What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

[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.

[PyurBlue]

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.

FF14 as it is now would work out this way, but I think Dzian was speaking in a more general sense. Say if Savage wasn't the exact same fight every time, but could the encounters could vary. Assuming that everything was correctly balanced, there wouldn't be a best skill/skills. You might choose them based on what mechanics you feel the least confident in, which would vary from player to player.

I'm not sure how to best make customization relevant in FF14 but as a general concept I don't think it's all that hard to implement.

[SendohJin]

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.

Every instance where the "choice is real" in an MMO that i've experienced, the playerbase ends up making the choice with the players. Many FFXI choices were real, so many guilds end up choosing to NOT bring X jobs to Y content.