I Miss Cross-Class Skills

[Shurrikhan]

A system can be bad when the sum of its parts are either mandatory or useless.

Again, that's implementation, not system concept.

You could have the most varied and amazing cross class system available. It would still be a bad system when there were clear winners and losers in terms of skills available.

Then that wouldn't be the most varied or amazing implementation available. If it does not live up to the potential available to the concept, it is not the best available. It's very simple.

That your sword broke on the first strike makes it a poorly-made sword, not that all swords are poorly made.

Take tank choices for example. Provoke was a gladiator skill. You didn't get it on war unless you leveled gla to 22. This means, at endgame, there could be players who didn't have an essential skill for tanking. This is a bad system.

No; again, it's a bad choice of what to uniquely bind into that system, not an issue of the system itself.

Each tank could have as easily, from a system perspective, had their own version of a snap-enmity tool with unique advantages and disadvantages, each gained at level 22 (just as they already had in 1.2, where each was gained at level 14 but the tank with a toolkit that lent itself to AoE-pulling mobs had a tool which was weaker and AoE and the one that preferred to chain-kill single mobs at a time had a stronger but single-target one). The only controversial point necessary to the system is that players leveling their second tank could have taken their rewards from the previous and applied them at an earlier level if allowed by the "affinity level" tied to the skill or in situational replacement of their native tool (if caused to share a cooldown with their native version, which would usually make it an inferior choice to other cross-class skills if one had more skills at the time than slots available).

True, that didn't happen; the iteration was poor. But that is due to an oversight: they underestimated player dependence upon a threat-matching skill having come from 1.x, where there were no tank stances to absorb relative potency and tank pairs had to manage their threat through other means, including flat enmity CDs (Marauder's Provoke and, formerly, Barbaric Yalp and Gladiator's Flash and War Drums), flat enmity-shuffles (old GLA), and effects tied into mitigation CDs (GLA's Rampart and Sentinel). It is not a systemic issue.

[Shurrikhan]

It was also a gain/required skill for Warrior in HW. Landing Fracture at the end of Berserk was pretty much the only min/max Warrior had.

It was potency-even at 4 stacks Deliverance and a potency gain at 5 stacks, as well, as long as it wouldn't be clip or be clipped by a Berserk-Fracture (also, ideally, at 5 stacks).

But, given how that'd be locked about by SkS when needing the maxed-Zerk GCDs, it was far from consistent, iirc, and therefore averaged use only about 4-5 times every 3 minutes. Some may then call that a terrible skill, as it was so often a potency loss, but I actually liked the gameplay it added to Warrior from that very fact; since it wasn't used on fade every time, it felt like it had more to it. And, it sure added a whole lot to Monk -- positional freedom within slipping 18-second windows, potency gains in the short term vs. overwhelming TP expense in the long term... Good stuff.

[VictorTheed]

I remember getting raise for pld, that was pretty cool, I still hope one day they'll add skill trees like ESO had cause that was fun building my job, though I doubt they ever do this I always hope it happens whenever the discussion of skills for future expansions pops up.

[Connor]

I was sad they removed cross-class skills; the system was obviously poorly designed, but in concept it was a really good way to add some different ‘flavours’ to classes. Having access to Conjurer cross-class skills was one of the most enjoyable things about Bard for me (though this was back in like 1.0 lol). If they had like, Machinist with Lancer/Monk, Bard with Conjurer/Lancer, and Dancer with Arcanist/Monk (Arcanist for utility like Eye for an Eye or Virus, though they don’t exist anymore lol), then each of the three roles would have a bit more a distinct feeling in battle (in my opinion). They could have like, Red Mage subclass one of the healer jobs to reinforce it’s utility (e.g Arcanist / Astrologian / possibly Archer if it actually had any utility lol), but Black Mage could get like, Lancer/Monk for a heavy damage focus. I feel like having the abilities unlock different would have solved some of the issues with it. Like if you unlock Conjurer, then getting Archer/Bard to level 4 would teach Cure, with the only requirement being that you can actually change to that class.

