FFXIV's Systems Ain't That Deep, but They Could Have Been.

[Renathras]

100% this:

What I can say is there is a large amount of success that has happened with the Blue Mage method, Logos Actions and Lost Actions.
...<also BLU stuff>

...uh...yes, but no.

For every person that delved deep into those systems, you had people that...didn't.

Ask anyone about Delubrium and what will they tell you? As much as they praise it, everyone has a story - lots of stories - of people who zoned in with no Lost Actions, or poor ones, weak versions of essences, or worse, no essences, or even WORSE, Veteran essences.

I liked Bozja, but I never really delved into it other than using the mid-level essences. I heard stories about lightning fast Monks or White Mages that could cause another Sundering, but...I just slotted Protect and Shell and pretended I was in ARR again (except having a separate button for Shell and neither being partywide anymore BUT being castable on other people outside of my party, so that was nice...)

For every person that digs deep into those systems, you have others that don't, or don't even realize the power to them. Or don't even realize they're THERE. I didn't know about the WHM god of destruction build(s) until well into EW when I heard rumors of them. I still don't know what they were other than that they apparently existed. I've dabbled in BLU ("dabbled"; I have the complete spell book and an at least functional healer build and gearset I found from a guide), but the full power there I still haven't done much with...though granted, at least part of that is not being that interested in doing group content on a supposedly "solo" Job.

...and the thing is, this is why one of your statements is wrong:

"So SE can make something like this work, they just don't."

...because it DOESN'T work. Therein lies the problem. Many people don't get it, or don't even realize it's there TO get. Others that get it actively groan when they see those people, and try to exclude them. This is seen by SE (and I can't say they're wrong) as a failure state. As it not working. And that's why they don't do it. Now, granted, they could make it both easier and force the issue - for example, in Bozja, what if instead of collecting essences, they were received at various rank tiers as you ranked up/ unlocked the content, and didn't have charges (so you didn't have to buy/farm them and they didn't run out), and the game manually required you to use one before you could leave the starting areas of the content, so you HAD to have one equipped at all times, AND each time you got a better one, it would overwrite the lower levels (so you COULDN'T use the bad ones), AND you never ran out so you didn't have to farm any, AND the game gave you the higher level ones as you went?

...well, then it would be NEARLY foolproof ("something something they just make a better idiot..."), but then...where's the fun? It's basically automated at that point, just the busywork of clicking Ordained or Aetherweaver and having no other options anyway, defeating (most of) the point in even having the option to begin with. At that point, you may as well not have them since there aren't really any builds at that point and everything has had the fun optimized out of it. And if you DO make the choices meaningful, you then run into people making PF groups so they can "filter" out the "wrong" people.

Giving up on something because you aren't immediately good at it means you will never get better.

Yet there are some dead end paths that should be abandoned. "Sunk cost fallacy". If something is really bad, it would be better to start over again than to try and fix something that is unfixable, or would be far more costly to fix than just starting over again. This isn't true of everything, but there are some things in life better abandoned.

How do you know they didn't try and in the end, came to the conclusion that it added nothing?

This could be the same for everything said in this thread. You could iterate and try and improve, but what if still didn't fix issues?

Going back to Cross Class, how could it be improved?

I feel like there ARE some possible ways (for one, make useful stuff from every Job, not nerfed/useless stuff - Blizzard 2 was still such an odd choice for Cross-Class for anyone other than...I guess SCH? Didn't even give Umbral Ice for MP regen - THAT would have made it useful!), but anything that didn't add power was worthless, and anything that did became mandatory. It, and systems like it, were doomed from the start for that reason.

.

Also, did anyone else get a YouTube video posted like a day ago in their feed after this? The one with the cat girl in the pinkish shirt?

[Jeeqbit]

...uh...yes, but no.

For every person that delved deep into those systems, you had people that...didn't.

Ask anyone about Delubrium and what will they tell you? As much as they praise it, everyone has a story - lots of stories - of people who zoned in with no Lost Actions, or poor ones, weak versions of essences, or worse, no essences, or even WORSE, Veteran essences.

That's exactly my point though. This was a version that was successful for those who used it, but once again the casual players didn't use it properly.

Whereas with something like cross-class, it was just buggy and annoying even for those who did bother with it. For example, what was the point in cross-classing Provoke onto a DPS other than to troll? What was the point in cross-classing a DoT when it isn't buffed by traits on the other jobs, so the potency is worthless? What was the point in it when it only took actions from classes but not jobs, especially Heavensward jobs? On the other hand, what is the point when there were actions that were basically regarded as essential like Provoke?

