The Illusion of Choice

[KaitlanKela]

So that leaves STR, Determination, Critical Hit Rate, and Skill Speed. I suppose you could have something like a boss that takes more damage from critical hits, so that critical is now more desirable, but that's still not going to introduce variety, because now you just get as much Critical Hit Rate as you can.

Each job has a few things that are worth something to them.Not every job is going to want every stat and it's unrealistic to expect such a thing. Then we would have the opposite of diversity because everyone would be using everything.

Of the stats that are meaningful to a job, you absolutely can make fights to encourage those builds. They have done it. They could do it again. And how exactly is that not diversity? In one fight you need crit, the next you need Skill Speed, or whatever. You meld your materia or farm your different accs. Something that changes with the fight and is easy to adjust as necessary. Maybe that's not what YOU mean by diversity, but it seems to be what the OP wants.

The only thing I might request that would require development is adjusting the weights and effectiveness of the stats to where the differences were really noticeable. They've adjusted stuff like that in the past (STR -> VIT tanks anyone?) so I don't see why they couldn't do it again.

BTW, honestly I like the game as it is. It's a little linear gear/progression wise, but the gameplay is fun enough so I don't really have anything to complain about.

ETA: Bold. After reading your comments re: my post, it's clear you missed the point. OP asked for different builds for different fights that could easily be flipped around after the fight was over. You still haven't defined what YOU mean by variety/diversity which is clearly something different from the OP.

If it's a permanent adjustment on the stats, see my fire/ice/thunder mage analogy on page three. It doesn't work.

[Alahra]

BTW, honestly I like the game as it is. It's a little linear gear/progression wise, but the gameplay is fun enough so I don't really have anything to complain about.

And I want to add, even though I want more customization, I still love this game and I'm not going anywhere either. I just think it could do more to be a bit more interesting and varied. Being able to differentiate yourself from players who play the same class as you is fun for many players.

[Darkstride]

We don't need a new system, we have a system, we need more diverse raids to encourage variety within the system. At least, if this concept is something you're FOR you would want that.

But stats have such a lack of depth, what kind of content would they create that you would need different stats for? They don't do anything unique or different...it pretty much boils down to which stat is weighted the heaviest for your job and have you maxed it yet....

Stats in FFXIV are too job/role specific to the point where you suffer if you don't max your primary one. A Dragoon has no use for Mind, Piety, Int, Dexterity, etc because they legitimately do absolutely nothing for that job...because we have a system that is limiting. There's no raid mechanic that will make any of those stats more useful for a job that can't even use them.

[KaitlanKela]

But stats have such a lack of depth, what kind of content would they create that you would need different stats for? They don't do anything unique or different...it pretty much boils down to which stat is weighted the heaviest for your job and have you maxed it yet....

Disagree. As I've said, I stack VIT on my healer for PvP. It's the widely accepted practice, actually. Different context, different rules.

In PvE, I could see a boss that has a move that does xxxxx unavoidable damage to (dps or healer, whichever), which can only be survived by having vit.
Most bosses have an accuracy cap, but what if it was so high, other classes had to stack aiming to hit?
Or a boss that slows so much that sks/sps is required to meet checks?
Or a boss which absorbs mp at a rate at which piety is a necessity.
Of course, these bosses would obviously have to have lower healing and DPS checks, but it's totally possible within the system we have already.

[Darkstride]

Disagree. As I've said, I stack VIT on my healer for PvP. It's the widely accepted practice, actually. Different context, different rules.

In PvE, I could see a boss that has a move that does xxxxx unavoidable damage to (dps or healer, whichever), which can only be survived by having vit.
Most bosses have an accuracy cap, but what if it was so high, other classes had to stack aiming to hit?
Or a boss that slows so much that sks/sps is required to meet checks?
Or a boss which absorbs mp at a rate at which piety is a necessity.
Of course, these bosses would obviously have to have lower healing and DPS checks, but it's totally possible within the system we have already.

I understand what you're saying, but none of that actually promotes diversity or interesting gameplay elements. It's still a matter of just having the right amount of the right stat to get the job done. If a boss were to have an astronomical Accuracy requirement, but a lower DPS check, then every tank and DPS would just need to stack accuracy. For a boss that slows everyone, then everyone would have to stack Skill/Spell speed. That does nothing for role or stat diversity, all it does is make that one fight a pain in the ass if you don't have the right accessories. It's basically another illusion of choice. Sure, it's content that needs a different stat for a different strategy, but if the content requires it for completion, what choice is there?

