A plea for 3.0 and beyond: Job Customization

[Themis]

We had this in 1.0. Yoshi took it away because of his precious WoW holy trinity system. He wants things to be as simple as possible for new players, and that means no customization.

And it was incredibly unbalanced and complex.

And it has less to do with the trinity (which, by the way, isn't his and neither is it WoW's; it started with EQ) and more to do with the fact that ARR is designed for new gamers and MMO players which meant keeping things simple.

But the biggest problem with any kind of customisation system is that there is really only 1 customisation you are allowed to use if you want to join any kind of end game group. There are some players who can pull off unique and interesting choices but for the most part players prefer to look up the "standard" and go with that because they aren't the kinds of players who can understand and appreciate the subtleties of a game. Generally, it's an illusion of choice. Even with the simple cross class choices of ARR, it's very obvious that most of those "choices" aren't actually choices at all.

It's very difficult in an MMO to balance customisation and still have it be true choice. Single player games have it easier because your choices as a player do not affect anyone else. In an MMO, though, those choices directly affect the party you are with. So unless you play solo in an MMO (which isn't really how it works), then customisation is customisation in name only. Just like how having horizontal gear progression is also an illusion; there's still a best set for a given role/action.

[Renik]

While it's a good idea, it is also unviable due to the simplicity of the game, most battles rely a lot on the usage of certain skills, because of the 1shot mechanic system they use.

To improve the class/job system they have to improve the battle design first.

[Zumi]

You can't really have customization in a MMO you have the illusion of customization. In WoW you use to be able to pick like 70 talents from 3 different trees. Then the devs realized how bad it was because there was the illusion of choice because a min/maxer would come along and say these are the abilities and traits you need to pick to do max dps, healing, the best tank. Then if you didn't pick these 70 talents that were figured out to be mathematically the best you were considered a noob or bad. They just got rid of the whole system and went with something much simpler.

If they went with pick any 5 abilities from every class type system in FFXIV any dps who did not pick, raging strikes, blood for blood, internal release, mercy stroke, would be considered bad. That is at least 4 abilities perma locked. The same handfull of dps increasing abilities would be used on every dps job. If someone wanted to go for some kind of unique healing dps with cure and stoneskin they would get shunned and kicked form the group and people would be like why did you pick cure and not raging strikes.

[Songi]

While it's a good idea, it is also unviable due to the simplicity of the game, most battles rely a lot on the usage of certain skills, because of the 1shot mechanic system they use.

To improve the class/job system they have to improve the battle design first.

Definitely hoping they add something to the overall mechanics and battle system so this game doesn't become stale with the lack of gearing options and linear skill progression.

[Genz]

Sadly, you're not the first trying to bring this topic.

But you can't just allow skills to be shared and "tadaa~♪", you have customisation. FFXIV is very very unsuited to it (which is kind of paradoxical for a RPG), it would need heavy modifications (skills design, equipments design, battle design).
The devs don't even have the right "mindset" for it, as showed in the 2.4 patch note : they fear the idea of players doing something not planned, and thus added artificial limitations to classes in PvP.

[LandricFrey]

I understand how SE may be afraid to take chances after what happened with 1.0, but I think that playing it safe will only get you so far before things grow stale. This was in no way meant as a complaint thread, just a request to improve upon one of the very few gripes I have with this game that I enjoy immensely.

[Sylve]

If we had what the OP suggests, it'd only lead to situations like;
"looking for Tank, must be lvl 50 Warrior, Paladin, Monk and Dragoon with a minimum 35 WHM"

While i absolutely would love to be able to tweak the way i play my Monk, you'd only end up with 'cookiecutter' theorycrafted/SIM'd Job combinations that the community declares you simply MUST have in order to be in their groups. Oh, don't have the right class leveled? SCRUB get out of my party!

[fireslash]

more separation, and less mixing

[Jaykos]

Wow's glyph system would work to customize classes to a degree.

[fireslash]

Wow's glyph system would work to customize classes to a degree.

less things to grind,more separation and less mixing