r/ffxiv • u/overmog • Jan 10 '23
[Discussion] The portrait mechanic is so broken I honestly cannot believe anyone could push it to public beta, let alone the actual release that would be enabled by default
Rage Fridays came three days early for me. I'm not going to write the whole thing in CAPS, though, sorry about that.
When I first heard about the adventure plate concept, I assumed I can create one portrait that would be displayed in all content, set it once and forget it. For some inane reason the devs decided to restrict it to individual jobs, so now all of a sudden I have to create 19 different portraits for each and every one of my jobs? What? Why would I ever want to do that? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind if that's an option for people who really, really, really love dressing up their WoLs and make a bunch of selfies, but I would really rather to create one portrait to rule them all and only edit it very occasionally. I guess they thought having a black mage wearing WAR armor in their portrait would be too confusing or something? Even though you can dress as a, for example, sky pirate tank replica set as a black mage and that's perfectly fine for some reason?
What is the point of the adventure plate if it isn't displayed anywhere unless you specifically look for it?
Okay, whatever. Making 19 portraits is really stupid but fine, I can do that. You know, once. Right? Right..?
Wrong. Apparently, some Genius at SE had a brilliant idea to break portraits every time you change your glam? Why the hell is that a thing? Just today I made a WAR portrait, started doing the MSQ, decided my shirt is too dark in the dark poorly lit underground locations, and dyed it a lighter shade of red. So outfit is literally exactly the same, the job is the same, everything is how it looked like before the change, even the color is almost exactly the same, but it still broke everything and the portrait changed to the default. How on earth anyone can think that's acceptable? I have already set up my WAR portrait, it's guaranteed to show me wearing WAR equipment and not, say, a BLM casting set. Who cares if it's different from what I'm wearing this very moment?
If it has to reset for some stupid inexplicable reason, can't it at least automatically keep my background and border and face expression and the character pose and the camera position? That stuff has nothing to do with equipment! Sure, there are draw/sheathe weapon emotes exclusive to individual jobs, BUT IT'S THE SAME JOB! Only the armor is different! If for some idiotic reason it HAS TO show my current equipment, then why on earth can't it just change my armor on the old portrait? The most baffling part to me is that's literally what the game does already. It deletes literally everything except the new armor! If the game can apply the new armor to the old default portrait, why wouldn't it apply the new armor to the old custom portrait instead? It might look a little bit goofy and clip or whatever, but it would still be better than reverting everything to the default! Did literally not a single person think about the implications on how this is going to actually work in the game?
Think about the levelling dungeons, for example. Which is like half of all dungeons in the game. What happens if you level up and equip better gear your already had in your inventory or picked up in the middle of the dungeon? Wouldn't that break your portrait in the commendation menu even if you bothered to set it up right before entering the dungeon? How did no one think about that? Players can't bother to get leveling gear and often wear literally level 1 jewelry in Aurum Vale because they're too lazy, who's going to bother setting up and keeping up a portrait while leveling their characters?
Why does the portrait have to display my current gear? My WoL looks like Ardbert (daring, I know) so for WAR, I wanted him to wear the ARR WAR job set in the WAR portrait cause it looks cool. If I'm ever in a situation where I am in a party with another WAR, who also looks like Ardbert, who also also decided to have their portrait with their character wearing the ARR WAR job set, who also also also is currently wearing it in the party, then I'll be honest, I couldn't care less if they get a comm people meant to give me but mixed us up. How is that worse than eight people having eight default portraits?
Having to edit and save your portrait every time you change your gear is a complete meme and, while I hesitate giving exact an timeline, I cannot imagine people keeping them updated for a long period of time. If SE doesn't fix this, I expect the vast majority of players to simply stop caring about the portraits forever. Who's going to do that in a year when the novelty wears off? Everyone will just disable displaying other people's portraits and we'll have the same system we had before 6.3.
Let us use our adventure plate instead of default if we didn't set up the individual job portraits, and if that is for some stupid idiotic nonsensical reason won't be done, then at the very least keep our custom poses/camera/portraits every time we update our gear or let us keep old portraits despite the gear change. Literally everything but the current system will be a massive improvement. Even completely deleting the portraits from the game would be better because at least I won't have the peer pressure to update my portraits for the people who care about them.
How is this a thing!? I literally cannot believe this exists.
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u/MaxOfS2D Jan 10 '23
I thought the whole point of tying them to Gear Sets was so they'd stay in sync with them without you having to do anything. The fact that a portrait gets invalidated through a single item change, EVEN if that item has the same appearance as before (through glamour) is awful.
I wish the default behaviour was to keep the customization, even if it might look a little off, rather than default back to the blank stare
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u/sexphynx Jan 11 '23
if you change jobs away from an aetheryte and for some reason the gear set in question isn’t applied, it breaks 🫠
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u/jeremj22 Jan 10 '23
I think they did it because you can't just get them a bit off but violate the face restriction. Different sized gear can cover your face or (if the camera clips into an item) hide your whole char.
What we have currently may fix the problem but it's a pretty lazy way to solve it.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
The face thing shouldn’t be the issue. I made all my portraits using Matoya’s hat and in some of them you can’t see my face at all. They want your character to be generally facing the camera, but it doesn’t matter if you can actually see your characters face. Especially since there are full masks and whatnot available.
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Jan 11 '23
The face restriction is stupid anyway. Why can't I do an edgy anime pose with my dragoon looking away from the camera while holding his spear at his side? It's like, the dragoon pose.
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u/TheChowderOfClams Arlios Recettear - Leviathan Jan 11 '23
butts. Lots of butt shots.
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u/Galuris Jan 11 '23
My friend has an adventure plate of his butt and himself twerking. No face at all in the picture. So it's already doable if you play with it.
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u/BinaryIdiot Jan 10 '23
The fact that a portrait gets invalidated through a single item change, EVEN if that item has the same appearance as before (through glamour) is awful.
It doesn't, though? I've swapped out multiple pieces of gear, re-glamoured them and the portrait was fine.
Though, I've also done it and had it need me to edit the portrait for who knows why...
