Alternate Class Upgrades than new Class Skills

[Ouro]

Its always nice to receive new skills every expansion, but at the end of the day I feel like its just the same, new skills, some removed, some made better, and then to the point where the classes just don't feel customizable other than through secondary stats like spell speed or crit.

Therefore an idea I wouldn't mind discussing over is adding a skill augment slot on each classes offhand. Using Black mage as an example:

Lvl 82 augment - Fire I replaced with new spell "insert name" does 30-40 potency more dmg, new animation/same purpose

Lvl 84 augment - Aetherial manipulation can be targeted anywhere, cd dropped to 5 seconds

Lvl 86 augment - Casting Flare, makes the next foul instant cast

Lvl 88 augment - Thunder III, Thunder IV instant proc at the end of 30 seconds

Lvl 90 augment - 3rd Polyglot accessible

Only 1 augment can be equipped at a time, and this would then maybe create a more diverse gameplay within classes.

Curious what Ideas you have for other classes? i.e Pld augment - shelltron casts to 2 other nearby players.

[Vidu]

The truth here is that classes dont feel customizable because they arent because they cant and never will be. There will always be an optimal way to play a job (or pick an augment) and thats becoming the meta with every alternative being ignored and therefor a waste of dev-time - or, worse, being used by people who dont know any better and are then scolded or kicked for not playing the class the "right way".

Customisation in this game happens within your character, not within your job - by which I mean: You only have one way to play BLM, but three ways to play a caster.

Personally I think this is an idea thats bound to fail, wasting a lot of time on balancing when everyone is using the "best" augment anways once its been figured out what that is - just look at secondary stats: People dont pick and choose them based on wether they like crit or speed more, they're choosing them based on the BiS-lists people have figured out.
Considering that the team would also have to balance with every possible augment and augment-combination within a group in mind, I just dont think this has a real place in an MMO... or at least not within this one. Customisation works great in singleplayergames, but here? You'll have one build that everyones gonna use and the rest just going to waste.
I'd also rather get some actual stuff - even if its just adjustments to skills I already have - than getting 5 "skills" that I can only use one off.

[Ouro]

Yeah I agree with most of what you say. All in all meta dictates what is best to use. Now this idea would not have to pertain to be level-based. There can be skill adjustments in each expansion during levelling, but my general idea is to make it more encounter based. And I agree that the current method of customization is the classes where a certain fight this caster would perform better than another caster, or a tank can out perform another tank in a different encounter.

Basically what my idea was for something different to use lets say I'm running dungeons I would put an augment that would enhance my aoe capabilities, or lets say there is a lot of movement, Id equip an augment to ease the movement of my character to maximize performance if I had the option. Granted currently in caster situation id have to switch from BLM to SMN, but I wanted to think of a way to add additional flavour. However I do enjoy the current game as is.

[DrWho2010]

stop trying to be a special snowflake. it doesn't work in this game. the only thing that works in this game is player skill. in other words... you just need to GIT GUD.

[Sylve]

That all looks disturbingly similar to WoWs 8.2 azurite stuff …

XIVs customization is the Job system. Deeper customization for stats is Materia, though as Vidu pointed out, even that tends to be lost to simmed stat plateaus.
But then that only matters in Savage content.
Can go all in on Skill Speed on a Monk if you wanted to (I actually wanna do this at 80 on a spare set just to see how ridiculous I can get the GCD), you just wont be optimal for bleeding edge Savage clears.

Yeah I agree with most of what you say. All in all meta dictates what is best to use. Now this idea would not have to pertain to be level-based. There can be skill adjustments in each expansion during levelling, but my general idea is to make it more encounter based. And I agree that the current method of customization is the classes where a certain fight this caster would perform better than another caster, or a tank can out perform another tank in a different encounter.

Basically what my idea was for something different to use lets say I'm running dungeons I would put an augment that would enhance my aoe capabilities, or lets say there is a lot of movement, Id equip an augment to ease the movement of my character to maximize performance if I had the option. Granted currently in caster situation id have to switch from BLM to SMN, but I wanted to think of a way to add additional flavour. However I do enjoy the current game as is.

The problem then becomes needing to have 20 different augment sets ready to go and changing to the 'best' ones per encounter. Screw that.

[AxlStream]

I mean if you're lookimg for that, you are playing the wrong game.

[Bright-Flower]

I do miss some customization from WoW, and I disagree that having any is useless just because high end players and minmaxers will select the most effective option. Not everyone plays with that mindset. We're going to have four tanks, three healers and ten dps in SHB despite only EIGHT jobs being 'the best raid comp' for any given fight and every job has their mains despite not all of them always being the 'best' choice for a given role. I see talents much the same way and you only really need to fret that you have the absolute best build if you're doing cutting edge raiding in WoW.

But it's highly unlikely to ever come to FFXIV. If anything thy've been move AWAY from it steadily for years. Scraping cross class skills for role skills before giving up and giving everyone all 10 roll skills before prunign them more in SHB.

[Edax]

Its always nice to receive new skills every expansion, but at the end of the day I feel like its just the same, new skills, some removed, some made better, and then to the point where the classes just don't feel customizable other than through secondary stats like spell speed or crit.

The problem we saw with WoW and their other specs was that there was always an optimum skill tree you were "supposed" to take. Since this is a game about numbers, anything that deviates from that path for "customization" is just suboptimal.