Current state of high tier battlefields and job discrimination...

[Panda2013]

It seems like the default party set up for most of these fights has become a party with a PLD, BRD, WHM and RNGs. While this may be effective and "safe" I feel like most jobs are becoming more and more useless and superfluous. I know you can play a job you don't really like to join the battlefield to get gear for your favorite job, BUT I've feel like this has resulted in me just idling my favorite job than doing any content. Even difficulty levels(Normal and below) where other jobs (RDM, GEO, DDs, etc) can take part we still see players demand rangers and plds. There are a few exceptions like delve and incursion, but seeing as SE's "end game" seems to be releasing a new high tier battlefield every month, I really wish they were more friendly towards other jobs.

What could possibly fix this? Maybe if the battlefields had restrictions on only being able to take unique jobs into the battlefields, that is, only 1 of any type of job is allowed. This would force players to use those additional slots to take in jobs that aren't used much. Otherwise you might as well combine RDM BRD COR and GEO into 1 job, all DDs into RNG somehow and PLD and RUNE into a single job as well.

I don't know, it might just be me, but I'm finding this game more and more boring the more jobs are excluded. FFXI endgame (75 cap days and even aby days) were some of the most job friendly days. You could do anything and play any job you really loved. It gave us so many combinations and so many jobs to gear.

Or maybe it's the player base. Maybe SE never intended these end game battlefields to become stagnant and mundane. Personally I have been approaching these as solo challenges. I've had more fun soloing them on pld, rdm, bst and nin than any party, but even that gets old...

tl;dr: Delve is old, incursion needs more goals, and high tier battlefield job discrimination is making this game stagnant and mundane.

[Crevox]

The answer is: make your own party and make whatever composition you want. People will join that feel the same as you.

From there, it's up to you to succeed.

[Shirai]

Pretty much that, sure there are a few guaranteed win setups and those are comprised of a limited amout of jobs.
But that shouldn't stop people from trying different formations.

That said, there's nothing stopping you from leveling one of the more wanted jobs for certain events either.

[Byrth]

As far as the recently introduced avatar fights, I got all my Normal clears with a setup like DDx3, BRD, WHM, GEO. I also did a D Garuda fairly recently on DNC and soloed Easy Garuda on PLD and DNC. It's a waste of time to use an RNG+PLD setup below VD. The only reason to use it for VD is because it's a braindead simple way to win that is (thus) amenable to shout groups. You can win faster if you use essentially the same strategy with 3x DD or 2x DD + Buffer instead of 2x RNG + PLD, but your melee can't be retarded. I've 4-manned the D versions of these fights a few times with RNG, WHM, PLD, Buffer. Given my difficulty finding bards capable of keeping Scherzo up last night, I think I might resort to doing that all the time.

So yeah, there are a lot of other ways to win and they're all easy (these fights are really easy), but I'm not going to be shouting for any of them because I already have my Normal clears.

[Dale]

It seems like the default party set up for most of these fights has become a party with a PLD, BRD, WHM and RNGs. While this may be effective and "safe" I feel like most jobs are becoming more and more useless and superfluous. I know you can play a job you don't really like to join the battlefield to get gear for your favorite job, BUT I've feel like this has resulted in me just idling my favorite job than doing any content. Even difficulty levels(Normal and below) where other jobs (RDM, GEO, DDs, etc) can take part we still see players demand rangers and plds. There are a few exceptions like delve and incursion, but seeing as SE's "end game" seems to be releasing a new high tier battlefield every month, I really wish they were more friendly towards other jobs.

What could possibly fix this? Maybe if the battlefields had restrictions on only being able to take unique jobs into the battlefields, that is, only 1 of any type of job is allowed. This would force players to use those additional slots to take in jobs that aren't used much. Otherwise you might as well combine RDM BRD COR and GEO into 1 job, all DDs into RNG somehow and PLD and RUNE into a single job as well.

