Unpopular Opinion: SE Is Not Obligated To Add New Jobs Every Expansion

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Originally Posted by linayar

Balance may be less important for normal content, but there's a difference between saying that and what a Blue Mage can do and also what it can still potentially do as they further develop the job in future patches.

Groups can still wipe in normal dungeons, so I don't think making limited jobs be the main jobs for normal content is the intention regardless of less balance needed.

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Under such an idea that limited becomes the new main you'd have a lot to worry oneself over, it's not simply calling blue mage main ready. If that's what you thought I meant then it was a miscommunication.

The concept was simply to focus more on the unique design concepts for each job and add content relating around it as well, and to be more forgiving to balance concerns (but not completely).

I do not think turning on a switch, in general but in particular for blue mage, is going to work in any form (like blue mage is not 'main' ready, this is far more 'a priori' rather than 'posteriori' design thought). It was a much larger thought, like "from the onset" if the game was designed with the premise that the main portion of jobs are far more unique and experiences in and of themselves, but then ultimate (and stuff like PvP) are far more cleansed of their unique ideas and pasteurized for balance.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Say if ifrit was weak to fire then bringing a black mage that can only cast fire, lightning, and ice was not that helpful. So they wanted to devise a system that allowed players to consistently use their kit and not be ostracized in content.

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Yeah. For 2.0 going forward at least I think they wanted every job to be useful in all content and have the entire kit for a job generally useful.

Which is why they came up with the umbral/astral cycle for ice/fire spells and making lightning a dot. So that all three elements would be consistently used and not just 'whatever element this enemy is used to' spammed over and over. Giving an actual rotation.

In other games, having fire/lightning/blizzard be basically the same spell but with different elemental attributes works but I like what they did with FFXIV. It's a very different game than XI and the single player FF games but that's not a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Under such an idea that limited becomes the new main you'd have a lot to worry oneself over, it's not simply calling blue mage main ready. If that's what you thought I meant then it was a miscommunication.

The concept was simply to focus more on the unique design concepts for each job and add content relating around it as well, and to be more forgiving to balance concerns (but not completely).

I do not think turning on a switch, in general but in particular for blue mage, is going to work in any form. It was a much larger thought, like "from the onset" if the game was designed with the premise that the main portion of jobs are far more unique and experiences in and of themselves, but then ultimate (and stuff like PvP) are for more cleansed of their unique ideas and pasteurized for balance.

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Fair enough, but I think that would limit the potential behind the concept of limited job.

Also, right now a main job is a main job because that's a job that you can take into any content. With your idea, would a player now have to keep up with two sets of jobs if they want to do all content? And what about those who prefer a job in one set and do not like any job on the other set?

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Yeah. For 2.0 going forward at least I think they wanted every job to be useful in all content and have the entire kit for a job generally useful.

Which is why they came up with the umbral/astral cycle for ice/fire spells and making lightning a dot. So that all three elements would be consistently used and not just 'whatever element this enemy is used to' spammed over and over. Giving an actual rotation.

In other games, having fire/lightning/blizzard be basically the same spell but with different elemental attributes works but I like what they did with FFXIV. It's a very different game than XI and the single player FF games but that's not a bad thing.

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Yeah what they did, I think, makes a lot of sense in terms of desired outcomes and hence chosen gameplay (keeps ability bloat down, keeps ability patterns and variations consistent and desirable, vs perhaps a situation where you're like "weak to fire? okay 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1".

Of course the wheel existing is cool in it's own way, makes you feel special to have all this information and get to respond to the situation by employing it (oh I know this thing is weak to X, so I'll save myself loads of time by reacting appropriately) but.. in situations where the content is largely PF (community party) driven then you're going to have some realllly bad times if you allow things to exist like that. I think in DF you could get away with some more unique interpretations of jobs but certainly PF is going to start slapping stars on sneetches, it wont stand for that lol.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Fair enough, but I think that would limit the potential behind the concept of limited job.

