So I wanted to discuss Role Actions (Nee, Cross-Class Actions)
I was wondering how people felt about them and if we could come up with more interesting implementations than either Cross-Class Actions or Role Actions that would align better with gameplay.
Cross-Class Actions were interesting, yet annoying. Having to awkwardly level up various classes in order to access certain skills to use on your main class (Kind of a similar issue that the DoH classes face where you basically want to level everything to 50 to get cross-class actions...)
So we've been using Role Actions. Which as a concept, is interesting, but as it's implemented, quite a lot of actions feel terrible, with others seemingly existing only to cause button bloat *Cough*Protect*Cough*. In addition to much of the interesting aspect being further diluted by the most recent change to allowing the full 10 actions to be equipped by Jobs not just Classes (So, there's literally no reason to not have all 10 available skills equipped outside you know, all of the ones that suck so bad they're not worth putting on your action bar)
Personally, I posit the idea of the system becoming like a "Talent" system from other games. Whereby you get to pick from an assortment of bonuses with more slots opening up as you gain levels (Including beyond ARR level cap). With the "Core" role actions being uhh... "Rolled" into jobs at the relevant levels (So things such as Provoke/Ultimatum/Shirk, Diversion/True North, Esuna/Lucid Dreaming/Swiftcast, Refresh etc. Of course, balance things out so button bloat is equal. Potentially even giving slightly themed versions of the skills I.e. BLM having a Lucid Dreaming that actually does something with MP during AF)
The available options should always outnumber the number of slots you can fill. So that you make a choice based on personal preference (Or "Meta Builds" if you swing that way :rolleyes:)
I envision something akin to:
* Having a plethora of low impact "Global" traits that are available to all Jobs/Classes. With such things as "5% increased movement speed", "5% increased Crit/DH/SkS/Piety/Ten/Det stat", "X% increased MP regeneration", "Gain X% in combat health regeneration"
You know, just general things where they aren't really targeted to any particular job and are basic "You have slightly better stats" type things, having some impact but not being massive game changers.
* Having a smaller pool of stronger "Role" traits. That would be targetted to boost the role in specific areas and potentially boosting their (Now core) role actions. Such as providing a boost to Refresh's MP restore. It could also include trade offs such as Tanks having a trait that reduces the CD of their primary mitigation CD (Vengeance/Shadow Wall/Sentinel) but that also reduces its duration (I.e. Targetting it to be better for specifically soaking TB's).
The idea being having some more general functions of the job being boosted in a somewhat significant way. But the caveat being that, much like Triple Triad decks, you're limited in how many you can have equipped in addition to the limited number of overall trait slots. I.e. So if you had 10 slots, you wouldn't be able to just slot 10 of these "Stronger" traits and would have to still pick some of the less potent general ones.
* Lastly, having a much smaller pool of Job specific traits. Which would enhance specific parts of the job, such as certain skills or aspects of the Job Gauge. For example WAR getting a "Generate more Beast Gauge. But it now decays over time" or RDM getting like "Potency of spells increased if opposite colour mana is higher" or "Aspected Benefic now applies both Sects effects, but costs more MP/has a CD"
The general idea being very impactful traits that can shift playstyles based on what people opt for. With a similar caveat to Role traits in that they're limited in how many you can slot, only much more so.
But that's just my idea, I wonder if anyone else has thoughts on this?
Also, yes, I know that my idea is plagued with requiring a bunch of balancing and that it likely would just devolve into "Meta Builds" but ehh... Can't live life worrying about "Meta" all the time :cool:
On the topic of Role Actions in 5.0 and beyond
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02-24-2019, 07:26 PMKaliseOn the topic of Role Actions in 5.0 and beyond
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02-25-2019, 01:02 AMmosaicexUnfortunately FFXIV playerbase seems to disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
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02-25-2019, 01:50 AMKaliseBut if design was done solely around Meta, then we'd only have a total of 8 classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by mosaicex
Also, this same playerbase also decries about how trash everyone is because they're not playing meta :rolleyes: -
02-26-2019, 02:27 AMSylvainThese would just be akin the old talent tree system (beside not being a tree), people will figure out what is the most optimal thing to do and that's it. So it won't achieve anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
Also, on a more personal note, such traits are plain boring like the current materia system. You just shove what's numerically best for you.
Why bother implementing a whole system if it has "low impact"? I mean, they don't change your gameplay, they just change your default value for some stats from 0 to X%.
And no matter how many you put the end result will be the same, people will figure out the most optimal set, and if you leave enough room for "useless flavor traits" such as movement speed, people will simply also figure out which one or the best or, at best, simply say "pick wathever you want it simply doesn't matter anyway" (might as well remove the entire system if it doesn't matter... which is somewhat what happened in 4.4, the limitation was removed because the system was a total failure, people picked the 2-4 mandatory skill and filled the rest with wathever was left and usable)
This is somewhat what we had, except that they were not traits. But you'll run into the same issue, people will pick the best one depending on the job and that's it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "o if you had 10 slots, you wouldn't be able to just slot 10 of these "Stronger" traits and would have to still pick some of the less potent general ones." because this is exactly what would happen if you just let people decide among a list without restriction.
This is imo the only thing that could work but yet again, you can't just let people pick X things among a list (job restricted or not), you need to give choice while restricting those choice.Quote:
* Lastly, having a much smaller pool of Job specific traits. Which would enhance specific parts of the job, such as certain skills or aspects of the Job Gauge. For example WAR getting a "Generate more Beast Gauge. But it now decays over time" or RDM getting like "Potency of spells increased if opposite colour mana is higher" or "Aspected Benefic now applies both Sects effects, but costs more MP/has a CD"
In other word, everytime they can choose something, each option must be of equal value / group specific (like, Skill A would be more useful in a specific kind of group and Skill B in a different one)
For them to be of equal value they must aim at the same thing.
For instance, if you give a DPS 3 choice 5 times, each time being "more dps, more survivibility or more utility", as soon as people can survive without the survival one, they'll simply pîck the one warranting the most rdps.
Which is why every choice has to have somehow the same kind.
If you allow people to choose for instance,
1 active skill, 1 offensive trait, 1 defensive trait,
When they can choose for the active skill, all option must have the same purpose, for isntance doing more damage.
And there, depending on your group composition and fight you may have some better choice.
