A plea for 3.0 and beyond: Job Customization

[Morningstar1337]

Ultimately, a question like this boils down to how much you value balance. SE can theoretically offer customization (though none of the FF titles have featured much of it; in many ways, they shouldn't even properly be called RPGs), but doing so will guarantee that a degree of balance is sacrificed.

Yeah I'm gonna have to agree, a well balanced game and something like this seems mutually exclusive. I'm gonna compare and contrast this with two other SE titles:

• Final Fantasy XI: The precedent darling that everyone loves to compare to. The reason the game was so successful was (apart form not being WoW) the game offered a unique system (in part to the devs being total newbs when it came to MMO design) that allowed you to mix and match any 2 classes. However the balancing was so horrid that it lead to things being soloable in a very group oriented game and single classes like the infamous Ninja being misused. At also lead to things like NIN/RDM and other class comboes being preferred and anyone who deviated from those becoming shunned and derided as scrubs
• Bravely Default: This game also seems to have XI's job system (though it's likely that both cases were inspired from V), however it manages to balanced by making most of the jobs broken (Ninja has Utsusemi, Spiritmaster had Stillness, performer can build up BP allowing extra turns, Time Mage can do the same, Salve Maker can instill elemental weaknesses and exploit them as well get more potency with healing items and Conjurer can give massive buffs). That and the fact that its a Single-player game rather then an MMO means that there more options. However most of the jobs can still rip the game in two. BD has it's own take of crossclassing by using passive abilities from each job which is unfettered so a charater can have a Red Mage/Vampire with Hasten World or a White Mage/Black Mage with Katana Lore

In which case we got a MMO that left the balancing up to players a la Pokemon and a single player game that was balanced by being unbalanced, both were the result of the freedom to use 2 jobs at once, something more extreme than what the OP suggested but still proves that SE would have to be very careful in the unlikely scenario of them attempting something like this in XIV.

[Vhailor]

Yeah I'm gonna have to agree, a well balanced game and something like this seems mutually exclusive.

In fairness, I'm not sure I'd go quite that far.

FFXIV is arguably over-balanced right now, to the point where everything feels same-ish. Nobody wants balance to go away, but there can be a degree of customization allowed while maintaining a 'good enough' amount of balance. I absolutely think SE should take this path, too, as I explained in my original post.

Edit: I retract my point if you were specifically commenting on the OP's suggestion, in which case I totally agree.

[Miitan]

The reason why this won't work in FFXIV is because of the Trinity that Yoshi P loves so much and how the entire game is structured around ensuring that the Trinity is always kept to. They don't want tanks who can heal, they don't want dps who can heal, they don't want dps who can tank and the fact that healers and tanks can (semi)dps seems to be the elephant in the room when it comes to the Trinity, as if they're ok with some job roles intersecting, but not others.

You know what was fun? During the early days of ROG levelling, people were cross classing Physick and doing low level dungeons as ROGx4. Of course, the minute you turned into a NIN, you lost access to any interesting combinations as you were funnelled into your predefined role as a dps, and the bonus to stats from becoming a NIN meant that it just wasn't worthwhile to stay ROG.

[Razzle]

1.0 had fully customizable classes, you could basically equip ANY skill from the classes you lvled. (jobs didn't exsist then).

Players didn't stop whining to get rid of that customization because then you see parties require you to actually have some classes lvled *gasp*

So then SE removed it while on the way fan servicing the players and calling them WHM, BLM and PLD ( > . >

And that's the story behind how jobs were created. I don't see that change and if it will it will just cause more whining D:

[kaynide]

Just to play devil's advocate here: I have played games where customization was very wide and it created more confusion and general angst than anything else. Yes, in that game, the "Paladin" type job could spec up for DPS, but whenever there was a party/PUG situation there was nothing but confusion as to why the "Tank" thought they could play DPS when their job role was clearly tank.

It also created players who repeatedly would say "Well this is how I want to play the game" or "This is how my character is" (role play). It got really stupid really fast and, in those cases..even with the ability to go nuts we still ended up with the community expecting exact abilities or specs in line with the trinity system.

[Remilia_Nightfall]

things

Well, this could be simply fixed by adapting our three colors. If your PLD is specced for dps, let his icon go red instead of blue. Problem solved.

I am a HUGE fan of talent trees, and I would really like to see them implemented here in some way or another.

[Aylis]

I really wish we could get it back myself.

Deffo the same goes for me too, I'd love to see the game become interesting again and customization is what does it for me. It doesn't have to be even the mix and match system of 1.0 either. Talent trees, ability points to boost skill power, multi-spec, just...something.

I see a lot of 1.0 comparison's being thrown around and I dug out a couple of my old videos to show the old system vs the new system. To show how the world was balanced and offered a fair challenge vs the new system of facerolling simple.

Sirocco Pre 1.20 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUR-lPpEbsU

Sirocco at 1.20 when Yoshida started taking over - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOgtbwZ0-I

Both cases I won the fight though pre 1.20 I was more challenged and had to put the full use of my abilities to win and through it all still came a lot of very close calls. Not bad for someone who never played a FF MMO until XIV 1.0 huh? Versus 1.20 where it took me longer to buff myself then it took to win the fight >_>

Also I'd like to mention to the people that are worried about cross class abilities being far too over powered. In my first run all those cross classed THM and CON abilities functioned at maybe 3/10 'ths their full power cos I was set as lancer. My Cure 2 at level 49 functioned as a CON's Cure 1 if they were level 10

[ErikMynhier]

You know what would be cool.... If you could cross-class over traits from your CC jobs. Imagine in Jobs that do not need all their cross-class, or in jobs where you could get away with losing a few. We will have at least six in 3.0, I would love to give my Paladin Enhanced Foresight or Bloodshower.

[Alukah]

A big fat NO from me, sacrificing balance for an illusion of choice is a bad trade-off.

[Fayto]

I see "Choice is an illusion" as the weakest argument here

It is not a weak argument when it is the truth. Choice is nothing but a big illusion. It may appear like you have tons of choices but in reality you do not, the theory crafters took that away.