Also, right now a main job is a main job because that's a job that you can take into any content. With your idea, would a player now have to keep up with two sets of jobs if they want to do all content? And what about those who prefer a job in one set and do not like any job on the other set?

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I think you'd do this in a new game, so.. not FFXIV lol. In such a case there wouldn't be a need for limited jobs, or at least there would be a lot less reason to want one because your normal jobs would often achieve the weird things you were hoping they had but thought 'would never work in savage'. Although as an aside I still think a magitek operator could be a fun limited job, maybe get Xenogear / saga inspired thoughts in it as well (open world, call your mech for a short while or whatever).

As for your second point, yeah your concern is real. Some people hate their PvP side of their job (in FFXIV), it would be very possible you love your job that goes through all those MSQ and similarly related dungeon contents but then you go into Ultimate and you think "... this job isn't that fun to play here". But that's also why I said it's a fun thought lol. I think "OOOOH wow! you could have so much freedom doing all these wacky wild things and it could be well funded, meaning the concepts are very fleshed out, everyone has this really special aspect as they're playing, dragoon is nothing like black mage!" but then you go into ultimate or pvp and you're not "useless". So you'd not have to keep two jobs up (like PvP kits) but there is a potential you may want to because you might think "main Red Mage is so freaking wild, I can't wrap my head around it" but "ultimate red mage is the smoothest thing since whipped butter".

Definitely an opportunity to win some and lose some, but I think tying very challenging content to your main design also causes some 'lose some' as well (pasteurizing jobs for balance reasons, which is only natural .. I mean if you don't then you get more like WoW or FFXI situations where "we don't want that spec, you're not invited, go level something else"). What I was talking about certainly isn't a 'no loss, only win win' situation and mainly thought it was just fun to think about, although I think our current situation isn't always a win win either so *throws hands in the air* lol. What is will be XD. We'll either have tight balance and everything is desirable but more similar or poor balance and high variability and unique aspects and a strong FotM vibe.

To give SE credit for how balanced everything is (very) there is still at least some obvious differences between jobs (types of patterns, hang time, etc), it's also why in the other thread when I was talking about adding more flair in a more feasible way (less cloud in the sky thoughts) I was thinking largely in the direction of non-combat related changes (to not fiddle with the balance so much). Of course if they can add flair without harming balance I'd be for it, but that's hard to do in combat (and would also be less hard 'if' you decided to extract the most challenging content builds from the 'main' build and creating it's own high balance build). Like how sometimes in WoW it seemed they changed PvE part of jobs because of how it worked in PvP, in FFXIV we don't have that issue.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Well for Garuda BLM had a period where they were [...]

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Ah, I see.
Thanks for the answer.
BLM burn sounds hilarious though~
Even without the wheel I wonder how far you could get into Baldesion Arsenal or Bozja's dungeons with a tactic like that.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I think you'd do this in a new game, so.. not FFXIV lol.

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Ok, then now I think you can really go all out as people can give a new game a fair try.

And yes, it's a win some and lose some deal, but that's with any job/combat idea.

And thus...

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To give SE credit for how balanced everything is (very) there is still at least some obvious differences between jobs (types of patterns, hang time, etc), it's also why in the other thread when I was talking about adding more flair in a more feasible way (less cloud in the sky thoughts) I was thinking largely in the direction of non-combat related changes (to not fiddle with the balance so much). Of course if they can add flair without harming balance I'd be for it, but that's hard to do in combat (and would also be less hard 'if' you decided to extract the most challenging content builds from the 'main' build and creating it's own high balance build). Like how sometimes in WoW it seemed they changed PvE part of jobs because of how it worked in PvP, in FFXIV we don't have that issue.

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As with anything, it's a matter of tradeoff, and each player has different preferences.

For me, FFXIV definitely just hits some of the right notes. But even in WoW, I pretty much play it like a FFXIV job where I choose only one specialization to play and I set all the talents I want right from the beginning and then never bother with other talent/specialization option again.

