Class Trees

I feel with more expansions that come out the need for class trees becomes more effective in giving the jobs a choice for the player. As well as give the player an identity to the Job.

I know it's not good give choice when end game meta is more strict on what you can bring into a raid.

But if every single job had two trees to choose from that would give buffs based on a play style you like then why not. Just keep them even as far as potency goes.

This would give options for MT tank Off tank DPS.
DPS stances would have meaning and give a tree for each stance. i.e. monk wind, fire. Or for Bard: Songs or DPS.
Healers i.e. astro would have shields or Heal over time.

This would really require knowing the fight you are going into and specing for what the raid is requiring.

Example: Don't have quite the MT level of stats/gear necessary for the raid? Well we will have you OT, and spec in raid defense buffs tree. This helps compliment the raid more without excluding. You become necessary based on the content.

This makes the content/raid much more intense if you have a DPS check (DPS uses more support/buffs to get past phases), a Raid Wide AOE check (use more defense buffs to survive better), an Enrage check (Raw damage increase from DPS/Healers/Tanks from respective trees) and then finally an enrage/hybrid check (RAW damage from everyone while also preventing high damage from boss i.e. Combo of DPS buffs/ Defense Buffs to get past phase)

I really like the idea of a raid not being face roll easy and just avoiding AOE. Make it requiring everyone in the raid doing there part to not only DPS like crazy, but help keep the raid alive by supporting the healers.


Just allow the classes to lean into something a little bit more then the other that can help compliment the content.

I don't know I think it would be interesting if this was something SE experimented with. Or it would be more complex then I think. Who knows?

The issue with class/talent trees is that in the end, the choice they give you is... Meaningless. As an example like WoW or other games with talent trees, there will always be an option that is regarded as "the best" by players, and will be the only one used because its benefits are simply too good. All of the rest will be disregarded as bad or useless (which let's be honest is the case with 75% of anything in a talent tree anyway). In swtor, there was also a multi-spec system, with each class having three spec possible. One "sustained" dps, the other "burst" dps, and the last being either tank, heal or another dps spec. For each and every class there was, you would be certain that one spec was always the one nobody used because it was simply horrible. Or worst case, one spec was used because it was either too strong or the least bad of the three available.

The only thing we have here looking like talent trees is the fact that you can play whatever job you want on the same character. If you want more support-based tanking then you play Paladin. If you want a more shield-based healer you play scholar. If you like being the ranged with many buffs you play dancer or bard.

And I don't know if you've actually played ultimates or even savage raiding but on some fights, if your whole group isn't helping your healers or tanks then you'll end up having a really bad time. E4S at the time was really rough on some healer checks (tumults at the end of the fights were really challenging to heal through) and you would definitely notice a difference if you had a Paladin throwing a Divine Veil or a Monk using Mantra in the lot. The same goes for ultimate, and is actually used by some groups who do stuff like "one healer clear runs" on Alexander. You take a bard because it's stupid strong with double dot, and it can cleanse himself as well, allowing for a much easier time for the healer.

Multi-spec or talent trees aren't the way to go for each class. They give devs an extra work charge to balance it, and since they never end up balanced anyway, the choice they seem to give is almost never a real choice, as there will always be a better combinations above all the others. :p

That's my two cents on the subject ! :D

I like your ideas, however like with everything else the community will figure out what pushes the most dps and anyone who does something other will be alienated. From your MT/OT perspective will the OT class get damage buffs over what an MT spec can pull? If that’s the case we go right back to the issues we had in SB and HW where you spend as little time in a tank stance as possible. How would tank swaps be handled if the OT wasn’t spec’d defensively to be able to handle the tank busters. It adds a lot more variables to a system that’s pretty static in the name of adding flavor or complexity, which in itself isn’t a bad thing. It just doesn’t work well in our current endgame environment.

In terms of say.. AST as you brought up. You could spec into regens or shields. Can you change this on the fly? Regens will stack but shields don’t causing compatibility issues if you get noct ast/sch or double noct sch in a roulette.

As a whole the meta of nin/drg/brd was broken up (buff nerfs, removal of piercing debuff, ast rdps lowered etc) in an attempt to curb any kind of required classes to bring for a raid. Adding in a mix of extra support/buffs could break this again because with our current environment dps is king. There’s no meaningful way the game tests tanks or healers outside of tankbusters and raidwides so we’re left with pushing as much dps as we can to push phases and clear faster.

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Originally Posted by Eclipse12187

There’s no meaningful way the game tests tanks or healers outside of tankbusters and raidwides so we’re left with pushing as much dps as we can to push phases and clear faster.

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I think that this is what really brought up the thought about trees. I keep finding myself going through the motions in raids. There isn't any intensity with the difficulty. I have played a lot of MMO's and FFXIV usually sacrifices difficulty for inclusion. Now that's not a bad thing by any means in fact some MMO's could really learn something from FFXIV. But I fear it will just become a cycle that feels shallow. DPS,DPS,DPS without any real intensity. Trees was just a thought to change the endgame dynamics for more thought going into a raid.

Indulge me.
I keep coming back to raid mechanics that really test the players.
For example: Raid boss uses uninterruptible FAST cast on MT causing multiple debuffs, but CAN be cured with ESUNA *all healers use Esuna to remove*, then a raidwide AOE following the multiple debuff that the healers have to heal everyone through. What do the healers do? Cure the Debuff and save MT and lost the raid or Heal raid and lose the MT? You need both healers healing to keep up with the damage, but you need both casting Esuna to cure the debuff! By creating these real choices you can generate a real need for another way we can get through this moment if someone else is healing, or also help debuff, while one healer just heals.

Now, the OT gets an ESUNA type spell/skill from the OT tree. They would use this to debuff the main tank while 1 healer helps with their ESUNA spell that all healers get. Then the 2nd healer starts casting AOE healing to get ready for the impending AOE. The MT has a skill from their tree that improves divine veil, shake it off, etc; to help with the first impacts of the AOE to a greater degree. And for ease I'll pick on Monk for our DPS: Mantra is in one tree and Brotherhood in another. Mantra is improved from the tree where the raid healing is improved, but also every heal shares the critical value of the monk. OR Brotherhood increases damage by 5% and shares the GL buff for 6 seconds to everyone this works for skills and spells! CHOOSE!

