A Skillbook for all Jobs (idea)

[Anhra]

Greetings,

After playing arround with Blue Mage, i got a interesting idea to share with you guys and would like to hear some thoughts on the matter.

A Skillbook.
I think every Job should have one in a similar way how BLU has. Not only would it make adding more skills in the future alot easier, it would also allow customisation for both competitive and "just out of fun" gameplay.

-How should Skills be obtained?
> through Quests or specific Dungeon/Trial Objectives, it could be something trivial like for Scholars case for example, make sure that no Tonberry is killed during a Wanderers Palace hard mode run or kill X amount of Enemies where you need to make the kill.

-From which Point should a Skillbook be granted?
>as soon as you get your Job Crystal. With every 2 Levels you gain, you gain a additional Slot from the number of active Skills that can be chosen from said Book. that would leave us at lvl80 with a total of 25 additional Skills and +5 Skills for every expansion, so in other words, barely any changes, but certain Jobs, such as Warriors, who have quite few skills to go by, would profit with this.

How exactly should the Skill List of the Skillbook look like?
>It should be divided into 2 categories, Active and Passive Skills, which should be quite self explaining. Both Active and Passive Skills WON'T share the same amount of Skillslots, since passive abilities can give room for great impact on performance, they could be limited by maybe one Skillslot every 5 levels, instead of 2 (The moment you get the Book, you start off with 6 Slots for passives to choose from). Unlike active Skills which need to be unlocked throughout Eorzea, Passive Skills are already written down into the Book and should have a good amount of selection to choose from (of which of course, you wont be able to choose all at once, which goes for both active and passive).

I am aware that, knowing Squeenix design choices on things, it is unlikely to happen, but how would you guys think of such a idea if it were to happen?

EDIT 05.03.2021: Updates for more detailed explaination:

In order for the Book to work, it will be divided into Class- and "Job skills (Job skills will be the ones in the Skillbook, in which the book itself branches again into active and passive skills as mentioned above).

Class Skills would work in the same way they currently do, with the exception that every Rotation becomes inplimented way earlier so that every Job that has a proper Rotation will have the full thing avaiable no later than lvl30, along with Skills that are essential for the Job (those could also be in the Class Tab, and even unlocked at a later point beyond level 30), examples for this would be abilities like Blood of the Dragons from DRG, Iaijutsu from SAM, Edge/Flood of Shadow from Dark Knight and so on. Those Skills are always avaiable once unlocked.

Those Skills that are NOT as essential as the ones mentioned above, will be the ones "optional" for the choosing. Imagine it like this (using SCH as a reference here):

In Scholars case, i would say the following Skills should be scrapped into the Skillbook for the sake of customisation (it will not mean that you wont be able to play SCH as it used to be before, it will still be possible by simply recreating the kit, but you will also have customisation avaiable which should also include new Skills):

Bio, Ruin 2***, Art of War, Broil*, Deployment Tactics, Emergency Tactics, Dissipation, Excogitation, Lustrate***, Chain Stratagem, Sacred Soil**, Indomitability**, Biolysis*, Fey Blessing**, Summon Seraph**, Recitation and all of the Role Skills.

That would leave Scholar will the following Skills remaining as "essential": Ruin, Physick, Summon Fairy, Resurrection, Whispering Dawn+, Adloquium, Fey Illumination+, Aetherflow(grants faerie gauge instead)**, Succor**, Aetherpact and Fey Blessing+


* = should be its own Skill which either deals for example, a different type of damage or grants Effects, in SCH case, that would mean that Ruin will be the basic Form of Attacking which should upgrade overtime into Ruin 2 and 3. In SMN case, that Job should get reworked into a own JoB completely cut off from Arcanist in order for this to work)
**=needs to be reworked in a way that it works independ from Aetherflow (which should be removed in order for this to work, instead, they will have rechargeable stacks, in the way they work in PvP, maybe just not as fast as there)
***= should be removed.
+ = The Skills themselves should stay as they are, but independed from the Fairy. Instead, the Fairy should have her own Set of Skills that she uses passively, like attacking at the same time with the SCH, in the way how demi-bahamut/-phoenix attack alongside the SMN, and heals in the same way (in exchange, the Fairy CAN be killed but needs proper defense values and HP, and can still be controlled the way it works now).

