What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

[KisaiTenshi]

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.

Pretty much this.

Though in some respects, what we have is much better than say, what Wizardy did. Wizardy you had to actually level a class to get a skill, and you could only carry 1 2 or 3 depending on what level you got to, and you could only get to that level through progression. So the equivalent would be having to level every job to 50 to carry 2 skills from it, only to reset the job and start from 1 again on another job, and then to carry the original 2 and another 2, you'd have to level to 70.

What we have right now is, basically "you can take 10, but no job crystal or cross-class" or "you can take 5, with any job crystal, but you can't cross-class anything"

[Kacho_Nacho]

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.

I wouldn't go that far. There is room for some customization by one's choices of cross-class abilities and materia. In addition, the way an individual plays their character puts their personal stamp on that toon.

[Hamada]

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.

Yes, it worked in 1.0, I have no idea why this "cross role" or cross class system existed in ARR+, it is the same way as stat points. It had a point in 1.0, but the way they designed ARR+ it failed to have a point, both of those things should been removed from the game in ARR+.

That's more the result of Heavensward severely altering the way certain classes play at end-game.
Back when level 50 was the cap there wasn't really much of a difference between a level 20-30 class or a level 50 job, as you got most of your core skills early on and everything after was extra stuff to make those early skills stronger, the only exception to this was White Mage, whose later skills significantly alter the way the job is played and even then you could make the argument that was just the players using the skills in ways the devs didn't anticipate them to.
I never said the cross-class skill system didn't need to be changed, just that it wasn't as bad as it's made out to be because it actually made sense in the context of when it was first introduced.

Yeah for 1.0, that is where it was made, and fit the game. It never fit ARR+, just a shoe in because 1.0 had it.

[Ameela]

Yeah for 1.0, that is where it was made, and fit the game. It never fit ARR+, just a shoe in because 1.0 had it.

Considering how much 2.0 changed from 1.0, especially in terms of abilities, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't be quick to remove the cross-class system if it didn't fit the new direction they wanted the game to go in.

[MsQi]

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.

Unfortunately as long as high end content depends on throughput mmos will continue to lack customization.

[Tiaque]

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.

Customization and Specialization would be too stressful for the casual player. -Yoshi

Lulz.

[Hamada]

Considering how much 2.0 changed from 1.0, especially in terms of abilities, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't be quick to remove the cross-class system if it didn't fit the new direction they wanted the game to go in.

I know, and they tried to fit the stat thing too in ARR+, we all know how that went, they got rid of it after admitting it was not working. As far as I know people disliked it in ARR+ especially if you played SMN and SCH. Just because it worked well and made sense in 1.0, does not mean it would fit the new game's direction for ARR+

[KisaiTenshi]

I know, and they tried to fit the stat thing too in ARR+, we all know how that went, they got rid of it after admitting it was not working. As far as I know people disliked it in ARR+ especially if you played SMN and SCH. Just because it worked well and made sense in 1.0, does not mean it would fit the new game's direction for ARR+

The original 1.0 skills were thrown away or reassigned. The ability to cross-class then and the limited cross-class we got in 2.0 felt like there was no plan for it.

Like, if it was designed like Wizardry, you would have to max-level every job in order to get every valuable cross-classable skill. That just makes for a lot of meaningless grinding just to get that one skill. It complicates expansion packs as well, because you'd have to max level every job in order to have all the 'meta' required skills, and just makes players feel like they are required to grind out these jobs as easily as possible by playing notoriously easy content rather than play them.

The Role actions solved one problem but gave two more. By removing the "everyone must have X skill" meta, players weren't forced to level jobs they didn't want to play just to get those skills. However this came at a ridiculous expense to tanks and healers, where necessary skills like Esuna and Lucid Dreaming became optional. Even though there is content that clearly requires Esuna. This was because clearly the developers tried to give healers something, but healers never took anything other than surecast from thm, or protect from whm, or swiftcast from thm. In fact taking any combat skill was often useless, like taking Blizzard 2 on whm, gave you an AOE that did basically no damage, and was used just to tag monsters in FATES.


Getting rid of Cleric Stance and the bonus points solved a bunch of problems that hobbled healers. So now everyone is essentially "BiS" configured regardless of job. There's no badly configured tanks or healers who dumped their points into stats that aren't helpful. However this remains in Materia. It's still possible to meld useless things to gear, or have no materia at all. But all content can be played with no materia.

The correct thing to do would be to just remove the "role actions" entirely, and make those part of the base class, give each class back it's own unique abilities and extend skills and actions all the way up to level 70, where the job stone only unlocks the skills/abilities with no cast time. This leads us back to the ACN/SMN/SCH problem. SE just needs to rip the bandaid off here and explicitly allow the classes without a job crystal be usable at level 70 instead of being useless after level 32.

The ACN/SMN and SCH remain a problem with designing anything since the base class needs to have the same skills as smn and scholar, but smn and scholar, doesn't need to have the same traits that upgrade those skills to others.

[Dzian]

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.

That varies largely by how well the game is designed. And the content within said game works..

the easiest example would perhaps be your typical first person shooter or something. Where a simple change in environment can have a massive impact on your skills and choices.... your sniper rifle specced marksman character might not be to hot in an office block raid or something. But if that spills out onto the streets or rooftops suddenly he's in his element. Same can be said for the guy with the smg spec build might not be to great in the streets but the minute he gets indoors or in an enclosed area.

If you design the enviroments within the game well then it becomes incredibly difficult to have that one mandatory skill set or build set.. And then the choice is real it's not an illusion.

The same would be true in mmos if you built more diverse and varied environments you would again make it incredibly difficult to define must have skill sets or best in slot builds..

Ffxi for example the merit systems biggest fault wasn't in the customisation but the fact most mobs shared the same properties. 90% of mobs in the game for example were weak to either lightning or ice. That's the only reason those were the only 2 elements people put there merit points into. Had they done a better job with the environment then a bigger more choices for those merits would have been viable decisions.

The biggest problem xiv has in this regard is everything is dumbed down and over simplified. To the point where the only tactic is ever round it all up and aoe it down... And they're also very little variety in the environments themselves. Its incredibly one dimensional

[Ameela]

If you design the enviroments within the game well then it becomes incredibly difficult to have that one mandatory skill set or build set.. And then the choice is real it's not an illusion.

Then that just means you pick the best spec for the environment/raid you're going to.
It's just like how O3S has tanks being required to use Awareness (and Interject depending on the party) or they're going to have a harder time, or in O4S everyone is advised to take knockback immunity abilities, same with O5S and to a lesser extent O8S.
You can't NOT take those role skills when doing those fights because they're the only way to achieve optimal play and you'll be laughed at if you don't even try to do so. Back when it was relevant if you insisted that you'd rather take Convalescence instead of Awareness into O3S to hopefully off set the Crit damage with more potent healing because it's part of your playstyle you'd probably be kicked on the spot.