Potential Solution to Job Balance?

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It would be up to the developers to place what DPS belongs in what category but, wouldn't this be a potential step in the right direction to addressing job balance for the future of the game? Obviously Supportive DPS will still be doing damage but, you can balance against the other supportive DPS based on say, how much utility and buffs to the party they bring. And for damage dealers they can simply focus on the rotation and damage of these jobs.

You can go a step further and introduce support focused jobs in the future with unique actions and so on. I'm not sure of the ramifications it would take to do this but, I felt it would be a great discussion. Instead of what we have now with multiple DPS roles.

Or the other option is to just put all the DPS under the DPS role instead of having Phys Range, Caster and Melee.

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That is one solution; one that would drastically change the game and aggravate a number of players, but probably worthwhile in the long term. Once in the support section the supporters can be given actual supportive abilities too.

If it were me, I'd swap RPR or DRG with NIN and return NIN to its more StB incarnation of being support-heavy.

... I'm curious what the differentiation is between Support and Damage Dealer, overall.

Like, every DPS besides BLM and SAM has party buffs. Sure I probably wouldn't call MCH a support if you put a gun to my head since it offers nothing the other Phys Ranged lack, but that just makes the question, where IS the line?
SMN has oGCD healing skills while Phoenix is active, as well as its own Raise, but you class it as Damage Dealer here. DRG's buffs are strictly useful for increasing damage output, but you class it as a Support here.
And then RPR, NIN, and MNK are kinda in a nebulous space in the middle depending on your definitions. Would their assignments be arbitrary?
Would Role Actions still be sensible given this extra categorization of jobs?
What would such divisions mean for jobs that have Raises? It seems right now the devs have mercifully given up on the "Raise Tax" since Raises are self-taxing, but if you pit some Supports with it against others without, would they have to be brought back into consideration?

I think this invites more challenges than it necessarily solves.

I don't think this is a solution when problem really lies with the developers adding,another DPS category would not solve them neglecting jobs,strange design choices or unnecessary buffs/changes.

when they double down on grouping up jobs it never works out.

What would this possibly solve, though? You're just arbitrarily splitting one role (DPS) in two around a delineation that, unlike the melee distinction, has no actual impact in encounter design... all while increasing queue times by making matchmaking more stringent and forcing people onto what are, for many, duller jobs (Physical Ranged, especially).

You still have the exact same job performance and gameplay issues as before. You're just doubly obliged to take the hit and ignore them (by sub-roles being fully required instead of incentivized via a 1% stat bonus).

Ah, yes, let's take all the already underperforming jobs and shove them into a second rate citizen category so we have a convinient excuse to just ignore their complaints.

"What do you mean you want to bring comptetitve damage and not feel bad about playing a job you enjoy?! Silly, you are a sUpPoRT, your damage is supposed to be garbage. You get that oh-so-cool gimmick that has a use in one fight once a year!!!11!!...maybe. Because we literally designed the game to make none of those things besides damage matter. We are so smart!"

Asinine.

It does. The other option was just to remove things like Caster, Physical Range and Melee and just place them all under the DPS label in my head.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

I don't think this is a solution when problem really lies with the developers adding,another DPS category would not solve them neglecting jobs,strange design choices or unnecessary buffs/changes.

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The problem is mostly with the healer job, because it has a lot of conflicts within the desired balance. But at least some issues can be resolved with this:
- No reliable fallback, which means a dead healer can often result in a wipe (unless you have a dps with a resurect). Having a support group with a revive here can cover this part making sure there are always 2 roles available for a revive (the healer on that can be the one using it more often)
- As the healer is supposed to heal. It often means reduced damage, this damage reduction is enforced to avoid healers deliberately missing a healing GCD in favor of damage. As healer damage now doesnt exist, they are forced to heal again. But again, if a support can cover some of this, this GCD balancing on a healer can become viable again, which allows higher damage as a result.
- This can be used as a finetuning aspect in 8man duties in which it will always ensure at least 1, but keeps the rest flexible. If for whatever reason such support job is needed then, you can be sure there is one. It allows balancing towards the existance of them (and scale damage/healing/mitigation requirements with it).

