4.56
Devs officially realize limiting jobs produces something less than a job. They rethink and rebrand the whole endeavor to Extended Jobs, jobs which are capable of everything other jobs are, but have additional content (most related specifically to gaining or using their abilities).
5.0
New job design paradigm: "Play the job, not just the role." Jobs diversified according to their identities and are now considered according to metrics within each role. Far greater potential versatility. Every job can, to some extent, play nearly every role. DRKs can shed some of their armor and mitigation skills, or CNJs their water-as-healing aspect and dps, and SAMs and the like can tank, or be invaluable to someone else's taking through sheer mob harassment. Thus, it's no longer an issue that a full-fledged BLU could play any role, provided they take the skills for it.
BLU a real job, though with a lingering beta phase from having been made a real job so late.BLU, in turn, has been revised to have around 120 available skills, decently balanced in various combinations against each other, and has been extended to level 80, though one must have already completed the 5.0 questline to move past level 70 on BLU, ensuring that players have a backup job in case BLU Savage implementation must be delayed. Almost all BLU abilities still Skills or Spells, but some are at much-reduced GCD lengths triggered. The few oGCDs available do not give free damage, but instead simply spend resources built by the Skills and Spells that would otherwise augment them. You pick 24/26/28/30 skills over levels 50/60/70/80.
BLU by default has a trait for each element, building an effect-resource or synergistic debuff over casts or damage in or by that element. Certain Skills can further these traits, but the basic idea is that you build around a few elements that will synergize at certain macrorotational points, moving from your most flexible skills towards those that are the most powerful per GCD but the most demanding (and therefore least often viably usable).
Certain BLU skills are in packages, such as Inner Turmoil and Outer Turmoil learned from Midgardsormr, and tend to make up the center of your given build.
Not every combination of skills will be competitive. But there should be at least 30 or so highly competitive builds with some 3 to 7 competitive for any given fight. (This makes full use of the Simming features below.)
Enhanced in-game support features, including an official parser and rotational assembler/simulator that allow for testing one's theoretical and personal bests, together allow for decreased skill-gap despite greater potential complexity. One can plug in and test rotations, use dummy party members, check for rPPS, etc.
The game uses these to build your history over time through your battle logs and judges whether you can perform a given role according to the maximum mitigation over burst and over time, healing over burst and over time, or damage over burst and over time that your gear can theoretically put out, times the best 25% of your history for relevant (e.g. by tags: casual, dungeons, first run) content. If you haven't shown yourself capable of running X content via Y role, you can't queue for it. It will tell you how to boost your rating in that role, for that content, or --if possible via gear in your bags, inventory, or purchasable via tomes-- a change in equipment. Being a PLD won't automatically mean you can tank, but neither will --if all stats ans sims and history show you capable-- a MNK necessarily be unable to tank.
SSS reworked into a larger Training Hall / Proving Ground setting, which now actually allows for tanking and healing activities as more than just damage checking, borrowing damage timings and procedures from the most role-difficult boss of the content where multiple. These can work to quickly beef up your history.
Stats are now wholly transparent in % and additional stat required to reach the next breakpoint. These now support a thousandths place, making those breakpoints more frequent.
Companies -- GCs, via high ranks and GC tasks, FCs, PC (Private Companies; basically PMCs), and TCs (Trade Companies) -- may make their own Training Grounds (of sorts, in the case of TCs). This is even required for a couple quests in preparation for a new style of AI-inclusive content called Siege. You get one shot. Plan well. The required Sieges are easy enough, but later ones can be far harder; though the AI has been vastly improved upon and can be scripted precisely through these Training Grounds, it's recommended to bring more players to endgame Sieges, sometimes as many as a premade group of 16. In these cases, take as many as you players think you'll need, and you split the rewards, and as many AI recruits or mercenaries as you think you'll need, and you pay them in advance. Yes, there's a lot of warfare, including mercenary work, available in this expansion.