That's compelling to me and get's me excited because if we pull it off oh man!! Everyone working in conjunction to get through content by using the skills necessary WHILE DPSING to push through phases!

I think that is where trees can really excel, by diverting the needs of the content by allowing another to fulfill that need. Something SE tried to do with cross role abilities.

Am I the only one that thinks this would be a bad ass raid where each class is literally pulling there weight and taking the holy trinity tank/heal/dps idea even futher?

I suggested in other battle systems that all expansion jobs be tied to a class to facilitate basically what you’re talking about, as well as several other factors that would simplify the game. For instance I could be a pugilist for the sake of a leveling vessel that becomes Monk or Dancer based on what’s better for the Raid. But I got a lot of flak for the suggestion, so it’s whatever. Specialization is definitely something that needs to be considered and it will likely continue to be a bigger topic of discussion.

Speaking of healing status effects, why not also have mechanics that call for their application.

Status effects are such a big part of Blue Mage that make the job more interesting. Like if raid mechanics called for a boss to be Slept or Frozen while dealing with waves of spawning adds. Or maybe if a boss had to be paralyzed to help deal with a long cast that otherwise wouldn’t be interrupted. it would assuredly make for more interesting gameplay. Instead they gutted even the Blinds from the tanks while Healers have the ever useless repose.

Balancing new trees is not a good or effectivr use of developer assets. It also just doesnt really belong in ffxiv. Adding it now would feel very weird and contrary, and historically speaking trees in mmos just cause problems for players and devs alike because of how meta makes the community interact to outliers.

I would much rather just see a new class

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I suggested in other battle systems that all expansion jobs be tied to a class to facilitate basically what you’re talking about, as well as several other factors that would simplify the game. For instance I could be a pugilist for the sake of a leveling vessel that becomes Monk or Dancer based on what’s better for the Raid. But I got a lot of flak for the suggestion, so it’s whatever. Specialization is definitely something that needs to be considered and it will likely continue to be a bigger topic of discussion.

Speaking of healing status effects, why not also have mechanics that call for their application.

Status effects are such a big part of Blue Mage that make the job more interesting. Like if raid mechanics called for a boss to be Slept or Frozen while dealing with waves of spawning adds. Or maybe if a boss had to be paralyzed to help deal with a long cast that otherwise wouldn’t be interrupted. it would assuredly make for more interesting gameplay. Instead they gutted even the Blinds from the tanks while Healers have the ever useless repose.

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Man I love this even more then my thoughts. I like to see the raids become more complex then just DPS fest. Make it interesting. I like the thoughts here!

DPS wise:
Not a good idea.
Simply because there will be a "better combo". And if you want to make choices that impact your DPS depending on the fight (For example reducing X cooldown by Y seconds which would be helpfull in some cases), people would be tired to switch everytime their "BiS Talent".

Utility wise:
We had something that involve making a choice for role skills. They ended up making everything available because too much was needed for healers and everyone choose the same utility for DPS/Tank.

Status effect in battle already exist and that's called Silence/Stun. It's used in E8S and every job has to use their utility, unless you're healer(non-whm)/caster. Snare was also used in Coil (I think never played this content) but damaging the target would remove snare, Sleep suffers the same problem and Paralysis is a stun RNG based.

Also I was curious when you said raids were DPS fest so I allowed myself to check a bit what kind of content you use to play... And looking at your achievements/mounts, I don't think you play Extreme/Savage content? Mechanics are in these difficulty, every other content is a DPS fest you can barely fail/complete with only tanks/healers.

However, this kind of content could work somewhere else than raids. For exemple Eureka-like content. Logos are a kind of a choice.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

DPS wise:
Not a good idea.
Simply because there will be a "better combo". And if you want to make choices that impact your DPS depending on the fight (For example reducing X cooldown by Y seconds which would be helpfull in some cases), people would be tired to switch everytime their "BiS Talent".


Utility wise:
We had something that involve making a choice for role skills. They ended up making everything available because too much was needed for healers and everyone choose the same utility for DPS/Tank.

Status effect in battle already exist and that's called Silence/Stun. It's used in E8S and every job has to use their utility, unless you're healer(non-whm)/caster. Snare was also used in Coil (I think never played this content) but damaging the target would remove snare, Sleep suffers the same problem and Paralysis is a stun RNG based.

Also I was curious when you said raids were DPS fest so I allowed myself to check a bit what kind of content you use to play... And looking at your achievements/mounts, I don't think you play Extreme/Savage content? Mechanics are in these difficulty, every other content is a DPS fest you can barely fail/complete with only tanks/healers.

However, this kind of content could work somewhere else than raids. For exemple Eureka-like content. Logos are a kind of a choice.

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I think the point is for there to be a better combo. Part of the biggest complaints about jobs right now is about how homogenized they’re becoming.

What if. And entertain the thought for me on this- what if it was better to bring a Dancer over a Monk for some fights, intentionally. What if in certain situations it’s better to have a Monk than a Dancer. This becomes infinitely more reasonable if jobs were actual specializations that you could freely swap, rather than just jobs as the singular option you have.

Metas will always form, regardless. Like, I feel like certain jobs should intentionally compliment others. They de-complimented jobs in the same breath as adding Dancer to the game and taking away Bards utility. On what planet should a Bard and Dancer not be complimentary? Clearly Hydaelyn.

Admittedly I don’t usually do savage raids until they’re a little older, but introducing more complex mechanics and dehomogenizing jobs could go a long way towards more satisfying interactions.

Stun and Silence don’t really count for status effects. They are at best interruptions. I’m talking about things like sleeping a raid boss during a phase when they’d put out unavoidable raid damage while adds spawn. You have 30 seconds from the time of sleep to clear the adds or they will continue to pound you with raid damage, and you cannot touch the boss or it will wake up.