I don't know, it might just be me, but I'm finding this game more and more boring the more jobs are excluded. FFXI endgame (75 cap days and even aby days) were some of the most job friendly days. You could do anything and play any job you really loved. It gave us so many combinations and so many jobs to gear.

Or maybe it's the player base. Maybe SE never intended these end game battlefields to become stagnant and mundane. Personally I have been approaching these as solo challenges. I've had more fun soloing them on pld, rdm, bst and nin than any party, but even that gets old...

tl;dr: Delve is old, incursion needs more goals, and high tier battlefield job discrimination is making this game stagnant and mundane.

The fix would likely do more harm than good. Because part of what makes FFXI remain interesting is the jobs on this game still have a wide range of depth and variety where as on other games they have been balanced to the point of boredom to where they all perform simplistic and nearly identical roles in order to combat this issue you're seeing.

But you can complete this content you describe without resorting to the few specific jobs and group make-ups the so-called elites discriminate over. Which is ironic in and of itself if you think about it. Because you would think skilled players who love a challenge wouldn't insist on everything being done as easily as possible with the most ideal job set up possible. They ought to relish the chance of doing fights in unique and more challenging ways. But anyway, this is beside the point.

In the end this is a player problem not a game problem. So the only real solution here is for people to find friends who won't hold their job choice against them and simply do the content with them. Because I do think your last comment hit the nail on the head in that it's the player base that is to blame for this.

[Afania]

What could possibly fix this? Maybe if the battlefields had restrictions on only being able to take unique jobs into the battlefields, that is, only 1 of any type of job is allowed.

I have to lv specific job for certain BC because the BC wouldn't let me bring my job? Artificial limitation, no thanks!

[Olor]

soloed Easy Garuda on PLD and DNC.

How? I tried VE titan on BST and lasted like 20 seconds... my pet was losing like 10% of it's HP per swing...

Bleh. I guess BST is just that crappy. Don't know why I even bother...

[Byrth]

SP BPs do not drop shadows. I just grabbed book shell, wore PDT gear on DNC, and kept shadows up. For PLD it was more like equip aegis->afk. I can solo tank even VD avatars essentially indefinitely on PLD, but I do crap damage and they have regen. You should look into pet elemental strengths if you want to solo avatars on BST.

[Spectreman]

It seems like the default party set up for most of these fights has become a party with a PLD, BRD, WHM and RNGs. While this may be effective and "safe" I feel like most jobs are becoming more and more useless and superfluous. I know you can play a job you don't really like to join the battlefield to get gear for your favorite job, BUT I've feel like this has resulted in me just idling my favorite job than doing any content. Even difficulty levels(Normal and below) where other jobs (RDM, GEO, DDs, etc) can take part we still see players demand rangers and plds. There are a few exceptions like delve and incursion, but seeing as SE's "end game" seems to be releasing a new high tier battlefield every month, I really wish they were more friendly towards other jobs.

What could possibly fix this? Maybe if the battlefields had restrictions on only being able to take unique jobs into the battlefields, that is, only 1 of any type of job is allowed. This would force players to use those additional slots to take in jobs that aren't used much. Otherwise you might as well combine RDM BRD COR and GEO into 1 job, all DDs into RNG somehow and PLD and RUNE into a single job as well.

I don't know, it might just be me, but I'm finding this game more and more boring the more jobs are excluded. FFXI endgame (75 cap days and even aby days) were some of the most job friendly days. You could do anything and play any job you really loved. It gave us so many combinations and so many jobs to gear.

Or maybe it's the player base. Maybe SE never intended these end game battlefields to become stagnant and mundane. Personally I have been approaching these as solo challenges. I've had more fun soloing them on pld, rdm, bst and nin than any party, but even that gets old...

tl;dr: Delve is old, incursion needs more goals, and high tier battlefield job discrimination is making this game stagnant and mundane.



Welcome To Final Fantasy XI!

[Olor]

SP BPs do not drop shadows. I just grabbed book shell, wore PDT gear on DNC, and kept shadows up. For PLD it was more like equip aegis->afk. I can solo tank even VD avatars essentially indefinitely on PLD, but I do crap damage and they have regen. You should look into pet elemental strengths if you want to solo avatars on BST.

