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

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

On the assumption (perhaps errant again) that this time you are truly replying to the person you're quoting...

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.

Again, I ask: Why is that necessarily a fatal flaw?

Consider the alternatives. Take WoW's tier sets, for example. Unless they stand in place of a internal balance (skill A relative to skills B, C, D, etc.) correction (which in turn means a worse kit for everyone not raiding), they tend to devolve gameplay, rather than evolve it. Not always, but if they have an actual impact on how you play, it is more often for the worse. They make a given skill or couple skills more powerful, more necessary to hit as often as possible, etc., but in doing so they overwhelm previously held nuances for a net decrease in available skill expression.

Or, consider something like (High) Jump's damage being greatly increased in a piece of DRG armor. Sounds neat, right? But it does nothing to gameplay, either, because you were already using that skill on CD.

There are ways to do it right. They're just a slim portion of the possibility, and all too often require, in essence, holding back otherwise almost unanimously perceived improvements to the kit just so they can then be trickled out later as gear rewards.

It only serves to increase your overall power to meet enemies of increasing overall power.

Which is what customization mostly amounts to beyond content- or build-specificity. If you don't want the gear to be an upgrade only for fights X, Y, Z, or builds A or B, so that --in effect-- "unlocking" your actual build or content choices just requires far more grind, then that vertical progression is what you're left with.

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.".

You largely could, and I would kinda dig that. But gear does do something more than that, for better or worse: it increases the required grind period without increasing the difficulty that has to be set for each fight's (first) clear, and creates (if in a somewhat illusory way, given community expectations in PuGs) an option between rushing content (coming in minimally geared) or fully preparing for it (having up to all of what gear one can from prior content).

That's it. That's gear. It's a means of letting players feel rewarded for re-running content for a somewhat flexible number of incremental successes/acquisitions. Most progression systems are the same, just with a slightly different means of acquisition.

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.

Having actually played with those things, again, I have to disagree. They more often reduce the net depth of kits than increase them, for the simple fact that if you make the base experience appealing and then add some shit atop it, the result is almost always going to destabilize it for the worst. It is not impossible to design them well, but I'd take any promise of actual customization, let alone gameplay improvement, from them with a lake of salt, as they are more likely to simply narrow the portion of the kit you're competitively allowed to play with and/or the number of considerations you'd see net reward for tracking/optimizing.

While there are occasionally good design ideas a dev come up with later into a given expansion and couldn't excuse adding into the base kit at the time but could put into a gear set (which then usually gets, thankfully, rounded into the base kit with the next expansion if well received), the effect is more often the likes of (A) swapping between gear-dependent rotations, each with fewer adaptations or nuances available than previously available to you, or (B) having to hit Thunder as often as possible, removing any value in holding Thundercloud, or Thunder no longer being worth casting at all.

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.

Then enjoy either being locked into one job for more than just the single raid tier, if the available progression is as time-locked as typical and/or decently long, or the further grind requirements in order to actually play with multiple jobs on the same character.

Yeah, that may stimulate more interest for some --say, those who don't really want to experience fights through more than a couple jobs and enjoy flavor text or feeling superior/distinct for using a different rotation than most... as made obligatory by their gear-- but it definitely has its downsides, too.

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.

Technically, you'd fall within standard deviation of BiS gear's performance still, but fair enough, the devs haven't balanced what few choices we have despite having the means of doing so laid out for them pretty thoroughly since ARR.

But surely skill-specific buff/proc-generating set bonuses will be more balanced?

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.

Two things there:

1. Not everyone enjoys normal content, and just throwing some set bonus jank (or even, hell, a theoretically "well-made" set bonus) isn't going to suddenly make Normal content engaging to them. And, no, it wouldn't just be a matter of they're then sticking to the cookie-cutter builds in order to remain allowed to play the rest of the content. Unless you want your customization to be, effectively, dead on arrival, just making space / possible interactions for those new options will impact the rest.
   
   
2. If the likes of a 0.4-2% difference from playing at a different GCD tier is going to, as you said, limit one to solely Normal content... then it's not a mere matter of "min-maxing" so much as one choice to be allowed to play the whole game, while everyone else is limited to just a part 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.

I'm not judging either by only on their worst-case scenarios.

Gameplay-affecting tier sets / set bonuses I'm literally just judging by their norms, the many design tweaks to avoid those negative effects that WoW's theorycrafter and /or invested community has suggested over the years when presented with those problematic tier sets (which is nearly all of the gameplay-affecting ones), and how few lessons were ever learned from those design shortfalls made. (And similar gameplay-affecting gear or systems in other MMOs).

Cross-class, I'm clearly not judging by its worst-case scenario, or I wouldn't be bothering with mock-ups on how it could have been done better (let alone have discussed alternatives and improvements for over a decade).

Again, the matter is pretty simple:

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).

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.

I agree. But, again, consider the alternatives:

Let's say we have even some dozen builds available for Black Mage, be they from combinations of talents, sub-classes, set bonuses, individual gear special effects, skill-adjusting consumables, or what have you. How expansive should its base/core kit be? How consistent/involved should its identity be? What is a Black Mage? How do you balance the easier builds thus generated against those that require more fight knowledge, in-the-moment reaction speed and awareness, and generally faster decision-making so that the latter aren't simply culled from the class?

A mere dozen is far, far from the combinatorial nebula that is most involved talent systems (literal four- to six-figure numbers of combinations), let alone their intersections with other customization systems, and still those questions have to be answered. The limits of how much you can/should cut away from the base experience while still letting it be conveyable and enjoyable, and the parameters of gameplay to result from those combinations, is something that needs to pretty well hammered out before looking at what can be twisted, pulled, and replaced.

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.

No, it's rather more like the pool being deeper than the person is tall and that person having never swum before (as there is no customization in this game from which, apparently, to much conceptualize its impact). The caution conveyed doesn't require any mention of the ocean that the advice-giver may swim in; both the ocean and pool can drown the other person just fine. None of the caution I've mentioned depends on the magnitude of fine adjustments seen in the likes of GW2 or WoW or Rift or what have you to start becoming an issue, and thus far I've only even discussed set bonuses and cross-class, neither of which are ocean-sized means of customization.

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.

Agreed.

Aside: Though, "customization" involving speccing directly for a category that's basically just given by the content type (Boss-fight [ST], or Dungeon [predominantly AoE] can also only ever be practically dead from the start, in terms of actual gameplay customization. It tends to have all the effect of Talent Set A for Content Type A, Talent Set B for Content Type B, or <Just this if the boss is humanoid> and <Use this if the boss is not humanoid>. There are exception, but they are outliers. Speccing directly for categorical difference is bad design.