Is it just me or is class design / balance severely lacking this expansion?

Tanks and Healers underwent a tremendous amount of homogenization, party utility is still very unbalanced, and some jobs... barely evolved.

Combat classes were barely touched in 5.2, and now upcoming combat changes are being withweld making the process of submitting feedback even more difficult.

BLU mage also hurts, we waited for the job to flesh out like Yoshi P initially insisted, and now I only hear of then being used in Amh Araeng.

I had so much more fun actually playing the game in StormBlood, despite it widely being viewed as the worst expansion.

Oh yeah, healers are absolutely boring to play right now.

"But, but but! If you play the hardest content while intentionally gimping yourself its fun!"

No, the jobs should be fun the whole time.

As a Healer main I almost wish they'd stop trying to 'balance' us at this point. There isn't a single dedicated class-oriented developer who mains healer and it shows in how the team attempts to 'balance' us. Hell, even AST's existence as a hybrid healer seems like something only a player who has never played healer a day in their life would think was a good idea from a balance standpoint.

There have been countless threads both here and on reddit on how the game should balance healers while maximizing each classes unique aspects - and time and time again the suggestions in those threads have been ignored. If they can't be bothered to hire someone who knows what they're doing and can't be bothered to listen to their community, then I'd rather they just stop pretending to balance us at all. It's not like their attempts have been an overall net positive - save for the WHM rework which is only good because the development team dragged SCH and AST down to make it work instead of the other way around.

Shadowbringers barely changed the way you play jobs(except maybe MCH) and overall I find them slow and unengaging. The only class I enjoy a whole lot now is Blue Mage. Which they intentionally lock them out of rather basic content and make you work to put a group together.

All I really see is them being happy with how boring or safe the jobs are and are just going to do the Potency adjustment teeter totter thing every other patch cycle. K.

Yeah, they did go a little overboard with the homogenization.

I have no issue with tanks and healers having the same basic kit required for their roles, but that basic kit should be a foundation to build upon, not a blueprint for the bulk of the rest of the jobs abilities too.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...49/977/aba.gif

SCH Day one 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Raiya

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...49/977/aba.gif

SCH Day one 5.0.

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Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

this expansion is a joke on job desing for many jobs, tanks have to much homogenization and WAR/DRK are basically clones, this expansion just killed DRK gameplay, healers are the worst as far as i know specially SCH and AST and we have MNK suffering from awful design choices as always and im pretty sure i miss something.

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Originally Posted by Raiya

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...49/977/aba.gif

SCH Day one 5.0.

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this is basically me with DRK too

I preferred DRK in HW. Fast fluid and very engaging. 2 xpac later and we pretty much became WAR with sword and gave most of our CDs to the other tanks. Only thing DRK brings is their damage shield IMO. If given the choice between WAR and DRK I'd pick WAR because as is it's less clunky.

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As for healers they made WHM good by virtue of making the other 2 classes suck in comparison.

I think 5.0 jobs are much more playable overall, but they lack any soul.
DRK - boring 123 spam.
GNB - club sfx for a blade user.
Healers - not really a healer myself but people complain for a reason.
MCH - heat mechanical summoner, no connection between lore and gameplay.
A bunch of other jobs also have issues but i would say small enough to wait for 6.0. People also complain about MNK but not a Monk myself so can't say anything.

That's the result for having too many jobs in the same game : as a game designer, it becomes a mess to balance.

Besides, the more jobs there are, the more homogenized they need to be, so no group composition is too much better than others.

Stop asking for new jobs at this point !

Healer here. My role as a whole has become boring and definitely pushing me away from the game. I'm still here for the other stuff the game has to offer, not the gameplay. Sadly

I came back a week ago and i'm really trying to find the reason to keep my sub on at this point. MCH is totally ruined and DRK feels like dark paladin without mechanics, bear in mind that im only 66 but 3.0 DRK had more mechanics at lvl 40. At this point Samurai feels less point and shoot friendly compared to those others. I dropped White Mage years ago for obvious reasons, miss those times you had to combat to keep mana up and hoping the boss dies before mana dies.

Now its a choice between ESO or going back to WoW Classic

They will never put RDM dmg almost same as BLM, its just, think ppl. Can't say what i feel about the changes, but overall really liking the classes so far.

