What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

[Gemina]

10 role actions? SE has just made role actions irrelevant in their entirety since pretty much every "role" only supports 10 actions anyway. WHY?!?!?

The role skill system in itself is already flawed to begin with, and has been since 4.0 was released. I can't speak for DPS since I don't play the role, but for tanks and healers, this isn't that big of a deal, and actually might improve QoL a little bit (healers for sure since we no longer will have to swap Protect/Esuna). The system needs to be reworked though (again), but likely won't happen until 5.0. So this is our band-aid for now.

Personally, I find having to swap skills in and out based on the situation cumbersome. I don't want to give the impression that I am lazy, but there is a difference between wanting everything handed to you, and certain job - in this case role skill mechanics - being clunky, and just making things more difficult than they have to be.

For healers in particular, they all use a standard set up of Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, and Protect/Esuna macroed to give them an additional slot. SCH's can possibly forego Largesse in favor of Eye4Eye since they have innate abilities to increase their healing potency, and need that skill to take full advantage of Deployment Tactics (another design flaw). So the healers have to choose that last skill based on not only the fight, but also in anticipation of how your group might perform if running PUGs. This leads to a possibility of making the wrong choice like in the example in my previous post. It's not game breaking, but it still sucks knowing something could have been avoided if you brought along the right skill.

This current system, just doesn't work with how FFXIV is designed. By giving us the remaining slots, they have basically scrapped it without taking away the skills that are there. Peeps are making it seem like this is unfair, and I don't just don't see it. They even left the useless skills like Break in case for reason, you still want to use them.

[KisaiTenshi]

This current system, just doesn't work with how FFXIV is designed. By giving us the remaining slots, they have basically scrapped it without taking away the skills that are there. Peeps are making it seem like this is unfair, and I don't just don't see it. They even left the useless skills like Break in case for reason, you still want to use them.

I wouldn't say it's been scrapped, it's just been relegated to rubbish tools in the toolbox. Had they scrapped it, they would have returned the skills to the jobs. That is why I believe the "temporary" part of this comes in. They likely intend to remove it for 5.0. And with doing so, we will likely see the old skills return, and a few of the skills added by 4.0 like Rescue (which was the only skill added to healers that wasn't gutted from the base skills, even Break was the status effect from Aero) added permanently. They need to give each job it's own identity back.

[Gemina]

I wouldn't say it's been scrapped, it's just been relegated to rubbish tools in the toolbox. Had they scrapped it, they would have returned the skills to the jobs. That is why I believe the "temporary" part of this comes in. They likely intend to remove it for 5.0. And with doing so, we will likely see the old skills return, and a few of the skills added by 4.0 like Rescue (which was the only skill added to healers that wasn't gutted from the base skills, even Break was the status effect from Aero) added permanently. They need to give each job it's own identity back.

Yeah, by "scrapped" I mean they intend to do away with it, or at least as it is currently. Healers, tanks, and DPS all have their respective gripes about the role skills and soooo many jobs have lost a sense of their identity as a result of this system. I believe it is indicative that the devs acknowledge their derp, even if they won't just come out and say it.

I don't think it needs to go away entirely, but I also sometimes think it just should in order to retain job identity to the fullest. They just really need to evaluate and highly consider what they put in there, and probably not even call it "Role Skills" as the name is misleading. "Additional" is just fine. Some of the current ones make sense and I also think this system can get by with just 2-3 slots, and maybe 5-6 available skills. None of which, are needed for that particular job to perform their role. Instead, it would give the player the choice on how they would like to facilitate it. Your other party members couldn't care less what you choose to use.

I don't know if that's the best approach, but it is how I see things. I do like the idea of current role skills returning to their respective owners, along with the other skill that were lost. I didn't play DRK when they had dark dance and shadow skin, and even then I miss them.