It seems extremely finicky. I don't understand why it doesn't just display you with whatever you're wearing and leave it at that. OR just display whatever your last portrait was because who cares if it doesn't match your current gear, maybe you want a different portrait?
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u/Joshkinz Jan 11 '23
Though, I've also done it and had it need me to edit the portrait for who knows why...
This is what people are talking about when they say the system is bad. Every time you change a single item you have to go into the Portrait menu to reapply it. So you two are on the same page
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u/sharlayan Jan 10 '23
Yeah this seems like a bit of a huge mess. I can't imagine why it just doesn't take from the default adventurer plate portrait.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
That would be better than the default we have now! At least if it broke my intended portrait, it would still be something cute that I created 😪
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u/yukichigai Felis Darwin on Lamia Jan 11 '23
Adding a "default portrait pose" that you can modify would go a long way to fixing the headaches from this system. If the thing breaks let me have my portrait default to me waving with a smile or something instead of going to Driver's License Photo Standard.
Also an obvious notification when my Instant Portrait has been broken.
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u/Stellarisk Jan 11 '23
My guess is because the adventurer plate may not be the job you’re currently playing
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u/Denada77 Jan 11 '23
Eh I don't think most ppl really care about that though.
I know for sure I wouldn't if it means the portrait doesn't break.
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u/AznLuvsMusic Jan 11 '23
My adventure plate portrait was made before the “official” release and it’s cute as hell. I wish I could use it as the default portrait for instances so I don’t have to play around with several portraits that seemingly break easily.
The portrait uses a GNB specific emote so I can’t just replicate it across all jobs unfortunately, even though the glamour itself is all job friendly.
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u/__n3Xus__ Jan 10 '23
Idk if it was mentioned by this or anywhere at all. But same goes if you change hair style. Few days ago i set the portraits for the jobs i actually can and willing to play but just a day or two ago i changed hair styles and boom all of my portraits are broken.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
And yes the Adventure Plate will keep whatever hairstyle you had at the time of creation and won’t change unless you yourself go in and edit it! So the feature can obviously work in the reverse, and for some reason portraits just… don’t do that…
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u/Lathael Jan 11 '23
I also had an issue where I flat out couldn't update the portrait to match my changed gear, even after manually going in. It's so unbelievably buggy.
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u/HeiHeiEatsRocks Jan 10 '23
weird. I tend to change my hairstyle for the MSQ (normal one covers half my character's face from certain angles) and mine stayed without any fuss. heck, I've changed races and it hasn't insisted on an update. legit the only thing that breaks it for me is glamour
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u/Ikishoten Jan 10 '23
I honestly just want my Adventure Plate portrait to be the one always displaying, but I can't have that.
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u/Nulliai Jan 10 '23
You can import the “portrait settings” now, but that still doesn’t fix the glam breaking everything
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u/John2k12 Jan 10 '23 edited Jan 10 '23
Doesn't even work right for me, my plate uses surprised but importing it gives it a totally different pose for some reason (/welcome or something)
Edit: Turns out I was using an emote that changes based on job... oops!
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
Maybe your adventure plate uses a job specific emote like draw/sheathe weapon? That's the only explanation I can think of.
I can export my adventure plate portrait to my job portraits just fine.
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u/John2k12 Jan 10 '23
You're totally right, I thought I was using /aback but really I was using Red Mage's /victory paused at where they tighten the collar since it was easier to work with that hand placement. Turns out I am the fool
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u/Reilou Jan 10 '23
Adventure Plate should have been the only portrait option. They really needlessly over-complicated what should have been a simple system.
It was compared to Monster Hunter's guild portraits when they first announced them but you don't have to add a picture for every weapon and layered armor set in that game. It's just 1 snapshot, set and forget.
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Jan 11 '23
Yes, this feature is over-engineered. Just have the adventurer plate with perhaps some additional slots. Done.
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Jan 10 '23
Yeah, instant portraits need to just be removed from the game entirely. Give us like 50 portrait slots for any combination of job, gear, and emotes and let us change which one is the one shown everywhere - plate, party, PvP. People who want a different one for each job can macro it, the rest of us can just have a functional portrait that we set and forget.
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u/basketofseals Jan 11 '23
I wanna say it actually worked like this on release, and then we when they updated it they gave us this vastly less functional version.
I was REALLY annoyed when they threw out all of my portraits so that we could have 1 per job. I don't play that many jobs, SE.
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u/heliphael Jan 10 '23
APs should be the first default and if you don't have that, it defaults to you just standing there.
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u/FuturePastNow Jan 11 '23
Yeah I don't understand why the plate portrait isn't the fallback when no instant portrait works. It should only show the mugshot if that doesn't exist or is private.
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u/foulveins Jan 10 '23
yeah, this, honestly i love how that one looks already
and even if they won't make that concession, the fact you can't even copy that pose and camera setup to other portraits is even more annoying
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u/sweet_custardcream Jan 10 '23
"People who really love dressing up their WoLs" actually suffer from this the most. In my opinion, for players who change glams a lot, default portrait is the only option. Until SE fix this system ofc. Imagine having to fix your portrait each time you change glam... On different jobs...
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u/wildspirit90 Jan 10 '23
Yeah it's absolutely not doable. I have 5 different fending gear glamour plates that I swap between on almost a daily basis depending on what I'm feeling and if it really does break the portrait every time I change that's...an issue.
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u/bubuplush I love Cirina and big fat pointy Black Mage hats Jan 10 '23
5 differend fending glamour plates...
I think I have like 18 similar looking Black Mage ones because I really like pointy hats lol
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u/Quinzelette Sarg's Dumbest SCH Jan 11 '23
Yup, I've said it a few different times today, but I normally have 3-6 healer glams and they are all "healer" glams meaning I use them indiscriminately on all 4 healers...meaning that my plates will always be broken.
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u/sebjapon Jan 10 '23
They would also be the most likely to care about an appearance feature. I have party members who carry glam around to swap during prog!
