How can we get more in depth character customization?

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Originally Posted by Ameela

And good thing it isn't because the materia system in VII made every character essentially indistinguishable aside from their limit breaks, you don't want that in an MMO.

I much prefer the way XIV handles materia and how you can customise your stats to your liking.

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Why swim in the ocean when you can splash in a puddle. Different stroke for different folks I guess. Also, what you just described FFVII being bad for is exactly whats happened with roles in FFXIV currently. 6 of one, half a dozen of another...

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Breaking the "Illusion of Choice" issue with MMOs isnt actually to hard, I would think.

The biggest issue with Bosses and Boss fights is theyre driven by DPS. More DPS, faster boss dies, less mechanics to deal with = easier fight.

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Idk what to address first, but the ideas you have for "survive" and "protect" is literally the Tank and Healer roles in a nutshell while just removing DPS. And a fight a that's not driven by how much damage you're doing? What are you actually imagining people doing here? Does any game do this? Is this "so out of the box thinking" that I just dont understand?

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Unfortunately, "Illusion of Choice" will strike and make the entire thing completely worthless when theorycrafters math out the best one.

I wish it could be more in depth but, it just wouldn't work here. Not with this community.

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That's a consequence of having a story. You simply can't make one build suitable for only one story segment, because then everyone has to do it the same way, thus eroding any perceived choices anyway.

If the game had no story, at all, players would be forced to change builds for expansion areas, because the developers would be free to pull the "only a magic user can get through here, as the monsters have no resistance to magic" or "only a ranged combat player can hit the switches here" and such. Thus a reasonable party would have at least one player that can do whatever the gimmick mechanic is, and solo players would have to level up a job they haven't played if they want to progress.

Ultimately, by balancing the game so everyone can play, this renders the game having choices that do not matter, and requiring less skill. When you look at other games, you also see the same irrelevant choices, be it character builds or story consequences. It's simply not possible in a MMORPG context to offer players meaningful choices in how to play the game because the math will always favor one build when all builds can do the content. This is the entire reason why the entire green-dps problem is a problem. You can't play the storyline by only healing. Yet the storyline's solo content is easy enough for a healer to DPS through, it's certainly not challenging enough for a regular DPS to play through since the helper NPC's are always a tank+healer.

This was really one aspect of V1.0 that the developers should have tried to solve another way, crafters were thrown under the bus, denied any ability to participate in the storyline without a combat job.

We're really at an impasse on how to keep MMORPG's relevant when other games (eg MMOFPS Battle Royale (Fortnite,PUBG), and Team Arena (eg Overwatch, TF2, Splatoon)) have no relevant story, and don't really evolve beyond cosmetic items since they can't make lopsided balance changes either. But at least in a game like OW, each hero at least plays differently enough that someone can get close mastering it as long as the developer doesn't decide to nerf it.

In MMORPG's, you can't master a job/class, they change, and with every expansion, you have to rethink your strategy. If you take too long a break from a MMORPG, things may change too much that you have to learn everything again.

But that doesn't change the illusion of choice.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

Idk what to address first, but the ideas you have for "survive" and "protect" is literally the Tank and Healer roles in a nutshell while just removing DPS. And a fight a that's not driven by how much damage you're doing? What are you actually imagining people doing here? Does any game do this? Is this "so out of the box thinking" that I just dont understand?

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Sounds like they want a game that is more literately PvE, where it's an endurance race.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Why swim in the ocean when you can splash in a puddle.

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The puddle is fun to splash in and I've been doing it for a while so I know it'll remain fun.
The ocean has the risk of drowning, shark attacks, getting lost... plus I've never swam in an ocean so I don't even know if I'll even like it!

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Originally Posted by Ameela

The puddle is fun to splash in and I've been doing it for a while so I know it'll remain fun.
The ocean has the risk of drowning, shark attacks, getting lost... plus I've never swam in an ocean so I don't even know if I'll even like it!

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You shoud try it sometime, a game with more than one option on how to play a character. Might i recommend Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. I enjoyed the mixing and matching and requirements to unlock new classes.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

Idk what to address first, but the ideas you have for "survive" and "protect" is literally the Tank and Healer roles in a nutshell while just removing DPS. And a fight a that's not driven by how much damage you're doing? What are you actually imagining people doing here? Does any game do this? Is this "so out of the box thinking" that I just dont understand?

