Job Personalization: Can I Have It?

[justinjarjar]

or 4 MNK if Fist of Fire give the attacks fire damage again like it was during 1.x (with steady mp cost while the skill is active and int increase the fire damage)

ohh I like monk sounds good to me (but imagine if they just turned on all the element stuff with the current game right now. All the forum rage.... kinda want to see it now just for the rage)

[Izsha]

Can we just not. It has never worked in another mmo that required fine tuned teamwork. It works in crap like diablo because it's not really a team game. You can play how you want because it doesn't affect anyone else.

The balance is always crap. The more different the options are the exponentially harder it becomes to balance. No one wants to be benched because they aren't the current top patch job.

Find me one game requiring fine tuned coordinated group gameplay that featured a lot of classes (like 10+), with a large number of viable trees that didn't get boiled down to the cookie cutter and maybe a situational varient. Bonus points if it's not a class per character system.

it has NEVER worked. This customization junk is pie on the sky dreams. It doesn't work. It's been tried over and over year after year. And it flops every time. The reasons are well documented at this point.

But sure, let's ignore all that and flush another good game down the snowflake drain.

[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.

[Bishop81]

Can we just not. It has never worked in another mmo that required fine tuned teamwork. It works in crap like diablo because it's not really a team game. You can play how you want because it doesn't affect anyone else.

The balance is always crap. The more different the options are the exponentially harder it becomes to balance. No one wants to be benched because they aren't the current top patch job.

Find me one game requiring fine tuned coordinated group gameplay that featured a lot of classes (like 10+), with a large number of viable trees that didn't get boiled down to the cookie cutter and maybe a situational varient. Bonus points if it's not a class per character system.

it has NEVER worked. This customization junk is pie on the sky dreams. It doesn't work. It's been tried over and over year after year. And it flops every time. The reasons are well documented at this point.

But sure, let's ignore all that and flush another good game down the snowflake drain.

Again, allow customization of Classes and don't allow them in raids.

"Fine tuned teamwork" is not the whole game you know. I don't see why the whole game has to be designed around the needs of raiders.

[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.

[CorbinDallas]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of seeing suggestions like "implement this feature from 11". This is not Final Fantasy 11, it's Final Fantasy 14.

[DreadRabbit]

Again, allow customization of Classes and don't allow them in raids.

"Fine tuned teamwork" is not the whole game you know.

...it's a party-based MMO. Sorry, but yes, "fine tuned teamwork" is supposed to be the whole game. Or at least part of the combat aspect of the game.

Also we already have this in being able to play any job at any time. If they're so similar as people keep saying then why do you insist on differentiating the class you already play? The only class/jobs that don't have much choice in variation are the bards and machinists. Everyone else gets variations on basic play points simply by switching a weapon. It encourages people to try new roles. Specs seem more like an excuse to just continue playing one class and one class only. Which yeah, people will do anyway, but you made that choice.

[Kelg]

"People will only pick the optimal" is completely untrue. If that was so, why do games like Diablo even exist? People like choice. Just because a few elitist blowhards will try to force people into builds doesn't mean everyone will... Just look at extreme primals, and other end game content, you see DPS classes being out damaged by tanks, and they barely ever get called out about it. You wouldn't even have to worry about an optimal build outside of a raid group.

[Bishop81]

...it's a party-based MMO. Sorry, but yes, "fine tuned teamwork" is supposed to be the whole game. Or at least part of the combat aspect of the game.

Also we already have this in being able to play any job at any time. If they're so similar as people keep saying then why do you insist on differentiating the class you already play? The only class/jobs that don't have much choice in variation are the bards and machinists. Everyone else gets variations on basic play points simply by switching a weapon. It encourages people to try new roles. Specs seem more like an excuse to just continue playing one class and one class only. Which yeah, people will do anyway, but you made that choice.

Bullcrap.

WoW style raids - where the whole group is punished for the failings of a few leading to exclusionary and toxic behavior - aren't the only type of group content possible.