Most system just give an illusion of choice (like talent tree, because really, you didn't have any, there was 1-2 builds and that's it). Same thing for most game, same thing for FF14 cross-role system. Picking Provoke as a Tank wasn't a choice....
WoW Talent system is somehow like this, and while it isn't perfectly balanced, it still is imo the best talent system designed so far.
Every 15lv you get to choose a new skill (or enhanced an old one) and everytime they have the same purpose.
If at lv 15 you're offered an offensive skill, they're all offensive skill. But they don't do it exactly in the same manner. Some may give less overall dps but have a better burst, some are simple to use and other have the best potential but also requires more work to properly function.
Therefor, depending on your group, the encounter or your skill, some skills are more suited than others.
Taking the BLM as an example (random quick idea),
You could choose between
1) Umbral Heart also increase damage done by 20%
2) LeyLine now last 60s and instead of increasing haste, it increases damage done by 10%
3) Foul-Fire: Casting foul unlock "Foul Fire" (icon change) a 6s cast dealing massive damage. Can only be cast in AF phase. Foul-Fire isn't affected by Swiftcast and Triplecast
So without working out the math, let just say that, 1,2 and 3 on a dummy situation offer almost the same kind of dps increase, but not exactly the same.
1) Is the most straightforward dps boost and requires no change in gameplay
2) Offer the best dummy dps but obviously has a hefty positional requirement.
3) Has the best burst potential but is technically the most annoying one to use. Can benefit the most from buff windows
Here you would have to choose based on three things
1) Your own skill. Are you starting out as a BLM? Perhaps 1 is your best choice.
2) The encounter, can you stand still nearly all the time? Can you exploit that 60s Leyline (which doesn't haste your cast anymore making the rotation tighter). Is there a strong dps check on at a specific moment? (Foul-Fire could help there)
3) Your raid group, do you have a NIN and other buffers? Does your group coordinate buff into specific windows? Yes/No will make 3 a good or less good choice.
Those 3 examples are just random things I thought about, what's important is the whole "they're technically more or less all equal but your own skill, your group and the encounter will determine which one is the best choice"
Here you don't have an illusion of choice, because there is a right decision and it won't be the same for every BLM. Assuming the difference in dps gain is under 1% if used properly, then you end up with an actual choice based on prefered gameplay.
So I don't say "FF14 should make the same talent tree as WoW", because I'd rather have them come up with their own design.
But ultimately, I don't see any other type of design working. Which is one of the reason we didn't have any choice system before SB, Y.P didn't want to add one if it was just to end up with everyone picking the same things (well it turned out exactly this way tho x_x)
Too much choice kills choices. Wether the option you are presented are good or bad.
You have to somehow limit enough the player option so that everyone doesn't end up with the same skills while giving enough room between each choice to make the player choice matter. -
02-26-2019, 06:14 AMKaliseSure, unless they were designed to be kind of close in power. It's difficult to design, but there can be a lot of different aspects to go from.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvain
Such as mathematically certain stats might end up being close to each other. There might be things to consider such as perhaps movement speed gives your melee character more uptime which translates to better DPS than a stat boost.
Perhaps some of the things can be designed as trade offs. Such as "Convert X% of stat A into Y value of stat B"
Why bother releasing new gear with expansions? I mean, they don't change your gameplay, they just change your stats from 0 to X.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvain
Feedback is why. It feels good to earn things. It feels good to feel like you have a choice about how to design your character (Unless you just copy/paste from what a website tells you to put).
Unlocking a new slot and getting to put in a new trait would feel cool, even if it was relatively low impact. Also, the low impact is to counteract the higher impact other traits suggested. It puts perspective on the strength so you neither feel like it's optimal to use only global traits nor do you feel like you can't opt for more global traits than is necessary.
Not everyone will play meta.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvain
If they did, we wouldn't see half the classes in the game would we?
This is literally me explaining the restriction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvain
Let me compare to Triple Triad decks. A deck has 5 card slots available. At maximum progression, you're allowed a single 4 or 5 star card and any number of 3 or lower star cards. This means you can have 5 1 star cards or could also have 1 5 star card and 4 3 star cards.
The same would be in place here. You'd get a total of for example 10 trait slots to fill with traits. But you'd only be able to have say, 2 Role Traits equipped at once and 1 Job Trait equipped. Meaning you'd fill in the remaining 7 spots with the Global traits.
People often claim this, but I recall several iterations of talent trees that had multiple different builds that would work. Classic to WotLK WoW had many times where there was deviations possible. Rift has had pretty diverse talent systems (Outside Tanking which often had core tanking talents in specific trees... Such as "Don't get critted by enemies" and that kind of garbage that shouldn't exist in the first place)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvain
Ehh... I find the post-Pandaria WoW talents pretty lacking. My experience with them are that they're very much catagorized by the worst of Talent designs. Where there will be some talents that are obvious best picks and others that are "The choice doesn't matter, they all suck"Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvain
With only one specific talent choice that I can recall though all the expansions that was actually GOOD. Which was when Death Knights could pick between Blood Rune, Runic Empowerment and Runic Corruption during Pandaria.
Statistically Blood Runes > Runic Empowerment > Runic Corruption. However, they were so close as to be marginal at best (Like talking 0.01% DPS variance) and so the option was heavily driven by personal preference for the style of resource regeneration.
Blood Runes meant you had to manually control your generation, using an action to turn fully depleted runes into Death Runes (The best kind as they worked as any type). It would provide the most Death Runes for you over time but the cost is you having to constantly manage them.
Runic Empowerment was passive and it would randomly proc one of your fully depleted runes to become available again. This would grant the second highest amount of overall runes, but could be awkward due to trying to game them (I.e. Not spending a certain type of rune so you get more of the type(s) you want) as well as de-syncing your 2 rune cost abilities.
Runic Corruption was another passive and it would proc temporarily increased regeneration. It gave the lowest number of runes on average, but it would keep all your runes in sync as well as boost up all 3 types of runes. This meant it gave you the most consistent rotations as you'd keep just regenerating them in the same groupings you spent them.
Outside of this specific scenario, much of the new school WoW talents have been pretty poorly designed.