So for players like me, better balance is more important so that at least we're not hurting our party too much by choosing our preferred playstyle, even if we're only doing "normal" content. On that note, I never understand the criticism that homogenization makes every job plays the same way for every player since I'm only concerned about how I play, not whether or not some other player plays the same way as I do. In fact, the more it plays the same for everyone, the more I can understand when I see a video of someone playing the same job as me, which is nice. In WoW, I can see people using abilities that are foreign to me even though I play the same class, and that doesn't give any benefit to me.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I was not around in 2.0.
Can you explain to me what happened?

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Scared my memory is failing me and I might be giving out fake information of what happened... but basically you'd bring as many BLM as possible and burn through Garuda, probably going through mechanics even if I remember correctly. As someone mentioned the overall issue with the elemental wheel is it hurt class participation, as BLM and WHM only had particular elements associated to them... among other classes... but I do remember on some level Garuda being more or less the final straw. Or the change happening soon after.

Another fun thing was in 1.0 near the end, there was end game dungeons. Where you had to clear the dungeon doing various things to unlock all 5 chests at the end. For example 1 chest would be for clearing under say 25 min... another for killing the boss... etc. So you'd go in as a normal party in AA, then right before the final boss switch to 6 Monks with Fire Fists (which were actual fists of fire) and a healer/tank. You'd just punch the boss to death because it was weak to fire. And yes you could change jobs mid dungeon.

1.0 had its bazillion issues but I really wish they brought these dungeons back on some level. They were challenging beyond just a typical DDR battle in a large arena we have on repeat now. The boss fights we have now are fun but its just the same thing over and over. Be nice to have a mix.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Agreed especially since the jobs themselves have to sacrifice a quirk or two for those jobs to be unique. Id rather have jobs be refined than having new ones. Also a nitpick here but but adding on to it, the jobs starting later and later every expansion (EW now requiring to reach 70) just makes less sense and should just focus on the jobs than creating new ones. Those poor DNC fans buying the game and learning u need to either inorganically overlevel to enjoy the job and nerfed capacity in MSQ or buy a jump pot

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Yeah I imagine it must be interesting for a new player just starting off in Limsa and seeing the number of classes available to them and then the dancer job at a whopping level 60 lol. Kinda makes me wish it was brough lower, like 30 or 40.

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Originally Posted by Keramory

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Yo that's wild.
I can see why they cut something like that, though if they hadn't I wonder how it would have continued to impact fight designs.
The elemental wheel was removed long before Savage was introduced then? Kind of a shame lol.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

Yeah I imagine it must be interesting for a new player just starting off in Limsa and seeing the number of classes available to them and then the dancer job at a whopping level 60 lol. Kinda makes me wish it was brough lower, like 30 or 40.

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It's really not that weird, or at least I didn't think it was odd when I joined recently.
Many RPGs (FF games included) have classes and character options that don't unlock in the first half of the game. This really isnt any different. If anything it's better because you can so freely swap between jobs in this game getting DNC at 60 is a lot less restrictive than many other systems.

I feel like '10 levels before current expansion start' is a good balance.

The lower you go, the more existing players have to go back and level up. It's nice when a new job comes out that you like, to be able to jump into the new content without that much grinding/leveling to get there. While also having something of a buffer so that in the first days of the expansion, most people will generally keep going through the story with their old mains rather, alleviating PF from being overrun by the new jobs a little bit.

My only real issue is with the HW jobs. They start at level 30 but you'll be 50+ by the time you get there, so if soemone wants to swap to those jobs they can't just unlock the job at 30 and then keep going, the same way that a rdm could level blm to 50 and then swap over etc.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

My only real issue is with the HW jobs. They start at level 30 but you'll be 50+ by the time you get there, so if soemone wants to swap to those jobs they can't just unlock the job at 30 and then keep going, the same way that a rdm could level blm to 50 and then swap over etc.