I get that liking the concept behind cross-class skills is a very unpopular opinion so I’m in no way suggesting that it’ll ever return in any form. Just wanted to give my opinion on it because I’m one of the rare ones that liked the idea. I get that the role skill system is supposed to work the same, but it’s so bland that I’m not sure why it even exists as a separate ‘system’ instead of just adding the shared skills into the normal job ability pool. Maybe it’s a technical thing.

Lastly, I think something like the Logos abilities would be much more fun than the current role skills. Something that lets you choose which skills you’d like to use with a good amount of choice. And before people start queuing up to state the obvious (which I see a lot for this type of suggestion) I’m well aware that people would just math out the best to use and kick anyone from their party not using those abilities. I just think it’s a cool idea

Addendum: in a way, it’s kind of sad that the developers constantly make systems then just keep deleting them. First we had cross-classing, then we had 4.0 role skills, now we have essentially nothing. Couldn’t they have just put more effort into making the cross-class system more efficient and easy to use? I feel like we’re kinda ‘letting the devs away with too much’ in terms of how quickly they’ll discard a system for something much more simplistic so they don’t have to put any real effort into how it’s designed. I understand that things like this require a lot of work, but at the same time, we’re not exactly dealing with a small indy team making their first MMO. I don’t mean to sound harsh towards them or take away from the great things they have done, but at the same time I wonder just how restricted their development capabilities actually are

[Zarkovitch]

Remember raise in PLD. Good times...

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Again, that's implementation, not system concept.


Then that wouldn't be the most varied or amazing implementation available. If it does not live up to the potential available to the concept, it is not the best available. It's very simple.

That your sword broke on the first strike makes it a poorly-made sword, not that all swords are poorly made.



No; again, it's a bad choice of what to uniquely bind into that system, not an issue of the system itself.

Each tank could have as easily, from a system perspective, had their own version of a snap-enmity tool with unique advantages and disadvantages, each gained at level 22 (just as they already had in 1.2, where each was gained at level 14 but the tank with a toolkit that lent itself to AoE-pulling mobs had a tool which was weaker and AoE and the one that preferred to chain-kill single mobs at a time had a stronger but single-target one). The only controversial point necessary to the system is that players leveling their second tank could have taken their rewards from the previous and applied them at an earlier level if allowed by the "affinity level" tied to the skill or in situational replacement of their native tool (if caused to share a cooldown with their native version, which would usually make it an inferior choice to other cross-class skills if one had more skills at the time than slots available).

True, that didn't happen; the iteration was poor. But that is due to an oversight: they underestimated player dependence upon a threat-matching skill having come from 1.x, where there were no tank stances to absorb relative potency and tank pairs had to manage their threat through other means, including flat enmity CDs (Marauder's Provoke and, formerly, Barbaric Yalp and Gladiator's Flash and War Drums), flat enmity-shuffles (old GLA), and effects tied into mitigation CDs (GLA's Rampart and Sentinel). It is not a systemic issue.

In that case, name ONE game with this type of system where the systems implementation isn't either broken or worthless due to one "spec" being better than the rest? If no ones been able to do it, its not an implementation issue, its a systemic one.

Cross class never would have worked properly. If you give all jobs access to all skills, it becomes a mess. If you limit them to certain skills and they are beneficial, those become required (which, funnily enough, role skills is where all the mandatory skills went. Huh)

[Connor]

In that case, name ONE game with this type of system where the systems implementation isn't either broken or worthless due to one "spec" being better than the rest? If no ones been able to do it, its not an implementation issue, its a systemic one.

Cross class never would have worked properly. If you give all jobs access to all skills, it becomes a mess. If you limit them to certain skills and they are beneficial, those become required (which, funnily enough, role skills is where all the mandatory skills went. Huh)

Gonna get burned alive for saying it but FFXI

Can’t speak much for how it was before but I tried playing it during Seekers of Adoulin (I think when ffxiv was down for expansion maintenance or something). Every job I played had at least two decent subclass options, each of which gave them a pretty decent amount of useful abilities and traits. And there was plenty of scope to play around with the subclass combinations. Obviously there was a lot you wouldn’t use, like a Monk with Black Magic (although, Warp) or a Scholar with Warrior subclass. Ninja was crucial especially for soloing, but you could get by using a different subclass. There were enough decent combinations that it didn’t feel restricted by the amount of things that didn’t work.