Now that adds a whole new layer of challenge.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I think the point is for there to be a better combo. Part of the biggest complaints about jobs right now is about how homogenized they’re becoming.

What if. And entertain the thought for me on this- what if it was better to bring a Dancer over a Monk for some fights, intentionally. What if in certain situations it’s better to have a Monk than a Dancer. This becomes infinitely more reasonable if jobs were actual specializations that you could freely swap, rather than just jobs as the singular option you have.

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How can i put this softly, this seems very stupid. Why do you want to put more weight on a dev team that is already full with issues with the current balance of the game, adding this kind of diversity will not end up being a solution but will bring more issues. Now what if, and entetain the thought for me on this- what if i dont want to play dancer? but because this theoretical fight makes it geared towards bringin a dancer instead, no one would take a MNK, so just by doing this, implementing this incredible asinine idea, you just killed a possible composition and you blocked Monks from playing this theoretical fight. So now instead of just balancing How dps do the dps-ing, now you have to balnce how the fights play out with each posible combination and how to make the fights better for some jobs better than others, and then you would have to make a new raid just to fit the ones left out. It seems an awful lot of work to just implement an idea that is 100% pointless, having options is always an ilussion because the goal of this game fights is to deal as much dmg as fast as you can, there is no other goal. If there were other goal then this would be a different conversation, and even then it would be heavely prefered whatever it is that can reach the goal faster, be it dps or doing CC or etc.

Allow me to tell you a fantastic phrase "Given the opportunity players will optimize the fun out of a video game" This is why grinding exist in video games, this is why BnB exists in fighting games and so on, so you just want the ilusion of choice, so you can pretent you can pick up what you want, but in reality you will pick what is better for the goal and as i said before the goal in this game is dealing dmg. Finally, having classes that complement each other is a stupid idea becuase it fosters certain composition over others (and not even the meta world) that is a stupid notion when you have things like NIN being overwermely positive to any party composition, the same as DRG on the support side or are you forgetting what a BRD and DRG comp used to be in HW, amongst others? The only two jobs that are niche composition are RDM and MNK, and MNK even more so than RDM by a kilometer and a half, in fact allow me to tell you this the only class that has never had any synergy with any class (blunt debuff) is MNK. Overall bad idea because it doesnt seem that they are changing the goal of the fights, ohh and just an FYI there were other goals parallel to dmg in the previous raids and people did not like them, ADS on the first turn of bahamut, anyone?

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Originally Posted by reyre

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Oh nooo not the poor devs doing what they’re paid to do!

Did you ever stop to think that the issue is trying to force a square peg into a round hole? Why not just let fights be fights and let people figure out what’s optimal? Like if you’re a Pugilist, being a Dancer or Monk at different times would be part and parcel of playing the class. And if you had both available for being tied to one class, very little people would complain about it because playing a lot of different jobs is the selling point of a job based final fantasy title. But they marketed the whole job system to you as a stand alone job as is instead of a job as a specialization, so you will always fail to see it as anything beyond that.

This may be an mmo, but in many of the final fantasy titles, there are optimal job/team strategies to beat certain bosses. That doesn’t mean a boss can’t be beaten with alternative strategies, but using an optimal strategy shouldn’t be somehow frowned upon, it should be complimented. Hardcore fights should require optimal strategies. Hardcore players will use what ever means necessary. For normal fights, you could do what ever you want. It’s also not complicated to design when in a fight something is more optimal. Boss hits back line a lot? Bring more Melee. Boss hits front line a lot? Bring more Ranged. Need a DPS check? Bring heavy hitters. Need better support because of status effects or guaranteed death? Bring utility. Trying to make it so every job can do all of these things manageably, or don’t deal with these things at all, makes them stale.

Honestly I think that trying to forcibly balance 20 jobs into complete equality of homogenization is the issue. Equality of that nature prevents uniqueness and achievement. And that’s really what sucks the fun out of this game.

You know what’s fun about League of Legends that keeps me coming back year after year? Every champion is unique. While they have their different times to shine, it’s always satisfying to play what’s meta and kick ass. Sure, the champion I like most might not be flavor of the month, but that doesn’t mean I can’t play it causally. But when I know I’m going for rank, I will play what’s meta and that should be encouraged.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

not the poor devs doing what they’re paid to do!

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You cant be this naive or stupid. The job of any developer is not to cater to the player base, is the develop somenthing that takes into consideration plenty of factors not just players, so no they are literally not to be paid to do what you are saying the should and you kind of missed the point there, as in they are struggling with the current version of the battle system why then should they try and redo the entire thing when for the most part is well recived? You are ignoring the idea that devs would not make their job harder just to accomodate somenthing they dont want to do and will take more resources than its worth. So once more they are not paid to do dumb work, like you suggest.

As for the rest of your comment, its very contradictory, for starters if you have more fun playing other games with more appealing systems than this one, why are you not playing those games? Instead you are trying to make this game more like the others or that is what it seems. But i digress back to the rest of your comment is still very stupid, this game is not made towards optimal startegies so your whole argument enters in contradiction with your previous comment of having flexibility, you can have one or the other. if you are flexible you cant have heavely optimal strategies, if you are going for hardcore you cant have that much flexibility. This enters the "devs dont like to apply resources in a dumb fashion" notion, because they have limited time and resources to do so, in fact most games fail beacause of what you are mocking, for example see "What happun?" in youtube by matt Mcmuscles for plenty of stories and comentary about it.

And you are talking about YOUR ideal version of this game, wheras i am talking about what this game is. This game is, for better or worse, able to accomodate every palyer and in any kind of content so you can clear savage and ultimates with every class no limits, what you are saying would go against this, i dont think this is the direction they want to go. You are also ignoring the fact that in someway what you wanted in the game was implented at some point and players did not like it, thus they remove it or are against it for example SMN and SCH which follow very closely what you want and people want them separated. It seems to me that you are ignoring some ingame examples.