But it has flaws.
- By having 4 categories, it can be used as a balance factor in 4man duties. This however has a downside that some categories can get even longer queue times. Since support roles are usualy less liked than pure dps. Even if they effectively do the same in damage, the name 'support' is an issue. I think a diffirent category could be better here. Idealy one that doesnt relate towards support or buffing. But I know the term flex is quite popular in moba's, so maybe some sort of term like this works by simply making it sound more elite like (if it sounds cool, its more likely to be popular after all). Plain support however is unlikely to truly work as that just sounds like a healer.
- Once its a category, its often demanded that all jobs within the role end up with similar capabilities. This could remove the variety we have now.
- As most damage in the game is delivered in a quite static way, variety in these classes and synergies (which normaly can make things interesting) is generaly not going to work well. Its often down to raw output in certain aspects. Even with this new role, synergies are a very dangerous aspect to show up, and a support role is even more likely to cause these issues, since its now no longer 1 class facing this potential issue, but 2.

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Originally Posted by RobinBobobbinGoblin

It does. The other option was just to remove things like Caster, Physical Range and Melee and just place them all under the DPS label in my head.

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Right, so now we have a guaranteed 4 melee comp with no drawbacks. You really have no clue what you are porposing, aren't you?

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Originally Posted by Azuri

Right, so now we have a guaranteed 4 melee comp with no drawbacks. You really have no clue what you are porposing, aren't you?

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It's a stupid question sure, but I felt it was worth asking anyway. It wouldn't work in the current iteration of the game obviously, but maybe it's something to think about moving forward and they could balance around it. How? I'm not sure I'm not a game developer just someone giving their thoughts on the matter. You can also do a split between Just Melee and Ranged DPS. MCH and BLM being near the top in their respective category and SAM and maybe MNK at the top in theirs with Bard and DNC near the bottom in theirs. As far as I'm aware that's what most people bring in parties 2 melee and 2 ranged. Casters in essence are still ranged. That would invite other discussions like should they have raise or not and other things but, that's is the rabbit hole I'm suggesting discussion around.

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Originally Posted by RobinBobobbinGoblin

It's a stupid question sure, but I felt it was worth asking anyway. It wouldn't work in the current iteration of the game obviously, but maybe it's something to think about moving forward and they could balance around it. How? I'm not sure I'm not a game developer just someone giving their thoughts on the matter. You can also do a split between Just Melee and Ranged DPS. MCH and BLM being near the top in their respective category and SAM and maybe MNK at the top in theirs with Bard and DNC near the bottom in theirs. As far as I'm aware that's what most people bring in parties 2 melee and 2 ranged. Casters in essence are still ranged. That would invite other discussions like should they have raise or not and other things but, that's is the rabbit hole I'm suggesting discussion around.

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Ah. Thanks for the confirmation. You do have no clue.

Now you are proposing a hard comp with the highest DPS. I don't even know where to start explaining why this idea is awful.

The solution is simple. Design fun jobs first, then try to balance them, sure, but not into the ground. Perfect balance is unachievable. Don't cater to the people screaming the loudest about balance and inject some much needed fun/diversity back into the game. We tried it long enough. It's not worth the sacrifice.

The problem with support jobs in this game is it lacks any systems that support jobs can interact with or control.. they've stripped away nearly everything that did exist and any support that remains is basically a direct modifier of damage +/- x%.

if resources like tp still existed and were actually finite then supportive roles could be beneficial. a minor tweak to jobs where you could have lower power but higher cost combos and higher power but higher cost combos. making management more important. and a question of balancing those combos.. something akin to very early monk iterations where they could effectively do 2 true strikes to 1 twin snakes for increased damage but at increased tp cost. whcih could see them tp starved without support from a goad or bards paeon..

then you could have the final fantasy iconic elemental wheel assign monsters types elelments allow a support job to enchant those elements to dps that found they were resisted. a mob might be weak to blunt resist piercing, but succeptible to wind. so while a monk could punch a way happily without support a drg could benefit from an elemental enchantment.

i'm not going to write a book but there's literally hundreds if not thousands of things they could do just looking at past games in the final fantasy franchise,. but the issue is they've stripped everything away so much that all that matters is damage... it doesnt even matter where that damage comes from or how. just as long as its damage. whether its a blm a monk or a brd.. all that matters is damage and who brings most..

you cant have a deep and engaging combat system without deep and engaging systems to interact with.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

The problem with support jobs in this game is it lacks any systems that support jobs can interact with or control.. they've stripped away nearly everything that did exist and any support that remains is basically a direct modifier of damage +/- x%.

