On the topic of Role Actions in 5.0 and beyond

[Kalise]

So I wanted to discuss Role Actions (Nee, Cross-Class Actions)

I was wondering how people felt about them and if we could come up with more interesting implementations than either Cross-Class Actions or Role Actions that would align better with gameplay.

Cross-Class Actions were interesting, yet annoying. Having to awkwardly level up various classes in order to access certain skills to use on your main class (Kind of a similar issue that the DoH classes face where you basically want to level everything to 50 to get cross-class actions...)

So we've been using Role Actions. Which as a concept, is interesting, but as it's implemented, quite a lot of actions feel terrible, with others seemingly existing only to cause button bloat *Cough*Protect*Cough*. In addition to much of the interesting aspect being further diluted by the most recent change to allowing the full 10 actions to be equipped by Jobs not just Classes (So, there's literally no reason to not have all 10 available skills equipped outside you know, all of the ones that suck so bad they're not worth putting on your action bar)

Personally, I posit the idea of the system becoming like a "Talent" system from other games. Whereby you get to pick from an assortment of bonuses with more slots opening up as you gain levels (Including beyond ARR level cap). With the "Core" role actions being uhh... "Rolled" into jobs at the relevant levels (So things such as Provoke/Ultimatum/Shirk, Diversion/True North, Esuna/Lucid Dreaming/Swiftcast, Refresh etc. Of course, balance things out so button bloat is equal. Potentially even giving slightly themed versions of the skills I.e. BLM having a Lucid Dreaming that actually does something with MP during AF)

The available options should always outnumber the number of slots you can fill. So that you make a choice based on personal preference (Or "Meta Builds" if you swing that way )

I envision something akin to:

* Having a plethora of low impact "Global" traits that are available to all Jobs/Classes. With such things as "5% increased movement speed", "5% increased Crit/DH/SkS/Piety/Ten/Det stat", "X% increased MP regeneration", "Gain X% in combat health regeneration"

You know, just general things where they aren't really targeted to any particular job and are basic "You have slightly better stats" type things, having some impact but not being massive game changers.

* Having a smaller pool of stronger "Role" traits. That would be targetted to boost the role in specific areas and potentially boosting their (Now core) role actions. Such as providing a boost to Refresh's MP restore. It could also include trade offs such as Tanks having a trait that reduces the CD of their primary mitigation CD (Vengeance/Shadow Wall/Sentinel) but that also reduces its duration (I.e. Targetting it to be better for specifically soaking TB's).

The idea being having some more general functions of the job being boosted in a somewhat significant way. But the caveat being that, much like Triple Triad decks, you're limited in how many you can have equipped in addition to the limited number of overall trait slots. I.e. So if you had 10 slots, you wouldn't be able to just slot 10 of these "Stronger" traits and would have to still pick some of the less potent general ones.

* Lastly, having a much smaller pool of Job specific traits. Which would enhance specific parts of the job, such as certain skills or aspects of the Job Gauge. For example WAR getting a "Generate more Beast Gauge. But it now decays over time" or RDM getting like "Potency of spells increased if opposite colour mana is higher" or "Aspected Benefic now applies both Sects effects, but costs more MP/has a CD"

The general idea being very impactful traits that can shift playstyles based on what people opt for. With a similar caveat to Role traits in that they're limited in how many you can slot, only much more so.

But that's just my idea, I wonder if anyone else has thoughts on this?

Also, yes, I know that my idea is plagued with requiring a bunch of balancing and that it likely would just devolve into "Meta Builds" but ehh... Can't live life worrying about "Meta" all the time

[mosaicex]

Can't live life worrying about "Meta" all the time

Unfortunately FFXIV playerbase seems to disagree.

[Kalise]

Unfortunately FFXIV playerbase seems to disagree.

But if design was done solely around Meta, then we'd only have a total of 8 classes.

