Recurring Theme On Specific Class Demands Per Content Because of Difficulty.

[Griss]

Its following the path of least resistance, its the nature of how things operate in the entirety of everything.

[Lavani]

lawl. How is it poorly designed? There will always be classes that excel at certain fights, but that doesn't give it exclusivity in them unless people let it become so.

Blame the elitists, not the design.

Despite the fact that this is the current reality, it doesn't have to be, and IMO it shouldn't be. It is poor design because it turns the game into "what is the current flavor of the month this patch?" rather than focusing on balancing classes so they are all equally good in any given encounter.

[Rentahamster]

Which is not the point of this thread, the OP claims that most people only have one class to 50 (which I doubt is true any longer) and so they can't even do this content because it is Lancer only.

And that's not what I was saying, either. I know you can do Ifrit without lancers. This is the core issue:

Ask yourself this - All other things like player skill being equal, if the ARC, MRD, and PGL could parse the same DPS as lancers in the Ifrit fight with the same amount of effort and difficulty, would we have this issue?

No, we wouldn't.

OP is right that it is a design problem. Other posters are right that this is also a community problem. It's both. BUT, the genesis of the community problem is the design problem. There would be no community problem if there was no design problem to begin with.

"lancers do more damage and are safer"

This is the start of the problem, and it leads to -

"I only want lancers in my party"

[Delsus]

I will use DH as an example, in an old ls they were doing DH and i constantly got turned down because "only arc is useful in there" then I got a run on lnc and we did well.

A vid gets released of a win with a setup then people think thats the best way, then 1 month later when they are winning only talk and vids of that initial setup come out and everyone thinks its the only way because no one has shown other groups working.

This is how setups become standard.

[Lavani]

People don't seem to understand the fact that player skill is a variable that needs to be the controlled variable. Assuming player skill is the same regardless of the class being played, it's clear that one class will be better suited for a specific encounter. Using the Ifrit example, we assume that all 8 players have equal skill, their first attempt is done with only lancer for DPS, and things go well. Their second attempt is done with a medley of classes and things go well for the raid. When the two attempts are compared it's clear that using only one type of class facilitates the encounter. The fact that the lancer class is a stronger dps, allowing for a faster kill time and less stress on healers to worry about mana and does it from a safer distance, again less worry about player survive ability, makes the encounter favored to one specific class.

Like i said before, that bad game design breeds FOTM classes especially when people can change weapons and be a different class.

[Velhart]

Blame both on this one.

SE needs to create less incentive for cookie cutter setups.

We as a community need to stay open and not fall under this cookie cutter setup.

In our LS, we invite anyone who can DPS and know what they are doing. Is it easier if they bring LNC? Yes, and we recommend it if you have it, but not forced upon you. We still best him under 10 minutes a lot of the times.

Hate to pull the WoW card, but everytime I play it and do raids, people don't look at my class and say "Sorry, only "this class" is allowed into the raid.". They invite you based off your gear level and if you are experienced. Blizzard figured this out, a lot of MMO's figured this out, why can't SE? Sure it isn't perfect on their end either, but cookie cutter setups on their end don't involve certain class setups. You get your tanks, healers, ranged DPS, and DPS, and you are good.

In the future in FFXIV, I want to be invited based on my skills and gear, not what I am, but who I am. Where it leads back to what I said above, SE needs to create less incentive for cookie cutter.

Still can't blame them, we are the ones who have to be in control of the situation, we have to be willing to stop falling into this everytime and invite a player if he is a good player.

[Clydey]

I've seen archers in Darkhold gear do 12+ DPS on an Ifrit, so they are hardly "unusable" for ifrit or even a liability.



Though I generally play LNC when DD'ing, I can out DPS most random Lancers as a MRD, and though I haven't played pugilist one in my LS out damages most LNC parses I have seen from other "elite" linkshells.

I do think people do it to "mimic" videos they saw online, and in doing it they don't realize how much of an affect player skill has on the fight versus what classes everyone plays.

What I mean is it is objectively easier to beat Ifrit using 5 pugilists who know how to play well, than your average Lancer. Classes could be balanced better, but that doesn't negate the fact that some people in this community are just terrible at the game and like to blame balance/mechanics for that.

If your PGLs are out DPSing Lancers of certain linkshells, those linkshells aren't elite. The cooldown on Victimize kills PGL DPS.

[Wolfie]

People don't seem to understand the fact that player skill is a variable that needs to be the controlled variable. Assuming player skill is the same regardless of the class being played, it's clear that one class will be better suited for a specific encounter. Using the Ifrit example, we assume that all 8 players have equal skill, their first attempt is done with only lancer for DPS, and things go well. Their second attempt is done with a medley of classes and things go well for the raid. When the two attempts are compared it's clear that using only one type of class facilitates the encounter. The fact that the lancer class is a stronger dps, allowing for a faster kill time and less stress on healers to worry about mana and does it from a safer distance, again less worry about player survive ability, makes the encounter favored to one specific class.

Like i said before, that bad game design breeds FOTM classes especially when people can change weapons and be a different class.

Yup. Considering if lag, skill, gear, and everything else being equal, classes are never going to be 100% balanced. But when you have class imbalance or a fight where a certain class can make up for lack of gear, skill, or lag because that class' skills don't require equal or near-equal player competency you have a problem.

This is what happened in FFXI with black mages for the longest time, because it was exceedingly easy and safe to play a BLM, and their gear requirements to do a satisfactory or good job were much lower than melees. When more gear became more accessible to melees in FFXI, black mages were shunned. That's a good example of what class imbalance is. It doesn't have anything to do with whether class X or class Y can't participate, but has to deal with whether all classes close enough to each other in performance when all other variables are equal.

[Engineer]

Blame both on this one.

SE needs to create less incentive for cookie cutter setups.

We as a community need to stay open and not fall under this cookie cutter setup.

In our LS, we invite anyone who can DPS and know what they are doing. Is it easier if they bring LNC? Yes, and we recommend it if you have it, but not forced upon you. We still best him under 10 minutes a lot of the times.

Hate to pull the WoW card, but everytime I play it and do raids, people don't look at my class and say "Sorry, only "this class" is allowed into the raid.". They invite you based off your gear level and if you are experienced. Blizzard figured this out, a lot of MMO's figured this out, why can't SE? Sure it isn't perfect on their end either, but cookie cutter setups on their end don't involve certain class setups. You get your tanks, healers, ranged DPS, and DPS, and you are good.

In the future in FFXIV, I want to be invited based on my skills and gear, not what I am, but who I am. Where it leads back to what I said above, SE needs to create less incentive for cookie cutter.

Still can't blame them, we are the ones who have to be in control of the situation, we have to be willing to stop falling into this everytime and invite a player if he is a good player.

I agree, but its hard to avoid cookie cutter setups, if SE keeps adding cookie cutter dungeons.

and thats the problem.

[Murugan]

If your PGLs are out DPSing Lancers of certain linkshells, those linkshells aren't elite. The cooldown on Victimize kills PGL DPS.

Well I've seen certain parses paraded out in numerous threads in this forum from shells bragging about getting the short work achievement with lancers parsing a "measly" 16-18 DPS. I've seen PGL that could definitely have out parsed those.

I agree, but its hard to avoid cookie cutter setups, if SE keeps adding cookie cutter dungeons.

and thats the problem.

It's not a cookie cutter fight. My god, sear is not that hard to heal through.