Thanks for the info. Maybe I should level my DNC up. Do you think BLU could do it okay? I don't think any pet has enough elemental resistance to make much of a difference on these things.

[Byrth]

Someone mentioned doing two on normal with the slug.

Blue would doubtlessly be fine.

[Ulth]

I agree with Byrth compared to ark angel fights the avatars are nothing. Going in knowing nothing about the fight we crushed shiva on normal. Our party setup was whm/sch, brd/whm, cor/dnc, mnk/run and 2 thf/run. With barblizzard and runes, diamond dust did little more than a tickle. I have no idea what all the procs meant but they popped up like crazy during the fight. I suspect it had something to do with all the enfire damage.

I also agree that a Blue would do splendid for an avatar fight. I wouldn't be surprised if a well geared Blue could solo normal.

[Olor]

Well as a not so well geared blu, maybe I'll work on "very easy" and see how that goes.

[Maikeru_Sylph]

It seems like the default party set up for most of these fights has become a party with a PLD, BRD, WHM and RNGs. While this may be effective and "safe" I feel like most jobs are becoming more and more useless and superfluous. I know you can play a job you don't really like to join the battlefield to get gear for your favorite job, BUT I've feel like this has resulted in me just idling my favorite job than doing any content. Even difficulty levels(Normal and below) where other jobs (RDM, GEO, DDs, etc) can take part we still see players demand rangers and plds. There are a few exceptions like delve and incursion, but seeing as SE's "end game" seems to be releasing a new high tier battlefield every month, I really wish they were more friendly towards other jobs.
What could possibly fix this? Maybe if the battlefields had restrictions on only being able to take unique jobs into the battlefields, that is, only 1 of any type of job is allowed. This would force players to use those additional slots to take in jobs that aren't used much. Otherwise you might as well combine RDM BRD COR and GEO into 1 job, all DDs into RNG somehow and PLD and RUNE into a single job as well.

I don't know, it might just be me, but I'm finding this game more and more boring the more jobs are excluded. FFXI endgame (75 cap days and even aby days) were some of the most job friendly days. You could do anything and play any job you really loved. It gave us so many combinations and so many jobs to gear.

Or maybe it's the player base. Maybe SE never intended these end game battlefields to become stagnant and mundane. Personally I have been approaching these as solo challenges. I've had more fun soloing them on pld, rdm, bst and nin than any party, but even that gets old...

tl;dr: Delve is old, incursion needs more goals, and high tier battlefield job discrimination is making this game stagnant and mundane.
I understand where you're coming from. I was in a situation a few months ago where I didn't have any of the jobs leveled that people are asking for, so I had to figure out which of those jobs I disliked the least and leveled/geared it up. Now, it's easier for me to complete higher-level content, but it's frustrating and depressing not being able to play the jobs that I enjoy. Making parties doesn't automatically make things come together either because some jobs really are that much more powerful/useful than others.

[Stompa]

I agree we need more job diversity in events, but it isn't really SE's problem and also adding a job lock system would be terrible.

The problem you face is that people have worked out the easiest / quickest set-ups and they will take this "path of least resistance" whenever possible.

This is the problem you face when building your own "unorthodox" party for events, those people that you want to join your party, they have spent w/e for a trigger and they have the choice of standard set-up with quick/easy win, or your unorthodox set-up with an unknown factor.

I personally love unorthodox builds, it is interesting. But most people don't seem to agree with me. In the end I gave up and just levelled jobs that get shouted for all the time, or avoid those events entirely. So I agree with you it is a shame, but it is because of player choices and so I don't see how it can change unless players change.

[Ulth]

Oh right job lock is a terrible idea. If you wanted to see more jobs coming to AA fights I say just lower the cost. Right now players see anything other than the rng pld set up as too risky. On the other hand orb fights people will use who ever is around. I've been in some very unique orb fights with people who weren't even in ilvl gear. I didn't care though it wasn't my orb being used. If they just changed it so only one person uses their KI for the fight, I feel people would be more open to different styles of beating the fights. You want to use your pup in an AA fight? Fine it's your merits not mine.

