What jobs are we hoping to see in the next expansion?

[CaptainLagbeard]

There's two classes I would like to see...

First off, Viking, as a dps or possibly tank, with a Warhammer (and some Thunder based magic), there's a serious shortage of blunt weapon types in the game. Monk is STILL the only one.

Secondly, Time Mage, a proper time mage and none of that "but ast uses time magics!"... Get some Haste buffs and Slow debuffs in there, maybe even make the debuffs work on bosses...



And since the MSQ seems to be pointing pretty heavily towards Garlemald, Chemist as a healer class might fit the theme.

[IlSire]

Jobs I'd like to see at some point:

Blue Mage: caster DPS.
Dancer: ranged DPS
Gunblade/Soldier: melee DPS
Geomancer: Healer
Viking or anything with a Hammer: Tank
Ranger: ranged DPS
Beastmaster: melee DPS
Necromancer caster DPS

[Lauront]

But... you're treating the symptoms here. For Dancer to have a positive effect on the healer roster, allowance and philosophy are going to have to change first. Offer the current design philosophy a Dancer healer and you will simply have a bit more thoroughly butchered Dancer than you'd likely see from what the DPS role allows from its jobs. No role template alone is a good fit for Dancer. But, as you've already noted, the tank and healer templates are far more restrictive. So, until things change, I do think DPS would allow for a slightly better Dancer than would Healer or Tank, and I do think that's more important, given how closely another healer or tank generate "more of the same" in the current design philosophy, than Dancer making a good Healer, or Tank, or DPS. I sorely hope that philosophy changes such that Dancer is a Dancer, and not a template with flavor elements, and could thereby be colored however without losing its unique additions to the game, but so long as a lack of allowance for job identity is what's causing the problem, I have to favor job identity over role-bolstering.

Agree with that point. I'm very much against homogeneisation and I think focusing on job identity over role is one of the few ways to achieve that.

[kikix12]

But, for the addition to do so, there first needs to be a change in the parameters.

It literally cannot happen until the parameters are expanded. Once they are, the first thing to use that expanded allowance to break out of the former rut shows the change. It does not make the change; it shows it.

And this shows that you have missed the reasoning behind what I wrote.

You are, in general, correct. A change needs to be made and is shown after it happens. It's a clear and simple cause and effect principle. However you completely miss a very crucial step. Development. You go straight from "no dancer" to "dancer" by skipping the "dancer development".

Yes, the Dancer we will receive will show the end result, not cause the change to happen. But that is where you are mistaken and what I tried to explain (albeit poorly, I admit, partially because I wrote that in the middle of the night and jumped all over the place).

The development process however is exactly where the change happens. Developing the Dancer through the use of the template will result in a failure of a dancer, yes. That means that to avoid that failure, they will either need to scrap the template (which we actually want) or go to great lengths to keep it (which we don't want). Ironically, avoiding the template is cheaper, easier and more logical.

Now, this is where there is a problem here. Square Enix have shown to do a lot of completely illogical things, going to extra lengths to make wasteful and inefficient mechanisms in place of established, efficient ones...So I do understand the fear for butchering the dancer.

However, being against something with higher chance of bringing a change out of fear for it being butchered instead of not something I plan on. If they won't change their design under those circumstances in the slightest it'll simply mean that playing the game further is nothing but a detriment to my wallet so I'll stop playing it. At least until after it changes. I don't pay for stuff that's not fun or that I got bored of after all, and doing the same thing over and over again for years on end is boring.

You seem to be implying I'm okay with these templates simply because there's one that's not quite as horrifyingly stiffling to design, despite 5k character post to the contrary that berates templates at least once per paragraph?

It was a fault of how I wrote it. As I said, I was writing it when I was tired (well, this post as well...).

What I kept focusing on is that a class that by its nature is difficult to use the template on will give a chance of the template not being used on it. And Dancer is as far as it can get for healers. And you, by using the existence of that template as argument to not make Dancer a healer out of fear for it being butchered, no matter how substantial and reasonable that fear is, are falling into a trap of self-fulfilled prophecy of sorts. Because following that line of thought removes the possibilities for the template to be changed.

If not, I can only say I obviously agree, although you apparently have far more faith in XIV's current mindset for job design that I do.

I have zero faith in these developers in any design other than story. Story is the only good thing (as far as MMO's go). They successfully revived the game, but that's the last "successful" thing they did that I know of. I did join somewhere in the middle of Heavensward, but I haven't seen a single thing that wouldn't either be broken someone or plain detrimental to the game.

