Dear SE, stop homogenizing jobs

Give us completely different random jobs and do not gate progression behind discriminatory min maxing content. For real this game is sooo casual that you have to spend whole week with pugs to even roll something.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

For real this game is sooo casual that you have to spend whole week with pugs to even roll something.

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What are you talking about?

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

No ones assuming any kind of fatalistic zero-sum; we can and do already have both. Variety always comes at a cost to balance, though.

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No, it comes at a cost of time, and rarely separately from the development of the variety originally. New things take time to fit into the game and test thoroughly. It is only to the extent of adding another of anything that is not a carbon copy of what already exists that variety "costs" (in truth, merely "requires") balance.

And refusing ever to add anything new, or insistence on collapsing what we already have into fewer and fewer types, should not be acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for.

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That... clearly works both ways, as anyone who's played before ShB would know, let alone as far back as ARR or HW.

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Originally Posted by linay

What are you talking about?

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Im saying.
They are pretending to make game for casuals, but actually most of their focus is aimed at savage-extreme content. They change job according to the raid needs and balance, they are giving more raids than semi-challenging dungeons, they put the best rewards behind that content, and if you do not do it your are locked away into doing raid alliance once in a week and capping tomestones. This results in homogenisation of jobs, because each job has to meet certain requirement otherwise nobody plays it, because its not viable in the only content that really matter

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Originally Posted by Drayos

You should not be expected to play every class in the game to a exceptional level to savage raid. Nor should it be required to gear 28 classes to enter raiding either.

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While I do agree that balance is important and it should be good enough to let you play your preferred job without having to worry about being excluded from parties, you clearly used a strawman here.
A good rule of thumb is to chose a role and level a couple of jobs to be reasonably sure that at least one is not the unlucky red headed step child of the expansion.

Anyway I can't help but laugh at how misplaced some people's anger is...jobs didn't get more homogenized because of balance. Balance only has to do with numbers and parameters. If the devs decided to achieve balance by making jobs more similar because it was easier, that's entirely on them, but let me tell you that nobody in the "toxic elitist raiding community" asked for brd to be stripped of most of their utility, nobody asked for drk/war to become the same job with a slight thematic difference, nobody asked for healers' dps rotation to be simplified to 1 dot and 1 nuke or for ast's cards to have all the same effect and so on.

Jobs were homogenized because the devs want this to be an easy and accessible game. And accessibility is not something hardcore raiders really care about, since most of them can optimize a job regardless of how it plays.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

While I do agree that balance is important and it should be good enough to let you play your preferred job without having to worry about being excluded from parties, you clearly used a strawman here.
A good rule of thumb is to chose a role and level a couple of jobs to be reasonably sure that at least one is not the unlucky red headed step child of the expansion.

Anyway I can't help but laugh at how misplaced some people's anger is...jobs didn't get more homogenized because of balance. Balance only has to do with numbers and parameters. If the devs decided to achieve balance by making jobs more similar because it was easier, that's entirely on them, but let me tell you that nobody in the "toxic elitist raiding community" asked for brd to be stripped of most of their utility, nobody asked for drk/war to become the same job with a slight thematic difference, nobody asked for healers' dps rotation to be simplified to 1 dot and 1 nuke or for ast's cards to have all the same effect and so on.

Jobs were homogenized because the devs want this to be an easy and accessible game. And accessibility is not something hardcore raiders really care about, since most of them can optimize a job regardless of how it plays.

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How does homogenisation make the game easier or more accessible? Most people main 1 job, and maybe dabble in some others: It doesn't it an easier time on them if WAR and DRK are mechanically the same, as they're only playing/maining one of these anyway.

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Originally Posted by purgatori

How does homogenisation make the game easier or more accessible?

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Because their idea of accessibility is to let casual players perform decently well in savage content, apparently. It's clear that they want more people to do savage (balance for anything else doesn't matter because everything is so easy) and it's way easier for casual players to tackle that kind of content when they know their job has specific duties with very little variance, regardless of party composition.
Again, it's easier to perform decently if all jobs are easy to play. Back in HW we had more complex rotations, more timers/dot to pay attention to, more offensive buffs because of the cross-class system. People complained that it was "too hard" to keep track of everything, so the devs gradually removed dots and buffs. Missing positionals was also more penalizing, so potencies were gradually adjusted and positional requirements removed. All these things contribute to make jobs feel more similar, but that's not because of balance considerations. It just had to do with players effectively asking for the jobs to become easier to play.
Even now, when most jobs have more or less comparable tools, some people argue that they're not exactly the same (melee's gap closer thread in the dps section of this forum), without considering how the kit works as a whole.
And let me tell you...hardcore players mostly don't care about these things, because they can and will make any job work under any circumstances.

edit: another non-issue some people still bring up: button bloat. There's no button bloat in this game, not since stormblood, you can easily fit all your relevant skills neatly with a little planning, and yet we have people asking for 1-button combos, without realizing that would be the biggest contributor to homogenization because the slight difference in how combos branch do give some flavor to melee dps and tanks' gameplay. Once again, this has nothing to do with balance.

