Why can't we have jobs with this level of depth and customization in FFXIV?

[Aegis]

Yes but FFXIV is brand new. For all intents and purposes the original FFXIV is dead and buried. Virtually the game is only 1 year old. There is still much growth to be done.

They got rid of most everything from 1.0 and started over. They basically give you a boosted 2.0 character. The game is 1 year old.

Same lore. Same regions. Same races. Same classes. Same jobs. Same monsters. Same NPCs. Same animations (albeit speeded up, and some lost). Same servers.

It's a stretch to call it a new game. SWG was changed far more for the NGE, but it was still SWG.

[Lemuria]

My character is 4 years old. Your argument is invalid.

So is mine, but it's nothing like it was when I started.

My conjurer used to have every elemental spell, including 'ancient magic' like Quake. Thaumaturge had drains and siphons. Crafting leves gave you all the necessary materials in advance. It was a different world back then, and our characters were worlds apart from what they are now. To say it's the same character is like saying my Lalafell is the same as my FFXI tarutaru. Hint, they're not even if the names are the same.

I guess what bothers me is that they perhaps made too many drastic changes overall. The removal of the element system in its entirety is the single most bone-headed thing ever to come out of ARR. It's like hacking off your own limb just because you want a prosthetic which doesn't do the job half as well. Sure, we have 'elemental resistances' but those make approximately zero difference to the damage received or dealt.

By removing certain mechanics, they've also removed some of the flexibility they had for making jobs more unique and full of flavour. Black Mage could've easily become the master of the elements instead of going for the hat-trick, which would have opened up other possibilities for element-based skills on classes to make tactics a thing. Monsters with strengths and weaknesses would also add flavour to the combat instead of having everyone mash the same button combos on every single enemy regardless of type.

Say what you will about FFXI, the combat at least was varied and made you think more about your opponent instead of whether or not your feet were still in a red circle.

[Felis]

Monsters with strengths and weaknesses would also add flavour to the combat instead of having everyone mash the same button combos on every single enemy regardless of type.

Is it so bad that we don't have the "juhu, I do 100 dmg more with this element skill" moment anymore?
Even in 1.0 and 1.23 the difference between right element skill and wrong element skill was not very big.

And BLM played during 1.23 this way:
single enemy = lightning spells
group of enemies = fire spells
reducing enmity = freeze
managing your mp = good luck

[Souljacker]

And I came across this page.

I've been hearing things, a LOT of things, about XI and the changes and let me tell you... The temptation is strong. It's really strong to give it another go and explore all the new things they have added. I guess my biggest gripe is still with the game client - I tried around the release of Andoiun (sp) to see the new xpac but I found it too difficult to get the client configured properly on my laptop, even with a cheat sheet of tricks I had from my last go-round with it. (things like locking it to a single core, turning off anything that may be attached to the network connection ala Virtualbox\Sonicwall VPN, etc). Nope. Still wouldn't run right, still wouldn't recognize my controller, still was just a pain in the neck to even log on.

I agree in a very generic way, though - XI is and was vastly more complex than this game is, and I don't understand this deep fear developers have of making their games interesting and challenging. They aren't afraid to put in a menial grind on level 2 FATEs or a system that encourages players to be vicious to one another, but ask for real complexity that would challenge the individual? They balk all day long. I don't get it.

I hope you realize that jobs with that level of "options" were pretty few in FFXI (Blue Mage and Puppetmaster) and were added years after the release of the game. It's not impossible that some day we'll see the same in XIV.

See, the problem with this and other comments like it is that the developers can't say "Well we didn't add this until 5ish years or whatever into our other mmo, so we can skate by with not improving upon that process because hey, it's only a year old!" And it's NOT only a year old. YoshiP has been on the project for a short time, but the game has been in development\reconstruction\planning\etc for over half a decade now. They really can't use the "it's brand, spanking new" excuse when they have almost 15 years experience in building mmos. The complexity should have been there from the start because you always want to improve upon your last project, and if nothing else, should certainly be working its way in there now, 5 years into the endeavor.

[Gilthas]

See, the problem with this and other comments like it is that the developers can't say "Well we didn't add this until 5ish years or whatever into our other mmo, so we can skate by with not improving upon that process because hey, it's only a year old!" And it's NOT only a year old. YoshiP has been on the project for a short time, but the game has been in development\reconstruction\planning\etc for over half a decade now. They really can't use the "it's brand, spanking new" excuse when they have almost 15 years experience in building mmos. The complexity should have been there from the start because you always want to improve upon your last project, and if nothing else, should certainly be working its way in there now, 5 years into the endeavor.

Ever heard of the expression "Rome wasn't built in a day"? Same thing applies to games. You don't toss out "complex" systems at release without the battle system going through the ropes. Just look at all the problems Warrior had at release.

Side-note though: I just have to lol at your jibes at FFXIV being simple (in some aspects it is, others it's more complex) and unchallenging, while FFXI was complex and challenging. People need to stop "glorifying" the challenge of FFXI when most of it came from players being at the mercy of rng. As for complexity, well, it is true that we gear swapped a lot. Can't really say that I miss those days though.

[Souljacker]

Ever heard of the expression "Rome wasn't built in a day"? Same thing applies to games. You don't toss out "complex" systems at release without the battle system going through the ropes. Just look at all the problems Warrior had at release.

Are you talking about ARR's release or the game's actual release? I guess ARR's, since warrior didn't exist. That's just another example of poor project planning, and no real testing phase. SE *should* be held accountable, and no one has ever expected them to fix everything overnight. In fact, many of us have patiently waited for YEARS for the game to even be playable, much less rich, challenging and complex.