New side-content (which turns into a new playstyle for all content) that's actually helpful. The Arcanist guild in combination with the Grand Companies has come up with a new Tactics-oriented training method aptly called Tactics. It's active turn-based and will have you play with a full 4-man team, letting you see different jobs working together towards optimized performance. After a certain level of progress through the training, you can even choose to play Squadron missions in this mode. Expect more people to be up in your business about a class they don't actually have fully leveled after this is released, but also expect that while they may not understand the difficulties of the double-weaved DRG opener, they will likely know when you should be using DS and BL in a given composition and how to maximize your DPS in at least a dummy fight.
Vast catch-up mechanics now available for Squadrons. Squadron members may now be recruited from the open-world in a sort of combination with the NPC Trusts system. Squadron members, in turn, can act as Trusts, though their dialogue may be a little less situationally fleshed out.
Difficulty curve across levels and over the course of each expansion's level-capped content reassessed and reworked, with, especially across leveling content, an increased focus on party coordination.
Roles are now things we partake it rather than merely being specialized for. All do their part, according to their job's toolkit, in decreasing (party) damage taken and increasing enemy damage taken as to clear each encounter as quickly as possible (including what safety margins are effective; wipes are slow). Mitigation methods are now far more active, riding primarily on deeper macro-rotational implications of gauge mechanics and the burst opportunities it can provide rather than almost solely on cooldowns.
Virtually all attacks are now cumulatively mitigated cleaves of sorts, dealing damage to the first in line with x% Pierce being dealt to the next, minus the first's mitigation, and the x% of the result again to the one behind, minus the second's mitigation, and so forth. This means that virtually everything is interceptable. Mob animations have been largely revised to accommodate this. At the same time, all damage is dealt as cast bars and indicators disappear, and animations timed to be in full-swing at the time of that damage. Mobs now turn in a slower, more "as-needed", and thereby more natural fashion, allowing for active dodging without loss of positionals. Positionals, in turn, now make two checks for position, at the start and approximately mid-way through their animations to offer further lenience.
Damage dealt now staggers. This means that damage dealt by your party at precise times can save the life of a tank, while tanks in turn are the most able to take blows without cost to their throughput. Though non-tanks are now more closely able to survive relative to tanks, tanks will still be of tremendous value for not being staggered or knocked back.
Enmity revised. Mobs no longer perfectly know who hit them unless they see it. (The portion of) damage for which origin is unknown is considered "loose" enmity, and will instead be distributed among known targets. Tanks have a further raw bonus to enmity. Thereafter, the fact that they're hitting it in the face can hold most so long as the tank is putting out decent damage.
Mob AI varied. Different outputs have different modifiers. Some may hate those who mitigate more than those who deal damage to it, or seek out healers where noticed. Some may accumulate or settle enmity more steeply. Tanking at this point revolves around thwarting enemy attacks in all kinds, not just stacking a metric to ensure the attacks go for you; the tank may not always be the best person to receive the attack due to the involvement stagger and vuln-strikes.
Armor classes reopened to mostly everyone, though at differing costs and strengths. All DoW/DoM jobs again can make use of every primary stat supplied by DoW/DoM gear, though their differences can lead to differences in playstyle, such as a support-oriented Monk or a Samurai tank. A Monk can viably wear anything above a robe and short of Fending, to different effect each, though Striking remains the recommended, maximum-throughput, "meta" choice (unless subbing for a tank or healer).
Not all builds are as feasible, at least outside of, say, PvP (where armored Bards and Machinists may be worth the speed and accuracy penalties of armor), but since the impact is noted for DF content and given in theoretical ST/Cleave/AoE damage, this will not noticeably harm DF quality. The worst builds and players this system will permit will still be far superior to the worst of today.
