New Character Development System: Master Level.

XIV's problem is there is JUST. SO. MUCH. exposition in the cutscenes. They pad out the MSQ and basically mandatory side quests to keep people playing patch to patch entertained and happy, but when you are a new or returning player trying to catch up... it's absolutely ridiculous. At least a lot of XI's missions can be finished later on, aside from Rhapsodies. With XIV, you literally can't progress at all in the game without doing pretty much all of it... or buying a skip potion.

Well if you don't like the mission stories, at least try some of the better questline stories. There are a lottttt of really good stories in the game hidden within optional quests that you would never do if it was just for rewards.

They really went above and beyond with the world building and npc interactions and backgrounds/stories in FFXI. It is incredibly well done and one of the only games I can think of where even the boring fetch quests can having amazing dialogue and narrative and get you emotionally involved

Same on my server too. When CP campaigns are going on, I can almost always find 1-2 people spamming bats who are not actually there or afk in a party while someone else's character is killing bats... while afk.

Then they like to say "CP doesn't teach you your job" yet you end up playing with these guys and it all becomes clear when they use their JAs at completely random times.

And I wsa told the story in FFXIV was top notch however, I skipped most all of it. I just wasn't drawn in at all. The gameplay wasn't bad...

Both games kinda hammer you with dialogue-heavy cutscenes, so they do get tedious if you try to digest a bunch in one sitting. The difference is the pacing:

In XI, the difficulty spikes pretty quickly between fights so you're expected to break away and grind exp and stuff. But in XIV, the MSQ is also your means to acquire experience, money, and equipment, so you never really get a break from it.

I honestly don't think its for everyone, and of course the same goes for XI. I personally loved XI's storylines, all of them for the most part. I just redid WOTG recently and those CS still hold up very well, the only annoying part is the huge zones to run across but thats an MMO for ya.

The biggest thing I dislike about XI's stories atm is that they don't give you the option to level cap yourself to experience it how it was. They should make it mandatory but with trusts it isn't a big deal anymore and its even fun to do. At the least give you the option, they did that for XIV and it seems fair to me.

The endless MSQ and inability to do instanced fights with friends (or even help friends with instanced fights you already did), was very off putting to me.

I liked ffxi's story immensely, but did find the missions to be a massive chore. Which is why I only bothered to finish WoTG once Lilith's HTBF fight was added. Luckily most missions are optional and won't stop you doing end game. Nothing stops me doing Ody, Ambuscade, CP farms, Dyna-D, etc besides a very brief effort into missions.

FFXIV on the other hand, forces you to do all the missions in order to even progress to the next zone for leveling. Not even including the ability to play with friends, which requires beating much of the current MSQ line. It makes it a massive chore to even achieve anything. It's why I purchased the 'mission' skip, but even with that gave up half way through Shadowbringers.

I myself played through much of ARR's story. It was beyond dreadful.

If FFXI went the route of FFXIV, and required ALL: RoZ, CoP, ToAU, WoTG, SoA, and RoV missions to be completed before you can even start end game, then I'm certain there would be far less returning / new players willing to come back.

Making missions a requirement in order to play the game with friends is just a form of gate keeping. And to me, is not fun at all.

This would be cool. It'd be neat if there was a bonus for doing it that way, but I'd love to relive some of those fights or zones when they were capped.

I think a big part of what makes FFXI hold up is just how everything feeds into one another. Doing any one thing makes doing everything else just a little bit easier.

Especially with power-leveling and multi-boxing, it's pretty easy just to rush from Lv.1 to Lv.99 and then grind through each mission line one by one or whatever. But for people taking their time, it's the perfect system.

You can grind experience points, as being higher level makes it easier to do quests and make areas safer to travel. You can quest to increase your fame and get some cool items sometimes. You can do the story missions to unlock access to stuff. You can craft to earn some money or make unique equipment.

The game never says you have to do one to do the other, but if you ever get bored of doing any one task you can shift gears and not feel like you're losing progress or wasting your time, even if what you're doing is waiting.

When I was playing XIV, I found myself pining to try out my new sword on some enemies. But I'd long since realized that killing enemies that weren't already flagged for a quest offered no meaningful reward. I could earn 100x the experience points by approaching a glowing exclamation mark, then traveling about 20 metres down the street to another exclamation mark. And before I'd even let my new sword taste blood, I'd already earned one that was stronger just by questing.

