SoA content for ALL 20 jobs...

[Rustic]

There was a time when RDM was on top for healing due to the limited sources of refresh. WHM was viewed as too high maintenance, and cure bombing was neither feasible nor necessary.

This. Now WHM/RDM can just take care of themselves.

The problem lies in that what once was the domain of a specific job, what made it valued- has become something subjobs can bring to another job instead- and nothing in the 76-99 range has replaced them, which narrows things down. If I was the devs, I'd be looking at abilities and spells in that level range that make people go "Oh, THAT'S what you need <job>" for!

If content becomes nothing but DPS + heal vs. monster, then logically that's what jobs get the nod, every time- along with whatever (staggers/TH) generates the most loot. Everyone else gets left on the doorstep.

The solutions are many, but one part of the problem is that so much of what makes a given job unique was allowed to bleed into subjobbing it. Being able to mix and match a lot of L35+ JA's and such was the wet dreams of many a L75-era player, and lo and behold it happened.

Make the jobs unique again, or we're in the MMO standard holy trinity of DPS, tank, heal + guy who pokes the mob for TH.

[Kincard]

In an old style MMO like this the holy trinity is basically unavoidable. Making jobs unique does not have to be restricted to being within those roles though, and making a holy trinity role a job's defining role is probably a bad idea when there's so many of them.

[detlef]

Pretty much this. I'd be all for coming to endgame events as something other then BLM or SAM or BLU, but no one wants my RDM, or NIN, or BST a good portion of the time. You could include DNC as well, but I basically gave up on the job for the same reason its not getting to invites to endgame events either.

The thing is, your NIN is incredible in Abyssea. Your BST is great in Dynamis. As for your RDM, I can't really help you too much there, although it is and always has been a very good Salvage healing job.

[Rustic]

Who has just one job anymore?

More like "Who can afford to have just one job anymore?"

And that's a problem. All jobs, when you hit endgame, should have value, and brute force generation shouldn't be the winner.

Encounters should frequently have "Man, if we had <job> on this run, it'd have been a lot smoother. There should be "speed bumps" that while they don't stop people, they do slow them down. Spam physical DPS on a mob? "Reflects/redirects attack" effect that needs dispelling, like waaay back when we were slapping crawlers and crabs around and every time the thing Cocooned up, you needed removal to keep the exp chain going. Mobs that have huge -PDT/-MDT that's weakened by debuffing them. Mobs that have nasty special or even normal attacks/defenses that cripples a player (TP/MP drains or "Weakness Spikes", for example) but has no effect on pets/autos/drakes, leaving them fighting each other on more even terms. Something that forces a mix of effort besides "Hit it with a bigger axe."

[Ramaza]

The thing is, your NIN is incredible in Abyssea. Your BST is great in Dynamis. As for your RDM, I can't really help you too much there, although it is and always has been a very good Salvage healing job.

But thats the thing though, I don't wanna play my NIN in just abyssea, I wanna take it to Voidwatcher. I don't wanna play my BST in just Dynamis, I wanna take it to Legion, and the same goes for my RDM. Old content is not the solution to make jobs that are being sidelined viable again.

[Prrsha]

The solutions are many, but one part of the problem is that so much of what makes a given job unique was allowed to bleed into subjobbing it. Being able to mix and match a lot of L35+ JA's and such was the wet dreams of many a L75-era player, and lo and behold it happened.

Subjobs are what make FFXI an unique MMORPG... it is also its curse as it makes job uniqueness go down the toilet. The devs should really look at removing certain abilities for a job when it is subbed (spells included).

[Ramaza]

In an old style MMO like this the holy trinity is basically unavoidable. Making jobs unique does not have to be restricted to being within those roles though, and making a holy trinity role a job's defining role is probably a bad idea when there's so many of them.

This man gets it. Uniqueness can still be had even in the holy trinity.

[saevel]

Yes, that is true...it's also true that in many well balanced MMOs the gap between various builds isn't 30% or more, which is the case with FFXI's situation, which you seem to be ignoring. People will clear pretty much every bit of content without specifically building a party of Ret Pallies/Hunters/Rogue/Popular Build etc, because the gap is almost never large enough for most people to bother looking for those builds specifically, and when it is, it is rightfully nerfed. I want to see you do the same thing with FFXI's Legion making an alliance of NINs as your tanks/holders and THFs, MNKs, and BLUs as your DPSs. I am not asking for perfect, 100% everyone does the same numerical damage balance. Nobody is stupid enough to ask for that.

And you're acting like making the developers play a game of cat-and-mouse with finding game mechanic exploits is somehow a bad thing. The first thing is that the alternative is for them to sit on their thumbs about it, which is hardly a better alternative, and the second is that the players often take a while to find out what superior builds actually are.

Also, it's often the case that in FFXI's particular situation, the search for superior builds has almost always been within the same circle of two-hander jobs, because a lot of the problems stem from how two-hander damage in general is calculated, and then you have the issue of lack of powerful JAs like Berserk or Last Resort combined with Hasso on other than 2 or 3 jobs further widening the gap.

If you only chose one job in FFXI then what your saying is true. Fortunately (or not depending) we can walk to our pet moogle and *BAM* instantly respec / change jobs. This ends up exasperating the problem by enabling high end players to always be capable of doing the "near perfect" setup. Why would anyone bring a non-perfect job when they can change to the perfect job or be replaced by someone else. The only time this is no longer an issue is when the jobs in question are so similar that their functionally identical in 90% of cases. DRK vs WAR for example.

There are only so many knobs and dials you can introduce to create variety, ultimately we all smack things really hard to get loot. There are only so many ways you can smack a pinata to get the candy.

[Caketime]

The ability to change jobs is great. The inabiity to quickly transfer gear and the limited space with which to store said gear makes a simple job change a little more complicated than just harassing my moogle and then going off to have fun. I only play a few jobs but gearing them has taken up all of my storage slots, I have 3 mules just to hold all of my gear, situational pieces that aren't often used as well as full sets I use often.

So while I can just change to the "perfect" job, it can only be one that I have well geared and due to our inventory restrictions I can only reliably gear a few jobs before hitting a brick wall in terms of space requirements. Anyone else playing faces the same situation, and they have to hope that at least one of their jobs is desirable for X or Y event.

Addendum: Job changes should not be the only workaround for poor game balance.

[Alhanelem]

Addendum: Job changes should not be the only workaround for poor game balance.

Of course not, content needs to be designed with the effects of each job in consideration. But it's impossible for content to completely compensate for <insert job here>'s shortcomings, without resorting to cheap/cheesy gimmicks (e.g. this monster takes 200% damage from automatons, or Steps and Flourishes are 2x as effective against this monster, and is immune to great axe weaponskills)