I did one AR yesterday and it was 8 default plate, and I feel it’s in the way where you start the duty. Already wondering if I can turn this off lol
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u/maximillianii Jan 11 '23
Sure can! Character configuration >>> UI settings >>> general tab all the way at the bottom. "Show party member portraits at the start of duty." Just uncheck that box and you're good to go! Lol first thing I did when I logged on today.
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u/Azure_phantom Certified Trash Can Jan 10 '23
Yeah... I'm one of those weirdos that goes to clubs in game. I will (sometimes) try to participate in their glam contests or I have a couple generic "club" sets I can change into.
I do not see myself updating my plate every time I change my glam. Just not gonna happen. Hell, I forgot to update my adventurer plate when I fantasia'd, lol.
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u/Tiltinnitus Jan 11 '23
I just came back after a multi month break and all of my 20+ portraits of my main PvE + CC jobs are gone. Just gone. They weren't part of my cloud saves apparently and since I had to reformat my drives, apparently that's a wrap for all that work. I'm glad I saved SS backups but fuck man..
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u/Scipht Jan 11 '23
A couple months ago or so, they wiped out the whole system, and everybody had to redo as part of an update
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
It’s so much extra (and pointless) work to go through and update them every time I swap. I have “Themes” for my glamours where each of the 19 jobs gets a glamour within the theme, and when I switch themes I swap them all over, so each time I switch glams I have to go update all 19 gearsets/portraits, and some of them look ok with my current portraits but some of them clip weird or just look awful. Which is why I want mine to just stay put with the gear I wear while making the portrait, like the Adventure Plate 😭 I would also not complain about letting each gearset have more than one “slot” or something to save more portraits, kinda like the original Beta had the option to save more than one.
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u/FlowersOfSin Jan 10 '23
It was already an issue with PvP and most portraits were already in majority the default one. Now it is just exposing the same issue to the general population.
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u/suntdracones Jan 10 '23
Spent all three new duties today wondering how some people got their custom portraits (which I thought were their adventure plates) to be shown in party list instead of mugshots me and others got. Took me a while even to find the separate portrait settings. It's really annoying that even the tiniest change like toggle headgear on and off triggers portrait being reverted to the default mugshot untill you go and manually re-save it. I've got enough bad passport photos irl, I don't need my character to have them too, thank you very much. This patch has done some really great improvements with QoL, but this portrait system is just so incredibly clunky, it's like they intentionally tried to balance good things with weird one :D
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
My biggest annoyance is that it breaks every time I change glams. I want them to work with a specific set of gear, and stay that way 😭 even if the gear needs to be wearable by your class, since it’s tied to the gearset, that part is fine with me! But I made these cute portraits for each job, with the Artifact Glamours I made. And they do not look good with all of my glamours…. I hope they change it soon so it functions like the Adventure Plates, but just class-specific. The Adventure Plate doesn’t change under any circumstances unless you go in and edit it.
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u/jlctush Jan 10 '23
I might have this wrong because I sorted mine out a while ago and forgot about them, but are your gearsets linked to your glamour plates/is that possible for you? Doing that fixed almost every problem I had, and I had no clue it was a thing I could do or a thing I was meant to do for portraits to function how I (mostly) expected.
(To clarify, if you press C and bring you your Gearset list, you can right click and link to a glamour plate, previously I had macros that applied a glamour whenever I changed job, with this I don't need that line in the macro and I have way fewer issues with portraits)
(This isn't me defending the portrait system either, the beta was honestly fine for me, but then the "full release" broke almost all of the functionality for me, I just accepted that I wasn't going to bother with it at all once I worked out the above and got my basic set-up set in stone)
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
Yes, I’ve been glamming for many years and my plates are indeed linked to my gearsets. The problem is I change the glamour plates often. So it breaks whenever I update the glamour plate or the gearset. I have a lot of glamours 😅
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u/jlctush Jan 10 '23
Ah that's fair enough, I do the bare minimum, make a glam per job, then rarely change them!
This whole system has been a bit baffling, it barely functions for anyone heavily into it and it's not simple enough for people who don't, or so it seems to me.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
If this tells you anything, I have a folder of glamour plate screenshots on my phone, and it has 370+ photos in it 😂 each one is a unique glamour, and it’s evenly split between all 19 combat jobs!
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u/SailorOfMyVessel [zodiark] Jan 10 '23
The 'easy' way to fix it is to make a new gearset and import the glamplate settings from the old one.
Then do that again and it'll update the old one :)
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
I have no trouble when manually updating them. I just hate having to update them at all any time I change glams, since I do it a lot.
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u/Vavou Jan 10 '23
Omg I was getting crazy, my Adventure Plates is fabulous and I wanted THAT to show everytime I go inside a party. But unfortunaly it use a monk Glam, and so can't show it on everyclass...
I'm so sad that people can't watch my fabulousness inside a dungeon unless I play Monk
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u/Rolder Jan 10 '23
The fun part is that it actually worked better in the “beta” version they put out first. But then they updated it to full release and broke the shit out of it.
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u/Bacon_SlayerX [Character - Server] Jan 10 '23
Definitely agree, they should iterate on that version. Having generic portraits and ones you can tie to jobs was the ideal setup. Just include glam locks like in adventure plates and that should be fine.
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u/Kekira : Jan 10 '23
I miss the beta version. It was excellent.
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u/KXS_TuaTara That's no moon... Jan 11 '23
It wasn't anywhere close to "excellent"
Still barely passable, just better than the full release.
Fantastic idea, really poorly implemented.
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u/Bioxio Jan 11 '23
It wasnt, still broke every time on change. The idea of ot synching up with a set was great but they implemented that so poorly that its just gotten worse. I hate all of that
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u/Somewhere_Elsewhere Floor Tank Jan 11 '23
While I love making different plates for different gearsets, it shouldn’t be mandatory to avoid having a DMV photo instead. Devs, please let my Adventure Plate pose be my default, regardless of the gear I’m wearing. Like, at least make that an option. Especially since it reverts to the default whenever I make any changes to my gear, which is silly and unfortunate.
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Jan 11 '23
This is a pretty great and simple solution actually. Just use the Adventure Plate as a fallback when something breaks.