In an attempt to steer things back on topic, I really don't mean this to just crap on XIV. I'm kinda saying that whatever the new system is, it'll just be another excuse to play. It's another thing to do while waiting until 00:00 so you can do the next CoP mission. It's another thing to do to mess around with and make some sort of meaningful progress.

I really think we'd benefit from stat squish. As it stands now, it's too difficult for people to evaluate and compare gear.

Do I really need my gear to list accuracy, magic accuracy, ranged accuracy and pet accuracy? How broken would it be if there were just a 'accuracy' and it applied to all categories of accuracy? Evasion/MEVA? All Attr. +40 instead of number vomit? I don't want them to dumb the game down, but it could still retain it's complexity without all the clutter.


I would overhaul the JSE to actually have a bonus that's, ya know... specific to the job? All JSE should haste cap you and give 50 FC at base. Every JSE feet has +12 - +18 movement. I should feel like I'm not missing out if I choose to full-tme JSE, but have the choice to push my performance by swapping.

A lot of pieces of gear are very purposefully setup with different stats for different reasons. All Stats +20 is just a few levels of stats, but 40 some dex, 20 some vit, 20 some agility, 40 some attack might be a specific weapon skill or sneak attack.

The ability to discern easily which piece of gear goes good with which job ability, or weapon skill, is like literally half or better of the skill you need to play this game.

And 50 Fast Cast as base? Sounds like you want a silver platter. Every JSE feet with movement? Too modest to ask for an all jobs feet with movement? Sounds like what you really want.

Different jobs were always intended to have access to different stuff. From the very beginning very few jobs even had access to movement gear because that was part of the vision for developing the jobs... some of those jobs were supposed to be faster than everyone else.

You make a ton of good points, it's almost like the game has changed so much in the last 2 decades that no one remembers that groups used to have more roles than dps tank healer support, like kiter and puller.

Regarding Seun's FC example, I was just thinking the exact same thing a few days ago. There's no practical reason to need to keep a separate precast set, at this point it's just an inventory strain. Just stick a reasonable amount of FC on ilevel gear as a baseline, or allow players to get "Master Points" to cap FC, whatever. At the very least, something like a Nyame set or similar all jobs gear should have capped/near capped FC.

At this point there's no reason whatsoever I should need to have 6 different pairs of boots (that I use ONLY for fast cast) taking up wardrobe space. Or like... why do I need to make FC ambu capes for so many jobs? Add an all jobs cape without the job-specific stats, so I can consolidate inventory and do one cape with like... FC/Macc

The argument of "jobs were designed to be different" really falters when you are talking about the days where, say, hitting haste cap in gear was very rare. Now it's expected. There's no huge impact on balance by allowing people to not need a satchel full of gear just for stuff like capping FC, getting 18% movement, whatever. And there's still PLENTY of job-specific gear between TP sets, WS gear, JA enhancing pieces, other specific uses (nuke gear, acc sets, whatever), etc, etc... This isn't saying every job just wears 5/5 SuperNyame set and automatically gets BiS everything.

Plug numbers into a formula/spreadsheet and compare your results. That's not called skill, it's called math. All of the people who solve correctly get the same answer, but we all do not play at the same skill level. If anything skill is how you take the knowledge you have after solving, and apply it to maximize your output.



Oh I'm greedy? If you're swapping gear then you're not struggling to break 50, by a lot. I just picked it because it's well below what you'd get if you're swapping, but significant enough that I could work with it. What would it take to get you to full-time a set of JSE?

For me its the gear trendmill, u should be on daily and not skip a month of daily to be pre best gear or bis geared because of the monthly’s tomestone. Kinda makes it a subtle pay to win if u take breaks

So let's give fast cast to everyone. Let's also give DW to everyone and flee to everyone. Instead of having any concept of difference between the jobs, let's homogenize them all to be the same thing.

Def would not like that, I really don't like the idea of the new Odyssey sets. They are already planning to expand inventory, I don't see a need to dumb down the gear system more and add all the stats onto one equip set lol.

Every time I see one of these armchair game designer posts, I'm honestly amazed as to how little the people playing this game for years, if not decades, seem to understand its mechanics.

- Let's give capped haste to everyone.
- Let's give same ilevel baseline stats (attribute, acc, atk, racc, atk, macc, mab, eva, meva, mbd, DT-, pet acc/racc/macc...) to everyone.
- Let's give same menu of augment choices on a cape to everyone.

