Has SE screwed itself?

[Klutz64]

The real corner SE has found themselves in is sticking so strictly with the trinity roles.

I don't even want to see jobs like Red Mage and Dancer in the game, because they're just going to be forced into pure DPS or pure Healing roles and completely ruin the original feel of the job.

[Starfox71rt]

The real corner SE has found themselves in is sticking so strictly with the trinity roles.

I don't even want to see jobs like Red Mage and Dancer in the game, because they're just going to be forced into pure DPS or pure Healing roles and completely ruin the original feel of the job.

This. Or even worse, they try and create a hybrid job that does both dps and healing which will either be undesired because they're not good enough at either or insanely overpowered. (LF3M RDM ONRY)

Further, the issue with this trinity is that for a support class to truly shine, it would end up being restricted to 8/24 man content because there is nowhere to put a support class in 4man groups.

[Ehayte]

The real corner SE has found themselves in is sticking so strictly with the trinity roles.

I think Tank and Healer are pretty much set and forget here, but you can really say that about any MMO to a certain degree. I disagree on the support/DPS portion, further explained below.

Further, the issue with this trinity is that for a support class to truly shine, it would end up being restricted to 8/24 man content because there is nowhere to put a support class in 4man groups.

So, I would disagree here on the simple premise that a support role would simply need to enhance the dps of the group proportionately to make up for the loss of one DPS character, less whatever value you assign to whatever "extras" they bring in. I.E. a Time Mage could have extremely powerful crowd control, being able to Stop and slow mobs (powerful slow, not 20%, simply make big bosses immune), and then their Demi spell could enhance damage done in its radius by 30% or whatever to make up for the lost dps.

The more powerful they make the CC, the less powerful the damage increase. Or it could increase damage done by 100%, but that divides between the number of people in the circle. So if you are in a 4 man, the tank get his DPS increased by 50%, and the DRG gets his DPS increased by 50%, if your are in an 8man and there are 4 DPS in the circle, each get a 25% bonus. If people need to move in and out, it could scale on a per tick basis.

For a dancer, it could give static buffs to healing, dps, total HP, defense, etc, and the Dancer would have to pick which one is most useful, or it could "stack" like 2-3 of the dances together, kind of how an Everquest 1 Bard works. Dungeons would hopefully go just as fast because they could do a combo of something like MP regen, melee crit%/deter buff, and an AE defense buff to the mobs. All marginal increases, but combined they would make up for the missing dps char. Alternatively, they could play defense debuff on mob, HP buff on party, and increased healing % on party in a tough boss fight, increasing survivability at the cost of DPS.

No need to change the way DF works, as they would get dances to enhance casters, tanks, healers, and melee dps. I know those are kind of specific, but you get what I mean in terms of being able to work around the "there is no room for support classes" argument.

[Kitru]

No need to change the way DF works, as they would get dances to enhance casters, tanks, healers, and melee dps. I know those are kind of specific, but you get what I mean in terms of being able to work around the "there is no room for support classes" argument.

The problem with the idea of "support as replacement for DPS" exists both on the back end and the front end. On the back end, you're dealing with the programmatic complexity of diluting the effects based upon the number of targets and even the roles present (imagine the annoyance a "support" would have if a tank was standing in the buff patch that increased damage but diluted it across all people standing in it; you'd be cutting the real DPS contribution by 25% and that's outside of the control of the support player). On the front end, there are all kinds of issues. You're dealing with the problem of support not being able to solo effectively (notice that healers get Cleric Stance because healing and DPS have completely separate stats; on top of that, healer DPS in Cleric Stance is low enough that they often have to resort to healing themselves while solo) unless you make the support a purely group oriented role, wherein you have the problem of group play being *completely* different than solo play. You're dealing with the problem of your performance being completely or largely contingent upon the performance and behavior of other people, plus you can't really have the buffs/debuffs operate upon percentage gains and instead must make them operate upon additive/subtractive gains to make sure gear progression has some value (i.e. debuffs reduce values by a flat number like 50 rather than 10% and that flat number is determined by your mainstat/weapon).

Support as a replacement for DPS rather than a completely discrete role that the game is built around has *all* kinds of problems, which is why ARR has turned "support" into a secondary role that a job adopts as a side benefit to its existing functionality. You can only really have support as an explicit role if the game is designed around it (i.e. group comp is 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPS, 1 support), and, even then, you get a *lot* of balance problems unless you drastically limit the cumulative benefits of multiple support characters being present lest you run into the problems that City of Heroes/Villains experienced wherein the optimal composition was 8 support characters because force multipliers acting upon force multipliers ends up with exponentially improved performance.

The trinity works because you have well defined roles that create predictable compositions that content can be balanced around while preserving both solo and group play in a balanced manner. Support as an explicit a focused role (that isn't just "healing") works in solo games where force multiplication turning a fight into a complete and utter joke isn't really going to create issues (hell, that's a lot of the fun of games like FFT where you can force multiply yourself into unkillability in about 100 different ways). It works in sandbox multiplayers where balance isn't a major concern because that's not really the point of the game. In a combat focused multiplayer MMO, support as primary functionality for a role doesn't work because force multiplication creates a crapton of problems that you actually have to address because you *can't* ignore balance, especially when you want to add it after the fact.

"Support as real role" for a game like ARR is something that has to be built into the game from the start with explicit controls implemented to limit the potency of that force multiplication while not making it a mindnumbingly boring chore that *someone* has to submit to doing for the good of the group. Even so, loads of games have tried to go that route, and I've yet to see a case where it hasn't bitten the developers in the ass. It's one of those things that's *theoretically* possible but presents substantial enough problems to implement practically that it's effectively impossible without more work than could be done cost effectively.