Accuracy returned (as "Precision"), but as a much more versatile stat with granular performance. One does not merely hit or miss; instead, all damage hits at +/- 5% accuracy on a sort of bell curve, with the center sample position based on your Accuracy minus enemy Evasion. One must do less than 50% it's considered a Glancing Blow and cannot generate procs. If one does over 150% damage, it's considered a Critical Strike, a may generate further procs. Thus, Accuracy is a very strong stat if fighting highly Evasive enemies, but is still useful (especially to ranged classes) at all levels. Spells instead use Focus, to the same effect. Healing against a staggered ally uses Focus in the same way as Accuracy.
Skill Speed renamed to Haste, and Spell Speed to Acumen. Both buffed as to be more attractive for high oGCD jobs.
Strength now naturally increases resistance to Stagger. Mind now naturally increases resistance to Waver (the spell equivalent, which works cumulatively with Stagger). Dexterity naturally increases Evasion. Intelligence naturally increases maximum MP. All provide throughput, just at different affinities that gradually delineate over time.
Primary Stats may now be "junctioned", changing part of their benefit from their base forms to Determination or Break for Strength, Haste or Precision for Dexterity, Focus or Spirit for Mind, and Insight or Acumen for Intelligence. This can be set to occur automatically to certain breakpoints.
Added Defense comes at cost to Focus/Precision and Skill Speed/Spell Speed. Magic Defense is gone. Its benefits are given baseline at Striking/Scouting/Aiming levels to everyone. Apart from that, one simply takes cloth because it doesn't have any of the harm other armor classes do.
Thus, leveling is far, far more gear-accessible and jobs each have a variety of play-styles available to them. Different gear sets now provide gear- option variety rather than redundancies of gear progression per every 1-to-4 jobs.
Role Actions scrapped. Cross-class returned in a wholly new form, as Masteries. Rather than taking select skills, you take packaged traits with more-or-less handcrafted choices for each job/class from each job/class you've leveled, including further choices that same class or job. Every job itself acts as a preselection of a set of these choices, and thus reduces freedoms significantly, but usually in favor of raw power that tends to work better for serious 8-man content anyways. When still in gear-progression, it is virtually never competitive for any more than 2 out of 8 party members to stay as classes, however strong the utility they provide is. In more niche but less throughput-demanding content, however, they can thrive.
If you want a Storm Mage, deactivate the Lifesteam trait from Conjurer, tap instead into Water's Wake, augment into From the Mists, take Thaumaturges Affinity: Lightning, link the two, grab The East Wind, grab Fury of the Elements, and voila, you've got someone capable of sustaining a tornado that pelts enemies with lightning strikes for some of the best possible burst-sustained crowd control + focused AoE in the game.
Gunner and Warden added to the game. Gunner acts as the base class for MCH, onto which MCH adds solely engineering skills and those synergizing with them (the rest is still purely GUN), and can eventually open up into Marksman and supports the dual-class job, Corsair. Warden acts as a base for Dark Knight, from which many skills are adjusted upon taking the vow, and can eventually open up into Rune Knight. Archer eventually opens up into Ranger as well as Bard, who now doubles down on song- and support-related skills while the rest remains with Archer.
5.1
Huge improvements to the early game. New Game+, previously delayed, finally implemented. New content forms. Old zones revisited and re-envisioned, making many some 4x larger than previous. FATE revisions and replacements via newer, more intuitive and entertaining dynamic world content.
Open-world levels "Squished" automatically to allow for players to revisit the old world usefully at any time and party meaningfully with newer players in older content.You no longer see mob level, nor does it particularly matter. If anything is shown at all, it will merely be one of 7 ranks, each with a different graphic: a fair fight at center, 3 weaker than you, and 3 nominally stronger than you. The lowest is a trifle, something you could potentially one-shot; the second still fairly weak; the third a non-challenge, the fourth a decent enough fight; the fifth one you'd better outmaneuver somewhat; the sixth will doubtless kill you unless you're damn smart about how you fight it; and the seventh will probably one-shot you.
The most any zone will be shifted is three ranks, its actual stats scaled to match that difficulty given your likely throughput.
