FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

[Neptune]

Well said Val Rhys. You present some good critiques of the Armoury system. Feeling like you're being backed into a corner to level up multiple classes just to get to a conventional tank ability set is lame and something that crossed my mind too. I wondered if things would come to that and if the spastic FFXI community was any indication this would play out in FFXIV too. In XI there was a lot of pressure from the community to level up entire classes just to be the sub job for others. So in that sense nothing would have changed. And because that type of min/maxing is inevitable considering the amount of time on the hands of some people, it makes me not worry about it too much. I have always been more interested in figuring out how to play well within the niche I have, and I think I made some progress by not leveling THM up to cap and focusing on CON. I suppose it would be a good thing if some abilities were shuffled around somehow, but the concept of the Armoury system is to let you equip any ability and freely make your character - and I hope that doesn't change even if the shuffling does occur.

It's only two to three weeks out. If giving linkshell founders the ability to kick anyone from their shell regardless of distance or online status is "very hard", I really doubt completely revamping the revamp would happen in a month's time.

The job system isn't incoming in 2 to 3 weeks. Take a look at the producer's letter. It's not even scheduled to be implemented in current tasks for summer 2011.

[Val_Rhys]

I have always been more interested in figuring out how to play well within the niche I have, and I think I made some progress by not leveling THM up to cap and focusing on CON.

I completely agree with your sentiments there. Right now though, I don't feel like that will last long once difficult content is added. The min/maxing you mentioned is inevitable as the dev team either makes content difficult for the "optimal" character builds, or not.

Given how I feel, and talking at length with dedicated/veteran MMO players in my LS, I think the frustration we have now is spread across the few key points I mentioned before. My knee-jerk reaction was to simply scream "lock it down!" at the top of my lungs, but I absolutely agree that more could have been done to save this system. The problem is, the system felt so broken, and the feedback to the development team was likely so harsh, they too must have reacted rashly.

Without trying to beat very badly a dead horse, I still can't believe some of these design principles survived a dev team brainstorm session, let alone brought to full realization. Even a modicum of self-awareness could have brought the aspects of the armoury system you enjoy to a reasonable state. But they fell far short and are now moving to what they 'know' will work.