See how ridiculous that sounds? Because all of this is stuff we already have, and none of it is massively unique to any one job. Nor does it ever make me confuse a WHM for a DRK. So what's the big deal about adding FC and movement speed to that list? These aren't specific job-defining abilities at all, these are basic stats at this point. We're not talking about 75cap where maybe a RDM being uniquely able to use FC better than other jobs with no access to gear to even cap was a defining feature. EVERY job can already cap the stat now (as well as use 12-18% movement speed gear, including an all jobs 18% ring), there's nothing at all unique to one job that I'm saying to give to everyone.

Leave the actual job-specific stuff to be the major distinguishing factor for jobs. Bards have songs, Monks have Impetus and best ability to use H2H WS, White Mages have curagas and -na spells and cureskin, etc. Each job also still has their own large list of JAs/spells, their unique skill caps and viable WS options, their own job traits, their own merits and Job Point categories (and gifts). There's SO MUCH to still differentiate jobs. I'm not saying to add PUP's automaton to all 22 jobs.

Getting a decent amount of fast cast as a default on most gear (or all gear of a certain ilevel or baseline, just like we're getting strong Meva/Acc/Atk on Odyssey gear) is not going to make jobs homogenous. It just helps to not have to lug around a double digit number of pieces that are SOLELY kept on hand for freaking precast swaps when there's no good reason that FC can't just be a thing we expect (just like we expect Acc, MEva, Haste, etc.).

You're just defending meaningless inventory bloat, and I think it's stupid.

No, I don't understand the mechanics of putting a set bonus on pieces of gear you would never wear as a set. That's why the question was put forth "How would you change the JSE set bonus to make it viable as a full-time set"?


There is a very real possibility that Empyrean +3 is so good, you might consider wearing it full-time. Because that is a possibility, the question deserves a dignified response at the least. I'm sorry you had a bad day, but don't be a ***.

The one core design principle of this game that made it good to begin with is that no single set should be so good you'd consider wearing it full-time. Actually wanting to push upcoming gear more into this universally good territory is just stupid. If anything, SE would be better off removing the set bonuses entirely.

Also, my day was great, thanks for asking.

Even if Empy sets were suppose to be wear as a whole, it was only for purpose of doing one thing, like TPing only for most melee job sets and their bonuses. Not to do WS, Casting, precasting, idle and JA in them. So if MNK set has chance for additional kick attacks, thats clearly for TPing and you can expect stats that help that purpose, not Fast Cast or Weapon Skill Damage or Movement speed.

wouldnt mind another round of nyame that is just loaded with haste/FC. even better if they throw in duration+%, far as mov speed goes should just throw out a Shneddick ring lite, 12% mov speed, all jobs, keeps the appeal of the all jobs +18% but gives every job the "minimum" 12% without forcing them into a non-ilvl piece

You are talking about something completely different. You are talking about having some universal gear for slots that most people have anyway for their jobs. Like having one 10%FC cape instead of 10, or having one 18% movement speed gear instead of 5. So pretty much reduce number of gear you use for swaps if you play many jobs. So you would have like one or two sets with FC for precast swap for many jobs, but you would need to still swap to them. What Seun is saying is to reduce numbers of swaps entirely, so to have sets that without swaps would work for TP, casting, idle, WS etc. and not be bis, but be good, so you have an option to not swap at all if you accept not being bis. I think this is stupid, because its completely against FFXI fundamentals.


Nah, that's only one way to do it, other way to do it is to check things in practice. How set really works, parse them (not even with parse, but with overall effectiveness like clearing speed, farming speed etc.) There is a lot of scenarios where gear on paper will lose to some other gear, because increased survivability, meva, Subtle blow etc. will result in gains in dps that cant be controlled in sheet and are unique to specific target or scenario.

We already see how good sets like Sakpata make people even more dump in FFXI. I have seen several WAR that fulltime Sakpata even when scenario they are in is completely wrong for that (like wearing Sakpata for WS when you are not attack capped). Sets like that make people lazy with swaps and imo that's BAD.


Maybe because that's probably impossible. There is probably no room to put every base stat on one piece of gear. You could use things like All attributes +40, to make room, but that would be stupid for different reason, which is balance between other sets. If you look closely 40DEX on legs would be a MASSIVE stat, but 40STR on legs wouldn't, that's why it's very rare we have even attributes on gear. You also overreact here a little, because gear bloat for stuff like precast was very reduced in past several years. We got several sets that covers precast for several jobs at once, including complex sets like Pinga or Agwu or individual pieces like DRK relic body, RUN af head, Geo AF pants, PLD AF body, Sakpata's helm, C. Palug Crown, Amalric Coif, Sacro Breastplate, Baayami Robe, Carmine Mask, Amalric Nails, Sakpata's Sword etc. that also double up as pieces for other sets, so are not for precast only.

