Do Something About Duty Finder Already

[Claymore65]

The classes have an option for rather wider variety of cross class skills, as well as 10 slots for them instead of just 5. With some clever choises and use, they can be funny challenging option and just as viable as jobs. That doesn't of course mean everyone who's lacking the job stone in the end game content knows what they are doing as we all know. Some might have just missed the job quests and are not very good with the classes either, but don't judge a book by it's cover.

Just as a heads up, this isn't really true. Perhaps you could make an argument in 2.X, since your total number of abilities would be the same (10 Cross Class vs. 5 Cross Class & 5 Job), but even then the stat bonuses and powerful actions more than made up for it in the vast majority of cases. There were some PVP Maurader and Archer builds that were arguably better, but even then it was only for PVP. Post Heavensward, you're missing 5 total abilities, and additional Stat bonuses. It's technically "viable" in that you can complete content, but at a significantly higher difficulty for not just yourself, but your entire party. In many cases, you're missing out on additional core mechanics post-heavensward. Warriors lose access to Deliverance (and Defiance), Paladins lose their Oaths and Royal Authority/Goring Blade, Black Mages lose out on Fire IV and enochian, Dragoons lose jumps and Blood of the Dragon, etc. You're losing so much potential DPS, Healing, and Damage Mitigation (or all three, depending on role) in exchange for some non-trait enhanced Cross Class abilities that are never going to make up the difference. It's fair to wish they were as viable as Jobs, but Classes are slowly being phased out. They're revamping the "Cross Class" system into a role based ability system, and even then all new Jobs thus far haven't had corresponding classes (Dark Knight, Astrologian, Machinist, Red Mage, Samurai). Once we hit Stormblood, you'll me losing even more total usable abilities. Whether you like it or not, Classes are not meant to stay viable.

Please don't spread the "Classes are as viable as Jobs!" myth any further. It just confuses new players unnecessarily. Once again, you can complete content using a class instead of a Job in high level content, but you're drastically increasing the difficulty for not only yourself, but your entire party. If you're just playing with Friends, do whatever you like, but when in DF, just put on your Job Stone.

[Sida]

Once again, you can complete content using a class instead of a Job in high level content, but you're drastically increasing the difficulty for not only yourself, but your entire party. If you're just playing with Friends, do whatever you like, but when in DF, just put on your Job Stone.

While that might be true, that doesn't mean equipping the job stone automatically makes you a good player. On your rhetoric, also playing poorly the person is making things drastically harder for the whole group. With the wide variety in player skill level I have witnessed, it is indeed possible that a player using class cleverly can surpass a player who uses job poorly. Should the latter also stay out of random groups? While I know some people would gladly answer yes to that, I would think that was not your intent.

[Claymore65]

While that might be true, that doesn't mean equipping the job stone automatically makes you a good player. On your rhetoric, also playing poorly the person is making things drastically harder for the whole group. With the wide variety in player skill level I have witnessed, it is indeed possible that a player using class cleverly can surpass a player who uses job poorly. Should the latter also stay out of random groups? While I know some people would gladly answer yes to that, I would think that was not your intent.

While technically true, you can't consider yourself a truly "good" player if you're not using the tools available to you. Not using your Job stone is, simply put, ignoring a huge amount of critical abilities that make you stronger, and far better at your role. I don't disagree that a Class using player adequately using abilities is better than a Monk who only uses auto-attacks or a Dragoon who only stands in AOEs, but it's also a sign of a fundamental misunderstanding of efficient play in this game. If you honestly believe that you can make up for your lack of Job abilities (and straight stat improvements) with cross-class abilities, then you don't understand how to play your Job. Sure, you can play better than a truly terrible player, but that doesn't mean you're playing well.

Put another way, using a Job stone in end game content isn't a sign of competence, but using a Class is a sign of either ignorance, misunderstanding of the mechanics, or laziness.

[Bdyer]

Maybe SE could put a scoring system in. For each dungeon your given a score based on dps (dps), dps +hps (healer) and single target damage to everyone not you (tank). You're overall score through standard Df determines who you get placed with. So lower score people are placed with lower score people, etc.