[ItMe]

I deeply enjoy 14's relative lack of a meta.
I can use what I enjoy instead of being pressured to change to whatever jobs or specs is king right now. I don't get harassed for what I enjoy playing.
I am not keen on your proposal if only because it would compromise that.

But like you mentioned at the end, it is unlikely to happen.
Considering this game originally has cross classing and Yoshi P phased that out so each job has 1 defined toolkit his team needs to look at when balancing content, I don't think we'll see that change at least until he leaves the director's seat.

[DrWho2010]

Having that kind of system would just bring more problems than it's worth tbh. You run the risk of having non-meta builds and in XIV since everyone and everything is similar in jobs it just comes down to player skill. And we all have ways of knowing just how bad or good some people playing the game can be.

[Brightamethyst]

Pretty sure you just invented Role Actions.

[Kabooa]

Letting us glamour what abilities we want (such as old removed animations) would be about as far as I can see this going.

Maybe you like ball lightning. Maybe you like lightning bolt.

Do X to unlock the Bolt glamour for your thunder spells.

[Anhra]

Having that kind of system would just bring more problems than it's worth tbh. You run the risk of having non-meta builds and in XIV since everyone and everything is similar in jobs it just comes down to player skill. And we all have ways of knowing just how bad or good some people playing the game can be.

Skill? What is this Skill you speak of? In case you have forgotten, were playing a MMORPG, you only need to be able to memorize and execute, and nothing more.

Bad Jokes aside, every decent combat system needs a flowing, and everchanging metagame, to be destroyed and rebuild again in order to be good. Even the most optimized Build can fail if the Player has the Reaction Time of a Turtle that smoked the wrong kind of grass.

It is more or less a matter of "does this work, or not?" rather than "go with the flow" kind of enviroment when it comes to combat in MMORPGs.

[ItMe]

Bad Jokes aside, every decent combat system needs a flowing, and everchanging metagame, to be destroyed and rebuild again in order to be good.

Even if this were true...
It doesn't mean FF14 should move to a customizable layout BLU style system.

[Jirah]

Horrible idea for FF14, but i played a few mmos with similar concepts with skills where theyd give u like 3-6 for a base then would make others drops from mobs or fetch questd. Which is generally a interesting idea but horrible in execution. it would make alot of jobs feel incomplete and add to elitism with parties saying "Must have so-so skills". Im sure a MMO can make it work but FF14 is not one of them

[Anhra]

So, basically, The Community denies any suggestions for improvements on the gameplay-side because of the fear for elitism, from what i understand.

Elitism in itself is not a bad thing, it is the people who aren't capable of dealing with it, it is hardly any different on the magnitude of negative experiences such as FC drama or someone being a bad mood because of things, so how can such a simple and easy to solve issue be your main justification for any large-scale changes on the combat system? In case noone has noticed (can't blame you if FFXIV is your first MMORPG), FFXIV combat is very bland and basic, almost to the point that it has more similarities to a MOBA, rather than a MMORPG.

Horrible idea for FF14, but i played a few mmos with similar concepts with skills where theyd give u like 3-6 for a base then would make others drops from mobs or fetch questd. Which is generally a interesting idea but horrible in execution. it would make alot of jobs feel incomplete and add to elitism with parties saying "Must have so-so skills". Im sure a MMO can make it work but FF14 is not one of them

How can a system be considered incomplete and horrible in execution when its main purpose is to customise arround weaknesses and build upon strenghs to ones desire? It definitely works for BLU who is capable of easily dealing any content on any role in any Instance it is allowed to enter, so tell me how this is horrible in execution? because of Elitism? Elitism has nothing to do with the Gameplay aspect, it has to do with People and that isn't something i'd like to talk about here since this would be getting offtopic.

[Brightamethyst]

So, basically, The Community denies any suggestions for improvements on the gameplay-side because of the fear for elitism, from what i understand.

It's not a fear of elitism. It's an understanding of people and game systems and numbers.

Look at WoW, for example. You have all sorts of of choices (talents, covenants, soulbinds, and conduits, currently) but despite having options there's always a mathematically correct pick for every situation. You always take this talent, you never take that talent, "lol, you picked THAT covenant?", and so on. The game doesn't stop you from making the wrong choices but there absolutely are wrong choices.

FFXIV just cuts out step.