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No, no game that I can think of currently incorporates those systems for a few reasons. The main being is yes, it's "Outside of the box" of what players expect in MMOs. Most MMOs are designed aroudn the idea of beating up monsters, and with that is the inherent point of "Deal tons of damage to kill dudes or tons of dudes." This means that ultimately, boss fights are tailored around the end goal of dealing "x amount of damage" to win, where every mechanic is made as a means of slowing down or interrupting damage dealt.

Mechanics like Moving away from teh boss to avoid aoe? Thats to slow down damage dealt. Failing the mechanic strains healers, which strains tanks, which can cause you to wipe, etc etc. DPS Checks mid fight to kill a target (that isnt the boss itself) that if not met will wipe you? Slows down DPS on the boss itself. Any mechanic that stops you from attacking (Eye mechanics as an example), exist to slow down Damage. The end goal, however, ultimately remains the same: Do "x" amount of damage to win. So long as end goal is "Deal x damage to win", the min-maxing crowd will pretty say "Hey, this is the optimal build because htis build pushes out the most damage." You could see a pretty good example of this in any fight where if you DPS fast enough, you can skip mechanics. And broadly, the better you DPS, the less mechanics youll have to deal with (even if you cant phase skip) which makes the fights shorter/easier. Conversely, if your dps is poor, you hit enrage and die. It revolves around damage dealt.


Where as, what I proposed would change the conditions to win. Instead of "Deal x damage to win", a survival fight would be 8 Minutes long, no matter how much damage you deal. If you get to the end, you win. However, fight mechanics would be dedicated to straining your tanks and Healers, where some of that burden could be lifted based on DPS doing fight mechanics perhaps via role actions or other new mechanics made for the fight specifically. Not that DPS wouldnt be a factor, it just wouldnt be teh deciding factor. You could have DPS checks in teh fight that if failed, make it harder to survive, but the checks dont have to be as high and could be more mechanically driven to make it interesting rather than sit there and push out your DPS rotation. Thats just an idea, of course. I dont have a completely fleshed out version of how it would work.

In a Protect fight, it would focus on tanking, positionals, and support NPC targets in some capacity. Again, this fight could be duration based or a hybrid of two. Such as "Protect Targets for 5 minutes, then Damage down the boss." As like the Survive example, fights would be more mechanics heavy, and less focused on 'ideal' comps with maximum dps. You could bring any damage dealer so long as their good at mechanics and do reasonable damage.

These would be ways you could start getting rid of, or at the least, mitigating the "Illusion of Choice" issue. That choice is based on what damage comps work best. If damage isnt the key strat to winning, then so long as you have decent damage dealers who can do a difficult fight well, you have more options.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

You shoud try it sometime, a game with more than one option on how to play a character. Might i recommend Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. I enjoyed the mixing and matching and requirements to unlock new classes.

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Basically MHW is the best game to me when it comes to skills.

Easy. Force people to double down on a main job.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Basically MHW is the best game to me when it comes to skills.

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Havent actually played a MH game for more than a single session. Been contemplating MHW but I want it on PC but I wont be able to play with my son on his PS4 so I dont see the point to getting it. When it goes on sale for $29.99 I might pick it up.

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Originally Posted by Bahati

Not to be controversial, but can anyone familiar with WoW explain how they manage class customization yet the same would not work in FFXIV? Or do WoW players push meta and all run the same specs anyway? Are the dungeons/encounters very different than FFXIV so that is why it works? I hear these two games compared constantly and wondered if I might have some perspective as to why FFXIV is so limited when apparently every other MMO has more class diversity.

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While there are cookie cutter builds, there is plenty of non-meta decision making in the talent tree. Class customization is handled largely via the talent tree. It's not perfect, and it has expansions where it does a good job for some specs,and a downright abysmal for others.

Using Ret as an example (This is a Paladin based melee DPS spec). I have 7 rows of 3 different choices. Not all rows are DPS based and not all talents are equivalent throughput. Some rows synergize with others making "builds" for different content. I.e. dungeons might like a specific setup more, or if you're low on haste (skill/spell speed equivalent) a talent might be more difficult to manage and thus less valuable.

You can also synergize with your team. Imagine if your raid is consistently struggling with doing enough DPS to kill a priority add. You can sacrifice overall damage by picking a weaker talent, to boost on demand burst damage. Alternatively, for hard dungeon content, you can have a situation where your DPS partners are both very powerful AOE classes, so you can tailor your talents to focus on ST damage while they focus on AOE.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

There were two different styles I brought up that could work in the current systems like the split class/job/role they did with Arcanist/Summoner/Scholar. I know the devs whined that it was too much work but I could see this FFXIV's version of a talent tree, a job stone for that weapon which gives you a different role/playstyle. A change like that would only happen in increments though unless it was the whole focus of an entire expansion and I'm also aware that, even if they started working on it today, we wouldnt see it until maybe 7.0

So aside from the excuses presented by the devs, what would you guys think of that as a customization solution?