Also, this same playerbase also decries about how trash everyone is because they're not playing meta

[Sylvain]

* Having a plethora of low impact "Global" traits that are available to all Jobs/Classes. With such things as "5% increased movement speed", "5% increased Crit/DH/SkS/Piety/Ten/Det stat", "X% increased MP regeneration", "Gain X% in combat health regeneration"

These would just be akin the old talent tree system (beside not being a tree), people will figure out what is the most optimal thing to do and that's it. So it won't achieve anything.
Also, on a more personal note, such traits are plain boring like the current materia system. You just shove what's numerically best for you.


Why bother implementing a whole system if it has "low impact"? I mean, they don't change your gameplay, they just change your default value for some stats from 0 to X%.
And no matter how many you put the end result will be the same, people will figure out the most optimal set, and if you leave enough room for "useless flavor traits" such as movement speed, people will simply also figure out which one or the best or, at best, simply say "pick wathever you want it simply doesn't matter anyway" (might as well remove the entire system if it doesn't matter... which is somewhat what happened in 4.4, the limitation was removed because the system was a total failure, people picked the 2-4 mandatory skill and filled the rest with wathever was left and usable)

Having a smaller pool of stronger "Role" traits. That would be targetted to boost the role in specific areas and potentially boosting their (Now core) role actions. Such as providing a boost to Refresh's MP restore. It could also include trade offs such as Tanks having a trait that reduces the CD of their primary mitigation CD (Vengeance/Shadow Wall/Sentinel) but that also reduces its duration (I.e. Targetting it to be better for specifically soaking TB's).

This is somewhat what we had, except that they were not traits. But you'll run into the same issue, people will pick the best one depending on the job and that's it.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "o if you had 10 slots, you wouldn't be able to just slot 10 of these "Stronger" traits and would have to still pick some of the less potent general ones." because this is exactly what would happen if you just let people decide among a list without restriction.

* Lastly, having a much smaller pool of Job specific traits. Which would enhance specific parts of the job, such as certain skills or aspects of the Job Gauge. For example WAR getting a "Generate more Beast Gauge. But it now decays over time" or RDM getting like "Potency of spells increased if opposite colour mana is higher" or "Aspected Benefic now applies both Sects effects, but costs more MP/has a CD"

This is imo the only thing that could work but yet again, you can't just let people pick X things among a list (job restricted or not), you need to give choice while restricting those choice.

In other word, everytime they can choose something, each option must be of equal value / group specific (like, Skill A would be more useful in a specific kind of group and Skill B in a different one)

For them to be of equal value they must aim at the same thing.
For instance, if you give a DPS 3 choice 5 times, each time being "more dps, more survivibility or more utility", as soon as people can survive without the survival one, they'll simply pîck the one warranting the most rdps.

Which is why every choice has to have somehow the same kind.
If you allow people to choose for instance,
1 active skill, 1 offensive trait, 1 defensive trait,
When they can choose for the active skill, all option must have the same purpose, for isntance doing more damage.

And there, depending on your group composition and fight you may have some better choice.

Most system just give an illusion of choice (like talent tree, because really, you didn't have any, there was 1-2 builds and that's it). Same thing for most game, same thing for FF14 cross-role system. Picking Provoke as a Tank wasn't a choice....

WoW Talent system is somehow like this, and while it isn't perfectly balanced, it still is imo the best talent system designed so far.
Every 15lv you get to choose a new skill (or enhanced an old one) and everytime they have the same purpose.
If at lv 15 you're offered an offensive skill, they're all offensive skill. But they don't do it exactly in the same manner. Some may give less overall dps but have a better burst, some are simple to use and other have the best potential but also requires more work to properly function.
Therefor, depending on your group, the encounter or your skill, some skills are more suited than others.

Taking the BLM as an example (random quick idea),
You could choose between
1) Umbral Heart also increase damage done by 20%
2) LeyLine now last 60s and instead of increasing haste, it increases damage done by 10%
3) Foul-Fire: Casting foul unlock "Foul Fire" (icon change) a 6s cast dealing massive damage. Can only be cast in AF phase. Foul-Fire isn't affected by Swiftcast and Triplecast

So without working out the math, let just say that, 1,2 and 3 on a dummy situation offer almost the same kind of dps increase, but not exactly the same.