While their old more sophisticated talent trees were a lot better, they just needed some extra attention. I.e. To stop certain talents from being just flat out superior to other options. As well as reducing the whole "I need to put 5 points into this otherwise it sucks" thing. But they had quite a lot of variations. Like, beyond the builds where you just took most (If not all) the talents in a particular tree and splashed out remaining points into the best out of the remaining 2 trees, you had things like PoM Pyro (Mage that went Arcane to get some boosts to spell damage and access to Presence of Mind (Essentially Swiftcast) and then went Fire to get damage and Pyroblast (10 second cast massive damage nuke)) Frostfire (Mage going into both Fire and Frost trees and using Frostfire Bolt to benefit from both), WotLK DK's that could do anything in any build (Tanking, 2h DPS and DW DPS as either Blood/Frost/Unholy), Rogues that would go down a tree for a specific skill and then fill out a different one for the main focus (Such as grabbing Cold Blood but then getting utility from Combat. Or grabbing Haemorrhage and then focusing on Combat for damage), Warlocks mixing Affliction or Destruction to boost their personal damage while Demonology focused etc.)
But I digress.
If the options are well made, then they would be good additions to the game. There exists some good examples of talent systems that offer decent choices. Some that are close but have some "Must have" options that need a bit more balancing.
I feel as though FFXIV could come up with a good iteration with decently designed traits. -
03-05-2019, 08:52 AMCetonis
I don't quite see the relation this has to Role Actions, other than the notion of a selection scheme. The closer analogue is the PvP traits.
Clearly SE is strongly opposed to anything resembling talents, for reasons we've all heard. If they ever do though, I'd agree with Sylvain that they wouldn't just position it as an open-ended pick 3-of-10 list of some sort, or a tree or anything like that.
Limiting it to a series of choices between two or three options would be easier to balance, it'd be more controlled so that SE wouldn't need to worry about how bad the worst case selections are, and it'd be more plausible to make every option relevant.
Considering how wary they are about the whole thing, I'd expect a this-or-that setup to be way more likely for these reasons. And really, they'd probably only do it if they felt so pressed for new endgame rewards that they needed to add a whole separate progression system besides tomes/gear. -
03-05-2019, 02:28 PMDualgunnerI mean, first off you can't "design around meta" unless there were only 8 classes to choose from. Meta is an entirely player-made construct. It's short for metagaming, a tactic players use in order to get the most out of their character / class. All developers can do is try and balance the game so that a player-made meta doesn't vastly outstrip non-meta playstyles, which I think XIV has done to a reasonable degree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
Secondly, like it or not, decisions like this need to take the high-end endgame into deep consideration, because any and every chance will affect them the most. From there you also have to consider trickle-down, because people innately try and copy what successful people do.
TL;DR:
I disagree, balance changes should always be made with endgame in mind, because outside of that endgame, balance doesn't matter. -
03-06-2019, 02:59 AMKabooaThis doesn't mean some of the design can't be for fun, like the silly traits that don't really matter. Ninja Movement speed and fall damage for example. Major choices like fundamental action changes, sure, but I don't think anyone is going to point out Dragoon unlocking a High Jump trait for your basic jumping as problematic, unless multi-elevation encounter arenas where that matters becomes a thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dualgunner
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03-06-2019, 04:43 AMKaliseYou absolutely can.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dualgunner
While metas are predominantly player made, they can be influenced by designs pretty heavily.
For example, if you create a class like say... Dragoon, whom has a monopoly on a Piercing debuff that enhances the damage of all piercing damage against targets with 100% uptime. Then you've pushed the "Meta" towards something wherein if predominantly Piercing based damage dealers are used (I.e. BRD or MCH) in a significant way, then you incentivise also having a DRG in the party too for this debuff that boosts their damage.
Same could be said if BLU was able to group with people with their Peculiar Light, you'd push a meta where you focus on having a lot of Magic damage to capitalize on the massive debuff from Peculiar Light.
Meta's are heavily based around skill interactions.
With them also then being secondarily influenced by misconceptions and/or distorted opinions. (I.e. You could have 3 options for a "Talent" and one of them could be 0.001% more DPS than the others and so someone who did the math would say that statistically, that talent is numerically superior. But then this would be distorted into someone interpreting it as "That talent is best" thus causing the meta to focus around the notion that that talent is the only viable one and the other 2 are trash. Since, people are idiots)
Balance should be made with endgame in mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dualgunner
But meta =/= endgame.
For example, the current meta has magical DPS like BLM, SMN and RDM as non-viable. Along with selfish DPS SAM.
Yet, you look at top parses for content and literally every party has at least 1 of those classes in the party. With sometimes having popular meta picks like DRG and NIN being left out completely.
If balance was done entirely around meta, BLM, SMN, RDM and SAM would get massive buffs and/or DRG/NIN/BRD would get nerfs. But this would shift the actual balance of endgame quite dramatically because the meta isn't actually accurate and is simply just more popular (Likely because it has stayed pretty much the same for years and meta's don't tend to shift outside some significant wake up call that has people making a big impact with "Off-meta" compositions, to which top parses doesn't accomplish because only complete nerds care about that sort of thing) -
03-06-2019, 05:44 AMDualgunnerThere's a lot to sift through here and I don't have time to do it right now, but...no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
As of right now, every job in this game is viable. For all content up to and including Ultimate. Every job, even Black Mage (though that takes a particular level of skill) can complete Ultimate. Also, one of the jobs you listed as non-viable is actually currently meta, the Summoner, with Machinist getting edged out last tier (really, endgame alphascape) because of how much more powerful buffs made them. -
03-07-2019, 07:32 PMKurandoWhere do you get this information, SMN has been a viable pick since it got massive changes about a year ago (I forget the exact patch). It went from being clunky to use to kicking ass and taking names, BLM and RDM on the other hand is really down to party leader preference but they definitely are accepted more than SAM at the very least.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
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03-08-2019, 06:01 AMKhalithar
I think it's time for the role actions to be scrapped and the toolkits of the jobs to be re-evaluated and revamped.
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03-09-2019, 07:48 AMGrimoire-M
I'd rather keep role actions, but have a split between mandatory actions that we should always have access to and situational actions that we like to have in specific instances. Most of the CC popping up all over the place really should be in the latter. I don't see why you can't have Esuna in there as long as there's a slot available for it that doesn't conflict with something important like Lucid Dreaming.
Some class actions really should be in the role action list, like Tempered Will and Manaward. Both would benefit their respective roles massively.
