[Feedback] Character Development and Builds

Square Enix

I'll keep this brief and let the community chime in but I wanted to provide some feedback on the state of the class/job system and character progression. As a background, I've been subscribed since launch and actively play with a primary focus as raiding.

Currently there is no character development at all. There is no such thing as a build. There are no talents. The cross-class abilities are set in stone for every job and the stat allocation is completely pointless as the stats simply go entirely in your primary stat. What this game desperately needs is some kind of depth with respect to character development.

The system you implement doesn't have to be talent trees. It doesn't even have to be talents. However, there need to be some meaningful choices for jobs that alter the play in some way. For example, consider if my main job of BLM offered a choice between the following two traits:

1) Your Firestarter procs now stack to 3
2) Firestarter no longer causes your next Fire III to be instant cast and require no mana but, instead, now causes your Fire I critical strikes to ignite your target for Fire damage over 10 seconds for a total of 300 potency.

Imagine having to make a choice like that on BLM and how it would affect your gameplay. Further, think how much fun it would be to build the character YOU want to play. Personally, I could see myself choosing either one of those talents. One provides extra mobility while the other provides an overall damage boost and probably a cool particle effect watching your target burn to death.

Again, it doesn't have to work just like that but something needs to be done to enhance character development.

So, in closing:

1) The stat point allocation is pointless and shallow
2) The cross-class abilities are set in stone and there are no choices there. It's shallow and pointless too.
3) You need some form of real character building or development in this game.

Any thoughts?

No. At this point in the game's development, that would mean rebalancing and retuning everything already existing to fit these new customizations. Additionally, these new options would swiftly become meaningless, as ones which are clearly optimal end up soon becoming the only accepted setups in end-game compositions anyway. If talent trees and other such systems were added to FF14 at this point, they wouldn't exist to improve the game, but rather arbitrarily, for the sole sake of perpetuating a shallow idea of customization.

That's simply not the kind of game that FF14 is, or is trying to be.

I agree with you OP and I think a lot of people would. I don't think customisation is shallow, but rather has the potential to enrich an individuals play style. I'm sure any changes like the ones you suggested will result in a spec that comes out on top and by all means let the elitists play them that way -- I'm sure for all those that need to be the best, there will be others who are happy playing alternative and viable options when given the choice to play differently.

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Originally Posted by Kiteless

No. At this point in the game's development, that would mean rebalancing and retuning everything already existing to fit these new customizations. Additionally, these new options would swiftly become meaningless, as ones which are clearly optimal end up soon becoming the only accepted setups in end-game compositions anyway. If talent trees and other such systems were added to FF14 at this point, they wouldn't exist to improve the game, but rather arbitrarily, for the sole sake of perpetuating a shallow idea of customization.

That's simply not the kind of game that FF14 is, or is trying to be.

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Then I'd say we should get rid of the attribute points altogether then as it's a completely pointless system. Also, a cursory glance at, say, WoW talents, would prove what you're saying about it being shallow completely wrong. The talents in that game offer interesting choices and there are seldom any "cookie cutter" builds. Everyone has their own playstyle (that said, @#^! WoW).

I mean wow now at least has one build for PVE and one build for PVP. Get that out of the way, only classes that mess with attribute points are tanks.

My changes would include:
1 - Making Cross Class Skills a point-buy system rather than fixed slots.
Some skills would "occupy" 6 points, others 3, etc. We might then have real options.
2 - Adding some more procs/effects that make our rotation more dynamic - providing opportunities for great players to rise above average players through skill/decision-making.
3 - Make Materia more reminiscent of FF7, in particular Blue Materia.
Here's the thread where I added to liljramos88's suggestion:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ria-system-Pls

Here is also a doc I made while providing feedback during closed beta:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...EA4BgviOsI/pub

Skill trees are dead guys, why are people so set on them?

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

Skill trees are dead guys, why are people so set on them?

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They're fun, making builds is fun, trying things is fun. I don't buy the 'everyone just picks the best' excuse. People look up the best way to do everything currently in game anyway, if following guides ruins the fun then we may as well bin the whole game.

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.

Ffxi had merits/job points and subjob system which allowed huge flexibility and unique gameplay tactics....unfortunately, this led to huge problems with job balance for the last 12 years and had things like white mages tanking the hardest bosses by exploiting ninja spells or bard songs, etc. ffxiv uses a trinity system where there's verrrrrrrry little flexibility but balance is so much better because of it. If you want customization and flexibility, prepare to sacrifice balance and harmony.

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Originally Posted by Kiteless

Additionally, these new options would swiftly become meaningless, as ones which are clearly optimal end up soon becoming the only accepted setups in end-game compositions anyway.

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If you play in Duty Finder, people will take what you are
If you play with your friends, they'll take you like you are...or you'd better change friends.
If you seek in Party Finder and people scold you for not being a perfect min-maxer instead of wanting to enjoy your character, run away from them like plague.

This concern is pure nonsense and it's sad to see it every time some unique feature are asked.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Ffxi had merits/job points and subjob system which allowed huge flexibility and unique gameplay tactics....unfortunately, this led to huge problems with job balance

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Even without merit or subjobs, jobs aren't even close to be balanced in FFXI

It's not like builds would mess up the DF either. Take Paladin for example, you give it a core of tank skills that it always has but then you can build it's optional stuff around say shields, heals, debuffs, buffs, damage, etc.