[Camiie]

The dark side of the job change system is that SE feels zero pressure to balance jobs in any way shape or form. In other games your class is your character's identity. In FFXI, a job is no more than an elaborate piece of gear. That's all you should see it as. Never fall in love with it. Never devote yourself to it. Never strive for perfection on it. Why would you? The devs and community like the idea of jobs being disposable. Just half-ass all the jobs and make everyone else happy.

[Zarchery]

Not another one of these ...

Ok, let's make up rules for a drinking game just to mix it up. I'll start:

1) Every time someone uses the word "elitist", "elite", or "elitism", take a shot.

[Sapphires]

The use paladin and throw relic rangers at everything is super lame and it probably is one of the more damaging problems the game suffers.
I'd seriously rather not log on if I absolutely had to play mnk, sam, rng, or pld to get anything done in this game.
SE can't really fix the metagame and change how parties get made for content. Yes SAM is still overpowered and broken.

There is a bunch of ninjas running around with the new update but noone wants ninja tanks, and they arent even on the radar as a 'DD' to people.

I gear the hell out of my dancer and it still has resistance to getting invited even when it outlives monks and out tanks most paladins(except stellar fulcrum cause **** that dude).
I'm gearing the heck out of drk right now and making it a liberator and yet again, its going to have to fight hard to get a spot in a group compared to the tsurumaru bandwagon samurais

I do battlefields on 'difficult' on dnc a lot, a dnc that cares to gear itself decently can tank ouryu even with a full dispel roar going off.
I've done a few things on VD too, but 1h damage takes a nosedive and on stuff like the worm's turn on very difficult your best contribution is steps and waltzes if you have a less than perfect backline.

Dnc/run works really good on puppet in peril and its impossible to die on that bc. If you play this game like 98% of the playerbase and are doing 'difficult' mode at the hardest, all jobs work.

tldr: find people that let you play the job you wanna bring and try extra hard to be good at it, or make your own party so you can play whatever you want.

[Ris]

The dark side of the job change system is that SE feels zero pressure to balance jobs in any way shape or form. In other games your class is your character's identity. In FFXI, a job is no more than an elaborate piece of gear. That's all you should see it as. Never fall in love with it. Never devote yourself to it. Never strive for perfection on it. Why would you? The devs and community like the idea of jobs being disposable. Just half-ass all the jobs and make everyone else happy.

I have to disagree...^^; Even in FFXIV, where switching jobs is even easier than FFXI, a lot of people to develop and strong sense of job identity. And some people embrace the whole multiclass do-anything mindset, but in my experience those types are rare than those that have a favorite or two and mostly stick to those favorites. In XI, my LS has plenty of people that play what they want to play even if it means they never get to do endgame... (though I think most endgamers don't really care anyway)

[Olor]

SE needs to actually balance the jobs so that the difference between good classes and terrible ones is not so stark. That's the only solution. Every job should be given "main niche" (DD, Healer, Buffer, Tank) and should perform within 5% of all other jobs in the category. Pure DDs like MNK should be at 100% damage while jobs with other roles like BLU or THF could be at 95% of monk's damage.

Yes, that would mean a GOOD blue would probably outperform a monk in many situations, but a) BLU is harder to gear/play at 100% and b) it would actually BE OK if there was only 1 mnk in a party instead of 3.

Yes, it would make mixed jobs more desirable, but that's the point. And it would automatically result in more job diversity cause while it might make more sense to bring a THF than a second MNK if thief was competitive, it still wouldn't make people want the party to have multiple THFs

Currently SE MASSIVELY overestimates the value of ... well pretty much everything except straight DD power, which they constantly under estimate.