Lol what. Like all the AST cards becoming the same is not a direct result of the end game theorycrafters dictating that everything apart from moar damage balance is useless and shouldn't be used. Or the removal of BRD's buffs a direct result of end game groups bringing only them to look better on fflogs when Rdps was not a thing.

Even if you dont directly ask for it on the forums, SE is monitoring what you do, and is acting accordingly. Jobs becoming easier to play might be a thing, but saying that end game raiding habits has no influence on the homogenization is false. Just look for example, for taking my old main job, at the number of people asking for the removal of RDM's chainrez in exchange for a better dps, all for the sake of parsing the same numbers as the other jobs on fflogs.

Part of the problem is caused by the game lack of complexity to include more identity to the Jobs. I find it difficult to imagine what else they could do with the game as it is.

By adding complexity they could add more identity to selected Jobs proportionally with the complexity added. Example, adding Defense for Bosses and having Healer the role to reduce it. Since heals are scripted, they can balance around a rotation for healers to be able to do it. Not difficult to imagine.

They could do something similar as FF7 Remake's Staggering mechanic, so a selected Role would need to take care of doing the rotation properly to make the Stagger damage increase mechanic happen at the best times. Even making it easier to recognize "raid buff synergy moment" for newcomers.

They could do something with materia, and expand it. Can't think of anything fit for the game atm tho.

I think that DPS Roles need to have a more defined role. Ranged, Caster and melee doesn't have much identity with the Role actions compared to tanks and healers.

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Originally Posted by Kleeya

Lol what. Like all the AST cards becoming the same is not a direct result of the end game theorycrafters dictating that everything apart from moar damage balance is useless and shouldn't be used. Or the removal of BRD's buffs a direct result of end game groups bringing only them to look better on fflogs when Rdps was not a thing.

Even if you dont directly ask for it on the forums, SE is monitoring what you do, and is acting accordingly. Jobs becoming easier to play might be a thing, but saying that end game raiding habits has no influence on the homogenization is false. Just look for example, for taking my old main job, at the number of people asking for the removal of RDM's chainrez in exchange for a better dps, all for the sake of parsing the same numbers as the other jobs on fflogs.

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It's how I feel as well. I could be entirely wrong and I can't be putting words into the developer's mouth so it is all conjecture but I can't help but blame the vocal minority that is our hardcore raiders, a small % of our playerbase playing what is literally <2% of the game's content (up to 12 raids, few ex trials, one ultimate), for a lot of my least favourite design decisions with Shadowbringers. Like I can't help but feel we can't Aetherflow outside of battle anymore, because it has to become like a lot of resource-generation actions, and if people could use it outside of battle the mathematically correct option would be to use it, wait for CD, then everyone can start, which would make repeated attempts worse. Sounds good in theory but for the vast majority of people just playing the game we don't care and just want to start. When I hear people want to take res away from RDM, the one DPS I like to play and their utility being a huge part of it, I want to smack them over the head. They already killed AST for me.

Of course I also blame the developers themselves for their lack of creativity when it comes to the way they design actions and traits. FFXIV is a great game but they somehow managed to make the actions more boring over time. Like, with my earlier example, they could alleviate some of their design restrictions if they didn't insist on all job gauges starting at 0.

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Originally Posted by Esmoire

It's how I feel as well. I could be entirely wrong and I can't be putting words into the developer's mouth so it is all conjecture but I can't help but blame the vocal minority that is our hardcore raiders, a small % of our playerbase playing what is literally <2% of the game's content (up to 12 raids, few ex trials, one ultimate), for a lot of my least favourite design decisions with Shadowbringers. Like I can't help but feel we can't Aetherflow outside of battle anymore, because it has to become like a lot of resource-generation actions, and if people could use it outside of battle the mathematically correct option would be to use it, wait for CD, then everyone can start, which would make repeated attempts worse. Sounds good in theory but for the vast majority of people just playing the game we don't care and just want to start. When I hear people want to take res away from RDM, the one DPS I like to play and their utility being a huge part of it, I want to smack them over the head. They already killed AST for me.