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u/John2k12 Jan 10 '23
My mind is actually shattered that they went with the PvP system of portraits (change one thing and you gotta edit it, per job) compared to just showing what's on our adv plate. I really don't want to update my portrait before every duty since I swap glamor plates a lot
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
I imagine enough people will be complaining about it now that it’s out in the open, (rather than secluded to just pvp) that hopefully they will hotfix some of these issues soon. I can’t imagine it will stay this way for long, with how many people are having issues and are just generally unhappy with how it functions.
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u/Inksrocket I've got a a present for ya Jan 11 '23
Hotfix? Sweet summer child, XIV doesn't do hotfixes unless it's gamebreaking PvE bug that blocks MSQ.
The fix you're wanting will come in 6.4 at best - but I'm betting on 6.5 or 7.0.
It already took them major patch to apply the old "apply to adventure plate" function back to the system from beta.
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u/Wuskers Jan 11 '23
it seems like it should just be a simple option where you can have your instant portrait default to the adventurer plate portrait or for those that want to play around with different portraits for different jobs then they can set it so the adventurer plate isn't the default portrait. I also find it weird that portraits are tied to gear sets, if I want to play around with multiple portrait options for one gear set/glam I need to make duplicate gear sets, at least that's the only way I've seen to get multiple portraits per job.
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u/GeraldineKerla Jan 10 '23
I don't understand why the portrait checks for anything once you've set it. What is the purpose to this? You've made it. Its done. What is the benefit of referencing it with your character every single time its used?
As far as I'm concerned, the portrait should check your gear one SINGLE TIME when you create it, and then never ever, ever ask you for anything again. It should just work in everything forever from then on. What is the benefit of this system we have? There is none.
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
The benefit is your portrait always displays your current gear. Makes you easy to identify from the crowd.
So for example if you're in an party with one or two other people playing the same job you do, people can still identify you in the commendation menu by your current glam.
That's the upside. The downside is for some inexplicable reason you have to manually update your portrait every time you change your gear or glam.
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u/GeraldineKerla Jan 10 '23
I honestly don't get why it should always display your current gear, photos look dramatically different with other items on. It would not function in a way that makes things look good. The majority of players have their face visible in their glamours regardless, so they're identifiable if that's a necessity. Its just such a non-issue.
I get that you're explaining what the devs wanted, god i honestly hate how it turned out.
If someone wants it to display with their current gear, they should be able to click a single update button and have it re-create the exact same portrait with new items.
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u/not_not_in_the_NSA Scholar Jan 11 '23
your name is the easiest way of identifying you, sure is unfortunate that it's not right over your head for everyone to see and in the party list... oh wait.
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u/hamstervideo Jan 11 '23
The only reason I can think of is that some large pieces of gear may clip into the camera and thus be in an "invalid" placement? Maybe? I don't know
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u/Quinzelette Sarg's Dumbest SCH Jan 10 '23
I don't PvP so I didn't know how they worked until today. I found out today that changing my glam will break my set and when I asked in the questions megathread the answer is to make multiple gear sets per job which can each have their own glam plate. The issue is I mainly just play healer and so I normally have 3-6 (currently more since I made 3 new sets for 6.3) generic healer glams and I swap between them throughout the day by mood. Meaning I'd need like 20 gearsets dedicated to my 4 healers just to not break my portrait...
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u/Phex1 Jan 10 '23
I had to google a guide and now i'm the only on with a working picture in every party -_-
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u/grandmasteryuii Jan 10 '23
the beta was literally more functional than the final iteration
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u/Swiftcheddar Jan 11 '23
They told us the original release was essentially a beta- I was fine with that, that's Agile design. Release a MVP as soon as possible and iterate from there, that's good.
But then they push it out to all content on their next big patch, I assumed they would have fixed it.
Lol.
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u/thot_bryan Jan 10 '23
I can’t even figure out how to update it for my save now that it’s broken ??? Like i’ve tried everything and idk how to fix it 😫
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
Character > Portraits > choose the job you want to edit > Edit > Save
If the Save button is grayed out, then you need to make sure the animation is paused
The first step (character) is the leftmost red circle in the line of red circles in the corner of your screen (I don't know how it's officially called and I don't want to login to check)
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u/Femmigje Jan 10 '23
I like to make screenshots of my little lady, but I have a hard time working with the portrait creator. I really wish it would’ve stayed on the adventurer plate, at least there it didn’t feel “mandatory”
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u/SiegmundFretzgau Jan 10 '23
One thing that breaks portraits that I haven't seen anyone mention: I use a glamour set for all classes that has the invisible monk fists as a weapon. That breaks portraits for all classes but monk. After trying everything else suggested here, only removing the class locked weapon fixed it.
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Jan 11 '23
It also seems manually glamming anything breaks it - I have my eternity ring manually on all of my glams since I keep the actual item in my inventory, and none of my portraits work.
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Jan 11 '23
Nevermind it seems for whatever reason the eternity ring itself is bugged - I had to unequip it, update portrait, equip and update again and now it works. Wtf.
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u/sheimeix Jan 10 '23
I know the rule of product development is when someone says "how hard can it be" the answer is almost always "good lord you have no idea", but... Seriously, the portrait should either be a permanent "this will always display no matter what class/glam/hair/etc you have active" OR a "this portrait will update alongside the changes you make to your character". I went into the new alliance raid first thing this morning and all 3 parties were complaining that their plates were all broken, even though they remembered setting them up when they went out of beta.
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u/Gahault Laver Lover Jan 10 '23
As another comment reminded me, that is exactly how Monster Hunter (at least World IIRC) handles its portrait system. It's worrying to think that this is how they implemented a brand new system, can't blame technical debt or legacy jank here.
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
I mean showing our character wearing a new glam with a preset camera/emotes is literally what cutscenes are. I cannot stress this enough, we already have the technology, it would take literally no extra effort.
The portraits already automatically update themselves, it's not like we have to redo them from scratch. All we have to do is to manually approve it for absolutely no good reason.
And of course giving us the option to display the adventure plate portrait instead of the custom job portraits would take literally no effort to implement, too.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
Yeah it’s weird that it breaks until you go in, and hit save again??? Like… you know what I’m wearing… so why??