People praise Shadowbringers as "best mmo expansion ever", but while the story has been fantastic, job design is a downright joke. Support roles got the shaft especially and devs seem to refuse to acknowledge it in a slightest.

I've been a die-hard tank for entire Stormblood, but I finally broke and will be raiding on dps this time. Reason being, the previous Eden tier felt like a painful slog to tank through, which I only endured for the sake of my static.
Both jobs themselves, as well as core role mechanics feel like a bare minimum and are hardly engaging. Mitigation has lost a lot of depth with pruning of cooldown variety and Tank Mastery coupled with bosses no longer being able to crit, made it feel less impactful to boot. What little there was left from aggro management is completely gone. To make things worse, Edengate bosses had very little in terms of tank-specific mechanics and positioning to take care of. The tanks are balanced, but they are far, far from being truly enjoyable to play.

WAR's lack of depth is literally a meme.
DRK rework is riddled with mechanics that basically solve themselves and the rest is copied from WAR.
GNB's "signature mechanic" is... that it has a second combo.

I do acknowledge the fact that there's people who are in fact fond of this new, "relaxed" form of tanking and I don't think these players should be ignored. However with 4 jobs in the role, there is ample space to create a decent difficulty curve to satisfy both new and more experienced tanks. Moreover, old tank/damage stance system already offered a very good way to provide a choice between easier, "training wheels" mode and a more demanding option with a damage reward for more experienced and it could've been expanded upon, rather than discarded.

SE is clearly pursuing accessibility in the tank role, but doing so at the cost of making it so shallow not only alienates veterans, but also removes anything meaningful to strive for even for newer players.

Healer won't be fun until the game is actually balanced around the idea of you HEALING and not dpsing during raid content. It's not unusual for healers to have spare time to dps once in awhile but the game shouldn't be balanced around them having nothing to heal and relying on their oGCDs primarily.

The only job I've found enjoyable this expansion is nin, drg and maybe smn to an extent...

What we have here is a lack of unique jobs in general, all have a "template" that can be used with some slight variation. Dancer is a lot like ninja with some light additional mechanics and oversimplified rotation for example.

Every tank is essentially the same job but with one additional mechanic or ability to make them at least somewhat unique with a differing form of invulnerability. Every job has their own and each one sucks more than Paladin. Paladin has a self heal, dark has an absorb spam, and gnb has an additional dmg reduction. Each has their own form of self-heal more or less and a form of dmg reduction unique to themselves. That's it.

A real diverse system would be tanks that offer unique tanking styles that perform better in certain situations. Tanks that are ability to mitigate spike dmg better, tanks that dodge better, etc. All jobs have been basically "distilled" down into their most basic forms possible. They'd originally tried copying WoW's ideas in drk war and pld but they ended up not being able to make them work in this game so they dumbed it down. that's all.

This system is the same for every job on the healer side too, they took shield healing but they never really made it scholar's primary healing method it's just a bonus to regular healing... if you choose to use the abilities that have shield over converting it into regular healing. Not that you would anyways because typically you just lustrate/etc

Hence... a shield healer isn't even really a shield healer.

We might all criticize homogenization but what's the alternative? Each job having their own unique flavor inevitably leads to some jobs being great (FOTM) and some jobs being bad (jobs that are basically not viable for progression content). This puts a lot of stress on developers who have to figure out a way to make all classes pretty much equal because everyone has their own playstyle.

The easiest way to do that is to essentially make them all the same.

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Originally Posted by Lium

We might all criticize homogenization but what's the alternative? Each job having their own unique flavor inevitably leads to some jobs being great (FOTM) and some jobs being bad (jobs that are basically not viable for progression content). This puts a lot of stress on developers who have to figure out a way to make all classes pretty much equal because everyone has their own playstyle.

The easiest way to do that is to essentially make them all the same.

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Yes, classes in a certain role need to be able to do the same thing, to a degree. Every healer needs to be able to heal, every tank needs to be able to tank, but when the classes are so similar that the only difference between a SCH and a WHM is asthetic, that's going way too far.

SMN/RDM/BLM all have the exact same role, yet they don't play similar to each other at all, I don't see why AST/SCH/WHM can't be treated similarly just because their icons are green.

