Unpopular Opinion: SE Is Not Obligated To Add New Jobs Every Expansion

[Shougun]

Balance may be less important for normal content, but there's a difference between saying that and what a Blue Mage can do and also what it can still potentially do as they further develop the job in future patches.

Groups can still wipe in normal dungeons, so I don't think making limited jobs be the main jobs for normal content is the intention regardless of less balance needed.

Under such an idea that limited becomes the new main you'd have a lot to worry oneself over, it's not simply calling blue mage main ready. If that's what you thought I meant then it was a miscommunication.

The concept was simply to focus more on the unique design concepts for each job and add content relating around it as well, and to be more forgiving to balance concerns (but not completely).

I do not think turning on a switch, in general but in particular for blue mage, is going to work in any form (like blue mage is not 'main' ready, this is far more 'a priori' rather than 'posteriori' design thought). It was a much larger thought, like "from the onset" if the game was designed with the premise that the main portion of jobs are far more unique and experiences in and of themselves, but then ultimate (and stuff like PvP) are far more cleansed of their unique ideas and pasteurized for balance.

[Bright-Flower]

Say if ifrit was weak to fire then bringing a black mage that can only cast fire, lightning, and ice was not that helpful. So they wanted to devise a system that allowed players to consistently use their kit and not be ostracized in content.

Yeah. For 2.0 going forward at least I think they wanted every job to be useful in all content and have the entire kit for a job generally useful.

Which is why they came up with the umbral/astral cycle for ice/fire spells and making lightning a dot. So that all three elements would be consistently used and not just 'whatever element this enemy is used to' spammed over and over. Giving an actual rotation.

In other games, having fire/lightning/blizzard be basically the same spell but with different elemental attributes works but I like what they did with FFXIV. It's a very different game than XI and the single player FF games but that's not a bad thing.

[linayar]

Under such an idea that limited becomes the new main you'd have a lot to worry oneself over, it's not simply calling blue mage main ready. If that's what you thought I meant then it was a miscommunication.

The concept was simply to focus more on the unique design concepts for each job and add content relating around it as well, and to be more forgiving to balance concerns (but not completely).

I do not think turning on a switch, in general but in particular for blue mage, is going to work in any form. It was a much larger thought, like "from the onset" if the game was designed with the premise that the main portion of jobs are far more unique and experiences in and of themselves, but then ultimate (and stuff like PvP) are for more cleansed of their unique ideas and pasteurized for balance.

Fair enough, but I think that would limit the potential behind the concept of limited job.

Also, right now a main job is a main job because that's a job that you can take into any content. With your idea, would a player now have to keep up with two sets of jobs if they want to do all content? And what about those who prefer a job in one set and do not like any job on the other set?

[Shougun]

Yeah. For 2.0 going forward at least I think they wanted every job to be useful in all content and have the entire kit for a job generally useful.

Which is why they came up with the umbral/astral cycle for ice/fire spells and making lightning a dot. So that all three elements would be consistently used and not just 'whatever element this enemy is used to' spammed over and over. Giving an actual rotation.

In other games, having fire/lightning/blizzard be basically the same spell but with different elemental attributes works but I like what they did with FFXIV. It's a very different game than XI and the single player FF games but that's not a bad thing.

Yeah what they did, I think, makes a lot of sense in terms of desired outcomes and hence chosen gameplay (keeps ability bloat down, keeps ability patterns and variations consistent and desirable, vs perhaps a situation where you're like "weak to fire? okay 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1".

Of course the wheel existing is cool in it's own way, makes you feel special to have all this information and get to respond to the situation by employing it (oh I know this thing is weak to X, so I'll save myself loads of time by reacting appropriately) but.. in situations where the content is largely PF (community party) driven then you're going to have some realllly bad times if you allow things to exist like that. I think in DF you could get away with some more unique interpretations of jobs but certainly PF is going to start slapping stars on sneetches, it wont stand for that lol.

