[Suggestion] Fashion/Vanity Slots.

[Eruantien]

Ok we hit 200 before any response, this makes me a sad panda

[Mirage]

I might be repeating what some others have said, but I think what would be "nice" both for vanity and "immersion" is to be able to combine gear pieces, with certain restrictions.

You'd take the stats of one item and attach them to the visual model of another item. I think it would be an all right compromise between vanity and "realism" (yeah, i know right, realism in a fantasy game?) would be to require the items to be of the same type of armor/weapon. Light armor can only be combined with other types of light armor, heavy armor can only be combined with other pieces of heavy armor. The new item will become something like "Custom Itemname" and naturally be untradable. Both pieces of gear would need to be equippable by the class you want to use it on.

This way, we would be able to make that triple melded armor you use on drg to look like the drg AF body (or whatever else cool body piece you like to use on drg), but you wouldn't be able to make it look like the whm robe and use that on drg.

Heavy DDs will still look like heavy DDs, mages will still look like mages, tanks will still look like tanks, but they can all look very different anyway.

[Velhart]

Great job on getting past 200 everyone. Lets continue to get that number as high as we can and hope we get a response soon regarding this.

[Tonkra]

In AION it was a part of crafting.

you could combine 2 items via NPC and then you could decide from which item you want to keep the appearance and from which you want to keep the stats of.


well in that case you "lose" one item to create that new one. success rate 100%


vanity slots.. dont know.. well that means that you have to carry double of items with you.. one for appearance and one for the stats. hum

[Zantetsuken]

Vanity slot (While it seems like a nice idea on the surface) actually defeats the need for gear altogether as we know it. Should future MMO's eliminate all gear and instead have 'Costumes' (cosmetic trimmings that have no stats at all) and 'Stat bonus' slots?

But on the OP's Suggestion...

There are some upsides:

• You get to look uniform/cute/cool/etc and still keep your best mix and match gear
• It makes older/weaker gear (Silver Tricorne, Templar set, etc..) more popular

But there are some big downsides and unintended consequences as well:

• It diminishes the collectibility aspect of gear.
• It incentivises players to copy what everyone else is wearing (stat-wise) and removes any incentive for being creative or different with your stat setup.
• It eliminates any drawbacks that Multi-melded gear have (Now I can have the best stat stuff AND the best looking stuff)
• It gives players no external indicator of a another player's achievements/power/play-style/etc. (can't trust what you see)
• It eats up increasingly short inventory space. (Not a big drawback, but it will impact those those that don't carry around cosmetic gear currently)
• The novelty of lesser seen gear is diminished -- now EVERY item can have any stat bonus
• It reduces the need for Devs to create new styles of gear (after all, once people have their preferred look they will likely just want to max it out with the best stats)
  

Now I'm sure many of you will think that these 'downsides' are actually perks (zOMG, I can wear my 4x Melded Cobalt Elmo AND have it displayed as a Templar Chain Coif!??!! WIN x1bazillion!!) but cosmetics plays a large part of the gear selection process in the game... It's why some people wear Darklight instead of multi-melded, or a Silver Tricorne instead of an Achievement Crown.

For many people (myself included) cosmetics forces some tough decisions in balancing out looks vs power.. individuality vs. max performance. The amount of attention this thread has received shows the impact that cosmetics has on gear choice. But asking for an easy-out in your internal struggle to be either an MMO fashionista or a power gamer might not be the best thing... It's the decisions that arise from that silent debate that ends up defining your character really.

Yeah, it would be cool to have your gear cake and eat it too, but it diminishes the value of gear itself when cosmetics become detached from utility. I just don't think players would be well served by removing this subtle, yet significant aspect of the game.

[Duelle]

Vanity slot (While it seems like a nice idea on the surface) actually defeats the need for gear altogether as we know it.

Not really. Gear can still be put into the game, the people who don't want to use vanity slots will wear it without issue and the people who want to choose their own look will use vanity slots and continue going on. Neither side loses anything. It was the single most significant addition to WoW and pretty much every other game that used something similar, so its not like we're treading on uncharted waters here. If past experience is any indication, it's a feature the playerbases have taken to quite readily.

vanity slots.. dont know.. well that means that you have to carry double of items with you.. one for appearance and one for the stats. hum

Remember that in 2.0 equipped gear won't take up inventory space. Vanity slot gear could and probably should follow the same principle.

[Velhart]

Vanity slot (While it seems like a nice idea on the surface) actually defeats the need for gear altogether as we know it. Should future MMO's eliminate all gear and instead have 'Costumes' (cosmetic trimmings that have no stats at all) and 'Stat bonus' slots?

You bring up a fair argument, however, this concept was highly successful in WoW and Rift and it did not deter players from getting end game gear. New gear sets most of the time look good enough that people want to be in it, or still show off they have it. The designers do a top notch job on making cool looking gear.

Vanity slot should be looked at as a way to not look like you are a mismatched looking character. Final Fantasy focuses a lot on character. FFXIV should be no different in this. I want everyone to feel like they are a unique character, that they stand out from everyone else. Something as simple as vanity slot gives this. Honestly, in FFXI, I hated that everyone DPS-wise in my party all wore Haubergeons. My character did not feel unique at all. I wore a Haubergeon and Optical Hat like everyone else, making my character feel like only an avatar and nothing else.

The argument of if one should be in or not is pretty even, but I would really love to see how the developers feel about this.

[Viritess]

Vanity slot (While it seems like a nice idea on the surface) actually defeats the need for gear altogether as we know it. Should future MMO's eliminate all gear and instead have 'Costumes' (cosmetic trimmings that have no stats at all) and 'Stat bonus' slots?
....

Didn't quite the entire post for saving space..
I can't really agree with your arguements. Most of what you mention as downsides i have never actually seen come to pass in any form of vanity/transmog etc system.

Desireability of many types of armor goes up in all cases i've seen myself. And in many cases the diversity of newly released armor benifits because Artists seem to have more freedom, knowing that the player has choice.

The novelty of lesser seen gear is that you may now see it for more then the 4-5 levels a low level character needs it. Theres little reason to "collect gear" if theres almost never a reason to put it on, unless its in a vanity slot. Now that would suck up Inventory space for even less reason.

As far as no external indicator of a players "power" could have the same said for those in any gear you see now. If it was all stats we wouldn't have half of the treads on this forum about "hardcore" and "skills" that always seem to pop up. This seems to ride the same wave as the "at a glance" pvp stance, where as some folks want to "at a glance" know if they can run some one over or run away. Personaly i'd rather fight the person to find out if i can win, then glance at his chestpiece and run crying.

You could always inspect a person if you want to see their stat gear. Lets not confuse vanity slots as i think many here wish them as a desire to hide their actual gear as if to get away with something.

And some people may want the look of Darklight (mage gear looking at you) but know that theres nearly no reason to A. roll for it or B. wear it vs a double/triple meld. With a vanity slot system, maybe they would. An armor not currently desired might be desired. One example of the opposite of your fears.

Tl:dr In my experiences few if any of your downsides have ever actually been realized in games that adopt some sort of Vanity slot/Transmog/stat and skin swapping system. I think your overly worried.

[Eruantien]

Ya I definitely don't agree zantetsuken, most people in the game will be pressured into wearing the best stuff anyway, to me it just makes the game look stupid, people wearing such mismatched gear all over the place, you shouldn't need to comprimise on gear looks and stats. You say it incentivises people wearing all the same stats, well they already do so this will just add the to the amount people will look like, whereas now everyone looks the same

[Eruantien]

Yoshi has said on several interviews that your avatar is you in game and should be unique, this IMO is a great way of doing it