Quote Originally Posted by Maikeru_Sylph View Post
Saying that only a select few jobs can enjoy content is the same as saying only a select few players can enjoy content. Yes, everyone can level every job to 99, and therefore enjoy all the content, but what about the new players? Or people that just don't find certain jobs fun or appealing? Should they be forced to play something they don't enjoy? The moment you start doing something you don't enjoy, boredom kicks in, and too much boredom can lead to quitting. If SE's goal is to make this game more player friendly, then isn't expecting every player to have every job at 99, defeating the purpose? Leveling, gearing, meriting, skilling up, and learning every job is not an easy task, especially for new players. You're looking at months, maybe years of work. And the community expects so much from you. When you stop to think about it, this game is far from being new player friendly.
As a new player, these have been my thoughts as well. It's really disheartening to hear about how some classes are basically excluded from most of the interesting grouping activities in the game later on and that "playing just for fun" seems more like a minority POV in the game. Naturally, quite a few of the jobs that interest me the most fall into that niche and the more I play, the more the prospect of playing alone in the later levels gnaws at me. Simply put, I'm not going to play a job I don't like, and if that means I end up mainly playing alone and miss out on a bunch of stuff, then so be it -- despite how much that might suck.

Although I agree that some of this falls on the developers with class balance and whatnot, I'd also have to agree with Dale that a lot of it is due to player mentality too. The game has quite a steep hill to climb for new players with all the things you need to do to catch up with everyone (that part doesn't bother me at all, honestly) but I think the biggest barrier of entry by far is this veteran player base that seems (from what I constantly read around here) to have no patience with inexperienced players. When a game gets to be this old, and the player base obviously starts shrinking, the last thing you want to do is perpetuate an almost toxic environment that excludes the few new players that might have otherwise stuck around. Like it or not, playing a game like an efficient business essentially -- one of which basically tells people they have to play this one certain way or to GTFO -- is probably going to do more damage to the longevity of the game than anything else. No amount of DPS balance is ever going to change that counter-productive, detrimental attitude (IMO).