RIP Customization

[Kosmos992k]

For all intents and purposes they have been removed - you no longer need more than one class to unlock a job, and you don't need to level a difference class to gain access to important/helpful/needed skills.

Removing them any further would require a fairly involved process of rewriting the lore and story and changing the quests around...to have it function pretty much the way it will in SB, with the incredibly minor difference of not having to equip a job crystal. There's very, very, very little to gain by removing them now that their biggest hindrances to gameplay have been resolved.

Indeed, the classes are now more like junior versions of the Jobs. I guess you could look at it as if you were an apprentice as a Gladiator, but when you became experienced enough you graduated to Paladin. Or with White Mage, now conjurers with sufficient mastery of their arts can move out of the shadow of their teachers and become a White Mage. I see no reason to remove the classes, especially now that they are essentially junior versions of their jobs that you remain until you find your job's soul stone.

And that's exactly what you're referring to as customization. Putting stats in the wrong place. It's a sad state of affairs-sure. But it was an illusion of choice at best and a noob-trap at worst.

INdeed. unlike some games FFXIV provided the illusion of choice to fool players into believing that there is a choice. The trouble is that making individual builds flexible enough to qualify as real choice also wrecks balance. So no choice.

On the other hand, gear selection is largely system driven since you want to maximize the same thing, so no real choice there, except you can glamor it, and appear as you want. Player skill, and understanding of their role/job also allows a level of 'customization' because some players might favor one way of doing something and others a different one.

All of this puts the control of how we differ in the hands of the player in terms of how we look, and how we play.