1) Is the most straightforward dps boost and requires no change in gameplay
2) Offer the best dummy dps but obviously has a hefty positional requirement.
3) Has the best burst potential but is technically the most annoying one to use. Can benefit the most from buff windows

Here you would have to choose based on three things
1) Your own skill. Are you starting out as a BLM? Perhaps 1 is your best choice.
2) The encounter, can you stand still nearly all the time? Can you exploit that 60s Leyline (which doesn't haste your cast anymore making the rotation tighter). Is there a strong dps check on at a specific moment? (Foul-Fire could help there)
3) Your raid group, do you have a NIN and other buffers? Does your group coordinate buff into specific windows? Yes/No will make 3 a good or less good choice.


Those 3 examples are just random things I thought about, what's important is the whole "they're technically more or less all equal but your own skill, your group and the encounter will determine which one is the best choice"

Here you don't have an illusion of choice, because there is a right decision and it won't be the same for every BLM. Assuming the difference in dps gain is under 1% if used properly, then you end up with an actual choice based on prefered gameplay.

So I don't say "FF14 should make the same talent tree as WoW", because I'd rather have them come up with their own design.

But ultimately, I don't see any other type of design working. Which is one of the reason we didn't have any choice system before SB, Y.P didn't want to add one if it was just to end up with everyone picking the same things (well it turned out exactly this way tho x_x)

Too much choice kills choices. Wether the option you are presented are good or bad.
You have to somehow limit enough the player option so that everyone doesn't end up with the same skills while giving enough room between each choice to make the player choice matter.

[Kalise]

These would just be akin the old talent tree system (beside not being a tree), people will figure out what is the most optimal thing to do and that's it. So it won't achieve anything.
Also, on a more personal note, such traits are plain boring like the current materia system. You just shove what's numerically best for you.

Sure, unless they were designed to be kind of close in power. It's difficult to design, but there can be a lot of different aspects to go from.

Such as mathematically certain stats might end up being close to each other. There might be things to consider such as perhaps movement speed gives your melee character more uptime which translates to better DPS than a stat boost.

Perhaps some of the things can be designed as trade offs. Such as "Convert X% of stat A into Y value of stat B"

Why bother implementing a whole system if it has "low impact"? I mean, they don't change your gameplay, they just change your default value for some stats from 0 to X%.

Why bother releasing new gear with expansions? I mean, they don't change your gameplay, they just change your stats from 0 to X.

Feedback is why. It feels good to earn things. It feels good to feel like you have a choice about how to design your character (Unless you just copy/paste from what a website tells you to put).

Unlocking a new slot and getting to put in a new trait would feel cool, even if it was relatively low impact. Also, the low impact is to counteract the higher impact other traits suggested. It puts perspective on the strength so you neither feel like it's optimal to use only global traits nor do you feel like you can't opt for more global traits than is necessary.

And no matter how many you put the end result will be the same, people will figure out the most optimal set

Not everyone will play meta.

If they did, we wouldn't see half the classes in the game would we?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "o if you had 10 slots, you wouldn't be able to just slot 10 of these "Stronger" traits and would have to still pick some of the less potent general ones." because this is exactly what would happen if you just let people decide among a list without restriction.

This is literally me explaining the restriction.

Let me compare to Triple Triad decks. A deck has 5 card slots available. At maximum progression, you're allowed a single 4 or 5 star card and any number of 3 or lower star cards. This means you can have 5 1 star cards or could also have 1 5 star card and 4 3 star cards.

The same would be in place here. You'd get a total of for example 10 trait slots to fill with traits. But you'd only be able to have say, 2 Role Traits equipped at once and 1 Job Trait equipped. Meaning you'd fill in the remaining 7 spots with the Global traits.

