A request from a Ninja.

[kikix12]

You're overcomplicating this. Just glamour the mainhand weapon onto the offhand dummy item. You don't have to double the number of weapons and make all offhands their own items. That's what the offhand glamour receptacle would be for.

Your idea is actually excessively complicated compared to what the original poster said. There is no need for any dummy or whatever. You're going to need the source of glamour anyway. So just use it.

Have all the weapons that come with two parts (bow and arrows, two daggers, two "fist" weapons etc.) recognize having two models, naming each model "main hand" and "off hand". It's possible it's already like that for the sake of placing the models in the right hands, so there may not be any change needed.

If you equip an item normally in the main hand it uses both models as normal, as it is now.
If you equip an item in the off hand, then only its off hand model is used to replace the off hand model of whatever is held. A simple "glamour" that uses the existing system. No stats are added.

Basically, there are three things that need to be done for this (one of which may already be in the game).
1) Naming the models as main hand and off hand within the code. This makes parts of a single item possible to glamour over and without separating the item into two.
2) Change the flag either for the weapons or the off-hand slot to allow main-hand weapons to be put in it, with no stats added. Changing the slot is obviously way less time consuming.
3) Make a system that automatically glamours over the "off-hand" weapon of what's equipped in the main slot with the "off-hand" weapon of whatever is used in the off-hand slot. This is the only really new piece of coding, but one that uses parts of glamour system (without the prism though).

All in all, provided that the models aren't "fused" somehow into a single file, this is work for a single day for a single person. Most time consuming is changing the flags for models of every game, but they must have some sort of a database, so it's mainly just copy/paste work that'll take four or five seconds per weapon. A pain, but not really hard.

[Rongway]

Your idea is actually excessively complicated compared to what the original poster said. There is no need for any dummy or whatever. You're going to need the source of glamour anyway. So just use it.

Have all the weapons that come with two parts (bow and arrows, two daggers, two "fist" weapons etc.) recognize having two models, naming each model "main hand" and "off hand". It's possible it's already like that for the sake of placing the models in the right hands, so there may not be any change needed.

Names are irrelevant. The models can be called by number. The rapier and medium models are already separate assets, and each paired weapon is just a single weapon drawn twice.

If you equip an item normally in the main hand it uses both models as normal, as it is now.
If you equip an item in the off hand, then only its off hand model is used to replace the off hand model of whatever is held. A simple "glamour" that uses the existing system. No stats are added.

2) Change the flag either for the weapons or the off-hand slot to allow main-hand weapons to be put in it, with no stats added. Changing the slot is obviously way less time consuming.
3) Make a system that automatically glamours over the "off-hand" weapon of what's equipped in the main slot with the "off-hand" weapon of whatever is used in the off-hand slot. This is the only really new piece of coding, but one that uses parts of glamour system (without the prism though).

This would require keeping secondary weapons in your armoury chest at all times, which would impinge on one of the few merits of the glamour dresser. It would also require that you maintain separate gearsets if you want different weapon combinations on the same job. In short, you'd be shifting the minor problems of the glamour dresser over to the armoury chest.



My solution is not significantly more complicated than what you're suggesting. Both require modification of the system to understand and allow that you can have "something" equipped in the offhand slot. Mine just adds a slight modification to the glamour validation routine:

Where currently, we have something like

valid = glamourItem.EquipableBy.contains(character.CurrentJob.ID)
    and glamourItem.Lv   <= baseItem.Lv
    and glamourItem.Slot == baseItem.Slot;

we would need something like

isOffhandGlamour = glamourItem.Slot == mainhand
               and baseItem.Slot    == offhand;
               
valid = glamourItem.EquipableBy.contains(character.CurrentJob.ID)
    and glamourItem.Lv <= character.CurrentJob.Lv // to allow glamouring onto Lv1 offhand receptacle
    and (glamourItem.Slot == baseItem.Slot or isOffhandGlamour);

Of which the level checking line would be better than what we have now, even outside of this thread topic, since the purpose of the level checking line is so you can't take on the appearance of a higher level than you actually are, and checking the item's level is a step more restrictive than it needs to be to uphold the spirit of this rule.

[kikix12]

Names are irrelevant. The models can be called by number.

This is pointless. I specifically used quotation marks the first time around to denote that the importance is with separating the two parts in code, not with the name. I even said as much. I never implied that naming is relevant.

The rapier and medium models are already separate assets, and each paired weapon is just a single weapon drawn twice.

You really should pay more attention when reading. I clearly said that it's most likely the case already. Most likely...because Square Enix have done more than a fair share of illogical development decisions that no programmer worth their salt should even think about doing, so I won't dismiss the idea of them trying their best to make the system as inflexible as possible even in this.

This would require keeping secondary weapons in your armoury chest at all times, which would impinge on one of the few merits of the glamour dresser.

You could keep it in glamour dresser, not in armoury chest. Armoury chest basically fills a slot with a "weapon" glamour. Why would it work any different here?!

As for keeping it in armoury inventory, it could be possible to connect the "main weapons" with the sub-weapons armoury chest when they are used in the off-hand. That is the single armoury space that is way underutilized and it was not until I mass-leveled the crafters/gatherers that I even had to remove something from it. It's still the only one where I have tons of free space now that I removed some of the old tools, with more still being obsolete and could be removed.

It would also require that you maintain separate gearsets if you want different weapon combinations on the same job.

How's that different from sword and shield of defender or any other piece?! That dummy of yours needs to be somewhere too. And to change glamour on it you'll need the other weapon anyway. So your idea adds ANOTHER weapon on top of what's needed. Unless me and others that responded completely misunderstand that idea.
Again, you already need a weapon to use it for glamour and you need a different weapon if you want to change that glamour. You won't get to change them from a list without base items.

[Edax]

Mismatched daggers would give me OCD. I'm glad I wouldn't have to run a raid for twice as long (perhaps longer cause RNG) just to get 2 identical daggers.
However, I wouldn't mind a purely cosmetic dagger that's equipped on the back of my character. Both my Samurai and Ninja have a tanto knife. It would be interesting if this became customizable.