How can they add more classes and make them unique and have their own flavor?

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

maybe rdm is based around enhancing the sword with elements , fire make insert here 3 combo chain (death blossom) put a dot , Ice make it snare the enemy , earth make it do -10% dmg , lightning make it take 10% more dmg , light rdm gets healed , dark make it blind the enemy.

sam , who knows...a stance for fast attacks that regen tp, another for slow but high attacks drain lots of tp, and u change from one or another similar to BLM but instead of MP ,TP.....

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Hmm, maybe RDM or some magic enhanceing physical class can use both MP and TP

Since RDM is also known for healing, maybe they can have an aero/water/or aether themed enhancement that can AoE heal on attacks and a chance to proc protective buffs

It's unfortunate that they don't feel like a survey akin to the one held during 1.0 would be worthwhile to them. In any case, GEO as it is implemented in XI always came across as a perfect fit for XIV. I can understand their reasoning behind making MCH just a different flavor of BRD, being that only having one designated MP battery DPS/support hybrid thing meant BRD was almost a necessity, but I can't help but feel making another ranged, physical DPS that role was a wasted opportunity for variety. Why didn't they add something like DNC, which could have served as a designated MP battery DPS/support but melee, instead of ranged. That would have allowed for MCH to be the option for pure ranged physical DPS, something I would imagine a lot of people were waiting for and expecting MCH to be since 1.0. As others have noted, DRK/AST/MCH all felt like incredibly safe implementations, bringing into question whether or not SE's approach was quantity over quality with the new jobs. I would have preferred two, even one new job if it meant that it showcased some real creativity and brought something new mechanically to XIV's gameplay. AST comes the closest, with the cards, but not enough to justify the total lack of uniquity among the other two jobs, especially MCH.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

WoW has no problems with this.

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Not sure what you two are talking about, but atm WoW has loads of issues with class identity. They might fit everything in this amazing story and give you amazing abilities, but for example healers, especially now in Legion will be all the same. Same mechanics, same abilities.....

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Originally Posted by Zied

I remember I read somewhere that Yoshi P said that they will add more jobs instead of giving jobs more specializations (IE DPS Paladin, Heal Paladin).

Dancer I can understand being different because I heard it is a melee healer(?)

How can they make the new jobs unique enough to make them not be copy and pastes/combination of the other jobs we have now?

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I think that it's easy to create more different classes and jobs, but to make each of them more unique, SE/Yoshi really need to instate elemental and attack properties.

Fire monsters weak against water/ice, absorbs fire attacks, ice monsters weak against fire, absorbs ice attacks, hard scaled monsters impervious against slash attacks, flying monsters weak against shoot attacks, etc.

The first time when I played this game, I was surprised that elemental/attack properties was missing, because in my opinion THAT is really what makes every class/job, and frankly, the entire game unique. Without it, there is really no point in which class/job you choose, because every kind of attack will always result in the same outcome.

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Originally Posted by Keiko_Kumiko

*snip*

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They used to have an elemental wheel just like you described, but Yoshi did away with it, stating it was "too complicated for players new to MMOs."

So, no more elemental weakness or strength, hence why WHM and BLM cast each half of the elemental wheel. Also, even if they instate that they would have to be careful with elemental absorption because if you do a 4-man dungeon, and daily roulette gives you two BLM, and the boss absorbs fire... someone is getting kicked, raged at, harassed, or belittled because of game design oversights.

I think there is plenty of room still for interesting class mechanics.

A few people have mentioned it already but Dancer is probably the most obvious example since it could be a melee TP based healer, much as it was in XI. We also have yet to see a lifesteal based healer that uses HP as a resource. There are lots of possibilities there.

Other MMOs have had ranged tanks but positional requirements in this game would make a ranged tank nigh useless unless they had some way to hold bosses in a certain place at range... I think that would be too difficult. A light armoured, magic based tank could be done though; one that uses its MP as a second health bar to mitigate some of the incoming damage (whilst the rest goes to HP as normal). Their skills would focus on restoring their own MP to keep up their mitigation.

For the DPS there are as many options as you can invent mechanics for. Personally I'd be all for more pet jobs, preferably one that is more dependent on its pet than SMN currently is.

The important thing to realise is that at the end of the day the three roles will always ultimately do the same thing. The differentiation comes not in what the job does but how the player engages with the job to fulfill that role. This does mean that class balance becomes an ever more critical component but SE has actually proven to be fairly good at balancing for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Synrin

Not sure what you two are talking about, but atm WoW has loads of issues with class identity. They might fit everything in this amazing story and give you amazing abilities, but for example healers, especially now in Legion will be all the same. Same mechanics, same abilities.....