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Yeah, I think that the starting level for those jobs should be lvl 50 as well. When they were added before it sort of made sense to make players level them up a bit. Now? Not so much. 50 should be where they start after everything players have to do to even gain access to them.

HW jobs starting at 30 is fine, allows faster access to them to newer players. That's important


Lastly, they will add jobs each xpac, cause it sells. It's all about selling another boxed product and keeping people subbed until they burn holes in their wallet from excess mogstation sales.

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Originally Posted by technole

HW jobs starting at 30 is fine, allows faster access to them to newer players. That's important.

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You can't unlock them at 30, in fact you likely won't unlock them until level 55+

they dont need to yes, but ff14 is a big game coming from a big company so the expectation is high.

and if the other big company like blizz can make a new class every new expansion, FF14 has to follow or they will be losing face.

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Originally Posted by gumas

they dont need to yes, but ff14 is a big game coming from a big company so the expectation is high.

and if the other big company like blizz can make a new class every new expansion, FF14 has to follow or they will be losing face.

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Blizzard does not add a new class every expansion.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Blizzard does not add a new class every expansion.

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In their defense they do have talents and 3 specializations +/- 1 which, sometimes, offer significant twists in gameplay. This makes the math a little funny if we're trying to compare. 3 * 10 + 4 + 2 = '36' jobs if we were being INCREDIBLY generous. Certainly less than 36 would be more fair, but absolutely more than 12 (number of 'base' classes they have).

Not in their defense, they absolutely do not add a new class every expansion as you said.. lol.

Perhaps they aren't, but you can't deny that new jobs are a big draw to the game with each expansion. Hell, I was brought back into the game after lapsing through Heavensward when I learned Red Mage was coming to Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

In their defense they do have talents and 3 specializations +/- 1 which, sometimes, offer significant twists in gameplay. This makes the math a little funny if we're trying to compare. 3 * 10 + 4 + 2 = '36' jobs if we were being INCREDIBLY generous. Certainly less than 36 would be more fair, but absolutely more than 12 (number of 'base' classes they have).

Not in their defense, they absolutely do not add a new class every expansion as you said.. lol.

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Well, if you're counting specializations, then they have 8 expansions and they've added 8 specializations during that time (9, forgot about Guardian Druid, then there's the change to Survival Hunter) ... :eek:

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You can't unlock them at 30, in fact you likely won't unlock them until level 55+

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The redesigned ARR you'll fly by rather quickly to HW be well over level 60 if you do everything, or 54ish if you did MSQ only things. It's still pretty easy to get to. Once again this isn't 2.0 ARR we are talking about, its still quick enough because of lore reasons.

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Originally Posted by Styrmwyda

Basically what the title says. While new jobs are cool, if 7.x expansion adds no new jobs that wouldn't be the end of FF14.

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The are obligated to their shareholders who want their investment back which only happens if a lot of customers are happy. And I'd bet good Gil the vast majority expects new jobs so..

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

The are obligated to their shareholders who want their investment back which only happens if a lot of customers are happy. And I'd bet good Gil the vast majority expects new jobs so..

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That doesn't change the realities of game devleopment however. Every new job means more overhead going forward, they can't keep that up indefinitely without bloating the budget of the game over time.

Im fine with expect them to start going down to 1 job per expansion but it had better not be more melee DPS only.

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Originally Posted by Raim

Im fine with expect them to start going down to 1 job per expansion but it had better not be more melee DPS only.

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They would benefit from having more physical/magical ranged at this point, for sure. And not that Limited crap either.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

They would benefit from having more physical/magical ranged at this point, for sure. And not that Limited crap either.

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I was just thinking of saying "how about a limited melee dps, Eh eeeehh???" and then refreshed to see your post lol.

I could be happy with less jobs or no jobs, I just want to 'feel' that it's not simply "We at SE decided adding more jobs is hard work and so we're going to charge you the same price we always have but we're going to also give you the same amount of content we've always had with nothing else added". Jobs are a major feature I enjoy, not adding them means the expansion is less alluring (pretty much hell or high water I play the finale to the story because I'm interested, but beyond that you're (SE) going to have to keep trying to 'sell' the expansion and not just assume "easy money, let's do the bare minimum").