On the other hand Protect should be removed from the role action list with gear getting a slight tweak to account for it. Ideally in the form of boosting accessory defenses. Protect should become a WHM exclusive mitigation tool available early on in ARR.
For Diversion I'd also like to see it removed entirely and instead tanks get buff for using Shield Lob/Tomahawk/Unmend in tank stance that grants a massive aggro boost for a similar period (and would persist even if you swapped out of tank stance too), making them all the standard snap-aggro opening tool. PLD would get a higher multiplier specifically to make up for having weaker overall burst generation. That isn't to say I don't care about fixing aggro issues on physical dps, but it'll come in the form of giving Invigorate the same treatment as Lucid, halving your aggro on use in addition to TP. Refresh/Tactician are likely getting merged too and with the above in mind the aggro cut can be removed on the new skill that replaces them. -
03-09-2019, 08:15 AMSeraph522I agree with most of your points except this one. I like having Diversion as an easy means to ensure enmity never climbs too high, especially because it's very easy to use and doesn't interfere with rotations for the most part (pop pre-pull, pop again when it comes off cooldown). More specifically, it's the only enmity mitigation tool RDM has that can be reserved solely for enmity management, as we have to rely on Lucid for MP regen. It would also mean Lucid is the only enmity management ability available to casters, as none of them have job-specific enmity abilities right now. I'm also hesitant to remove too many aggro management tools from DPS, because I like the idea of everyone contributing to each role, even if in small ways: tanks help healers by mitigating damage and DPS by doing damage, healers help tanks through protection abilities and healing and DPS by doing damage, and DPS help tanks by managing their aggro and healers by doing mechanics well. Removing Diversion would just encourage the "I don't need to manage my enmity, that's the tank's job!" crowd, and that's rather unfair to tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
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03-09-2019, 02:27 PMGrimoire-MThere are a few problems with these sentiments:Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraph522
1) The only effective time to use Diversion is in the opener.
Mid-fight Lucid is way better at handling your aggro, massively so, because it cuts all the aggro you've generated so far in half, including on subsequent uses. Popping Lucid about a minute into the fight (typically 45s due to the next reason below) is about equal in value to Diversion in the opener. And only gains in value for each use afterward.
2) Diversion disrupts DPS openers if you actually wanted to use it for full value.
Diversion is 90% reduction for 12-16 GCDs assuming you were popping it right before starting the fight or in the first GCD you use, in practice it's way less than that on some classes because of what they need to do pre-pull. RDM specifically misses about 5-6 seconds of it. In most cases you can't use it in an ideal manner to achieve that in the opener that doesn't disrupt your oGCD rotation in some way, making it absolute garbage.
3) Diversion isn't going to magically fix bad players or systemic issues.
Any DPS complaining that the tank isn't doing their job on aggro past their levelling experience is usually not doing their job to begin with and is likely in a roulette which doesn't really matter. I've used both of those buttons in dungeons every pull and still can rip aggro despite that. Why? Because of gear disparity, and I've seen healers rip aggro off of tanks just as easily for similar reasons.
4) Giving tanks more aggro out of a tool they already want to use is more intuitive and less disruptive. Aggro is a tank-specific mechanic. Tanks should have to care about aggro.
Shield Lob and the like are already used for pulling mobs. This change actually ensures its available every single pull. Having to pop it again mid-fight isn't an issue for most people learning in tank stance while undergeared. Circle Shirks and tank swaps are already covered. Only PLD and DRK lose out, as both would need their tank stance up to take advantage of this and thus need to clip their GCD, which works fine for dungeons but sucks in aggro-reset situations for them specifically. All tank stances should be oGCD based anyways. From a Savage perspective the tools non-tanks have for the most part can enable tanks to pull in DPS stance (though it's most often the WAR in tank stance because of Unchained specifically getting around the problem) which is not okay. Tanks need to work for their aggro more in general, but giving them a tool to circumvent their problems in the opener specifically is far more efficient in terms of design space and in practical terms.
5) Any DPS that still has issues has been addressed by the Invigorate change I mentioned.
Melee DPS do not use Purification, Elusive Jump, or Merciful Eyes for aggro reduction unless they absolutely have to. NIN has Shadewalker to literally donate their aggro to a tank. They all lack a mid-fight way to deal with aggro that doesn't disrupt their rotation in some way (MNK/SAM lose damage, DRG is literally put out of melee range) apart from NIN, meaning they really should get the aggro cut Lucid has to deal with it. Hence the Invigorate change. It solves the problem in a much better way than Diversion or their personal options ever will, and using those options is a necessary evil in the interim. Don't even get me started on BRD/MCH. Their problem is the lack of Diversion in the opener, which is also addressed with the tank change I offered.
In your case with RDM, I can only assume you're not using Lucid on cooldown or early enough if you need to use Diversion more than once a fight. Find someone to Mana Shift early to get it rolling faster if you don't want to 'waste' MP, and never let it sit on cooldown after the fact. You'll be fine if you can get through the first melee combo. And if you can't for some reason, check your tank's gear.
There are classes that need better aggro tools, but they're not DPS, they're healers, and of them only one is an actual issue right now. WHM has no real aggro-reduction or cut tool aside from Lucid but has some of the highest aggro generating spells. Keep in mind AoE heals are like a 4-8x aggro boost since every enemy cares about who is getting healed but damage wise enemies only care about the damage dealt to themselves for aggro purposes. AST has free permanent aggro reduction in their Sects and Star doesn't generate any at all. SCH gets to split their aggro with their fairy. To me Thin Air & PoM would be good candidates for a Diversion-like effect that would benefit them in particular. -
03-09-2019, 11:52 PMKaliseWell, Role Actions just seems... Redundant when there are "Mandatory Actions". You literally may as well just incorporate them into each classes natural ability lists. That way, people will always have access to them even if they haven't realized you can go and pick them in your spellbook. Which is very similar to nowadays after the change for Jobs being able to have all 10 Role Actions equipped up from 5.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
You could then tweak their names and animations to fit each individual job if you really wanted (Though, I doubt that would ever be the case...)
The only notable difference would be the fact that Role Actions are weird and you keep them even when level sync'd...
