Honest question: If every player/class/job is equal,who is unique? (Gameplay topic)

[Aegis]

FFXIV's progression is strictly vertical where as FFXI's progression (at least when I last played, which was the launch of the first Abyssea expansion) was mostly horizontal.

Perhaps moving to horizontal progression would be good for the game? Certainly adds longevity for content. When the expansion releases do you believe anyone will do coil anymore? Already no-one does Coil 1 except to access Coil 2. Sky gear was valid for a solid decade. Even though XI had much, much more endgame.

While classes were "unique" it also meant that only certain classes were brought to the table. Going meriting? SAM SAM SAM BRD WHM. Wanna play a BST, BLM, or SMN? Better love to solo from 1-75. Classism is BAD for a game. The more you ostracise your player base, the less likely they will keep playing. Even during the FFXI era players always took the path to least resistance. Every zerg encounter was: BRD rotations for super buffs, throw as many SAM as you can, unless you had a reliced DRK, perhaps a MNK or two for hundred fists, couple of healers outside the party and a THF to tag the mob with a Thief Knife just in case Treasure Hunter actually worked. Every other job could just sit and watch until that one or two instances they might be useful. Everything you suggest would make the game worse than it currently is.

Black Mage was, for a long time one of the most popular levelling jobs because of its ability to Magic Burst. It was one of the most popular endgame jobs for sleep/nukes. I levelled my BLM after Aht Urgahn and never solo'd. Used to form up in parties of 3 or 4 and get excellent XP in pet camps. This being another example of how having different classes actually playing differently is a good thing. I saw more camps than people who did not play BLM. I learnt new mechanics of the game.

No, this is what makes you feel like your job is useless and makes you feel like "that dumbass n00b who doesn't even know how to play this game rite". We have already seen this on at least two separate occasions in the history just of 2.xx. We know from empirical evidence that the XIV fanbase WILL act this way and WILL ostracize gamers who want to play an "unpopular" class. If this is what you want then you are in the wrong game.

But you can have all the jobs. This game is not designed for someone to get one class to 50 and forget about levelling. Such a player would be ostracized even if they picked the 'right' job.

PS: Mechanics are the best place for variety between jobs and classes. The fact that MNK has greased lightning while DRG has relatively unforgiving positional requirements does make those two play and feel differently

They don't really play differently, though, do they? Get in position, weapon skill. Move into next position, weapon skill. Weave in buffs and off-GCDs when you can. They both have one best rotation, if you're not doing it you're sub-optimal DPS. Yawn.

[Dwill]

Perhaps moving to horizontal progression would be good for the game? Certainly adds longevity for content. When the expansion releases do you believe anyone will do coil anymore? Already no-one does Coil 1 except to access Coil 2. Sky gear was valid for a solid decade. Even though XI had much, much more endgame.

And you don't see anything wrong with having the same pieces of gears for years on end ?

They don't really play differently, though, do they? Get in position, weapon skill. Move into next position, weapon skill. Weave in buffs and off-GCDs when you can. They both have one best rotation, if you're not doing it you're sub-optimal DPS. Yawn.

If you find that boring, then the whole get 100% TP, pop cooldowns and use Weapon Skills style of FFXI must have been a snore fest to you.

Edit: Everyone has a full opener but after that, the rotation becomes a priority system when you have to deal with mechanics.

Yes I already know they have these qualities and I suppose mentioning them in the OP would have been a good idea but I saw little point in it at the time.

However, you've simply proven my point further. The facts you've pointed out are merely core mechanics to their class and I'd be shocked and appalled if these weren't included to begin with. Beyond these core mechanics though, what does each class have to offer?

What skill or passive ability makes the Black Mage shine when accompanied by the Summoner?

What skill makes the Monk stand out from the Bard or the Dragoon in the party?

What skill does the white Mage have that makes it stand out next to the Scholar in an 8man party?

Having trouble coming up with an answer?

That's my point.

Read Extal's reply, it's pretty spot on.

[Aegis]

And you don't see anything wrong with having the same pieces of gears for years on end ?

Honestly? Not even a little bit. That piece of gear would take years to obtain. 6 mo to level your first job was pretty typical. Most people wouldn't have full Homam (for example) until years after when they started. Or Byakko's Haidate until they have been farming sky for months. The piece of gear was something you were proud of, something you built your gearset around. When next coil comes around, HA will have been BIS for what? 6 months? And you will be able to get gear better than it from whatever new tomes they release. One of these systems sounds rewarding to me, the other is like a cat chasing a mouse on a string.

If you find that boring, then the whole get 100% TP, pop cooldowns and use Weapon Skills style of FFXI must have been a snore fest to you.

Is that all you remember from XI. You don't remember organising skill chains and magic bursts? Setting up SATAs, BRD maintaining 4 or 5 song rotations? Samurais and Blue Magics Self-SC'ing? The list can go on and on. It sounds like you're pretty jaded about XI.