You are assuming people would not complain based on nothing but hearsay, that is not a proper argument nor can it be used to prove any of your points. Using your own broken argument: why not let this game be this game and let people figure out what is optimal? Somehow that seems almost ironically fitting doenst it? I could prove your point wrong using contradiction or induction or even abduction at that but i doubt that you would even believe that, so lets just leave it at that.

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Originally Posted by reyre

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I don’t call you stupid. Why do you call me stupid? Like that right there makes me give zero care about what you have to say. Like. Learn how to have some basic respect before constructing your rebuttal.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I don’t call you stupid. Why do you call me stupid? Like that right there makes me give zero care about what you have to say. Like. Learn how to have some basic respect before constructing your rebuttal.

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Hmm so you dont read or just read what you want. I never called you stupid, i wrote "You cant be this naive or stupid". Like. Learn how to have some basic reading skills before feeling offended, just because you have no counter point whatsoever. Like that right there tells me that and kind of proves that you dont read very well.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I think the point is for there to be a better combo. Part of the biggest complaints about jobs right now is about how homogenized they’re becoming.

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It sounds like that would just be replacing one form of homogenization for another.
If there is a definitive best combo for a fight... You'd basically see only that 90% of the time.
My friend tells me that back in Heavensward less than half of the jobs got played in high end content.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

My friend tells me that back in Heavensward less than half of the jobs got played in high end content.

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That's sort of true, but it would be more accurate to say that certain combinations of jobs had the status of being considered meta for high-end content and the other jobs had to compete for the limited remaining slots. All jobs participated, but some had a harder time getting in.

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Originally Posted by Mhaeric

That's sort of true, but it would be more accurate to say that certain combinations of jobs had the status of being considered meta for high-end content and the other jobs had to compete for the limited remaining slots. All jobs participated, but some had a harder time getting in.

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I don't understand what the big deal is to have one DPS do MORE damage then all the other classes. If each job was DESIGNED to COMPLIMENT other classes then it wouldn't matter how much damage they were doing in a raid, as long as I keep a certain buff up to push the other DPS to do more damage, or a bleed on a boss, etc;. I would LOVE to toss a buff or debuff on boss to take more damage if I knew the BLM was starting their BURST phase. With the logic everyone is saying just DPS the boss and avoid AOE to win! That's boring... The real challenge is in getting a group that has different skills to compliment the whole party, and HOW you use those skills.

RDM was such a disappointment to me when it was just another DPS. I was really hoping they would introduce the support class. A class devoted to just pushing the WHOLE group to heal more, DPS more, and tank better. But instead we got a DPS that has fallen behind this expansion and needed potency buffs to be worthwhile. This would be a different story if embolden was a 30 min buff then a RDM would be nice to have even though its does less damage then others, all of you nay sayers would be changing your tune if you could have embolden for 30 min. Sure bring the RDM! (but there DPS is crap) Doesn't matter because mine will be better!

Trees was just an idea to give our identities back, and suppose if the community knows better then the Devs then the Devs should listen. This is why we are LOSING our identities. The Dev team has really put themselves in a position and I don't know where this is heading come next expansion. But it is certain we are getting more skills to just DPS and that's about it. That is whats stupid imo.

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Originally Posted by reyre

Hmm so you dont read or just read what you want. I never called you stupid, i wrote "You cant be this naive or stupid". Like. Learn how to have some basic reading skills before feeling offended, just because you have no counter point whatsoever. Like that right there tells me that and kind of proves that you dont read very well.

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Maybe you should learn basic human emotion, and understand intelligent people read between the lines. When something is implied, it's deliberate. It's a discussion not a fight. I would expect YOU to understand the difference. That "YOU"was implied by the way for those that find it hard to read between the lines.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

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So wait, like a ninja Trick Attack? I will say this again but versions of what you want exist and have existed in the game and they have been removed because of player feedback. The lost of identity is not because A dps JUST does damage. And you may say whatever you want, but a class with your ideas would be nerfed into obvlion because it would be too good, and no most of the "nay sayers" would instead ask for either every class has a 30 min buff like that or for RDM to be nerfed.
I really dont think that you understand how balancing works. To put an example in HW NIN had the lowest melee dps but because it had TA it was almost always more desiered than MNK, you may think that this is good BUT and i need you to pay attention here, it did not push MNK dps high enough to be worth bringing said MNK instead you brough a DRG (another support dps). So by giving NIN this super positive debuff MNK was meme for most of the expac. So you see there was somenthing like that before, BRD had it in the form of their songs and because of it MCH got cucked. Your idea will alienate jobs instead of making them have synergy and as response to this players would, very loudly, demand for a nerf or their own from of buff, which is why now MNK is trapped behind three layers of RNG because of brotherhood, a pointless buff that affects MNKs core rotation, see its not dps thing is a rotation thing and it has been pretty badly recived by almost all MNK mains. SEE my point there?

Actually let me be blunt Jobs right now are desing to complement other jobs, but is simply not enough.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

Maybe you should learn basic human emotion, and understand intelligent people read between the lines. When something is implied, it's deliberate. It's a discussion not a fight. I would expect YOU to understand the difference. That "YOU"was implied by the way for those that find it hard to read between the lines.

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I am not arrogant enough to believe what an intelligent person should or should not be doing. Now, you, like that person are just assuming, thus by the very definition of the word you have no idea if you are right yet you act on your assumption intead of asking if somenthing is not clear or if you think is implied. Since this is written conversation emotion and sentiment are not properly conveyed. I know this might be hard to comprehend but i actually did not meant what that person and you think i meant, now i would like to think than an "intelligent person" would ask before acting based on assumptions, otherwise one would have a high risk of being wrong and that doesnt seem very intelligent does it?