To say nothing about button bloat, which is something of a concern when moving forwards with the game. Like, they've made a point about how they kind of really just want jobs to have 24 active skills to use (Which was especially notable with BLU design). Currently, all jobs have 24 active skills. Then a further up to 10 more Role Actions?
Many of the current Role Action skills that are seen as "Mandatory" can already be consolidated into already existing skills within jobs.
For example, does RDM really need Diversion and Lucid Dreaming? Or could their effects not be rolled into Displacement/Manafication? (Of course, adjusting Displacement so it's not an oGCD Potency skill that is wanted to be spammed on CD for DPS as well as being unusable when it's mobility is a disadvantage... To which something similar to a suggestion I made about BRD's Repelling Shot would work. Where it would do the movement when in melee range of an enemy but while at a distance it would provide enmity reduction)
There you've just got rid of 2 "Mandatory" role actions and thus 2 buttons.
Same thing with other skills, such as I've thought about Tank's ranged skills having the Provoke effect. So they would be oGCD skills (With no potency so they're not spammed for damage) that would put the user to top of the enmity list and give a boost of enmity alongside it. With a CD and significant resource cost to prevent potential abuse/nullification of enmity mechanics.
Another "Role Action" button is then dealt with.
This is why my suggestion in the original post was focused on Traits more so than Actions. Since, many of the Role Actions can just be incorporated into jobs kits, either as additional functionality on a skill or at worst just added as a new skill available to all jobs of a certain role (For example: Esuna. Though, even then, you could make the argument that Esuna could just be rolled into healers weak heals. Cure I, Physick and Benefic I. Given that they tend to not be used for actual healing once you attain the stronger heals of Cure II, Adloquium and Benefic II. I guess Swiftcast would be a better example for a Role Action that likely would necessitate an additional skill and can't be just folded into an existing one)
To say nothing about the issue with "Mandatory" picks in the first place (Which is the issue people have with my original suggestion, that meta will dictate "Mandatory" picks unless they're all fluff things) which makes their existence as a separate category of skills that have to be "Equipped" meaningless. -
03-10-2019, 04:19 PMGrimoire-MThe reason for the division between Mandatory Role Actions and Situational Role Actions is precisely because there are actions that should be available to each class within a Role that do not need to be altered or upgraded whatsoever. The Mandatory Actions could even be treated as if they were regular actions, being learned at specific levels, and always being accessible if you were at or above that level. The reason not to integrate them into every single kit is to cut down on a different kind of bloat. General Action Bloat, which matters more to developers than us, but also serves as a player shortcut.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
I could name 4-5 mandatory actions for each role as it is from the role action list alone. We used to have only 5 slots, and there was a goto set up for every single role at the time. The main reason they don't need to be in everyone's kit is to conserve design space for other actions that actually are unique. Many of the current Role Actions however are skills like Esuna, Crowd Control, knockback immunities, Peloton, and so on. These should be relegated to the Situational Role Action list, and actually make sense there because there number of combat situations where they are NOT useful far outweighs the ones where they are, purely because SE doesn't want to use them enough.
However, there are Role Actions that simply should always be available to their roles because the exact opposite is true. They are almost always required for content. Swiftcast(Raising, general caster mobility), Provoke/Shirk(tank swaps), Invigorate/Lucid Dreaming (A baseline form of resource generation and aggro reduction), Second Wind/Bloodbath/Drain (Personal defensive skills), Reprisal/E4E/Protect/Addle/Feint/Apoc/Pali/Erase/ManaShift/Goad/Tactician/Refresh (Role-based raid utilities). Meta certainly informs what these are but the Role Action 'meta' back when there were 5 slots was based entirely on what role actions are useful in the majority of combat situations to begin with. My proposal attempts to address both of these cases.
Likewise, there are justifications for skills that shouldn't be on the role action list despite being on every class in some cases. I'll try to address each of your examples.
For healer spells, every healer has a similar set of basic healing tools, but there are clearly ranges and mechanical tweaks those heals can be toned up or down within to balance their relative throughput across each healer pair. Just in the single target up-front healing spells Physick heals for less than Cure I which heals for a similar amount to Benefic I (10 more or 10 less depending on Sect). And SCH doesn't even have access to Cure/Benefic II equivalent thanks to specific fairy cooldowns and mechanics filling a similar space. This is done to encourage SCH to DPS when paired with a co-healer but still give them a cheap option for healing when they absolutely have to.
I'd argue the same is true for tanks and their self mitigation. The difference is SE decided that Rampart/Anticipation/Convalescence/Awareness should be in every single tank's collective cooldown pool and should have the same effect for all of them, and thus I'd argue if they feel that's important then they should be put into a Mandatory Role Action list to serve as a common reference point. A similar logic would apply to all healing spells if they were the exact same. Since they're not, mechanically speaking, they deserve to be seperated.
Aesthetics don't matter in this particular discussion aside from noting that SE could try to code in different animations depending on the job you pick for these mandatory actions in order to make them more distinct. Raises and the Ranged Tank Pull GCDs would all benefit from being one singular button, but they're not currently. We don't need 5 Raise equivalents, yet we have them anyways. The only reason Raises aren't is because BLM isn't allowed to have one and the levels they're all learned at are spread across different expansions. I could see adding them into the Mandatory Role Action List for every single class if not for RDM.
That isn't to say I don't think certain role actions need to be pulled out of the role action list either. They can be present in individual kits, but they have to add something unique in addition to their baseline effect to justify seperating them. For example, Largesse for healers. Divine Seal was one of the things that gave WHM an edge over the other two healers previously, and I don't see any reason why it had to go away. Restoring that I think would be fine. AST could use a similar ability to it for sure, but adding another effect, such as temporarily swapping their Sect for the same duration, to justify having it as a class action. SCH has Dissipation already, giving it a clear drawback and cementing the idea that they're not supposed to rely on their raw GCD heals where possible, but they can do so in certain situations, with a cost. DOing all of that allows Largesse to be removed.
For your RDM example specifically, you're completely off base on that one. Don't tie in effects you want to use on abilities that actively make them harder to use with no compensation for it. We even have an equivalent already in the game to point to as a counter example, Dragoon and Elusive Jump. Dragoon would rather stay in melee range but would appreciate having the ability to cut their aggro in half without any positioning restrictions, on top of the issue of some arena fights do not leave the player enough room to use the ability at all. RDM and Displacement follow similar logic. Both classes would be better served by having aggro reduction on Lucid Dreaming and Invigorate respectively. This is different from the Dissipation example above because in these cases we're assuming there are no alternative ways to get around the problems these abilities are trying to address (Halving Aggro for Displacement/Elusive Jump, and healing for Dissipation).
