Understanding Skill Points and how to spend them.

[Chrallmal]

Almost every MMO I have ever played has your standard cookie-cutter builds for any given class - as dictated by current capabilities and the content they are expected to engage in. Waves of clones, all with closely identical stats because the census is that it is what you need to do to be the best. Thus, such things as being unique is usually not a heavily relied upon methodology. Still, I'll agree that it is always nice to have around for those that want it - and FFXIV doesn't have much in the way of affording you that courtesy.

Melding aside, and understanding that he who has the best gear will have the odds tipped in their favor, what sets us apart is how we handle our skill, spells, traits, and abilities. As well, the cross-role system does afford us a bit more customization on how we consume content.

Gear is simply a tool. In the hands of a poor player, superior gear is a waste. In the hands of a great player, gear is a powerful weapon. Since that is really how we tell each other apart, I've found the FFXIV community to be hyper sensitive to good and poor performance.

In summary, while I have personally found the better geared player to have favor on their side, I've found that our unique identities are more derived from how good we are at playing the class/job. In how we handle situations both mundane and dire. Our stats are just a vehicle to get us there. But, perhaps I have developed that mindset in response to the absence of any greater form of customization.

[Aden_Yeshua]

I agree that in almost every MMO people tend "to go with the crowd" leaving most character creation kinda pointless. But that doesn't mean I want to have the choice ripped from me. Besides the answer to "cookie cutter" seems to make it more cookie cutter. Is my character roughly the same as everybody else minus a few melding load outs?

ESO, GuildWars 2, heck even Star Trek Online I like feeling my decisions have weight and I at least have some degree of difference between the masses. This game gives you all these wonderful choices just to find out at the end of the day none really matter. Race leads to a 1% end game difference, Birth/Moon 0.5%, Skill None, Class None, who knows maybe they will remove the stat changes in materia next update - the only way to determine victory is a rock-paper-scissors type load out with gear? Bleh Here is hoping for a Realm Re-Re Born... =/ Sadly because I've spent $120 on this for me and my wife, I should have done my research.

[Keydah]

Is my character roughly the same as everybody else minus a few melding load outs?

Yes. Skill is what sets players apart here.

I personally love not having to care about that stuff, and simply needing to play the best in order to be the best.

[Aden_Yeshua]

Yes. Skill is the only thing that sets players apart here.

Fixed that for ya.

EDIT: Also, stat distribution, character choices, and other things IS playing to be the best. This game takes the "everybody gets a participation trophy" to MMOs.

[Keydah]

If you believe those things are absolutely necessary for your enjoyment of a game, and that them not existing means everyone gets a gold star just for poking buttons, then I agree that you should have done your research before buying the game as this definitely isn't the game for you.

But, this MMO is particularly story- and casual-content based. For many players, it's the most important part of the game. People who play are here to enjoy the lore, see the world, focus on the mechanics, play with friends; not mix-max stats just so they can be "better" than someone else by a handful of stat points or because they chose one skill over another.

It seems that you must get the bulk of your MMO enjoyment out of character customization if it's this important to you. I get the bulk of my enjoyment out of doing content with my boyfriend, clearing midcore content, optimizing my actions to do the best dps and healing on-time, and collecting vanity stuff such as gear, minions, and mounts. I play MMOs like ESO purely to do the story content and explore the world, because I don't enjoy stat distribution, character choices, and other things. That doesn't make me a "participation trophy" player, it means I find enjoyment in a different way of play than you do. It simply comes down to: ESO is your kind of game, FFXIV is mine. I'm sorry you're out $120 over a game you don't enjoy; but just because you don't get to min-max doesn't mean you can't enjoy other aspects of the game. That can't possibly be the ONLY thing you enjoy about them.

[Niwashi]

Your choices in which role abilities to slot, and which level to slot them at, provides some variation. (Not right at first, when you're basically slotting whichever your level gives you access to, but later you'll be unlocking more than you can slot and need to start making choices between them.) It's a variation that changes not just how strong your stats are at various things, but actually what you can do while playing, so it can affect (and reflect) your playstyle to some degree. That makes the variety a bit more direct than just having points you can shuffle around.

It still suffers a bit from the "going with the crowd" cookie cutter issue, since each job has a few skills that are widely considered must-haves. But depending on job, there may be a few other slots where a case could be made for any of several possibilities.

[Aden_Yeshua]

I don't enjoy stat distribution, character choices, and other things. That doesn't make me a "participation trophy" player, it means I find enjoyment in a different way of play than you do.

Forgive me if I gave that impression, but that was not even hinted at. When your choices have actual consequences, and to your actions, that is what I mean by participation trophy, when nothing you choose has any real effect at all and everybody wins that is the pure definition of the words in my book. Not knocking it, that's your thing, I need to know I'm doing something, anything that matters. In my opinion, all of the MMOs in the last decade have massive expensive worlds to explore, if THAT is your only goal then congratulations every MMO has achieved this by far.

[Frizze]

The old stat system didnt have what you described either. It was a fake choice. You got to choose from 3 stats that didnt affect your class(so... pointless), one for hp and one for damage. The stats were saved to your class, so switching from mage to tank meant your stats did too. As a BLM i went full hp thinking it would help me survive. At level 50 i had enough "extra" hp to cover 1/4 of a hit. Then on top of all that, if you knew where to look there was an item that let you reset those points so you could put them in the right place if you made a mistake. So... pointless.

With that said, customization is still a thing. Ill skip glamour(though it matters a lot to some people). By end game, you get to slot 5 "role skills" onto your hotbar from a list of 10 available to your class. You can change them during downtime, and some are certainly more highly regarded then others(few healers will skip swiftcast for instance, while rescue has more of a niche usage), but these are definitely a way to add a bit of your personal flavor to every class. And building a new gear set at end-game takes weeks because almost all your options(and all the best ones) have lockouts. Whether its a maximum amount of currency you can earn in a week(with most gear pieces costing more then one weeks worth to buy), whether its a raid lockout only allowing you to win one piece per week(so taking that tank chestpiece means no healer upgrades til next week), or whether its the amount of time/gil it takes to get the right materia you want to meld. Yes, given enough time you can change all of them. Thats the way this game is. Your choices have some weight, but if you work at it you can change.

[Okamimaru]

This game gives you all kinds of customization just not when it comes to class builds... it comes in character design, glamours, housing, minions, mounts, titles... most of which need to be earned... surprisingly the msq brings in a layer of psychological customization as each player decides how his or her character responds irl to the events in game and manifests that mental state in their characters general attitude... and that's not even a rp thing... each person decides ultimately who their warrior of light is in the world context...

[miraidensetsu]

To me, not needing to worry about character build is one of FFXIV's advantage. You simply can't mess your build. At least, not to the point of need to delete the first char (that you already played hundreds of - wasted - hours) to create one that actually can go into end-game content. And is rare to a game to have an easy way to reset the char. If it have, that would involves real money. If you mess up the build, you're pretty much fucked.