Fair enough, but I think that would limit the potential behind the concept of limited job.

Also, right now a main job is a main job because that's a job that you can take into any content. With your idea, would a player now have to keep up with two sets of jobs if they want to do all content? And what about those who prefer a job in one set and do not like any job on the other set?

I think you'd do this in a new game, so.. not FFXIV lol. In such a case there wouldn't be a need for limited jobs, or at least there would be a lot less reason to want one because your normal jobs would often achieve the weird things you were hoping they had but thought 'would never work in savage'. Although as an aside I still think a magitek operator could be a fun limited job, maybe get Xenogear / saga inspired thoughts in it as well (open world, call your mech for a short while or whatever).

As for your second point, yeah your concern is real. Some people hate their PvP side of their job (in FFXIV), it would be very possible you love your job that goes through all those MSQ and similarly related dungeon contents but then you go into Ultimate and you think "... this job isn't that fun to play here". But that's also why I said it's a fun thought lol. I think "OOOOH wow! you could have so much freedom doing all these wacky wild things and it could be well funded, meaning the concepts are very fleshed out, everyone has this really special aspect as they're playing, dragoon is nothing like black mage!" but then you go into ultimate or pvp and you're not "useless". So you'd not have to keep two jobs up (like PvP kits) but there is a potential you may want to because you might think "main Red Mage is so freaking wild, I can't wrap my head around it" but "ultimate red mage is the smoothest thing since whipped butter".

Definitely an opportunity to win some and lose some, but I think tying very challenging content to your main design also causes some 'lose some' as well (pasteurizing jobs for balance reasons, which is only natural .. I mean if you don't then you get more like WoW or FFXI situations where "we don't want that spec, you're not invited, go level something else"). What I was talking about certainly isn't a 'no loss, only win win' situation and mainly thought it was just fun to think about, although I think our current situation isn't always a win win either so *throws hands in the air* lol. What is will be XD. We'll either have tight balance and everything is desirable but more similar or poor balance and high variability and unique aspects and a strong FotM vibe.

To give SE credit for how balanced everything is (very) there is still at least some obvious differences between jobs (types of patterns, hang time, etc), it's also why in the other thread when I was talking about adding more flair in a more feasible way (less cloud in the sky thoughts) I was thinking largely in the direction of non-combat related changes (to not fiddle with the balance so much). Of course if they can add flair without harming balance I'd be for it, but that's hard to do in combat (and would also be less hard 'if' you decided to extract the most challenging content builds from the 'main' build and creating it's own high balance build). Like how sometimes in WoW it seemed they changed PvE part of jobs because of how it worked in PvP, in FFXIV we don't have that issue.

[ItMe]

Well for Garuda BLM had a period where they were [...]

Ah, I see.
Thanks for the answer.
BLM burn sounds hilarious though~
Even without the wheel I wonder how far you could get into Baldesion Arsenal or Bozja's dungeons with a tactic like that.

[linayar]

I think you'd do this in a new game, so.. not FFXIV lol.

Ok, then now I think you can really go all out as people can give a new game a fair try.

And yes, it's a win some and lose some deal, but that's with any job/combat idea.

And thus...

To give SE credit for how balanced everything is (very) there is still at least some obvious differences between jobs (types of patterns, hang time, etc), it's also why in the other thread when I was talking about adding more flair in a more feasible way (less cloud in the sky thoughts) I was thinking largely in the direction of non-combat related changes (to not fiddle with the balance so much). Of course if they can add flair without harming balance I'd be for it, but that's hard to do in combat (and would also be less hard 'if' you decided to extract the most challenging content builds from the 'main' build and creating it's own high balance build). Like how sometimes in WoW it seemed they changed PvE part of jobs because of how it worked in PvP, in FFXIV we don't have that issue.

As with anything, it's a matter of tradeoff, and each player has different preferences.

