A Skillbook for all Jobs (idea)

[ForteNightshade]

Its not a stretch to make core skills include essentials like provoke then allow the custom slots to be filled with what the player desires their jobs to play like.

Except then you run into the scenario WoW has, where jobs are flat out refused to be taken even in the casual content. Why? Because they're straight up inferior in every way. Let's say they allowed DRK to play as a DPS but it could never obtain the damage levels of any Melee DPS. It's worthless. There's literally no reason to bring it, thus you'll see PF for EX Primals and such locking it out because, again, why bring a job that's significantly weaker? If you argue to simply balance it better with the melee... you've just created a whole new workload for the dev team. This sort of idea works in Bozja/Eureka because they can throw silly actions at you in a singular controlled environment. It wouldn't work in the base game.

With that said, I do agree they went a little too far in the balance department if only because they opted for homogenization. Which, frankly, is lazy balancing. But going the opposite extreme isn't any better.

[Anhra]

Are you threatening me? I gave a valid alternative. If you aren't satisfied no need to personally attack me.

No, simply reminding you, and what can i possibly do? Call the cyberpolice on you? And what valid alternative was that suppoest to be anyway?

Jokes aside, i still fail to see any valid arguments on why a Skillbook System shouldnt work in this Game.

As for HyoMinPark's Question about Ranged Jobs, from my perspective, theyre fine from the way their skillkit works, but BRD feels kind of sluggish, and MCH overwhelmingly overpowered atm.

I think a good way to fix this would be to rework the Job gauge from both Jobs into having only one Bar to be filled out and add for those two Jobs something i'd like to call a ammunition Bar (since a Gun/Arrow quiver can only hold so much ammo). Before anyone starts shrieking at me, hear me out first.

BRD's could have a ammunition capacity of lets say, 24 (can or can't change with different Weapons), while the Bard has ammo, the Job has a reduced GCD on all of its arrow-related abilities (1-1,5sec GCD).
MCH would work in a similar way, but having ammo far more limited (6-12 shots).

In order to make it fair for both, they are going to need a proper way to replenish ammo, maybe keeping it simple with a Skill or trough more conventional ways by having it recharge like some skills already do (MCH having a faster recharging compared to BRD, to even things out).

[HyoMinPark]

Imagine using the words “MCH” and “overpowered” in the same sentence....I’m kind of shocked right now. It is clear that you don’t really understand the current state of balance when it comes to the game.

As the physical ranged currently stand, all are alarmingly weak. None are overpowered. If they didn’t bring the 1% party buff to a group, BRD and MCH would for sure be benched, and DNC would only be invited to parties to Dance Partner the SAM or BLM. That is the current state of the role. Within said role, DNC reigns supreme because of its utility. MCH doesn’t do enough in terms of personal damage to really set it aside from DNC, and BRD’s lack of utility has hurt the job in more ways than just lore. It has fallen from the most popular DPS role to one of the least popular (at least in terms of Savage clears for it). But even non-raiders are complaining about the current design of it. And it has very little to do with BRD feeling “sluggish”, and everything to do with it being a BRD in name only.

And why would you give BRD ammunition? If any job were to get ammo, it should be MCH. That was actually part of the original design of the job. MCH’s base combo used to be RNG procs. You mitigated said RNG but losing ammunition into your weapon to guarantee that your next combo action proc’d. However, having your base combo be 50% RNG has its own design flaws, so they moved away from that system.

[Anhra]

Imagine using the words “MCH” and “overpowered” in the same sentence....I’m kind of shocked right now. It is clear that you don’t really understand the current state of balance when it comes to the game.

Anyone who solo's and solo'd HoH and PotD and is worthy of their Titles would diagree with you, therefore allow me to explain myself.

First of all, MCH, as any ranged physical dps, has not only a ranged advantage over things (including 2 abilities to hinder movement btw), it also has ALL of its attacks instantly used, including a 700 potency Drill which has only 30sec CD (19,5sec on my lv80 MCH with 1550 speed), a "burst mode" that allows spamming 3 skills at a significant lowered GCD, a bomb that deals almost as much dmg as said drill, if executed properly and is capable of interrupting specific abilities from enemies WHILE being mobile, compared to casters which are rooted to the ground for a short moment, especially BLM.

At lvl60, MCH is the strongest Dps Job in terms of solo capacity and that hardly changes at lvl80, alone for the fact that it is extremely mobile. A sprinting MCH can't even be caught by non-boss enemies while it dishes out damage.

>Why would you give BRD ammunition?
Because you kind of need arrows to shoot a bow. I agree that the old MCH was bad, to put it mildly, but limiting a Job with ammunition isn't a bad idea by itself, since it gives room to create playstyles arround that "weakness". It certainly works on Rougelike games from where i also drew the inspiration from (Tales of May'Eyal, in case youre curious).

[ForteNightshade]

Anyone who solo's and solo'd HoH and PotD and is worthy of their Titles would diagree with you, therefore allow me to explain myself.

This is an apples to oranges comparison. PotD and HoH aren't balanced properly whatsoever and since you're primarily fighting trash mobs, you'll have most of your abilities ready per engagement.

In every Savage fight this tier, Machinist is 1,500 rDPS below Ninja, the supposed support Melee DPS. To put this into perspective, were it not for the 1% party wide buff, all three physical range deal so little damage, they'd be rendered entirely obsolete. They are that weak. Their mobility has no value whatsoever in Savage because none of the mechanics take advantage of it. They have no greater utility than the Casters. In fact, they have less than the Tanks. Simply put, in a party setting, which is where balance is the primary focus, Machinist, Bard and Dancer cling to the aforementioned party buff for relevance. None of them are overpowered. They're laughably weak.

[HyoMinPark]

Anyone who solo's and solo'd HoH and PotD and is worthy of their Titles would diagree with you, therefore allow me to explain myself.