And once more let me be deliberate and i will not have room left for interpretation or between the lines fuzzy-nes, i dont think that person or you should assume anything because you are wrong. As an example, basic human emotion is instinctual and more or less baked in our very DNA thus anger, happiness and fear fall into that category not "feeling offended because you assume you are reading between the lines" thus emotions cannot be learned.
And finally just so you know a discussion is a fight of ideas, you must be able to defend your idea and point out where the opposing idea fails. But then again are you reading between the lines here?

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Originally Posted by reyre

So wait, like a ninja Trick Attack? I will say this again but versions of what you want exist and have existed in the game and they have been removed because of player feedback. The lost of identity is not because A dps JUST does damage. And you may say whatever you want, but a class with your ideas would be nerfed into obvlion because it would be too good, ad no most of the "nay sayers" would instead ask for either every class has a 30 min buff like that or for RDM to be nerfed. I really dont think that you understand how balancing works. To put an example in HW NIN had the lowest melee dps but because it had TA it was almost always more desiered than MNK, you may think that this is good BUT and i need you to pay attention here, it did not push MNK dps high enough to be worth bringing said MNK instead you brough a DRG (another support dps). So by giving NIN this super positive debuff MNK was meme for most of the expac. So you see there was somenthing like that before, BRD had it in the form of their songs and because of it MCH got cucked. Your idea will alienate jobs instead of making them have synergy and as response to this players would, very loudly, demand for a nerf or their own from of buff, which is why now MNK is trapped behind three layers of RNG because of brotherhood, a pointless buff that affects MNKs core rotation, see its not dps thing is a rotation thing and it has been pretty badly recived by almost all MNK mains. SEE my point there?

Actually let me be blunt Jobs right now are desing to complement other jobs, but is simply not enough.

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Wow, someone is really salty about how much MNK sucked ...sucks. Hey man I have been there. Keep pushing for that complete overhaul the DEV team isn't working on. I wised up and changed my DPS main to MCH, you know the one with a coherent rotation and identity that needed a complete overhaul of the class. It also does quite a bit of damage to boot without RNG. You hang in there. Hopefully player feedback won't ruin Monk when SE decides to fix it.

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Originally Posted by reyre

You cant be this naive or stupid.

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This is statement. No question mark.

I don’t call you stupid. Why do you call me stupid? <--- He put a question mark. This implies that you did in fact call him stupid. Otherwise he wouldn't have questioned why you did this.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

Wow, someone is really salty about how much MNK sucked ...sucks. Hey man I have been there. Keep pushing for that complete overhaul the DEV team isn't working on. I wised up and changed my DPS main to MCH, you know the one with a coherent rotation and identity that needed a complete overhaul of the class. It also does quite a bit of damage to boot without RNG. You hang in there. Hopefully player feedback won't ruin Monk when SE decides to fix it.

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Well, you are kind of wrong there you know according to the recent Live Letter, they are actually working on that rework and it will be live by 5.4 with some potency changes by 5.3 kind of like NIN. Now i dont know why my "saltyness" has anything to do with the point i am trying to argue against. I am just putting an example of my point. So now you have on two occations proved that you write based on assumptions and for both times have been wrong, so i guess i should say this a third time, you should not assume anything other wise you would most likely be wrong.
As for the rest of your comment, i dont believe that you would try to brag about changing ingame jobs, that would be childish, immature and petty, if nothing else im glad that you are enjoying the job. Or should i be reading between the lines here?

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Originally Posted by reyre

Well, you are kind of wrong there you know according to the recent Live Letter, they are actually working on that rework and it will be live by 5.4 with some potency changes by 5.3 kind of like NIN. Now i dont know why my "saltyness" has anything to do with the point i am trying to argue against. I am just putting an example of my point. So now you have on two occations proved that you write based on assumptions and for both times have been wrong, so i guess i should say this a third time, you should not assume anything other wise you would most likely be wrong.
As for the rest of your comment, i dont believe that you would try to brag about changing ingame jobs, that would be childish, immature and petty, if nothing else im glad that you are enjoying the job. Or should i be reading between the lines here?

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Your assumptions are correct. That's because I meant what I wrote :D

And since the discussion has changed to job identity I figured I would join in by eluding to the fact (pardon the assumption) that you were quite miffed about how Monk has turned out. I feel for you...which is why I changed. But what bothers me is going back to a real reason why. Why did you pick Monk? Was it because the class looked cool? Was it because when you played the class it felt good? Was it because you just wanted to punch and kick mobs in the face?

Or was it the class that you identified mostly with? Was it because you wanted to master a complex class and feel good when you did? Did playing Monk remind you of FFIV Yang or FFVI Sabin?

I know I made those choices when I decided to play Monk, and now due to player feedback it has been ruined. I don't enjoy playing Monk anymore, and this soul reason is why FFXIV classes are losing there identity. They are no longer the reason why I play the classes. The very fact that they are reworking the class tells me that they messed it up, and that it's has made players unhappy. And that makes me feel for the ones that still keep playing it.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

Your assumptions are correct. That's because I meant what I wrote :D

And since the discussion has changed to job identity I figured I would join in by eluding to the fact (pardon the assumption) that you were quite miffed about how Monk has turned out. I feel for you...which is why I changed. But what bothers me is going back to a real reason why. Why did you pick Monk? Was it because the class looked cool? Was it because when you played the class it felt good? Was it because you just wanted to punch and kick mobs in the face?

Or was it the class that you identified mostly with? Was it because you wanted to master a complex class and feel good when you did? Did playing Monk remind you of FFIV Yang or FFVI Sabin?

I know I made those choices when I decided to play Monk, and now due to player feedback it has been ruined. I don't enjoy playing Monk anymore, and this soul reason is why FFXIV classes are losing there identity. They are no longer the reason why I play the classes. The very fact that they are reworking the class tells me that they messed it up, and that it's has made players unhappy. And that makes me feel for the ones that still keep playing it.

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I did not assumed anything.
Neither of those reasons is why i pick MNK.
So player feedback made Monk worse yet, you, a player is now giving feedback on how to change the overall systems of the game. That is contradictory. In fact if they are reworking it because they have listen to the players doesnt that mean that player feedback is going to ruin it this time as well? doesnt that mean that your feedback is going to ruin the game as well?