I feel like the implementation on Blue Mage has worked so much better yet is comparable, but as I've said through the whole thread, almost nothing of depth like this works for casual players and casual players make SE money and grow the game.

[Renathras]

I think it's a bit more complex than that. For example, a LNC might be vaguely functional as a short term pseudo-tank. Maybe MNK, too. (Not sure DRG or MNK could get Provoke or not...from GLD, right?), and lots of SCH's sword by Aero (and Thunder made so much of an impact on the old bitervets in the Healer forum that they still talk about it, even though it was only Cross-Class for 2.0 and was removed [replaced with Blizzard 2] in 2.1) so much that they still talk about it. Well, those people do, anyway.

BLU is better, but it doesn't really work in most content (for obvious reasons). I think Eureka and Bozja came CLOSE to getting it right, but the problem is they made it too powerful if you used the "right" stuff vs using the "wrong" stuff (or no stuff at all). The difference was too big, leading to rejection of those not engaging with it.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it's a bit more complex than that. For example, a LNC might be vaguely functional as a short term pseudo-tank. Maybe MNK, too. (Not sure DRG or MNK could get Provoke or not...from GLD, right?)

Monk could, and could nicely pair it with Featherfoot to be able to hold onto debuff-stacking units for longer than anyone else (since dodges wouldn't apply the debuff stacks), iirc. I forget whether DRG could. Both could take at least one or the other among Skull Sunder or Savage Blade, though it was only really worthwhile on Monk (due to the stacking multipliers of GL, Fists of Fire, Twin Snakes, and Dragon Kick all applying to the same base potency). I've tanked quite a few dungeons as Monk; it wasn't too bad, as long as you had no melee unwilling to tank a separate mob and, if the whole party was undergeared, a SCH for the occasional shield.

Though LNC was definitely a pseudo-tank in 1.x, it wasn't great for it in ARR/HW unless paired with another melee, with whom you could do split-swaps (hold what you're each tanking apart, then swapping sides, ideally right after Heavy-ing both sides) on Elusive Jump / Spineshatter Dive or have DRG tank first and then swap with the other (usually Monk, since Monk needed to ramp up).

Tank-less comps were fun as hell, though. (Granted, you had to sometimes had to dodge-cheese bosses like Frost Dragon to not get one-shot.)

[Mikey_R]

Monk could, and could nicely pair it with Featherfoot to be able to hold onto debuff-stacking units for longer than anyone else (since dodges wouldn't apply the debuff stacks), iirc. ...)

No they couldn't. Monk pulled from Lancer and Marauder. Dragoon pulled from Pugilist and Marauder. The only jobs that could cross Gladiator were Warrior and Dark Knight.

Classes could pull from all, but then, as a Monk, you lost Fists of Fire and Dragon Kick.

However, it was never a viable option for Dragoon or Monk to tank as you lost more by not having a tank than trying to replace it with a DPS. We have to remember that whilst Skull Sunder did generate enmity, it was uncomboed and was only 100 potency.

However, going back to the main point, if you were to extend cross class actions to job actions, what would you actually pull? The vast majority of damage actions are ingrained into the rotation and wouldn't work outside it. You could just cross the buffs (Riddle of Fire, Lance Charge etc.) but then you are just stacking buffs. That is hardly changing your rotation or adding anything interesting.

Again, it is one thing to just say, well, they could do it/make it better, it is another thing to actually do it and do it right.

On the topic of Blue Mage, do you actually have a choice, or is there a standard set of Blue Magick for each role that everyone just copies?

As for Bozja/DR, even IF people interacted with the essence system, they used it to enhance their DPS and in general, if you went in as a role, you stayed in that role. It was only in more exceptional circumstances that you 'swapped' Have way too many healers, you agreed on who was the healer healer and who had the 2 button DPS rotation. The only other instance I had personally seen (bearing in mind I completed all of the ShB relics in the expansion, so I done a lot of DR) was when there was not a single tank in the whole instance and I tanked it as a Monk, of which I luckily had the essences to do so. Now imagine if noone had that, it would have been a dead run before we even started. Which ties nicely back to cross class and tanks not having Provoke because they didn't level Gladiator enough (Provoke was level 22 iirc, so you didn't automatically get it just by levelling it to 15, not that DRK needed to level Gladiator at all). You COULD do the dance of managing enmity without it, but that comes with it's own issues, not least of all PLD n both ARR and HW had enmity boosters in their damage rotations (however, the issues come more from information display than anything else).

