In Light of the WAR 2.1 Adjustments, Can We Expect Tweaks to PLD as Well? My Thoughts

[Amas]

Should PLD be easier to play than WAR? No. Should WAR be better than PLD if played well? No. They should be equal but different, ie same destination but different routes.

Kitru's right.

Homogenization is bad game design. The more your normalize performance, the more you get cookie-cutter classes with different skins and animations.

WAR being a "skill tank" with higher ultimate potential is perfectly okay - SO LONG AS there are still factors that keep PLD relevant at the top tiers of player skill. This is currently true (Spirits Within, Shield Bash, and Hallowed Ground immediately spring to mind) and content design will determine whether it remains true.

An MMO needs more approachable classes for people who either can't or don't want to push the limits. There's nothing wrong with them or ensuring that they can enjoy themselves. There also need to be rewards for the more skilled players, the trick is making the rewards real but not overwhelming.

The rift between average and skilled players already exists, has always existed, and will always exist. You can pretend it doesn't and try to homogenize it away, or accept that it does and give both groups something to fit their needs/wants.

It's virtually impossible to design a class, especially a tanking class, with a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling that is remotely balanced. If the gap is too large, then a skilled player trivializes content (it has to, for the low-floor end to be viable at all). The very players who could do so are the ones who want trivial content least.

We'll have to wait and see how 2.1 shakes out, but it is going to be a significantly happier place for WAR, the sky is almost certainly not going to fall on PLD, and so long as SE doesn't design around one class or another's unique strengths (e.g. intentionally write the need to Silence and Stun out of all boss fights + significantly remove the benefits of HG) both will have a useful place.

[TouchandFeel]

Snip.
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I never said everything should be the same or homogenized. I literally said, and this is in the quote you used, "equal but different" not the same, meaning they should both be able to do their job equally well, how they accomplish that job should be different so that they don't play or feel the same and require different strategies and therefore appeal to different people with different play-styles.

Also, there is of course already a rift between average players and skilled players, the skilled players are better because they are more skilled. My problem lies with widening the gap between the two by giving extra benefits to the players that already have the upper hand, especially when this benefit is limited to only one of the classes.

If there are two players that are really good at playing their class and know all the in's and out's, one a PLD and one a WAR, and yet the WAR is always a bit better because there are built in mechanics that provides a reward for them being good, that does not seem balanced to me. Then again neither does a class being so easy that they can faceroll content.

I'm not saying that currently a skilled WAR is better than a skilled PLD, I'm saying that they shouldn't be and that goes for all classes.

I also don't feel that the WAR changes that have been proposed will result in the end of days, but I do feel that there were some aspects of WAR that were part of their doing damage to self-heal mechanic that were overlooked and should have been trimmed down a little when they were given the necessary better survivability buffs.

But, just as you said the proof will be in the pudding.

But anyways, you are entitled to your opinion but that doesn't mean that I will agree with you. You are free to state your opinion but don't be surprised if I respond with mine.