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I didn't like it enough to comment on it. While I relish the idea of being able to play a PLD as a DPS, I don't think it does enough as far as 'customization' goes, because even then all PLD DPS will play the same at that point.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

I didn't like it enough to comment on it. While I relish the idea of being able to play a PLD as a DPS, I don't think it does enough as far as 'customization' goes, because even then all PLD DPS will play the same at that point.

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Fair enough. I guess it would just be a new job added in so not real customization. Like for a PLD DPS job a Knight might work, would use sword and board but as offense instead of defense. I honestly cant think of much that would provide customization without overhauling all jobs and reballance all instances and like hell they are going to do that. Great discussions in here though!

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Originally Posted by Bahati

Not to be controversial, but can anyone familiar with WoW explain how they manage class customization yet the same would not work in FFXIV? Or do WoW players push meta and all run the same specs anyway? Are the dungeons/encounters very different than FFXIV so that is why it works? I hear these two games compared constantly and wondered if I might have some perspective as to why FFXIV is so limited when apparently every other MMO has more class diversity.

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WoW managed it eventually by vastly oversimplifying the talent trees.

Originally you got one point per level (starting at level 10) and had longer trees with varying skills, and you could freely put points into any of your class's three trees as long as you were high enough level to unlock it (and had any prerequisite talents unlocked already). However, this led to cookie cutter builds for each spec, and a lot of talents that were functionally useless. And cross-spec talents weren't always useful, because you'd still have to invest most of your points in your main spec to get the most out of it.

The trees got pruned in Cataclysm, and then later (I want to say in Mists of Pandaria, but I could be wrong) simplified again to just give you most of your chosen spec's main stuff right at level 10 and only have a few abilities to choose from every ten to fifteen levels. Which still led to a lot of cookie cutter builds, because a lot of those skills are still highly situational or redundant.

Even hunter pets got massively simplified. Pets used to have their own talent trees, and each family had their own special skills, with a few overlaps. Then they lost the talents, and each of the three pet specs shared their skills, with exotic pets usually having an extra (since exotics were only usable by beast master hunters, they got the extra perk), but losing a lot of the unique skills in the bargain. Really crippled my beloved devilsaur. (This is also ignoring quality of life changes to pets, such as having to feed them or level them up.)

So basically, they didn't manage it. They tried, it didn't really work out, so they backpedaled on it a few times and eventually more or less gave up. They try again every so often, such as Legion's artifact weapons with their own skill unlocks, but it just leads to more of the same.

Maybe I'm better off just waiting for the next FF MMO?

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Maybe I'm better off just waiting for the next FF MMO?

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Probably, SE has pretty much written off the 'multiple Jobs/roles branching off one class' experiment as a failure, so you're not going to see a repeat of ACN splitting into SMN and SCH with any other class branching into multiple Job roles.

As it is I strongly suspect that Yoshi is considering removing SCH from ACN completely and making it it's own independent Job (it's already shown as independent of ACN in the list of classes in the player search window, and most weapons SCH uses are unique to SCH only, despite still being listed as 'Arcanist Grimoiries').

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Some great comments but I'm seeing a common criticism that I wanted to bring up.

Yeah, I know more options doesnt actually mean "more options" because of the hive mind MMO players, or gamers in general, seem to gravitate towards. I see more options as no better or worse than having an in-game parser BUT I did present several different ways of getting a similar result. Almost all of you only commented on the most complicated one that would require a hard reset on a lot of the current game mechanics, That would be something only feasible if we had another calamity and had a realm reborn reborn!

There were two different styles I brought up that could work in the current systems like the split class/job/role they did with Arcanist/Summoner/Scholar. I know the devs whined that it was too much work but I could see this FFXIV's version of a talent tree, a job stone for that weapon which gives you a different role/playstyle. A change like that would only happen in increments though unless it was the whole focus of an entire expansion and I'm also aware that, even if they started working on it today, we wouldnt see it until maybe 7.0

So aside from the excuses presented by the devs, what would you guys think of that as a customization solution?

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It certainly seems a more sensible avenue into customization, if such is ever necessary. I personally see Monk and Dancer as almost equally tied to the Pugilist school of combat, for instance, but, we could also go further by, say, allowing cross-class in a real capacity again, such that Dancer could choose to build more off Pugilist, Lancer, Rogue, or Conjurer.

