Understanding Skill Points and how to spend them.

[Aden_Yeshua]

Hello, I have a Level 17 character (Paladin) that I am trying to spend the attribute points I'm hearing about. Except there doesn't seem to be any, does anybody know where they are located if at all?

Furthermore, how do they affect a job class? Can I just switch jobs at any point without negative effects on my character? This doesn't seem right.

[Lelila38]

Attribute points were removed with 4.0. The only way you have to influence your stats is through gear and melds.

[Aden_Yeshua]

So I can be a black mage with a simple gear change?

[Lelila38]

You can be every job on the same character, without having to care about skill points.
Different classes will prioritise different stats though, for example if you go Blm, you want to focus on Spell Speed, whereas as a Rdm you'll go for Direct Hit above all. The game does have the issue that several jobs share gear, as for the example above both Blm and Rdm will use the same gear. To optimise you'll sooner or later will have to focus on one above the other. Note that I said optimise, which is only relevant if you intend to do savage raiding or are just a person that enjoys min-max your stuff. If your goal is to be viable on multiple classes in content that's not savage raiding, that's easily possible even if you don't optimise your gear.

[Aden_Yeshua]

Sounds like a simple gear swap to hotbar solves the gear sharing issue... Thanks, I guess... Can't say I'm too happy with this approach, this kinda does take any uniqueness that a normal character progression has and flushes it in favor of who can equip the best gear.

Unless I'm not understanding you correctly (I hope I am) if that's not the case I might move on from this MMO.

[Chrallmal]

FFIXV provides customization in the form of melding materia to your gear. Think of it as attribute points adjacent.

[Nowakii]

Sounds like a simple gear swap to hotbar solves the gear sharing issue... Thanks, I guess... Can't say I'm too happy with this approach, this kinda does take any uniqueness that a normal character progression has and flushes it in favor of who can equip the best gear.

Unless I'm not understanding you correctly (I hope I am) if that's not the case I might move on from this MMO.

and jsut so you know, it wasnt that different before, since we have stats weights and your main stats affects you the most..... so basically every single BLM would go all int on stat points, and stat points were separated for each class, so it wasnt such a customization stuff, no that it matters now tho.

[Aden_Yeshua]

FFIXV provides customization in the form of melding materia to your gear. Think of it as attribute points adjacent.

Actually, this does make a little difference. Thank you! Still less diverse than I'd like... but it helps.

[Elleia]

Sounds like a simple gear swap to hotbar solves the gear sharing issue... Thanks, I guess... Can't say I'm too happy with this approach, this kinda does take any uniqueness that a normal character progression has and flushes it in favor of who can equip the best gear.

Unless I'm not understanding you correctly (I hope I am) if that's not the case I might move on from this MMO.

In general, yes, the main character progression path is getting the highest ilvl gear available. Typically your options will be tomestone gear (the end game currency) and raid gear. Tomestone gear starts off at a lower ilvl than the raid gear, but can be upgraded with materials dropped in savage raids, and eventually upgrades are added to hunts/the 24 man raid tokens ~3 months later for those who don't raid savage. If you do savage raids, your BiS will be a combination of savage drops and tomestone gear, mostly depending on which secondary stats you prefer (as stated above, BLMs favor spell speed, while RDM and SMN might go for direct hit/crit hit). In addition, each piece of gear has 1-2 materia slots on them, so you can meld additional secondary stats into the gear.

Generally, people tend to follow the BiS list for their class once the stat weights are released, though you can play around with it. This is about as far as stat customization goes, so it's up to you whether or not this is okay or if you'd prefer a different game with more depth.

[worldofneil]

Can I just switch jobs at any point without negative effects on my character? This doesn't seem right.

Yep! Your character can level every single class/job and switch as often as you want. Your progress for each is saved and you carry on where you left off. I know other games require you to be a different character for different roles, but in this one you have the flexibility for everything. Lore wise you join the guild of the respective class/job and they "train" you which is why you can somehow be all these things at once. Plus you're the "Warrior of Light" (saying that as an attempt to explain everything lol).

Before 4.0 there used to be cross class skills so you benefited from levelling up other classes on the same character. With the new role skills in 4.0 this isn't so much the case any more, but as nearly everything is locked behind the main story, it's still more efficient to do everything on a single character.

Still less diverse than I'd like... but it helps.

Just curious, but what sort of diversity are you looking for?

As other have explained you get some flexibility in what materia you put on your gear, but generally speaking most people will increase the same attributes (job dependent), much like we did before when we had attribute points.

I know it's not really the same thing (at all), but mentioning in case it's of interest, at level 50 you can unlock glamouring which means you can make one piece of gear look like another. There are a few limitations/restrictions, but generally speaking it gives you the ability to personalise your character and I don't know if that's the sort of diversity you're looking for?