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Aye, at which point it just becomes a matter of "Here, take my buffs, for which you sacrificed direct DPS in taking me instead of a "Damage" job, in order to carry my rDPS through your exploitation of said buffs. Oh, also, we're inherently more fragile now, because we're more dependent on the multiplicity of stacked buffs to be viable and any death means desync, causing us to underperform relative to a more independent (e.g., SAM/BLM/MCH/etc.) comp."

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

The solution is simple. Design fun jobs first, then try to balance them, sure, but not into the ground. Perfect balance is unachievable. Don't cater to the people screaming the loudest about balance and inject some much needed fun/diversity back into the game. We tried it long enough. It's not worth the sacrifice.

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Additionally, much of the balancing to be done without reduction-to-the-lowest-common-denominator can be done through encounter design, starting with undermechanical depth. Give us stagger and armor/part break; give us a Z-axis and flying enemies and Dragoons able to leap to said flying enemies. Give fights things worth Cover-ing to the benefit of uptime (be that for damage or securing a difficult heal-check). Create a place for snap aggro, to the benefit of NIN and/or, say, a more old-school Warrior. Etc., etc.

Finally, extend content scaling, granular difficulty levels, and perhaps offer small additions, while giving further incentive to find value on less meta jobs. Where a more defensive job would otherwise quickly lose value as people outgear the content of a small number of difficulty levels, that's not the case as the difficulty continues to scale onward. Similarly, a Warrior and Monk on a fight with a bunch of flying enemies would sound absurd... right up until the Warrior, say, takes up a glyph that allows Holmgang to grapple multiple enemies and reduces its CD if little damage is taken over its duration and the Monk pumps enough stagger out of Phantom Rush to crash the whole flock to the ground as it blitzes across each.

That shit would, to me at least, actually be quite fun. Simple? Gods no. But probably worthwhile nonetheless for a 7.0-onward course of redesign for decent strategic and playmaking depth with more distinctly kit-ed jobs. And that starts, as Dzian put it, with "deep and engaging systems to interact with."

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

the name 'support' is an issue. I think a diffirent category could be better here. Idealy one that doesnt relate towards support or buffing. But I know the term flex is quite popular in moba's, so maybe some sort of term like this works by simply making it sound more elite like (if it sounds cool, its more likely to be popular after all). Plain support however is unlikely to truly work as that just sounds like a healer.

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As for a name for the role, I'd pull from FFXIII and name it 'Synergist' As the name implies Synergy with the rest of the party.

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Originally Posted by XiroGear

As for a name for the role, I'd pull from FFXIII and name it 'Synergist' As the name implies Synergy with the rest of the party.

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I think Support is fine as a role name. I used to play DOTA so what I see as Support duties includes:

-Pulling the neutrals into the creep wave, to disrupt the meeting point of the creeps to get it closer to our tower (safer for our carry)
-Harassing the enemy offlaner to stop them getting XP
-Setting up kills on either the offlaner or rotating Mid to help Mid secure a kill on enemy Mid
-Setting up Wards to give vision to the allied team
-Stacking creep camps by pulling neutrals out of the camp at the minute mark, tricking the game into thinking the camp is 'cleared'. This allows for big fast farm for the carry when they're strong enough to kill stacked camps
-Warding ENEMY territory to give vision of where the enemy is
-Buying items that help support the team, such as CC items (Rod of Atos, Scythe of Vyse if you're rich, Aghanim's Scepter if it's got a good effect), and consumables such as Smoke of Deceit or Dust of Appearance to counter invis boys

And finally, yes, some of the supports do have skills that heal, like Omniknight or Oracle. But those heals are absolutely not the focus of being a support in that game. Apex Legends has a 'support' role, and only ONE of those supports can heal (Lifeline). Support means a lot more than just 'is the heal bitch' and anyone who plays Supports like they are 'the heal bitch' is not playing them to their full potential. What are you doing in League as a Support, standing in lane and not attacking the enemy? Leeching XP from your Carry?

