So Yoshi-P just confirmed jobs won't get a big rework in 8.0.

I would play FFXI in a heartbeat if it weren't for their absolutely horrendous sign up process, and if they provide us 'double sub'-package to let us access both XI and XIV from a single sub.

Wishful thinking, aye.

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Originally Posted by Jason_Ashford

this is probably untrue simply for the fact that it's highly likely that a large number of PC players use the official launcher and not the one through steam, especially for those using Reshade and the like.

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No, it still absolutely shows a player trend, steam client users don't magically behave completely differently from every other client user.

And besides, the steam version is the same thing, just with an extra middle man in-between. If you launch the game on steam it just opens the normal XIV launcher and things like ReShade run just fine on either.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

Let me just say that numbers without context are meaningless. Is the period equivalent or equal in some manner in terms of releases, content?

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Both are at the end of their respective patch.
The November census was on the 4th, a week before patch 7.1 and the July census was on the 27th, roughly a week before patch 7.3.

Well its SE, if they make an announcement about something , we will probably see it in about 5 years.

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Originally Posted by Jason_Ashford

im honestly tempted to play it myself, especially with rumors circulating that they are considering making a new expansion for the game because it is so popular and its population continues to rise.

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Its funny because without incriminating myself, I sub to FFXI because I want to support it, but I may or may not actually be playing on another server that more closely aligns with a classic style that I feel like is more fun. One with a great horizon...............................*cough*. 4k texture packs are fun too if you were to do that, js. Its interesting too because the games are structured in that classic works as, well classic, retail works as a middle ground MMO and is a more sandparkish game these days, and FFXIV plays more like a casual theme park game.

It's too bad they don't recognize the possibility for investment there. SE, if they REALLY wanted to, could make a real effort and potentially take over the MMO industry by providing all of these experiences at a higher level. I mean ffs they even have the mobile game now. If they really wanted to see the MMO division skyrocket it's not like they don't have plenty of options. (this is just my ignorant opinion though lol)

https://files.catbox.moe/rq7azk.png

I expected them to be really conservative this expac with how poorly DT went over but I don't know how well I can handle another expac with Shadowbringer's skill lineup

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

This makes me think the current jobs will stay in some form and maybe we get specs like in other games, so you could choose between two versions of each job for instance? It could be interesting to see the jobs get specialisations to choose between different flavours of gameplay.

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I think having like three versions of each job would make things interesting, though I wonder how this would be Implemented. I personally would like different ways to play jobs, I don't really care about "Meta" or illusion of choice, because I rather have that choice even if it's not the meta, some people may see it that way that something needs to be meta or anything else is a incorrect choice, I'd disagree I play for fun personally.

Some Jobs like Red Mage & Paladin could even play into a Healer spec, Healers like white mage could have a "stone/areo" DPS spec, or we could even have something like a Samurai tank (which has even been done in trust dungeons).

Though they would need to fix the baseline problems with Healer and Tank, they'd also need to fix these roles in content, although having scaling content like they've said could actually mean in more "midcore" content healers get to heal ect.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I think having like three versions of each job would make things interesting, though I wonder how this would be Implemented. I personally would like different ways to play jobs, I don't really care about "Meta" or illusion of choice, because I rather have that choice even if it's not the meta, some people may see it that way that something needs to be meta or anything else is a incorrect choice, I'd disagree I play for fun personally.

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The idea is good but Square could never meaningfully balance it to the degree that the community at large would accept it. Square has struggled to balance three different healers and three different tanks, let alone fourth, let alone the DPS. This led to extremes such as HW nearly perma-banning PLD from PF and SB heavily excluding WHM/MNK. How could we possibly expect things to be different with 3x the job diversity? The community would never mesh well with it.

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Originally Posted by SushiDog

The idea is good but Square could never meaningfully balance it to the degree that the community at large would accept it. Square has struggled to balance three different healers and three different tanks, let alone fourth, let alone the DPS. This led to extremes such as HW nearly perma-banning PLD from PF and SB heavily excluding WHM/MNK. How could we possibly expect things to be different with 3x the job diversity? The community would never mesh well with it.

