Job Personalization: Can I Have It?

[Dhex]

Apparently some FFXIV players like a bland one-dimensional game and don't see the point in wanting anything more.

[Gilthas]

Apparently some FFXIV players like a bland one-dimensional game and don't see the point in wanting anything more.

And other players refuse to acknowledge the more than likely negative consequences of the things they want.

[Kallera]

And other players refuse to acknowledge the more than likely negative consequences of the things they want.

Wanting nothing is not a suggestion!

[Amiaze]

As I said in a similar thread, I'm all for this idea. I certainly didn't use the preferred WHM build during end-game content, and it benefited my party that I didn't. I'll use myself as an example later in this post.


That being said, why not implement a small instance to test the idea before bringing it to the game in full-force? The Wolves' Den PvP has been left in the dust, never to be touched again, because the devs saw that there was no way to balance it out. It was a small-scale test, and they carried what they knew into Slaughter and the larger-scale PvP instances so that they would work.

Give us something like that, perhaps 8 vs 8, where we can set our stats and skills the way we want based around a certain class, using gear designed specifically for the occasion. If it works, carry it bit-by-bit into the full game.

True, other MMOs have done this and it hasn't worked out so well, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't work here if implemented properly. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is one time where applying a limitation to the player (such as only having so many points to allocate to stats, or an absolute cap for a specific stat) would actually be a good idea, I think. That way, you could maintain some sort of balance.

Using myself as an example, I found that I liked a Spell Speed build with WHM better than a MND one. Granted, I was running in a static, but what I found was that my MND was high enough to heal my tank after he took things like Death Sentence or Ravensbeak, but my spells weren't going off fast enough if he happened to get a critical right after the initial attack. So I exchanged one or two Ironworks pieces for crafted gear. That brought my MND down a little bit, yes, but I was able to bring my Spell Speed way up. I could heal through huge hits way quicker and help the party recover from mechanical issues in a pinch without worrying about my cast bar loading too slowly. It made speed runs through dungeons incredibly easy, too. It also meant I could help DPS more often if we needed a push. Would this build be what everyone would want to use? No, of course not, but it worked very well for my parties.

As it stands now, item level requirements discourage players from doing this because crafted gear or alternative gear, even with stats somewhere in the realm of the top-tier gear at the time, simply because crafted gear has a lower item level. There's very little wriggle room when it comes to creativity with your gear sets. Sure, there are bound to be negative aspects to this, as there will be with virtually anything. But it's worth a shot.

On a side note, I wonder if reducing the item level requirement to enter certain dungeons/raids without reducing the difficulty would encourage players to be more creative with what they currently have? Or would it simply make them grind out the "optimal gear" more before going in?

[Gilthas]

Wanting nothing is not a suggestion!

And I didn't suggest that. I was directly responding to the passive/agressive post that was insulting players who acknowledge the glaring problems of specializations/customization.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion they more often than not have the tendency to pretend that everything will just be roses. What you want will bring about some obvious problems and it's perfectly reasonable for other players to oppose them.

[LandricFrey]

A good bit of discussion going on here. Thanks to everyone who have posted their ideas, concerns, and keeping things civil at the same time!

I'm still convinced that a game where everyone is the same, isn't as fun as it could be. Might as well have just three jobs one for each role so that it is balanced right? Of course not. Can it go too far and make things unbalanced? sure, but this isn't a serious pvp game, and if someone is OP, well that's just better for your group to complete content. There is no real challenge to MMO's, unless you consider mind-numbing time sinks for gear and memorization of mechanics a challenge. Might as well let us have fun with our builds, right?

And if you're serious about raiding and completing less forgiving content, you'd run with a premade of individuals who only take the "best" set of skills/build/whatever. That "snowflake" some speak of, is just someone trying to have fun. Remember that? fun? What games are all about.

Hardcore raiders can be an awesome set of individuals, but be that as it may, they are still the minority, and designing content for the minority, I feel, isn't a good road for SE to go down.

[Gilthas]

Hardcore raiders can be an awesome set of individuals, but be that as it may, they are still the minority, and designing content for the minority, I feel, isn't a good road for SE to go down.

And once again:

I'm hardly a hardcore raider, but balance is very important to me as well as for most of the playerbase, not just raiders. You act like "balance" opposes "fun and interesting", but that's simply not true.

It's not fun when:
- everyone only wants Rangers because their damage is so much better than everyone else's
- Rangers get nerfed into the ground and perform worse than almost everyone else so no one wants them anymore.
- people only want Warriors for their merit parties because they have great damage and good survivability
- no one wants your Dragoon because the community thinks the job is crap
- Black Mages no longer can get regular parties because TP-burns are much better experience
- Puppetmasters are considered a joke job.

And so many other glaring issues that FFXI had because the developers sucked at balancing.

Having unbalanced jobs is bad for everyone. It's bad for the player that likes the job because he gets shunned from most parties, and it's bad for those who don't play the job, because they get stuck with an underperforming job in duties.

[Instrumentality]

That's right, friends, it's this thread again!

As of this writing, Final Fantasy XIV is in a rut. Heavensward is a bland rehash or the 2.X series. (Unless you count enabling players to fly over vast, forgettable landscapes, or the addition of three new jobs, which are near duplicates of three older vocations.)

I don't grant your premise.

[Dhex]

And I didn't suggest that. I was directly responding to the passive/agressive post that was insulting players who acknowledge the glaring problems of specializations/customization.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion they more often than not have the tendency to pretend that everything will just be roses. What you want will bring about some obvious problems and it's perfectly reasonable for other players to oppose them.

Theoretically we should all be able to parse exactly the same and move and perform rotations exactly the same play the best Job choice and be perfectly optimal; but we're not computers.
Currently Jobs have no wiggle room, and content only has enough wiggle room to allow for different Job combinations.

How can you claim that their is a negative consequence to something before the developers even try it?

There is already a "best" and the other options are just illusions right? Why bother putting in three gear sets when only one or two pieces are any good?
Why bother giving players allocated stat bonuses?
Why give us different races?

When BiS gear, best stat allotment, best Job for a specific party slot - why not eliminate everything that isn't "best"?

The truth is it's all irrelevant so - why not add customization and give the game some depth - if it's imbalanced things get changed, Jobs come in and out of style - apparently there is already a right/best way to do things already anyway.

Remember when Black Mage was the only caster to bring to anything? I do.

[odintius]

So we are stuck in the stone age still it seems just less complex every game goes through these stages after awhile though ffxiv wont be any different down the road, just like wow or ffxi or <insert game> with or without spec, balance, ect as the game ages people tend to move on to something different fresh after awhile it just normal, not because game people consider failed, games that run that long tend to run out of ideas as the people just move on I believe WoW/FFXI has experience this trend atm.