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I agree with this. During cata/MoP there was very little difference between the gameplay and aesthetics of a marksman and survival hunter. Both used a ranged weapon, both shot things and things died. Legion is doing an entire overhaul of that though where marksmanshot foregoes the pet aspect (being exclusive to survival and beastmastery now) and survival being a melee trapper. Can't speak on healers and tanks though, but the class idenity has mostly been an issue for classes that had multiple dps roles (arms and fury warriors for example)

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Originally Posted by Keiko_Kumiko

Fire monsters weak against water/ice, absorbs fire attacks, ice monsters weak against fire, absorbs ice attacks, hard scaled monsters impervious against slash attacks, flying monsters weak against shoot attacks, etc.

The first time when I played this game, I was surprised that elemental/attack properties was missing, because in my opinion THAT is really what makes every class/job, and frankly, the entire game unique. Without it, there is really no point in which class/job you choose, because every kind of attack will always result in the same outcome.

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Then you're going to run into problems where you (don't) want X jobs because of those elemental attacks. And not to sound rude, but I don't think you've played BLM very much if you think that fire, blizzard and thunder spells result in the same outcome, or any other job for that matter because they'd have other abilities that add onto their playstyle (such as BotD, ninjitsu and MNK stacks)

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Originally Posted by Synrin

Not sure what you two are talking about, but atm WoW has loads of issues with class identity. They might fit everything in this amazing story and give you amazing abilities, but for example healers, especially now in Legion will be all the same. Same mechanics, same abilities.....

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Hmm, I don't have many hours in WoW, but I felt that my Holy Priest was very different from my Resto shaman (way more so than WHM vs SCH, where WHM vs SCH was more like Holy Priest vs Disc Priest iirc)

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Originally Posted by MoraClaret

Because of the way they've structured the game, it would require taking some risks to add classes that would truly feel different or offer "game changing" elements.

Given their track record so far, I doubt they will do so. Classes will likely remain a visual wrapper to similar functioning skills with one or two unique uses.

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In my opinion, it is a far greater risk to keep things similar. The game will rapidly become more boring if things are not appropriately spiced up. I think it would be better for the health of the game to add a DPS that everyone wants and rolls/levels up etc (NIN for example), than it would be to add a DPS that few people like and is basically a carbon copy of [x] job (MCH for example). Keeping things interesting is what is going to keep people playing long term. Keeping with the status quo is what is going to have people leaving for the next big thing.

Because of the way they've structured the game, it would require taking some risks to add classes that would truly feel different or offer "game changing" elements.

Given their track record so far, I doubt they will do so. Classes will likely remain a visual wrapper to similar functioning skills with one or two unique uses.

(@Kaurie, I agree with you, I'm just stating what I believe to be the reality. I believe the devs have overcompensated in many areas due to the failure of 1.0 and have been afraid to take risks.)

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

In my opinion, it is a far greater risk to keep things similar. The game will rapidly become more boring if things are not appropriately spiced up. I think it would be better for the health of the game to add a DPS that everyone wants and rolls/levels up etc (NIN for example), than it would be to add a DPS that few people like and is basically a carbon copy of [x] job (MCH for example). Keeping things interesting is what is going to keep people playing long term. Keeping with the status quo is what is going to have people leaving for the next big thing.

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I feel like this is definitely the case for MCH/BRD. The two share the same role and purpose, but it's also down to the abilties and flow of gameplay. Instead of sticking with a multiple attachment/stance they had originally wanted for MCH, they scrapped it and only gave one attachment (gauss barrel). ...then turned around and gave BRD a duplicate of said "attachment", and they've done away with having a traditional physical ranged dps. Balance (espesically numbers) sohuldn't be a huge concern when it comes to things like that, you could just tune it with mid patches or hotfixes. It's job mechanics that takes a lot more time to adjust, if not change.

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Originally Posted by MoraClaret

Because of the way they've structured the game, it would require taking some risks to add classes that would truly feel different or offer "game changing" elements.

Given their track record so far, I doubt they will do so. Classes will likely remain a visual wrapper to similar functioning skills with one or two unique uses.

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If you're to compare DRG and MNK on release, the two have entirely different GCDs when monk is at GL3. DRG in 3.0 also revolves around mixing in their oGCD (due to animation lock from jumps) and effectively managing their BoTD timer through GS. MNK has no such burdens, but instead need to maintain full uptime on the boss and minimize damage loss from downtime. NIN also approaches differently without the burden of having to maintain uptime, but instead 2 different timers/dots that branch off their weaponskill versus the highest damaging combo, on top of ninjitsu.

Same with BLM/SMN, the two function so differently in their resources that it's just not a comparable gameplay. Likewise with the healer's approach to healing and the utility behind it. The only time I feel they truly dropped the ball on job identity is BRD/MCH, and SCH/SMN if we're speaking specifically on dpsing (which honestly might as well be the case in your average dungeon runs).