When in a party in the open world, your strengths are averaged somewhat, and mobs will further scale to meet that party sum, either by linking additional mobs, increasing spawn chances of greater mobs, or scaling even the normal mobs themselves. If you, as a level 80, want to go back to Bentbranch to play with a newbie friend, you can now do so without their contribution feeling irrelevant. You'll be stronger, of course, but not so much stronger that the challenge is lost or your level-10 partymates are without significant value.
Vastly increased Guild involvement. Go on Salvage, Patrol, Bounty, and Booty missions for the Marauder's Guild on ships and isles and the Reaver-controlled coasts. The budding Gunner's guild has some classy negotiating, escort, and tourney jobs for you, and the Yellowjackets a plethora of Outpost, Patrol, Survey (DoL related), and Provisioning missions. The Arcanists can get you involved in seeking out fraud, finding smugglers and contraband, running numbers*, sorting confiscated goods*, and testing inventions and simulators (i.e. that Tactics game-within-a-game and combat guides). (*Joking/not quite joking.) The Thieves' Guild isn't just Jacke's crew, and if you can win over their network they will, piece by piece, provide information and jobs from all through Eorzea. Jacke himself will still provide a slightly more morally-inclined stream of tasks as well, from information gathering yourself to catching those who've gone too far.
"Job Plus" aspects for everyone.Learn the songs and stories of the people, for your own interests and for their implications on your Bard toolkit. In turn, you can put that knowledge to use in bars for information gathering, alongside your subtlety learned from being a Rogue. Use your Dragoon skills to scale whole cliffsides in a few short bounds. Fight dragons or alongside them. (No one gets more combat special quests out of Heavensward.) Find places of power and other disciples to train with as Monk. Build up your reputation as a Gladiator, and perhaps disavow it for an entirely new one as a Paladin. As a Paladin or Samurai, you can serve a liege, if you wish. Build up your mechanical arsenal as Machinist, adjusting your toolkit and building new armaments for yourself and (as the latter's not curtailed by balance) your colleagues.
Mechanical depth added throughout the revised open world. And the world is now decently dangerous.Everyone now has access to Stealth, but the ones who know it best do it best, and those equipped for the task atop that (a Rogue/Ninja in proper Rogue/Ninja gear) the best of all.
Sprint revised. Mounts revised. Movement physics revised.
Mob camps now have advanced AI and can be difficult to take down on Behests. Go with friends or Trusts, likely setting out at night or with due distractions.
BLU officially determined to be able to join Savage by 5.2.
There, now you have an exciting open world in which to play Extended Jobs, perfect for those initially hesitant to play BLU because it wouldn't be a real job, while BLU finishes its beta phase.
5.2
BLU a full-fledged job, usable in Savage.
Frontiers added. These are auto-generative "fringe" extensions of the open world accessible from certain places in the open world or via exploration missions -- places like the Bone Seas (a desert, not a sea, btw), Eastern Coerthas, the Deep Shroud, and a free-form relook at the Weeping City area and that of around the Lost City of Amdapor. Multiple seeds run simultaneously, overlapping only at landmarks where different parties can run into each other. Most make use of a sort of dynamic fog/blizzard/sandstorm mechanic that will obscure view in transition areas, hiding this ability to be entirely apart from other parties in your own seed and to combine seeds. The content form is open to a plethora of objectives, from basic Hunts or special gathering to escort missions to quest-specific uses such as finding some crashed Garlean tech. Additional survival and elemental mechanics may be present.
Exploratory Missions revised to not be literally sh*ttier than the basic open world at this point. Eureka now requires level 60, down from 70, and is now useful for leveling via Challenge Logs and quests, while power scales with actual level to a degree, up to level 80.
News: considering a redemption of Eureka and two final chapters that are total shift from the previous four, one as a two-hour high-difficulty piece of challenge content that involves a 72-man war for survival complete with a ton of early-, mid-, and late-game depth, heavy meta swing, and (looking through my notes) some 4 pages of awesome stuff. Development will not proceed until an in-game player poll signals a positive reaction to what all is promised. Not expected to complete until 5.4 at the earliest.
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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