Job Personalization: Can I Have It?

[Akiza]

Personalization would work if the level cap wasn't going to be raised for a long time.

[Bishop81]

Definitely appreciate you taking the time do so, though *thumbs up* Truthfully in theory your ideas sound good. But as it was already pointed out, anyone who wants to main the 3 new jobs are completely left out because they have no base class. And they could just swap to one of the different classes to do the content, but then that clashes with your idea of people being able to play how they want to play. I feel if we're going to add new customization for the game it needs to include all of the classes/jobs somehow. The new jobs are already getting a lot of flak. I wouldn't want to gimp them even further.

The alternative is to just forget about Classes. Extend the number of cross-class skills Jobs can take and let the "skill book" acquired skills be unusable in raids. This may or may not require some additional programming though and is one more thing that the game needs to check before letting a skill go off.

Or ...

They could tied DRK to MRD, ASH to CNJ and MSH to a new gun wielding Class[1] locking out/changing specific Class skills when you switch to Job - there is already precedence for this with ACN; you can't summon Carbuncles anymore as Summon/Summon II change in functionality, in addition to certain skills becoming worthless, e.g. Physick.

[1] There is already a desk at the Coral Tower with a gun icon.

[Colt47]

The bigger problem is that jobs with branching specs is an entirely different system than the one that they are building off of. Or more specifically, it's different than the system they are building away from. Jobs were originally the specializations of the classes, but because of how stat distribution works this didn't quite work out as intended (they tried with summoner / scholar and we saw how that turned out.) To make different specs, they'd need to allow multiple sets of stat point distributions when using the same base class.

Don't get the wrong idea: I'd love to be able to have a choice in how I can play monk or Dragoon rather than be stuck with just one way to play the job. However, that's basically asking for multiple flavors of the same class, which would add considerable workload to the dev team who are already busy bringing samurai and blue mage to the game.

[AlexionSkylark]

Weak arguments against this idea:
1. “Choice is an Illusion.” If I understand correctly, this is one of three player types.
a) Those who are punished by difficult content to the point of needing perfect builds just to get by.
b) Players who want the very best set up so they can perform their best.
c) Those who haven’t the time, interest, or are scared to make their own decisions.

False. All of those players would chose to look up a premade optimal build to enhance their experience, effectively giving them but one choice. Nothing would change for them except the fact that they have made a decision.

WRONG. Let me tell you as a former World of Warcraft player how this would turn out:

• The premade optimal build will be made largely and easily accessible to all players.
• FCs and static groups at large WILL demand you to use the optimal premade.
• The optimal premade will not be a choice, it'll be the DEFAULT. Most people will want to use it for better performance.
• Choosing not to use it will cause everybody around you to label you as a noob/baddie.
• The optimal premade won't be called the optimal premade anymore. It'll be called the "RIGHT" build.
• ANYTHING different from the optimal premade will be considered subpar and useless.

FF14, like WoW and others, is a linear vertical progression MMO, and as such people in general, specially those involved in raiding like Coil/Alex will want to and feel they NEED to be as strong as possible. Min/Maxing characters already happens without such a system (just look at how tanks with STR accessories are treated here), if they introduce this, it'll be compulsory to use the optimal premade. Peer pressure will guarantee it.

[DreadRabbit]

snip

Well SE is already attempting to do the former in regards to forgetting about classes. The problem is I don't think they anticipated the 3 new jobs being as poorly received as they have been so they're scrambling to improve them. Unless they change how those work offering more cross class abilities for them won't do much good because they're already built to be a "hybrid" of the two other jobs that share their roles (or Machinist's case the...one other job x--x ).

And I think that attempt to hybridize them is what made this seem like all classes were losing their individuality. Before they came there wasn't really that much of a complaint as all of the classes/jobs actually played pretty differently from one another. And most of them haven't changed in that respect, I just think people are blowing those changes out of proportion. Again, except the three new jobs. They feel too samey. So it feels like we didn't get anything new gameplay wise. Which is why I think we're not really going to be able to get a handle on how to "fix" this issue until they figure out how to balance the new jobs while giving them a unique identity (aka make the mechanics behind them that were supposed to make them unique actually useful. That seems to be the biggest complaint on that front from what I've been reading).

But the idea of skill books in general sort of like recipe books for the crafters, that might potentially be possible since we already have a similar system. As much as I like cross class abilities I'm willing to admit it's clear they're trying to move away from the system. So rather than being "cross-class" abilities I guess it would be more semblance of an optional PvE skill set you could hunt for whatever lore reason. Like "Oh look! BLMs could heal after studying the CNJs'. We can do something similar with the dark powers of the void" or however you'd go about it.

Or like was suggested earlier in the thread: give people the ability to aesthetically change how their skills appear.

which would add considerable workload to the dev team who are already busy bringing samurai and blue mage to the game.

And this I want the devs to get back into adding really unique jobs. Blue Mage in particular could have a lot of what people here are asking for.

[LandricFrey]

WRONG. Let me tell you as a former World of Warcraft player how this would turn out:

You don't think I was there for WoW since vanilla? I already stated that for those players there isn't much choice except to go along with what they have to do for the raid(nothing changes for them since they are stuck with one build, the optimal one), but, and this is a very big but, the rest of the players can do as they like. And you know this game caters more toward the casual crowd. By the way, caving into peer pressure is still a choice one makes. My point stands.

[ErzaScarlet77]

you think the casuals wont just google to see what people in lucrezia/elysium have as specs and just copy that?
people arent that creative, especially if they know their creative build version is inferior to the bets build used by raiders

[LandricFrey]

Don't get the wrong idea: I'd love to be able to have a choice in how I can play monk or Dragoon rather than be stuck with just one way to play the job. However, that's basically asking for multiple flavors of the same class, which would add considerable workload to the dev team who are already busy bringing samurai and blue mage to the game.

See this is exactly why I think bigger things are coming. Samurai is an easy melee dps spot but Blue Mage? (and Yoshi-P has stated his fondness of Red Mage in the past.) Those two jobs are historically melee, caster, healer, support jobs all rolled into one. To implement those jobs they's have to at the very least add a Role Checker system to the duty finder, or a support role. Or at worst, force them into one role. *throws up a little*

[DreadRabbit]

To implement those jobs they's have to at the very least add a Role Checker system to the duty finder, or a support role.

I honestly wish they would just outright do that. Yeah it would make dealing with older content a pain in the neck in figuring out how to factor in potential supports. But just adding that fourth role to the game would open up a lot.

[LandricFrey]

you think the casuals wont just google to see what people in lucrezia/elysium have as specs and just copy that?
people arent that creative, especially if they know their creative build version is inferior to the bets build used by raiders

Most casuals are in it to have fun, not hit the highest possible numbers.