Which to be clear I'm not accusing them of presently, just that if they didn't add new jobs AND there wasn't a tangible evidence of other things getting picked up because of that it would then be me thinking they're beginning to drop the ball in terms of effort (which either means the game is going into maintenance mode, and hype for a new mmo, or maybe I don't feel compelled to be subscribed as much). With note saying I say this because I know, and we've been told, that jobs are a big effort - so it's not some minor thing to add (or not add) a job, they're a big heaping amount of effort from many teams. Naturally there is a danger in that they may actually add more content in light of not having jobs but that added content wasn't content as enjoyable as a job would have been. For example if they said instead of adding two new jobs we added four PF focused limited jobs- I would be like "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" lol (at least the internal feeling, posting just "booo" is such a crude and useless feedback comment.. no no.. we need to post at least greater character count than the basic posting limits :p).

Back onto the jobs though, personally I still really want to see a transformation based job which could then offer gameplay that's both ranged and melee (and even casting) based on the form you're in. A bruiser mage being another I think would be fun (Suaron / Golbez inspired). Past that I'm pretty open to whatever, though I generally like seeing "entirely new" or most invented but bit inspired at this point. Like Sage.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

They would benefit from having more physical/magical ranged at this point, for sure. And not that Limited crap either.

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No, they wouldn't really. The game is actually pretty heavy with ranged jobs with 6 dps flavors and soon to be 4 healer flavors. The game actually needs more mystical/magical melee jobs.

DPS classification is unnecessarily broad.

In Endwalker, we'll have:

Distance
Melee: 5
Ranged: 6

Attack:
Physical: 8
Magical: 3

Limit Break
Melee: 5
Physical Ranged: 3
Magical Ranged: 3

Accessory
Slaying: 4
Aiming: 4
Casting: 3

Gear
Maiming: 2
Striking: 2
Scouting: 1
Aiming: 3
Casting: 3

So, obviously, we need only one job (a scouting+casting+magical+melee DPS) in 7.0 to make the numbers sort of match in the broadest sense possible. Then they can stop adding new jobs.

instead of new class, imagine if they introduce the (finally) talent tree system after the endwalker expansion

so now you can talent DRK or WAR into a pure DPS class (literally change their tank icon to dps icon) or talent AST into either barrier healer or pure healer or hybrid between the two

i said after endwalker because endwalker is FF14 (supposedly) "finish line" so everything after that its all up to their creativity

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Originally Posted by gumas

instead of new class, imagine if they introduce the (finally) talent tree system after the endwalker expansion

so now you can talent DRK or WAR into a pure DPS class (literally change their tank icon to dps icon) or talent AST into either barrier healer or pure healer or hybrid between the two

i said after endwalker because endwalker is FF14 (supposedly) "finish line" so everything after that its all up to their creativity

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If the devs feel like additional/role actions doesn't work for the game, and even Scholar and Summoner sharing the same base class (or potentially Astrologian having two sects) is a problem, then I don't think they would see any future in an actual talent tree system.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

Yeah I imagine it must be interesting for a new player just starting off in Limsa and seeing the number of classes available to them and then the dancer job at a whopping level 60 lol. Kinda makes me wish it was brough lower, like 30 or 40.

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Alternately, while the general idea of dropping all the job-unlock quests into the starter cities made sense at lower levels - 50 certainly, 60 pushing it - I feel like we're back at the point that they could get scattered into the higher-level cities again. Not as far as Stormblood, but in Ishgard, possibly even Idyllshire - that would be a level 58 MSQ requirement for a level 70 class. Certainly justifiable for level 80 if and when we have jobs starting at that level.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

That doesn't change the realities of game devleopment however. Every new job means more overhead going forward, they can't keep that up indefinitely without bloating the budget of the game over time.

