How do you feel about Role Actions?

[Shurrikhan]

I think role actions are a good place to start ability pruning for Shadowbringers...

Agreed. There are at least 4 skills worth of fluff among every Role, and the 6 remaining thereafter could each be better done in a job-unique way.

It really annoys me when the only direction considered for adding role identity is upward and onward while so much is left devoid of unique taste or mechanics even in the 1-50 bracket.

[Connor]

I’d like to see role skills be redesigned so that we actually have to make decisions to about to take. It seems like a redundant system to have 10 slots but only 10 abilities. There are a load of abilities from the Logos system that could easily fit into different role skill setups

[Lyth]

The problem with initial role action system in Stormblood, as far as customisation went, is that it made you choose between actions which were completely unrelated in function. Rather than letting you choose from a pool, you should make focused decisions.

As an example, consider Low Blow and Interject. If you have a dedicated "interrupt" slot, you're now forced to choose depending on the fight. Another example is Provoke and Ultimatum. Every tank needs an enmity grab. But what if you were asked to choose between range and recast? There are situations in which each might provide an advantage.

Let's look at Protect. Right now, it exists simply because it's a classic Final Fantasy spell. But how can you make it interesting? Pyros gave us the answer: have Protect cover physical damage, and its counterpart Shell cover magical damage. If they're mutually exclusive, then you're forced to make some decisions over the course of prog based off of what you think the predominant damage type is. You could do something similar with a physical Rampart and, say, a magical Shadowskin as well, instead of keeping Rampart as a must pick that stays on your bars.

I also think that if the devs are going to retire an action from a job, it shouldn't go into the common pool. It tends to leave a bad taste, when you see a beloved ability get donated to everyone else. That's why a lot of DRKs and WHMs felt robbed this expansion. Just create something new that fills the niche you need.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem with initial role action system in Stormblood, as far as customisation went, is that it made you choose between actions which were completely unrelated in function. Rather than letting you choose from a pool, you should make focused decisions.

As an example, consider Low Blow and Interject. If you have a dedicated "interrupt" slot, you're now forced to choose depending on the fight. Another example is Provoke and Ultimatum. Every tank needs an enmity grab. But what if you were asked to choose between range and recast? There are situations in which each might provide an advantage.

Let's look at Protect. Right now, it exists simply because it's a classic Final Fantasy spell. But how can you make it interesting? Pyros gave us the answer: have Protect cover physical damage, and its counterpart Shell cover magical damage. If they're mutually exclusive, then you're forced to make some decisions over the course of prog based off of what you think the predominant damage type is. You could do something similar with a physical Rampart and, say, a magical Shadowskin as well, instead of keeping Rampart as a must pick that stays on your bars.

I'm not sure there's any advantage to this, either, though, unless one simply like playing around in menus between each pull or at the start of each new trial, etc. Is there any gameplay advantage to swapping between Provoke on ranged add or boss pulls and Ultimatum for trash, on the incredible rarity that you die in a dungeon or have two tanks in a trash fight that also somehow requires a swap? You could as easily wrap both effects in one, generating a higher recast time when affecting more mobs.

Same with Low Blow vs. Reprisal vs. Interject. Reprisal is worthless on mobs, Low Blow on bosses, and Interject except on bosses who cast. Is the gameplay somehow more compelling because for a brief moment you stopped said gameplay and played around with menus instead of simply having a degradable action that covers all three effects (Stun; else: cast Silence + damage suppression; else: full damage suppression)?

Protect vs. Shell? We'd just swap it with the related fight. In 8-mans, one would cast whichever and the other would have to hop into their menus, swap to the opposite, and cast that, all without making Protect or Shell any more compelling for the game itself.

You'd be adding additional irritants without any appreciable gameplay value.

[Lyth]

Any gameplay mechanic is trivial if you read someone else's guide on the subject. But someone always has to write that guide, first.

[Shurrikhan]

Any gameplay mechanic is trivial if you read someone else's guide on the subject. But someone always has to write that guide, first.

I disagree. In-fight conditionals, when of sufficient quantity, can be detailed out in exact if-then protocols in guides without feeling trivial to those who experience the fights they detail. It requires attention during the fight, and adaptation, rather than pre-fight configuration or memorization alone.

That's the difference. Role Action swapping and the like are forms of complexity that have nothing to do with any fight itself. You flip the switches, click-and-drag the buttons, right-click the things and voila, you're set to go. That "depth" tends to add nothing to actual gameplay. That is what makes them trivial, even if arduous. The log-in screen is wholly necessary to play a fight, but that doesn't make it compelling as a "mechanic". Obligatory choices detracting from combat are much the same.

A fight itself, or a job itself, on the other hand, can have non-trivial gameplay mechanics. At the very least, they would at least affect gameplay, rather than solely detract from it.

[Seraphor]

Rather than simply introducing Shell as a Protect counterpart, its be much more worth to make them both WHM skills again, with a unique functionality that works with the job.
Instead of a 30m duration and a minor defence boost, make them more in line with cooldown skills and have them interact with lillies in one way or another.
Perhaps Shell increases the rate or chances at which you gain lillies, and Protect enhances the effects of lillies.