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Stop spreading lies. No jobs were banned from clear/farm parties in HW or SB. Every job was viable. I cleared all of HW and SB playing monk (while hard carrying the DPS in many parties) despite it being so horrifically bad that apparently it should have been deleted. Because you know, it really wasn't that bad. It was just slightly worse than DRG and NIN. Monk was even in the optimal DPS comp in HW from 3.0-3.2. WHM was considered the optimal healer until they gave AST a 20% balance card in 3.4 and that didn't suddenly make WHM unplayable. PLD reputation recovered by midas and the only fight it was "bad" on was A12S but it could still clear that fight. Its not like A12S was a hard fight lol, the tier was so easy it got people raiding again and the devs have never dared make a difficult raid tier since.

The only parties that may have blocked jobs were speedrun/parse PFs in SB.

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Originally Posted by SushiDog

The idea is good but Square could never meaningfully balance it to the degree that the community at large would accept it. Square has struggled to balance three different healers and three different tanks, let alone fourth, let alone the DPS. This led to extremes such as HW nearly perma-banning PLD from PF and SB heavily excluding WHM/MNK. How could we possibly expect things to be different with 3x the job diversity? The community would never mesh well with it.

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In addition to what echo78 said, they can’t even meaningfully balance the jobs now despite how much they’ve been stripped down. So what’s even the point? If job balance is going to be a hot mess anyway, may as well let the jobs be fun to play. Their current design paradigm just makes them shallow, tacky, and still unbalanced anyway.

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Originally Posted by SushiDog

The idea is good but Square could never meaningfully balance it to the degree that the community at large would accept it. Square has struggled to balance three different healers and three different tanks, let alone fourth, let alone the DPS. This led to extremes such as HW nearly perma-banning PLD from PF and SB heavily excluding WHM/MNK. How could we possibly expect things to be different with 3x the job diversity? The community would never mesh well with it.

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I'm going to be frank this fear of no job left behind has constantly been undermining uniqueness and pushing job design to become worse and worse degrading slowly, while they try to hyper focus on mechs to compensate it becomes this game where once you've done a fight on one job, you might as well have done it on all jobs, Everyone loses when jobs are so boring and samey, instead of playing the "warrior" you are now generic tank number 4. Because the devs are so scared to even try to give jobs more unique niches.

The "community" your talking about is a subset of raiders who play at the highest level 90% of people doing savage content isn't going to lock out a Job due to it being less strong, as long as the clear is reasonable then people will usually accept it.

Casual and midcore players shouldn't suffer because the top 1% of players will always follow what's meta, they do it still now despite the differences in jobs being so small and meaningless (outside of picto early expansion). We deserve stuff to actually enjoy, a more diverse job system that can cater to different playstyles is needed for the future of the games health, accepting our current system for jobs being so one note and generic has been one of the big reasons why people are losing interest.

I also don't get a "spec" system fixes everything I think job design in a baseline needs to be fixed... Though It can open a lot more of complexity to people who want/seek that out in the job system.

Most games with a multi job system realise that class/job design is just as important as encounter, when you only focus encounters you only got half of a system.

No matter what we want, Meta ALWAYS trickles down. This is just fundamental human nature to both figure out a meta and for everyone to adopt it. This will never change.

It's psychologically driven to want to play with what is deemed better and stronger, and it's amplified in multiplayer games. Certain players will go ”path of least resistance" by picking the best options, sure, but others often feel like a bad teammate if meta is ignored for whatever reason, and hard numbers can show you dragging

So, "no job left behind" is just the devs balancing it so that players can rely on personal taste and roleplay instead of meta because everything succeeds.

Machinist is really unpopular in most group content but is amazing in deep dungeon, so the devs have left it alone.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

No matter what we want, Meta ALWAYS trickles down. This is just fundamental human nature to both figure out a meta and for everyone to adopt it. This will never change.

It's psychologically driven to want to play with what is deemed better and stronger, and it's amplified in multiplayer games. Certain players will go ”path of least resistance" by picking the best options, sure, but others often feel like a bad teammate if meta is ignored for whatever reason, and hard numbers can show you dragging

So, "no job left behind" is just the devs balancing it so that players can rely on personal taste and roleplay instead of meta because everything succeeds.