That way all the "I play my own way" people get put together and all the people trying to play their class well gets put together. That way everyone is wins and no one is gated

[Zojha]

While technically true, you can't consider yourself a truly "good" player if you're not using the tools available to you.

That's faulty logic IMO. By that logic, you couldn't consider yourself a "good" player if you didn't use cheat codes or cheese strategies when they are available to you.
In truth, that would mean everyone who opts to play a game on a higher difficulty would be a worse player than someone who chooses to play on a lower difficulty, because the difficulty setting is a tool you can use to make you effectively stronger or weaker and you're not using it to best effect.

No.

Purposely using a class in endgame is one thing and only one thing: Inconsiderate. A person who does so simply doesn't care to give their teammates the best performance they can offer. It has nothing to do with how good a player you are.
And in order to fix that flaw, all you need is to make a premade that is on board with it. Then it's no longer inconsiderate and thus fine.

[SenorPatty]

While that might be true, that doesn't mean equipping the job stone automatically makes you a good player. On your rhetoric, also playing poorly the person is making things drastically harder for the whole group. With the wide variety in player skill level I have witnessed, it is indeed possible that a player using class cleverly can surpass a player who uses job poorly. Should the latter also stay out of random groups? While I know some people would gladly answer yes to that, I would think that was not your intent.

But why would a good player leave themselves out of a job stone in the first place? For DF mind you, not for private play. At face value, most people would rather roll with a person that has a job equipped rather than not. Performance is judged later.

[Claymore65]

That's faulty logic IMO. By that logic, you couldn't consider yourself a "good" player if you didn't use cheat codes or cheese strategies when they are available to you.
In truth, that would mean everyone who opts to play a game on a higher difficulty would be a worse player than someone who chooses to play on a lower difficulty, because the difficulty setting is a tool you can use to make you effectively stronger or weaker and you're not using it to best effect...

Sorry, I should have been more specific in the use of my word "good". I should have used "contributing to the team adequately in a DF environment".

I totally agree as well, if you're in a pre-made party and everyone is cool with you playing a Class instead of a Job, that isn't a problem. Tackling an end-game dungeons using only Classes might actually make for a fun challenge. When you make your party ahead of time, all the rules change. It's when you intentionally bring a significantly weaker option into Duty Finder that it's a problem.

Back to the rest of the discussion, I'd personally be fine with some stricter iLvl requirements for leveling dungeons, or Primary Stat ilvl Restrictions replacing it. I'd also be fine with locking 50+ dungeons to Jobs only, if only to ensure new players understand the importance of leveling a Job.

[Mikanika]

..challenge is, one has to practice in order to get good at it. Where does one practice? In dungeons. Who does one get the experience with? With other players who might be already level 60 speed-running a lower level dungeon. This might be ones first run at the dungeon, others have done this one multiple times already. So, good players will most likely always run into 'bad', first-time players.
How about a practice area with either players who expect others to be 'bad' or solo training dungeons?

[Rysir]

Storm blood may fix the people intentionally going as classes what with the new level cap and new abilities. Id like to think no one would be dumb enough to seriously hop into content missing 40 levels worth of abilities and a hearty chunk of missing stats on purpose.

[thegreatonemal]

A few things
1. The games standards are not your standards nor does anyone have to care about what your standards are. Bare minimum tanks need to hold aggro healers need to make sure everyone is alive and dps to do damage how much and how fast depends on the content for most content its not much as long as you meet the ilvl requirement for the content its fine for the most part. No one has to follow your standards of what it means to play as long as they are at that base line to put it bluntly shut your mouth and stop whining oh no your dungeon took an extra 2 minutes. Now whether it has a bad effect on the game is for another discussion all together MMO aren't hard by their nature when you really get down to it the hardest thing is googling the guide for whatever class you play

2. As for this game not teaching people how to play properly i fully agree its the worst thing about mmos in general. when I play street fighter i don't need to google Ryu's move set i just press pause and go to move list and boom its right there. I still gotta press the buttons but i know which buttons to press now why isn't the game teaching us rotations that they devs clearly balance their raids and ex primals around all your CDs coming up isn't a coincidence.