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

[Panic_at_the_Discord]

The only thing cross-class abilities brought to this game was making people yell at SCH sprouts for not having Protect.

[RaideDuku]

My problem with so called "choices" to develop characters in MMOs is that it's really no choice at all. Sure, people clamour for "freedom and choice", but if they're actually given free reign? Everyone gravitates to one (maybe two, if you're lucky) "correct" way. If a person deviates from that "correct" way, they are ridiculed, disputed, and ostracized. Thus, they are force to conform, or be left behind.

Thus, has it always been in MMOs. Any deviation from the "norm" is unacceptable. Anyone that points to a game and says: "Not THAT game!" is looking at it with the thickest of rose-tinted glasses. Stat allocation? If you are doing a certain role, you better put those points in the stats in the right amounts or you are sub-optimal. Diverging "talent-trees" or straight up just pick whatever abilities you want? Better have the right "talents" in the right amounts for the role you're going for, or you can forget about being invited for any serious player progression.

Hell, you can see this even in the "shallow pool" of Final Fantasy XIV. Fighting an extreme or savage boss? Had a new idea on how to take on a boss? No. You will do it the "accepted" way, or you will be left behind.

So the question is: Do you want an illusion of choice, when in reality the player base has dictated the "correct" one? Or do you have the choice made for you by the developers?

[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.)

[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).

[Kaurhz]

Giving up on something because you aren't immediately good at it means you will never get better.
If they implement a system and its bad, then iterate on it until it is good.
If they just delete it instead of trying to improve it, then they must not have much of a vision for their game and are instead just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Imagine if instead of just outright deleting crossclass functionality, they built on it through all the years the games been out and what that system could have developed into?
FF14 would have had a system in it that set it apart from other MMOs.

Don't get me wrong, in principle it is good, but the cross-class system itself at the time of implementation was heavily criticized and disliked which indicated they didn't like it, and for a good reason, it wasn't one of those systems they just aimlessly went headfirst in and removed for no reason, there was genuine feedback against that system. Edit: I would say given their development or lack thereof in Heavensward shows how they themselves felt about it, even before it was replaced by role abilities.

Like, it's well and good saying in theory it gives people an opportunity to try new classes and pads out the content, etc., - But you need to consider that more people than not were not treating it as that means - It was more like -- "Wait, I need B4B on my MNK? You're telling me I need to now level LNC???" - With a sigh ensuing.

Cross-class was only really reworked into the role-system which we have now, which as I have said isn't a bad system, but really could have a little more to it. - Role actions were their idea of 'improving' cross-class, which between the two I would take role abilities.

This is also all well and good saying, but IMO for cross-class to be what it could've been, would have inevitably needed to be reworked in the first place, and honestly if I had to say so there's really external systems that already fight-back against what cross-class would even have a chance of being, e.g., the game from head to toe is very rigid, and always has been -- Probably always will be too, which doesn't entirely favor a system like cross-class, especially when you might want to look at it in the perspective of "Oh, it could've been an enabler of sub-jobs, or something that 'blurs that line between Tank/Healer/DPS".

A lot of the earlier systems, especially those present in ARR were absolutely just about throwing out ideas and systems and seeing what sticks - That's just how bad the initial product was in the first place. Many of them inherited from the ARR days, and some others also tried to derive from FFXI. Your last point would reign true for absolutely every system in the game - But again, the problem in the case of cross-class specifically is that people disliked it from the premise - All you'd be doing here is substituting deletion of a system with trying to ram it down peoples' throats (Neither are good). They already had a good swing and a miss on that with Diadem and the Specialist system for crafters. - What do you do in the event you keep developing it, and keep going, and going to just find out that people still don't like it? Keep wasting resources on it?

Looking at some of your other posts, I don't exactly disagree either in principle, but cross-class just ain't one of those systems.

[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.