Don't Get Out Classed!

This is more of an inquiry/concern that I'd like to hear from the FFXIV team answer.

In FF XI there were over 20 jobs to play, and while the variety was amazing, it wasn't a great appeal for many end game content. In past experiences, of all the 20+ jobs, only 5~8 jobs were accepted to hard core/end game raids. These jobs were the most proficient and any other job was highly frowned upon or not accepted.

In FFXIV there isn't an abundance of jobs just yet, but I am cautious as to how adding more jobs will affect the old. I am curious to see how the devs will balance out all jobs, so that end game/hardcore groups will refuse to take X and Y job, because A and B job's kit are much more proficient in that role. This can range from the numbers a job can put out, to the cross class abilities as well as its over all kit. If certain jobs fall out of favor, many players may reluctantly have to reroll just to stay relevant in the current meta.

We are kind of seeing this with DRG right now, and the response from SE has been to announce a buff to DRG, keeping them relevant (hopefully).

NIN was a solid addition to the game, I think most people will agree. But even if they do have some jobs just completely fall off the way-side, this game would be awesome to have to reroll, since gear is reset every 3 months pretty much (new iLVLs are given in .0, .2, .4, while super easy ways to get that gear is introduced in .1, .3, .5). Its super quick to catch up in gear to a reasonable degree in this game.

Bear in mind that while there were only 5~8 jobs accepted endgame, WHICH of those 20+ jobs were among the 5~8 has varied wildly over time as SE added encounters that favored certain jobs, made tweaks to existing jobs, and so on.

There was a time when WARs were the most highly favored DD. Now you hardly see them at all. NIN was once the most favored tank. Nowadays, people won't even use NIN as a subjob. Even mainstays like WHM had their time out of the limelight, when RDMs were favored for their longevity. While it's true that there's a handful of jobs that never really had a chance as serious endgame raiding jobs (BLU, DNC, BST, PUP), they kinda made up for it by being superb solo jobs.

As Ehayte says, even with the small selection of jobs we have now, favoritism is still happening. It's pretty much inevitable. Better to have a wide range of classes, then - variety is the spice of life!

imo it can easily be prevented : stop doing only 8 person hardmode content. start doing 24 person hardmode content and problem is gone. like most mmos do it. otherwise some classes will just never see some bosses in the future. you can already except to see nothing but dark knights on the tank spot once the xpac hits. tough if darkknight stays there compared to pal and war depends on how OP they will be compared to those 2 in the end. imo its better to have a spot for every class on a endgame raid. and while this wont work for primals maybe itll work since coil is now finished there is no reason to not start releasing future coil like dungeons on 24 person format. would also open up the raiding world for more players which is always good.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

As Ehayte says, even with the small selection of jobs we have now, favoritism is still happening. It's pretty much inevitable. Better to have a wide range of classes, then - variety is the spice of life!

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Those spices will be left sitting on the shelf collecting dust if they do not contribute in any way shape or form to the current meta of the game. That is how many jobs were in XI. So you had a lot of work spent on jobs that a vast majority never played, to be for naught.

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Originally Posted by Windklinge

imo it can easily be prevented : stop doing only 8 person hardmode content. start doing 24 person hardmode content and problem is gone.

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That wasn't the case in XI when they had 3 party alliances :p

And you can only run CT/ST so much before that one and only single instance gets boring, as oppose to the multitude of 8 man content that is XIV

dont take CT ST as any example of a good 24 person raid plz. its one of the most easiest 24 man i have EVER seen on any mmo. what i rather mean is a coil difficulty like 24 person instance. room for 3 tanks and all dps classes. also xpac makes this totally an option with gear and lvl beeing reset again.

One way to address this is some degree of homogenization. WoW is pretty saturated with the different types of class and specialization; 11 classes each with no less than 3 specs (4 for druids) with different roles and playstyle, leaving up to 34 different possible specs. If one provided unique buffs, debuffs or utility over or the other, there would be stagnation and ostracization of one of the classes (which was pretty bad in TBC and especially classic for raiding content).