MCH being good in PotD or HoH does not mean it’s overpowered. RDM could solo both back in SB, but that didn’t mean it was the strongest caster. It was much weaker than both SMN and RDM until Alphascape, where they finally buffed it. It still wasn’t nearly as good as SMN, though, which had the highest mobility of all casters, utility, and damage. Please look at actual encounters before basing what a job is like in terms of balance.

At lvl60, MCH is the strongest Dps Job in terms of solo capacity and that hardly changes at lvl80, alone for the fact that it is extremely mobile. A sprinting MCH can't even be caught by non-boss enemies while it dishes out damage.

This game isn’t balanced around what jobs are like at anything other than level cap. By your logic, I could say RDM and DNC are equally overpowered based on putting them in level 50 content, where they crap on all other DPS jobs. Or than SAM is the weakest melee because of where it stands in level 70 content. That’s not a fair comparison at all. At cap, MCH is weak. And it’s the least valuable in the physical ranged role because it offers no utility and doesn’t have the personal damage to compensate for it.

>Why would you give BRD ammunition?
Because you kind of need arrows to shoot a bow. I agree that the old MCH was bad, to put it mildly, but limiting a Job with ammunition isn't a bad idea by itself, since it gives room to create playstyles arround that "weakness". It certainly works on Rougelike games from where i also drew the inspiration from (Tales of May'Eyal, in case youre curious).

This game has never required BRDs to have arrows of any kind. BRD’s primary gimmick has been its songs, which have changed over the years. And there is no “creating a playstyle” in XIV. All jobs have an optimal way to play. Anything deviating from that is suboptimal. Such is the design of the game, and such it has always been.

[Anhra]

In case People are forgetting, this Game isn't all about Raiding when it comes to Endgame content, and just because it is the largest slice of the endgame cake, it shouldnt mean that gameplay should be negleted just because all you guys care is about clearing content as fast as possible.

You guys of all People, should know how incredibly stale it is in it's current form, which brings me pointing to my original post about the Skillbook idea. Don't you think it would be a good addition to the game, if every Job had a fixed, but modest set abount of skill, plus room for additional Skills to choose from past level 30?

[HyoMinPark]

In case People are forgetting, this Game isn't all about Raiding when it comes to Endgame content, and just because it is the largest slice of the endgame cake, it shouldnt mean that gameplay should be negleted just because all you guys care is about clearing content as fast as possible.

You guys of all People, should know how incredibly stale is in it's current form, which brings me pointing to my original post about the Skillbook idea. Don't you think it would be a good addition to the game, if every Job had a fixed, but modest set abount of skill, plus room for additional Skills to choose from past level 30?

Solo content is not what the game is balanced around. It is balanced around group encounters. And it has very little to do with “clearing content as fast as possible”. If you want rotational variety and gimmicks, that’s what Bozja and Eureka with the logos actions is for. But regular content is not like that and has never been like that. There has always been a “right” way to play a job; and any other way is wrong. Freestyle play does not exist in this game.

I already stated my opinion about your skill book idea. It would not work in this game given the way it is designed and has been designed since 2.0. Mathematically, there will always be superior rotations, and any job lacking any one mandatory ability would be mathematically inferior to the same job that has all abilities. “Optional” or not.

I don’t think skillbooks would fix the issue with staleness as a lot of staleness for me comes from endgame being watered down in difficulty (outside of Ultimate). For job design, it’s mostly stupid decisions on the part of the development team—like adding these really nice, intricate healing capabilities to all healers but failing to give us stuff to actually use them in (healing requirements are very low in most content and healers are all overpowered in terms of healing so that makes it even more egregious). For a job like BRD that I mained since I started this game and then dropped with ShB, it would be that the job lost complexity in favor of “closing the skill gap” and that it’s a BRD in name only. It has no unique support to make it feel like a BRD. It’s basically a Ranger now because they didn’t want it to overshadow DNC. And DNC dominated the physical ranged role despite being weak.

[ForteNightshade]

In case People are forgetting, this Game isn't all about Raiding when it comes to Endgame content, and just because it is the largest slice of the endgame cake, it shouldnt mean that gameplay should be negleted just because all you guys care is about clearing content as fast as possible.

You guys of all People, should know how incredibly stale it is in it's current form, which brings me pointing to my original post about the Skillbook idea. Don't you think it would be a good addition to the game, if every Job had a fixed, but modest set abount of skill, plus room for additional Skills to choose from past level 30?

You're missing the point. They only balance content around group content, which needs to keep each job within a specific threshold otherwise they become mandatory or obsolete. It isn't about clearing content the fastest, but simple pragmatism. I'll reiterate my earlier example with DPS Dark Knight. If it can't compete with Melee, it's worthless. It doesn't matter how cool the animations or what skills it offers, there's simply no reason to bring it into a party. If they did manage to balance it, well... that's simply another job. Hence why Yoshida has said on multiple occasions he would prefer making a new job instead of branching builds like this. They're effectively the same thing.

As for your spell book idea. No, actually, I wouldn't having a modest amount of skills to choose from. Why? Because they'd only be allowed in content I'm already laughably overpowered for anyway. Once again, making Dark Knight a DPS in the open world may be neat for all of a day or two, but doesn't have any real value because open world content is comically easy. Nevertheless, HyoMin brought it up already. Eureka and Bozja exist literally for this reason.

[Anhra]

The idea of said Skillbook is that those Skills are to be used in any type of Content except PvP.

Earlier it has been stated in the case of ranged Dps that utility is being prefered for "balance" reasons in raiding. Wouldn't it be great if suddenly any Job could bring one form or another in their own way, a utility or skill that positively affects the party? And if you dont need it, you just replace it with another, simple as that.