That's just lore. Otherwise it's just all the same.
Ancient magics are just like normal spell except longer casting time and piss poor damage compared to MP cost.
Blue mage spells are just spells, except the way you get them from monsters and how you allocate them. You have the damage spells, the healing spells, some utility ones and that's it.
Ninja is not the best evasion class because Thief is the one with more evasion bonus traits. And everybody had the utsusemi.
If you are talking about melee DPS in FFXI, everybody is just in autoattack while waiting for TP to do TP attack

Yeah, Ancient Magics weren't particularly well used, but a team of BLMs were used to sleep/nuke down mobs that were melee resistant or otherwise dangerous. BLM were also the DD of choice for SKillchains/Magic Burst

Blue Magic was very, very different to other magics. They followed not only the elemental wheel, but also the monster afinity chart (this was why MP Drainkiss for example was extremely effective on Colibri), they weren't affected by magic reflection abilities, they could be used as either part of a self-skillchain or a magic burst on that same skillchain. More than just that, they were spells with the shortest cast times, aimed to be used in melee combat. Saying they were the same as other spells means you are either forgetting how they actually were or are deliberately misrepresenting them.

And as for the melee DD, they all played very differently. Thieves were pulling mobs, orgainising the rest of the party into SATA positions. Dancers were using steps, sambas and flourishes along with their weaponskills, DRG were subbing mages and using healing breaths to solo mobs other jobs just couldn't. RDM were solo'ing gods.

So much more variety in roles.

[XNihili]

Yeah, Ancient Magics weren't particularly well used, but a team of BLMs were used to sleep/nuke down mobs that were melee resistant or otherwise dangerous. BLM were also the DD of choice for SKillchains/Magic Burst

Blue Magic was very, very different to other magics. They followed not only the elemental wheel, but also the monster afinity chart (this was why MP Drainkiss for example was extremely effective on Colibri), they weren't affected by magic reflection abilities, they could be used as either part of a self-skillchain or a magic burst on that same skillchain. More than just that, they were spells with the shortest cast times, aimed to be used in melee combat. Saying they were the same as other spells means you are either forgetting how they actually were or are deliberately misrepresenting them.

And as for the melee DD, they all played very differently. Thieves were pulling mobs, orgainising the rest of the party into SATA positions. Dancers were using steps, sambas and flourishes along with their weaponskills, DRG were subbing mages and using healing breaths to solo mobs other jobs just couldn't. RDM were solo'ing gods.

So much more variety in roles.

Of course it's a blatant exaggeration. But the BLU spamming spells are not that far from the current DPS abilities "spamming" except with the GCD.
There are currently 2 melee DPS in FFXIV and they are using positioning quite differently. They are about as different as FFXI DRG and MNK while in XP party.

[Aegis]

Of course it's a blatant exaggeration. But the BLU spamming spells are not that far from the current DPS abilities "spamming" except with the GCD.
There are currently 2 melee DPS in FFXIV and they are using positioning quite differently. They are about as different as FFXI DRG and MNK while in XP party.

I think to an extent that's true, but Dragoon in XI had a wholely seperate mechanic (Wyvern and its healing/elemental breaths) that made it a very different beast when solo'ing.

Monk also had the Chi Blast setup, which ok, became redundant as players geared up and it wasn't necesary anymore. It also ahd a place in a zerg party that DRG didn't, but didn't have the place in a merit pt that DRG did.

If you were a 75 Dragoon, your options for approaching content were very different to a 75 Monk, even if the levelling process wasn't that different for you. And they were about as similar as jobs got in XI.

Edit: Also, if you were spamming magic as a Blue Mage and you didn't have a RDM, BRDand Corsair giving you refresh, you would run out of mp and lose overall DPS making you a bad Blue Mage.

(It was my favourite XI job - Thief and Bard came close, but not quite there)

[XNihili]

I think to an extent that's true, but Dragoon in XI had a wholely seperate mechanic (Wyvern and its healing/elemental breaths) that made it a very different beast when solo'ing.

Well, FFXI mobs were totally "overpowered" and soloing in FFXIV is lolworthy.
And I did know about solo, maining BST for about almost all my time and soloing with any jobs that could solo.

Monk also had the Chi Blast setup, which ok, became redundant as players geared up and it wasn't necesary anymore. It also ahd a place in a zerg party that DRG didn't, but didn't have the place in a merit pt that DRG did.

If you were a 75 Dragoon, your options for approaching content were very different to a 75 Monk, even if the levelling process wasn't that different for you. And they were about as similar as jobs got in XI.

You mean in gearing your job with 5 hits/100TP vs full haste ? When thinking about melee DPS, it's the only thing that really stuck in my mind.
Except when you have some special duty like stun duty.

Edit: Also, if you were spamming magic as a Blue Mage and you didn't have a RDM, BRDand Corsair giving you refresh, you would run out of mp and lose overall DPS making you a bad Blue Mage.

(It was my favourite XI job - Thief and Bard came close, but not quite there)

I was the RDM in my static.The BLU always had refresh (and haste) on. All the mage and the PLD did.

[Aegis]

Well, FFXI mobs were totally "overpowered" and soloing in FFXIV is lolworthy.

