[Feedback] Character Development and Builds

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Originally Posted by uryu17

Why do you guys keep comparing skill trees to wow? I have never played wow lol. Ok I tried it and the art style was lame so I left. Everquest 2 did a great job with the skill trees and traits. Also I'm not saying copy aNd paste Or anything. I'm saying put something in that will allow us to play the same class but with different choices. Skill tree from my experience would be the best choice. One other game that did a really really good job with skill tree is eso.

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Because the class design and talent trees of SWTOR - a game you did mention - are a poor carbon copy of TBC WoW.
And I mentioned WoW because it uses a non-skill tree system that I consider superior to skill trees.
Skill trees offer fake choices, a properly tiered system offers real choices.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

No character development. This is not WoW, we can change jobs freely in this mmo, therefore no customization.

No skill trees, because if they were ever implemented, people would math out the most optimal skill tree for each class, and then people start selectively asking for certain builds for their raids and exclude other, inferior builds.

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WoW has 11 classes only.
However, those classes provide 36 specs (Fury Warrior and Frost DK have 2 different playstyles each), and with their talent system, you actually have over 100 competitive end game builds - and I'm talking about builds that are effectively close enough to each other than apart from a few encounter gimmicks, are all viable.

This means:
1 - you get to "bring the player, not the class".
2 - you get variety

FFXIV has 13 jobs, and 1 build per job, and you are saying that being able to have those 13 builds on one character is excuse to having 0 customization?
I'm not asking 100+ endgame builds, but 13?

I refuse to accept that 13 builds is all that SE can "manage" to "balance", when Blizzard can do it reasonably with 100+.
And even if top progress guilds were to cherry pick specific builds for each encounter, it still means there are builds to cherry pick from, and it still means the other 90% of the playerbase has lots of variety, attracting more players, keeping more players entertained (and for a longer period of time), while gaining quality (not losing).

I find that blizzard has never had PvP and PvE balanced. A huge difference is racial abilities which make it hard to balance around already (they should get rid of them). In many cases one of those branches is a PvP focused like frost mage. Other times one tree is just better out right. Then come comparing lets go with tanks, druid bear form still is very weak, the DK tank form has always had balance problems., etc. Saying blizzard has done a good job with balance is a bit far fetched they have been dumbing down the skill trees since WotLK to try to have less variables to balance. Even now FF14 is seeing balance issues that need fixing right now, adding choice seems like it will just make it longer for the FF14 team to balance which I am not a fan of.

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

I find that blizzard has never had PvP and PvE balanced.

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They have a lot more mobility, CC and complicated effects available in PvP. It's not really a fair comparison.
At this point only PvE is worth comparing.

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

A huge difference is racial abilities which make it hard to balance around already (they should get rid of them).

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Not really. The racials add flavor and can easily be balanced (without making them dull or homogenized).
Blizzard is just not even trying to balance them properly. Perhaps they are afraid people stop paying for race changes.

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

In many cases one of those branches is a PvP focused like frost mage. Other times one tree is just better out right. Then come comparing lets go with tanks, druid bear form still is very weak, the DK tank form has always had balance problems., etc.

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First, the game is balanced enough that only high end competitive guilds really notice those differences.
Furthermore, those differences are largely influenced by the poor itemization the game has - the gear scales up exponentially, and so fast, that it causes classes to be balanced at a certain point and under/overperform before/after that point.

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

Saying blizzard has done a good job with balance is a bit far fetched they have been dumbing down the skill trees since WotLK to try to have less variables to balance. Even now FF14 is seeing balance issues that need fixing right now, adding choice seems like it will just make it longer for the FF14 team to balance which I am not a fan of.

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Considering the fact they have over 10x as many builds to "balance" than SE does, yeah, they're doing a great job, because WoW isn't far behind in balance comparing to FFXIV.
In WoW people "pick the best builds". And there are at dozens of "best builds".
FFXIV has 13 builds and they are picked for you.

In terms of subscriptions, this game will do fine for people who enjoy having a single character.
But for altoholics, it may quickly lose its appeal.

Combat and class design are the only things FFXIV is still behind WoW (in my opinion).
If SE steps up to the challenge, the game will flourish in a way Blizzard would never see it coming.

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Originally Posted by Nurvus

They have a lot more mobility, CC and complicated effects available in PvP. It's not really a fair comparison.
At this point only PvE is worth comparing.


Not really. The racials add flavor and can easily be balanced (without making them dull or homogenized).
Blizzard is just not even trying to balance them properly. Perhaps they are afraid people stop paying for race changes.


First, the game is balanced enough that only high end competitive guilds really notice those differences.
Furthermore, those differences are largely influenced by the poor itemization the game has - the gear scales up exponentially, and so fast, that it causes classes to be balanced at a certain point and under/overperform before/after that point.WoW people "pick the best builds". And there are at dozens of "best builds".
FFXIV has 13 builds and they are picked for you.

In terms of subscriptions, this game will do fine for people who enjoy having a single character.
But for altoholics, it may quickly lose its appeal.

Combat and class design are the only things FFXIV is still behind WoW (in my opinion).
If SE steps up to the challenge, the game will flourish in a way Blizzard would never see it coming.