They waste their own effort, basically, and this team should be moved to projects that are not ongoing, replaced with someone more suited for these kinds of projects. Everyone, including Yoshida.

That is the philosophy they've both followed to the tee and made clear to us that... they will continue to follow to the tee.

They have made numerous philosophies "clear" only to change them. People change their minds. Financial reports also change peoples minds as far as businesses go. I don't suggest I know them, but I certainly hope that they show stagnation...at least as far as subscriptions go. Because as far as item mall goes I know there are way too many people that do not respect or value their own work throwing dozens of dollars on things that are worth dozens of cents at most. Well, to each their own I guess.

Sure, Dancer might nudge public outcry so the next is done right: that would make change. But it will be too late for Dancer, just as it's apparently too late for the WHM, SCH, and AST concepts you seem to find irredeemable.

I never said that the three current healers are irredeemable, nor would Dancer be unsalvageable.

Just look at bard whose gameplay changed completely (though around similar notion) going into Stormblood.

What cannot be fixed is the lore. The three current healers cannot be given more unique lore and that's a loss. But Dancer cannot possibly be given non-dancer lore so that's not a problem. And gameplay mechanics can change significantly at any time. In gameplay, all the healers CAN be fixed...but won't. Yoshida and his team simply don't see the problem, so them making a healer that does not repeat the errors is only possible due to outside effects. Like...a class that just doesn't match their regular template.


That being said...if I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Everything else aside it is really clear that we approach game design, lore etc. completely differently. And since it's creative work...that means that neither of us is wrong or right. So yeah.

[Tanama]

Chemist from Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Shurrikhan]

To begin with the end...

That being said...if I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Everything else aside it is really clear that we approach game design, lore etc. completely differently. And since it's creative work...that means that neither of us is wrong or right. So yeah.

Fair enough. I still don't fully understand your position here -- as to me it seems our goals are very much aligned, while only our strategies are quite distinct -- but having reviewed it further I think it's wholly rational and legitimate, even if not the course I'd prefer. That's not to say that my opinion ought have any effect on yours, but thank you for discussing yours with me and clarifying what points I had trouble understanding.

For the sake of other's page-scrolling, rest is in the hideaway block below.

I never said that the three current healers are irredeemable, nor would Dancer be unsalvageable.

My apologies; I misread your tone. I misread how you positioned Dancer as working to redeem the Healer role, with no mention of what other changes it could bring forward in the existing classes -- who still compose the majority of the central issues, as those changes being unlikely or irrelevant.

Just look at bard whose gameplay changed completely (though around similar notion) going into Stormblood.

I don't mean to nitpick, especially this late on, but it did change further from its initial, and more traditional, role. Until Stormblood, both lore and toolkit worked to make Bard characteristically supportive, especially against fights of attrition. That support came at a cost, but was its raison d'être. With Stormblood, however, these became without cost, and access to the skills far more limited, to the point that most of its output are now equivalent only to that of Trick Attack, with a cleanse, external Convalescence, and a raid mitigation tool replacing Ninja's enmity tools. While Refresh and Tactician do provide the same benefits, and in a more streamlined manner, than the old Mage's Ballad or Paeon, for instance, that decreased access and loss of penalties (even relative ones, such as a mere mana cost detracting from Foe Requiem) made those tools feel and function more like indirect damage contribution than situation-dependent support. It no longer feels like we're adapting to the fight; instead, Tactician is used primarily for opening threat reduction, add threat reduction, or upon physical DPS resurrection, and Refresh on CD.

While the song-flavor added interesting mechanics to the pure damage-dealing aspect of Bard, everything else actually fell further towards the template. Gameplay can change. But can it change in a way that offers greater identity, rather than even less? It can, of course, but we've just no historical example of that occurring here.

Yoshida and his team simply don't see the problem, so them making a healer that does not repeat the errors is only possible due to outside effects. Like...a class that just doesn't match their regular template.

This is something I've largely missed. The issues are so clear to us here that I forget time and time again that one can actually fail to see them when looking only at balance feedback and the like. I think I may obsess more than you might over a lack of greater vision wanted for the game (I see the base vision as likely too shallow and the implementation as often uncommitted with corrections, and while I like that they do eventually react to feedback, I don't feel like they ever incorporate that back into the wider vision), I think we can agree that there's an issue there. I'm not sure if it's best described as a blind-spot or just poor fidelity, or even kind of like a computer trying to recognize an image of a cat and calling it something else just because it pixel-tests unlike any other cat, but there is an issue, and maybe Dancer and jobs like it could reveal it or at least give some more clarity.

