Thread: A plea for 3.0 and beyond: Job Customization

The sub job system in XI was nice giving person ability to mix and match the different jobs.

Originally Posted by Zarzak

How the system is now the xclass skill window is nothing more than an illusion of choice. If you don't get X, Y, and Z abilities from it you are screwed because your class is tuned around having them.

It's less so than FFXI. Oh you're a SMN and don't have /WHM? lol@you

LOL?

There is NO flexibility. Hold on while I remove raging strikes from my BLM's bar and ask people how they feel about that. Read above. They literally tune around you picking specific xclass skills.

It's like you want extra choices just to have them. It'll take all of 20 hours to figure out which is the best and then if you're not using the best, you're being look down on or ostracized. Which is exactly the same as it is now.

Originally Posted by Exstal

It's less so than FFXI. Oh you're a SMN and don't have /WHM? lol@you

Depended on the job though. For some jobs, subjobs were actually flexible and let you fill different roles (My main was RDM, and I used /WHM, /BLM, /NIN, and /DRK in endgame raids, all for different reasons). But its true that for some other jobs, there was not much variety in subjobs (SMN had basically one, WHM could do /BLM or /SMN but it didnt make much difference, etc).

Of course, FFXIV doesn't have the role flexibility that FFXI did for some jobs.

Originally Posted by Khyra

Of course, FFXIV doesn't have the role flexibility that FFXI did for some jobs.

I agree, the role is set in stone. You are a DPS, Healer, or tank. That's fine. But at variation is encouraged and not terribly imbalanced toward one specific setup. Although, going forward it'll be hard to balance all these new jobs effectively especially with all the new skills that will come with expansions. I worry if we're going to fall into the "illusion of choice" model that plagues every single MMO just to satisfy people who want to be different for the sake of being different. Such is the nature of individualism.

I've wanted a system like that for a while, but realistically it wouldn't be implemented until 3.0. There is no reason to drastically change 2.0 when it's half a year until the expansion. I don't think they'd even have to change the difficulty of 2.0 content to fit. A character can only execute one action at a time. If a dragoon is healing it isn't doing damage so it wouldn't be a huge boost in performance.

One problem that would need solving is magic and physical damage having separate weapon damage stats. The reason paladin sucks at healing is because healing is based off the magic damage of the weapon. Give certain weapons magic damage and it could be a solid system.

You've already mentioned why I think we'll most likely not see this.

And increasing the difficulty pretty much makes the best setups a requirement. People who are already having trouble with content are only going to end up having more.

I have a hard time seeing this working. Will traits/passives also be shared? This is super critical to the support of this system. What's the point of rolling WAR, DRG, or Ninja and being allowed to throw in MNK skills without getting greased lightning? Monks are only strong because they can throw out lots of moves very quickly thanks to greased lightning. If you allow another job to obtain grease lightning through the use of monk skills, then it's already broken because grease lightning allows very few skills outside of it's rotation in order to maintain your greased lightning, and it will all be filled up with DoT abilities. On the other hand, if you don't allow other jobs to attain greased lightning, then there is absolutely no merit to using MNK skills since they are far weaker and your character will not be able to throw out as many to produce the same damage as a MNK with greased lightning. The same goes for Astral Fire and Umbral Ice, should a WHM be able to get all their mana back just because they have the accuracy to hit a boss with Blizzard III? Is there any merit for a SMN to use a 300+ mana cost (with no stacks of Astral Fire) fire spell without attaining any stacks of Astral Fire? In short the passives and traits system unique to each job is critical to their gameplay, and let's be real, allowing a tank or dps to heal is not ideal at all, the only way it will actually help is if they spec into piety and mnd at least just a little, which will hurt their dps and they will likely not get into parties. Not to mention with customization comes discrimination, you will have a harder time finding a party if you're not the most optimal set up (my guess would be MNKs with their fists of fire and greased lightning using whatever other abilities from another job that can possibly compliment their rotation, most likely heavy thrust from DRG). In short, with the current systems we have in place for our classes right now, a customization of your suggestion would never work out.

TL;DR: Jobs rely heavily on their passives/traits, ones that stand out would be Greased Lightning and Astral Fire. Allowing them to be shared between classes would be broken, not allowing them to be shared would eliminate any merit to using those abilities.

Okay, if I get this right, you want to remove the cross-class limitations of the Jobs and make more of the classes abilities cross-class-able? I have to assume this is what you mean as not once did you say "class", treating the Jobs as the things you level... which they aren't. While I'm all for the idea, it can make for some broken things balance-wise. Take Warrior. Being a TP tank they rely on their TP for maintaining hate, especially with their smaller mp pool compared to Paladin. If they were to have access to lancer's Invigorate then they'd be able to really rip into a mob, probably even outclassing Dragoon in burst damage. What's so bad about that? PvP. Warrior wades into an enemy party, carnage ensues. In the meta, all DDs would be assumed as having leveled archer for Quelling and Repelling Shot and conjurer for Shroud of Saints. I don't see this idea ending well, even if it would be neat.