Job Personalization: Can I Have It?

[Lemuria]

All the "weak" arguments are major faults in skill trees.
It will always boil down to the most optimal builds and class which Yoshi-P doesn't want.

Final Fantasy XI had unique merit abilities and traits you could 'buy' with points. It was a system that worked very well and because of the way the skills were designed there was no such thing as an 'optimal' build. There were some skills which were considered less beneficial, but usually it's more the case that you're choosing one awesome skill over another awesome skill in the same category.

You also had to level up each individual skill, so the more points you put into one skill the more powerful it would become but the fewer points you would have to spend on other skills. This 'optimal build' argument only has legs if they design the bonus skills poorly. A carefully constructed customization system doesn't suffer from this.

[zcrash970]

Final Fantasy XI had unique merit abilities and traits you could 'buy' with points. It was a system that worked very well and because of the way the skills were designed there was no such thing as an 'optimal' build. There were some skills which were considered less beneficial, but usually it's more the case that you're choosing one awesome skill over another awesome skill in the same category.

You also had to level up each individual skill, so the more points you put into one skill the more powerful it would become but the fewer points you would have to spend on other skills. This 'optimal build' argument only has legs if they design the bonus skills poorly. A carefully constructed customization system doesn't suffer from this.

If you are serious....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!

Final Fantasy XI? One of the most imbalanced mmos out there. If you didn't play a certain way for your job, you would be kicked from even exp parties.
"Oh your SMN without healing abilities? KICK!" "LF NIN tank only!" Do these sound familiar?

Or maybe remembering having to switch builds to whatever was in atm for the current expansion?

Please except the reality that if we were given the choice in character customization, there will be an optimal build for each class/job and, if you do not use it, no endgame group will take you. That's just how mmos work.

It's not like I'm dismissing your opinion, but there will always be better and lesser builds.

[Vinestra]

Final Fantasy XI had unique merit abilities and traits you could 'buy' with points. It was a system that worked very well and because of the way the skills were designed there was no such thing as an 'optimal' build. There were some skills which were considered less beneficial, but usually it's more the case that you're choosing one awesome skill over another awesome skill in the same category.

You also had to level up each individual skill, so the more points you put into one skill the more powerful it would become but the fewer points you would have to spend on other skills. This 'optimal build' argument only has legs if they design the bonus skills poorly. A carefully constructed customization system doesn't suffer from this.

Never played FF11 but the only way there was never an optimal build is if every single person never did numbers and found out which is the best.

[Catwho]

They won't see your build outright, but as soon as you start using abilities related to one build vs another, they'll know what you did.

And if you're not getting new abilities from the builds, what is the point?

[Altanas]

The best way to go would be Talent Trees:

1) Make them respecable
2) Make respecs free
3) Allow us to respect anywhere not just at an inn or NPC
4) Let us save "loadouts"

This way you can set your loadout for each type of content for fun solo play or according to party needs/demands

I like the way that APRGs and other MMOs (like WoW, SWTOR, ESO) go about this - in that there is a healthy mix of a variety of passives which tweak skills in certain ways. I think games like SWTOR actually got talents right when they pruned their whole talent system last year.

[Averax]

If they did talents of any sort, let it not be trees.

They were so annoying and unfun in wow that they got rid of them and replaced them with talent tiers, containing optional fun abilities that made slight alterations to your rotation/playstyle.

In the old days of WoW, you'd google the best way to spec. If you didn't spec optimally, you wouldn't be getting a raid invite. The talent choices weren't even fun. "1% into spell haste or 1% into crit rate". I'd rather not see that come here.

(I'd love it if every job had a viable dps specialization option though, it would make questing and open world content loads more easy. Cleric stance just doesn't do it.)

[Cynfael]

(I'd love it if every job had a viable dps specialization option though, it would make questing and open world content loads more easy. Cleric stance just doesn't do it.)

Wait, what? Cleric Stance does great. If anything, healers have an advantage when it comes to most open world content. For example, being able to complete bills for lvl 59 hunts at lvl 50 without outside help and every cooldown and trick in the book is definitely a plus.

[Averax]

Wait, what? Cleric Stance does great. If anything, healers have an advantage when it comes to most open world content. For example, being able to complete bills for lvl 59 hunts at lvl 50 without outside help and every cooldown and trick in the book is definitely a plus.

Astrologian attacks are a tad undertuned.

Edit: Anyway, i'm talking about a full on dps option for healers/tanks.

With a new full rotation and everything. Astrologian is currently my favorite job, and healing is fun, but I don't always feel like healing. You dig? Sometimes I just want to hit stuff as my astrologian, but I can't do that in a practical setting because the job is healing only.

It's like priests in WoW. You could be Holy or Discipline (healer specs) but if you didn't feel like healing you could switch to Shadow (dps) and blow some things up.

SMN/SCH already do this basically.

[Cynfael]

Astrologian attacks are a tad undertuned.

Edit: Anyway, i'm talking about a full on dps option for healers/tanks.

With a new full rotation and everything.

Not a bad suggestion, but as far as AST goes, I think I just threw DoTs on things, stacked HoT on myself, and spammed Gravity until everything died. AST needs help with some things to be sure, but solo is fine.

[Ashkendor]

Wait, what? Cleric Stance does great. If anything, healers have an advantage when it comes to most open world content. For example, being able to complete bills for lvl 59 hunts at lvl 50 without outside help and every cooldown and trick in the book is definitely a plus.

Right? One of my favorite things to do while leveling Scholar was my daily hunts. DoT'ing up Chimeras in Azys Lla and kiting them around gleefully while my fairy kept me alive at around level 50-51 was epic fun. :3