Of course I also blame the developers themselves for their lack of creativity when it comes to the way they design actions and traits. FFXIV is a great game but they somehow managed to make the actions more boring over time. Like, with my earlier example, they could alleviate some of their design restrictions if they didn't insist on all job gauges starting at 0.

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I think that too. It's too much focus into "ff logs" and raid perfection, than the vast majority of the fun of the game. But like I said above, the game doesn't have enough complexity to include much identity. And look like the Devs are just trying and trying to remove complexity over perfect balance that a minority cares about. If the content can be cleared, why even bother to make perfect balance when the only thing that matter is clear in a reasonable time? Meh.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

I think that too. It's too much focus into "ff logs" and raid perfection, than the vast majority of the fun of the game. But like I said above, the game doesn't have enough complexity to include much identity. And look like the Devs are just trying and trying to remove complexity over perfect balance that a minority cares about. If the content can be cleared, why even bother to make perfect balance when the only thing that matter is clear in a reasonable time? Meh.

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Yeah. The way they have designed the game they have limited a lot of the levers they can use to make things interesting. People will usually say something like "That's just because of the kind of game it is!" but I look at a lot of games in the MMO, RPG, and MMORPG genre, including other tab target games, and disagree entirely. Aside from technical limitations I think there is just some kind of creative hurdle when it comes to the way they approach things.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Im saying.
They are pretending to make game for casuals, but actually most of their focus is aimed at savage-extreme content. They change job according to the raid needs and balance, they are giving more raids than semi-challenging dungeons, they put the best rewards behind that content, and if you do not do it your are locked away into doing raid alliance once in a week and capping tomestones. This results in homogenisation of jobs, because each job has to meet certain requirement otherwise nobody plays it, because its not viable in the only content that really matter

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That's because casual content does not need the balance adjustments. The issue is when people who aren't making use of the meta correctly try to enforce the meta in PF where they shouldn't be.

Best reward is subjective, but if you really want a particular reward, there's no reason why you shouldn't work for it. In fact, considering how item level and unsynching work (outside of Ultimate), the hardest rewards to get (without buying from market board) are probably from deep dungeon and Baldesion Arsenal or even PVP, rather than Savage and Extreme content, which you can more easily clear and farm either in future patch or even future expansion.

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Originally Posted by purgatori

It doesn't it an easier time on them if WAR and DRK are mechanically the same, as they're only playing/maining one of these anyway.

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On the other hand, homogenization is not a problem if you only play one job. It's only a problem if you don't like the core gameplay of a certain job and find out all the jobs in that role has that same core gameplay, in which case, I'd say you just don't like how that role plays, because the jobs themselves still have their differences in gameplay.

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Originally Posted by linay

On the other hand, homogenization is not a problem if you only play one job. It's only a problem if you don't like the core gameplay of a certain job and find out all the jobs in that role has that same core gameplay, in which case, I'd say you just don't like how that role plays, because the jobs themselves still have their differences in gameplay.

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Still theres the difference between disliking a role, for example tanking and all that encompasses and disliking the gameplay of a job for certain reasons. An example of this would be DRK using the WAR mechanics with a different paint and having a cool loking yet bare bones kit that keeps itself afloat because one skill (TBN) is on almost busted levels of power and other (Dark Mind) relies completely on the current magic tankbusters meta. If we have a physical tankbusters meta, DRK is gonna be on deep trouble as did PLD on Heavensward due to the Alexander magic meta that messed with the PLD kit BAD

Im up for reducing bloat and messy rotations but another thing is to simplify so much only need to press 1-2-3 over and over while sprinkling a few other skills in between while also reducing jobs identity to the bare minimum. GNB and PLD are still "decent" on that sense, but WAR and DRK suffer the "im boring as sin until i reach my burst windows where im a bit less boring, then going back to 1-2-3"

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

Still theres the difference between disliking a role, for example tanking and all that encompasses and disliking the gameplay of a job for certain reasons. An example of this would be DRK using the WAR mechanics with a different paint and having a cool loking yet bare bones kit that keeps itself afloat because one skill (TBN) is on almost busted levels of power and other (Dark Mind) relies completely on the current magic tankbusters meta. If we have a physical tankbusters meta, DRK is gonna be on deep trouble as did PLD on Heavensward due to the Alexander magic meta that messed with the PLD kit BAD

