How much Dev work would it be..

[Callinon]

If they combined PLD's sword and Shield into one item like they did with Ninja's Daggers and Monk's fist weapons?

I'm not saying they should do this or that I even want this. Just wonder how much dev time it would take them to do this, or if it would save time in the future by having them one item instead of 2.

A lot. And for very little gain (if any).

[Enkidoh]

Shields being independent of a weapon is a legacy of FFXIV version 1.0, where shield use was actually a seperate sub-class called Sentinel (SEN for short), thus you could equip a shield to another class and it would allow you to use that shield (specifically, THM and CNJ could also equip shields, although only GLA had access to SEN's abilities). SEN was eventually scrapped as a specific class, shield use becoming classless, and it's abilities rolled into GLA natively (as long as you equipped a shield), and THM and CNJ (and their Job upgrades that were added to 1.0 in a patch) retained their ability to equip certain shields, and this continues into ARR into the present day.

If SE ever were interested in just making shields a part of GLA/PLD's weapon kit by default, I think they would have made it so from ARR's begininng, so as it stands, I doubt very much SE will ever change this, as it would serve little benefit for a whole lot of potential trouble.

[Vidu]

What excatly would be the benefit of that?

Offhands will still exist for crafters and gatherers, so its not like we would gain anything there.

Before we ask how much ressources it would need, we should ask if its worth any ressources at all - and as a paladin main I dont see why it would be?
Sword and Shield are dropping together, they are upgraded together, they ultimatly cost the amount of tokens or ressources when crafted compared to other classes mainhands.
Having them seperate allows me to mix them like I see fit (if the sword of a set has nice stats, but the shield doesnt, I can pick a better shield) and even more important: I can easly glamour them.
For ninja daggers and monk fists you dont get the option to have one design in one hand and a different design in the other. But I dont always want to be stuck with the shield matching my sword! (Infact, personally, my shield doesnt show anymore)
And finding a solution around the glamour problem doesnt seem to be worth any dev-time to me - specially not when I dont see any problems with the current system nor any benefit from merging sword and shield into one item.

As long as you dont present good arguments why that would be a good thing, any minute spend on this would be wasted in my opinion.

In regards of it saving them time to make them into one item: Why and how would that save a siginicant amount of time? They'd still need to design and model both sword and shield. Okay, they'd only need to coded stats for one item, but I cant imagine that outweighing any hassle they'd have with the whole glamour-thing.

[Bright-Flower]

Shields being independent of a weapon is a legacy of FFXIV version 1.0, where shield use was actually a seperate sub-class called Sentinel (SEN for short), thus you could equip a shield to another class and it would allow you to use that shield (specifically, THM and CNJ could also equip shields, although only GLA had access to SEN's abilities). SEN was eventually scrapped as a specific class, shield use becoming classless, and it's abilities rolled into GLA natively (as long as you equipped a shield), and THM and CNJ (and their Job upgrades that were added to 1.0 in a patch) retained their ability to equip certain shields, and this continues into ARR into the present day.

If SE ever were interested in just making shields a part of GLA/PLD's weapon kit by default, I think they would have made it so from ARR's begininng, so as it stands, I doubt very much SE will ever change this, as it would serve little benefit for a whole lot of potential trouble.

Yeah. If Paladin/Gladiator was added to the game post 2.0 I suspect that the sword and shield would be together as one item. But with the way things were inherited from 1.0 it just wouldn't be worth the effort. They would have to go through all the effort of merging them, for ultimately no real gain. The current system doesn't cause problems really. And changing it would cause an outcry of paladins having cosmetic flexibility taken away, and the ability to more easily mix/match for stats.

So even if on the code side of things it turned out to be super easy to merge pld swords/shields, the backlash they would get on top of no substantial benefit just makes it unlikely to ever happen.

[Jonnycbad]

What I want for NIN is some sets to already be asymmetrical pairs. So far every single set has been a pair of twin blades, but would it kill them for a few sets to be different? Like Tsukiyomi's Daggers could be one white dagger and one black dagger, or some leveling or expert dungeon could be a Cinquedea+Main Gauche, or maybe a kodachi+kunai? They could do the same thing for some MNK weapons. Make a few sets where one fist has spikes and the other fist has katar blade on it.

[RitsukoSonoda]

More options would be nice but given how the equipment system works in this game it would just result in more items to keep track of. FFXI mix and matching 1 handed weapons worked because dual wield let you equip any 1 handed weapon in offhand. This game would need specific offhand versions of each weapon. MNK weapons were always considered 2 handed because they automatically came in pairs. RDM weapon would be considered 2 handed as well as both parts of the weapon are actually the magic focus when casting. BRD quiver and MCH satchel could be an offhand but pretty much serve no purpose outside of glamour.

If anything at the moment I feel like we need more tanks that actually use a shield

[Burningskull]

What I want for NIN is some sets to already be asymmetrical pairs. So far every single set has been a pair of twin blades, but would it kill them for a few sets to be different? Like Tsukiyomi's Daggers could be one white dagger and one black dagger, or some leveling or expert dungeon could be a Cinquedea+Main Gauche, or maybe a kodachi+kunai? They could do the same thing for some MNK weapons. Make a few sets where one fist has spikes and the other fist has katar blade on it.

That sounds cool. Although at the same time I prefer my stuff to match lol.

[Kazrah]

I think independent shields are here to stay, if only for the story-significance of receiving the Fortemps shield at the end of Heavensward/Dragonsong.

#neverforget

It's definitely a case of being a leftover that at this point would be too much of a hassle to change up due to how much backtrailing they'd have to do as far as coding goes.

As for the "Ninja daggers" side of the argument, I don't mind the twin look, but wouldn't mind seeing dagger model options like what Thancred uses currently with the High Allagan blade for main hand and a simple dagger in his offhand.

[Burningskull]

Do you think any future job will ever have an off hand weapon like PLD? Crafters don't count lol.

[Risvertasashi]

Do you think any future job will ever have an off hand weapon like PLD? Crafters don't count lol.

Unlikely. SE decided they didn't like it on WHM (and THM) and it's effectively gone now - unglamorable, and no new content for 4+ years. Even though there's been some jobs that could reasonably have an off hand, like red mage.

I think it's staying for PLD only.