Even believing as I do that customization is fundamentally reductive, I still think such a system would be worthwhile just for the immersion it could bring... provided it came with the appropriate mutations to support it.

But, customization will always be an RPG element to me. Outside of the 4-skill restriction of MOBAs, it merely cuts down what would have allowed simultaneously and fluidly available variety of play into a variety of menu selections and fewer actual gameplay choices. I like it my RPGs, but... XIV can scarcely be called one, if at all.

It sucks but they do it to make the game easier to balance. while it is not impossible to balance a game with many options and builds, it is FAR more difficult and SE seems to have made the decision to play it safe and sacrifice build options in favor of easy class balance.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

Responses in bold. Maybe I might do it this way more often..

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Sorry, was going ham on leveling an alt so got distracted. Now keep in my that this is all agree to disagree on this stuff.

1.) That is more of a mindset I believe someone said between JP and NA players. NA players are all about 'faster DPS, take things down faster, that is all that matters' while JP from what I heard was the other side of it. For me, getting more DPS as a tank was pointless and made little sense even if the healers could keep me alive cause that wasn't the role I am playing. I am there to survive hits and make it easier on the healers and if both tanks did that and went down, chances are it is a wipe. People in NA may not like it but get used to the fact that tanks are just that, tanks.

As for before the change, I never once went the same route as other tanks and stacked STR gear (I was playing with friends of course) and we did encounters just fine (other friend did it half-ass). The change had little to do with 'complaining or confusing' I believe and just made the smart choice of not forcing tanks to choose between either stat and get expelled from raids from people just because they didn't follow the meta.

2.) I assume you mean that the spells were upgraded as you leveled so you didn't have to deal with multiple of the same spell on ya bar (such as I got miasma 1 on my bar and that is upgraded and replaces the lesser spell automatically) which is the same thing WoW does. I want a source on this complaint because the only one I can think of is button bloat so again, they made a good choice since they promised I believe before SB came out to help deal with button bloat (which only got worse).

As for cleric stance, that I really want a source since you seem pretty clear on saying the players complaining about this and that (which I doubt you speak for the entire player base). The only complaint I did ever hear about cleric stance was when a healer accidentally kept it on while healing. It would be noticed, laughs would be had, cleric stance would be turned off and things would continue.

3.) Vaguely recall using accuracy materia now that I look back on ARR but not sure if I ever hit the cap. I got close for sure but still had no trouble keeping aggro due to the rotations. A few misses wasn't going to destroy the entire run. I was still able to get aggro from the off tank and hold it rather easily unless bad luck happened.

4.) I tried PvP a day or so ago on my alt (just hit 59 but tried it at 57 cause dem glamours) and it felt fine to me?

I love how tanks can and are expected to put out a certain amount of dps. Roles need not be so narrowly defined. DPS is how the boss dies EVER. if there is no dps, as in damage, the boss sits at 100% HP until enrage. therefore dps is the job of EVERYONE, but DPS are expected to do more than others.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Where as, what I proposed would change the conditions to win. Instead of "Deal x damage to win", a survival fight would be 8 Minutes long, no matter how much damage you deal. If you get to the end, you win. However, fight mechanics would be dedicated to straining your tanks and Healers

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I've played a game which had fights which lasted a certain period of time no matter what. players HATED it becuase you were not rewarded for being good at it with a shorter fight. there's no room for personal optimization since the fight will ALWAYS be a certain time, so theres no incentive to do more than the bare minimum required.

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Originally Posted by Ruinfeild

4.) I tried PvP a day or so ago on my alt (just hit 59 but tried it at 57 cause dem glamours) and it felt fine to me?

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You never tried the older system then, I take it? PvP used to have all the same skills as PvE (certain ones worked a bit differently/some effects were changed), along with some additional PvP only skills you could choose from. There was quite a large skill gap in players who could use their kits to the fullest extent and those who would press a few buttons, perhaps not understanding the class to its fullest. It was good fun to figure out your PvP rotation and burst to improve yourself each match. Then with SB they pruned PvP greatly - a handful of skills for each class, with "auto combos" so that it's really difficult to screw up. Many people prefer to old system and feel that the new PvP has been dumbed down to the point of being unfun.

I love the new pvp. I wish PVE was more like it, not entirely but 25 skills max for pve would be nice, thats' around 5 less than we have now. Make all combos one button per combo too please. this is long long over due.

