Trans..mogrifi..ca..shun?? or The Art Of Wearing Clothes You Like With Stats You Like

[Neptune]

Amongst the bleak landscape of MMORPGs with churning mill style gear progression wherein treasured items Soon Become Obsolete there is at least one game that has solved this problem, even though it took them 7 years to come up with the solution. For from time to time an individual may form an attachment to certain pieces of what we can refer to as Art Assets!

For example consider this:



It looks so cool and yet it is so not cool to wear it In Times of Need.

So how about a player can visit a certain NPC and apply the stats of an Equivalent Piece of Gear to the appearance of a Beloved Piece of Obtained Gear? And thus preserve the hard work of Final Fantasy XIV's talented artists across many generations of Final Fantasy XIV content whilst assuring much excitement amongst the playerbase as they ruminate their cosmetic ..cosmos!

Imagine That.

EDIT: You know, I was just thinking about the reason Yoshi-P doesn't like vanity slots. They want to keep the job identity. Well this actually solves that. Look how lame my dragoon looks "now":



I much prefer the appearance of the AF. Under this system, I could simply "transfer" the appearance of the AF to the gear in the picture, and fully represent my job identity. Problem solved.

[NefarioCall]

I fully agree with and support this idea.
It's necessary.

[Jynx]

.dat mods people.... .dat mods.

[Duelle]

I'll support this thread, much like I support Buttons' vanity slots thread. Either or, I want control over how I look.

[Rokien]

I don't support this, how is a cloth armor going to have the same defense as plated armor. Sorry but no. Also there is materia, just stick the materia on it.

Wait, you can do every fight naked, why do you care about stats? Just wear what you want right now anyways.

[NefarioCall]

I don't support this, how is a cloth armor going to have the same defense as plated armor. Sorry but no. Also there is materia, just stick the materia on it.

Wait, you can do every fight naked, why do you care about stats? Just wear what you want right now anyways.

Yeah ... true ... but i don't like a system where say for paladin, there's just one or two decent pieces and the majority of paladins you ever run into will be wearing it. Materia melding helps offset this a little, but not entirely. I don't want to see a paladin taking the most epic boss in a blouse either. ... but the current gear options in battle are a little more limited than they should be.

[Absconditus]

I don't support this, how is a cloth armor going to have the same defense as plated armor. Sorry but no. Also there is materia, just stick the materia on it.

Wait, you can do every fight naked, why do you care about stats? Just wear what you want right now anyways.

And who's to say that there would be no restrictions on what can be used as a visual substitute for each class/job? With the proper restrictions, are you still against this being implemented? If so, why?

The best way to go about this, would in my opinion be what has been previously suggested, "vanity slots". A separate set of slots where you can equip what should be visually shown to yourself and other players. These slots should still bound to the same rules as anything else is, so if your current class/job can't wear said item, then you can't use it as a visual substitute. There are of course a few items in the game that All Classes can wear, but these could either be excluded, or it could be further narrowed down to the type of equipment it is—Cloth like the Yukata's? Then only White Mage, Conjurer, Black Mage and Thaumaturge can equip it.

There's a number of ways this can be implemented without ruining visual class distinctions completely. And besides, I don't think it should necessarily be doable on our weapons, meaning at the very least, you can tell a players class based on the weapon they carry. All the game would do is take the stats out of one file, ignoring the visual data, and then the visuals are taken out of another, if an item is placed in the "vanity slot".

PS: Pretty much any online game, has rules about tampering with the local files, and doing file-swaps is likely just going to get you into trouble if they care enough. So no, I would not recommend anyone to do this. If I missed the memo where they state clearly that they allow this, by all means, point those interested in that, in the right direction. But I doubt it's not frowned upon by those in charge of the game. (http://support.na.square-enix.com/ru...seragreement_e)

2.7 Modifying or Creating Derivative Software. You may not modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Game or Service in any way not expressly authorized by SQUARE ENIX, and may not make any derivative works of the Game.

Before you defend it by saying it's likely not to be detected, which may be perfectly true, that doesn't mean it's potentially not allowed, and that I don't think that you should go around suggesting for other players to "risk" their accounts. At least back it up with a link to someone with the authority to state that it's allowed, stating so. It wouldn't be out of the question that the game (if not now, at some point) does a checksum on the files to see if they've been tampered with. Plenty of online games do this.

[Jynx]

PS: Pretty much any online game, has rules about tampering with the local files, and doing file-swaps is likely just going to get you into trouble

Nobody got banned for .dat mods in XI because for one they don't scan your local client side files. Secondly unless you tampered with files to gain a unfair advantage unless your shouting in town that you .dat mod they didn't care...hell even then they didn't care.

XI had some sweet cosmetic .dat mods.

[Velhart]

Nobody got banned for .dat mods in XI because for one they don't scan your local client side files. Secondly unless you tampered with files to gain a unfair advantage unless your shouting in town that you .dat mod they didn't care...hell even then they didn't care.

XI had some sweet cosmetic .dat mods.

Indeed they did, I remember someone made an awesome Gabranth judge armor. I tried it out on my PLD and it looked spot on.

Vanity slots are must in this game, but it has to have restrictions. The same gear rules have to apply "Only if you can wear it." and doesn't count for seasonal items. Yoshida claimed it would give people a hard time telling who is what. I don't get this, last I recall people can tell who you are just looking at your weapon. I think this is a poor excuse to not have the system and he should reconsider this.

[Orophin]

I too want to choose the way my character looks. If you want to be anal, take the Aion rules. Cloth can look like other cloth, leather like other leather, mail like other mail.

I'd rather just have vanity slots. I don't want to permanently (or even temporarily) change a piece of gear. Vanity slots just seems easier.

Whichever is easiest to implement I support. This feature isn't a deal breaker for me by any means but it would be nice to have. The only restrictions I think should be imposed is that Artifact and JSE (maybe CSE?) shouldn't be affected by this. Their original properties shouldn't be able to be altered.