Yoshi-P on Character Growth

[Seiryuukishi]

Would it be crazy if I said Yoshi-P was right on this particular subject?

Why not come up with ways to make the game more fun and engaging while not steering away from the core aspects of the game? We don't need elemental wheels, we don't need to a piece of content for over a year to get one pair of gloves.

I won't lie, I would like to see the game get spiced up more, but we do not need to drastically alter the game to make it happen. There are ways to make changes that does not tear down the foundation of the game.

After seeing some amazing things WoW: Legion has done, I would definitely like to see ideas from here make it's way to FFXIV.

See? This man gets it!

[Kaurie]

Okay, I get how toggle skills can be annoying. The way I approached Black Mage when I leveled it to 60 was this(for the funsies ;P). I grabbed the gear I had for it and went straight for the highest dungeon I had access to. I knew Ley Lines increased spell speed and knew Enochian was required for Blizzard IV's use so by extension Fire IV's too. I read no guide nor watched one and asked no advice. I did four dungeons until "I" thought I had it worked out then asked. Turns out I was right about the rotation and guess what? Learning it was the fun part

I am glad you enjoy it I've got the rotation down, and have mine at 60 and geared. I just do not find it fun, and would rather create a build that doesn't have those in the rotation.

[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.

[Androir]

Char grow, in my opinion, is also more Itemlevel. Power balanching, feel the ultimate ying yang effect between negative stats and god ones for your class. And the satisfying moment if you see: you had choosen whisely.

[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.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I think that creating an entire new class would take longer than making some of the minor changes to existing systems that I have been proposing.

People also are not "demanding" things, they are expressing their input, so that the dev team has the knowledge to design a game that caters to their playerbase.

You would be surprised. To use Dragoon, they are sitting on 27 abilities. A skill tree effectively doubles or triples that number as they now have to balance around the possibility of all those additional perks people may choose. Comparatively, a new job is static. They will already have an idea of what role it will serve, thus they needs only design skills around that one idea and balance them accordingly.

[loreleidiangelo]

You would be surprised. To use Dragoon, they are sitting on 27 abilities. A skill tree effectively doubles or triples that number as they now have to balance around the possibility of all those additional perks people may choose. Comparatively, a new job is static. They will already have an idea of what role it will serve, thus they needs only design skills around that one idea and balance them accordingly.

By the devs' own admissions, it seems like they're looking into pruning abilities and rotations with the next expansion, though. You're right though, considering what a disaster Astrologian has been to balance I'm not entirely sure I'd trust the XIV dev team with something as work-intensive as talent trees, lol.