In the last few expansions, the devs have significantly changed their approach to designing gear, moving away from the traditional "tanks wear plate & healers get dresses" model. With the release of more jobs featuring diverse aesthetics and a wider variety of armor designs, the line between roles has become increasingly blurred. We now have plenty of jobs which belong to the same role but have almost no visual similarities (Role referring to gear categories like Fending/Striking/Aiming etc.) Sadly, despite this, we are still unable to glamour (not equip, but GLAMOUR) pieces belonging to a different role even if they're nearly identical.
Players may often find themselves disliking certain pieces of gear from a set, such as gloves or boots, and would prefer to mix and match with pieces from a similar themed set. Typically, gear from different roles would fit perfectly together, as sets are frequently based on a single theme rather than traditional job roles (e.g. neo kingdom, credendum, radiant). Unfortunately, as the current glamour system does not allow for this, we are often forced to use other pieces, which in turn leads to mismatched colors, textures, and overall style. This is further amplified when you have to deal with undyeable gear.
Removing these glamour role restrictions would greatly enhance the system's potential, as players would gain access to 7 times more gear for each job, resulting in a vast increase in variety and customization.
Currently, Yoshi-P's main counter-argument for maintaining these restrictions is to preserve immersion and job-specific gear identities. However, I will provide examples to show that this reasoning is flawed and that gear appearances in FFXIV are already inconsistent and unimmersive.
As we are right now, with role-restricted glamour, the following combinations are possible, proving that you can already easily look unimmersive no matter the level and job:
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We also have The Law's Order sets that go strictly against Yoshi-P’s policy on “Black mages shouldn’t wear plate armor”. Even the Scouting set is a full set of plate armor despite initially being for Ninja:
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These sets from the second Nier raid, which are almost identical - the difference between the Striking, Maiming and Fending sets being the sleeves:
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And then we have plenty of cases such as this, no explanation needed:
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At this point, it becomes clear that there's barely any logic or consistency behind the designs of gear, other than the fact that healers almost always get robes, even when robes do not fit all the healer jobs (which again is a very bizarre type of "consistency"). These days, immersion is hardly a valid argument, and the notion that removing job restrictions for glamour on non-artifact gear would compromise role visual identity is laughable. Instead of clinging to this flawed idea, the best solution is to unrestrict glamour, granting us full freedom to customize our characters as we wish.
Finally, I'll highlight key points from other threads on the removal of glamour restrictions:
Main Arguments on why Glamour Role Restrictions Should Be Removed:
#1 = Certain jobs getting little to no gear that fits their aesthetic
For instance, Gunbreakers thematically use lighter armor in comparison to other tank jobs, while Dancer has practically nothing in common with Machinist. Reaper shares gear with Dragoon, despite the latter traditionally receiving heavier plate sets. Sage also has a design differing significantly from the White Mage and Astrologian robes. With each expansion, the potential for further mismatched gear increases, leading to possible issues down the line.
#2 = Joke glamours exist.
As seen in the first image, "immersion" as an argument goes out the window as soon as they made goofy gear like the Chocobo, Frog and Clown suits or just gave people the ability to run around naked with the invisible "Emperor's" set. How can something like a Samurai wearing Scouting gear be more "immersion breaking" than a Warrior tanking in bikini and a rabbit head?
#3 = We already have actual job swapped gear models/recolors.
If they originally designed those sets to identify a particular job, they shouldn't then decide to literally let other jobs wear the same thing as a "new set". Furthermore, the devs seem to randomly decide that roles that have nothing to do with each other style/design-wise should share the same gear appearance.
#4 = Only "Artifact" armor has a specific job fantasy.
AF armor can be an exception, as this lets you keep the job identity for at least the armor sets that are supposed to look like the job, which is more in line with what they say as an excuse.
#5 = Many NPCs are wearing mixed gear.
Some examples are J'olhmyn and Ugetsu who use gear from four different job types. Hilda uses Maiming, despite being a Machinist. In fact, pretty much every NPC that wears player armor more often that not uses mixed gear.
#6 = The already high amount of cross-role outfits.
With each update we get a bunch of clothing that is lvl 1 and has no role restrictions. Some recent examples being the Archfiend set from PvP or the Varsity Attire. Additionally, no set on the Mogstation has role restrictions as well.
#7 = Special NPC outfits are no longer "unique" to them.
Again, if immersion/being recognizable is the issue, why are we allowed to look identical to major story characters but not other jobs/roles?
#8 = Glamour in FFXI has no role restrictions.
You have to be high enough level on a job that can equip the gear to use it as a glamour, but once you are you can use it on anything. We should be able to do the same thing in FFXIV and having a level requirement would incentivize people to level more jobs.
#9 = Players' jobs are primarily identified by the UI and their weapons, not by their armor.
Weapons clearly hold far greater importance in job recognition than armor and the existence of Relic weapons proves this. Unlike armor, weapons also have absolutely minimal overlap between jobs, (specifically a few Mogstation weapons) making them more unique and recognizable. Additionally, job icons can be enabled next to a player's name, making the argument about job recognition moot.
TL;DR - Remove role restrictions for glamour.
This idea is supported by many more compelling arguments, which can be found in the many pages of this thread. If you also believe in having unrestricted glamour, please upvote this thread, leave a comment in support and spread the word.
Official response from Yoshi-P during the Dawntrail Media Tour Q&A about unrestricting glamour (07/06/2024):
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