More Customize Skill

[Jandor]

Saying it's a false choice seems like a pointless statement. It's like saying they may as well not put any mechanics in fights because we'll just watch guides. Of course we will, it's still fun to do though.

[dragonseth07]

snip

My statement was generalized because I have played countless MMO's over the years, and every single goddamn one runs the same course.

At the start, and in early levels, everyone loves building their character and exploring options. Eventually, the playerbase gets skilled enough to find what builds and strategies are better than others. The meta forms and stabilizes, only changing with balance patches.

Player customization is a hollow promise.

[Xhieron]

This argument about theorycrafting is valid, but it has its limits. It would certainly be prohibitive to allow broad, free-form customization--i.e., Freelancer/Traveler would be impossible--but that doesn't mean customization is impossible. The issue is making the choices powerful enough to be valuable and restricted enough to be competitive. Suppose, for instance, you're playing a healer and have to choose between Swiftcast and Cleric Stance. You can equip one (and only one), and you can't change once the duty starts. Some fights might be easier with one or the other, but you're ultimately trading a very valuable cooldown for a significant DPS increase. I suspect even among a relatively small sample we could get disagreement on which is more important to a healer. It might be skewed, and high level play would likely default to one "optimal" option, but the choice would by no means be illusory.

[MagiusNecros]

That is not toxicity, but simple pragmatism. If it can be mathematically proven one stat or skill customization is superior, you refusing to adapt is pure stubbornness. It's akin to arguing Dragoons should max out SkS or White Mage shouldn't bother with accuracy even if they intent to DPS. You can do it, but you're only hurting yourself and your raid group.

Pragmatic approaches aren't always fun though. I'm all about fun. And in my experience the math, all the buffs, exponential coordination, peerless execution of mechanics, lining up every player's rotation of skills together isn't that much fun to me.

More grating and tedious if anything. But don't let me get you green behind the gills.

[dragonseth07]

Pragmatic approaches aren't always fun though. I'm all about fun. And in my experience the math, all the buffs, exponential coordination, peerless execution of mechanics, lining up every player's rotation of skills together isn't that much fun to me.

More grating and tedious if anything. But don't let me get you green behind the gills.

Fun is great, don't get me wrong. I'm sure every Blizzard Wizard I've seen in DF was having tons of fun. :P

[MagiusNecros]

Fun is great, don't get me wrong. I'm sure every Blizzard Wizard I've seen in DF was having tons of fun. :P

I'll take a BlizWiz over a loldrg any day of the week.

[BubblyBoar]

Pragmatic approaches aren't always fun though. I'm all about fun. And in my experience the math, all the buffs, exponential coordination, peerless execution of mechanics, lining up every player's rotation of skills together isn't that much fun to me.

More grating and tedious if anything. But don't let me get you green behind the gills.

Sure, that may be fun for you, but what about the other 7 people you are with. Is your fun getting int he way of their fun? Were tey happy with how things were and having fun with it until BOOM, they have to deal with all these people making their lives harder "for fun".

Savage raiding isn't fun at all if that's what you are getting at.

As for regular content it becomes unfun when many players fail at the same mechanics over and over and refuse to learn.

But that's another discussion entirely. Here people are asking for customization, and yet most will flock to what we have is good enough, that even if customization was offered nothing would change...so why change it at all?

Who said anything about savage?

[MagiusNecros]

Sure, that may be fun for you, but what about the other 7 people you are with. Is your fun getting int he way of their fun? Were tey happy with how things were and having fun with it until BOOM, they have to deal with all these people making their lives harder "for fun".

Savage raiding isn't fun at all if that's what you are getting at.

As for regular content it becomes unfun when many players fail at the same mechanics over and over and refuse to learn.

But that's another discussion entirely. Here people are asking for customization, and yet most will flock to what we have is good enough, that even if customization was offered nothing would change...so why change it at all?

[Xairos]

This isnt and wont be limited to JUST savage raiding.

Take a look at Dun Scaith and tell me you want some BlizWiz's in that mess...

I know I wouldn't.

Under the current model of DPS checks and Enrages, customization would be crazy.

[Shurrikhan]

Optimization does not inherently mean people will perform their job better. You can take all your stat point on Bard, toss them into STR and still blow someone away if their rotation sucks. Stats only account for so much at the moment. If they ever moved towards a skill tree system, those stats become significantly more important since it could impact things like say, making Blood for Blood have additional damage increased for less defense. If a change like that proves to be "the best" in terms of overall risk/gain, you will be expected to take it. We're already seeing it with the current meta widely shunning White Mage, Paladin and Monk. When the buffs to Astro came, White Mage clears dropped nearly 50%. That's the raid community tossing it aside because Astro is simply a better White Mage now.

To be clear, I meant not only those who equipped an "optimal" build, but also played it in its (basic) "optimal" form, (e.g. following the suggested priorities, etc.). I didn't outperform these people just because I was better at handling mechanics under pressure, or made fewer rotational mistakes. Its because either I used a build that allowed slightly more leeway in order to capitalize on opportunities (thereby especially increasing my contribution to the important parts of a given fight), or understood by the very nature of having crafted my own build for a particular fight that adaptations would be necessary, when, and why. Now, XIV can't really emblemize those considerations given that it's never had much by way of customization; heck, even by Mists, WoW's only been emblematic of it on a class by class or spec by spec basis. But the inquiry that goes into building those specs with particular contexts in mind, even if the same build must be used for wildly different ones due to adjustment constraints, does tend to make better players, especially if they have an understanding of the other classes in their party. The manic tunnel-vision of "approved specs only" rarely does so well in that regard. (Again, this being the case when there is actual customization to be had, not only a semblance of it kept for nostalgia.)