There are a lot of issues that hide below the surface which is why I always say you have to think critically about what you actually want and what the pros and cons are. Do the pros outweigh the cons.

No character progression, meaningless gear progression, and no new systems..

Character progression was putting stat points into your main stat. Yay. Could it be expanded to put them into secondary stats? Sure, now they all go into crit. If you have a different idea, please share.

Gear progression, there is going to be a BiS, no matter if it is for every fight, or specific fights, or hypothetical different builds. What do you actually want to see out of gear progression?

What systems are you actually saying they should add? Taking into account how players actually interact with said systems and not necessarily how you want them to interact.

[Shurrikhan]

No they couldn't. Monk pulled from Lancer and Marauder.

Ahh, I guess I was just pulling Spiny Plume with Skull Sunder, then, when one of the two tanks just somehow could not handle that mechanic.

Classes could pull from all, but then, as a Monk, you lost Fists of Fire and Dragon Kick.

If, for whatever reason, you had to tank as a Monk, you weren't typically taking the 5% damage increase over the 10% mitigation increase anyways, and you were swapping targets too often for Dragon Kick's -10% Blunt Resistance to matter much outside of bosses, especially given that its opportunity cost was your strongest attack (after the first Bootshine buff).

It also meant you could take Convalesce, Awareness, Perfect Dodge, etc.

There are a lot of issues that hide below the surface which is why I always say you have to think critically about what you actually want and what the pros and cons are. Do the pros outweigh the cons.

Agreed. Tbf, when I heard that we were replacing Additional (Cross-class) Actions with Role Actions, I had hoped (even if not so reasonably) that they meant Cross-Role Actions.

Think of it this way: On a DPS, Diversion is purely bloat apm. During uptime, you hit it on CD. But, what if it instead gave an emergency Enmity boost, instead, for situational use? Now, it would actually do something that merely passively decreasing DPSs' enmity could not; each job would have more agency, even as core play is less bloated.

Imagine if a Physical DPS could each pick --with 2 charges shared across all these skills (despite, yes, their having varied CDs)-- any 3 actions from among, say...

• Aid (Make a downed ally healable, regaining control of their character when they reach 20% HP. Downed but Aid-ed allies receive 60% less healing. If equipped, Weakness afflicts your for 20 fewer seconds and you revive with 20% more HP.)
• Rally (Usable on self or ally. Provides target with a temporary barrier equal to half their missing HP that fades over 10 seconds and causes them to heal for 30% of their damage dealt and 20% of their healing done for 10 seconds. If equipped, your maximum HP is increased by 6%.)
• Hunter's Chance (For 15 seconds, heal for 30% of your damage dealt and heal for an additional 3% of HP per second. Additionally, your attacks afflict your victims with an aura which, while Hunter's Chance is active, causes your allies to heal for 15% of their damage dealt to your victims. If equipped, your self-healing done, except through Cross-Role actions, is increased by 20%.)
• Fend (For 4s, allies within 3y cannot be reduced to lower than your own speed and cannot be drawn in or knocked back if you cannot. Split a portion of targeted damage nearby allies would take to you as well, based on the %HP to which the attack would reduce each of you. If equipped, you take 20% less damage from directed attacks not directly targeting you.)
• Diversion (Distract the enemy, if any, and those nearby, causing a high amount of temporary Enmity (fading over 15s). For the 15 seconds thereafter, your Enmity generated is vastly increased. This bonus fades over the duration, from a 500% to 50% increase. If equipped, you stagger attacks directly targeting you, delaying 20% of their damage dealt to instead be taken over 6 seconds.)
• Cripple (Interrupts the target's current spell or special attack and afflict the target with the least diminished status effect among Stun or Bind, Heavy or Slow, Silence or Pacify. If equipped, your native stun will also interrupt, and your other movement-affecting skills have a 50% chance not to inflict diminishing returns..)

With that, they'd actually be capable of emergency action, but there'd be no cross-class progression necessary. Yes, Rally or Hunter's Chance would be damn near obligatory as a choice in most content for their free Bloodbath-esque sustain, but hey, since they're on shared charges, you at least have 1-2 free (or, more contextual) choices. And, ofc, balance of value is subject to tuning.