As a MCH main, they've thematically finally got the job right, but metagame wise we are back in the gutter. I feel next expansion, they should either only add one job and focus on balancing others, or just straight focus on pure balancing other jobs next expansion.

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Originally Posted by Lium

We might all criticize homogenization but what's the alternative? Each job having their own unique flavor inevitably leads to some jobs being great (FOTM) and some jobs being bad (jobs that are basically not viable for progression content). This puts a lot of stress on developers who have to figure out a way to make all classes pretty much equal because everyone has their own playstyle.

The easiest way to do that is to essentially make them all the same.

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That's fine because it's kinda been FotE. Flavor of the Expansion. You can see that easily with White Mage.

It can also be reflected in past content where a PLD's Physical mitigation excelled in one fight while Magic mitigation from DRK excelled in another.

Have no movement then use BLM or a melee that loves standing still? Have movement take a class that can attack on the go and has no or very short cast times.

And once they make all the jobs function the same you'll just choose the one that brings the most benefit.

I'd prefer some being great and some being bad. Whether it's Job A is good at this and Job B is good at that or Job C can do the jobs of A and B but better but only if you play at a high skill level.

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Main problem I think many can agree on is that the classes are getting simpler and just aren't evolving in a engaging way. And as a result does not feel fun. And with each xpac you just go through the motions of leveling up a class to cap, get disinterested in it after 5 minutes and then level something else up and be unhappy about that. And then you take a break and hope things get better. Combat is going to get real shallow if every class Archetype has the same general kit and the only deviation is animations and if you do either burst or sustained DoT.

And it's getting worse if they are going to start hiding information about battle changes. There was no reason to exclude changes from the Preliminary notes. It lacks transparency. If it's not the changes the playerbase is hoping for they should grin and bear it. Not send a message that they clearly aren't addressing player concerns. Which especially on the Healer end is more then warranted.

I don't play Healer role but it's very disconcerting I took a break for 3-5 months and found they've done nothing to address that. And the same general Tank complaints are still around too. Yeah damage numbers are more balanced at ever but at what cost? Job lore and identity.

Story is great but the combat is a mess.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

Yes, classes in a certain role need to be able to do the same thing, to a degree. Every healer needs to be able to heal, every tank needs to be able to tank, but when the classes are so similar that the only difference between a SCH and a WHM is asthetic, that's going way too far.

SMN/RDM/BLM all have the exact same role, yet they don't play similar to each other at all, I don't see why AST/SCH/WHM can't be treated similarly just because their icons are green.

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And have you seen the complaints from RDMs? That's actually my main, but I don't think we should have the same level of damage as BLM or SMN. However, many do it seems. And that just proves my point.

I have horror stories of playing WoW from vanilla all the way through MOP when classes were so incredibly broken and unbalanced. After MOP, all classes started to basically be the same because of it. But holy crap, warlocks were one-person raids. Resto druids trivialized content because of how OP their healing was and they NEVER died in PvP. Ever. Even with five or six players attacking them.

So, yes I'm biased because of the absolutely horrible experiences I had playing terribly designed classes in other games back in the day.

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Originally Posted by Lium

And have you seen the complaints from RDMs? That's actually my main, but I don't think we should have the same level of damage as BLM or SMN. However, many do it seems. And that just proves my point.

I have horror stories of playing WoW from vanilla all the way through MOP when classes were so incredibly broken and unbalanced. After MOP, all classes started to basically be the same because of it. But holy crap, warlocks were one-person raids. Resto druids trivialized content because of how OP their healing was and they NEVER died in PvP. Ever. Even with five or six players attacking them.

So, yes I'm biased because of the absolutely horrible experiences I had playing terribly designed classes in other games back in the day.

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I've seen the complaints of RDMs and, I feel for them, but I WISH my issues with my class were the numbers it could pull. Potencies are easy to adjust, and at the end of the day, SMN and BLM aren't so far ahead that you're at a disgusting disadvantage just for having a RDM.

this is what happens when you have a game design around the Holy Trinity and every job, while instead of feeling really truly unique, they need to perform the same and be the same like everybody else so people won't complain about balance. when you take the uniqueness of a job that made it truly special, you end up with carbon copies.

this a problem I have with XIV, I don't have faith in them to make a truly different healer than the 3 other healers who perform the same with just different flavors.


to be honest , I'm just waiting for FFXI R2 to be announced, atleast the jobs there do feel very different from each other, but I would rather have unbalanced jobs that carbon copies like on XIV

Storywise (post-ARR), I think Stormblood is the weakest expansion and class-change wise, it wasn't good (it used to be the worst).
But class/mech wise, Shadowbringers is by far the worst expansion to date. The story is amazing (in my opinion), but everything else is the worst we've ever seen I think.