Machinist is really unpopular in most group content but is amazing in deep dungeon, so the devs have left it alone.

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Except the jobs still aren’t balanced and there is still a meta, so I’ll repeat my question: what’s the point of lobotomizing jobs for a balance they can’t achieve?

And even if they could, what’s the point of achieving perfect balance if no job is fun to play as a result?

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Snip.

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I'm sorry but this is wrong, Meta doesn't always trickle down White Mage is a massive example of this, It's been outside the meta for so long (like HW long lol) despite that it remains the most popular healer, because it's got a very strong archetype and history with ff14. People will actually play what sort of job they like over meta a lot of the time. Monks been good a lot in recent years, even offering bonus utility, despite that people don't really like it as much as other jobs, likely because thematically punching things in a game with cool weapons isn't gonna appeal to a lot of people, I'd honestly say machinist is likely just unpopular because most people don't find it thematically appealing (and sure theirs some people who wont play it for meta).

Not to say theirs no meta influence but overstating meta influence to the point where we should avoid meaningful job differences because someone is going to cry that their favourite job isn't as good as another job isn't a acceptable way to handle game design, If people are going to follow meta why not let have people like me who don't just pick based on meta have fun with playing something unique and interesting instead of something that just feels like the same job with small visual differences.

My point being even if meta has some influence on lower end play theirs way more factors then just "meta" that controls this, ease of use, archetype, gameplay all have pretty solid influence on what people will play, restricting us to 5 different playstyles (tank, healer, ranged, melee, magic) isn't the solution to balance.

Balance requires things to actually have meaningful difference If people are only playing for visuals we might aswell make jobs different weapon animations, maybe even further just by giving everyone one button that does damage and all they have to focus on is the dance fight, then we will finally have a "balanced game" though in reality you've just created a very boring game. I rather take inbalance and uniqueness even to the point of "your job locked out of pf" if it means we have interesting jobs, because at least then we actually have a job system over nothing.

Lastly I can understand the "roleplay" perspective of it but if your a top 1% of player you should understand that sometimes you can't just roleplay as a warrior if your team needs a gunbreaker to reach world first, 99.9% of us will be able to "roleplay" as a warrior in a savage content and get to feel like onem, have unique skills that reflect that in a gameplay setting instead of "generic tank number 4", if you care about meta effecting that. It's still not a excuse to take down the entire job system and make the game worse.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

No matter what we want, Meta ALWAYS trickles down. This is just fundamental human nature to both figure out a meta and for everyone to adopt it. This will never change.

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Sure, but a good game designer can control that to a point by adjusting what is effective.

In this game, the mechanics "multiplicative damage calculation" and "buff stacking" paired with "high potency nuke skills" on classes caused this current meta of "sync cooldowns to achieve big dick deeps". The homogenisation of jobs could have been prevented if Square Enix had not taken feedback like "synching buffs feels bad" at face value, and instead examined how the aforementioned mechanics caused skills like Ninjas Trick Attack to become a black hole sucking in all the damage buffs, they possibly could have come to a different solution that is not "every class is now builder spender on the exact same timers".

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Except the jobs still aren’t balanced and there is still a meta, so I’ll repeat my question: what’s the point of lobotomizing jobs for a balance they can’t achieve?

And even if they could, what’s the point of achieving perfect balance if no job is fun to play as a result?

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The real question is why are you even playing this game?

The jobs have not been fun in years, other than maybe MNK or BLM in 6.x, which are now both gutted.

So literally why are you still playing?

That interview is so full of insane contradictions. In the same interview where he says that nothing much will change, he alludes to making changes that one could consider quite meaningful. On my youtube feed right now, there're videos from XIV content creators praising that interview for bringing new job changes to the game. Then I come here and to other places and people are highlighting the other parts where he says he won't change much at all. If I had a dime for every time I watched Yoshida go out in public and say something that left both sides of the fence coming away with different interpretations of what was said, I'd have like... 7 dimes. Which isn't a lot of dimes, but it's weird that it happens so much.