[kayll]

Yet there are some dead end paths that should be abandoned. "Sunk cost fallacy". If something is really bad, it would be better to start over again than to try and fix something that is unfixable, or would be far more costly to fix than just starting over again. This isn't true of everything, but there are some things in life better abandoned.

There is nothing wrong with abandoning a truly broken system, so this would be a credible defense if they ever tried to implement new systems into their combat, but here we are, a few expansions later with nothing to show for it.
They never started over on innovating for new things to make combat interesting, they just washed their hands of the grime and then never dared touch it again, yet people here think this is better than trying new things and failing,till you find what works.
No character progression, meaningless gear progression, and no new systems.

No wonder the game is becoming Second Second Life.

[Shurrikhan]

No character progression, meaningless gear progression

While I'm likewise disappointed by the lack of flair (assuming it can be handled reasonably)... how are leveling and gear progression not character progression? It is objectively making opening up more content (per the encounters you can face and the tools by which you can face them) to you and/or making that content easier, just like... any other form of "progression".

No customization (beyond jobs and GCD tier)? Absolutely. But "no progression"? Does "progression" need to be capable of being failed, or briefly need to take you to 3rd party guides/cheat sheets, to count as "progression"?

Would gear progression be more meaningful if each piece was also useful only to a narrower band of content, such that you'd have to take more time to gear all content and/or you'd need to base your gear acquisition around what content you don't want to be held back in? Would it be more meaningful if every piece of gear was job-specific?

Customization and good core experiences are generally at odds outside of a narrow span, as customization at least as often as not just means holding some part of the base experience back or hostage to the player inputting the appropriate build choice.

That's not to say that customization can't be used well, but unless one just outright finds menuplay more entertaining than gameplay, it has plenty more chances to go wrong than right, atop requiring exponentially more development time.

To be clear, I do nonetheless want more customization; I just have to urge some caution, given that only a small portion of possibilities for customization tend to be good for the game. The priority of customization should, in essence, be to find an appropriate middle-ground between fine-tweaking and set experiences, so that the customizations aren't able to min-max or easy-way-out the fun right out of the original classes/jobs/et cetera but can nonetheless widen and/or deepen what would attract players among those original classes/jobs/et cetera. Customization nearly just for the sake of customization, though, tends to solely add bloat that reduces accessibility and/or intuitiveness for no actual increase in engagement (especially within the consequent gameplay).

[KenZentra]

While I'm likewise disappointed by the lack of flair (assuming it can be handled reasonably)... how are leveling and gear progression not character progression? It is objectively making opening up more content (per the encounters you can face and the tools by which you can face them) to you and/or making that content easier, just like... any other form of "progression".

No customization (beyond jobs and GCD tier)? Absolutely. But "no progression"? Does "progression" need to be capable of being failed, or briefly need to take you to 3rd party guides/cheat sheets, to count as "progression"?

When you reach max level, progression for your character stops aside from gear. Your Job (barring balancing/revamp changes) will play exactly the same way start to finish. (Skipping over making an essay about what gear does for you) Gear in FFXIV has a fatal flaw, it doesn't change anything about your character, or your jobs capabilities. It only serves to increase your overall power to meet enemies of increasing overall power. This barebone idea of gear is true for almost every RPG ever. You get gear to fight bosses to get gear to fight bigger bosses to get bigger gear to fight even bigger bosses, ad infinitum. You could easily implement a system that is just, "When you kill dude, you get to fight next dude", and if you keep the numbers the same in terms of damage and hp and whatnot, you'll probably have a similar system to "get gear to kill dude to get gear, etc etc.".

10 years after ARR has released, we still have the same kind of gear. Increase overall power, forever. All gear is the same. Vitality, Main Stat, Secondary stat 1 (which is maxed out on the gear), Secondary stat 2 (not maxed out). Good gear progression is gear that enhances how you play in a meaningful way, but not in a permanent way. Such as a piece of gear that increases Auto-Attack speed after you finish your combo, or a Staff that has a chance of procing Thundercloud when using Blizzard, but Thunder's duration is reduced by half. Stat upgrades from newer gear would replace these, keeping them from being permanent, however there should be another piece of gear to look forward to, while still having the option of gear without any special effects as well.

Would gear progression be more meaningful if each piece was also useful only to a narrower band of content, such that you'd have to take more time to gear all content and/or you'd need to base your gear acquisition around what content you don't want to be held back in? Would it be more meaningful if every piece of gear was job-specific?