Im done with this argument, you have nothing of value to say or to add, and you contradict yourself at every point, sad. It seems that once you knew you were completely wrong you change the focus of the argument to a different one ignoring everything else, how boring.

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Originally Posted by reyre

I did not assumed anything.
Neither of those reasons is why i pick MNK.
So player feedback made Monk worse yet, you, a player is now giving feedback on how to change the overall systems of the game. That is contradictory. In fact if they are reworking it because they have listen to the players doesnt that mean that player feedback is going to ruin it this time as well? doesnt that mean that your feedback is going to ruin the game as well?

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You're a dick. You came in hot calling other ideas "stupid" when anyone with an ounce of brain in their head knows that's like throwing gasoline on a dumpster fire, especially when people here are just trying to have honest open discourse about what changes they would like to see in the game. If there's one thing that FFXIV absolutely is, it's a game that is shaped by the players. The original game released and was so bad that they listened to the players' feedback and destroyed the entire thing and basically started over. The developers are doing their job, but part of their job is to also listen and implement applicable player feedback. If the only job of the developers was to make sure the mechanics work, then they could have stopped with the first patch. Without players, there is no game. Without listening to the players, they leave. Want to know the real driving force behind the game? Making money. They'll do whatever they can to drive more players to subscribe. Why do you think they have gutted and rooted out as many historical Final Fantasy tropes and bosses/environments as they have? To draw in both players new and old.

I don't like the idea of a skill tree at this late a stage in the game because, as others have said, that puts the focus on a "best" skill tree to take whereas right now it's really just a matter of what job is best or can hit the hardest. The raids are meant to implement more mechanics that depend on player skill rather than a specific job skill, they just haven't done a good job lately of giving each job its own time to shine in a boss raid battle. Mechanics will always win with developers over nuancing a job's role. Them's just the facts. They've been making progress on that front, but clearly not up to players' liking. Monk, for example, is absolute garbage right now and has been for a while. Bard is up there too in the trash heap, but not quite as bad. Personally, I'd like to see true support classes added over nuance of specific jobs, or perhaps give some jobs more than one role (A DRK could be both Tank and DPS) instead of shoehorning them into one role. Or have jobs that can serve in a dual role and people could spec the job/equip the job based on the role they want to play instead of the role the job traditionally has had.

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Originally Posted by Braven_Doomdraft

You're a dick. You came in hot calling other ideas "stupid" when anyone with an ounce of brain in their head knows that's like throwing gasoline on a dumpster fire, especially when people here are just trying to have honest open discourse about what changes they would like to see in the game. If there's one thing that FFXIV absolutely is, it's a game that is shaped by the players. The original game released and was so bad that they listened to the players' feedback and destroyed the entire thing and basically started over. The developers are doing their job, but part of their job is to also listen and implement applicable player feedback. If the only job of the developers was to make sure the mechanics work, then they could have stopped with the first patch. Without players, there is no game. Without listening to the players, they leave. Want to know the real driving force behind the game? Making money. They'll do whatever they can to drive more players to subscribe. Why do you think they have gutted and rooted out as many historical Final Fantasy tropes and bosses/environments as they have? To draw in both players new and old.

I don't like the idea of a skill tree at this late a stage in the game because, as others have said, that puts the focus on a "best" skill tree to take whereas right now it's really just a matter of what job is best or can hit the hardest. The raids are meant to implement more mechanics that depend on player skill rather than a specific job skill, they just haven't done a good job lately of giving each job its own time to shine in a boss raid battle. Mechanics will always win with developers over nuancing a job's role. Them's just the facts. They've been making progress on that front, but clearly not up to players' liking. Monk, for example, is absolute garbage right now and has been for a while. Bard is up there too in the trash heap, but not quite as bad. Personally, I'd like to see true support classes added over nuance of specific jobs, or perhaps give some jobs more than one role (A DRK could be both Tank and DPS) instead of shoehorning them into one role. Or have jobs that can serve in a dual role and people could spec the job/equip the job based on the role they want to play instead of the role the job traditionally has had.

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*snif* *snif* *snifff* Smells like vindication in here. Finally someone that punctuates and understands sentence structure. *points at screen* IS THAT A PARAGRAPH? *swoons*

I guess the bottom line of my thoughts on the matter is that either jobs have explicit identity and situational use, or every job is homogenized but can be used universally. Right now we are heading towards the latter. At first there was complaints because X job couldnt raid. Now there’s complaints because X, Y, and Z jobs do things way too similar. We can’t have our cake and eat it too on this one.

My opinion specifically is that jobs should have explicit identity.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

My opinion specifically is that jobs should have explicit identity.

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I totally agree with you. This thread went off the rails and border lined on bullying. For that I am sorry. I did my best to vindicate your opinions :D

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

I totally agree with you. This thread went off the rails and border lined on bullying. For that I am sorry. I did my best to vindicate your opinions :D

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Thank you, and it’s okay. Only a week back on these forums since like early 2.0 and I’m already used to the trash. It’s best to just avoid continuing to converse with that and find the people who want to have a real discussion.

People have strong feelings about what they want to see out of this game so they will lash out if someone’s vision isn’t congruent with theirs. I’m not going to lie, I fall for it t too, but I do make an attempt to be fair and discuss the pros and cons of adapting or updating a system. What I won’t do is attack someone’s character to frame my rebuttal to a reasonable argument. That’s terrible debate skills. As soon as poo starts flinging we have lost our track of discourse.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

Thank you, and it’s okay. Only a week back on these forums since like early 2.0 and I’m already used to the trash. It’s best to just avoid continuing to converse with that and find the people who want to have a real discussion.

People have strong feelings about what they want to see out of this game so they will lash out if someone’s vision isn’t congruent with theirs. I’m not going to lie, I fall for it t too, but I do make an attempt to be fair and discuss the pros and cons of adapting or updating a system. What I won’t do is attack someone’s character to frame my rebuttal to a reasonable argument. That’s terrible debate skills. As soon as poo starts flinging we have lost our track of discourse.