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SE is not an indie developer.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

SE is not an indie developer.

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Hard to tell at times with how limited they are on some things.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

SE is not an indie developer.

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SE not being an indie company has no bearing on the fact that each new job added means more work for their team with each ongoing expansion. More balancing to do, more art needed for artifact armor and job specific weapons, more animations and spell effects to make etc. Those issues don't just go away because SE isn't an indie company.

and im not obligated to buy it then whats the point of this opinion.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

And I'd bet good Gil the vast majority expects new jobs so..

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I don't.

2 per expansion has been excessive in my opinion and too ambitious long term. One per expansion would have been plenty, same with the new races. A good company should understand resource management, but Enix has had a history of burning large amounts of their resources on 10 minute throwaway content, extremely niche content or excessive amounts of content in one small area. This has affected them rather negatively in ShB, where they had to cut a dungeon, the deep dungeon, could only half finish their new races, had to condense class quests, had to cut primal weapons for GNB/DNC and so on. They managed their resources poorly and overloaded themselves yet ended up with less meaningful content overall to show for it as a result.

I'd like them to slow down and push out less fluff like a million classes, multiple races at once or 3 sets of primal weapons in one go and focus on quality and completion instead.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

One per expansion would have been plenty, same with the new races.

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We essentially did get one race - one male and one female model. They said they might not be able to add further races which is why they squeezed in two halves instead of one whole, but the work isn't more or less than making both genders of one race.

The only way they'd be able to cut down further would be only giving one gender of one race.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

SE not being an indie company has no bearing on the fact that each new job added means more work for their team with each ongoing expansion. More balancing to do, more art needed for artifact armor and job specific weapons, more animations and spell effects to make etc. Those issues don't just go away because SE isn't an indie company.

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Putting some of the huge profits they've earned from Shadowbringers into the following expansions could help, but we all know that's not gonna happen. And yes, 'throwing money' at development doesn't help in the short-term but that's why you start now rather than when the work becomes too overbearing. Hell ideally they shoulda started LAST expansion. But I think people are way too ready to defend whatever decisions they make so they'll just make whatever keeps them the most profit moving forward.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

Putting some of the huge profits they've earned from Shadowbringers into the following expansions could help, but we all know that's not gonna happen. And yes, 'throwing money' at development doesn't help in the short-term but that's why you start now rather than when the work becomes too overbearing. Hell ideally they shoulda started LAST expansion. But I think people are way too ready to defend whatever decisions they make so they'll just make whatever keeps them the most profit moving forward.

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It'd be nice if they increased the budget for the FFXIV team. But jobs and races are both things that continue to add overhead going forward.

Once a dungeon or a raid is done, it's done. WIth jobs and races though, each new one added means more and more has to go into them, and the game's budget and the game's playerbase are not going to grow without limit over time. Plus it'll be harder to make each job feel unique and distint over time as well as more and more are piled in. When you're adding a feature that has to keep being supported and worked on for years to come, there comes a time you have to start peeling back. Because those stacking ongoing costs aren't going to vanish if say, Endwalker doesn't do as well as SHB and the budget for the next expansion is reduced etc. They need to make sure that when they add new jobs and races, they can handle not only the short term but the long term.

I'm not saying that will necessarily be 7.0 but that day is going to come sooner or later. I think we're seeing this as is with role quests taking over job quests, at least for existing jobs hopefully the new jobs at least still get proper job storylines in 6.0.

There's definitely other content that can be added other than new jobs or races, and I'm okay with that.

Polishing content we already have is a good idea. More gear and such for current races and jobs is always nice.

As long they add enough features to compensate the lack of new classes, I shouldn't see an issue. More PvE Systems, update on the engine spaghetti code and so on.

Id rather have them not add any new class or race, and have them massively update the CC engine. But yeah, I agree with the initial OP. They arent obligated to add anything. Same thing inversely, people arent obligated to buying it.

But so long as there's a justification for the 60 dollar value, then it is whatever.