For me, FFXIV definitely just hits some of the right notes. But even in WoW, I pretty much play it like a FFXIV job where I choose only one specialization to play and I set all the talents I want right from the beginning and then never bother with other talent/specialization option again.

So for players like me, better balance is more important so that at least we're not hurting our party too much by choosing our preferred playstyle, even if we're only doing "normal" content. On that note, I never understand the criticism that homogenization makes every job plays the same way for every player since I'm only concerned about how I play, not whether or not some other player plays the same way as I do. In fact, the more it plays the same for everyone, the more I can understand when I see a video of someone playing the same job as me, which is nice. In WoW, I can see people using abilities that are foreign to me even though I play the same class, and that doesn't give any benefit to me.

[Keramory]

I was not around in 2.0.
Can you explain to me what happened?

Scared my memory is failing me and I might be giving out fake information of what happened... but basically you'd bring as many BLM as possible and burn through Garuda, probably going through mechanics even if I remember correctly. As someone mentioned the overall issue with the elemental wheel is it hurt class participation, as BLM and WHM only had particular elements associated to them... among other classes... but I do remember on some level Garuda being more or less the final straw. Or the change happening soon after.

Another fun thing was in 1.0 near the end, there was end game dungeons. Where you had to clear the dungeon doing various things to unlock all 5 chests at the end. For example 1 chest would be for clearing under say 25 min... another for killing the boss... etc. So you'd go in as a normal party in AA, then right before the final boss switch to 6 Monks with Fire Fists (which were actual fists of fire) and a healer/tank. You'd just punch the boss to death because it was weak to fire. And yes you could change jobs mid dungeon.

1.0 had its bazillion issues but I really wish they brought these dungeons back on some level. They were challenging beyond just a typical DDR battle in a large arena we have on repeat now. The boss fights we have now are fun but its just the same thing over and over. Be nice to have a mix.

[Hazama999]

Agreed especially since the jobs themselves have to sacrifice a quirk or two for those jobs to be unique. Id rather have jobs be refined than having new ones. Also a nitpick here but but adding on to it, the jobs starting later and later every expansion (EW now requiring to reach 70) just makes less sense and should just focus on the jobs than creating new ones. Those poor DNC fans buying the game and learning u need to either inorganically overlevel to enjoy the job and nerfed capacity in MSQ or buy a jump pot

Yeah I imagine it must be interesting for a new player just starting off in Limsa and seeing the number of classes available to them and then the dancer job at a whopping level 60 lol. Kinda makes me wish it was brough lower, like 30 or 40.

[ItMe]

snip

Yo that's wild.
I can see why they cut something like that, though if they hadn't I wonder how it would have continued to impact fight designs.
The elemental wheel was removed long before Savage was introduced then? Kind of a shame lol.

Yeah I imagine it must be interesting for a new player just starting off in Limsa and seeing the number of classes available to them and then the dancer job at a whopping level 60 lol. Kinda makes me wish it was brough lower, like 30 or 40.

It's really not that weird, or at least I didn't think it was odd when I joined recently.
Many RPGs (FF games included) have classes and character options that don't unlock in the first half of the game. This really isnt any different. If anything it's better because you can so freely swap between jobs in this game getting DNC at 60 is a lot less restrictive than many other systems.

[Bright-Flower]

I feel like '10 levels before current expansion start' is a good balance.

The lower you go, the more existing players have to go back and level up. It's nice when a new job comes out that you like, to be able to jump into the new content without that much grinding/leveling to get there. While also having something of a buffer so that in the first days of the expansion, most people will generally keep going through the story with their old mains rather, alleviating PF from being overrun by the new jobs a little bit.

My only real issue is with the HW jobs. They start at level 30 but you'll be 50+ by the time you get there, so if soemone wants to swap to those jobs they can't just unlock the job at 30 and then keep going, the same way that a rdm could level blm to 50 and then swap over etc.