How can we get more in depth character customization?

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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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Because WoW isn't worried about making the game fair for everyone, not every spec can clear every raid but every spec tends to have a use even if it's outside of PvE.
And perhaps more importantly none of the specs in WoW have 3-minute 20-button rotations so they're easier to balance and design with customisation in mind.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Look at FFVII there was crappier gear that had better materia slots in the configuration you were looking for.

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You mean exactly what XIV does with crafted gear being able to be pentamelded?

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Originally Posted by Ameela

You mean exactly what XIV does with crafted gear being able to be pentamelded?

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Not comparable, 7's materia is vastly superior to 14's as it directly gave spells and abilities so when you chose gear for a massive materia slot list you are giving yourself greater coverage and magical power at the cost of weapon power or physical defense.

14 offers no such thing.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

What ways do you think we can get more in depth character customization?

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I would give us more character customization options in the character creator. "Nay" to all the other stuff as it sounds like a balancing nightmare.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Do you need examples of each of them? I can continue to look for you if you need me to. Just to be clear, the players were stressed so they had to make things easier, thats the story of the FFXIV community in a nutshell.

FFXIV plans to shake up tanks, healers and more soon.

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this is a super interesting article! I wonder wtf Yoshi is talking about here:

"I believe players will be able to feel the effects of tenacity once the Savage mode of Omega launches next week."

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Originally Posted by Rysir

Not comparable, 7's materia is vastly superior to 14's as it directly gave spells and abilities so when you chose gear for a massive materia slot list you are giving yourself greater coverage and magical power at the cost of weapon power or physical defense.

14 offers no such thing.

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Unfortunately you can't really do what VII did in a game like XIV. Imagine if tanks needed to equip specific gear or materia to get Rampart lol

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Originally Posted by Ameela

You mean exactly what XIV does with crafted gear being able to be pentamelded?

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Except materia if functionally pointless in this game compared to FFVII. Can you learn a new spell? Gain a new summon? Enhance a skill?

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Originally Posted by Ameela

Unfortunately you can't really do what VII did in a game like XIV. Imagine if tanks needed to equip specific gear or materia to get Rampart lol

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Being honest, if this game had 7's materia everyone and their dog would be using monster skill materia then pad it with any other materia of their choice. Every job would be part bluemage!

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Except materia if functionally pointless in this game compared to FFVII. Can you learn a new spell? Gain a new summon? Enhance a skill?

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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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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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Too bad "customizing your stats" doesn't even happen in this game... the only two stats are Critical Hit and Direct Hit. Everything else is worthless.

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. The way to break this is to relax the focus on DPS as the main progress point by introducing boss fights driven by mechanics.

As examples, we currently have fights of this:

"Kill Target" - Main goal of the fight is to dps down the target. All mechanics in the fight deal with making it harder to dps down.

But we could also have fights like:

"Survive" - Boss fights are intentionally hard hitting tank buster fights where the goal is to survive mechanics for an allotted time. DPS can be used to ease certain aspects, but doing maximum DPS will not end the fight 'faster'
"Protect" - Goal of the fight is to protect a Target or Targets from Damage through the course of teh fight. DPS can help mitigate out going damage against mobs (maybe), but would more be in service of other aspects in the fight, like independant DPS checks per DPS, or performing actions during teh fight to ensure the targets remain alive (holding certain positions, tanking certain adds even as a DPS, etc). You can use DPS threat itself to act as a threat mechanic, while discouraging Tank mobbing by putting debuffs on players tanking more than x-amount of adds.

All these fights could be mechanically heavy to force more emphasis on being able to do fight mechanics, and less emphasis on composition being the "100% ideal". While it wont eliminate the min/maxing crowd who want only the most ideal comp, it may help mitigate the need for "You got to have x, y, and z to do this fight".