Yoshi-P on Character Growth

[Bourne_Endeavor]

People really tend to ovethink on this.
"Optimization" is not as mandatory as you think. Most people don't even do raid, let alone "optimal" raid. Save that for the world 1st race, because for the other groups, it doesn't matter.
In 3.0-3.1, bringing a PLD in Gordias was not optimal, yet, perfectly viable for raid groups.

Moreover, the game puts more and more emphasis on random groups, where you can't chose the people you'll run with. We already have the Duty Finder, but the Raid Finder will take care of every endgame content. They said that the Creator won't have group mechanics, and thus, will require less coordination. So, running without any required build will be an option for those who want.

Besides, you can add several builds with purpose, by doing synergy builds. For example, one WAR build might be better IF you have a NIN in your party, another, IF you have a MNK, etc...there won't be one absolute build.
For example, WHM could chose a trait where it recovers a fraction of what he heals. Since WAR receive higher healing, they'd recover more MP than with a PLD or a DRK. They could have a trait to make their HoT refill HP each time the target uses MP. Great when paired with DRK, BLM and SMN, but useless with MNK and DRG, etc...

And, again, 95% of the playerbase don't care about Savage, so they could build their character without requiring optimisation. They'll just chose based on favored gameplay elements.

I'm well aware raiding is niche. That wasn't my argument. I am asking what purpose would overhauling the entire character infrastructure serve in content you can beat with three buttons? What you're asking for would essentially be the whole expansion's main focus. And what does it accomplish? Okay, we can tweak and customize our stats or abilities more... but none of it matters because the content outside of raiding you can faceroll over without much difficulty. While I'm not against the idea necessarily, I do not want the devs to dedicate ample resources to a feature rendered largely irrelevant.

Viable yes, but PLD suffered such significant decline prior to 3.2, SE specifically went out of their way to design fights around their strengths. People simply wouldn't take them on a given average. At progression level, you will inevitably see the same. We're already seeing it with the amount of groups dropping WHM for AST now. It happened in FFXI, wherein if you preferred a certain sub-optimal sub class, you weren't likely to be invited for high end content.

In theory, yes. But people will eventually determine what provides the highest DPS and expect it.

And again, what's the point then? Say your examples were implemented. When would you ever need to switch builds? No content outside raiding is remotely challenging.

[Alahra]

It wasn't a success from a gameplay perspective! You'd be hard pressed to find a single person that truly liked the interactive movie feel, and the combat and gameplay is often touted as one of the worst systems in the entire series to date!

FFXIII is in my top five Final Fantasy titles of the main series. There's your single person. :x

[Thayos]

I love the fan service. It's a Final Fantasy MMO!

[Gramul]

Disappointing but not shocking.
This game's been generally playing it safe from 2.0 forwards.

[Seiryuukishi]

Disappointing but not shocking.
This game's been generally playing it safe from 2.0 forwards.

What did you expect? 1.0 was a financial catastrophe of near Biblical proportions. Of course Square Enix wants to play it safe, especially in this world economy. You can argue they spend thousands upon millions of dollars(or Yen, etc.) on Fan Fests and other things but advertisements cost so does trying to keep a populace of an MMO happy(generally speaking). 2.0 and 3.0 did not have to be made. The board could have flat out told Yoshida no. But they didn't and I am sure they had limits in place for what he could and could not do for the sake of not repeating 1.0's failure. He may be director/producer but that does not mean he has full authority. Someone else signs his paycheck.

[Hayward]

What did you expect? 1.0 was a financial catastrophe of near Biblical proportions. Of course Square Enix wants to play it safe, especially in this world economy. You can argue they spend thousands upon millions of dollars(or Yen, etc.) on Fan Fests and other things but advertisements cost so does trying to keep a populace of an MMO happy(generally speaking).

This is true. It's way too easy to take risks with other companies' money. In the case of S-E, I'm satisfied that they're not taking needless risks to please people who will never be satisfied.

[Gramul]

What did you expect? 1.0 was a financial catastrophe of near Biblical proportions. Of course Square Enix wants to play it safe, especially in this world economy. You can argue they spend thousands upon millions of dollars(or Yen, etc.) on Fan Fests and other things but advertisements cost so does trying to keep a populace of an MMO happy(generally speaking). 2.0 and 3.0 did not have to be made. The board could have flat out told Yoshida no. But they didn't and I am sure they had limits in place for what he could and could not do for the sake of not repeating 1.0's failure. He may be director/producer but that does not mean he has full authority. Someone else signs his paycheck.

Totally true. But responding by leaping to the other extreme isn't exactly the wisest of decisions. Especially regarding long term interest.
By removing elemental weaknesses, keeping jobs on a stringent holy trinity system, and keeping gear on railroad style progression, they've basically written themselves in a corner when it comes to variety for gameplay. And without strong variety, people start to get bored. I love a lot about this game, but there's something to be said for the lack of deeper character customization.

[Seiryuukishi]

Totally true. But responding by leaping to the other extreme isn't exactly the wisest of decisions. Especially regarding long term interest.
By removing elemental weaknesses, keeping jobs on a stringent holy trinity system, and keeping gear on railroad style progression, they've basically written themselves in a corner when it comes to variety for gameplay. And without strong variety, people start to get bored. I love a lot about this game, but there's something to be said for the lack of deeper character customization.

That is also true. By and large I think it is mostly them keeping with two rules: First, keep with the current market trends for MMOs. Makes sense from a financial standpoint. Little risk and greater chance for reward if you play your cards right. Second, don't repeat the mistakes of the past whether they be your own or someone else's. There is much to be learned from history and that holds true for businesses too. I don't deny that this game I love so much can improve. Everything can. But I don't want improvement at the cost of the potential loss of it altogether or loss of friends in game because they can no longer invest what little time they had to begin with.

With risk comes reward but who can say when the risk is greater than the reward? These are things they have to work out on a development basis. Again, Yoshida has been quoted many times as saying there are tons of things he wants to implement but can't. At least he wants to, you know? That has to count for something.

[Gramul]

That is also true. By and large I think it is mostly them keeping with two rules: First, keep with the current market trends for MMOs. Makes sense from a financial standpoint. Little risk and greater chance for reward if you play your cards right. Second, don't repeat the mistakes of the past whether they be your own or someone else's. There is much to be learned from history and that holds true for businesses too.

Quite right.

[Chessala]

I have to say, I am not surprised by any of his replies. If they truly wanted to change character progression, it would have shown by now. I don't understand how people could not have seen it coming.

That being said, this game could take many routes to improve without changing character progression in itself. One of them is giving people more options to reply old content - solo/duo mode for dungeons WITH EXP AT LEVEL is one. Dungeon scaling is another. Make it interesting to re-play dungeons, that doesn't mean remoddeling an old dungeon for a hard version. Personally, I would LOVE challenging the leveling dungeons t a harder difficulty while I level for higher exp rewards.

Also, get rid of gating content, abolish the "new tome has a 450 limit" system and let people grind freely. If I want to grind 9000 scripts in a week, let me. The artificial grind limits only make people play less. People will complain eventually anyway....

Also, give dungeons more variety than run ahead and kill mobs in a row...make people think, implement puzzles, riddles, random traps....possibilities are limitless without changing char progression