Frankly, I'm astounded any stock is put in this company's words at all after DT. These guys literally shilled the final cutscene in the MSQ as the hype trailer and gave everyone the false impression that this would be a fun vacation arc. They said the scions would have a schism and got people thinking there'd be a genuine ideological split, but of course that amounted to nothing as well. They implied, ages ago, that SMN's neutering process was to create a foundation for them to build on later, and people accepted that. Then DT came out and they got like, 1 new button lol. They promised a ton of content for DT and then backloaded it so hard that most of the people who bought DT with those promises in mind aren't even subbed anymore. If you're hanging onto this game because of future promises, and not because there's just something in the current game that you're enjoying instead, then you're gullible af that's all I have to say.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

If you're hanging onto this game because of future promises, and not because there's just something in the current game that you're enjoying instead, then you're gullible af that's all I have to say.

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There isn't even anything to enjoy in the current game LOL.

It's really just for ERP and RMT. And ERP was killed last month.

It's not that surprising, I was expecting changes to make the jobs more interesting, but there's only so much that can be done because of legacy content, specifically legacy ultimates. You also can't do a complete rework all at once, you need to do it gradually to gadge what the playerbase wants. I'd imagine many people would be thrilled if the job designed changes to be more like WOW, but I also know many players would complain about the changes as well. My opinion is to make gradual changes each expansion to improve job design while listening to player feedback.

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Originally Posted by bic12

The real question is why are you even playing this game?

The jobs have not been fun in years, other than maybe MNK or BLM in 6.x, which are now both gutted.

So literally why are you still playing?

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Funny you’re asking me that question. I haven’t touched DT at all. I haven’t even done the MSQ. I unlocked Viper, didn’t like it, did a frontline roulette twice, and quit on Day 2 because the job I want to play fails to live up to its job fantasy right now. I’m only here because I could log in for free. I logged in, then immediately logged out so I could add more feedback here.

Things that I like about free login period is they just bring back old vets to the forum to add their voice/grievance - they who probably still cared a smidge but doesn't want to throw money at SE anymore.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Things that I like about free login period is they just bring back old vets to the forum to add their voice/grievance - they who probably still cared a smidge but doesn't want to throw money at SE anymore.

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When you've been cut off by your family members who aren't happy with your self-destructive life style, but they still call you once in a while to see if you're okay, and if you're willing to start recovering.

I'm kind of curious what form things will take. Talent trees or specialization could be one path. But what if the content changed based on party makeup or something? The potential folly with specializations is that we had cross-class skills but they led to a lot of cookie-cutter builds. If we're all just the same because only some specs are worthwhile in the community's eyes, then would it really be worth it?

It's not unusual for jobs to get some retooling and redesign with expansions (AST and SMN have been changed so many times) so I was really expecting them to go over EVERY job with that type of idea and care to see if they can refresh everything.

There is also the possibility that 8.0 brings in a new layer of combat. Specialties or some sort of skill tree options have been suggestions for years, and they already have ground work for some side systems in that vein with Field Operations.

That won't fundamentally change the style of combat FFXIV is built for while still adding some desperately needed variety, I think.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

If we're all just the same because only some specs are worthwhile in the community's eyes, then would it really be worth it?

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You mean like it is now? lol... The game is overly homogenized rn. Either they overhaul the system or continue to lose subs.

I don't think there will be major changes, DT failed hard, SE is going to try and keep it safe, this means:

1. Story is going to be familiar something that people like, we already know that the ascians are back and with rumors that the next expansion will take place in Hingashi, they will try and appease the weebs.

2. Instead of 2 jobs, all roles will get a new job. So we will get 3 jobs.

3. They might make encounters easier to appease those that don't like the new faster reaction based boss fights.

I don't think they are going to overhaul 20+ classes and they are not going to add talents that make the jobs play differently. This is not realistic.

Let's not expect too much, you are only going to disappoint yourselves.

If I were to guess one change, it would be adjusting old jobs to the playstyle of VPR and PCT. As in changing the 1,2,3 combo into a single button combo on all jobs. That would free up already 2 buttons on the hotbar.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

When you've been cut off by your family members who aren't happy with your self-destructive life style, but they still call you once in a while to see if you're okay, and if you're willing to start recovering.

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It's because some people here think the whomever quit because of the game's issues, does so with a grudge wishing XIV would perish in a dumpster fire.