[Izsha]

I understand what you're saying, but none of that actually promotes diversity or interesting gameplay elements. It's still a matter of just having the right amount of the right stat to get the job done. If a boss were to have an astronomical Accuracy requirement, but a lower DPS check, then every tank and DPS would just need to stack accuracy. For a boss that slows everyone, then everyone would have to stack Skill/Spell speed. That does nothing for role or stat diversity, all it does is make that one fight a pain in the ass if you don't have the right accessories. It's basically another illusion of choice. Sure, it's content that needs a different stat for a different strategy, but if the content requires it for completion, what choice is there?

Ding ding ding!

a fight vs a ifrit that makes tanks wear fire resist gear to win isn't choice. Fighting ifrit and making blm do an imaginary "ice spec" build isn't choice. It's a gear hoop to jump through to complete content. In ffxi in a fight vs skeletons (they took half damage from piercing damage and 25% more from blunt staff damage), a dragoon pulling out a staff instead of a spear wasn't some magical viable fun choice.

These kinds of 'variations' in gameplay don't promote choice. They just promote "here's a new problem. Solve for X. There's still a right answer". That's not choice. Choice implies equivalent but asymmetrical options. But the amount of balance work required to achieve that is really just absurd and impractical. If each job had 3 specs, we're talking 39 classes to balance in groups of 8. The number of party compositions that every piece of new content would have to account for would instantly Baloon astronomically. You don't think that with that many moving parts, a couple compositions that synergize wouldn't rise above the rest creating job and class exclusion lime this game has never seen? It will. There are only 2 ways this method has ever turned out in history. Specs are balanced, but homogenized and boring, or they are interesting and fun but wildly unbalanced with rampant exclusion or preference as the balance pendulum swings back and forth over patches.

You can't have huge variety of classes and specs everywhere without homogenezation or unbalance. There are to many variables to have 1 piece of content somehow be equally friendly to an exponential rise in class/spec variety.

[Belhi]

The difference between crafting and having builds is if you don't like crafting you don't have to craft. If you don't like having to mess around with builds you still have to mess around with builds. Screwing around with builds really annoys me. I like to be about to play something without relying on a spread sheet and a calculator to figure out what works. If I need to rely on third party sites to figure out the build I need then that is worse. In my view if the game build system is complicated enough that you cant intuitively figure out what you need for a reliable build in the game itself without having to resort to google then the game is broken.

Using the OP's analogy, its like going to a grocery store and having a random set of ingredients you have feed into a machine to make the cheese but due to the number of options the store lacks a reliable way of knowing if the cheese you want is what you will get when it comes out of the machine meaning you have to on line and research websites other people have made just to try and maybe get the cheese you want. If I had to do that I would just go to a shop where I could just buy the one variety of cheese.

[Alahra]

In my view if the game build system is complicated enough that you cant intuitively figure out what you need for a reliable build in the game itself without having to resort to google then the game is broken.

Nothing says it really needs to be that complicated, though. The Merit Points system in FFXI only gave you a handful of points to play with—you typically ended up choosing three ability adjustments (such as X Ability has a lower cooldown) and a couple of new unique abilities. You didn't really need to outside of the game at all to make that call. Most of them came down to personal preference or to what sort of content you did most (though there were a few options that were heavily favored for some classes, like Meditate enhancement for Samurai).

[Kaurie]

The difference between crafting and having builds is if you don't like crafting you don't have to craft. If you don't like having to mess around with builds you still have to mess around with builds. Screwing around with builds really annoys me. I like to be about to play something without relying on a spread sheet and a calculator to figure out what works. If I need to rely on third party sites to figure out the build I need then that is worse. In my view if the game build system is complicated enough that you cant intuitively figure out what you need for a reliable build in the game itself without having to resort to google then the game is broken.

Hey, I liked your response, as it is a perfect argument to my note on crafting. How would you feel if they added customization, but also added a default automatic build? This would allow people to customize if they wish, or they could hit a tickbox that automatically fills in the traits as they level for a build chosen by the development team?

Alternatively, the default build could be crowd-sourced. As in, it defaults to what the majority of players are using. So if people discovered a good build, shared it online, most people copied it - then new players would automatically get that build if they opted for the default.

[Malzian]

Hey, I liked your response, as it is a perfect argument to my note on crafting. How would you feel if they added customization, but also added a default automatic build? This would allow people to customize if they wish, or they could hit a tickbox that automatically fills in the traits as they level for a build chosen by the development team?

Alternatively, the default build could be crowd-sourced. As in, it defaults to what the majority of players are using. So if people discovered a good build, shared it online, most people copied it - then new players would automatically get that build if they opted for the default.

Honestly, I really just don't like having to worry about builds much like Belhi (and good heavens I loathe forced skill resets for when they make adjustments...) so that may color this some, but I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and say that while this could be a good thing in theory it sounds far, far too much like it could end up being a massive piece of 'troll bait' to me.