Feature Request: Character Dominant Hand - Character Handedness

[dspguy]

It appears that all FFXIV characters are right handed. It would be great to see the ability to set character handedness. I'd like to believe that the positioning of weapons, shields, tools, etc could be mirrored to the other side without too much of an undue burden on the development team.

[Zegtry]

why not but it will just require the team to do all the combat animations again

[Silverbane]

This proposal is way too much time and money for way too little benefit --
but that's not uncommon on these forums, is it?

That said, if FFXIV ever adds a new job (and therefore new animations), it might be interesting to make that job left-handed.

[Zegtry]

That said, if FFXIV ever adds a new job (and therefore new animations), it might be interesting to make that job left-handed.

Indeed, it can be interesting to have a new job that will play as a left-handed player, but won't it be a little weird?

[Padudu]

This proposal is way too much time and money for way too little benefit --
but that's not uncommon on these forums, is it?

Yeah, wouldn't want to put too much pressure on the poor widdle indie devs of a multibillion dollar corporation that uses this game's revenue for other projects.

That being said, this request is kinda too minimal, imo. I can't really think of many mmos that let you swap hands and let you be lefthanded. Maybe if there's a new job, but it's unlikely. It's also something that you probably wouldn't even notice after a few minutes, so eh, can't say I really want this feature even for just slight RP favor.

But we did get adventure plates, which is a pretty useless feature that no one has really interacted with since its inception, so meh, I guess anything could technically be possible?

[Gemina]

Yeah, wouldn't want to put too much pressure on the poor widdle indie devs of a multibillion dollar corporation that uses this game's revenue for other projects.

Those "poor widdle indie devs" aren't the ones making billions, nor do they have any influence whatsoever on said billion-dollar corporation's decisions. They are just like you and me, and just trying to make a living, and don't get anywhere near the appreciation they've earned.

If you're going to cast the iron cross, at least crucify the right people.
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As for OP, this would indeed put unnecessary pressure on them. I can only imagine the jaw drop reaction when the animation team who is already over-worked and underpaid, is told to reanimate all the models to accommodate the decision to allow players to switch their dominant hand.

[Padudu]

Those "poor widdle indie devs" aren't the ones making billions, nor do they have any influence whatsoever on said billion-dollar corporation's decisions. They are just like you and me, and just trying to make a living, and don't get anywhere near the appreciation they've earned.

If you're going to cast the iron cross, at least crucify the right people.
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You may want to look up the "little indie devs" meme - I'm not throwing shade at the devs, I'm throwing shade at SE lol. Before correcting me please read up on meme culture smh. It's pretty much akin to saying "SE is a little indie dev company pls understand".

As for OP, this would indeed put unnecessary pressure on them. I can only imagine the jaw drop reaction when the animation team who is already over-worked and underpaid, is told to reanimate all the models to accommodate the decision to allow players to switch their dominant hand.

They probably would just need to mirror the animations and tweak it some at most like another poster said, not really that hard but also totally unnecessary for something you're not gonna notice when you're 3mins into rouls.

[Merrigan]

You may want to look up the "little indie devs" meme - I'm not throwing shade at the devs, I'm throwing shade at SE lol. Before correcting me please read up on meme culture smh.

Even if we have a "meme culture", your message remains inappropriate. In the sense that it is normal to expect global improvements for a company that has decent revenues.

Less so to throw tantrums over minimal customizations. If we were to take into account all the minimal requests that appear on this forum, then even a company like SE would be unable to provide the work.

You also say the same thing in your post, showing that you are aware that your provocation was nothing more than that - provocation - and therefore it is quite hypocritical to be surprised that someone would pick up on your taunt.

[Gemina]

You may want to look up the "little indie devs" meme - I'm not throwing shade at the devs, I'm throwing shade at SE lol. Before correcting me please read up on meme culture smh. It's pretty much akin to saying "SE is a little indie dev company pls understand".

Sure. Or you can be mindful of what you post fully understanding that not everyone lives in a meme culture, which isn't a culture. You might want to look up what a culture is. Also, "SE is a little indie dev company" isn't any less condescending than your previous comment. Actually worse. Before it was just a small group of people working within a greedy corporation. Now you expanded it to an entire region of people. And changing out the word "widdle" with the actual word little really doesn't help your case either.

They probably would just need to mirror the animations and tweak it some at most like another poster said, not really that hard but also totally unnecessary for something you're not gonna notice when you're 3mins into rouls.

I haven't coded in years, and never worked with animations. From the outside looking in a 'mirror' or inversion process isn't as simple as reflecting an image, or blocks of code. The testing alone after the work is done on just one model would take an enormous amount of time, and that's just to make sure everything is up to par.

It's also isn't really about the difficulty of making it happen so much as the time it would take. Time that can be spent towards far more beneficial and noticeable productivity.

[Sebazy]

Those "poor widdle indie devs" aren't the ones making billions, nor do they have any influence whatsoever on said billion-dollar corporation's decisions. They are just like you and me, and just trying to make a living, and don't get anywhere near the appreciation they've earned.

If you're going to cast the iron cross, at least crucify the right people.
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As for OP, this would indeed put unnecessary pressure on them. I can only imagine the jaw drop reaction when the animation team who is already over-worked and underpaid, is told to reanimate all the models to accommodate the decision to allow players to switch their dominant hand.

Given Yoshida's your uncle and you gatekeep the suggestions on these boards for him, one would think that you'd know this wouldn't be a job for the animators

It was confirmed in the past that FFXIV uses Havok for physics and most likely animations as well. Havok has had built in animation mirroring since version 5 some 15 years ago. However it's not something I've ever seen the game use, kind of surprising given that it's a good low effort way to somewhat obfuscate frequently recycled monster animations and postures. So there's going to be some underlying reason that it's not been done already at this point (assuming I've not simply missed a monster that uses it of course!), probably spaghetti code related but who knows for sure.

But yeah, it's 100% a code issue, not an animation thing.

Personally, I think it'd be neat thing to implement if it could be done without breaking things. It'd be a nice boost to FFXIV's character customisation.