No, the answer isn't to just stay quiet and make excuses such as "Rome wasn't built in a day" so SE can justify slacking off. The answer is to continue to offer suggestions, draw comparisons, and hope that someday the *right* dev will see the thread and that light bulb will go off in his\her head.

[Gilthas]

Are you talking about ARR's release or the game's actual release? I guess ARR's, since warrior didn't exist. That's just another example of poor project planning, and no real testing phase. SE *should* be held accountable, and no one has ever expected them to fix everything overnight. In fact, many of us have patiently waited for YEARS for the game to even be playable, much less rich, challenging and complex.

No, the answer isn't to just stay quiet and make excuses such as "Rome wasn't built in a day" so SE can justify slacking off. The answer is to continue to offer suggestions, draw comparisons, and hope that someday the *right* dev will see the thread and that light bulb will go off in his\her head.

Well, it's easy for the couch battle system designers to point fingers and call developers lazy.

[Souljacker]

Well, it's easy for the couch battle system designers to point fingers and call developers lazy.

Where in my post did I call anyone lazy? I said they don't get a free pass to slack off just because some folks think sticking a new title on a game resets the clock. If anything, now is the time to work even harder. A major MMO has an expansion looming. Other major mmos are also gaining traction, and now is a critical time for SE to prove why XIV should get all those dollars. You like things the way they are? FANTASTIC. Congratulations, even.

I tend to take the long view of things, and without criticism and developers that actually listen to it, we have disasters like 1.0 was. You may not remember it. It sure sounds like you weren't around for it...

This by no means is encouraging you to be silent, but instead to be more respectful when you're providing feedback, and attempt to see matters beyond your own viewpoint.

I invite you to quote the part of any of these posts that was "disrespectful". You may not like what I have to say, and the truth sometimes hurts, but that doesn't make my posts "disrespectful".

[Hyrist]

No, the answer isn't to just stay quiet and make excuses such as "Rome wasn't built in a day" so SE can justify slacking off. The answer is to continue to offer suggestions, draw comparisons, and hope that someday the *right* dev will see the thread and that light bulb will go off in his\her head.

Or the light-bulb can come on in yours and you can realize that perhaps you are not the target audience SE is hoping to reach. And that those of differing tastes are not lesser people or gamers for it.


Square Enix, nor FFXIV's development team in particular, are under no pressure to 'see the light' in this particular case. And it's a thinly veiled insult to believe that one set of design path is the 'correct' one, rather than stating one's own preferences and leaving it at that.

This by no means is encouraging you to be silent, but instead to be more respectful when you're providing feedback, and attempt to see matters beyond your own viewpoint.

Providing ideas that appeal to you is fine, but be aware when those ideas may not fit within the vision of the game itself or the ideals of other groups of its players. There are plenty if people that have provide concise feedback as to why such level of depth has, thus far, been discouraged by the development (And they have not hidden that fact, they have repeatedly explained their philosophy of a simplified combat system that makes more use of existing skills rather than flooding a skill menu.).

There comes a point when you have to realize that perhaps you have a impasse of design philosophy, and then decide whether or not that impasse is going to prevent you from remaining a subscriber.

Asking for this level of complexity in a game that values a minimalist approach, on my observations, seems to be clashing that impasse intentionally.

I understand your and his points. But even in XI's subjob system, you usually have a few options, even if it's just 2~5, and more if you solo. Rather than everything being ironclad, and the only thing that really changes from fight to fight is when you strafe left or right to dodge mechanics while doing your rotation. Yes, some builds will be shunned, but even a couple options and configurations is better than none, IMO. And if it's something you can tinker with while solo or in the open world for nontraditional builds, that's something I think will be pretty neat as well.

I understand this concern. However, for me I feel that such aspects at this, infant level juncture of the game (Do not count FFXIV 1.0 as a point in history, the game was reconstructed neigh completely only barely reusing assets that saved them development time. Most of the game was scrapped or re-coded.) only a year in, I can't expect that depth to truly grow so quickly. ToAU was multiple years into FFXI's development.

My desire as far as increase of depth comes from the Job system template we have in Arcanist. Skills we have are utilized in differing methods providing new directions for existing mechanics. Pretty clearly I can see portions of the Lancer Class that could be used, with some tweaks, to construct Lancer into a Tank, which I would love to be able to do.

As far as - off beat builds. FFXIV does what FFXI dared not to - allow skills to be exchangeable with classes on a singular basis. Nothing but peer pressure prevents a player from making an off-beat build by cherry picking class skills available to them at the sacrifice of Job Mechanics. Gearing would be the biggest difficulty forseeable in that aspect, and even then, there are a wider array of options than players notice.

The vast majority elect to overlook these methods for the very reason why a varied system would be a poor idea - efficiency. So the design challenge is creating a system that allows viable variance in classes. And if the developers follow through with their Class/Job idea, with a bit of refinement, I can see it working out quite well.

[Risvertasashi]

Asking for this level of complexity in a game that values a minimalist approach, on my observations, seems to be clashing that impasse intentionally.

Sadly, I do fear you're right. I really love FFXIV for a lot of things but the minimalism everywhere isn't one of them. However, I don't think it's necessarily as contradictory as you think. I think both audiences can reasonably be served. Even XI had its simple and straightforward jobs.

But that is why I wanted to open this discussion. If SE feels there's an audience to be served, and that they can do it without breaking their carefully designed setup... maybe, just maybe, we'll see something. I do think it's worthwhile to open these threads and have these discussions, even if SE eventually comes back with a firm "no." I'm sorry if you feel it's a waste of time.