Honestly, I don't expect "support" to become a true role. If they do DNC, I see it as either a DPS/support class, like a melee version of BRD, or a straight up healer. I expect that, rather than trying to create a support role and redo the entire balance structure, they'll go the route of just tweaking the vision of the class to fulfill a role within the trinity: it's simpler, just as effective for bringing the class into game, and doesn't require a reworking of so many other things.

[Duuude007]

For example; the Dark Knight. A classic Final Fantasy class that we all expect to see in the near future. But what class will it build from? I initially thought Marauder, given the big 2-handed weapon and aggressive combat style, but Marauder is a tank...

Stopped reading there, because you aren't considering that while Arcanist is a DD just like its associated job Summoner, the OTHER job associated, scholar, is a healer.

Therefore, the argument is moot. Any combat class's future associated job could be the source of a different play style that uses the same type of weapon.

[Duelle]

I don't even want to see jobs like Red Mage and Dancer in the game, because they're just going to be forced into pure DPS or pure Healing roles and completely ruin the original feel of the job.

My sig. Read it.

On "feel": The important thing to remember is that Red Mage in particular is a guy that wields a sword and uses magic. That's ALL the feel of the job should keep in mind. Enfeebling+buffs was FFXI's terrible rendition of the job. FFI's version wouldn't work because stats would be spread all over (WoW: TBC Ret Paladins had this exact same issue which is why their stat priorities had to be changed). V's version was only set apart by Doublecast, which is a shallow mechanic to define a job with in an MMORPG.

RDM doesn't fit as a healer because of the aforementioned sword&magic thing (besides, that was already forced down our throats in FFXI and I would rather not go through that again). RDM doesn't fit as a tank due to stylistic reasons, as it's a guy that uses a sword and casts magic. The only logical spot would be DPS, especially if you want to continue the only worthwhile thing SE ever did with the job over the years (push it towards the fencer motif to set it appart from Warrior).

On the trinity: The trinity is not a bad thing if it means job classes get direction without some of the BS systems with more "freedom" suffer from. Not counting "support" and its other iterations are less popular than the three roles and would make getting a party together even more difficult. I've seen too many parties held hostage by lack of "support" in the past, and when more recent games threw "support" to the wind, I very happily declared "good riddance".

[jomoru]

RDM doesn't fit as a healer because of the aforementioned sword&magic thing (besides, that was already forced down our throats in FFXI and I would rather not go through that again). RDM doesn't fit as a tank due to stylistic reasons, as it's a guy that uses a sword and casts magic. The only logical spot would be DPS, especially if you want to continue the only worthwhile thing SE ever did with the job over the years (push it towards the fencer motif to set it appart from Warrior).
.

Lets look at fencers and swashbucklers in action shall we? They taunt, they make verbal plays. They get the attention of their foes and between fancy footwork and sword play keep their foes from striking them. A fencer makes more sense in a tanking role than any thing else He is the center of attention.

This is why Red Mages should be tanks.

[Duelle]

Lets look at fencers and swashbucklers in action shall we? They taunt, they make verbal plays. They get the attention of their foes and between fancy footwork and sword play keep their foes from striking them. A fencer makes more sense in a tanking role than any thing else He is the center of attention.

Fencers also wear lighter equipment (for ease of movement), giving them effectively the defense of a wet tissue paper. Fencing in real life also focus on one-on-one duels, which isn't exactly how this game plays (specially once fights with more adds enter the game). Unless you're planning to make all future fights like SWTOR's Infernal Council from Eternity Vault, there's not much of a place for Red Mage to fit in as a tank. That's kind of why I proposed Mystic Knight with good number of changes to push it into the tank role.

[jomoru]

And combat in real life doesn't have someone guy in heavy armor running around getting attention while someone lobs fireballs at them. That's why I use the fencer of fiction. ANd the fencer of fiction takes on large groups with his wit and skill. Now we add in someone who's a master of magic to that either adding regenerative cooldowns via self healing or defensive cooldowns ala the ones BLM already has. Finally being lightly geared is the advantage here since what a stat does is arbitrary programming having a class a tank class that doesn't look just like the other two might actually be useful in getting people to tank on a small level

[Duelle]

And the fencer of fiction takes on large groups with his wit and skill.

And focuses on avoiding damage entirely rather than mitigate it the way a tank is supposed to. And before you even think of it, avoidance tanks are inherently broken and I hope they never darken this game's doorstep.

Now we add in someone who's a master of magic to that either adding regenerative cooldowns via self healing or defensive cooldowns ala the ones BLM already has.

BLM's defenses are for self preservation, not unlike a WoW Mage having Ice Block and its mana shield to save them the otherwise innevitable dirt nap. That's not the sort of thing you should aim to build a tank around.

Finally being lightly geared is the advantage here since what a stat does is arbitrary programming having a class a tank class that doesn't look just like the other two might actually be useful in getting people to tank on a small level

Variety is all and good but there's places where a different tank will actually fit, and RDM is nowhere near that. Pushing SAM into tanking has been a pet project of mine because its design in FFXI pretty much spelled out "this job was supposed to be a parry tank" betwen job abilities and some of the gear sets available to the job. BST would also make a great tank provided it is given the correct mechanics. Mystic Knight would also make a good tank seeing that it would otherwise be a stupidly shallow job given its history, plenty of design leeway.

Tanking simply doesn't suit the unconventional melee-mage (AKA RDM). Leave the tanking to jobs where it would actually fit.