What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

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Originally Posted by Dzian

If you design the enviroments within the game well then it becomes incredibly difficult to have that one mandatory skill set or build set.. And then the choice is real it's not an illusion.

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Every instance where the "choice is real" in an MMO that i've experienced, the playerbase ends up making the choice with the players. Many FFXI choices were real, so many guilds end up choosing to NOT bring X jobs to Y content.

I personally always thought the system was going to be, "once you reach a certain level you can use that role skill" no slotting needed. When I saw it was only 5 slots I was like, "well that seems dumb"

Also as stated, the illusion of choice is exactly what is needed, illusions. Like give spells and abilities a new coat of paint. Like make WHM cast Water spells instead of stone, use Blizzard for you big damage, something to that effect. Basically, expand on the Egi-glamour system... no seriously we need more Egi skins, lol.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Customisation in the form of additional abilities is very much a case of the illusion of choice. There's quite a few abilities that are a 'must have' and are objectively much better than their counterparts, so by allowing everybody to access the entire list the overall game is more balanced.

In-depth customisation for abilities works much better in single player games rather than in multi-player games where the expectation is going to be to use the 'best' abilities for the sake of efficiency.

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Customization doesn't HAVE to be an illusion of choice. While it's certainly the case that the hardcore parsers will eventually work out what combos are optimal, so long as the variance in potential is small it won't stop them from participating in content. It's the same reason why (most) raid groups allow job variance: while certain jobs might be better for certain fights, they all do well enough that turning away, say, a MNK to hold out for a DRG is rarely done and considered petty when it happens.

The potential is there to allow deep job customization without everyone turning to the same cookie-cutter build, for precisely the same reasons that not everybody plays the same jobs in the existing game. The individual mechanics of each job appeal in different ways to different people. With a system of customization, different job builds would appeal in different ways to different people. So long as all those builds are viable, there is still choice.

The danger is that the greater the level of customization there is to be had, the more potential there is for a player to "screw things up" and wind up with a build that is NOT viable. To avoid this, there are three options: They could allow the playerbase to sink or swim, let the folks learn that they'll get nowhere with a nonviable build (FFXI did this). They could endlessly tweak abilities to try to keep everything even, or at the very least shuffle around which build was on top at any given time (FFXI AND FFXIV have done this). Or, they could reduce the amount of customization available, so that there are only a few builds to tweak at any given time (FFXIV's chosen path). The last of those three is the easiest, and upsets the fewest players - at the expense of creating a fairly bland playing field where everyone is pretty much the same.

FFXIV, ever since the disaster with version 1.0, has shied away from taking chances, so it's not surprising at all that they took the easy road. Options for customization have been getting fewer and fewer over time, and I expect that this trend will continue. It would not surprise me to see the whole Materia system disappear eventually, for example - though that one's so deeply entrenched in the game that it might be more effort than it's worth to remove, just to protect players from melding Spell Speed onto their Dsciple of War gear (it'll make my Ninjutsu faster, right???).

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

Every instance where the "choice is real" in an MMO that i've experienced, the playerbase ends up making the choice with the players. Many FFXI choices were real, so many guilds end up choosing to NOT bring X jobs to Y content.

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As much as I loved XI it had some major environmental issues that meant many of its choices simply weren't real or even considered an option..

My earlier example of elements again comes to mind. A SMN, BLM or RDM putting merits into fire or water for example just wasn't an option simply because if you ever looked at the bestiary you'd note that virtually nothing was weak to those elements. 90 maybe 95% of mobs were weak to either ice or thunder thus those were the only choices for merits.

This was also true with damage types such as piercing, slashing and blunt. Virtually everything shared the exact same resistances and weaknesses which then meant jobs that didn't utilise them were considered inferior..

Another was TP. The primary reason many pet classes were shunned and undesirable was because of the massive amounts of TP pets fed to the monsters you were fighting which in turn made those fights harder. You could see this with Dragoon. Piercing damage which was ideal for many mobs in the toau areas. But the TP issue from there pet made them a lot less desirable. And groups would rather take a samurai with a lower polearm skill instead.

Another issue casters faced was the amount of mobs that would either throw your magic back in your face or silence you every 2 seconds made them a undesirable choice at the higher levels. Because the reflected damage made it even harder for the party and the endless silence was crippling.

The jobs them selves though were generally fine and you could do some amazing things with many of them. Monk made a pretty solid tank at 55 when you got counter stance. Samurai was in many cases a better tank than ninja with seigan anticipate an attack that would strip all your shadows..