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Originally Posted by Elleia

You never tried the older system then, I take it? PvP used to have all the same skills as PvE (certain ones worked a bit differently/some effects were changed), along with some additional PvP only skills you could choose from. There was quite a large skill gap in players who could use their kits to the fullest extent and those who would press a few buttons, perhaps not understanding the class to its fullest. It was good fun to figure out your PvP rotation and burst to improve yourself each match. Then with SB they pruned PvP greatly - a handful of skills for each class, with "auto combos" so that it's really difficult to screw up. Many people prefer to old system and feel that the new PvP has been dumbed down to the point of being unfun.

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Old PVP was awful though. You know how a common complaint/observation about healers in FFXIV is that their healing is extremely strong relative to healing in other games, to the point where a capable healer can rapidly heal someone to full health in 1/2 GCDs? Under the old system, it wasn't uncommon for me to watch an entire full party focus on a single enemy healer, who not only survived the burst window, but was then easily able to sustain themselves once stun immunity and the burst phase was done. AGAINST A WHOLE ENEMY PARTY.\

If you switched targets? Now it was even easier for the healer to keep them alive. God help you if there was a second healer to flat-out make it impossible to progress.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

I love how tanks can and are expected to put out a certain amount of dps. Roles need not be so narrowly defined. DPS is how the boss dies EVER. if there is no dps, as in damage, the boss sits at 100% HP until enrage. therefore dps is the job of EVERYONE, but DPS are expected to do more than others.

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I think thats only needed in the current EX content. Everything else is poopsock-able.

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Originally Posted by Ruinfeild

Sorry, was going ham on leveling an alt so got distracted.

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I haven't looked thoroughly for every interview because they are difficult to find but here's what I found for the time being:

PvE jobs
https://www.mmorpg.com/mobile/featur...ame=446&ismb=1

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Yoshida cleared the air on the battle system update. This isn’t an entirely new combat system. We won’t see Final Fantasy XIV reboot and end up with an action combat system or something to that effect. What we will see is the pruning of some skills with redundancies and the possibility of others being merged. As the game grows and new skills are added with expansions they are aware that it gets harder to play the game especially for players that use a controller.

They are also conscious of the difference between players that perform at an elite level and those that take the game more casually. The rotations for optimal DPS have become overly complex. Their intent is to adjust the game so it raises the floor for the more casual player.

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http://www.alphr.com/games/1006008/f...-mmo-once-more

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Jumping to endgame content is, even if you’re only somewhat familiar with general MMOs, quite the ask. To help newcomers better understand, and play, Final Fantasy XIV, Stormblood reworks some of the game’s core systems. “Our current build, version 3.57, is quite complex,” Yoshida explains. “If we add any more complexity to Final Fantasy XIV’s systems it’ll become harder, overwhelming and discouraging players to get into the game.”

“Making something simpler isn’t the same as making something easier. We aren’t making content in Stormblood any easier to complete, nor are we making Job progression simple –’core’ players have nothing to worry about.”

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PvP

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This simplification of Final Fantasy XIV takes the form of reworked Job systems and overhauled PvP (player vs player) encounters. Fearful that current systems were too complex to understand for newcomers, and that the lack of synergy between different job roles led some groups excluded certain classes.

PvP has also been modified to remove the disparity between newcomers and experienced players and to streamline its complex controls. The biggest new addition comes with the announcement that free-to-play tier players can now participated in PvP mode and all gear is simply aesthetic to help level the playing field. There are also PvP-specific actions and a PvP-specific hot bar setup so players don’t have fumble around with switching around abilities for PvP areas.

These changes may sound drastic, but in reality they’re simply made to make the entire experience feel slicker. “We don’t rely on Jobs or systems to shape player’s journeys through Final Fantasy XIV."

“The game contents and the Job system don’t link together to influence how XIV unfolds. Just because we’re making changes to how systems work, it doesn’t change the narrative or explorative experience players have.”

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

I think thats only needed in the current EX content. Everything else is poopsock-able.

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As it should be. But it doesn't mean doing more dps won't make the job easier in casual content.

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Originally Posted by Magic-Mal

I mean... This is the same playerbase that got rid of Accuracy, STR tanks, DoTs, Cross-Class system and actual PvP that had customization/more than 8 abilities because it was "too confusing".

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I wouldn't dare ever accuse at least 98% of the player base of this game, of being a Rhodes Scholar or anything. You can confuse most people in this game, by merely asking them to properly use the words "then", and "than" in a sentence.