I did quit not long after DT launched. I'm here again after 7.3 just because of roleplaying, but I'd quit again if my group's RP activity dwindles once more... But I'm really rooting for XIV to get better in a way that I'd be interested even without the "player-made content" that is RP.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

It's not unusual for jobs to get some retooling and redesign with expansions (AST and SMN have been changed so many times) so I was really expecting them to go over EVERY job with that type of idea and care to see if they can refresh everything.

There is also the possibility that 8.0 brings in a new layer of combat. Specialties or some sort of skill tree options have been suggestions for years, and they already have ground work for some side systems in that vein with Field Operations.

That won't fundamentally change the style of combat FFXIV is built for while still adding some desperately needed variety, I think.

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We will see how that "skill tree, talents" age well in the future. It will most likely be forgotten or "9.0 i swear".

Why would anyone expect massive changes? "If you like how it is now, you will like 8.0" already says everything you need to know. No way 21 jobs get reworked. They manage 2 or 3 reworks during 1 expansion.

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

We will see how that "skill tree, talents" age well in the future. It will most likely be forgotten or "9.0 i swear".

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Probably. If they do anything like that, now would be a good time.

I think the suggestions that PVP ideas and hotbar layouts being applied to PVE is actually both a good idea and way more realistic. Controller players like me are way passed over encumbered and some jobs have been for a few expansions now.

I think the reason Reaper feels like the best job FFXIV’s made *to me* is because of how uniquely comfortable it is to play on cross-hotbar as well as just having a nice rotation. Newer jobs are easier to lay out because they literally have fewer buttons by simply having the upgrades overwrite old skills.

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Why would anyone expect massive changes? "If you like how it is now, you will like 8.0" already says everything you need to know. No way 21 jobs get reworked. They manage 2 or 3 reworks during 1 expansion.

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who actually likes how it is you mean actual 4% of community shouldnt matter

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Originally Posted by HanakoTheGoth

who actually likes how it is you mean actual 4% of community shouldnt matter

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I like how it is. Its not perfect but i can tell the difference when i play monk or viper or picto. They feel different to me. The samey feeling comes from the 2min meta, which wont go away. 6 years, 2 expansions to fit jobs into the 2min meta and now ppl expect them to revert that in 1 expansion? To revert that they would need 6 years again. Also the ppl complaining about how the game is are just a loud minority. In reality 75% are fine, 15% accept it and 10% hate it would probably be way more accurate. Job design is really not a problem i have with the game. For me its the 5 months waiting for content. If they could reduce that to 2.5 months somehow then that would be great

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

I like how it is. Its not perfect but i can tell the difference when i play monk or viper or picto. They feel different to me. The samey feeling comes from the 2min meta, which wont go away. 6 years, 2 expansions to fit jobs into the 2min meta and now ppl expect them to revert that in 1 expansion? To revert that they would need 6 years again. Also the ppl complaining about how the game is are just a loud minority. In reality 75% are fine, 15% accept it and 10% hate it would probably be way more accurate. Job design is really not a problem i have with the game. For me its the 5 months waiting for content. If they could reduce that to 2.5 months somehow then that would be great

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What if there was an alternative where you and I could both be happy with job design?

I am expecting no level cap change, only a new talent system. It's the only thing that makes sense from what they have been telling us.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What if there was an alternative where you and I could both be happy with job design?

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Tbat would be the ideal. I wish that could happen but i dont think that is possible. I had friends quit over job changes and i have friends come back because of them. The blm changes made a lot of old friends log on again. Ive seen it all. I started playing with 2.3. Especially HW job design was the worst. We have it really good right now tbh. In HW job exclusion happened in savage. If you werent playing bard or drg then some groups just kicked you. What i hope is that in 8.0 they manage to strike a balance that most of the players can live with. I'm not saying that everyone will be satisfied because that is impossible and the complaining was happening since forever anyway. That will never stop. But what i mean to say is that players will always quit because of job changes, no matter in which direction they go