Im up for reducing bloat and messy rotations but another thing is to simplify so much only need to press 1-2-3 over and over while sprinkling a few other skills in between while also reducing jobs identity to the bare minimum. GNB and PLD are still "decent" on that sense, but WAR and DRK suffer the "im boring as sin until i reach my burst windows where im a bit less boring, then going back to 1-2-3"

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I wonder if me playing pld/gnb but not war/drk has lead to me having an above average opinion of tanks in SHB, since both feel fun and distinct enough while still having the basic tools needed. (Though Superbolide still annoys me for shedding all that HP because I guess they had to have some sort of gimmick for their invuln rather than copy pld or war invulns.)

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Originally Posted by linay

That's because casual content does not need the balance adjustments. The issue is when people who aren't making use of the meta correctly try to enforce the meta in PF where they shouldn't be.

Best reward is subjective, but if you really want a particular reward, there's no reason why you shouldn't work for it. In fact, considering how item level and unsynching work (outside of Ultimate), the hardest rewards to get (without buying from market board) are probably from deep dungeon and Baldesion Arsenal or even PVP, rather than Savage and Extreme content, which you can more easily clear and farm either in future patch or even future expansion.

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In the end everyone is losing, because job design is being made to cater to the strict and hard content needs.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I wonder if me playing pld/gnb but not war/drk has lead to me having an above average opinion of tanks in SHB, since both feel fun and distinct enough while still having the basic tools needed. (Though Superbolide still annoys me for shedding all that HP because I guess they had to have some sort of gimmick for their invuln rather than copy pld or war invulns.)

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Leveled GNB and is pretty fun and trust me compared to Living Dead Superbolide is godly, just saying that since you dont need high levels of coordination to pay it off

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

Care to explain how using Cure III/Medica II feels different from using succor then? outside of the few instances where you can actually use the range on Cure III? Because I genuinely do not see it. Yes, that distance is nice, and it can be great for mechanics like Hello World where you're far away from the team, but those instances are very few and far in-between, especially for normal content. You will end up, in most content, using cure III or medica II where you would use succor, achieving the same effect, with the same feeling, only with different buffs.

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How is this a valid argument at all? Like, these skills have been in the game since 2.0 so why is this an acceptable argument? Literally one stops HP from dropping and the other increases it a bit over time. Yeah, I know it's minor but if you play these classes in Doma Castle your strategies are far different from each other.

I also saw your argument on Art of War and Holy. They feel massively different. Art of War feels weak but has an instant cast and makes weaving a lot easier. Holy has a stun meaning healing becomes easier for the duration of it and for the 3 casts its effective. On top of that White Mage has Thin Air and Presence of Mind which increases the speed of your GCD making it feel much faster than either Gravity or Art of War because you have more coming out for a bit. On top of that you have Assize, Temperence, and more that make healing a lot different.

Like, when I mained heals this always happened even before now. People think the healers all play the same, and this has never been true. This topic makes me so mad because people claim homogenization when the classes are no different except in roles and maybe a few extra abilities they added in SHB, which I'll get to. But like, People always told me "Oh, you're a scholar main, you can play White Mage right?" back in HW and no. that's not true. I couldn't play White Mage because I had no experience in it and never had the chance and people just assumed I knew what I was doing. I was even pulled into a group without being told the other healer they had was a scholar because of that assumption. That assumption happened less in STB but I had occasions, and it irritates me that this argument is coming back in the opposite direction. Instead of people claiming I can play any job as a healer main, it's "the classes are too similar I can play any job." Try that. go to Doma Castle and play both. I promise you you'll have a much harder time as a Scholar than a White Mage.

On the topic of Scholar, White mage doesn't have many skills that basically contradict each other and constantly bump into each other in terms of what they do. Seraph allows the Scholar to essentially take over healing for a while and no other class has the mitigating and healing power of it when Seraph is out. The stacks make it a highly planning-based class.

Like, how can anybody make arguments of homogenization when I can go into a dungeon as WHM and not break a sweat, go into the same dungeon with similar gear as scholar have a little more trouble but mostly with the systems that don't work with one another, and then immediately go into a dungeon as AST and struggle much harder. And each one have to keep in mind much different strategies. And notice how nobody mentions Aspected Helios or how Scholar doesn't have another AOE that isn't attached to stacks like Indom because it ruins their arguments.

