Why can't we have jobs with this level of depth and customization in FFXIV?

[Souljacker]

Ever heard of the expression "Rome wasn't built in a day"? Same thing applies to games. You don't toss out "complex" systems at release without the battle system going through the ropes. Just look at all the problems Warrior had at release.

Are you talking about ARR's release or the game's actual release? I guess ARR's, since warrior didn't exist. That's just another example of poor project planning, and no real testing phase. SE *should* be held accountable, and no one has ever expected them to fix everything overnight. In fact, many of us have patiently waited for YEARS for the game to even be playable, much less rich, challenging and complex.

No, the answer isn't to just stay quiet and make excuses such as "Rome wasn't built in a day" so SE can justify slacking off. The answer is to continue to offer suggestions, draw comparisons, and hope that someday the *right* dev will see the thread and that light bulb will go off in his\her head.

[Exstal]

There's been no hint there will ever be anything like this in XIV. But if we let the devs know it's something we'd like to see...

I'm sure there was a very small hint of Automoton when XI first launched in Japan as well. We can only hope it'll happen.

been about 4 years now. This games direction is pretty much set in stone.

Casual duty finder theme park with a bunch of one shot mechanics and a gear treadmill.

I didn't realize ARR was released for 4 years already. Boy, how time flies!

[Risvertasashi]

While Gilthas puts on a good point, I wish to add onto the social aspect of such options.

Diversity is neigh on impossible to maintain in a game culture that worships gleaning efficiency and uniformity in every conceivable aspect.

Take the Subjob system. A Job was expected to have a specific set of sub classes it was to use, and woe onto the player that experimented beyond the experienced norm. Same went for equipment or weapon usage. The use of Red Mage alone was a perpetual debate on even the smallest of party trash mobs.

Here, the roles, the flexibility and usefulness are clearly defined. The game gives you limits and bounds with a bit of flexibility of use but primarily maintaining a clear focus. The trade off is that every player can still play every class on a single character- a level of diversity and depth that is still lacking in most MMOs to date - something I feel players overlook.

I understand your and his points. But even in XI's subjob system, you usually have a few options, even if it's just 2~5, and more if you solo. Rather than everything being ironclad, and the only thing that really changes from fight to fight is when you strafe left or right to dodge mechanics while doing your rotation. Yes, some builds will be shunned, but even a couple options and configurations is better than none, IMO. And if it's something you can tinker with while solo or in the open world for nontraditional builds, that's something I think will be pretty neat as well.

[Redemption]

I've been hearing things, a LOT of things, about XI and the changes and let me tell you... The temptation is strong. It's really strong to give it another go and explore all the new things they have added.

Let me save you some time, SoA (seekers of adoulin) was the worst thing to happen to ffxi since abyssea. If you have some love in your heart for the ffxi of old, don't go back.

If this game turns anymore into XI its going to drop so many subs.

XI was just an awful game.

This game is literally so unlike ffxi its not even funny, and no it wasn't, it was the best MMO I have had the pleasure to play (and I have played 100s including almost all of the popular ones).

[Gilthas]

tl;dr Making heavily-customizable content for jobs is a large amount of man hours spent in design, followed by a large amount of man hours spent in rebalancing, with the end result of a job with effectively one 'real' build anyway, a build that SE will have to assume everyone is using when they make new fights. They could just do away with the middleman and make it with one build to start, and make that playstyle more interesting via other factors (see: stances, charges, pets, combos, etc)

Well, there's also the solution they used for several jobs in FFXI: assume that they'll never be used in endgame.

[Risvertasashi]

I'm sure there was a very small hint of Automoton when XI first launched in Japan as well. We can only hope it'll happen.

No. We can do more than hope. If enough people agree, we can let the devs know it's something we would like to see happen.

[Gilthas]

Are you talking about ARR's release or the game's actual release? I guess ARR's, since warrior didn't exist. That's just another example of poor project planning, and no real testing phase. SE *should* be held accountable, and no one has ever expected them to fix everything overnight. In fact, many of us have patiently waited for YEARS for the game to even be playable, much less rich, challenging and complex.

No, the answer isn't to just stay quiet and make excuses such as "Rome wasn't built in a day" so SE can justify slacking off. The answer is to continue to offer suggestions, draw comparisons, and hope that someday the *right* dev will see the thread and that light bulb will go off in his\her head.

Well, it's easy for the couch battle system designers to point fingers and call developers lazy.

