did mention that they'd be prioritizing squadrons.)
4. Pro: Because the glamours applied are permanent, the restriction of being able to apply Glamour Plates only in towns and such is often a non-issue. If you're glamouring your main job, this means that dungeon drops won't be re-glamoured until you get back to town, but otherwise you can do so as soon as you purchase anything, for instance.
5. Con: ...but on the other hand, if you do share gear (again, let's say between tanks) then you need to be in town to switch back and forth. I'm not sure how much of an issue this is in practice, but it's annoying. (And for what it's worth, they've mentioned they will be expanding where Glamour Plates can be used. Though I suspect instances aren't high on the list, and that's probably the most relevant place for them to be used.)
6. Con: With only 10 Glamour Plates, if you're really into making glamour sets you're going to be shuffling them a lot. If you separately glamour your tanks, healers, casters, and ranged physical DPS, for instance, that's already 11 plates. If you want to separately glamour different crafting or gathering classes, you're going to go through them quickly as well. (On the upside, if you only have one Dragoon glamour without accessories, that won't conflict with anything, so... yay?)

Overall, I'm actually pretty happy with the system, because I don't use a ton of glamour. I see it as a way to keep my current job looking the same as I level and get new gear. I imagine the system will be very frustrating for some of the more fashion-conscious among us, though. Please let me know if you can think of any other high or low points of the system.

[Shaverman5000]

+1 This post

[Krotoan]

I've been playing Final Fantasy MMOs for a long time, so I expect every new system to be hopelessly convoluted, but I admit the Glamour Plate system is even more convoluted than I expected. I know a lot of people are upset that it doesn't work the way we all assumed it would (i.e., being a temporary glamour overlay on all y....

Thank you for a well thought out examination. I think almost all peoples reservations can be overcome with more space and utility (npcs). Both of which they've said they're looking at. Lets hope that goes through.
The "shuffle" method is good too, Personally I have about 5-6 classes I'm working on at any given time so 10 plates should be enough, but it'd be nice not to have to do that glamour shuffle every time I change it up. Nice but not essential.

[Thaeros]

this system sucks. just glamour the class NOT the gear or anything else... and the dresser is trash as well. complete fail of a system....

going to a city, having to dump gear permanently lost to a chest, not enough plates for each class (15 + 8 + 3) , etc etc....

i guess 75% of my retainers are still dedicated to holding glam items...

[Nihility]

it's definitely still a work in progress but i found you can temporarily stick base pieces into the dresser and make a plate out of them if your using multi-class gear and want it to look base on one of them.

Literally all it does is apply glamours to each piece of gear without the need for prisms and can be linked to gear sets so it's even automated. And a bunch of free extra storage
It is a giant leap forward compared to what we had to work with before

The only technical problem i have with it at all currently would be fixed with something like a dummy item you could assign to glamour plates to function as a dispeller

[Iscah]

this system sucks. just glamour the class NOT the gear or anything else... and the dresser is trash as well. complete fail of a system....

going to a city, having to dump gear permanently lost to a chest, not enough plates for each class (15 + 8 + 3) , etc etc....

i guess 75% of my retainers are still dedicated to holding glam items...

You've pulled up this discussion from a year ago. The system has long since been altered to allow you to remove gear from the dresser.

The only technical problem i have with it at all currently would be fixed with something like a dummy item you could assign to glamour plates to function as a dispeller

You can kind of do that - if you deliberately put an incompatible item on the plate (eg. tank armour on your healer plate) then the glamour gets applied, but because you can't equip that item you see the original gear.

Alternately (the better option, unless you have materia attached to it) you can put the gear into the dresser, add it to the plate, and then remove the gear again. The image stays on the plate, and you have the actual gear back.

[SturmChurro]

Since I came back back to the game (around the end of November), I can tell you right now I hate it. I would have rather had a costume system than this. Also, having to put away a lot of gear in the dresser is really annoying. It can work for storage though.

[Jandor]

I don't think it's bad, I don't even really mind the plate application restrictions, at the end of the day I'm not outside a town all that often anyway.

What it desperately needs is more space, and then very closely after that, more plates.

[Iscah]

I would have rather had a costume system than this.

Something else could have been better, certainly, but I think it's not bad once you're used to how it works.

I think it all comes back to the game's unwieldy code and the difficulty in actually reworking parts of it.

Whether by necessity or choice, the dresser system hasn't altered how the game handles glamour instructions - as before, each gear piece carries its own glamour information at "location X", and then when loading your character's appearance it reads from location X.

The difference is that instead of only being able to change X by applying a glamour prism, they've constructed this system that streamlines the process and lets you instantly set new information X for an entire gearset at once.


What's actually annoying about storing things in the dresser though? Just having to do it at the inn? Otherwise it's not much different to storing things anywhere else.


Have you actually played around with building and applying plates though? That's the entire point of it, and it had me sold as soon as I realised I can set up my fixed glamours for different jobs (favourites + currently leveling) and reapply them instantly every time I level up and equip new gear. Plus I don't have to carry the base items with me.)

It also means it's worthwhile to glamour little things like jewellery. I wouldn't have bothered spending prisms and time on individually glamouring them, but now when it's a one-time setup it's much nicer to be able to choose specific things or hide them.


Worst case scenario, the old prism system still works, so you can keep using them if you've tried it out and you really want to keep using manual prisms instead.

What it desperately needs is more space, and then very closely after that, more plates.

I agree, although I'd choose to prioritise more plates (and ideally the ability to re-order them and view them in a list like gearsets).

The storage limit can be worked around, and I'd rather have more plates so I can leave them set up long-term instead of having to prioritise which ones to leave assembled.

(That, and have them remove that awful "apply glamour dispellers" tab that automatically displays you in your de-glamoured actual gear. Being on PS4, I have to go past it any time I tab left to reach the higher-numbered plates.)

[SturmChurro]

Something else could have been better, certainly, but I think it's not bad once you're used to how it works.

I think it all comes back to the game's unwieldy code and the difficulty in actually reworking parts of it.

Whether by necessity or choice, the dresser system hasn't altered how the game handles glamour instructions - as before, each gear piece carries its own glamour information at "location X", and then when loading your character's appearance it reads from location X.

The difference is that instead of only being able to change X by applying a glamour prism, they've constructed this system that streamlines the process and lets you instantly set new information X for an entire gearset at once.


What's actually annoying about storing things in the dresser though? Just having to do it at the inn? Otherwise it's not much different to storing things anywhere else.


Have you actually played around with building and applying plates though? That's the entire point of it, and it had me sold as soon as I realised I can set up my fixed glamours for different jobs (favourites + currently leveling) and reapply them instantly every time I level up and equip new gear. Plus I don't have to carry the base items with me.)

It also means it's worthwhile to glamour little things like jewellery. I wouldn't have bothered spending prisms and time on individually glamouring them, but now when it's a one-time setup it's much nicer to be able to choose specific things or hide them.


Worst case scenario, the old prism system still works, so you can keep using them if you've tried it out and you really want to keep using manual prisms instead.

I think it's better than it was don't get me wrong. As for storage, I like to use a lot of leveling gear as glamour. I mostly want a costume system, so I don't have to remove a lot of the glamour from pieces I am using, but also like, (since I go back and forth so often) etc.