Thread: A plea for 3.0 and beyond: Job Customization

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.

Originally Posted by LandricFrey

Things will never be perfectly balanced so how about we add some class playstyle choices?

Because it will be nothing more than an illusion to satisfy a few people and then add in more balancing complications. In Diablo 2 and earlier versions of WoW, players had skills systems, that allowed for customization. In the current version of WoW and in D3, we do not have those. Do you know why? Because an overwhelming majority will simply choose the current best spec and play with it. Parties will force you to play that spec, and then kick you out if you don't. I never played version 1, which was a lot more open, but I've read in a few posts, this was the case, you had to have certain class and spec to participate.

What you want is something like Diablo 3 has, in which a class has access to every skill, and the gear that class is wearing determines what that's class's spec is. The caveat, however, is that Diablo 3 can be soloed, whereas FFXIV requires group play. Once group play enters the picture, the mentality of the best spec will kick in, and you won't have the choices you think you do*.


* Outside of solo play that, obviously. Or if you want to form your own group that supports your snowflake.

If you kept the limited cross class slots (5 max), remove the restrictions and redesign the abilities that get cross classed, using traits to buff specialists so they don't get overshadowed, this would work fantastic and avoid most of the doomsaying in this thread.

But we need to REALLY pick and choose what skills should be available to cross-class. It should bring a little of that class' ability without overshadowing what they do. PLD's can be Flash, since it still works as a threat generator, but it's got to be that PLD's is much better and they have better mitigation for the job. Cure or Cure II can work great, as long as WHM still gets all the better heals exclusively. I'd say each job should bring to the table up to three core cross class skills and two core traits. Tops. Your 5 slots must decide what skills or traits to use.

Yes, there will be FOTM builds. But you know what? Other games deal. Devs change things. Eventually a good enough balance will arise.

Originally Posted by Verlyn

Yes, there will be FOTM builds. But you know what? Other games deal. Devs change things. Eventually a good enough balance will arise.

The issue is not whether it can be done, but why. The devs could do that, and then enter in the constant re balancing dance this would cause. At the end of the day, the vast majority of players will just play the current FoTM build. Outside of the modest experimentation that happens (that leads to FoTM builds), what value did you add to the game?

Originally Posted by Delily

The issue is not whether it can be done, but why. The devs could do that, and then enter in the constant re balancing dance this would cause. At the end of the day, the vast majority of players will just play the current FoTM build. Outside of the modest experimentation that happens (that leads to FoTM builds), what value did you add to the game?

Depth. Flexibility. Some experimentation. As long as there's more than one way to do things, even by the boss (which a well designed set of abilities will accomplish), then mission accomplished.

People overestimate how horrible it is to have customization that results in a few optimized solutions. There is NO customization system in existence that will not result in such a thing. That doesn't make it useless to try. The same complaints, even some of the same FOTM issues, will happen with or without the system in place. That's just a system still being refined, not a huge game destroying problem.

Sorry to say, regardless of how customizable you make a system, players will do what they always do. Find the "best" way to be a WAR and if you arent doing it the "best" way, you are doing it wrong #kicknoobsfromparty.

Its fine how it is, it easier for the devs to ballance content and create new content, I know what I'm getting when I see a particular class in my party, and having the freedom to change jobs at the drop of a hat is far beyond any customization you see in other MMO's. Just be patient, this is vanilla ARR. this is the first wave of skills. when level caps get raised and new skills get added the customization will naturally expand. As it goes, I have different hotbar sets for different roles I play in a party, I'm WAR and have an emnity set for dungeons, I have a PvP set for damage and CC, and i have a DPS for when i off tank and still want to help out.

Sorry, OP. I dont agree we need to change anything, it just needs time to grow. with each patch, it gets better.

Originally Posted by Verlyn

Depth. Flexibility. Some experimentation. As long as there's more than one way to do things, even by the boss (which a well designed set of abilities will accomplish), then mission accomplished.

People overestimate how horrible it is to have customization that results in a few optimized solutions. There is NO customization system in existence that will not result in such a thing. That doesn't make it useless to try. The same complaints, even some of the same FOTM issues, will happen with or without the system in place. That's just a system still being refined, not a huge game destroying problem.

Fair enough, but there is a return on investment. It is really worth the amount of time and money it would take for the developers to implement this system, only to wind right back up where we currently are, and then incur the additional costs of balancing? Nothing is free. The time the developers could spend in building this out could be spent in building new content. Which would you rather have?