[Lyth]

You could make Protect and Shell into WHM specific abilities. I suppose the point is that they should do something with Protect outside of something you apply before every pull.

[...]

I didn't follow any of that. Customisation happens outside of combat. It's not about gameplay. It's about fight planning.

Customisation in this game is necessarily going to have restrictions. Your role action choices aren't going to turn a BRD into a tank or healer. That really just leaves us with two possibilities.

The first is to do what we've done all along, and have a common pool of universally applicable abilities. Someone comes along and does the math, tells you which ones are best, and you never remove them from your hotbars. The second is to let you tweak those options to gain situational advantages in fights. Someone can still come along and do the math, but every fight is going to have its nuances, and you'll see a lot more discussion on the subject.

Either way, if you're the sort of person who prefers to sit back and lets others do the thinking and analysis for you, no customisation system is going to interest you.

You generally won't be swapping actions between pulls unless you're actually doing prog and are trying to puzzle out what's optimal on a brand new fight. And if you don't fall into that category of player, who this sort of customisation is primarily aimed at, it's not a problem if you have presets.

[Shurrikhan]

You could make Protect and Shell into WHM specific abilities. I suppose the point is that they should do something with Protect outside of something you apply before every pull.

I didn't follow any of that. Customisation happens outside of combat. It's not about gameplay. It's about fight planning.

Customisation in this game is necessarily going to have restrictions. Your role action choices aren't going to turn a BRD into a tank or healer. That really just leaves us with two possibilities.

The first is to do what we've done all along, and have a common pool of universally applicable abilities. Someone comes along and does the math, tells you which ones are best, and you never remove them from your hotbars. The second is to let you tweak those options to gain situational advantages in fights. Someone can still come along and do the math, but every fight is going to have its nuances, and you'll see a lot more discussion on the subject.

Either way, if you're the sort of person who prefers to sit back and lets others do the thinking and analysis for you, no customisation system is going to interest you.

You generally won't be swapping actions between pulls unless you're actually doing prog and are trying to puzzle out what's optimal on a brand new fight. And if you don't fall into that category of player, who this sort of customisation is primarily aimed at, it's not a problem if you have presets.

My point is do those options improve the game in any way? Our current content does not give meaningful choice between Role Actions even if you segment them specifically into Mitigation/Throughput Slot, Interrupt Slot, Enmity Slot, Survival Slot, etc. For most pulls, one option will be the far better or only viable option.

All it then adds to the gameplay is a debt or sort of choice-debuff every time you go from one fight to the other, until you go back into your menu and swap the options to the new optimal setup. If any Monk thought having to refill their Chakra manually between every fight was annoying, imagine having to use a submenu and click and drag each of those five Chakra. Such would be irritating without adjusting one's perspective towards a fight or increasing the number of ways to perform in the fight.

It's like asking a gear condition system by which everyone must periodically retie their shoes or risk tripping. It has substantial disbenefits, with no meaningful benefits.

Presets can mitigate those issues -- voila, your shoes are instantly retied -- but if the choices themselves add nothing meaningful, it's still pointless.

Edit: That's not to say customization itself is necessarily pointless; I like customization when it's done well. But these Role Action options, divided or otherwise, and their like in this game's content, certainly are.

[Lyth]

Again, it really depends on the player.

If you're doing a brand new fight, you have no idea what to expect. When a new tier releases and players go to unlock Savage, they make guesses based off what they see in normal. Part of the guesswork involves trying to adjust your comp in anticipation for what you think you'll see. Guess incorrectly, and you might be at a disadvantage until the next lockout.

The role action system, as it was released at the start of Stormblood, addressed some elements of that. It doesn't really matter if you didn't happen bring a PLD and BRD to silence a particular mechanic. You can talk to your teammates and get someone who is comfortable with the mechanic to swap in the action. You might say "Why don't you just give everyone a silence, then?" But figuring out the correct loadout is part of the puzzle. It's only trivial if you read the answer after someone else has solved it for you.

But I think we can add a bit more depth to this. Interrupts are pass-fail mechanics. There are other decisions that are a bit more grey.

Consider the present system of physical and magical tankbusters. Many fights will have a mix of both. But instead of having this be a job level decision (i.e. do I bring DRK for Dark Mind), what if it was an issue of "Do I bring a physical mitigation cooldown or a magical one from the role actions list?" Now you have to look at the fight, which tankbusters are physical and magical, and see what choice best augments your rotation. You can still work around a bad choice, but a good choice will make your life easier.

If you're the sort of person who is looking up a guide to figure out what's optimal, then it's naturally going to be a chore. But not every player fits this category. Some people read guides, others write them.

One thing that hasn't really been explored is the idea of trait customisation. I'm thinking of something akin to Warcraft's Major and Minor glyph system, which allowed you to tweak your class in small ways. Do you want a slightly shorter recast on your gap closer or a proc that resets it? Not every customisation option needs to impact gameplay either. Some things could be cosmetic (perhaps reskin Rampart as Shadowskin, as an example).