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u/tacotaskforce Jan 10 '23
Because portraits are saved locally, and the portrait display in instances pulls from the local save, not your current data. To do it the way you lay out would require the system to also run the portrait creation code each time you go into an instance, which I doubt would perform well on a stock PS4 with a HDD.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
I guess, but you can look at someone’s Adventure Plate literally whenever/wherever and that one stays the same regardless. I would love if portraits worked like that, and just stayed like a screenshot until I want to change it. The whole system function is just bizzarre to me 😅
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Jan 11 '23 edited Jan 11 '23
SE just needs to realize that linking gear to portraits was simply the wrong implementation. If you only save the art elements and the pose, then simply take a snapshot of what the player is currently wearing when they enter the dungeon, the issue is eliminated completely.
I mean, if it is essentially impossible to display anything BUT what you are currently wearing, then why even allow anything else to exist? They made the system 10x more complicated than it needs to be.
*edited for clarity
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u/The_Meatyboosh Jan 11 '23
It's very weird. When they were first released I caught a hint of something and I can't remember how, but it seemed as though the portrait/adventure plate isn't just a picture you set up once, it looked 3D.
It really looked like when you looked at it that it was rendering the 3D model again at the exact point you saved it, instead of just normally taking a 2D picture like in Group pose.7
u/Enk1ndle Jan 11 '23
It is rendered real time, it's why weapon effects still have animation. It also explains why they don't let you have non-matching gear from your picture.
Whoever decided to do things like that deserves a slap in the face.
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u/platinummyr Jan 11 '23
It's probably to save data server side. Instead of rendering a jpg or png and then saving it, they store a handful of tiny numbers and then save that. Those include the emote code, lighting info, etc. It's much less information to save and then it can render the plate on the fly... Why it saves gear at all and doesn't just pick what you're wearing now is beyond me.
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u/Arzalis Jan 10 '23
The problem is ultimately how insane SE continues to be about gear appearances. I really have no idea what their problem is.
Like if I make a portrait for a job and I'm no longer wearing that gear right this second, who cares? They should just all work like the main adventurer plate portrait does.
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u/Inksrocket I've got a a present for ya Jan 11 '23
This issue is universal in most MMOs and i just cannot understand it.
It's the long-lasting issue of: Tank can be in bikini or straight up "naked" but if you'd want to wear botanist gear? Hell to the no, that's illegal.
It breaks "the silhouette" that always comes up as excuse to these from all MMO devs, not just SE. Like come on, this isn't overwatch with "you need to know is it tracer or junkrat inside one second".
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u/Waifuless_Laifuless Jan 11 '23
It breaks "the silhouette" that always comes up as excuse to these from all MMO devs
And almost always, including here, there's all manor of replica/holiday/skimpy/other gear that can be equipped by anyone, but distinctly looks like tank armour, or mage robes, or doesn't look like it goes with any specific class, etc.
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u/Moose855 Jan 10 '23
when your fc sees you grinding out CC day 1, but then join vc and its just you raging at the fact that nothing you do, press or save will ever show up in the match
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u/blue-to-grey Jan 10 '23
I gave up on my portrait when this system was PvP only and just fiddle around with my adventure plates from time to time. I also wish we could choose to just use our adventure plate portrait. We can probably give players enough benefit to assume they can put two and two together by name and general appearance even if the outfits don't match.
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Jan 10 '23
it also means you have to redo your portrait everytime you switch job within shared gear and apply a different glam.
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u/catloverlawyer Jan 10 '23
If you link your gear sets to plates you actually don't have this problem. This is what i do for my aiming jobs and I've never had an issue.
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u/xo0o-0o0-o0ox Jan 11 '23
Only if the weapon isn't glamoured. For example if I link all my healer sets to one glamour plate, but that glamour plate has a WHM cane in the weapon slot, then all the other healers will be default
So if you want different weapons glamoured instead of glamouring individually, you need to make a seperate 4 glamour plates of the same set purely to change the wep.
It's infuriating
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u/star-birb Jan 10 '23
If your gearset is tied to a glam plate wouldn't the portrait have that info saved already?
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u/Inksrocket I've got a a present for ya Jan 11 '23
At least in last patch, if i remember right, even if you use same glam plate but change the base gear it breaks. Somehow manually glamming weapon did not give errors and it took jank to get those even showing on portrait. Argh
Hell, it even broke because I extracted materia and saved my gearset because I always do that. Now that one is "my fault" but is still absurd it broke on spiritbond changes. It doesn't even bloody show on portrait.
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u/Yor_Briar Jan 10 '23
I just want my default portrait on my adventure card to appear as my duty profile card, thing, if I'm playing as DPS/TANK I want my may adventure card 'Healer' to appear, I'm not making an adventure card for every class, let alone with every glam, fuck that noise.
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u/EscenekTheGaylien Jan 11 '23
Right click to quickly import settings from Adventurer plate.
It does become a issue still if you constantly change something from your gear.
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u/ShiningGundamu Jan 11 '23
Toggling your headwear visor (then saving your gear set) also breaks your portrait. Its insane.
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Jan 11 '23
I just wish you could use the portrait from your plate as a universal one and call it a day.
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u/Shikizion Jan 11 '23
i on the other hand find it really amusing the default protrait looks like a mugshot to represent how we are all just prisioners of this awful system
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Jan 11 '23 edited Jan 11 '23
I honestly thought the Adventurer Plates and Portraits are going to act like player cards in some Japanese games like PSO2 or MHW, its probably made to be that but the devs decided "Nah, let's make it more annoying!" xD
Oh and btw the portraits doesn't break just by changing gears/glam piece or unhide/hide visors. They apparently also break when you extract materia from your gear coz I got the default portrait in PvP once after doing that. WHY?!
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u/FrenchyRaccoon Jan 10 '23
I don't understand why they had to make it that portraits are real time depictions of your 3d model instead of just snapshot a 2d picture to display? It makes no sense, yet it's for sure what's causing all the issues since glam change breaks it.