Most system just give an illusion of choice (like talent tree, because really, you didn't have any, there was 1-2 builds and that's it). Same thing for most game, same thing for FF14 cross-role system. Picking Provoke as a Tank wasn't a choice....

People often claim this, but I recall several iterations of talent trees that had multiple different builds that would work. Classic to WotLK WoW had many times where there was deviations possible. Rift has had pretty diverse talent systems (Outside Tanking which often had core tanking talents in specific trees... Such as "Don't get critted by enemies" and that kind of garbage that shouldn't exist in the first place)

WoW Talent system is somehow like this, and while it isn't perfectly balanced, it still is imo the best talent system designed so far.

Ehh... I find the post-Pandaria WoW talents pretty lacking. My experience with them are that they're very much catagorized by the worst of Talent designs. Where there will be some talents that are obvious best picks and others that are "The choice doesn't matter, they all suck"

With only one specific talent choice that I can recall though all the expansions that was actually GOOD. Which was when Death Knights could pick between Blood Rune, Runic Empowerment and Runic Corruption during Pandaria.

Statistically Blood Runes > Runic Empowerment > Runic Corruption. However, they were so close as to be marginal at best (Like talking 0.01% DPS variance) and so the option was heavily driven by personal preference for the style of resource regeneration.

Blood Runes meant you had to manually control your generation, using an action to turn fully depleted runes into Death Runes (The best kind as they worked as any type). It would provide the most Death Runes for you over time but the cost is you having to constantly manage them.

Runic Empowerment was passive and it would randomly proc one of your fully depleted runes to become available again. This would grant the second highest amount of overall runes, but could be awkward due to trying to game them (I.e. Not spending a certain type of rune so you get more of the type(s) you want) as well as de-syncing your 2 rune cost abilities.

Runic Corruption was another passive and it would proc temporarily increased regeneration. It gave the lowest number of runes on average, but it would keep all your runes in sync as well as boost up all 3 types of runes. This meant it gave you the most consistent rotations as you'd keep just regenerating them in the same groupings you spent them.

Outside of this specific scenario, much of the new school WoW talents have been pretty poorly designed.

While their old more sophisticated talent trees were a lot better, they just needed some extra attention. I.e. To stop certain talents from being just flat out superior to other options. As well as reducing the whole "I need to put 5 points into this otherwise it sucks" thing. But they had quite a lot of variations. Like, beyond the builds where you just took most (If not all) the talents in a particular tree and splashed out remaining points into the best out of the remaining 2 trees, you had things like PoM Pyro (Mage that went Arcane to get some boosts to spell damage and access to Presence of Mind (Essentially Swiftcast) and then went Fire to get damage and Pyroblast (10 second cast massive damage nuke)) Frostfire (Mage going into both Fire and Frost trees and using Frostfire Bolt to benefit from both), WotLK DK's that could do anything in any build (Tanking, 2h DPS and DW DPS as either Blood/Frost/Unholy), Rogues that would go down a tree for a specific skill and then fill out a different one for the main focus (Such as grabbing Cold Blood but then getting utility from Combat. Or grabbing Haemorrhage and then focusing on Combat for damage), Warlocks mixing Affliction or Destruction to boost their personal damage while Demonology focused etc.)

But I digress.

If the options are well made, then they would be good additions to the game. There exists some good examples of talent systems that offer decent choices. Some that are close but have some "Must have" options that need a bit more balancing.

I feel as though FFXIV could come up with a good iteration with decently designed traits.

[Cetonis]

I don't quite see the relation this has to Role Actions, other than the notion of a selection scheme. The closer analogue is the PvP traits.

Clearly SE is strongly opposed to anything resembling talents, for reasons we've all heard. If they ever do though, I'd agree with Sylvain that they wouldn't just position it as an open-ended pick 3-of-10 list of some sort, or a tree or anything like that.

Limiting it to a series of choices between two or three options would be easier to balance, it'd be more controlled so that SE wouldn't need to worry about how bad the worst case selections are, and it'd be more plausible to make every option relevant.