You're taking it way over the top. He was referring to the FFXIV mentality of homogenizing jobs, not everyone.

All tanks have a tank stance, same inate damage reduction. All casters have the same 30% spell buff, etc. There are role actions that are the same. It doesn't make everyone completely identical. However, jobs feel less unique.

Homogenization can help to standardize things and avoid "bring the job, not the player" however, then there is no sense of uniqueness which is something FFXI has always done well. If I play a job, I do not feel like a copy/paste of another.

All FFXIV jobs play different rotations but at the same time, master one, you can easily master a similar role. That's not the case in FFXI. There are people who master a healer job but suck balls at tanking.


But I wear my Magus set full time.

.... lockstyle >:D

How was your day?

You see the problem (wait, is it a problem?) with that is that yes, we did get a plethora of gear for different purposes on multiple jobs over the year, but the job listing on those items isn't equally distributed and so it can create issues on players according to the jobs they have levelled.

Allow me to provide a made up example.
Wow we got this wonderful new nuking set for BLM, WHM and GEO! Nice! Now I can save 9 inventory space!
No wait I can't because RDM and SCH aren't on that list so I can use this new set for those 3 jobs but I'll have to keep the 9 old items because of that.
This means that that new set, instead of making me save inventory space, actually creates the need for more inv.

You can make plenty of examples of situations like these. Odyssey new gear have some peculiar job pairings and the fact that multipurpose jobs like SCH and RDM haven't been put on multiple sets (for instance they should've been on both Agwu AND Bunzi) is a perfect example.
There's so many situations like these.
Is there a solution? I don't think so, because there have been so many different paradygms over the years, what can you do about it?
"All jobs" gear can be a solution for sure but I don't see it happening.

Not sure a new Nyame set would be a good solution, but a statless "all jobs" ambu cape would totally be, at least for the cape slot. I know I would save at least 15 if not more inventory space with such a cape (supposing they don't make it RARE/EX lol)

Yep, simple cape like that can be done, especially that you can change augments on Ambu cape with Needle, so you could change your FC capes to something else, so they are not wasted. But I cant see how we can have some bis nuke set for SCH, BLM, GEO, WHM and RDM, same as I cant see how we can have same bis TP set for WHM and DRG etc. UNLESS it's a one time thing and come with big sacrifice or rather big choice like Nyame. Because you can make Nyame path C and you can have amazing nuke set for all jobs, or go apth A and have amazing tp set for all jobs or B for WSD. Sets like Nyame should not be standard tho, it should be unique like it is.

I agree with you. TP gear in general has so different needs depending on job is possibly the hardest thing to make an "all jobs" set for that.
Granted that allowing us players to get multiple versions of Nyame would've been a decent compromise, if you ask me. But I digress.

An "All jobs" set, or multiple ones, could be nice for other generic, shared purposes like:
Enhancing Magic duration/Phalanx/EnhaSkill/FC/Haste/DT/SIRD/HP/MP.

For instance I could create:
1) An all jobs set with lotsa SIRD, lotsa DT and some decent HP/MP/Meva/Mdb values, maybe put some basic FC and Haste too.
2) An all jobs set with Enha duration +, some Enhaskill and some basic phalanx+. Add some basic FC/Haste for recast. Wouldn't kill those who have godly DM augs, but would be a bliss for everybody else and for inventory savings


I provided some super simple examples but on things like these yes, having "all jobs" sets would make you save a plethora of inventory space without completely killing the flavour of some unique job specific item that might be better in some slots.


I don't see it happening anyway, it's way too complex.
The generic Ambu cape on the other hand would be such a simple, clean and useful option that frankly I'm surprised they haven't released it yet. It's been suggested so many times on multiple places that really, you gotta be dumb and completely deaf to your game's player base not to release something like this.
I'm not saying devs should always bend over to players (the other way around, if anything) but for situations like this there's no excuse really.

I wonder if they will eventually add -dmg taken as a master stat you can grind, I'm not liking the current trend of gear with those stats on for tp sets.

Very few people are going to TP in the new empy sets unless they have -dmg now and it makes a lot of older stuff obsolete.

Glasscannon dpszombie zealots never won't be a thing