Many Sub jobs combinations could have been great if they simply scaled properly.. especially the caster ones... cure 1 or even cure 2 on a level 75 player was a joke... some decent scaling of such would have many many more sub choices actually work... the same with subs like thief SATA would have been more viable if it worked with a greater variety of skills for example.

It was the game environment and world mechanics that created many of the problems not so much the jobs themselves..

There were however genuinely questionable skills and abilities. Such as zanashin and the merits to increase zanashin rate.... an ability that offered a chance to attack again if you missed. But there was no logic there because no one would ever build around missing attacks enough to benefit from enhancing zanashin.

But yeah many of XIs choices could have been better simply with some environmental changes.. If you stopped pets feeding mobs so much TP for example drgs would have almost instantly become a lot more popular and viable choice.. So would SMN PUP and hell even BST all from a simple environmental change.

Same goes for for casters. If bestiary was better balanced and more diverse in terms of weaknesses. Casters would have had a legitimate choice to put merits into water potency or wind potency... another environmental change..

A good environment would make his or must haves almost impossible

I mean I've played MMO's where BIS isn't really a thing. There are good choices and bad choices. Things that work and things that don't work.

And I'm sure a number of people here have played those same MMO's and have forgotten what that's like. Or maybe these people have simply followed the "meta" without ever thinking of challenging it or being challenged with it.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

There were however genuinely questionable skills and abilities. Such as zanashin and the merits to increase zanashin rate.... an ability that offered a chance to attack again if you missed. But there was no logic there because no one would ever build around missing attacks enough to benefit from enhancing zanashin.

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Zanashin's value was in the fact that FFXI put a cap on accuracy. No matter how you built your character, the best accuracy you could manage was 95%. Zanashin was the only way to BREAK that 95% blockade, since a percentage of those inevitable missed attacks would get a second chance. Additionally, certain mobs in the game could use evasion buffs that were pretty serious - Zanashin helped with additional attack chances in those cases, too.

I'm not saying that this necessarily made it worth the resource investment, but unlike in this game misses were unavoidable, and therefore had to be taken into consideration. Zanashin helped mitigate that.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Customisation in the form of additional abilities is very much a case of the illusion of choice. There's quite a few abilities that are a 'must have' and are objectively much better than their counterparts, so by allowing everybody to access the entire list the overall game is more balanced.

In-depth customisation for abilities works much better in single player games rather than in multi-player games where the expectation is going to be to use the 'best' abilities for the sake of efficiency.

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No more so -- necessarily -- than job choice, minus the limit gauge gimmick...

The additional abilities in XIV have wholly amounted to illusion of choice, but that's an issue with implementation, not an inherent flaw.

For now, though, I'm glad to see Role Action swapping gone. That stuff couldn't even manage the illusion part.

It does seem rather... redundant that role actions should exist at all anymore then, isn't it so? I mean, if we can select them all why would we keep them separate from all the other skills?

While I appreciate and welcome the change, I'd rather they just abolished role actions altogether at this point, ahah.

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Originally Posted by Odstarva

It does seem rather... redundant that role actions should exist at all anymore then, isn't it so? I mean, if we can select them all why would we keep them separate from all the other skills?

While I appreciate and welcome the change, I'd rather they just abolished role actions altogether at this point, ahah.

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They probably will, but this isn’t generally the kind of thing you make such a sweeping change to in the middle of an expansion. It’s better to go halfway with the slot increase and overhaul it later in 5.0.

"Hmm... should I take rescue, or cleric stance? This particular boss has an insta-kill mechanic that often gets newer players, but also has an add phase and adding cleric to my AoE will help get through it faster"

*takes cleric stance*

*MT dies to mechanic. OT never leaves DPS stance. Boss goes bing bangy boom and wipes group before add phase even shows up*

"Shit! If only I had rescue" :(

This is an extreme example, so no need to scrutinize this situation but its bearing on this topic is to provide an example of this "player's choice" leading to kicking yourself in the butt. You think you have a choice, but you really don't. Not in an mmo like FFXIV, and the illusion of this choice is likely leading players to thinking they are being stripped of it.

To add, I never perceived role skills to separate one player from another playing the same job. It's how they use the tools given to them. One SCH might keep her fairy on sic, while the other SCH using maybe one different role skill keeps hers on obey. This alone puts miles between them. The latter example is a more optimal customization to the group.

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Originally Posted by Sacred_Nym

This. Customizable abilities in multiplayer games are either mandatory or worthless. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't using the agreed upon ideal set up, you are essentially harassing everyone you play with by holding them back.

