PLD, WAR, & DRK balancing ideas

[DestroyerOfLargePlanets]

You said that in your opinion, dont let me misrepresent you, the more complex classes doing more DPS shouldn't continue as that forces competitive players into a meta and that is a bad thing. My posit to you was if you could name for me any competitive game that does not have a meta, which you conceded that you could not. That means two possible things; Either every competitive game that you or I can think of is doing something bad, or that metas are a natural development of competitive games and arent in fact bad.

IMO it's more like a combination of the two: metas are a natural development of competitive games and it's always a bad thing. It's bad, but unfortunately it's unavoidable. What can be done to combat that, however -- and we can see this in League of Legends for example -- are constant balancing tweaks to the various playable characters. These balancing tweaks aim to conserve a level playing field. But in any case, it's no use pursuing that train of thought; I think your next paragraph is much more interesting and I'd like to shift focus there.

My issue as stated is with an arbitrary increase in DPS in a mechanically simpler class like PLD.

I have an issue with that as well, but for different reasons which are irrelevant at this point. I mentioned it in my first comment on this thread iirc.

In practice however, I disagree that changing PLD is a good idea at all. That is because FFXIV does not only have a competitive player base. There needs to be high accessibility mechanically simpler jobs for low skill players. Those players exist, and vastly outnumber the competitive crowd. Making all the jobs equal in difficulty does one of two things: it isolates low skill players by not giving them the tools they need to grow or it waters down the competitive scene.

I get what you mean. SE needs to cater to both the competitive and the casual players so there appears to be a tradeoff when adjusting the difficulties of the tank classes. The question is: how do we adjust the difficulty of all tank classes so that they are ALL accessible and playable by low-skill players while also providing challenge to competitive players who want to push the limits of their class/job? How do we achieve this while also avoiding limiting player choice by making one tank class/job more effective than another tank class/job? The ideal situation, in other words, is to have all the 3 tank classes at equal difficulty and equal damage (personal dps or raidwide dps contribution) but to have the difficulty of these classes land in the perfect "goldilocks" zone which satisfies the level of play of both casual and competitive players.

I can think of a multi-step process that may alleviate some of these problems:
Step 1: Increase the difficulty and damage output of PLD. (Not its personal damage, but allow it to increase raidwide DPS via support buffs or support mechanics). At this point, PLD, WAR, and DRK will all be above the skill level of most casual players. They will effectively be isolated/"locked out" of these classes because they're simply too hard for them to play. Step 2 will address this issue.
Step 2: Make rotations of all classes/jobs more straightforward. No more trying to figure out if saving Infuriate and Internal Release for your Berserk window is a DPS loss or gain (hold it, obviously xD). If Infuriate and IR had the same CD as Berserk, than it would be much more straightforward. Basically, if you can create a simple flowchart of the rotation of a job/class without having to write down a bunch of crap in asterisks then that's a good start.
Step 3: Create level 60 tutorials for each job detailing the proper rotations. (If SE has the resources, then this would further cater to the low-skill players while having no detrimental effects to the competitive scene).
Step 4: Make ridiculously hard fights that require the competitive players to rearrange their rotations in order to optimize damage output in the fight.

SE's plans for 4.0 rotations actually reflects this. I hear they're going to make rotations easier and more straightforward. Moreover, I hear that the next raid will have a difficulty level that's twice as difficult as the savage tier right now! I'm a competitive player, and even if they do make rotations easier, I'll be happy so long as I can still push my job to its maximum potential in such a difficult fight.

[Chronons]

snip

Thank you. Genuinely. This is an exquisite example of an argument based in logic and reasoning. It also shows that you fully understand the counterpoint I was positing.

I would agree with your multi-step approach. It provides the much needed context that others seem to neglect. I think you have effectively tried to address the isolation affect of complicating classes. I also think that giving PLD, or all the tanks for that matter, different but equal contributions to DPS is generally good. The crux of this, I think, will be SE's ability to effectively balance. Low skill players will always be a limit to how interesting/complex they can make the jobs. There are plenty of players who are lvl 60 that don't have a clue what rotations, BiS, or cooldown management mean. And they generally will outnumber those of us who do. Now, will SE be able to make the jobs simple enough for new players, while also keeping them all equally desirable for competitive play? I'm not sure, but perhaps. My pointing to other games always having a meta is my suggesting that it is very, very difficult. Namely because most games have the same issue, catering to low and high skill players.

[Sarcatica]

Now, will SE be able to make the jobs simple enough for new players, while also keeping them all equally desirable for competitive play? I'm not sure, but perhaps. My pointing to other games always having a meta is my suggesting that it is very, very difficult. Namely because most games have the same issue, catering to low and high skill players.

In the first place, it is a very hard task for MMOs to diversify raid picks. Unlike games with pvp, MMOs are constrained by how the raids interact with the players, sooner or later people will find the best comp, route etc. Compare to LoL, DotA2, CSGO, SC2 etc where opportunity is not presented the same way mainly because the opponents are human as well which means that diversifying raid picks on MMOs needs more variables to play against, all bosses so far have the same patterns with rngs. The root of the problem comes from the design itself where tactics on how you handle mechanics don't change, or rarely differ. As long as the formula stays, diversity on picks remain stale at the top competition.

[Brian_]

You just said it yourself that the DRK has it easier due to DM.

Like I said...

You either have to tank swap OR are stretched very thin on CDs.

Your example is a CD rotation that has been stretched very thin. Using just a Rampart to mitigate something necessitates ShO or on-point healer shielding / virus / disable / etc. Compare that to DRK who can just throw out DM on a 60s recast and stack multiple substantial CDs for each buster or WAR who can always fall back on IB if stuff goes south, stack CDs, and rely on the shorter CD of Holmgang for PH + Cleave pairings.

Again, I never said PLD couldn't clear. I was just echoing the sentiment that PLD is indeed not optimal and makes clearing A12S harder.

[Chronons]

In the first place, it is a very hard task for MMOs to diversify raid picks.

These are actually really solid points. Its even the case that players will determine whether its better to have/prioritize ranged or melee DPS depending on melee up time in a fight. It just adds more reasons as to while I may agree in concept, I'm not so sure its practical without major changes to the game.