Not saying the should just port the system between games because that would be weird, but at the same time, I think it’s a pretty good example of a ‘cross-classing type system that actually worked pretty well all things considered. It might not be easy but it is possible to have that kind of concept without breaking the entire game. The only reason FFXIV’s cross class system seems unworkable is because the devs never really made any effort to make it workable. They just deleted it, replaced with role skills, deleted those, then replaced them with the current role skills system which isn’t really a separate ‘system’ at all. I mean, if the deleted the role skill section entirely and just distributed the abilities amongst the normal ability pools for each job (at same levels etc), I don’t think anyone would even notice. The cross-class system might not have been well designed, but they replaced it with something that requires no design effort (don’t have to balance the choices if nobody gets to choose). Which I don’t think is the right way to approach an issue.

At the very least they could have tried to reach a middle ground between ‘player choice’ and ‘design effort’. But instead they just seemed to have given up completely

[Shurrikhan]

In that case, name ONE game with this type of system where the systems implementation isn't either broken or worthless due to one "spec" being better than the rest? If no ones been able to do it, its not an implementation issue, its a systemic one.

Cross class never would have worked properly. If you give all jobs access to all skills, it becomes a mess. If you limit them to certain skills and they are beneficial, those become required (which, funnily enough, role skills is where all the mandatory skills went. Huh)

No one else has even attempted it. No other game packages all professions into a single character via an Armory system as we did, but the fatalistic 'illusion of choice' end you're convinced of occurs in every game with more than a single class, weapon, or armor set, let alone additional customization.

Why should there be multiple i370s for a single slot? Nevermind progression, surely they are just illusion of choice! Why are there more dps than just MNK, BLM, DRG, and -- when LB is too important -- sometimes SAM? Illusion of choice!

Not since all jobs shared the same character progression system and one was far more systematically encouraged to multi-class have all jobs (classes, at the time) had access to all skills. You're strawmanning.

Yes, they were certain skills and they were required. But, you know what else is required? Getting your job to max level. Why should having a bit more experience required to fully level each job in exchange for the Armory Bonus be so fundamentally wrong for a game which, on the whole, encourages you to play all jobs on a single character and even largely sells itself on that feature? Why would further systemically encouraging players to have one and only one job per character be superior? Because that's all the difference is: we were specifically given the Armory Bonus to facilitate multi-leveling because it was so integral to the game back then, likely maintaining the same time to a well-equipped character but granting previews of other classes in the process as to give a more varied and integral progression experience. Without that goal, you do not need facilitators like, say, the Armory Bonus. Here the Armory Bonus isn't the infant we ought not chuck with out with the bathwater -- it is the bathwater. And with neither the goal for multi-leveling nor its facilitators, you've effectively left a core and iconic feature of the game dead on arrival, all because you'd rather take the same, or very nearly the same, time to level your job to max as level it to max and grab useful actions from elsewhere in the process.

Now, I'll argue that Cross-class shouldn't have been Additional Abilities, but instead core mechanical traits or adaptations that varied what the borrowing class was capable of. In such a case, they wouldn't be required in the contexts that a given job was already innately a good fit for, but it would allow for a sense of combined progression and open up options for new jobs, adding a sense of cohesion and groundedness to one's character growth. Additional Abilities, I do think, weren't the best of ideas. But cross-classing? No. I don't see anything superior about every job being entirely separate from every other job in a game that centrally features the idea of all jobs on one character.

[Noshpan]

I miss Ring of Thorns.

[SenorPatty]

I had a big thing to write about cross class skills but I think I'll just sum it up in one sentence: it waa a good concept, but its implementation was poor due to oversight on how ff14 worked.

I would welcome it back but that would mean changing a lot of things in the game.