Idea: Merge PLD Sword and Shield into a Single Item

[Sjol]

I would love to see the PLD sword and shield sets moved into a single item AND THEN:

Allow left and right weapons/shields to be individually glamoured. This could easily apply to NIN and maybe RDM, AST, and any other job that has two pieces to their kit that can be non-symmetrical. I could see this apply to paint brush and palette even.

It would simplify a lot of item management and remove the PLD tax, while leaving the option for more glamour options for other jobs.

[Duskane]

this is already a thing but players have no way to collapse them back into 1 item,
so would be a nice QoL to be able too.

[AzhreiVahlok]

uhhhhh no? what? this is pointless

[Hasrat]

So... you want to be able to glam an item that doesn't exist? How does this help with item management if you still need the fake-shield item to glam with?

[Amvin]

I don't understand the point of it either.

[GTK0HLK]

If it isn't "Broken" Don't "Fix" It.

We get what you mean, though there are likely reasons why it cannot be from SE that we aren't told asides other things.

You'd think they'd considered/did/talked to us all about it before.(By now)

[Reimmi]

I dont see how it matters much since the off-hand tab in the armory chest has tons of space for shields

[ty_taurus]

It's probably more trouble than it's worth from a dev standpoint. While there are positive outcomes you'd get from this, like trimming down the total item count and making the process of obtaining your sword and shield a little smoother for players, it would be a big headache to deal with. Also, one negative outcome would be that players can no longer mix and match their sword and shield glamour. Many players might prefer keeping both in the same set, but it's always nice to have the option to switch them up, and I'm sure some players inevitably do.

[Iscah]

Allow left and right weapons/shields to be individually glamoured. This could easily apply ...

Quite likely it wouldn't "easily" apply to anything.

We have situations where this would be needed – mostly older gear pieces that occupy multiple slots – and it just doesn't work because the most basic building block of glamour is "use the item in the slot to carry the information about the glamour". If there is nothing in your headgear slot because you're wearing a hooded cowl, the game has nowhere to record your hat glamour.

By the same approach, if you've got nothing in the offhand weapon slot then there would be nowhere to store the information about your offhand glamour.

This is why shield users can glamour their offhand but other jobs cannot.

Maybe they can work something out – maybe the plans for the glasses slot could achieve it even – but we don't know how that will work until we see it.

[Enkidoh]

It's also a legacy of FFXIV's sordid roots - as ARR is made on the bones of version 1.0, it had to accomodate how 1.0 was designed - in this case, originally in 1.0 shield use was a seperate class called 'Sentinel' or 'SEN', which had to piggyback on another class - specifically GLA, but CNJ and THM could also equip it, this is incidentally also the reason why CNJ and THM have some low level shields to this day available. When classes were redesigned to allow Jobs to be added to them, SEN was scrapped as a class, it's abilities rolled into GLA and it's new PLD Job, and shield use just became a 'shield' that still went in the offhand slot, just like the secondary tools of Disciples of the Hand and Land.

Due to 1.0 players being able to import their 1.0 character data into ARR, classes had to therefore be compatiable with the old data in the new game, and thus shield use continues to be an optional piece of equipment for GLA/PLD (this is also why GLA/PLD does not start with a shield but just a sword). It's clear SE are not going to change this.

I suspect the original poster's idea actually comes from a misinformed belief that rolling shield use into sword would somehow then increase inventory space, but as others have pointed out, the offhand slot is it's own independent section in the Armoury Chest and it's removal wouldn't freeup space like removing Belts did.