It's a tank, it's tank kit is balanced to perfection, it's skill trees are not mathed out because which build you want will change depending on the other 7 people in your group.

Guys, there's a popular game that came years before FFXIV that launched with 9 classes, 3 specs per class and at least 2 viable ways of competitively playing each spec.
Nowadays it has 11 classes, 3-4 specs per class and 3+ viable ways of competitively playing each spec.
So it launched with over 50 and today has over 100 ways to competitively play a character.

No one here is asking that much for FFXIV, but there is currently only 1 way to competitively play each Job. That means 13 total builds in the game.
This game has a lot of stuff to "unlock", but it would benefit greatly from having variety for those that unlocked everything.

And unlike some are trying to claim, it is not hard to balance a few variations in builds.

Happy I found this thread. We need skill trees period. every good MMO has one. Wow, Everquest 2, swtor, blade and soul,lol. It works and anyone who says it doesn't is lying to themselves, don't know whaT there talking about or don't like change. I'm not saying it has to be just like a skill tree or a trait tree, call it whatever the heck you like lol. For those who say it's too late, thats not true... Everquest 2 got it introduced to the game in an expansion, it also helped the developers later on in the games life.

Allowing them to imp-lament and update your Characters abilities and traits without having to increase the level cap, do to the numbers getting to high and too long to calculate thus slowing the level increase and increasing the lifespan of the game, while making the game more enjoyable. For those that say you will have a set skill tree I have yet to find a game where you needed a set skill tree In order to get into a party, also how are they going to know what you speced for. They can't see your UI...we have rotations that people think are the best already, but I have yet to be told " you need to have this specific rotation or you can't join the party." People simply want you to be able to complete the content they don't care how you do it.

If I'm a Bard and decide I would like to change my spec in order to do more dps and get the same result(my way not SE way, set rotation) , I don't see the problem. I would like, no I would love to have more control or rather freedom of how I play my character.I think a lot of people would love this but I to am not sure if this is something SE would consider.If they do say yeah we will not see it for a while hehe. I hope you keep these type of post coming maybe they will see it and change their though process.:)

uryu17, ofcourse.
Some people here defending it's hard to balance - it's not.
It's just sacrificing utility, etc, for pure damage.
It could even be a different Job branching off Archer - Marksman. Many options.
Marauder should also get a damage based alternative, either through trait/ability/cross-class customization, or as a new Job (Berserker, or something).

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Originally Posted by uryu17

Happy I found this thread. We need skill trees period. every good MMO has one. Wow, Everquest 2, swtor, blade and soul,lol. It works and anyone who says it doesn't is lying to themselves, don't know whaT there talking about or don't like change. I'm not saying it has to be just like a skill tree or a trait tree, call it whatever the heck you like lol. For those who say it's too late, thats not true... Everquest 2 got it introduced to the game in an expansion, it also helped the developers later on in the games life.

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Sorry although customization is needed, it has nothing to do with the addition of skill trees.
Even Diablo 3 has more customization than SWTOR.
WoW's current Talent system offers more customization than Skill Trees ever did.
Skill trees inevitably offer a lot of fake choices.

Final Fantasy can have all the customization it needs without cloning WoW.

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Originally Posted by Nurvus

Sorry although customization is needed, it has nothing to do with the addition of skill trees.
Even Diablo 3 has more customization than SWTOR.
WoW's current Talent system offers more customization than Skill Trees ever did.
Skill trees inevitably offer a lot of fake choices.

Final Fantasy can have all the customization it needs without cloning WoW.

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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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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.

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Originally Posted by justinjarjar

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Both WoW and FFXIV are unbalanced.
You notice it less in FFXIV, because A) stat jumps are smaller; B) theorycrafting is simpler; C) each class has a set of effects you want in a group; D) you can be all classes in one character

However, think better about the example you've given after realizing that a spec in WoW is equivalent to a full Job in FFXIV.
Dropping Holy Priest to play Discipline Priest is be equivalent to dropping White Mage to play Astrologian or Scholar.

I'm not asking for more Jobs, merely for flavorful variations in the way you can fulfil the exact same role within the same Job - I'm talking about the equivalent to Talents and/or Glyphs.
The rotation and feel of a Retribution Paladin that uses Seraphim & Holy Avenger is different from one that uses Sanctified Wrath+Final Verdict or Divine Purpose+Final Verdict, and yet, their performance is close enough that you won't notice a difference for at least 95% of your playtime, and therefore you will have fun the way you want to.

Hardcore guilds requiring specific builds due to 1% improvement on your performance is nothing new, and is just as likely to happen if White Mage is 1% better than Astrologian, but you can still play the way you want outside progress content.

I'm not trying to win a debate or anything, I just think SE is falling short on the creativity and depth they've gotten me used to in many of their games, where it comes to variety.

Hmmm character development?
Tried switching jobs?
If you would all think of your character as a freelancer.. Then you could consider all jobs as a spec/talent.

(Some) people want choices. Even if you level every job to 60, you'll still be the same as the other guy who leveled all jobs to 60.

Problem is, enough (voicy) people DON'T want choices, so that SE has probably scrapped every choice concept.

Like :
"You have to spend you stat points wisely !...or you could respec for a pitiful price in company seals"
"You have to chose in which craft you'll specialize !...or you could respec for a small price in scrips"

Why...? Let us make choicies, even if some of them aren't the most optimized ones.
Let me play a Frost Mage for fun, I'll play my optimimzed other DPS in raid situations...