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

[Brightamethyst]

And some people love station wagons, but they were phased out in favor of minivans and SUVs for a reason. There will always be some number of people who like a thing, but if that number isn't big enough to support the product, the product doesn't get made.

[Jkap_Goat]

And some people love station wagons, but they were phased out in favor of minivans and SUVs for a reason. There will always be some number of people who like a thing, but if that number isn't big enough to support the product, the product doesn't get made.

They have announced something big for FFXI 20th aniversry and Nexon was working on FFXI R, but unfortunately its cancelled because it wasn't up to par with what SE wanted. So hopefully for a FFXI remake with unreal engine.

And FFXI does have a strong support, very strong support, it still makes decent money for SE and yoshi P said that FFXI servers will not be closing down anytime soon and has plans for FFXI ...so yeah

And some people just like a depth battle system and not some WoW clone that was made almost 10 years ago

Different strokes for different folks

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

They have announced something big for FFXI 20th aniversry and Nexon was working on FFXI R, but unfortunately its cancelled because it wasn't up to par with what SE wanted. So hopefully for a FFXI remake with unreal engine.

And FFXI does have a strong support, very strong support, it still makes decent money for SE and yoshi P said that FFXI servers will not be closing down anytime soon and has plans for FFXI ...so yeah

And some people just like a depth battle system and not some WoW clone that was made almost 10 years ago

Different strokes for different folks

In that case, why are we trying to change XIV into xi-2?

If the games are still running in parallel, wouldn't that be rather silly?

You'd drive off the people who like XIV, and keep only those die hard Xi fans who still play Xi.

[MariaArvana]

In that case, why are we trying to change XIV into xi-2?

If the games are still running in parallel, wouldn't that be rather silly?

You'd drive off the people who like XIV, and keep only those die hard Xi fans who still play Xi.

This. FFXIV is FFXIV. Not everyone is going to like it. Unironically, go play FFXI if you enjoy FFXI more. FFXIV will never be FFXI, they're not going to do some radical gameplay shift this late into the game's cycle or implement features that up-end closing in on a decade's worth of battle design.

Also yes, while FFXI is still making money for Square, I would haphazard a guess that it's a mere tiny % of the amount FFXIV makes for them; for good reason. Even the greater video game industry as a whole has shown immense shift away from slow gameplay systems and more towards action based combat. Not even just in game design, but in which games are actually successful; no doubt when FF17 or whichever is the next FF MMO arrives, it will emulate the titanic success that was FFXIV, and continue to stay as far as away from FFXI as possible.

FFXI had its time; and that time was over a decade & a half ago.

[Brightamethyst]

And FFXI does have a strong support, very strong support, it still makes decent money for SE and yoshi P said that FFXI servers will not be closing down anytime soon and has plans for FFXI ...so yeah

I'm not denying that XI has a dedicated fan base, but the fact that people still play and it still gets updates doesn't change the fact that it's an old and outdated product. XI only exists today because it was made almost 20 years ago. Anyone designing a game like that in today's market is doomed to failure (see again, 1.0)

[Jkap_Goat]

Oohh looks like i hurt the hardcore ffxiv fan boys,

whichever is the next FF MMO arrives, it will emulate the titanic success that was FFXIV, and continue to stay as far as away from FFXI as possible.

FFXI had its time; and that time was over a decade & a half ago.

Ohh please no, I really hope the next MMO will stay away from XIV and be its own thing like how FFXI is its own thing from XIV. If they want FFXIV, let them stay on that platform thats 10 years old already.

FFXI was highly successful but people didnt want a ffxi 1.0 and i would highly doubt they would want a FFXIV 3.0 on the future MMO, it will push people away

Oh and also SE MMO division ( FFXI, FFXIV and DQ online together ) only makes a significant of the money coming in, They make more money on their mobile titles than XIV alone ever could, of they want, they could just get rid on their MMO divison and still be financially good thanks to their mobile income

[Artemiz]

With the trusts, you don't even need the XP parties you had to be in, in the past. Not that I've seen at least for how FFXI is now versus how it used to be. The purposely, and rightfully nerfed it greatly. No more needing to group up to even kill a level 15 normal mob etc.



Ya, and you knew what skills were going to happen. There is no pure randomness. It's scripted, like any other game. Once condition reaches this, TP in this case, use Skill from this Set. With a weight on what skill to use based on %. You knew, what could come, and with how slow the game plays, you can't possibly miss it.

While 11 even at its fastest isnt as fast or manic as 14, there are loads of fights, especially at current end game that are full zergs. Its a simple gameplay loop for the fight but the skill and effort went into set up rather than execution. Even with that said, A DD with a good set would still be popping abilities off every 3-4 seconds in a zerg. So its not that slow.

For tanks and healers though, enmity can be difficult to impossible to hold depending on the content and group and they still have mitigation to do and adds to deal with, this is especially tricky for tanks trying to be aggressive. Healers have a plethora of buffs and debuffs to deal with before the healing even starts.

