Idea: Merge PLD Sword and Shield into a Single Item

[Raikai]

I think you're both mistaken.

If they hypothetically could merge shields into swords and get rid of crafter/gatherers' secondary tools, they could get rid of the offhand slot and redistribute its slots to the other sections of the armoury chest, just like they did with belts. Even now it seems like they should reassign some of those slots, perhaps to the main hand weapons.

But yes, slots are "real" and actually quite restrictive or else we wouldn't have inventory issues. They could just keep expanding forever.

What you're thinking of is specifically the Key Items pouch. Those are illusory slots because the items you have in that space are derived from your active quests rather than ownership of an item in the game. You can't reorganise them or put them in other inventories like a normal item; they only exist in that one space in predetermined order. The UI has three pages just in case some madly determined person goes around collecting sidequests that put multiple key items in the pouch and never hands them in.

I don't think Key items even need that much of space, given there's only so many quests you can take at some point. Even with non-quest key items, I don't think it's even possible to fill that much.

On that note, I didn't even think how useful those 35 additional slots from offhand items, turned cosmetic only, would be. If we have at least 2 new jobs per expansion (3 in DT), we're due more weapon slots.

Also I wonder they could just find a way to make soulstones an UI feature only, because theoretically that's an absolute waste of inventory space plus after Dawntrail's PIC, VIP and BST we'll only have 1 slot left there.

[Vallerie]

Most code complexity in my career has come from exceptions -- things where everything directly, but you have to add something like the below which also is another place that can go wrong and another thing that has to be tested. So, yeah, I'd like to make things simpler, reduce the average omni-players inventory needs by a handful of slots, remove a bunch of crafting recipes, remove the PLD tax, and just makes things a little more consistent in this one area. Separate swords and shields don't get you much, especially if you can keep the asymmetric glamouring.

The problem here is that your idea introduces additional complexity. Not in merging PLD sword and shield, but in the glamour the two separately despite being a single item. Like in no way is treating single item as two for purposes of the glamour system simpler than just having two items.

Reducing complexity and allowing for more glamour options would be splitting RDM, NIN, etc. weapons into two items. Less optimal in terms of storage, yeah, but a lot simpler.

[Sjol]

The problem here is that your idea introduces additional complexity. Not in merging PLD sword and shield, but in the glamour the two separately despite being a single item. Like in no way is treating single item as two for purposes of the glamour system simpler than just having two items.

Reducing complexity and allowing for more glamour options would be splitting RDM, NIN, etc. weapons into two items. Less optimal in terms of storage, yeah, but a lot simpler.

There are a lot of consequences to the PLD item being two different items. Some examples:

1) stats are split
2) relic checks require both items to be present
3) abilities have to check to see if you have a shield equipped
4) weapon rewards have to be bundled for PLD
5) shields are the one exception to the main hand/off hand in the market categorized as armor

In my experience, one-offs consume a lot of resources compared to their benefit.

With regards to the glamour system, it's a non-trivial change to be sure since you're taking a single value and turning it into a multiple value. My guess is that there's a visual asset attached to the item data that says what to load, and there would be a need to examine window changes.

I really did like the idea that we should be glamouring plates instead of items. That would solve a lot of issues, though data migration would be awful and maybe impossible to do without information loss.

[AzhreiVahlok]

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.

I know this is old and i'm sorry but it's hard to not necro things when you want to reply to something specific lol.... If people don't want necros then lock posts after awhile like reddit (although that's annoying too, like here u find something years later and still want to respond). But why in the hell would any paladin think using a shield is optional? That's just dumb. You literally block some attacks with one.... idk if you block all or some of the damage i never paid that much attention, but i've seen my toon block... lol

[Rithy255]

I would actually like this for mentioned space reasons, but doubt it will happen and I think it's going to require too much effort.

[Dhalya]

I really want mismatched weapons for NIN and MNK, it sucks that only PLD has this possibility.
Don't really care how it's implemented UI wise and items wise, but NEEED!

[Raikai]

If the 'tech' would allow us to mix and match Ninja, Monk, Dancer, Viper and Red Mage weapons+off hands, I'm all for it! o/

[Ayer2015]

As someone who always glamours with the Emperor's New Shield... This would be a negative change.

[Raikai]

As someone who always glamours with the Emperor's New Shield... This would be a negative change.

How so? The merge the OP suggests allows individual offhand glamours.

[Sjol]

There's a bunch of ways to do this, including just giving weapons two glamour slots. The difficult part isn't getting the two glamours onto the item, at least I've not been given any reason to believe that it is. The hard part would be what to do with all those off-hands and weird one-handers that exist in the game already and are already equipped to characters.

There are several things in ARR that have never been replicated and I think that's because the dev team now things they're a mistake.

1) items that can be crafted from equipable gear (e.g., the crab bow)
2) armor that takes up two slots
3) weapons and off-hands that can be used by multiple classes
4) jobs with off-hands
5) DoW / DoM gear (this may just be that it doesn't appear beyond low levels)
6) Star-ingredients being used in the next expansion's low-level recipes
7) Star-recipes existing outside Masterwork Manuals
8) definitely more stuff, but quickly getting beside the point...

I think that if you get rid of the last off-hand for combat jobs, they could probably also remove some wonky, exception code and make a more robust system that adds features and, hopefully, removes some limitations in other areas.