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You have obv. never raided in wow... I have had to level alts since priest was not viable one patch then broken the next. Anyone using WoW as a model of balance does not know what they are talking about. Now that we are talking about PvP and PvE builds it might be a good fix for this games poor excuse of PvP. Anyways just played SWToR to raid level (on four different characters) and for the most part there is one one good build for PvE and one for PvP you might change like one skill to lower dps for movement speed (IE sniper), but for actually builds there are 8 classes in total. The variations are so slight they do not matter. I still think that the current system works fine and if anything it would be a waste of time for the developers to do.

Instead of build customization, similar to character races, I would like to see 2 different aesthetics for each class/job.

Something like this:

High Paladin= Standard PLD
Cobalt Paladin = Wields a blade/shield that fused together (something like the DRK claymore with a shield as the hilt). Different animations from High Paladin (weapons are the same, but look differently)
Warrior of the Fang = Wields axe reversed (axe pole lined behind her back). Animations are more horizontal.
Warrior of the Claw = Standard WAR.
DRK-Blight = Standard DRK. Maintains/gains claymore afterimage (uses dark blue/purple auras)
DRK-Chaos = Wields the claymore like a scythe. Can have a scythe afterimage (uses dark red/black auras)


And so on. Dragoons can vary with their acrobatics, monks can vary using fists or feet, ninjas probably can't vary much (...I mean... it's a ninja), Bard songs can animate differently (a different instrument), MCH can spawn different mechanizations, BLMs probably can't vary much that wouldn't jeopardize new content (like using different named spells). Maybe they can have their little astral orbs colored different and have a different looking casting stance. Same goes for SUM which would could have a different egi (purely aesthetic differences) if SE wasn't stingy with them. WHM and SCH's wouldn't have much to change beyond casting stance. AST can use dice instead (GO! DICE ROLL!) or just different looking cards.

Point is, SE isn't making a unique player experience role wise. But if they followed their FXIV tradition of giving the player 2 variations of the same race to their job/class, as nigh mundane as it would be, it's still a change. Their can a story involved or heck, as suggested in another thread, this can be tied to the GC the player is affiliated with.

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

You have obv. never raided in wow... I have had to level alts since priest was not viable one patch then broken the next. Anyone using WoW as a model of balance does not know what they are talking about. (...) I still think that the current system works fine and if anything it would be a waste of time for the developers to do.

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I don't understand your point...
1 - WoW has 34 specs, and since WoD, most specs have had at least 3 viable talent setups that meaningfully affect your rotation (such that it gives off a different feel while playing).
That's over 100 viable builds.
2 - Whether some encounters prefer certain builds is irrelevant, because the same happens in FFXIV, you just have less to choose from, and a set of buffs/debuffs you want to make sure your group has access to.
3 - Even if Blizzard screwed up so bad than only 1 build was viable per spec for a while, that'd still be around 3x the amount of builds we have in FFXIV...

How does that suddenly paint build variety in such negative tone that it justifies having NO customization at all?
Or rather, even if you're not interested in build customization yourself - which is fine - why is build diversity so bad that you wish no one else gets it either?

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Originally Posted by DawgPilez

Instead of build customization, similar to character races, I would like to see 2 different aesthetics for each class/job.

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It doesn't sound very much, but since the glamour system makes people farm more and more "useless" gear, and since the egi glamour system was very well received, an "animation glamour system" could please a lot of people, even though, at the core, it will still be the same.

Honestly, I just wish that there was a way to branch off each class like ACN does with SCH/SMN.

Something like:
Marauder to Warrior(Tank), Berserker(DPS).
Gladiator to Paladin(Tank), Holy Knight(DPS).
Conjurer to White Mage(Heal), Geomancer(DPS)
Thaumaturge to Black Mage(DPS) Time Mage(Support DPS)
Lancer to Dragoon(DPS), Valkyrie(Tank)
Archer to Bard(Support DPS), Ranger(DPS)
Pugilist to Monk(DPS), Master(DPS)
Rogue to Ninja(DPS), Assassin(DPS)

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Originally Posted by Isala

Honestly, I just wish that there was a way to branch off each class like ACN does with SCH/SMN.

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The problem is that classes are way too strict on their role.
SCH manages to trick its way with the fairy, but it would be too difficult without redesigning pratically everything...which is sad, because they already redesigned classes between v1 and v2, so why didn't they go this way already ? :(

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Originally Posted by Nurvus

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Well lets look at it this way, a normal endgamer has lets say an average of 2 toons. For example I mained priest and had rouge on the side. On priest I can pick three specs or lets say classes, Shadow, holy, and disc. Now disc and shadow had one build for pve and one for pvp (we separate skills and balances for pvp). Holy had two builds both of which where sub-optimal compared to other pure healer builds (disc was strong when I left it goes up and down, biggest op one patch then shit the next spec). So with loadsof work I can play 4 different builds, which aftering gearing turns into one (set bonuses making you set into one spec for the next raid or season). That is why people tended to have a second toon (similar to this game) to get around gear lock. So my rouge has three specs each basically their own classes, well only ever played the pvp class (which a few pure dps classes had) since by the time I left I was only playing pvp end game.Overall you played two classes like this game overall. Which both had one build that you played. The whole spec building is an illusion of freedom when in fact you play almost the same way as you do in this game, aka it is a waste of everyones time. WoW also has had many periods of unbalance in game and has yet to figure it out completely.