I don't feel Role Traits are even necessary for this purpose. Either you have the ability you want or you don't. If it needs an upgrade it will get one when it needs to. And there aren't any particular traits that need to be added that fit that mould. You mentioned stat traits but that's literally what items and the old stat-point system were for and it was complete garbage. Everyone's going to figure out and pick the optimal stat/ability combination for any given situation regardless of what you do. If you accept that there's always going to be a 'meta' you can then utilize that to inform your design decisions. It's a lot easier think of design decisions that shape that 'meta' experience into what you actually want it to be and streamline the experience with little drawback. In the case of WoW's talent trees, new and old, there was almost always an optimal way to set your talents. People eventually made sims to figure it out, but it was always there. I could see the benefit to maybe changing up situational role actions in some manner but I guarantee everyone will opt for the shortest cooldown oGCD abilities without other balancing factors playing a role (such as adding damage, that messes everything up), so it's ultimately not worth it in the end. We only even tolerate it on items because it's the only reward option we really have. -
03-10-2019, 06:41 PMKaliseBut again... What is the difference of having additional General Actions and having Role Actions that you automatically learn exactly like General Actions?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
With them becoming General Actions, you have possibilities to actually rework or otherwise alter various General Actions to incorporate the mandatory Role Actions with a net reduction in button bloat while also making some of the "Useless" or more niche General Actions better.
Meanwhile it's very easy to simply cull the non-mandatory skills that are deemed useless altogether.
I mean, you talk about how Traits would simply lead to picks based on meta, but that's literally what Actions do, which you stated too. Just, with the addition of having additional button bloat on top.
Role Actions are actually pointless as a mechanic as it stands and is actually detrimental to players. Since either the skill is mandatory and so you just artificially increase the number of buttons necessary to play the job, or the skill is useless or niche in which case it either may as well not exist, or it may take up button real estate for the 0.01% of the time when it's actually useful. At no point is this either good game design nor an interesting system.
I'd rather see Role Actions just go away entirely than see them continue to exist in their current, pointless state. Thus, just giving all the "Mandatory" skills to jobs as General Actions, if not reworking existing skills to incorporating them. Like, there's no reason that all Casters couldn't simply just learn Swiftcast at the appropriate level in addition to their normal skill progression.
As such, I thought it might serve an interesting replacement for the Role Action system, which has potential to be actually interesting design, if it would still enable some form of character customization (Something sorely lacking in FFXIV what with gear options being lacking and Materia being completely dull due to how its effects are literally just +stats with the only actually part that makes a difference being when at BiS levels of gear being able to focus on stat breakpoints instead of just blindly melding towards optimal stat weights)
If an alternative to Role Actions cannot function in a good way, I'd be happy with just seeing the system in its entirety just be removed completely. But I'm not quite ready to rule out alternatives just yet, hence this thread asking people's ideas about alternatives including my own tentative idea surrounding optional Trait selections. -
03-11-2019, 07:07 PMGrimoire-MWhat's the point of having Actions on each class list that do the exact same thing then? It's arbitrary from both perspectives at a first glance, but the difference between having the same exact button in the Role Action list as a Mandatory Action is it saves 2-6 buttons that all need individual icons and reference points in macros and the translator chat function. I've already explained to you that you need to justify splitting the actions into each class and gone through the nuances to justify what works and what doesn't. You have to justify adding them into each class as individual skills if you want to discard the system. And if they're similar enough people will just use what they find most convenient to describe them anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalise
The Situational Actions are on SE to make use of. If they don't want to use stuns/silences and so on because of what I assume was bias from Gordias Savage (there was a lot in that tier that got shafted by the fact they screwed up the numbers badly) that's on their raid design team for not figuring out a way to communicate that that CC is needed. And given they added a Raid Action button to the list I'm guessing they're gonna abandon it in favor of more Raid Action buttons anyways. Personally I'd rather they just give everyone a basic Silence/Stun/Root/Knockback and so on with appropriate names for each role and moved on, but I don't expect them to.
As for customization, this game already lets you level every class. That's supposed to fill that niche. I'd rather they actually fine tune classes and hone in on the problems have had with them and go and alter their gearing system to enable people to farm BiS gear for every single class on patch if they wanted so they can try a different class in Savage/Ultimate without having to make and gear up nearly a dozen alts. At the end of the day a talent tree where you choose between 'buff/burst cd/AoE' or 'good stat/bad stat/okay stat' doesn't actually mean anything unless SE actually wanted to put in the effort to make those things work, and based on interviews with Yoshi-P, they don't. The best we can expect is that they will learn from Role Actions and not abandon it entirely, as removing it is a step backward. -
03-11-2019, 08:37 PMKaliseBut it doesn't?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
You literally can have literally Swiftcast literally learned by all magic jobs literally as is, at the relevant level.
It just now appears in the "General Actions" and is auto-learned upon reaching said level.
No need to rename, reicon, reanything.
Just put the sodding skill in with the jobs skills.
This isn't rocket surgery, we don't need to make Swiftcast be called SUPERMEGAPIXIEMAGICFASTCAST with a twinkling fairy icon for Scholar, just give them Swiftcast literally as it currently exists.
Unless you feel the need to alter said ability for said job in some way.
Or if you feel you can alter an existing ability to fit the effect on. Like, how much does a Warrior actually need Convalescence as a separate skill to say, Thrill of Battle could you not just combine the two effects into ToB?
But that's not class customization.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
That doesn't let me make changes to make my SAM feel different to another persons SAM based on personal preferences.
Like, ideally there'd be a situation like BLM, where basically every stat is more or less equally weighted so you can go full SpS, full Crit, full DH or some variant in between and all are equally viable and the choice is based on personal preferences and ping.
However, that is basically a unicorn in balancing, especially given how many systems interact (I.e. Crits generate more LB gauge than other hits for example. Also, crit as a stat not only increases crit chance but also the multiplier to damage that crits give.) that funnel players into these strict stat weights that you basically blindly follow until you reach a point where you're able to start messing with fine tuning breakpoints.