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I think Support is fine as a role name. I used to play DOTA so what I see as Support duties includes:

-Pulling the neutrals into the creep wave, to disrupt the meeting point of the creeps to get it closer to our tower (safer for our carry)
-Harassing the enemy offlaner to stop them getting XP
-Setting up kills on either the offlaner or rotating Mid to help Mid secure a kill on enemy Mid
-Setting up Wards to give vision to the allied team
-Stacking creep camps by pulling neutrals out of the camp at the minute mark, tricking the game into thinking the camp is 'cleared'. This allows for big fast farm for the carry when they're strong enough to kill stacked camps
-Warding ENEMY territory to give vision of where the enemy is
-Buying items that help support the team, such as CC items (Rod of Atos, Scythe of Vyse if you're rich, Aghanim's Scepter if it's got a good effect), and consumables such as Smoke of Deceit or Dust of Appearance to counter invis boys

And finally, yes, some of the supports do have skills that heal, like Omniknight or Oracle. But those heals are absolutely not the focus of being a support in that game. Apex Legends has a 'support' role, and only ONE of those supports can heal (Lifeline). Support means a lot more than just 'is the heal bitch' and anyone who plays Supports like they are 'the heal bitch' is not playing them to their full potential. What are you doing in League as a Support, standing in lane and not attacking the enemy? Leeching XP from your Carry?

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Alright so how would you translate that to FFXIV?

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Originally Posted by XiroGear

Alright so how would you translate that to FFXIV?

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Giving supports more to do and fights more to care about than just enrage -> clear time and the very rare oGCD heal saved briefly for a particular mechanic?

I don't think it'd come to anyone's surprise that XIV's lackluster healing is largely just a symptom of overall shallow encounter design, low meaningful content variety, and wonky tuning.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Giving supports more to do and fights more to care about than just enrage -> clear time and the very rare oGCD heal saved briefly for a particular mechanic?

I don't think it'd come to anyone's surprise that XIV's lackluster healing is largely just a symptom of overall shallow encounter design, low meaningful content variety, and wonky tuning.

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I won't argue with that. though while I would have no issues with seeing that, given how they've removed Support abilities from DPS and Healer Jobs, I'm not going to hold my breath for this...

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Originally Posted by XiroGear

I won't argue with that. though while I would have no issues with seeing that, given how they've removed Support abilities from DPS and Healer Jobs, I'm not going to hold my breath for this...

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Those reductions, though, were primarily made because either

• the tuning (see: extreme Enmity buffs, nuked relative healing requirements, etc.) or forms of mechanics (say, a mob on which tanks must hold threats but could one-shot said mob to keep Shadewalker useful despite aforementioned Enmity changes) required to maintain their relevance was watered down past some critical threshold, or
• they were primarily just a pretense of complexity that made one job's ability to do anything (i.e., literally just to cast) --without what would be cripplingly poor play otherwise (using Cure I where possible instead of more expensive options, or even spending time idle for mana conservation) or terrible stat optimization-- dependent on other jobs, for whom those actions still had nothing much to optimize or the timings of which were forced due to other priorities anyways (e.g., halving enmity).

Some of them were outright poorly designed; the rest suffered specifically because of the same changes in context (e.g., encounter tuning and mechanics) that worsened how it feels to heal.

If that context is not addressed, I suspect being a healer will become/remain smothering regardless of whether you're holding your breath for such changes.

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Originally Posted by XiroGear

Alright so how would you translate that to FFXIV?

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a lot of these things, while specific to MOBA design, boil down to 'help allies' or 'hinder enemies' in some way. In order, the closest I'd imagine in FFXIV terms would be:

-apply buffs of some kind to the team to make it safer (probably mit)
-Debuff enemy to make them do less damage
-Set up burst windows with allied damage buffs (we already have this with chain strat/div, maybe lean more into buffing and less into 'spam glare')
-Warding is just to make stuff more safe so I guess it'd be like 'put up mit' again, maybe a healer designed around making 'warded zones' could be interesting
-Buff allies to make them stronger, perhaps a design for AST where you set up the burst window as you do your rotation, then 'activate' all the cards at once with Div to reduce APM issues during 2min windows
-Again, debuff enemies in some way so they can't do as much damage to you, perhaps even having a new 'dispel' action that healers have to use to remove enemy buffs?
-Just the usual 'supports support the team', forgot to mention Mekansm, an item that does in fact give an AOE heal to everyone, and Guardian Greaves which heal and restore mana. Maybe some kind of buffing system where healers directly influence job gauges? would be hell to balance though (oh the healer extended the DRG's Life window and now they get a 4th Nastrond)