They tried to remedy this a bit by homogenizing some of the utility that could be provided by one of the class:spec combos; All mages regardless of their spec could buff spell power and crit, all rogues as well as enhancement shamans buffed attack speed, elemental shamans and balance druids buffed spell speed, as well as warlocks buffed spell speed, the list goes on. Being able to do all of that without sacrificing the integrity and uniqueness of each class:spec combo is a pretty damn good feat, though it's still one of the big dividers on the playerbase that want to be the special snowflake or go back to the days of olde (vanilla WoW)

In the perspective of FFXIV, we do this to an extent with the cross class abilties (DRG, MNK and BRD also have mantra), but it's undertuned to a variety of levels due to passives (granite skin, mantra). And this hits DRG pretty badly because they themselves really have no utility other than disembowel (which is still less effective on bards because of DoTs), and IMHO doesn't really offset the fact that they're a liability to dying to unavoidable damage and have a really varied damage spectrum because of bosses spinning around.

I don't know why people make a huge deal about this stuff. It's not like it's impossible to clear content with certain jobs. It might make it a bit more difficult, but all I hear from the endgame community is stuff like "oh we need more challenging content". Yet they keep trying to min/max the best combinations and ditch things that aren't optimal just so it's a bit easier for them?

I feel people can play what they want to play regardless of how "frowned upon" something is. That is super silly.

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Originally Posted by Syrus_Draco

That wasn't the case in XI when they had 3 party alliances :p

And you can only run CT/ST so much before that one and only single instance gets boring, as oppose to the multitude of 8 man content that is XIV

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They have stated that they have plans for more/harder (not coil hard) alliance content in expansion. How it would be implemented from Heavensward out I cannot say but I believe the kid gloves are gonna start to come off with 3.0 (maybe?)

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Originally Posted by Syrus_Draco

Those spices will be left sitting on the shelf collecting dust if they do not contribute in any way shape or form to the current meta of the game. That is how many jobs were in XI. So you had a lot of work spent on jobs that a vast majority never played, to be for naught.

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the job balance in FFXIV isnt that bad. the DPS jobs arent far apart from each other, infact they are pritty close together. So I dont see a current BIG Problem (only DRG survivability atm). The Discrepancy in XI between DDs was much bigger, depending on the era of time, however XI is alot harder to balance then FFXIV, because it lets you choose between alot more options in terms of: Subjob, Gearswaps/Gear, Buffs, Weapon! (Relic mythic Empy or somethign totally different). Atm XI very unbalanced regarding the discrepancy between the DD jobs (nukers included).
atm its somethign like:
SAM
.
.
.
.
.
MNK
WAR
DRK
.
NIN
DRG
BLU
DNC
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Nukers.

This game is easy to balance because the jobs and gear are horribly simplistic with virtually 0 room for customization. As long as they stick to this model all they have to do is adjust potency of dps abilities slightly now and then to keep them in the same range. Same with healers and similarly adjust mitigation %s to keep tanks equal.

Instead of complex gear/stats and unique jobs (like Xi for example), we get simple cookie cutter jobs and gear and the complexity is bound to the encounter. Every fight in this game is wildly different but the classes and gear don't change instead of the other way around. It works, but I still miss the element of player controlled complexity. Charactor development now is nothing more than get higher ilvl gear. The upside is it makes balance much easier to maintain because players don't have the freedom to create unorthodox gameplay. As long as they stick to the Holy trinity and simple jobs and simpler gear balance will be easy, for better or worse.

The answer to this question, in my mind, really depends on how the devs want to integrate new jobs into the pool we already have. With Ninja, I really think they want this job to contribute things that Monks and Dragoons cannot. In turn, I want to see the devs give Monks and Dragoons abilities that will allow them to stand out in their way (a Suiton-type ability that will allow them to execute combos regardless of position angle might be the way to go).

As to XI, I concur that 5~8 out of 22 jobs was simply unacceptable. However, I cannot fault Teams Tanaka or Matsui entirely for that. That playerbase has been so obsessed with efficiency that it was near impossible to make a job over without nigh on overpowering it to get people to accept the job. I sincerely hope Team Yoshi continues to consider this as Dark Knight, Gunner, and other jobs make their way onto the Eorzean stage.

The issue with FFXI was that the cross class system made certain jobs irrelevant. The jobs here are more unique in that they all bring something different and they tend to compliment at least one other job in the party. AS long as SE keeps that synergy there will always be room for every job they release. The biggest challenge is balancing all the jobs so they don't feel the same and underpowered or overpowered.