About roles and balance.

[Lithera]

On a more personal point, i don't want to play blue mage which is purely DPS, a nuker red mage or a healer green mage, if they are going to half implement those jobs they better just don't implement them.

XI was the only game really where the Blue Mage served multiple roles...it's always been almost entirely a damage class. Sure they had White Wind and Mighty Guard but 90% of their spells in previous games were attacks. Make them a pure DPS in XIV and give them the ability to pick between tank and healer LBs and you have your typical BLU from games other than XI

[Lithera]

SNIP

You just described Ramuh EX just about perfectly. You can even recover from major deaths as long as it isn't during add phase. You have to heavily micromanage the Trial to be able to have certain mechanics fall where they're most useful (ie holding DPS right before adds to ensure you don't swap on a Chaotic). Sadly Ramuh EX is not heavily ran despite the awesome rings and decent weps for your alt classes so the Devs are going to get the impression that what people have been clamoring for on the forums is NOT working.

[Gilthas]

The problem with hybrid jobs is that they're hell to balance.

Should these jobs be good at more than one role? If you do this they'll become overpowered because why bring along a specialist job when the hybrid can perform just as well and fulfill more than one role if needed? Example: Red Mages during ToAU/WotG.

Should these jobs not be able to excel at any role? If you do this they'll be ignored because they can't perform as good as a specialist job. Example: Puppetmaster during ToAU/WotG.

The best you can hope for is a hybrid job that performs well at one specific role but is also passable at other roles, like the healers and tanks that are currently in FFXIV. SMN is also kind of like this with their Titan tanking.

[Mardel]

Despite this, people still try to label bard as the "support" so they can probably try to incorperate it into dps... which brings into another problem of whether or not they're going to end up being required, optional or suboptimal to bring to a raid.

They may as well have made a support job because bards are pretty much required for end game raids. (Especially during progression.)

[Renik]

XI was the only game really where the Blue Mage served multiple roles...it's always been almost entirely a damage class. Sure they had White Wind and Mighty Guard but 90% of their spells in previous games were attacks. Make them a pure DPS in XIV and give them the ability to pick between tank and healer LBs and you have your typical BLU from games other than XI

Blue mage has been a lot of things in the saga, and the more complex the game the more diverse it becomes, look at Quina from FFIX as an example, we are not just talking about what it has been in other games, we are talking about its potential, we could make a dark knight who instead of dark magic and absorbs, uses only HP consuming skills, because it was like that in ffiv and tactics, but it would be a waste.

[Gilthas]

look at Quina from FFIX as an example

If Quina had a role in FFIX, it was clearly DPS.

[Lithera]

Blue mage has been a lot of things in the saga, and the more complex the game the more diverse it becomes, look at Quina from FFIX as an example, we are not just talking about what it has been in other games, we are talking about its potential, we could make a dark knight who instead of dark magic and absorbs, uses only HP consuming skills, because it was like that in ffiv and tactics, but it would be a waste.

Of course, and that's part of my point in a way. In the name of diversity we also can't just look at XI BLU. especially considering BLU in XI is so much hybrid that it becomes next to useless in order to prevent it from becoming OP. The amount of work needed to make a BLU in XI useful in the endgame content is insane when you consider you can grind a MNK to 99, get some fairly easy to get gear and be the GOTO DPS for endgame..

[RiceisNice]

They may as well have made a support job because bards are pretty much required for end game raids. (Especially during progression.)

Don't see this, at least not on farmfruit. I've gotten shafted out of T6 because they wanted BLM, MNK, SMN and DRG.

When it comes to new classes, I'd rather them avoid the whole "Jack of all trades, master of none". You don't want a role that's capable of doing all, but not really accel at any one (to the point that what they bring to the table isn't respectable, despite the perks they bring). Same in the case of having a SMN for Titan-egi in some fights simply because it makes it so much easier. It creates class exclusion and people will get left out. Making a fourth role would only compound onto this and make it even worse on dps for DF queues.

[Renik]

The amount of work needed to make a BLU in XI useful in the endgame content is insane when you consider you can grind a MNK to 99, get some fairly easy to get gear and be the GOTO DPS for endgame..

And still i took all that work because i loved the job, and i was always welcome in endgame.

This is more for those who see it hard to be implemented because of the class exclusion,you can say it's useless for your static or for certain battles, you can say it is hard to lvl and or gear, but those who like it will play it, not everyone in the game is a hardcore raider, as i said Hardcore raiders are a minority, they can exclude whatever they want, but the casual crowd will play their way, you can't always chose what to use when you're not a hardcore raider or part of a big FC, this is what most people in the forums fail to understand.

I would like to add something more, as a player who likes and plays hybrid roles, an hybrid is a class made to perform well in a variety of situations, like healing for a short period while the whm raises the fallen scholar, or taking an add which is out of control, of course this can make a battle easyer, but it will also be slower, because a good mnk or a drg could apport higher DPS to make the battle shorter, for me this is not a "not needed" or "must have" just different strategies, this is what the real balance should do, of course, when a battle is fully scripted this is not possible, but SE is slowly changing the system, and hybrid roles could have a place soon, and don't forget a lot of ppl is asking for this, or it would never made it to a LL.

[Xystic]

If i have to give an idea to solve this, i would say, less 1shot mechanics, more reactive and less predictable battles, without making it RNG.

How do you intend to produce less predictability without any form RNG behind a mechanic?

It is impossible. even real life involves RNG

Okay, so we both agree that RNG is going to be involved if you want less predictable battles.