If best way is the only...why do we see different setups ?

[Zojha]

Sometimes you have to do something you don't necessarily like for the sake of your group, and that's just the way it is

Such as using fire spells >_>

[Tilgung]

Everywhere in these parts, we see how <insert_job> is weak or how people always find and use only the best path...

If that is so, why do we see so much different setups in videos ?

At Savage release, everyone jumped the bandwagons "PLD sucks", "MCH is garbage", "AST is dumb", etc...
Yet, it's not uncommon to see clear videos with approximately any job as soon as early september, when A4S world first was only 23rd of August.

If that's the case, isn't it just saying that people are still basically playing what they want and not automatically reroll towards "What is best"?

Because even though some classes are objectively better than others, XIV is balanced well enough that all other jobs are only slightly less viable than optimum set-ups.

Balance being key, which is why some people (such as myself) are hesitant about skill trees and unique class specific materia. It's a balancing nightmare and I dont' want to see XI-2 where half the jobs in the game are considered unviable by the player base because they're ridiculously outclassed be easier to gear/play jobs.

Something like Jump Recast: -5 Seconds Materia is a ~90 DPS gain for Dragoons. Ninja has Juggulate on the same initial recast as Jump so you'd think -5 seconds would be cool. But because of the potency differences, it's closer to a ~35 DPS gain.

Dislcaimer: Values are a sloppy estimate based off the memory of some math I did a few months ago.

[AlphaSonic]

Well AST has an explanation.

AST 3.0 was terrible, was the worst healer by far.
In 3.05 and in 3.07 AST got lots of buffs (and even now Nocturnal AST is still bad compared to their counterpart).

By 3.07 everyone had already spent their Esoteric and people weren't going to roll again AST because it would have mean losing their Esoteric Weapon.

[Reynhart]

It's a balancing nightmare and I dont' want to see XI-2 where half the jobs in the game are considered unviable by the player base because they're ridiculously outclassed be easier to gear/play jobs.

FFXI was a balancing mess right from the start, because it didn't even properly enforce each role.
PLD had less HP than most of DPS jobs, and several of them could equip the best mitigation gear. In fact, PLD wasn't even a proper tank without the WAR subjob.
RDM, apart from being able to do almost everything was also the best at two things. You don't do that, it's jack-of-all trades 101.
Dev team also let emergent gameplay flourish without any control. "NIN wasn't supposed to be a tank !" Then, fix this ! Make Utsusemi like Blink. Done. NIN tank dead.

FFXIV is far more controled, especially because, now, they have an official forum to take the temperature. It's more balanced now with 13 jobs than FFXI ever was with 6.

[Ibi]

Because even though some classes are objectively better than others, XIV is balanced well enough that all other jobs are only slightly less viable than optimum set-ups.

Balance being key, which is why some people (such as myself) are hesitant about skill trees and unique class specific materia. It's a balancing nightmare and I dont' want to see XI-2 where half the jobs in the game are considered unviable by the player base because they're ridiculously outclassed be easier to gear/play jobs.

The XI developers didn't even make an attempt at balancing anything that wasn't totally egregious for the vast majority of its lifespan. Even today, /shout groups will have very limited scope in what they're willing to accept for the majority of content, because some jobs (notably any melee at the moment) have such vast disadvantages.

The XIV developers may have moved a little slowly and reluctantly on some balance stuff, but overall any standard setup has been viable for almost all the content, and even in Savage you're not truly hampering your group that badly no matter what jobs you bring.

[Nihility]

there are classes that are numerically better
but the classes are also balanced well enough that a skilled player that is willing to put in the time is a lot better than a player that is on "the best class" but not as skilled or dedicated.

Also, the limit break requiring a variety helps force groups into doing as such

[Reynhart]

but the classes are also balanced well enough that a skilled player that is willing to put in the time is a lot better than a player that is on "the best class" but not as skilled or dedicated.

The same can be applied on templates for each job.

Kudos to all of you, by the way, it's the first thread I see about customization that doesn't end with nothing but insults after the first page

[Ossom]

Oh I agree everything should be in the DF straight away. If people want to DF for something even if others claim theres no chance to clear in DF they should have the right to do so.

I agree with this, but we run into a resource limit. For some reason or another, theres a cap on the number of instances SE can have running at the same time, this has been the case since beta when they had people who couldn't complete the main story quests because everyone was on the same instances and unable to actually get in for hours at a time.

Nothing much has changed because there is still a resource limit (and probably a resource limit based on a particular fight for every fight, i.e. some servers dedicated to raid, some servers dedicated to expert dungeons, some servers dedicated to trials, pvp, etc..) If this is the case, then opening up Savage fights in DF immediately will be an issue when you now see multiple people who individually queue for it and constantly go for it every moment they are logged on, but not make any progress, because it is inherently DF.

This will then lock out groups who have reserved times among themselves to raid, meaning they either need to wait around during their raid time, or move their raid hours, or break their group.

So what you see in the long run is more people doing Savage (Alex Savage 1), but less people clearing it and advancing, causing even more people to quit.

SE clearly expects each of these fights to take time, far more time to learn than you can gain in a DF instance and so they don't put it in DF because they would just eat resources. Even if you, yourself know the fight, all you need is 1 or 2 people in the instance to not know the fight for you guys to not make any progress.

[FoxyAreku]

People bring up the chinese clear a lot, but those people played on other servers, developed strategies, and researched a lot to be able to do that. They also had the BEST party makeup possible for the fight and still only beat the enrage by 1 second. They definitely wouldn't have cleared with a paladin, as an example.

Best doesn't mean only, but if a class isn't included in the 'best' setup, sacrifices usually have to be made.

[Tilgung]

Why are people quoting me and literally repeating what I said?

XIV is extremely well balanced. XI never was and never will be, and a lot of that has to do with a lack of communication and stubbornness on the Dev Teams side. But if you think the dozens and dozens of unique stats found on weapon and armor had no part in it, you're kinda absolutely wrong.

Adding unique stats would be cool, but pretending it isn't going to be a huge strain on the development team is silly.