Considering how wary they are about the whole thing, I'd expect a this-or-that setup to be way more likely for these reasons. And really, they'd probably only do it if they felt so pressed for new endgame rewards that they needed to add a whole separate progression system besides tomes/gear.

[Dualgunner]

But if design was done solely around Meta, then we'd only have a total of 8 classes.

I mean, first off you can't "design around meta" unless there were only 8 classes to choose from. Meta is an entirely player-made construct. It's short for metagaming, a tactic players use in order to get the most out of their character / class. All developers can do is try and balance the game so that a player-made meta doesn't vastly outstrip non-meta playstyles, which I think XIV has done to a reasonable degree.

Secondly, like it or not, decisions like this need to take the high-end endgame into deep consideration, because any and every chance will affect them the most. From there you also have to consider trickle-down, because people innately try and copy what successful people do.

TL;DR:
I disagree, balance changes should always be made with endgame in mind, because outside of that endgame, balance doesn't matter.

[Kabooa]

TL;DR:
I disagree, balance changes should always be made with endgame in mind, because outside of that endgame, balance doesn't matter.

This doesn't mean some of the design can't be for fun, like the silly traits that don't really matter. Ninja Movement speed and fall damage for example. Major choices like fundamental action changes, sure, but I don't think anyone is going to point out Dragoon unlocking a High Jump trait for your basic jumping as problematic, unless multi-elevation encounter arenas where that matters becomes a thing.

[Kalise]

I mean, first off you can't "design around meta"

You absolutely can.

While metas are predominantly player made, they can be influenced by designs pretty heavily.

For example, if you create a class like say... Dragoon, whom has a monopoly on a Piercing debuff that enhances the damage of all piercing damage against targets with 100% uptime. Then you've pushed the "Meta" towards something wherein if predominantly Piercing based damage dealers are used (I.e. BRD or MCH) in a significant way, then you incentivise also having a DRG in the party too for this debuff that boosts their damage.

Same could be said if BLU was able to group with people with their Peculiar Light, you'd push a meta where you focus on having a lot of Magic damage to capitalize on the massive debuff from Peculiar Light.

Meta's are heavily based around skill interactions.

With them also then being secondarily influenced by misconceptions and/or distorted opinions. (I.e. You could have 3 options for a "Talent" and one of them could be 0.001% more DPS than the others and so someone who did the math would say that statistically, that talent is numerically superior. But then this would be distorted into someone interpreting it as "That talent is best" thus causing the meta to focus around the notion that that talent is the only viable one and the other 2 are trash. Since, people are idiots)

I disagree, balance changes should always be made with endgame in mind, because outside of that endgame, balance doesn't matter.

Balance should be made with endgame in mind.

But meta =/= endgame.

For example, the current meta has magical DPS like BLM, SMN and RDM as non-viable. Along with selfish DPS SAM.

Yet, you look at top parses for content and literally every party has at least 1 of those classes in the party. With sometimes having popular meta picks like DRG and NIN being left out completely.

If balance was done entirely around meta, BLM, SMN, RDM and SAM would get massive buffs and/or DRG/NIN/BRD would get nerfs. But this would shift the actual balance of endgame quite dramatically because the meta isn't actually accurate and is simply just more popular (Likely because it has stayed pretty much the same for years and meta's don't tend to shift outside some significant wake up call that has people making a big impact with "Off-meta" compositions, to which top parses doesn't accomplish because only complete nerds care about that sort of thing)

[Dualgunner]

For example, the current meta has magical DPS like BLM, SMN and RDM as non-viable. Along with selfish DPS SAM.

There's a lot to sift through here and I don't have time to do it right now, but...no.

As of right now, every job in this game is viable. For all content up to and including Ultimate. Every job, even Black Mage (though that takes a particular level of skill) can complete Ultimate. Also, one of the jobs you listed as non-viable is actually currently meta, the Summoner, with Machinist getting edged out last tier (really, endgame alphascape) because of how much more powerful buffs made them.