Restricting Weapon skills to original class.

[Augury]

Everyone skimmed over my post ;--:

Actually... no, I was digging it but forgot to hit the "like" button. It helped me think more clearly as to why I dislike this idea.

As for Roaran's issue with the Armory system- I think the answer is to simplify the move-pool available and remove ranked skills. A great example is the conditioned blows Pugilists get from dodging and then attacking. Why not combine Haymaker and Jarring Strike into a more simplistic skill? Why should Rasp and Quake be different skills? Simplifying the movepool and making every skill powerful in it's own right makes the choice involved more broad, while decreasing the cumbersome amount of choices.

[Physic]

Suzaku raised a very good point in his post, thanks for pointing this out. Forgive me if I oversimplify it, but he suggested that each player ends up selecting a few skills from a wide range of skills, and this selection is what makes each player unique.

I love this point, as I wholly agree with it. The armoury system has great strengths to it, and this is definately one of the strongest.


Though my problem lies in the ultimate lack of choice that this same system creates. A player does have many choices, yet, (and I don't want to exaggerate or underestimate) probably 75% of these choices are sub-optimal at best. Some classes greatly benefit from some abilities (Defender II for THM is awesome).

Which is why I specifically targeted ONLY weapon skills. I think of it as a cost/benefit analysis.

On the one hand, I like the armoury system for abilities, as it simply works very well. Magic in general as well. Simple activation animations and casting animations are sufficient enough for these abilities to be used among all the classes.

Yet, for Weapon skills, I see a distinct difference. This availability seems to place a limit on what they're capable of. I also point out skills such as Luminous Spire and Simian Thrash... these are prime examples of what skills COULD be like, but are generally not.

You are assuming they didnt make them unique because of cross class, Im saying they should make every native skill look unique, and allow people to cross class it, but it just looks recycled. That alone would make classes feel more unique. The idea behind the skill learning system, is any skill you learn can be used, lets look to the job system for the uniquness factors. after all, just adding some different traits and a couple skills would make each player very unique without sacrificing our current level of customization

[Roaran]

Im saying they should make every native skill look unique, and allow people to cross class it, but it just looks recycled.

In my previous post I think I outlined exactly why it is highly like this will never happen. Each combination of class & weapon skill eventually adds up to some ungodly number that is likely impossible for the dev team.

And I think my biggest point is, sure you have some customization, but is it worth it? With few exceptions, your best skills are going to end up being your own classes skills. Do they need to be available to everyone when eventually everyone will learn this and end up not using other classes skills ( And there are a few exceptions Skull Sunder II for example is a good skill ).

[Physic]

In my previous post I think I outlined exactly why it is highly like this will never happen. Each combination of class & weapon skill eventually adds up to some ungodly number that is likely impossible for the dev team.

And I think my biggest point is, sure you have some customization, but is it worth it? With few exceptions, your best skills are going to end up being your own classes skills. Do they need to be available to everyone when eventually everyone will learn this and end up not using other classes skills ( And there are a few exceptions Skull Sunder II for example is a good skill ).

i dont think you get what im saying, I'm saying that if you use a skill on pugilist, that is pugilist, it should have its own look. say forexample, pounce, when used on pugilist you should actually leap or something, but when used by glad, it can be a vanilla sword poke.
This will make people want to use weaponskills on thier main job, unless there is a specific reason to cross class (having slightly less damage/accuracy is the only reason now)

The adaptability of customization, is that for special cases, you can adapt, while in general another class may not want to use concussive blow, if you have a pugilist tank, you may help the party more by giving up damage to be able to maintain the accuracy debuff on the mob, and get it to level 3 faster. or maybe a monster will be weak to fire, and you use red lotus, etc.

I definately agree that weapon skills dont look great when you worked hard to earn them and they generally all look like the same action, but i dont think we have to make the cross class exclusive, in order to make them look unique on the actual job they come from.

[LordNickage]

I'm all for this, or at least for a level of restriction. I think anything that does slashing should at least be restricted to gladiator or marauder. I don't think some kind of slashing move works on pugilist. It just doesn't make sense to me. But it would simply be easier to restrict it by class, which would inherently give each its own strengths and weaknesses, to be balanced out in the future. Everybody could still solo, but it would affect partying for a little while. I definitely love the level of customization in this game, and would be all for having more passive abilities learned/used for customization, but the actual abilities themselves should have a little restriction and/or be combined to make it more difficult to choose.

[Reika]

I'm all for this, or at least for a level of restriction. I think anything that does slashing should at least be restricted to gladiator or marauder. I don't think some kind of slashing move works on pugilist. It just doesn't make sense to me. But it would simply be easier to restrict it by class, which would inherently give each its own strengths and weaknesses, to be balanced out in the future. Everybody could still solo, but it would affect partying for a little while. I definitely love the level of customization in this game, and would be all for having more passive abilities learned/used for customization, but the actual abilities themselves should have a little restriction and/or be combined to make it more difficult to choose.

In case you missed my post, Pug has 3 weapons with blades, lancer has multiple weapons with blades. and they each list their affinity with certain damage types.

[Roaran]

@Physic

I see your point now, there still is a problem in allowing other classes to use the WS. Even if you make an elaborate animation for the main class, the animation and effects still must be compatiable with whatever watered down animation is used with another class. Otherwise you're back to square zero having to make 100+ effects/animations or even slight tweaks would be unfeasible. So, there would still be a limitation on each WS.

[Physic]

lol they barely match now, for a lot of skills its just like do motion, then effect happens. pounce and aura strike effects dont look particularly suited to the slow punch that almost all pug skills use. they basically for generic skills just take whatever effect. and pick a point of emanation on it. its a lot like casting spells as it is.

[BlaiseLallaise]

The more I think about it, the more I can see two ways that they might consider altering the cross-class usage of weapon skills, if they decide to do anything at all.

1. Leave some weapon skills with the ability to cross-class, but make others, perhaps the better ones, class-specific.

2. Do not change the ability to cross-class weapon skills, but only allow a weapon skill to be used when the damage type of the weapon equipped matches the damage type of the weapon skill (see PUG weapons with slashing mentioned above).

I'm on the fence as to how I feel about it at this point. I could see either method done, or none at all. The second one seems like a logical move to me.

[LordNickage]

In case you missed my post, Pug has 3 weapons with blades, lancer has multiple weapons with blades. and they each list their affinity with certain damage types.

My bad, sorry! I just think there's more ways to give customization aside from having cross-class weapon skills, is all.