There is so much more to think about and manage that the game doesn't feel slow once the difficulty cranks up. Both games have a different flavour and style, both games are engaging and difficult in the harder content.

For the record I dont want to turn 14 into 11-2, so I'd say no to sub jobs. There are some aspects of 11 though that are better than 14, its ok to acknowledge that.

[ItMe]

FFXI was highly successful but people didnt want a ffxi 1.0 and i would highly doubt they would want a FFXIV 3.0 on the future MMO, it will push people away

You mean Heavensward??

[dezzmont]

One good way to explore the issue with subjobs is to look at RPG theorycrafting in general and how it evaluates different build options.

Optimal Vs Non-optimal is a really binary way to look at it. It is actually a gradiant from 'optimal' to 'suboptimal but viable' to 'non-viable.' For example, for a long time Samurai was suboptimal but viable, you didn't really want a Samurai in Stormblood, but having one wasn't gunna wreck your party for most content.

XIV works really hard to make sure everyone is in the 'viable' category. But there are also sub-divisions in that category. For example, "Ice Mages" are viable in most content, but so sub-optimal it drags the experience for everyone else. Heck, technically you can clear most content with the DPS doing literally nothing.

The issue with 'Subjob' systems ala XI or say... PSO2 is that they tend to not really encourage creativity, but instead create a system where you take buffs to the primary job. You see this a lot in P&P RPGs that have multiclassing too: It is hard to synthesize the advantages of say... being a monk and being a wizard in D&D without a specialized seperate class dedicated too it. It is too easy for a given job+subjob combo to be thematic but terrible. Ever see a Summoner-Techer in PSO2? Sounds cool, your a wizard who summons things and heals and buffs your party but in reality it is the very non-thematic Summoner-Fighter all day every day to get those generic attack boosts for your pet.

This is why games that allow creative builds tend to be way more open ended. PoE comes to mind as a game with a strong diverse build community with lots of competitive and viable options. This is because it creates a lot of 'fuzzieness' around what is optimal, based on what you value, your gear access, how early in the expansion your making that build, ect. That would be VERY hard to get into XIV, most of the time you would just take a subjob with a self buff that synergizes with your class, and while its possible a sub-optimal combo wouldn't make people kick you out of casual content it probably just wouldn't be as interesting as you think. That isn't to say its impossible, but it would be a design nightmare.

Subjob systems just sorta 'default' to wanting to have the secondary job purely exist to support the first, rather than being a creative synthesis. Breaking free of that is legitimately very hard.

I think the closest we could get would be 'alt jobs' like say... Healer RDM, or DPS DRK: Same job but its core rotation altered in goal, but with what they said about SMN and SCH I highly doubt that will ever happen.

[Ralph2449]

Just you watch the same people who are asking for customization, if it is ever given they will blindly follow the meta and demand everyone else does the same else they get kicked.

I am one of the few people that can genuinely ask for customization because I supported covenants in WoW and chose sub optimal covenants that I found fun and still did high m+, that was near the start of SL season where I had that gear advantage and was ahead of most people yet even then there would be elitist tryhards who wouldn’t want your covenant or spec because it isn’t ‘meta’

And because I know that elitist communities in mmorpgs have proven to be completely unable to be independent and become slaves to a meta and start discriminating against others for not being metaslaves as well I am against bringing customization here, the mmorpg community is just not capable of thinking for itself and the high end elitists will always try to push for meta even at low end content.
And it is ironic cuz most of the time when it comes to the real personal performance most metaslaves do worse than people who are good and play non meta, yet they don’t care about that because they see a higher simdps so it must be better and everyone should follow it or they must be bad players.

Another false conclusion of elitists, the idea that if you don’t follow the meta you must be bad which indirectly implies if you do follow the meta blindly you must be a good player lol

Optimal Vs Non-optimal is a really binary way to look at it. It is actually a gradiant

I mean you aren’t wrong but you do realize the community you are talking about?

It is one that would take 5% more damage as mandatory and consider everything else non viable. Even if the boss requires a low 70 dps to beat, these people will demand that meta option to get to 105 because 100 isn’t good enough either.

Covenant abilities in WoW are just one per class so for many they aren’t really that impactful by themselves, it could be 100 dps without using them or 104 with using them and people still moaned and acted as if it is the worst thing to happen to them for not being able to flip flop between covenants for that extra 4 dps on the encounter that took advantage of it
(And that 4 is assuming both use the same builds in other shstems, cuz I ve seen content/SIM creators try to exaggerate covenant drama by linking the lowest simming covenant next to the lowest simming build and say ‘oh look, that covenant is so bad I it is so much lower than our top sim covenant’)

You are talking to a community that slowly spreads from high end to the point you see people whining about someone not playing meta at low end content, WoW is proof of that, they let metaslave and elitists run rampart so now the game is extremely unfriendly to anyone who doesn’t play the ‘meta’ build even if that person in actual encounters is doing better than all those metaslaves.