Suggestion to the Developer

This game needs to add something like the Crystarium system from Final Fantasy XIII or the Sphere Grid system from a Final Fantasy X to give players the ability to customize our characters. Considering we have crystals it should be a sort of crystal system where we use crystal points gained from gathering and defeating enemies to augment our abilities.

As far as audio and visual, the crystarium was awesome. I don't know if that's the exact mechanic we want, but I'd love to see some incarnation of it. Something like what Path of Exile uses, re-skinned as the Crystarium, would be cool.

Regardless of what form it takes, I do feel we could use some more character customization. I mean, how is my White Mage functionally different from your White Mage (assuming you have one)? The answer is they aren't. We might have deviated on a stat point or two, but we're basically identical. That may be the way Final Fantasy has always been, but in a multiplayer RPG, players want to be able to distinguish themselves. Not just visually, but functionally.

There's a few big flaws in your logic here. Firstly, the crysarium was really just another exp leveling system with a fancy and unique paint job. Second, there was NO customization involved in any of those systems. Your goal was ultimately to buy everything avialable.

The third and most important problem is that it is about 4 or 5 years too late to use a fancy leveling system like those in FFXIV. It's far too late to change that when some players have been building their character on the current mechanic for over 3 years now.

On the other hand, if you are talking about some sort of talent tree system that works in tandem with the current leveling system, I believe there are very good reasons why SE chose not to include that sort of function in this game, and it's much better for it. In the end there is little or no customization in those systems. There's a right way to spec and there's "you gimped yourself".

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Originally Posted by Synra

There's a right way to spec and there's "you gimped yourself".

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This is the fault the MMO community being terrible, not any inherent design flaw. In tabletop RPGs and even early MMOs, character design was about making yourself unique and bringing something to the table that none of your allies could. Now it's all about unquestioningly worshiping the numbers that come up on Recount, and valuing players entirely by their DPS and nothing else. That's ultimately what killed the support role in modern games. Sacrificing your own output to enhance the performance of others is no longer considered acceptable, simply because you can't measure it on a chart.

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Originally Posted by Synra

There's a few big flaws in your logic here. Firstly, the crysarium was really just another exp leveling system with a fancy and unique paint job. Second, there was NO customization involved in any of those systems. Your goal was ultimately to buy everything avialable.

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Yeah, the Crystarium didn't give any options at all other than choosing which path to pick at this exact moment. It was horribly linear and you had to go through certain nodes to reach other ones. It wasn't much of a choice.

I'd have to disagree about the sphere grid though. You could clearly choose to take differing paths and unlock optional paths to do as you wanted. The ability to turn blank nodes into a node you wanted extended the options further. Sure there were some paths laid out, but you weren't forced to use them. I'd say this system offered a decent amount of options to the player. Hell Khimari was completely yours to choose which path you wanted. He exemplified the concept.

I really hope that they pull in the merit point system from FFXI. Maybe not an exact copy, but something similar. A system that allows you to further develop your character after you have hit the level cap beyond just getting new gear would be great. Being able to put extra points into stats or get new abilities would go a long way towards offering some customization.

It would be nice to have 3 or 4 abilities for each class to choose from. I think you could limit it to only being able to get 1 or 2 merit abilities, but make it so that each offers something desired in battle. Maybe make it so two tanks with two different merit abilities is actually preferred over two tanks with the same merit ability, for example. You have to eliminate the "illusion of choice" and offer actual choice.

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Originally Posted by Mixxy

This is the fault the MMO community being terrible, not any inherent design flaw. In tabletop RPGs and even early MMOs, character design was about making yourself unique and bringing something to the table that none of your allies could. Now it's all about unquestioningly worshiping the numbers that come up on Recount, and valuing players entirely by their DPS and nothing else. That's ultimately what killed the support role in modern games. Sacrificing your own output to enhance the performance of others is no longer considered acceptable, simply because you can't measure it on a chart.

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Well to be fair it's also a function of game design. Like in Diablo 2. Sure you could pick where to spend your stat points, but there were very specific builds that players used anyway which really removed the choice. The players did this because more offense was generally the best strategy in that game. No amount of other stats options was going to change the fact that if you hit hard you do better. Therefore despite options the players choose the one that does the most damage. This isn't due to a bad player community. It's due to game design.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

This isn't due to a bad player community. It's due to game design.

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Well that's the problem when your only customization is in the form of stat points. Another example, back in the old days of Burning Crusade, I played an Arms specialized Warrior. This was a spec usually reserved for PvP, but I raided with it. My DPS was garbage, but I was considered valuable anyway. Why? Because as an Arms Warrior, I had an ability which could prevent mobs and bosses from healing themselves. My functionality was more important than raw numbers. Later on, however, as the new generation of players came in, utility became meaningless. Only numbers mattered. Even healers were expected to compete for top healing done, which meant that damage prevention (i.e, shields) were frowned upon.

I'll admit that often it's the dev's fault, but players also share the blame.

No to crystarium because its a watered down version of the sphere grid. What we need is the materia system from FF7 where you can link and swap out materia's to suit the situation. Also HQ should differ from NQ with more linked slots than single.

there is no such thing as difference between any character in any game the best will always be the only acceptable or useable path in any game.