[Hyrist]

No, the answer isn't to just stay quiet and make excuses such as "Rome wasn't built in a day" so SE can justify slacking off. The answer is to continue to offer suggestions, draw comparisons, and hope that someday the *right* dev will see the thread and that light bulb will go off in his\her head.

Or the light-bulb can come on in yours and you can realize that perhaps you are not the target audience SE is hoping to reach. And that those of differing tastes are not lesser people or gamers for it.


Square Enix, nor FFXIV's development team in particular, are under no pressure to 'see the light' in this particular case. And it's a thinly veiled insult to believe that one set of design path is the 'correct' one, rather than stating one's own preferences and leaving it at that.

This by no means is encouraging you to be silent, but instead to be more respectful when you're providing feedback, and attempt to see matters beyond your own viewpoint.

Providing ideas that appeal to you is fine, but be aware when those ideas may not fit within the vision of the game itself or the ideals of other groups of its players. There are plenty if people that have provide concise feedback as to why such level of depth has, thus far, been discouraged by the development (And they have not hidden that fact, they have repeatedly explained their philosophy of a simplified combat system that makes more use of existing skills rather than flooding a skill menu.).

There comes a point when you have to realize that perhaps you have a impasse of design philosophy, and then decide whether or not that impasse is going to prevent you from remaining a subscriber.

Asking for this level of complexity in a game that values a minimalist approach, on my observations, seems to be clashing that impasse intentionally.

I understand your and his points. But even in XI's subjob system, you usually have a few options, even if it's just 2~5, and more if you solo. Rather than everything being ironclad, and the only thing that really changes from fight to fight is when you strafe left or right to dodge mechanics while doing your rotation. Yes, some builds will be shunned, but even a couple options and configurations is better than none, IMO. And if it's something you can tinker with while solo or in the open world for nontraditional builds, that's something I think will be pretty neat as well.

I understand this concern. However, for me I feel that such aspects at this, infant level juncture of the game (Do not count FFXIV 1.0 as a point in history, the game was reconstructed neigh completely only barely reusing assets that saved them development time. Most of the game was scrapped or re-coded.) only a year in, I can't expect that depth to truly grow so quickly. ToAU was multiple years into FFXI's development.

My desire as far as increase of depth comes from the Job system template we have in Arcanist. Skills we have are utilized in differing methods providing new directions for existing mechanics. Pretty clearly I can see portions of the Lancer Class that could be used, with some tweaks, to construct Lancer into a Tank, which I would love to be able to do.

As far as - off beat builds. FFXIV does what FFXI dared not to - allow skills to be exchangeable with classes on a singular basis. Nothing but peer pressure prevents a player from making an off-beat build by cherry picking class skills available to them at the sacrifice of Job Mechanics. Gearing would be the biggest difficulty forseeable in that aspect, and even then, there are a wider array of options than players notice.

The vast majority elect to overlook these methods for the very reason why a varied system would be a poor idea - efficiency. So the design challenge is creating a system that allows viable variance in classes. And if the developers follow through with their Class/Job idea, with a bit of refinement, I can see it working out quite well.

[Souljacker]

Well, it's easy for the couch battle system designers to point fingers and call developers lazy.

Where in my post did I call anyone lazy? I said they don't get a free pass to slack off just because some folks think sticking a new title on a game resets the clock. If anything, now is the time to work even harder. A major MMO has an expansion looming. Other major mmos are also gaining traction, and now is a critical time for SE to prove why XIV should get all those dollars. You like things the way they are? FANTASTIC. Congratulations, even.

I tend to take the long view of things, and without criticism and developers that actually listen to it, we have disasters like 1.0 was. You may not remember it. It sure sounds like you weren't around for it...

This by no means is encouraging you to be silent, but instead to be more respectful when you're providing feedback, and attempt to see matters beyond your own viewpoint.

I invite you to quote the part of any of these posts that was "disrespectful". You may not like what I have to say, and the truth sometimes hurts, but that doesn't make my posts "disrespectful".

[Risvertasashi]

Asking for this level of complexity in a game that values a minimalist approach, on my observations, seems to be clashing that impasse intentionally.

Sadly, I do fear you're right. I really love FFXIV for a lot of things but the minimalism everywhere isn't one of them. However, I don't think it's necessarily as contradictory as you think. I think both audiences can reasonably be served. Even XI had its simple and straightforward jobs.

But that is why I wanted to open this discussion. If SE feels there's an audience to be served, and that they can do it without breaking their carefully designed setup... maybe, just maybe, we'll see something. I do think it's worthwhile to open these threads and have these discussions, even if SE eventually comes back with a firm "no." I'm sorry if you feel it's a waste of time.