[Ris]

SE needs to actually balance the jobs so that the difference between good classes and terrible ones is not so stark. That's the only solution. Every job should be given "main niche" (DD, Healer, Buffer, Tank) and should perform within 5% of all other jobs in the category.

Careful... that's what WoW did after a certain expansion pack, and FFXIV:ARR has done from the getgo.

[Dale]

Careful... that's what WoW did after a certain expansion pack, and FFXIV:ARR has done from the getgo.

Indeed. And it has sorely affected the gameplay too - making jobs so shallow and mechanical I can't enjoy either of those games.

[Afania]

SE needs to actually balance the jobs so that the difference between good classes and terrible ones is not so stark. That's the only solution. Every job should be given "main niche" (DD, Healer, Buffer, Tank) and should perform within 5% of all other jobs in the category. Pure DDs like MNK should be at 100% damage while jobs with other roles like BLU or THF could be at 95% of monk's damage.

Yes, that would mean a GOOD blue would probably outperform a monk in many situations, but a) BLU is harder to gear/play at 100% and b) it would actually BE OK if there was only 1 mnk in a party instead of 3.

Yes, it would make mixed jobs more desirable, but that's the point. And it would automatically result in more job diversity cause while it might make more sense to bring a THF than a second MNK if thief was competitive, it still wouldn't make people want the party to have multiple THFs

Currently SE MASSIVELY overestimates the value of ... well pretty much everything except straight DD power, which they constantly under estimate.

Why do you continue to use MNK as a standard DD lol. Currently MNK is quite behind SAM :(

I did a spreadsheet last time, it seems that a delve2 weapon BLU with 70 set points can do around 90% of MNK's dmg in equal lv of gear, that's without setting skill chain bonus job trait/crit-hit attack bonus job trait since spreadsheet can't calculate them.

In reality the gap between a delve2 BLU v.s a delve2 MNK is probably less than 10%. Consider how versatile BLU is, 10% difference is quite acceptable.

The difference between a SAM and a BLU is much bigger though.

[Ulth]

That sort of makes me question the accuracy of the spread sheet if it can't set things like that.

[Malithar]

That sort of makes me question the accuracy of the spread sheet if it can't set things like that.

It can't calculate them because there's no way for it to know how often you're skill chaining. It's great for baseline damage and comparisons of gear, but it's important to remember that when it comes to how often you SC, how often you spam JAs locking you up, or how your DPS is effected by buff loss in short spurts, etc, it's all unknown to it.

[Olor]

I've used SAM as a comparator in other examples... issue still stands.

making jobs closer in power DOESN'T have to mean turning it into FFXIV - we are never gonna see XI only have 15 abilities per class or w/e - that's asinine.

But having it where some jobs do 50% or more damage than other DDs is ridiculous.

[Maikeru_Sylph]

Why do you continue to use MNK as a standard DD lol. Currently MNK is quite behind SAM :(

I did a spreadsheet last time, it seems that a delve2 weapon BLU with 70 set points can do around 90% of MNK's dmg in equal lv of gear, that's without setting skill chain bonus job trait/crit-hit attack bonus job trait since spreadsheet can't calculate them.

In reality the gap between a delve2 BLU v.s a delve2 MNK is probably less than 10%. Consider how versatile BLU is, 10% difference is quite acceptable.

The difference between a SAM and a BLU is much bigger though.
I think you have to use MNK as standard DD. Perhaps this is a Sylph thing, but in pretty much every endgame activity, there is a MNK, and not just 1 MNK but 2 or 3, because supposedly it's that much better than every other DD in the game, even SAM. If SE wants other DD classes to participate, then they need to make them as desirable as MNK.

[Spectreman]

MNK, SAM... who cares! its all about RNG now.

[Maikeru_Sylph]

MNK, SAM... who cares! its all about RNG now.
When has it not been about RNG though?

[pim-ptarutaru]

If you do it on (N) pretty much any job can go into these with no prob. (D) Most ppl gonna go with the easy set up like you said. But if you want to get a group of diffrent kinds of jobs then by all means set one up. I've done alot of the (D) fights on my dnc but most of the time I have to set it up myself or go with my friends because they trust my dnc. Now i have rng that does get me into alot of things but mainly use it for shout groups if i dont feel like buidling my own pts.

