I think I want subjobs more than I want job balance.

[Hasrat]

I wonder, since I don't play it, would WoW be considered an example of the other end of this extreme? As I've understood it, there is (was?) more room for customization and variety, but as the game has aged, as I've heard, it's taken a strong shift towards "meta or get out."

Which, if I have the right of it, I wouldn't say is something that's exclusively contained to the game. That's just gamers today. We're increasingly connected, with the ability to crowd-share so much information so quickly now, it's a currently inescapable mindset of being best or quickest.

[Lanadra]

If this 'subjob' system you adore means I suddenly can't do things as say, an RDM or a WHM that I can do now, then no, I don't want it. Right now as a WHM I have a complete kit to work with, I have no reason to want a system where suddenly I have to choose a finite number of skills for 'personalization' and see half or even just a quarter of my kit suddenly be cordoned off.

Admittedly though I don't fully understand exactly what it entails, FFXIV is my only FF game, but I do have quite a good deal of MMO experience to draw from and I know I'm generally not a fan of it when the way kits work are suddenly turned on it's head. I remember it happening in SWTOR, all of a sudden I had to choose a small set of skills and see other things I always just had be sectioned off.

[Genz]

FFXIV devs hate players' agency.
Even healers being able to save a fight is a problem for them.

[KDSilver]

During the earlier days of Final Fantasy XI, I liked to play Ninja with Red Mage as a subjob. Was it effective? No, because it didn't get access to either the better White Mage or Black Mage spells. But I liked the fact that it made me feel like a Ninja Red Mage. Some people told me I wasn't useful for their party, so I missed some invites in Kazham. Or was told to go play a White Mage at times, rather than Red Mage. But in the end, I had fun despite those negative and discouraging experiences.

That's why customization and sub-job aren't a thing anymore in XIV.
They want people to be as equal as possible and no one left behind for any reason, with the big word accessibility in mind.

(that's not what I think it's good, I prefered more unique toolkit. I know I wanted some balance within certain role, but not with big homogenization)

[Cabalabob]

The problem with subjobs, like everything in FFXIV, is that the game is too straightforward for it. There will be one optimal subjob and it will be the one that gives the most damage, anything else will be considered a waste of your subjob slot.

Look at eureka and bozja. The action systems theoretically make it so you can change your role and be anything you want like a monk tank. Does anyone do it? No, they just take the actions that reinforce their role and give the biggest damage boost.

Don’t get me wrong, I love FFXI, I love final fantasy tactics and I love bravely default and one of the major reasons is the subjob systems. I just don’t see it working in FFXIV as it is now. The reason it works in those games is that the jobs in those games are already pretty fluid when it comes to their role in a party. Here your role is set in stone and there is absolutely 0 customisation.

[SenorPatty]

Subjobs just makes me think of the swiftcast effect back in the days: the longer you went on without it, the greater the annoyance from everyone else, the worse you felt without it and the more you realized customization in *this* game is an illusion.

I have to stress this: ff11-and other nmos of old- freedom isn't wrong in itself; ff14's gaming environment and mechanics would have to change to fit that creative freedom. Its a nice, wishful sentiment but we are way too far and old in this game's core fundamentals to see anything change to even a quarter of it to match that wish.

[Komarimono]

I've always felt sub jobs were just an illusion of choice, and eventually you picked a certain one no matter what. Why they also removed needing to sub job in FF14, was silly to need to level two separate low jobs to be a dragoon, plus made no sense.

[kaynide]

They have held a pretty hard stance that they don’t like the sub job system mostly because of dungeons and other party content. That is, it ads a huge amount of potential problems for automated party setup (eg. “well I don’t wanna be the tank! I’m using a dps build” while playing Paladin)

It is also why the jobs went from having some fairly interesting mechanics and job identity early on to more or less being very very similar/watered down (compare current Drk to 2.0’s drk). Not to say it’s all bad, just the direction the devs want to go.

All that said, sub jobs and “builds” are very much alive in Guildwars 2 and I saw the exact job/sub job system like old FF11 in use with Phantasy Star Online 2. Tried to play it but it just wouldn’t work for me (live in Japan want to play Eng version without ip-ghosting shenanigans)

It worked in FF11 because the actual game had so many different things to do and your build often depended on specific gear or situations to work that we just don’t have in 14.

[Bright-Flower]

While I do enjoy subclass or talent or specializations in other games, FFXIV simply isn't designed for it and you can't just weld that sort of thing on organically, the game needs to be designed for it. We used to have cross class skills sure but that was a bit of a mess and not as interesteing IMO. And it was annoying having to level other jobs to have all your tools available. So I'm glad that system was replaced by role actions.

[ReynTime]

I actually liked the concept of how class and jobs worked in original XIV (actually, I think a lot of 1.X features that got dropped were very good in concept but poorly implemented) even if the execution was really bad due how broken some builds were, but the concept was much closer to how FFV does it with you being allowed to customize your character with the sheer amount of actions and traits you could "borrow" from classes you leveled.

But present XIV is the complete opposite of that. It's just impossible for them to go back, specially when even cross-class actions were axed in favor of the ultra streamlined 'role actions'.

Would I like if they added a sub job system at least? Sure. But even I can tell it will never happen unless they make a completely different game.