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I agree 100%. I always try to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to nay sayers, but in the end they will never be swayed. Shame. I sometimes wonder if they enjoy the game at all. Just play all brooding like while grumbling.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

Now there’s complaints because X, Y, and Z jobs do things way too similar.
My opinion specifically is that jobs should have explicit identity.

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I wouldn't say that they are too similar, but the issue we had in stormblood is that each job had it's "thing", and some were just way, way, way better than the others and thus shaped a really strict meta. Dragoon had the piercing debuff, which was intended to be one of its support feature, as well as its critical rate buff. Turns out Bard was just way, way, way too good with a dragoon and thus they became mandatory due to how absurdly well their specific buffs worked with each others.

Right now, there isn't any job that does the same as the other ones, even among tanks who are the most... Standardized of the bunch they each feel unique (except maybe war who feels a bit... Left behind). The issue is that some jobs have little things that gives them an identity, but also can be a detriment.

Monk has Brotherhood, on paper it looks really fine, being a physical damage buff. However, when you take into account that double caster is a thing, and a really good one... Well suddenly Brotherhood looks way worse on some scenarios.

The same can be said about RedMage. Sure, instant-raise is a thing. But let's be honest, when your group stops dying in an encounter... Well raise suddenly lose an interest, and Red Mage gets kinda punished heavily in damage for having this option, even when they don't need it. But sure, all in the name of job identity.

Stuff then gets really weird when you look at SMN, the king of casters right now. Not only does it have incredibly high damage, it also has a damage buff given by its pet (This sounds like strong job identity) AND IT CAN ALSO RAISE PEOPLES because it's reminicent of its ties to Scholar. As well as having Physick, but it kinda sucks right now so... Oh did I mention that it has also Bahamut Trance and Phenix Trance which makes the SMN able to instant-cast for a big part of its rotation ? Well that's another facet of this job's identity.

But I think you begin to see the point. Job identity and having specific bonuses are fine, but you often end up at either Monk or RDM side of the coin, which is where identity can ruin optimal performance in scenarios like party finder for example (which is what a really big part of the playerbase use), where you cannot control what job you will get with you. Or you end up like a SMN who can do everything and do it well because "duh, job identity".

We can however all agree that we all like being able to perform optimally. That was kinda the point of this thread. Skill trees to be able to perform optimally no matter the situation.

But on the other hand, it's better if each job has its own identity ? Well... both options at the same time... Seems hard to do. Especially to balance while releasing content at a regular pace, which is one of the strongest points of ff14.

While I would agree that no two jobs should play the same, I am also of the opinion that no job should be left out of certain content just because it happens to lack some sort of utility. I will try and expand further by providing an example, in this case tank stuns/silence/interrupt.

Back in ARR and HW, all tanks could stun, they all done it differently, but they all could, however, only 1 could silence, that being PLD. This could in theory exclude certain groups from certain things, as an example having a DRK/WAR tank combo but needing a silence. When they made role skills, they added the capability to both stun and silence to all tanks. This would (in theory at least) mean any content that requires a silence or a stun, no matter what tank combination you pick, you would have access to the required utility. The fact the game really doesn't utilise this fact in raids is disappointing, but it doesn't stop the case that theoretically, they could design content with that in mind.

Going to Job specialisations, an example was tank. You can either go more defensive or more damage, with the idea that certain content would require one or the other. However I would counter and say, what about when you get more gear? Suddenly, that fight that required a more defensive kit can be more offensive. Every fight (excluding Ultimates) will get easier as you upgrade your gear through the raids. This results in less defensive play and more offensive, which means, by the end of the tier, that fight you designed to be defensive orientated is now being fought with an offensive build. But you have to also remember you have to tune the fights for the lowest ilevel set for the raid, so just putting up big numbers doesn't help.

There was mention of putting multiple esuna curing status on the main tank, then do a raid wide. Assuming the debuffs will make the tank be hit very hard by the raid wide, there is a simple solution. Tank swap, mitigate the damage and pre-plan. Since fights are scripted, you can prep with an AoE shield, then, the tank gets the debuffs, healers can esuna while the tanks mitigate the damage and depending on the debuff, the tanks can swap, AoE goes out, healers heal up. Again remembering the AoE cannot be strong enough to kill the party but at the same time, you need to have enough time to remove the worst debuffs before the AoE comes out.

Everything is a fine balancing act around tanks, healers and DPS. I would also argue that designing fights around a specific skill set reduces the customisation as you are still required to have X, Y and Z, meaning there is really no choice. I might not have articulated my points in the most comprehensible manor, things sound good in my head, but they might not translate well over text, but I hope you can see the view point I am trying to get across.

TL;DR, some amount of homogenisation is good and skill trees are again an illusion of choice, even if you design content around specific sets.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

*snif* *snif* *snifff* Smells like vindication in here. Finally someone that punctuates and understands sentence structure. *points at screen* IS THAT A PARAGRAPH? *swoons*

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

I totally agree with you. This thread went off the rails and border lined on bullying.

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That's a rather amusing and self-unaware combination of back-to-back statements.

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Originally Posted by Eliadil

X

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

X

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Okay, yeah def. both of you make really good points about this. My whole schtick is about seeing Classes utilized as the vessel for jobs and jobs being the specializations themselves. Like that was the original intention of the job stones when they were introduced back in 1.4. Some classes give you the option to play a different style of a role, like Gladiator as Paladin or Dark Knight, and others might give you the option to switch role altogether, like our current Summoner and Scholar.

