Final Fantasy XIV is one of those games that’s famous for its customization.
Sure, you still have to pick from Face 1 to 4 in character creation, but once you’re in? You get all kinds of choices, from what you play to how you build your HUD and everything in between.
It even extends to your home away from home.
Because of this, there’s a massive subculture around home design in FFXIV. There are entire sites dedicated to the beautiful builds you can create. I can’t tell you how often I’ve fallen down rabbit holes admiring the rooms, the views, and the creativity.
There’s almost endless customization—but to do most of it, you can’t play by the rules.
That’s right. Most of the beautiful designs you’ll see depend heavily on a series of glitches to push furnishings out of their normal places. Even out of their normal roles. This is a world where brooms become hanging pegs. Light fixtures become fridge handles. Cardboard boxes become coffee makers.
And when you’re learning how to design, that’s incredibly overwhelming.
I made this video series to introduce aspiring FFXIV designers to four core glitches to help move furnishings past their limits and into the right places for your creative ideas. In this particular video, I wanted to show one of my favourite techniques for adding detail to builds: How to float tabletop items like cushions and lanterns away from the surfaces they’d normally need to be attached to.
Heads up: This is the second video in my design tutorial series for FFXIV. You’ll find the full list to date of these videos here!
Q: What will I need for this glitch?
A: You’ll need three things to float tabletop items: A wall surface of some sort, a tabletop surface to attach to the wall, and your actual tabletop item.
Typically, I’ll use a wood slat partition for the wall surface, and a riviera wall shelf for the tabletop surface. You can mix and match what you use—I just always have these on hand because they’re part of my core glitching toolbox.
A quick note: Depending on what you’re doing, you will want to make sure your partition doesn’t have any trim. Partitions with trim, like the blank partitions or any of the regional partitions, won’t let you place your shelf on the trim. So if you need things to be close to the floor, this can get in your way.
Q: How do I actually do the glitching part?
A: Good news: It’s easier than you think. There are three main steps:
- Pick a place for your tabletop item that’s far enough away from the floor and any other table surfaces. Every furnishing in FFXIV has what I like to call an orbit, and if it’s too close to the source of gravity, it will fall down (or up, in some cases).
- Put down your wood slat partition and make sure your surface placement toggle is on. Then, put your wall shelf on the partition and your tabletop item on the shelf. You can move the whole assembly around until your tabletop item’s in the right place.
- Turn your surface placement toggle back off, then left-click on your tabletop item (just the tabletop item—make sure it doesn’t highlight your shelf too) and right-click to cancel the selection. Then, you can move your partition and shelf away, and your tabletop item will stay put.
Q: What might go wrong?
A: The biggest thing that goes wrong with this glitch is items popping out of place. That mostly happens when an item is too close to another surface. You might need to play around with distances until you can get your item to stay!
Q: What else can I learn?
A: Plenty! Here’s a quick look at the full series so far:
- How to float wall-mounted items
- How to float furnishings [coming soon!]
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