I'd like some normal mobs that can't be solo'd in the overworld. Especially if they a) dropped something useful b) were protecting an important area.

And I did know about solo, maining BST for about almost all my time and soloing with any jobs that could solo.

BST. Good times. Remember checking /seacoms to see if camps were free or if people wanted to duo?

I was the RDM in my static.The BLU always had refresh (and haste) on. All the mage and the PLD did.

I was the DRK. Bane of my WHM's life. SOULEATER LAST RESORT GUILLOTINE! um... cure please?

[Dwill]

Honestly? Not even a little bit. That piece of gear would take years to obtain. 6 mo to level your first job was pretty typical. Most people wouldn't have full Homam (for example) until years after when they started. Or Byakko's Haidate until they have been farming sky for months. The piece of gear was something you were proud of, something you built your gearset around. When next coil comes around, HA will have been BIS for what? 6 months? And you will be able to get gear better than it from whatever new tomes they release. One of these systems sounds rewarding to me, the other is like a cat chasing a mouse on a string.

We were giving Haidate left and right in our LS because we farmed Sky so much(to which you could also buy trigger making the farming an irrelevant issue). All of the main core of the LS had their jailers' necklace so they were given to alt.
You could buy the Osode which was BiS for Weapon Skills. For Samurai, a lot of the BiS for auto-attacks had to be be bought (Hagun, Haubergeon +1, Grip, O.Kote, Kyahan, Forager Mantle) and one of the BiS ring was the CoP ring could be obtained in not too long, same deal with Zilart earrings.

It didn't take that long to gear if you were in a decent LS and a similar system in this game will more than likely yield similar results.

Is that all you remember from XI. You don't remember organising skill chains and magic bursts? Setting up SATAs, BRD maintaining 4 or 5 song rotations? Samurais and Blue Magics Self-SC'ing? The list can go on and on. It sounds like you're pretty jaded about XI.

Distortion or Light were the only two really used in endgame. Main strategy in endgame for forever was throw as many Samurais as you can for melees at boss with them being in 6-hit setup to chain WS left and right while buffing them to oblivion with Bards. If you were a two-handed users and you were not a samurai, you would have to/sam for Hasso which lefts you with zero "uniqueness" in term of subjob.

>_> Just going to say, I was pup forever. I still got invited to stuff without a problem lol That's what was great about XI and older mmos, if you knew people, you got stuff done. None of this "solo 90% of the game" crap we have now in mmos. Even better is that if you were good at your job, people knew it (since no cross server instance stuff), which increased your chances of being invited even more

Also >_> For anyone who brings up the argument on "waiting hours" for a party. Usually you can solve that by just making your own. Just saying lol

Yeah, making your own party with people dropping from it once they discovered you were a pup or it would take forever because you'd go anon while recruiting so people wouldn't see that you were a PUP. I knew quite a few people to which that happened during ToAU. And if you were good at your job, you were good at the most optimal one which is what people wanted. People in FFXI were mostly elitists in endgame and no one would let you PUP anything relevant so yeah, good job, you could merit as PUP but do nothing else worthwhile.

[Obysuca]

Yeah, making your own party with people dropping from it once they discovered you were a pup or it would take forever because you'd go anon while recruiting so people wouldn't see that you were a PUP. I knew quite a few people to which that happened during ToAU. And if you were good at your job, you were good at the most optimal one which is what people wanted. People in FFXI were mostly elitists in endgame and no one would let you PUP anything relevant so yeah, good job, you could merit as PUP but do nothing else worthwhile.

o.O Idk on your server, but people didn't drop if they found out you're pup and I never had to go /anon for it.
I also did plenty of endgame as pup, I even had people ask me to come that over sam and such, which were about the same geared as my pup.

Not saying you sucked at XI, but maybe all those experiences you speak of are because of not being social/being a jerk or just not being good at it o.o 10 years of XI and I never saw those "elitists" you speak of. I see them everywhere in XIV, never before in a mmo have I seen so many until now.

[Hurlstone]

Hmm... I left FFXI in around 2007-ish, mostly because of several things. The lack of solo based activities and the fact that I found the game boring to level (Find a group, find a camp, kill monsters for hours on end... give me quests any day!) where the main reasons, but another was the attitude of many players in regards to class. There were certain classes in which you found very hard to find parties, such as PUP (Which I adored, yet never really got to play much...) and others. Elitism and rude players were entities that I had experienced well before the likes of Dungeon/Duty Finder. I also really didn't like how you had to have a certain sub-class. It was a great system, with lots of room for experimentation, but when it came to leveling and stuff there was no way you could play other then what was assumed to be the 'best' no matter how good you were.

I missed being a RDM/NIN...

Anyway, that is just my experience. I am sure other have indeed had better luck and stuff. Perhaps it was just my server (Ragnarok, if I recall... name was Fred!) but looking back on it, I really do not hold it in such high regards as other former players do. As I said though, could just be me... I hear FFXI has changed a lot since the though. I must check it out again some day...

(Oh, and if every job in this game is the same, then why on Eorzea do I adore playing Summoner and hate playing Black Mage...)