[Camiie]

Indeed. And it has sorely affected the gameplay too - making jobs so shallow and mechanical I can't enjoy either of those games.

Just because 2 different jobs can get you to the same place in the same amount of time doesn't mean they have to follow the same path to get there.

[Afania]

I think you have to use MNK as standard DD. Perhaps this is a Sylph thing, but in pretty much every endgame activity, there is a MNK, and not just 1 MNK but 2 or 3, because supposedly it's that much better than every other DD in the game, even SAM. If SE wants other DD classes to participate, then they need to make them as desirable as MNK.

If you use delve weapon MNK as a standard DD, it's really not that amazing. SAM is slightly more PUG friendly just because tsuru is an awesome weapon.

Also, SE can't control what job ppl want to /shout. SAM is already a much stronger DD than MNK, if PUG still don't /shout for SAM, then it's not SE's fault.

[Zarchery]

What Afania said. The current "flavor of the month" DD is shifting. I swear it was Monk this time last year. Then it switched to RNG when the Ark Angel battles came out. Now it's MNK again? Or SAM? Damn I can't keep up.

[Tinytimtaru]

Well I would love to see the days of magic users as DDs being brought back. Remember the orginal DM fight with 18 BLMs! Good days!

We need BLMs to be able to go into Incursion and nuke for +50k dmg fully unresisted on bosses!

I remember watching those intro videos when this game started of those Tarus dropping asteroids onto the invading Orcs, thinking, that's what I'm talking about! That's why I wanted to play this game.

Crappy little pew pew Rangers or some Monk puching stuffs, should absolutely never come close to the damage an Asteroid being dropped on you would do... sorry, just saying.

[Camiie]

I have to disagree...^^; Even in FFXIV, where switching jobs is even easier than FFXI, a lot of people to develop and strong sense of job identity. And some people embrace the whole multiclass do-anything mindset, but in my experience those types are rare than those that have a favorite or two and mostly stick to those favorites. In XI, my LS has plenty of people that play what they want to play even if it means they never get to do endgame... (though I think most endgamers don't really care anyway)

My point was that many in the community as well as the devs seem perfectly fine with many jobs being outright useless for all endgame content or being useful for only one event. They also seem to enjoy the idea that a job can be great for a while and then cast off into obscurity for the next few years. I just can't wrap my head around the idea that any of this is good game balance. I guess I'm just not as accepting of insanity as others seem to be.

[Dale]

Just because 2 different jobs can get you to the same place in the same amount of time doesn't mean they have to follow the same path to get there.

That post you quoted wasn't about jobs being able/unable to take different paths to get to the same place though.

It was in reference to balancing - and how in recent MMORPGs job mechanics are being watered down to very simplistic roles and strategies to appease players who get upset if their job can't perform exactly the same as other jobs.

[Camiie]

That post you quoted wasn't about jobs being able/unable to take different paths to get to the same place though.

It was in reference to balancing - and how in recent MMORPGs job mechanics are being watered down to very simplistic roles and strategies to appease players who get upset if their job can't perform exactly the same as other jobs.

My response was in regards to that. Balance doesn't have to equal homogenization. That's what seemed to be implied.

[Dale]

My response was in regards to that. Balance doesn't have to equal homogenization. That's what seemed to be implied.

The post you mentioned was meant to imply developers are choosing to simplify gameplay as a way to achieve the exact kind of balance many players want. Though homogenization does seem to be the ultimate goal of this new generation of MMORPG gamers. Which is probably why you are seeing less variety in available classes on newer games.

They have already pretty much killed off the support class as an example. Healing classes seem to be next on their hit list. Then it will probably be defensive classes. Soon there will probably be nothing but DD jobs that all do the same damage per second according to spread sheets and damage meters so everybody can zoom through content at the same pace and not be out-parsed by anyone else.