Only useful in certain content? No. Would it be more meaningful if every piece of gear was job-specific? I mean yeah it would to an extent actually. We already have gear for certain armor classes, such as Fending, Aiming and the such. It'd make perfect sense for these armor classes to have specific additions for specific Jobs. We would have the gear we already have, but also extra gear in the loot tables specific to gear Job. Maybe like single pieces or even Set of gear (with set bonuses!).

Customization and good core experiences are generally at odds outside of a narrow span, as customization at least as often as not just means holding some part of the base experience back or hostage to the player inputting the appropriate build choice.

I think the game is already enforcing that players do the "correct" build choice. If you like the idea of attacking really fast so you stack SkS or SpS, you cannot do anything other than normal content, as most enrage timers are fairly tight imo. Your DPS wont be good enough for it.

I really hate the argument that customization will always be min-maxing cookie cutter builds that everyone has to do anyways, as if there isnt so much casual content that doesn't require much out of each player. There will always be min-maxing. There is min-maxing right now, should we remove the small bit of customization we are allowed to have because of it? No we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but also we shouldn't judge customization (whether through a talent tree, Cross-Class, or something similar) on its worst case scenario.

Consider this. Every Job right now, is no different than a cookie cutter, min-maxed talent build. The only difference is that you weren't even given the chance to play the way you'd want to. With some sort of Character progression, such as a talent tree/cross-class actions, you have at worst exactly what we have now, and at best new ways of playing the same Jobs whilst still being viable.

Lastly, we of course should not just fall head first into a sea of customization options for hundreds of aspects of the game. But currently there is, practically speaking, nearly zero ways to customize how you play any given job. In a manner of speaking, its like someone on dry land saying they want to go for a swim in a pool and giving them caution about swimming in the open ocean.

All of this customization of course, hinges of SE giving support to these new ways to play. Say for instance, you like the idea of dealing damage over a wide area so you spec a BLM for lots of AoE rather than single target damage. If SE then says "You know what, all dungeons and raid encounters are just single bosses. No adds, No Trash at all, nothing but 4/8 dudes pummeling down a single foe". Then that avenue is practically dead. A tale told since ARR to this very day.

[Cynric]

Consider this. Every Job right now, is no different than a cookie cutter, min-maxed talent build. The only difference is that you weren't even given the chance to play the way you'd want to. With some sort of Character progression, such as a talent tree/cross-class actions, you have at worst exactly what we have now, and at best new ways of playing the same Jobs whilst still being viable.

Lastly, we of course should not just fall head first into a sea of customization options for hundreds of aspects of the game. But currently there is, practically speaking, nearly zero ways to customize how you play any given job. In a manner of speaking, its like someone on dry land saying they want to go for a swim in a pool and giving them caution about swimming in the open ocean.

All of this customization of course, hinges of SE giving support to these new ways to play. Say for instance, you like the idea of dealing damage over a wide area so you spec a BLM for lots of AoE rather than single target damage. If SE then says "You know what, all dungeons and raid encounters are just single bosses. No adds, No Trash at all, nothing but 4/8 dudes pummeling down a single foe". Then that avenue is practically dead. A tale told since ARR to this very day.

I've said it before but, I wouldn't be against us getting some sort of skill trees, or talent style system. That being said, I don't think cross class would've been that system. I think if we had to level multiple jobs to be able to make builds the game wouldn't have been as popular. I think that's honestly the main reason why cross class doesn't work. There's an expectation of "play something you hate, to gain something you need" and that's just terrible imo.
If it were introduced into the game where we could have "builds" it would be a completely new system than anything we've had before. Something like a DPS has multiple skills they can pull from to enhance themselves or a specific job. I think that's more where FFXIV would have success at. Leveling the job you like should give you anything you need for progressing its different playstyles, you shouldn't have to go heal for 30+ levels to gain an important ability or go play a job you aren't interested in.

Like right now Role actions are more or less what Cross Class turned into. So that system is changed drastically, but it isn't wholly removed either. It's just not what you'd want in terms of customization. I would love for us to have some type of customization because it might make things more fun. If they were to do it, I would hope that they would do it well, in my experience no games have really been able to make great use out of the talent/skill tree style of gameplay. Even WoW which has tried many different iterations usually can't keep meaningful choices between talents.

Sadly as you say, currently the game wouldn't encourage having customization, it's very rigid.