Just saying "Play another class lel" doesn't quite do that. Especially when you also consider how classes play into the meta too. Like, people don't want to run with SAM's or MNK's in an idealized team they want DRG's and NIN's so if I was wanted to play NIN but wanted to get some slightly shifted gameplay just saying "Lel go play another job" doesn't work because then I'm not only having a completely different gameplay but also then subject to how valued that new job I decide to play is within the meta.
Literally this is like when people complained about having to level other classes to get cross class skills and just saying "Lel, just play another class instead" -
03-11-2019, 10:00 PMShurrikhan
I'll be honest, I don't see how these choices wouldn't quickly become just as predefined for us as when we were limited to 5 Role Actions from 10, if not worse. I would much rather see Role Actions removed completely, with each job having their own unique means of access to the necessary functions Role Actions would have provided.
And, frankly, we don't need to need -- not a typo -- things like Invigorate or Lucid Dreaming or even Diversion. The contexts for those skills can be shifted to render each redundant without any loss to gameplay; hitting a button every couple minutes as if by an auto-clicker didn't exactly provide any gameplay to begin with. Provide the effective MP per minute via base mana generation instead, with a faint bump to on-rez MP. At present they're just design bloat. With sensible changes to design, they'd be bloat in every possible way.
That's not to say that customization isn't possible, however. While, as I've mentioned to you before, I see it either (1) as a last resort by which to widen the base of players a given class, job, or spec may attract or (2) as a feature solely of character progression and world-building, it can still work. But, it needs more hand-crafted (so to speak) packages of effects within its choices. It musn't be nit-picked for direct gains in X or Y output; it needs to be based around broadly usable, but integrally thematic utilities. Choose <Advanced Turrets> or <Advanced Armaments> or whatnot for MCH, with some umpteen effects therein that can be balanced by combination into a real fight setting -- with mostly the same capacity but in a very different form -- rather than merely this bit of extra mitigation or that bit of extra damage (since that would almost always exclude all but the damage choice). -
03-11-2019, 10:17 PMShurrikhanWhat difference does it make to button bloat if a cleanse is called Esuna on one list, Leeches on another, and Exalted Detriment on a third? For all other issues, the solutions are still simple:Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
1. Make this game's macro system actually decent, including the ability to use
2. Function-calls, such as "Cleanse" (for all abilities which Cleanse).
The latter issue is already present. I don't need to be Esuna'd, per se. I need someone to get the DoT off me. I do not care if that happens via The Warden's Paeon, Erase, Esuna, or Leeches or ED. I need it {Cleanse}d.
And as for the individual icons, I would honestly rather time spent on my Shadowskin name, icon, and animation than have to use the completely aesthetically incongruous Rampart on a Dark Knight. "Saving" that kind of time is not a ingenious decision, no matter how badly design elsewhere resorts to copy-pasta in the actual effects of those skills; it's just shorting a class's aesthetic. The next step for that is to literally just make fewer job skills in general as long as one such skill exists anywhere in the role. I find it really hard to believe that anyone would be okay with all getting the same new skill in an expansion among healers, tanks, or dps, which is why it still confuses me that people somehow thought it was worth the development time necessary to undo the development time of separate icons, names, and animations for shared effects. -
03-14-2019, 12:23 AMtdb
The old cross-class skill system was interesting because it gave you a reason to level other classes and you had to actually put some effort into getting the skills. Heck, back when I started playing a month before Stormblood I still had to level ACN to Lv15 in order to access WHM and I found that to be an interesting mechanic. Sadly I don't see the game moving back in that direction.
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03-14-2019, 02:41 AMCallinonExcept it wasn't actually interesting at all. You HAD to do that to be effective, there was nothing interesting about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by tdb
Leveling ACN to 15 to unlock WHM is fine, but the people that had to level DRG to 34 for Blood for Blood (or Invigorate, can't remember which it was) or PLD to 46 for Awareness certainly sucked.
If you want an interesting cross class system, I'm all for that. But the original system created absurd secondary requirements to playing the jobs people wanted to play. -
03-14-2019, 04:58 PMGrimoire-MIt saves making three separate macro slots for the exact same button. See Raise Macros. Individual button count per class hotbars isn't affected, but it's still bloat. And Warden's Paean can save the need for all three anyways. I literally did that so our SCH could take Protect in that slot and still handle the ghost in O5S prog. And it at least warrants a different treatment because it's functionally different from the other 'Cleanse' effects, even if the mechanical output is the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Call me jaded but given the Dev team's track record I expect nothing to happen regarding macros at all in the next 5 years. We'll be lucky if we see more shifts towards active mitigation for tanks and some proper healer rebalancing in Shadowbringers. The button consolidation is all but mandatory now sure, but I could see them adding more buttons still because there is room for it still. I wouldn't be opposed to what Kalise proposed, specifically the bit where Swiftcast is added to every caster's class list instead. That would be fine, so long as it was treated at least similarly to Disciple of Hand actions and kept the same name and similar base animations/particles on each class. That's where the mandatory stuff would go, and the Role Actions Tab would be renamed to Situational Actions. However, I do not see them splitting actions up again by name without some major kit reworks to justify it. There simply isn't a good reason for them to keep similar baseline actions split if they can afford to keep them together. The only reason I think the Mandatory/Situational Role Action split would happen is because they're more likely to keep everything on that tab. We still have Eye For An Eye and Peloton despite both being long overdue for removal (not that E4E isn't good, but RNG is still RNG). Break exists purely because of one savage fight it saw use in.
I agree, they're going to have to trim something, my hope is they give everyone access to all CC and party/ally mitigation utilities and go back to 3-5 slots for Role Actions so every comp can have access to that situational stuff in general. But in terms of the abilities that each role actually needs? That I expect to be kept as close to the way it is now as possible. -
03-14-2019, 05:18 PMShurrikhanI don't think the game can afford not to see improvements to its macros unless it provides similar quality of life improvements to all that a good macro system could. The haphazardness of the game's underlying designs will only get more apparent with time while the benefits for such improvements only get larger.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
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03-16-2019, 04:47 AMdeadman1204Honestly, Macro usability should be VERY VERY low in button design. The game doesn't require macros, so they should always be a secondary thought. I would guess you are in a small minority that wants all class skills/names/buttons to be the same for macroing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
Note - I'm not saying your wrong, but your proposed changes would take alot of the flavor from jobs which affects everyone to make macroing easier for a few. -
03-24-2019, 06:44 AMGrimoire-M
I prefer synergistic mechanical flavour to flashy animations. SE already has the latter on lockdown, they don’t need to convince me that they can go full Micheal Bay. It’s the former they’re lacking, in spades. If they’re not going to actually make their systems interesting I don’t see the point in wasting the space on buttons that could be spent on distinct abilities elsewhere.