The point wasn't so much 'look how much stuff happens in this game that FFXIV should copy', it was moreso 'this is what supports do in this game, why is FFXIV 'support' or 'healer' or whatever you want to call it, so barebones on responsibilities by comparison'. At the rate we're going, they'll remove Chain Strat from SCH because it requires targetting the enemy

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Those reductions, though, were primarily made because either

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I'm like 99% sure the reason they removed the stuff they did like Shadewalker, Smokescreen, mits from healers like Disable or Virus, was because people didnt bother to use them. Outside of Savage, where people wiped and were asked 'did you use Disable', I assume a lot of the casual base just didn't press it. Tanks in casual content would run tankstance 100% so Smokescreen/Shadewalker/Diversion were not needed. So when SHB design time came, the devs likely looked at the data and went 'well if people dont use this stuff, they wont miss it, lets make tankstance give insane threat gen, remove the damage penalty so they dont complain about being nerfed, then we dont need these aggro tools anymore. Also, we can retune the damage of raids around the nonexistence of these healer mits, they wont miss them, they'll be cheering about how cool the Lily System looks, now that it's actually functional!'

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I'm like 99% sure the reason they removed the stuff they did like Shadewalker, Smokescreen, mits from healers like Disable or Virus, was because people didnt bother to use them. Outside of Savage, where people wiped and were asked 'did you use Disable', I assume a lot of the casual base just didn't press it. Tanks in casual content would run tankstance 100% so Smokescreen/Shadewalker/Diversion were not needed. So when SHB design time came, the devs likely looked at the data and went 'well if people dont use this stuff, they wont miss it, lets make tankstance give insane threat gen, remove the damage penalty so they dont complain about being nerfed, then we dont need these aggro tools anymore. Also, we can retune the damage of raids around the nonexistence of these healer mits, they wont miss them, they'll be cheering about how cool the Lily System looks, now that it's actually functional!'

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Disuse was certainly a factor, but I think another large part has been a matter of "button bloat", and, more interestingly, how 'satisfying' a given button felt to press due to its contexts (encounter opportunities, and considerations it perhaps uniquely forces you to engage with, etc.).

Given how few add grabs were required that the tank couldn't just be prepared for, Shadewalker felt less like a unique tool (Enmity transfer) and more like just a +rDPS button for a given tank, due to needing less time in tank stance. Smokescreen was never of any real interest, as it was redundant with Diversion / Quelling Strikes and, unless you had a single melee carry who'd otherwise be forced to use ME/Purification, it wasn't enough to increase tank rDPS anyways.

Disable and Virus, as with Addle and Feint now, were too insignificant in most content to be of much interest, while any actual unique impact offered by either would cause our rather finnicky playerbase to cry imbalance (even if others could differently produce equal increased eHP by which to counter the given attack). I don't think that's necessarily a great reason to get rid of it, but I haven't much been sad it's gone or turned into a Role Action.

My big point of contention is simply "Okay, so... if Shadewalker became irrelevant and tank stances were bloat, etc., why then aren't there more sudden add spawns, and why aren't there more tools by which to deal with them? Why not simply revise Disable and Virus to be more interesting, potent, and satisfying to press?" I get why they did it, given the shift in context; I just don't get why they allowed the context to be so shallow.

/shrug

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I'm like 99% sure the reason they removed the stuff they did like Shadewalker, Smokescreen, mits from healers like Disable or Virus, was because people didnt bother to use them.

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That's because in the vast majority of content they made zero difference and had zero impact. Same goes with many skills even today.

But for example when a raid wide hits you for 5k health and can effectively be healed with a single aoe tht will heal for like 6k health. in most cases a small mitigation does nothing. You take 4500 damage instead of 5k but when that single aoe heal is 6k. What did pressing that mitigation actually achieve? Zilch!.

It's why so many people don't bother with role skills because they're just bloat buttons that don't really do anything..

Interject for example. Is it the kitasa dungeon where you can silence the last boss casting bravery on himself. But if you don't silence it it really doesn't matter thus it carries no weight or impact..

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Interject for example. Is it the kitasa dungeon where you can silence the last boss casting bravery on himself. But if you don't silence it it really doesn't matter thus it carries no weight or impact..

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Interject really needs at least a DR-less 1.5s silence + pacify, instead of just an interrupt, so you can use it for managing mob positioning instead of solely for once-per-blue-moon spell casts.

that, and they should make it where these abilities actually matter in a fight.