FF14 is finally fixing the fact my carefully-constructed portraits keep reverting to a goddamn driver's licence photo whenever I change my goddamn gear

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An end to the embarrassment, at long last.

An armoured gunbreaker in Final Fantasy 14 smashes a default portrait to smithereens in vengeance.
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail is getting its first proper numbered patch next week—and while there's all sorts of new stuff to plug through, including 1,180 improved toes over 118 items, it's also fixing one of the most frustrating things I've ever encountered in an MMO: A propensity to slap you in the face with a driver's licence photo whenever you queue into a duty.

Alright, some context. Almost one entire expansion ago, in patch 6.1 of Endwalker, Final Fantasy 14 added the adventurer plate system. This lets you create a cutesy little mini-profile, with a bunch of different framing kits to help you customise it. It also introduced the duty portraits system in patch 6.3—upon loading into a duty, you and your fellow party members will be greeted by a smorgasbord of cute, carefully-customised poses.

Any time your gear changes, you need to go through, like, three menus to reset your portrait—and there's no real prompt that tells you this has happened, either. Seemingly innocuous changes, like showing or hiding your hat, can break it too. When this happens, your portrait is instead replaced with one of your character staring, dead-faced, at the camera like they're taking a bad driver's licence photo:

An example of the default adventurer portrait, which is bad.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

This is extremely embarrassing when you find out that this has happened upon loading into a duty, where all your friends in your voice call can laugh at you and call you a gormless fashion failure (I might need to get better friends). Well, ha! No longer! Squeezed way down on the 7.1 patch notes, despite being the feature I'm the most disproportionately excited about, Square Enix has added a new dialogue screen that'll pop up whenever you tweak your gear. As the notes read:

"If the gear shown in a saved instant portrait differs from what you have equipped after updating or swapping gear sets, you can update your instant portrait via the displayed window. Adjust this setting by checking or unchecking the 'Use as Instant Portrait' option in the Edit Portrait window."

(Image credit: Square Enix)

Mind, what I really would've preferred is an option to have it update automatically, no questions asked, but I'll take this any day of the week. Patch 7.1 comes out next Tuesday, November 12, the date all of your fashion woes will be solved.

Harvey Randall
Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.