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Originally Posted by FraenirVolsung

I really hope that they pull in the merit point system from FFXI. Maybe not an exact copy, but something similar. A system that allows you to further develop your character after you have hit the level cap beyond just getting new gear would be great. Being able to put extra points into stats or get new abilities would go a long way towards offering some customization.

It would be nice to have 3 or 4 abilities for each class to choose from. I think you could limit it to only being able to get 1 or 2 merit abilities, but make it so that each offers something desired in battle. Maybe make it so two tanks with two different merit abilities is actually preferred over two tanks with the same merit ability, for example. You have to eliminate the "illusion of choice" and offer actual choice.

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^This. Although I hate to use FFXI as an example of an addition I'd like to see in ARR, it did work well as a compensatory way of allowing players to customize their character once they hit the level cap. In a way something similar is already in ARR, a la, item level, but it's horribly flawed and is just a means of 'gating' content without allowing customization - it's also used as a lazy way of being able to add new gear which is 'stronger' than previous equipment without having to actually think much about how balanced that gear is in terms of stat progression.

The ilevel system is my main and pretty much only thing I hate about ARR. Personally, I'd love it if the ilevel system was scrapped completely and a FFXI merit system was brought into the game instead, it would make end game based on skill like it should be instead of nothing but a gear-check.

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Originally Posted by FraenirVolsung

You have to eliminate the "illusion of choice" and offer actual choice.

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but there would be no actual choice there you would need both types of tanks to work so in the end once again you have no choice. the only way to remove choice is to make content so easy it doesn't matter what you chose you win.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

but there would be no actual choice there you would need both types of tanks to work so in the end once again you have no choice. the only way to remove choice is to make content so easy it doesn't matter what you chose you win.

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Not necessarily. You as the player have the choice to select which abilities you want to use merit points on and which direction you want your character to go in. You always have the choice. You may start seeing party finder comments such as "Looking for MT with X, Y, or Z merit ability. OT has merit ability A, B, or C," but as long as each ability has value to a party you have free choice to choose your abilities however it suits you. And I stress that each ability would have to have equal value. It would be a balancing nightmare sure, but you would have choice if nothing else.

You know, there's a lot to be said for the 'illusion of choice'. If the illusion is good enough, people will be just as happy as if they had an actual choice (maybe more so). Unfortunately, FFXIV has neither real choice, nor even a passable illusion.

My opinion is this would probably fall flat too.

To an extent, there is some level of customization. For example: a 20 STR/10 VIT melee DPS build. However, this never happens, because the moment one person finds the "optimal combination", then that becomes the standard.

It's going to be the same if a talent tree system, like in League of Legends, was ever introduced in this game to make players feel more individual - people will only pick the optimal talents for their roles, based on something like forum research, or theorycrafting.

You might end up being part of the 2% that might not follow the optimal build, but just like BiS is in current state, there is absolutely no need for optimization in any way. As long as all dungeon/raid/trial objectives are met, I don't really think people would worry about how you build.

If we're talking giving players different abilities...don't we already have the cross-class system for that? You only get to pick 5 skills. A few skills will be essential, like Mercy Stroke/Internal Release/Second Wind on a Dragoon, but for the last 2 slots, you have choice between Foresight, Featherfoot, Mantra and Bloodbath. But ultimately, I don't really think people will care which skills you picked for the last 2 slots (or arguably even the first 3 slots) as long as your DPS is acceptable, and all objectives are met for any content they attempt.

Heck, you could even remove your job crystal, and have 10 different cross-class skills to pick from. I don't play much PvP, but I've heard DPS Marauder was a thing there? Being able to cross skills like Raging Strikes, Blood for Blood, etc, which they would normally never be able to cross.

I think something like the Sphere Grid would be nice, but it is unfortunately too late for character progression to be like that. They could add in a system like that for NPC companions (like Chocos?) if they ever wanted to bring those in like from FFXI.

Merit system was only in FF11 because the dev team knew that they weren't going to raise the level cap anytime soon and wanted to give players a way to grow their characters.

Yoshi-P has made it pretty clear that level cap raises will usually accompany an expansion. I don't think this game will stagnate as far as character growth goes for 7 years like what happened in FF11.

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Originally Posted by Synra

The third and most important problem is that it is about 4 or 5 years too late to use a fancy leveling system like those in FFXIV. It's far too late to change that when some players have been building their character on the current mechanic for over 3 years now.

On the other hand, if you are talking about some sort of talent tree system that works in tandem with the current leveling system, I believe there are very good reasons why SE chose not to include that sort of function in this game, and it's much better for it. In the end there is little or no customization in those systems. There's a right way to spec and there's "you gimped yourself".

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The crytarium system will be more like a talent tree that is unlocked once players get 50 but look really cool.

It is possible to design something that offers flexibility, like the Merit Point system from FFXI. For some job-specific categories, there were definitely the

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right way to spec and there's "you gimped yourself"

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but some of the jobs weren't as clear-cut, so players had a more split or even distribution of merit points: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/gui...nsus/11/3.html

No thanks. I really disliked both of those leveling systems. I didn't really care for either of those games either, and frankly, the less I'm reminded of them in other games, the better.