What I do know is that unless jobs and content become super bland, there will always be a meta. I think that designing fights that require the use of status healing could be an effective approach to those specializations. Like giving Red Mage Erase, or even a “VerWall” spell. Giving Monk Chakra with the ability to remove the ailments of nearby allies. Those little things go a long way towards identity. And if you need them during a hardcore fight then they suddenly become a lot more useful at facilitating a mechanic that Healers can’t overcome alone. As many jobs that can raise, I’m also surprised that Paladin hasn’t even gotten a raise. Some fights might require heavier DPS checks, so you’ll take things like Black Mage. Some bosses might favor hitting back lines, some might hit front line. In hardcore content, it should be normal to be selective about which jobs get in to execute the strategy- besides, most rewards can be applied universally and don’t have to be used on your progression job.

I think that in a game where jobs are the selling point, and we can play all jobs on one character, not only should the process of leveling be expedited by binding expansion jobs to classes, but jobs should have a little more situational use. I get some people like to play their favorites, and good balance does ensure that good players can continue to make it through on what they’re good at. The bigger problem with a job being excluded is not that the job itself is excluded, but when a player only has that job and the player is excluded. But over all I will always be of the mind that encouraging metas and specialization is the better road.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

While I would agree that no two jobs should play the same, I am also of the opinion that no job should be left out of certain content just because it happens to lack some sort of utility.

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And this is one of the things I wrestle with. In designing a tree/spec it's hard to balance identity with balancing the endgame. I want each class to be useful, but not turn into a exclusive endgame. While trying to move away from the only usefulness in DPS classes to solely be KILL THE THING.

Others have mentioned SMN being the best example of job identity, and I completely agree with this. Compare that with Monk and you have some large differences, as monk hasn't really evolved as much as SMN. You bring up some good points and it truly is hard to balance.

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Originally Posted by Mhaeric

That's a rather amusing and self-unaware combination of back-to-back statements.

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Well don't throw stones in a glass house.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

Well don't throw stones in a glass house.

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Trust me, this is the shining example of what I meant when I said it’s better to ignore them. He’s more interested in the drama than discussing the topic. Don’t get sucked in.

Considering the trouble they had balancing Summoner and Scholar while they were attached to each other, I really do not see it happening at all, especially since they have said they will never do it again and the way the 2 jobs are handled now, it wouldn't surprise me if they were fully split next expansion.

What I believe most do not realise is that by adding another job to a class, that job is stuck with that classes abilities to work with. Taking your example with Gladiator. DRK would be stuck with all the Gladiator abilities, including Fight or Flight, Iron Will and Circle of Scorn. Add to this that any adjustment to any Gladiator ability would also affect both PLD and DRK. Just by changing one thing it could throw the balance out. This is essentially why SMN and SCH were so hard to balance. A change in a DoT or ruin affected both, which often made them see saw between which one was too strong. This is ultimately why the current iteration of SCH literally only takes Resurrection from Arcanist, everything else in the SCH kit is classed as a SCH ability, even if it has the same name as the SMN equivalent.

This also doesn't address the issue of different weapons for different jobs and how the animations play out. If you notice, the same ability is used the same regardless of weapon, every tank uses Interject/Low Blow/Reprisal etc. the exact same way. The same is true of Scholar and Summoner, they use spells in the same way. So, even if you go the route of, you equip a DRK Job Stone, you can use great swords, how would the animation for something like Fast Blade look when used with a great sword. It probably wouldn't look good at all. Not to mention that weapons are tied to classes and not jobs, hence Summoner and Scholar using the same weapon.

You could say, well, when you equip the DRK Job Stone, you update the animations. At this point, you might as well make a whole new job and not tie it down with the added restrictions imposed upon it by having it be tied to a class that already has another job attached to it. Bear in mind, since you used 2 tanks as an example, I used 2 tanks. The situation gets weird when you try and make a Healer/DPS or Healer/Tank. their class kit will be based mostly on healing, leaving no room for a comprehensive dps/tanking style to fit without completely reworking all the level up abilities for the class anyway.

All in all, I really do not see how it could be beneficial to have 2 jobs off of 1 class. They tried it, realised how much of a nightmare it was to balance, and have all but scrapped it since. This same logic could in theory give an insight into why skill trees are hard to balance, but that is a different challenge altogether.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

And this is one of the things I wrestle with. In designing a tree/spec it's hard to balance identity with balancing the endgame. I want each class to be useful, but not turn into a exclusive endgame. While trying to move away from the only usefulness in DPS classes to solely be KILL THE THING.

Others have mentioned SMN being the best example of job identity, and I completely agree with this. Compare that with Monk and you have some large differences, as monk hasn't really evolved as much as SMN. You bring up some good points and it truly is hard to balance.

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Don't worry I feel the pain with monk. It was the second job I levelled after Paladin and after Heavensward it has been a struggle to continue to use it. Which is a shame, because I enjoy the freeform combos and positionals, that's why I tried it in the first place, but with essentially no evolution through the expansions...yeah.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Considering the trouble they had balancing Summoner and Scholar while they were attached to each other, I really do not see it happening at all, especially since they have said they will never do it again and the way the 2 jobs are handled now, it wouldn't surprise me if they were fully split next expansion.

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Jobs don’t need to share anything other than EXP for this to work. The problem with Summoner and Scholar was not their nature of binding to Arcanist- that’s their greatest strength, that you have a 2 in 1 role swap. The problem was that they tried to share so many abilities instead of letting them be their own unique things but still come from Arcanist’s level.

Sharing Bio and Ruin doesn’t seem to prove problematic. there almost the same as how almost melee job has a 3 step combo. Those were the “Weaponskills”. It was other things like Aetherflow, Shadowflare, Bane, and other DPS things that made Scholar far superior to the other Healers when it came to DPSing. So they ended up gutting them, a decision that I wholeheartedly agree with.

They could even revamp the pre-30 levels of each class that give you a taste of both paths, but you lose them when you specialize. For example, Arcanist has access to Physic, which is neat early on, but we know when it becomes Summoner it’s absolutely useless and therefore should no longer exist on Summoner. Or even Summoner losing access to Ressurection. (If they wanted to be thematically cool about it, Phoenix should be able to Raise only while it’s Summoned.). Scholar lost access to bane and fester. Idk. It’s common sense to me.