FFXIV Adventurer Plate and portrait guide

As of FFXIV patch 6.3, Adventurer Plates and instant portraits are out of beta, and you can see each character in a unique photo after you load into dungeons, trials, and other multiplayer content. However, the launch seems kind of buggy and it’s hard to tell why issues are popping up.

After playing around with the new system out of beta, we have a rundown on how to make it work. However, note that these solutions may not be the fix-all for you, though they did help us.

How do Adventurer Plates and portraits work?

Adventurer Plates are the little Warrior of Light business cards you can make that display whatever information you want. You can access and set them them up through the “character” button and then by selecting “Adventurer Plate” on the dropdown.

On the plate, you can set one snapshot of your character to appear by selecting “edit portrait.” This snapshot will appear as your Adventurer Plate photo even if you are not currently that job or wearing that set of armor.

For example, if my Adventurer Plate is a Red Mage wearing a raincoat, it will show up as that — even if I’m playing as Warrior, or if my Red Mage has a different outfit equipped.

This is not to be confused with portraits, which is available from the next dropdown option under “Adventurer Plate.” You can use these as “instant portraits” which is what your party members will see when you do multiplayer content.

However, in order for your instant portrait to work, you have to be wearing the same gear in the portrait as you are in the content you’re running, even if you have glamoured over the equipment. If you changed any equips, whether its glamour or not, make sure to resave your portrait before running content, or you’ll get the default mugshot portrait.

If you are playing as the job represented in your Adventurer Plate, the plate’s portrait, your instant portrait, and your current equips also must be wearing the same gear or you will get the default mugshot. Whew.

If your gear does not match up, you should get a little error triangle next to the portrait like so:

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

Why isn’t my instant portrait working?

The answer is that you probably have mismatched gear you might not be noticing. The other answer is that portraits seem kind of buggy, so you might just need to fiddle with them a bit to make them work.

Try doing any of the following to fix your issue:

• Retake your Adventurer Plate portrait and save it. Then resave the matching job instant portrait for it.
• Make sure your gear set is updated. (The rotating arrows on your character menu should be grayed out if it is.) If it wasn’t, update it and resave your portraits.
• If the last time you saved your portraits was before the patch 6.3 update, resave them.
• This may sound silly, but very meticulously check your gear between your Adventurer Plate portrait and instant portrait. We had an un-glamoured ring causing us problems for ours, which we didn’t even realize was glamoured in the portrait, since it’s not part of our glamour plate. Yeesh.

You can test if your portrait works by heading into any duty while unsynced. Entering unsynced will allow you to skip the queue, jump in quickly, and then leave (once you check your portrait) without penalty.

If you have other problems and/or solutions, feel free to leave them in the comments to help other Warriors of Light during these trying times.