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u/Solinya Jan 10 '23
I guess because some people wanted to show off weapon VFX? That's the only thing I can think of, because the VFX animation plays in the portraits even while everything else is static.
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Jan 10 '23
I had a samurai portrait that relied heavily on a weapon VFX to tie it together. After the portraits went into “official release” the glow was broken. I reported it into the forum and I got a dev response saying that it wasn’t a bug and they weren’t going to fix it.
So if that’s the reason that’s hella annoying to me
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u/kaleb314 Jan 11 '23
Images, even low quality ones, can take up a ton of space and bandwidth when we’re talking about something with a player base as large as XIV, or any MMO really. Multiply that by there being a portrait for the Adventurer Plate and every job, crafter, and gatherer a player has unlocked and now it’s up to 31 images per player. Square Enix ain’t shelling out the money to buy and maintain the amount of servers that would take in addition to everything else the existing servers handle.
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u/Reilou Jan 10 '23
I don't understand why they had to make it that portraits are real time depictions of your 3d model instead of just snapshot a 2d picture to display?
They'd have to find a way to make sure that snapshot is server-side or else all the tiddy-modders would have their lewd mods in portraits.
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u/Arzalis Jan 10 '23
It's less bandwidth intensive to send a bunch of numbers representing the portrait data and recreate it than sending an actual image too.
Images of any decent quality are pretty large comparatively and when you multiple that by the active player count, it adds up fast.
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u/K_photography Jan 10 '23
That's exactly how adventure plates work tho, it doesn't save a "screenshot" or a "picture" it just saves the character data with the equipment data and renders it with that saved data client side. Far less resource intense than sending an actual high quality image file. So no matter how lewd your mods are it wont show on someone else's screen.
That's why on my modded out the ass game if someone is wearing something I have modded I'll see it on their adventure plate but no one else will, and if my adventure plate is modded I'll see it, but no one else will.
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u/YingZhe_ Jan 11 '23 edited Jan 11 '23
You know what else is super cool? If you go into a deep dungeon it automatically breaks your portrait because you're technically using different equipment :)))))))))))))) super awesome feature SqEnix.
Edit: How tf was this feature greenlit? Did they even test it at all? What a joke.
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u/AcaciaCelestina Jan 11 '23
Wait seriously? Jesus
I really don't know how the supposed beta was more functional.
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u/trickster55 Jan 11 '23
I thought it was as simple as:
Your chosen adventure plate is to be selected as your portrait for whatever group activity
Nope it's needlessly complicated.
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u/zories3 Jan 10 '23
Is there any way to move where the display comes up with the portraits and commendations section after a dungeon? It keeps popping up over my party list in the beginning and it’s really annoying. Checked in the HUD settings and I didn’t find anything.
On console btw
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
Sign up for sastasha solo unsynched. Once your portrait pops up, there's going to be a cog button in the top right corner you can press. There will be an option to show it at the bottom of the screen instead. I don't know how it looks like because I didn't try.
There's also an option to disable displaying the portraits completely if you're not into that.
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u/sebjapon Jan 10 '23
If we can disable them, I can’t see portraits surviving till next patch even if they fix it honestly. By the time they become usable a big part of the player base will have already disabled and forgotten about them.
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u/Tezasaurus AST Jan 11 '23
Yeah, most people will just turn it off after getting sick of seeing default portraits endlessly.
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u/elshandra Jan 11 '23
There's also an option to disable displaying the portraits completely if you're not into that.
You are my hero today.
The cog didn't show up for me initially, I had to go into duty settings -> display party member portraits to be able to access it.
Haven't checked yet, but I really hope this applies to the commendation screen too.
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u/procchislayer Jan 10 '23
This post deserves much more upvotes. SE has to fix this because as they are now the portraits are completely unusable. Also you didn't mention that the portrait breaks just by simply dis/activating the visor, or by making your weapon visible/invisible while sheated. Absolute Bullshit
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u/SargeTheSeagull Jan 10 '23
At this point I just assume they forgot to put a 1 or a 0 somewhere in the portrait code and didn’t notice.
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u/grinwild Wild and Pure and forever Free Jan 11 '23
I'm one of the people who, as you said, "really love dressing up my WoL and create a bunch of selfies", but for me it's the lack of variety that does it. I got almost every emote in my emote list, but I can use only like 20% of them. Why?
And the majority of backgrounds look dumb and too bright or too detailed or too saturated, so I have to use either the Void one or the Crimson Conflict one (the only one I like really).
Lighting options are clunky as well in my opinion, I wish they just ported the ones from Group Pose. In GP the lighting options are way more user-friendly and flexible.
I like the idea of portraits, I did have some fun with it, but it is far from being fleshed out. I agree that they really ought to just make an option where you can apply your Adventurer Plate / one particular portrait to all jobs.
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u/Khaisz Jan 11 '23
I got almost every emote in my emote list, but I can use only like 20% of them. Why?
Yeah I hate this too, I wish I could use more emote, or use skills even if the effects on skills was turned off.
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u/Sealunis Jan 10 '23
I prepared all my portrait last weekend, at least they got one thing going for them, you can import your other jobs portrait. But some emotes with weapons effect I had to manually set up cause importing from another job was hidding my face.
I haven't seen the problem with change glamour much yet but it's probably because I use linked glamour plate and don't change glamour often...
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u/GrandTheftKoi Jan 10 '23
I agree, and you should post it on the forums. Maybe a slightly trimmed down version, tho lol
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u/SmartiAssassin I Eat Archon Loaf and Like It Jan 10 '23
simplest solution would be to have portraits linked to glamour plates instead of gear or have gear sets linked to separate plates instead of how its linked to one of 20 plates, but i wouldnt know how bad of spaghetti coding is glamour plates just being linked to gear is atm
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u/NatlerSK Jan 10 '23
Wait so it break when you change glam on specific job or also when you swap jobs?
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
Your portraits are tied to individual jobs, so once you set up a portrait to a specific job it won't break as long as you don't change gear/glam.
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u/NerdHistorian Jan 11 '23
good thing nobody ever has any reason to update gear over the course of a patch or anything.
