What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

[Wiccan026]

With the extension of being able to 10 role actions, Square has practically removed every aspect of character customization from the game. Every Summoner is the same as every other Summoner, every Paladin is the same as every other Paladin. Your character has no uniqueness - aside from glamour, of course.

I suppose one could argue that the Job System is the customization, but that seems like a cop-out to me. One of the best things about all FF games has always been building your character into unique and specialized roles through specialization trees such as the sphere grid - or the materia system - but in FFXIV - there is no specialization. Every RMD runs the same gear, and even gear variance really only SLIGHTLY effects DPS - every RDM runs the same materia, and now every RDM will run the same role actions. Even FFXI has infinitely more customization possibilities because of the sub-job system.

Everyone will be the same cookie-cutter job at this point. Its really disappointing.

Anyone doing savage for the most part is probably already using the same cookie-cutter job style at this point regardless of us only having five role actions.

Also, this game had more customization prior to Stormblood, which they originally overhauled to try to streamline things and stop hotbar bloat.... which sure their kind of adding to this but I don't know how many people are going to really utilize all the extra role actions.

[Jandor]

Except the part where you had to stop whatever you were doing and level a class you had absolutely no interest in ever touching again. Oh, the many THMs in leveling roulette who wanted to get to 26...

Leveling other classes to get extra skills was part of what made it superior.

Absolutely essential skills like provoke being a part of the system was a mistake, but the underlying system was better than role actions.

[BillyKaplan]

Leveling other classes to get extra skills was part of what made it superior.

Absolutely essential skills like provoke being a part of the system was a mistake

Superior in what way? It was a hassle. Also these two statements feel contradictory. No one is going to level a class they don't like for a skill that's just flavor, so the system only had a reason to exist at all if the skills were important.

but the underlying system was better than role actions.

The underlying system was about the same, though. The only time in which it was really different was if you ran things as a class, and there are some mighty fine urban legends about such instances. But those are the niche of niches and nothing to judge the overall system based on.

[Jandor]

Superior in what way?

In that it provides an incentive to try more things and playing different roles gives at least a basic understanding of them.

It also made more sense. Leveling all classes on one character is a rather unique feature, that the various combat classes you can level don't interact at all and actually bothering to use the feature provides no real bonus is odd to say the least.

[BillyKaplan]

In that it provides an incentive to try more things and playing different roles gives at least a basic understanding of them.

Playing a GLA at 15 gives you very little insight into the job at 70. Maybe in the past it was more useful, but as the level cap increases, what little benefits that used to have only continue to dwindle.

It also made more sense. Leveling all classes on one character is a rather unique feature, that the various combat classes you can level don't interact at all and actually bothering to use the feature provides no real bonus is odd to say the least.

You get to use all the resources of your main character while leveling up alt jobs. All those extra tomes, all that gil, and ofc the ability to make gear and food and potions yourself, is absolutely nothing to sneeze at. Oh, and not having to go through the story again just to experience a different job. So while I do agree with you on the pure gameplay angle, you really can't say the feature provides no real bonus.

[Jandor]

Playing a GLA at 15 gives you very little insight into the job at 70. Maybe in the past it was more useful, but as the level cap increases, what little benefits that used to have only continue to dwindle.

It's not about giving you an understanding of the all of a jobs various intricacies at max level, it's about giving a basic impression of them so the party can function better.

I started as a Gladiator with no prior experience at all of trinity MMO gameplay, being encouraged to level other classes to get various bits of kit made me a better tank and a better player.
Trying Conjurer to get Cure and Raise made me more aware of what healers were putting up with when I was tanking, moving to Thaumaturge to get swiftcast for my Conjurer made me more considerate of stances, timers, etc. etc. as I flitted around through most of the basic classes.
A lot of the things I picked up doing this are so obvious to me now of course that it's hard for me to believe I ever didn't know them, but I didn't.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying cross-class was perfect, but IMHO it was far superior to role actions. It should have been tweaked, not replaced. I mean, they didn't even do a good job replacing it, it still exists essentially unchanged for crafting classes, where are my crafting role actions?

[SavingPrincess]

No matter what, there will ALWAYS be a BIS that everyone uses... the concept of "uniqueness" in an MMO is fake.

Dress your best. That's how you stand out.

Oh and also be a cool person to play with. That's much more valuable than "I have a different skill than this other guy."

[Sacred_Nym]

No matter what, there will ALWAYS be a BIS that everyone uses... the concept of "uniqueness" in an MMO is fake.

This. Customizable abilities in multiplayer games are either mandatory or worthless. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't using the agreed upon ideal set up, you are essentially harassing everyone you play with by holding them back.

[Shurrikhan]

This. Customizable abilities in multiplayer games are either mandatory or worthless. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't using the agreed upon ideal set up, you are essentially harassing everyone you play with by holding them back.

There is absolutely a middle ground unless fights are entirely homogeneous and/or the changes between choices have no cost beyond exiting combat.

A build may be faster for x section of x dungeon, but suffer in y portion or y dungeon or with z overlapping functionalities in z composition.

For every person who decided "why even think about flexible play -- I'll just copy the recommended builds online" at least 3 more were using adaptations of their leveling, tweaked further and further, and frequently outperformed them in all but the most target-dummy-like content. At perfect play in an exact encounter one or a few builds may have some 1-6% greater maximal throughputs, but even then they may suffer if, say, someone drops an AoE on their more turret-esque optimal build, ultimately performing beneath another "gutter trash leveling-tainted" build.

[Canadane]

The last time we had any uniqueness was 1.0.
The dream is dead. Every job is the same as the one standing next to it.