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There is absolutely a middle ground unless fights are entirely homogeneous and/or the changes between choices have no cost beyond exiting combat.

A build may be faster for x section of x dungeon, but suffer in y portion or y dungeon or with z overlapping functionalities in z composition.

For every person who decided "why even think about flexible play -- I'll just copy the recommended builds online" at least 3 more were using adaptations of their leveling, tweaked further and further, and frequently outperformed them in all but the most target-dummy-like content. At perfect play in an exact encounter one or a few builds may have some 1-6% greater maximal throughputs, but even then they may suffer if, say, someone drops an AoE on their more turret-esque optimal build, ultimately performing beneath another "gutter trash leveling-tainted" build.

10 role actions? SE has just made role actions irrelevant in their entirety since pretty much every "role" only supports 10 actions anyway. WHY?!?!?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

10 role actions? SE has just made role actions irrelevant in their entirety since pretty much every "role" only supports 10 actions anyway. WHY?!?!?

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The role skill system in itself is already flawed to begin with, and has been since 4.0 was released. I can't speak for DPS since I don't play the role, but for tanks and healers, this isn't that big of a deal, and actually might improve QoL a little bit (healers for sure since we no longer will have to swap Protect/Esuna). The system needs to be reworked though (again), but likely won't happen until 5.0. So this is our band-aid for now.

Personally, I find having to swap skills in and out based on the situation cumbersome. I don't want to give the impression that I am lazy, but there is a difference between wanting everything handed to you, and certain job - in this case role skill mechanics - being clunky, and just making things more difficult than they have to be.

For healers in particular, they all use a standard set up of Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, and Protect/Esuna macroed to give them an additional slot. SCH's can possibly forego Largesse in favor of Eye4Eye since they have innate abilities to increase their healing potency, and need that skill to take full advantage of Deployment Tactics (another design flaw). So the healers have to choose that last skill based on not only the fight, but also in anticipation of how your group might perform if running PUGs. This leads to a possibility of making the wrong choice like in the example in my previous post. It's not game breaking, but it still sucks knowing something could have been avoided if you brought along the right skill.

This current system, just doesn't work with how FFXIV is designed. By giving us the remaining slots, they have basically scrapped it without taking away the skills that are there. Peeps are making it seem like this is unfair, and I don't just don't see it. They even left the useless skills like Break in case for reason, you still want to use them.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

This current system, just doesn't work with how FFXIV is designed. By giving us the remaining slots, they have basically scrapped it without taking away the skills that are there. Peeps are making it seem like this is unfair, and I don't just don't see it. They even left the useless skills like Break in case for reason, you still want to use them.

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I wouldn't say it's been scrapped, it's just been relegated to rubbish tools in the toolbox. Had they scrapped it, they would have returned the skills to the jobs. That is why I believe the "temporary" part of this comes in. They likely intend to remove it for 5.0. And with doing so, we will likely see the old skills return, and a few of the skills added by 4.0 like Rescue (which was the only skill added to healers that wasn't gutted from the base skills, even Break was the status effect from Aero) added permanently. They need to give each job it's own identity back.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I wouldn't say it's been scrapped, it's just been relegated to rubbish tools in the toolbox. Had they scrapped it, they would have returned the skills to the jobs. That is why I believe the "temporary" part of this comes in. They likely intend to remove it for 5.0. And with doing so, we will likely see the old skills return, and a few of the skills added by 4.0 like Rescue (which was the only skill added to healers that wasn't gutted from the base skills, even Break was the status effect from Aero) added permanently. They need to give each job it's own identity back.

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Yeah, by "scrapped" I mean they intend to do away with it, or at least as it is currently. Healers, tanks, and DPS all have their respective gripes about the role skills and soooo many jobs have lost a sense of their identity as a result of this system. I believe it is indicative that the devs acknowledge their derp, even if they won't just come out and say it.

I don't think it needs to go away entirely, but I also sometimes think it just should in order to retain job identity to the fullest. They just really need to evaluate and highly consider what they put in there, and probably not even call it "Role Skills" as the name is misleading. "Additional" is just fine. Some of the current ones make sense and I also think this system can get by with just 2-3 slots, and maybe 5-6 available skills. None of which, are needed for that particular job to perform their role. Instead, it would give the player the choice on how they would like to facilitate it. Your other party members couldn't care less what you choose to use.

I don't know if that's the best approach, but it is how I see things. I do like the idea of current role skills returning to their respective owners, along with the other skill that were lost. I didn't play DRK when they had dark dance and shadow skin, and even then I miss them.