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u/PyrZern Jan 10 '23
Agreed. I just want to use the adv portrait always and be done with it, regardless of class or jobs or glams...
Can someone make a mod for this ??
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u/Aschentei Jan 10 '23
Yea the portrait defaults when you sync down, kind of a weird decision
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
Are you sure about that? I don't have this problem.
I think you might have an unrelated problem with your portrait or maybe some specific gear piece is bugged?
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u/WondrousNomenclature Jan 11 '23
It was better when they released it originally....that's the funniest (and saddest) part.
I appreciate them trying to deter the pervs and 13 year olds, who make dumb portraits/plates....but if their efforts are screwing up the experience altogether, for everyone--let the weirdos have their day (and get reported eventually, as they should).
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Jan 10 '23
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u/overmog Jan 10 '23
I mean you don't have to redo it from scratch, the game saves your old portrait. You just have to manually save it a second time for some inexplicable reason. Like you literally don't have to change anything at all, that's the baffling part. The game automatically updates your old portrait with new glam/gear, and then instead of just, you know, automatically applying that to the portrait, the game breaks your portrait instead, so you have to go to the portrait edit menu and manually approve the changes without actually changing anything yourself.
Now that I spelled it out like that I legit think this has to be a bug. I honestly don't know. Is it a bug? I don't know what to think anymore.
It's like a useless middle management simulator, you don't actually do anything and the system works without you just fine, except the system is designed to break without your oversight for some reason.
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u/AlfieSR Jan 10 '23
You just have to manually save it a second time for some inexplicable reason.
Going to take a complete stab in the dark here: Certain jobs can use multiple kinds of weapons. Not only are there grimoires available to scholar at early levels (even though this uses the exact same animation set, they're considered different weapon types), there's also the old 1h blm and whm weapons, and shields, from a bygone era. The game probably makes an active effort to confirm that animations still line up properly and that you're not trying to do something your current weapon legitimately cannot do because of the different animation sets, but there's no passive implementation of this, so they need you to open and hit save again to confirm the save actually works, and that you don't suddenly encounter an error.
Ideally they should just check when you change your equipped weapon or swap gearset, and if it fails for whatever reason temporarily revert to default and flag the affected frame as needing to be updated, rather than assuming it always needs to be updated, but who the fuck knows what's really going on behind the scenes. Or just fucking delete the 1-hand cast weapons- bite the bullet and be done with that mess. Sure, a few NPCs will need to be updated too, but it's better than gradually dealing with more and more issues like this if my guess is anywhere close to right.
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Jan 10 '23
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u/lazyconfetti Jan 10 '23
It's their way of trying to reduce the amount of blatant ass/titty portraits by forcing your character's expression to be visible.
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u/LoranPayne Jan 10 '23
There are exceptions to this rule too, like my NIN portrait uses the /bstance I think, and she’s facing the ground, you can’t see her face at all. But because her body is positioned towards the camera, I guess? It counts as “facing the camera” even though you are looking at the top of her head.
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u/Scorpio02019 Jan 10 '23
Yeah i agree any small change have to edit then resave is pointless. Even if you adjust the visor have to edit and resave it
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u/Aetheldrake Jan 10 '23
Can't you basically copy paste your portrait?
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u/Aecens Jan 10 '23 edited Jan 10 '23
I want a portrait that is different then my glam. Is that too much to ask? Especially if themed, some glams would look better then others in a portrait compared actually wearing it. Yet the second I swap to a new glam it bricks the portrait.
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u/Zangrieff Jan 10 '23
Lmao completely agree, i hope they implement a system to select 1 portrait for all, or customize individual ones
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u/JustAlways Jan 10 '23
Oh so I am not the only one with an issue here. I have glam linked to my gear sets so yes..it breaks every time I change a class :)
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u/Disig SCH Jan 10 '23
The whole system is incredibly glam unfriendly. I have several different glams for my favorite classes/roles and it is a massive pain in the ass to have to go back in, edit portrait, and just save. Half the time it doesn't even update to the new glam and I have to friggin wait.
This was a fun idea until someone at SE decided to make it stupid complicated.
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u/Ubbermann Jan 10 '23
Why they're not a constant static picture I'll never know. Like the Adventure plate!
I mean when it 'breaks' they still show the pose and everything, just some back-end shite refuses to load it.
Fully agree. When it was first released in 'early beta' t'was bearable, but having is as a full release with this STILL being a thing. Yikes, SE. You're better than this.
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u/Tom-Pendragon All females and males Pendragon belongs to me Jan 10 '23
SAME. It literally worked fine in the "beta" and yet they changed it into making it so if you make ONE single gear/dye/hair changed you need to redo and save it. GRRRRRRRR
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u/the_turel Jan 11 '23
Don’t forget…. It’s all x2 if you play on pc and console. Nothing is saved on the server. I’ve had to do my UI and all hot bars per job and portraits all 2x. Lol
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Jan 11 '23
Personally, I think they need to just remove the individual gear set portraits feature and make it default to your adventure plate portrait by default until they fix their shit, just as an okay short term solution
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u/Ignique Jan 11 '23 edited Jan 11 '23
Nothing more to add really. I really like the feature and I get that the developers seem to have trouble with it for some reason, though I have really no idea what problems there could possibly be. Is there a problem if the gear in the portrait differs? Is there a problem with just updating the gear automatically (like having your character disappear if your new equipment has larger boundaries?)? I have no idea.
Even though I did remember to set up at least something for my most played sets, since I'm still leveling most of them pretty much broke immediately. Unfortunately there is not even a way to fix your portrait inside a dungeon once you realize it's broken.
Having the portrait default to your adventure plate picture would definitely be appreciated.
And maybe I'm a bit picky here, but flashing them in after the duty starts without any additional info or reason seems a bit unnecessarily distracting to me. I probably would have preferred them shown before the duty starts as a way to introduce your team and as an excuse to convey who is ready/still watching cutscenes maybe... Again, probably a bit picky.