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Tbat would be the ideal. I wish that could happen but i dont think that is possible. I had friends quit over job changes and i have friends come back because of them. The blm changes made a lot of old friends log on again. Ive seen it all. I started playing with 2.3. Especially HW job design was the worst. We have it really good right now tbh. In HW job exclusion happened in savage. If you werent playing bard or drg then some groups just kicked you. What i hope is that in 8.0 they manage to strike a balance that most of the players can live with. I'm not saying that everyone will be satisfied because that is impossible and the complaining was happening since forever anyway. That will never stop. But what i mean to say is that players will always quit because of job changes, no matter in which direction they go

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We don't have it really good right now given how much frustration stems from job design. It shouldn't be this extreme, and balance isn't perfect right now either despite how railroaded job design has gotten. There will always be some amount of job exclusion because the cause of that is not job imbalance, it's party leaders that haven't passed their critical thinking test. You can always find a party to do savage with as any job. You can do that now, and you could do that in HW too. If the criteria that makes HW have bad design is certain jobs were excluded by some players, then I guess DT is also just as bad. To my knowledge, certain role imbalances have been far more egregious than anything we saw in HW. But for the record, not many people are asking for HW back. If anything, the more common answer is SB, though realistically the answer is something new with a balance of depth and simplicity on par with SB.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

We don't have it really good right now given how much frustration stems from job design. It shouldn't be this extreme, and balance isn't perfect right now either despite how railroaded job design has gotten. There will always be some amount of job exclusion because the cause of that is not job imbalance, it's party leaders that haven't passed their critical thinking test. You can always find a party to do savage with as any job. You can do that now, and you could do that in HW too. If the criteria that makes HW have bad design is certain jobs were excluded by some players, then I guess DT is also just as bad. To my knowledge, certain role imbalances have been far more egregious than anything we saw in HW. But for the record, not many people are asking for HW back. If anything, the more common answer is SB, though realistically the answer is something new with a balance of depth and simplicity on par with SB.

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That sounds very reasonable and i would wish that to be possible. Lets say they manage to change things so you are happy and i am happy. There will be people that are then dissatisfied by the changes, either because not enough or too much was changed and then they complain or quit the game. No one wins like that. Its an endless cycle. People complained and screamed for changes in HW, SB, SHB, EW and DT. And the balance in terms of numbers is quite good right now, if at all it was terrible in HW and SB. Also in my opinion some degree of homogenization is just relevant in order to keep things balanced. For example you cant just give a tank a longer cooldown and higher mitigation in return. That would just make that tank undesirable. Im not sure what the devs will come up with but i think that the jobs will largely play like they do now. The 2min meta will stay. There will probably be more actions turning into new actions so they dont increase the button limit. Maybe we see more 30sec cds to make jobs feel more active, but in the end i think everything will be divisible by 120sec for alignments sake. Small changes that could add up in the end, but that is all speculation. However i wouldnt have high expectations.

i predict 2 min meta will stay. most classes wont change or they will be simplified more like blm. they will add separate actions like the phantom jobs with niche uses. or everyone will get some unique mini LB. this will be their HUGE update.

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Why would anyone expect massive changes? "If you like how it is now, you will like 8.0" already says everything you need to know. No way 21 jobs get reworked. They manage 2 or 3 reworks during 1 expansion.

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I don't expect massive changes because I know that they will never leave their comfort zone trying something different, that being said no changes in direction, class, progression AND content, will simply mean a slow downfall of this game. Why? Because the general community feeling is that this game isn't fun anymore, we got the same stale formula over and over again, 4 months and a half for a patch that gives you the same souless content which by design seems to be 20 years old at best. So why people don't just go to play other games? I guess they invested so much time in this game and after all they still care, or at the very least they hope that this game by nostalgia or whatever could still change for the better, even if they are inactive or play less and less, thay would like to return to play FFXIV more often. Memories and new friends met along the way still matters something, could be silly, but I understand why all these players still hope for some big change, because at some point they loved this game, but that love isn't the same anymore.

I'm not expecting any major changes. It's been over 12 years of the same comfortable pattern... It feels all-too-clear to me, it has felt all-too-clear to me, that the devs are very entrenched with the way they do things.

The momentum of such a development style accrued during those 12 years cannot be ignored.

Do not expect a massive shake-up, for it isn't coming.