Jobs became really borring to play with little to no thought of input.
DRK was butchered for me. It became a totally brain dead job with no style.
SCH is unrecognisable.
AST again became boring.
Thank the Twelve that at least DRG remained the same.
They keep grounding the jobs trimming skills and stupifing them in the name of casualty and "ease of use".
Most jobs became brain dead.

Yea it is just you.

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Originally Posted by Riardon

Jobs became really borring to play with little to no thought of input.
DRK was butchered for me. It became a totally brain dead job with no style.
SCH is unrecognisable.
AST again became boring.
Thank the Twelve that at least DRG remained the same.
They keep grounding the jobs trimming skills and stupifing them in the name of casualty and "ease of use".
Most jobs became brain dead.

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agreed, I used to love AST, now i won't even touch it, WHM is much better with better MP management. but even WHM is boring

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Yea it is just you.

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This made me laugh really loud for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Lium

We might all criticize homogenization but what's the alternative? Each job having their own unique flavor inevitably leads to some jobs being great (FOTM) and some jobs being bad (jobs that are basically not viable for progression content). This puts a lot of stress on developers who have to figure out a way to make all classes pretty much equal because everyone has their own playstyle.

The easiest way to do that is to essentially make them all the same.

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What is the point of having 17 jobs and adding more on top of that, if they're all going to play the same? XIV has a varied population of players and this population needs diverse play-style options to satisfy its needs. If you limit the choices to just roles - and on top of that make those roles as shallow and unengaging as tanking and healing are currently - people who don't find the specific niche you've settled on fun will eventually leave.

The thing is that FFXIV has overall been pretty damn good in terms of balance - not just now. Rarely is a job literally not viable to clear content and I don't think any job has ever been actually mandatory due to its unique abilities. The imbalance in this game mainly boils down to just rDPS, which can be adjusted easily with mere numerical tweaks, rather than game-play changes.
This shows there is no real need for homogenization in order to achieve balance. A job is wildly below what is accepted as decent rDPS? Just throw more potency at it until it gets there, you don't need to change how it does its damage.

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Originally Posted by Lium

And have you seen the complaints from RDMs? That's actually my main, but I don't think we should have the same level of damage as BLM or SMN. However, many do it seems. And that just proves my point.

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The way numbers are balanced right now RDM is far far behind BLM/SMN. You have to play the class perfectly, and that's only to do enough to not feel like a burden. The stricter the DPS checks of the fight the less valuable RDM becomes. This is true always. Veraise becomes worthless when it doesn't really give you any leverage. Then you are just left with a caster that does bad damage by default.

The checks and class balancing wasn't this bad in stormblood, which is why RDM was always in a decent spot back then. The circumstances are different now, and that's all I implore you to consider.

Healers being kind of boring are really the only thing that I have a complaint about. They all still heal fine obviously.

Tanks are more homogenized too, but aside from DRK's Delirium/BS being somewhat of an IR/FC clone, I still enjoy all of them.

I also don't care one iota about the meta though, so I have fewer metrics that I focus on in regards to my satisfaction with classes.

Any improvements with 5.4?

BRD, DRG and RDM got some slight potency increases (10) on their main spammables, SCH got dps shifted from ED to the spammable and DoTs and MNK reworked. Can't speak about MNK but the other fixes are weak and won't probably raise the dps of the three classes that much.

I'll say it. It's time for Yoshi P to step aside. As much as we all love him he is afraid to have anything different in the game. The meme that he's scared of the word "change" isn't even a meme, it's reality. The game is becoming increasingly stagnant under him and we'll never see classes start to flesh out their own identity (Like HW AST) if he stays in charge.

It seems MNK may have gotten some much needed attention finally. I don't play anymore and unfortunately I am stuck working lol