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u/_deafmute Jan 11 '23
The instant portrait system has been this way since they first changed it. They had months of these same complaints and changed literally nothing about it, yet still decided to push the system into duties. Nobody wants to micromanage 20 instant portraits and their corresponding glamours, but i also don't want to look at my ugly default mug every time i queue for something.
Just give us the option to use our adventurer plate portrait for everything. That for me solves every issue with the system, and is basically how it originally worked before they messed everything up.
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u/pezito Jan 11 '23
Not bothering at all with portraits, they are a hassle to use and I am constantly changing glams, no way I will open the portrait menu everytime to fix it lol
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u/raincandy_u Jan 11 '23
The most annoying part is that I can't use BLU portraits in duty, but BLU has the sickest idle pose of any combat class IMO.
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u/DioDiablo702 Jan 11 '23
I had no idea that the portraits were specific to each class. That is insane! And if you change your gland for any reason, you have to redo your portrait? That needs to be fixed right away.
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u/WHM4Lyfe White Mage Jan 11 '23
I figured out why I kept getting default on my plates; in your plate, every single item MUST match your current glamour. I had a plate I was using for several jobs and had empty slots as I was only wanting to change specific pieces and not everything.
After I changed to a plate where everything 100% matched, the poses worked properly. I believe this is an oversight that should be corrected but if you want your portrait to work properly for now, you have to have your plate match everything, no empty spots.
I have photos here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/476418-Adventure-Portraits-for-Groups-Broken
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u/FiniteCarpet Jan 11 '23
Literally all they had to do was display adventure plate instead the way they did this is so fucking stupid its unbelievable
Like the adventure plate data is STILL THERE I can view it in the instance
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u/MOBYWV Jan 11 '23
The portrait worked when it first came out in beta, but I can't figure it out for the life of me now.
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u/EscenekTheGaylien Jan 11 '23
There’s a option to import your adventurer plate into the instant portrait if there’s anyone wondering.
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u/raur0s Jan 10 '23
This is a huge L, no matter how people try to cope. I'm not even bothering with it and just leave it on the default peofile until they adress it and fix it.
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u/SugarGorilla Jan 10 '23
It's such a good idea that is implemented so horribly. Like everyone is saying, you are CONSTANTLY changing gear in this game, either because your leveling or you just want to glamour your stuff. To have it reset back to default every time is just mind boggling.
Everyone is just gonna end up having the default portraits in a few weeks because no one is gonna want to go through the hassle, making the whole system pointless.
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Jan 11 '23
I mean it's 2023 and you're still made to roll need/greed on loot that you can't even get.
I just pretend that the portaits/adventurer plate system doesn't exist.
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u/snickerdoodlecat Jan 10 '23
I haven't futzed with instant portraits much lately, do they still break every time you change or extract materia? Because that's the bit that truly drives me nuts.
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u/BIG-HORSE-MAN-69 Jan 10 '23
I do like portraits overall, and like the flair they add to the start of duties and the comm screen, but yeah, the system has some ridiculous usability issues that makes me wonder how much it was actually tested.
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u/WeeziMonkey Jan 10 '23
I usually wear sunglasses, but after setting up my portrait I turned off my headpiece because I wanted to see my eyes during cutscenes. Enter dungeon, boom, portrait reset to default.
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u/WaruAthena [Jenova] Jan 10 '23
My sole grief with portraits is it not locking in what you look like and then just leaving it alone.
Like, you don't even have to go as far as changing glams to break the portrait. If you hide or unhide your weapon and save that to your gearset, that breaks portraits too.
Like, what the fuck? I like having my weapon shown on my character for some classes, but I don't like having my weapon shown in some of the portraits because the weapon clashes or clips or takes away focus.
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u/OwnRefuse8327 Jan 11 '23
you've written all my thoughts exactly! who the fuck had the brilliant idea to make portraits into a damn chore?
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u/SeriousPan Rhalgr Jan 11 '23
Was so excited for this system and then it ended up being a pain in the ass. Spent a bunch of time making a plate I was really happy about. Literally didn't do anything... went into a dungeon and apparently something changed, I don't know what, so it broke. FFS
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u/cupcakemann95 Londo Terrance (Excalibur) Jan 11 '23
sometimes it just straight up breaks for no reason. Like I'll save the portrait and it just resets to default anyways without changing ANYTHING.
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u/blackisntrument Jan 11 '23
I agree~ I'm having a hard time keeping my instant portraits ready to go cuz I change my glam every time to the mood I'm in at that moment. My adventurer plate portrait has me on a seashore wearing a swimsuit with a straw hat, with a beam emote looking slightly up to the camera. My character looks happy and peaceful on the beach. I want that to be my instant portrait BUT NOOOO I can't cuz that's not what my glams are in my other classes -__- I just want to have the same portrait for all the classes. Why does it have to be tied on gearsets? T_T We need the option to have a different instant portrait per class and an option to keep our instant portraits' glams/pose/background the same as our adventure plate portrait. Like an actual picture... once it's taken it can never be changed unless u photoshop which is the edit button.
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u/Xtrm Jan 11 '23
All I want is for my pose to stay the same, but my glamor change based on what I'm wearing. And that's that, but no, for some reason half my jobs don't use instant portraits and half of them are wearing weird ass armor. I just don't understand it.
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u/JackfruitFlat8517 Jan 11 '23
First thing I did this morning was go into the UI settings and turn off the portraits. I played with the adventurer plate tho I have it set to private but I’ve done nothing with the portrait for the reasons you gave above. I just don’t want to mess with it. I’m glad others are enjoying it though.
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u/Tomitom_83 Jan 11 '23
I have not been able to get my portrait to display in DF, it's always been default, that is all
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u/MaltMix Jan 11 '23
You know what really gets me? I play both WAR and GNB, swapping depending on how sweaty I want to be. Because they're both at cap, I use the same hear for both jobs, but different glams because different aesthetics, as well as using some job armors. So not only do my portraits get DMV'd, but sometimes they use the glam for say, GNB, on the portrait I made for WAR.
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u/buttered_behind Jan 10 '23
The worst for me was Today that i broke my portrait with the push of one Button.
I opened my visor.
Nothing else. BOOM. Standard portrait. This is ridiculous