They need a Dancer, I'll agree. And if they're willing and able to shake things up, then Dancer as a healer offers even more. You're right. But. But, I don't want to see it implemented as what is still, conceptually, a rough draft. I don't want to see a Dancer that hasn't first had a chance, unseen to us, to shake up how the existing, mostly homogeneous healers work together before being worked itself. If that means delaying it until 6.0, I'm fine with that. I want the work to occur as soon as possible. But I'd be fine with it not having an obvious face just yet; just getting an actual glimpse into their vision in the interviews explaining why X job was delayed may in a way be more reassuring than getting that job in time if it wasn't well attached to the lore to begin with and they've made no improvements in that regard. (Honestly, does Ishgard have any special significance to Dark Knights or Ala Mhigo to Red Mages? Even with Samurai hailing from Doma, the connection is not made compelling.)

They have made numerous philosophies "clear" only to change them.

Restrictions, yes. Originally, glamours were "technically impossible" in PvP. They were dead certain, and we should have just stopped asking. I think someone here has a running tally on the things Yoshida has said would never come, due to technical limitations, or were not worth implementing, due to technical limitations, only for them to later be added.

Philosophies, though? Rarely.

Only when a design has failed due to execution/implementation and the team chooses instead to address it as a conceptual failure they could not save regardless do we see a real repeal or reversal of ideas, and even then those rarely take on a new vision: they are merely the opposite, in some strict regard, of what came before. Fatigue was done badly, so <giving bonus experience rates for each and every job, that dwindles to a low base rate only when tunneling into a particular job, contrary to design goals> must be conceptually wrong. The "build your own job" concept was done poorly, so we must make classes as barebones in customization as possible, and give back jobs -- also with nearly no customization. The Black Shroud was too labyrinthine, so rather than allowing for climbing, we'll replace it with generic dusty forests, leaving only a small portion recognizable. The Stamina bar was too complicated, so we'll get rid of it and replace it with TP, a new version that varies only between able to do things at 100% potency or not being able to do things at all. The SCH/SMN bridge was done badly, so therefore any and all split jobs must be fundamentally bad design.

I word these snarkily, but the majority of our significant changes do follow a strawmanned scapegoat-and-oppose playbook, or "poisoning the chalice" as British friends have called it. Short of that, we've seen no real change in philosophy, let alone a stated one, but just a graduated descent that still seems to fall within an unstirred vision.

/rant

It's a clear and simple cause and effect principle. However you completely miss a very crucial step. Development. You go straight from "no dancer" to "dancer" by skipping the "dancer development".

You're totally right. I had not made clear, or even made mention of, any of the steps between. That development would be crucial. I just worry about any kind of development that would become visible to us before it's actually finished (barring, of course, the use of a Public Test Server -- which I'd very much like, if it was actually put up soon enough to offer real feedback, rather than just as placation). If we see Dancer while the game still needs what Dancer has done for the workshop behind the game... then we're getting something half-done. To us, there shouldn't be anything between, because once set, it's unlikely we'll see change until a larger movement has sweeps over everything -- you get job integrity and you get job integrity! -- which, if Dancer is already done and (in this case) gone, we won't get. Well, unless there's another job that can offer an equal challenge? Maybe BLU? I'd imagine BST would do wonders for straightening out position (not relative, as per Flank and Rear, but hitbox placement) detection and NPC responsiveness.

Anyways, I'm really sorry I caused so much of this to get out of hand because I'm bad at explaining things. And thank you for sticking with me for a bit longer despite that and my defensiveness.

[Hazama999]

Dancer! They could have it be a tank and I'd still play it :P

[Ramesses]

Chemist from Final Fantasy Tactics.

Agreed... plus there is something about that image that suddenly reminded me of Valkyria Chronicles 1 and 4.

[Limonia]

I would like to see
- Geomancer as healer, with ground AoE spells and spells that are similar to Bard songs and have an effect around the caster or the target.
- Gunhammer job as tank, Garlean themed, job quests could involve Nero.

I'm not so interested in new DPS, especially not Blue Mage or Dancer, but if they add those, I would like to see
- Blue Mage as caster with melee attacks, similar to Red Mage - but not too similar, only the casting + melee aspect of it, maybe more melee attacks than RDM and then the typical FF blue magic skills. Blue Mage in previous FF games also had physical and magic attacks plus buffs and so on.
- Dancer as a support melee DPS, like a mix between Bard and Monk/Ninja, but of course with its own mechanics. Please not as a healer job. ._.

[SekkerOfTrust]

If shadowbringers is the name of next expansion i will say:
Dancer(healer)
Destroyer(melee dps)