When people come with better arguments on the homogenization I'll gladly hear them but when the main argument is "well I hit the boss then heal" then that's boiling it down way too far and could be how each freaking class could be boiled down to claim homogenization. "I hit the boss and nothing else." "I hit the boss and the boss hit me. "I hit the boss, but from a distance." "I hit the boss with magic."

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

Still theres the difference between disliking a role, for example tanking and all that encompasses and disliking the gameplay of a job for certain reasons. An example of this would be DRK using the WAR mechanics with a different paint and having a cool loking yet bare bones kit that keeps itself afloat because one skill (TBN) is on almost busted levels of power and other (Dark Mind) relies completely on the current magic tankbusters meta. If we have a physical tankbusters meta, DRK is gonna be on deep trouble as did PLD on Heavensward due to the Alexander magic meta that messed with the PLD kit BAD

Im up for reducing bloat and messy rotations but another thing is to simplify so much only need to press 1-2-3 over and over while sprinkling a few other skills in between while also reducing jobs identity to the bare minimum. GNB and PLD are still "decent" on that sense, but WAR and DRK suffer the "im boring as sin until i reach my burst windows where im a bit less boring, then going back to 1-2-3"

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See, I don't know what to say about that because, as a casual tank, I used DRK as my primary tank in Stormblood, and I didn't like the change in Shadowbringers, so I switched to WAR. So, to me, DRK and WAR still play differently and the difference is not just a matter of a different paint. I actually like how WAR plays now compared to Stormblood, but (in many ways, not all) I prefer how DRK played in Stormblood compared to 5.0 (not sure about now since I'm no longer playing it).

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Originally Posted by Siete

The great obliteration of World of Warcraft classes came with raid-oriented class balance.
Look at them, they used to be the strongest MMO out there now they're down the sinkhole, DEAD.

So yeah, if Final Fantasy is going the WoW way with class design and balance around raids, it will share the same fate and die.

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Old comment, but honestly, if anything, over time you could get away with playing more specs in a semi-HC guild than ever the more time went on in WoW. There have been points where you could play EVERYTHING and a guild would take you because the difference would be so small and sometimes gear would actually make your suboptimal spec stronger. In FFXIV for example right now, you have two range spots, it's very difficult to justify giving one to a Red Mage. Playing Astrologian can limit you because even though it's strong enough to progress Savage and Ultimate, the vast majority of statics would rather take a Scholar and go WHM/Scholar; or they already have the Scholar and want a WHM; especially because of how certain immunities interact with healers. There's more examples like this but I don't wanna overdrill the point when responding to a 3month old post.

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Originally Posted by linay

See, I don't know what to say about that because, as a casual tank, I used DRK as my primary tank in Stormblood, and I didn't like the change in Shadowbringers, so I switched to WAR. So, to me, DRK and WAR still play differently and the difference is not just a matter of a different paint. I actually like how WAR plays now compared to Stormblood, but (in many ways, not all) I prefer how DRK played in Stormblood compared to 5.0 (not sure about now since I'm no longer playing it).

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Not saying that they are "exactly" the same but War and Drk core gameplay is quite similar on ShB: Build resources dealing "meh" damage with normal combos and damage burst on your Inner Release/Delirium window. The difference is that War has to pile up his buffs during those windows while the Drk due to having Darkside 24/7 (which is quite silly would have been better an increase on base damage if its gonna be up ALL the time, its as pointless as monk stances) just spams the skills are soon they are ready again unless playing on a coordinated team and lining up raid buffs

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

Not saying that they are "exactly" the same but War and Drk core gameplay is quite similar on ShB: Build resources dealing "meh" damage with normal combos and damage burst on your Inner Release/Delirium window. The difference is that War has to pile up his buffs during those windows while the Drk due to having Darkside 24/7 (which is quite silly would have been better an increase on base damage if its gonna be up ALL the time, its as pointless as monk stances) just spams the skills are soon they are ready again unless playing on a coordinated team and lining up raid buffs

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I think the difference is significant enough to choose between the two.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

As the title indicates, jobs have become far too homogenized in ShB. Fun should come before raid balance.

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It's a no-win situation because the moment you diversify jobs people will start complaining about raid balance again.

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Originally Posted by FF16Necromancer

It's a no-win situation because the moment you diversify jobs people will start complaining about raid balance again.

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This was a good topic, Necromancer of Light.