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03-24-2019, 07:18 AMCallinonBut what does that mean to you? Plenty of jobs have abilities that synergize with each other and with other jobs. So you must mean something different from what's currently there?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
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03-24-2019, 09:40 AMShurrikhanTo be fair, what's there amounts to very little, gameplay-wise. We occasionally choose who applies a debuff first, and very rarely delay skills that could potentially waste uses per fight from their normal CDs in order to fit to raid debuff. Because we can always just push for more damage or fewer healing GCDs, few supportive (curative or mitigative) CDs are ever redundant or need to be rotated between the two providers, commonly lack the impact to meet new breakpoints if used alone, yet sync too haphazardly to be paired consistently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Callinon
We have synergy by numbers, but little that actually allows us new opportunities as to be visible in the gameplay itself.
Compare that to any MOBA or even a class-based shooter. Most good games in either genre have far more impactful synergies available. There's something to be said for feeling overly dependent on another class/hero, but there's at least for more interesting stuff in that direction.
Sadly, most of the difference probably comes down partly to bloat/perceived-impact but mostly to undermechanics. -
03-24-2019, 12:37 PMGrimoire-MYeah, you got it there. Synergies don't have to apply just to static cooldowns and raid buffs. It's just stacking multipliers based on their respective timing windows, after all. The optimal numerical option emerges naturally almost irregardless of what you want to do. And that is basically how 90% of the synergies in this game operate right now, even the ones I'm about to talk about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
I am referring more to interactions like Celestial Opposition extending Lucid Dreaming or Deployment Tactics and the Fairy, where individual parts of your own kit can come together to give you more, and you usually have to consider them if you want their full benefits. You can build whole classes based on manipulating portions of your own kit to achieve a stronger effect than the sum of their parts. Some classes that I feel do a better job at achieving this currently would be BRD/MCH/SMN for DPS, SCH for Healers, and DRK for tanks. A party example of this would be Bard and Dragoon synergizing with one another because of Crit Stacking on Bard specifically. Regardless, tiny examples of this do exist in all of them currently, just not to such a degree that it's meaningful.
It's also possible to add more interplay via anti-synergies as well. SCH has Dissipation and DRK used to have Dark Dance and still has DA-Dark Passenger, both of which don't work well with Blood Price. SMN achieves this rather accidentally via Bahamut and the Aetherflow lockouts, and MCH's interactions with skillspeed also are an example of this, the difference is the results come off as punishing and clunky, disrupting flow, but encouraging more forethought, which can be a good thing. In the case of DRK I would consider my cooldown sequencing a lot more because of those interactions. In the case of SMN? I'd rather focus more on Aetherflow/Bahamut itself than worry about timing Rouse properly. And I think that speaks to how I view their respective roles and the mechanics therein.
To give another analogy, compare it to Magic the Gathering:
- In general, should your class feel more like a value deck, an engine, or a combo deck? In other words, how much synergy do you want?
- All DPS would be aggro decks because of course they are. However, do you want your dps class to feel like a by the numbers Burn or Mill Deck? Or do you want them to feel like Affinity, or Merfolk?
- Do you want your healers & tanks to feel more like control, midrange, or tempo? All deal with pressure thrown at them in different ways but ultimately care about synergy differently because of it. Control would probably map best onto old style MMOs, where your focus is entirely spent on dealing with the encounter using your best value tools and proper use of those tools will secure you an inevitable victory. WoW would be closer to tempo, focusing on efficiently responding to an encounter with more limited tools that may or may not work well together but ultimately can't keep up with the encounter forever (whether due to enrage mechanics or simply not enough statistical power), Midrange is analogous to what we currently have in FFXIV, every tank/healer can respond to an encounter but also contributes a significant amount of DPS to help close it out. -
03-25-2019, 10:39 AMShurrikhanAhh, in that case I'm hesitant to agree without more specific parameters, since the quality of such synergies varies tremendously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
- I dislike being obliged to weave all my buffs into Celestial Opposition, almost to the point I'd rather cross-class skills not be affected at all and the duration of increase diminishes with each further, lower-value effect. (Yes, we do already have these tier orders, as shown from when OIP stripped buffs in a particular sequence in PvP.)
- I like stacking Mantra-Minuet-Convalescence-Defiance into a heal to be spread for far greater effect. If those were all my own skills I had to stack together, or if other options for those skills expense weren't competitive with the stacked use, however, I would not.
- I love the breakpoint-crossing synergies of things like Blood Weapon + Quietus in mass-AoE, though I wish the breakpoint was pushed to a sooner position and the reward past that breakpoint softened.
These, too, I'm fine with, depending on the parameters. The only thing that annoys me is when the kit seems balanced around the assumption that no anti-synergy would occur, despite the cost that would have on immediacy, burst (mitigation, in DRK's case) or CD-coverage over time. If truly balanced, I in some way like the forking paths caused by anti-synergy more than about half of our current examples of synergies, so long as they aren't hard counters to each other. This fit the aesthetic of DRK, because you knew that it would cost you something, but you often felt you had no choice, which just felt... properly edgy, and bursty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
And this is exactly how I proposed BLU should be able to create it's own skill arsenals, to the point of calling them "decks". And I generally agree, though in practice certain types of builds are contextually favored, often to the exclusion of all others. Thus a lot of design in XIV, so long as the game does not encourage having access to many different decks (jobs) and does not allow for their simultaneous progression (e.g. only one armor class progressable via weekly currencies and raid locks), will have to be tailored towards making the differences feel significant while in fact being insignificant in practice. We have our "all jobs on one character", yet far less freedom to progress multiple aspects at once at a competitive level than one does in almost any other MMO (wherein additional characters means additional sets of weekly lockouts), and for now we have to balance design around that inflexibility, even if it vastly diminishes identity or content variety.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M