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

[ItMe]

I honestly think a lot of FFXI was "I had to do it that way, so you have to as well!" Nobody wanted to innovate. Nobody had the time/patience to try it another way. Once a guide came out for something, that was the way to do it.

With FF14 not taking potentially years to gear up a job like FF11, you don't think things would be different?
More experimenting on an individual level?

[TarynH]

With FF14 not taking potentially years to gear up a job like FF11, you don't think things would be different?
More experimenting on an individual level?

That would be frivolous imo. Gear is too linear on this game, and becomes glamour with the next patch cycle. But gearing up the job really has nothing to do with it. It's about trying to find a viable reason why you would need subjobs in the first place. They might add some small stat boosts. They wouldn't add any real sense of creativity or self-expression.

For instance, I see your main job is DRK. With the role system FFXIV has now, you'd be a tank regardless of what subjob you wanted to experiment with. Even if you wanted to sub WHM to be some weird light DRK, people wouldn't accept it. They'd want you to sub a job that gave you either more tank utility, or more dps utility. So now your self-expression/creativity has already been limited to staying in that DRK role. Then you'd have to look at the options.

DRK with /WAR, /PLD, /GNB would all be monotonous. You'd just be a double tank, and maybe gain at most 5 abilities and a little defense/strength boost. In FFXI, most of those abilities were cut down to level 37 (later 45) potency. So only certain things like provoke would be meaningful.

DRK with /RDM, /SMN, /BLM might give you a little magic damage boost. Their spells would be highly situational, and low potency. Egis would probably be half strength, if you're allowed to summon at all.

DRK with /BRD, /MCH, /DNC maybe you get to dance, sing a song or call out a robot? If this was FFXI, the only good subjob here is DNC. But it was a potent TP-based healer in that game.

DRK with /SAM, /DRG, /MNK will give you a strength boost, and will probably be the most viable option. I'd say most players would demand you have one of these. But even then, this game is not made the same as FFXI, where you had utilities to use with your subjob.

DRK with /WHM, /AST, /SCH great for soloing? Otherwise, get outta here with your Brady Guide WAR/WHM!

Either way you slice this, your best-in-slot subjob is always going to be determined by the player base. You could play all day on an experimental combo on FFXI, as long as you were solo. But as soon as you try to join content with DRG/PUP, people are gonna laugh at you.

Instead of a subjob system, I'd rather see a job mastery system. But as others have said, they have pulled away from that idea multiple times. In order for this to even have a chance at working, they'd have to change major systems of the game. Then they'd have to balance the hell out of it, making the jobs all homogenous in the end anyway. Because this team truly does want you to be able to join content no matter what job you are. FFXI failed in that regard.

[ItMe]

That would be frivolous imo. Gear is too linear on this game, and becomes glamour with the next patch cycle. But gearing up the job really has nothing to do with it. It's about trying to find a viable reason why you would need subjobs in the first place. They might add some small stat boosts. They wouldn't add any real sense of creativity or self-expression.

Yeah, I get that.
But you were talking about people not having time/patience to really play with the system, that they'd just follow guides. You waste much more time in 11 if you try something new and it fails because of how long it can take to accrue the gear to even try your idea out.
The gear in 14 wouldn't make more combos viable, but I was wondering if it wouldn't discourage experimenting the way 11's gear system does.
Not that I think sub jobs would work for 14, but that if we got one some of 11's pitfalls might be circumvented by our linear gear progression.

Either way you slice this, your best-in-slot subjob is always going to be determined by the player base. You could play all day on an experimental combo on FFXI, as long as you were solo. But as soon as you try to join content with DRG/PUP, people are gonna laugh at you.

Yeah... and it helps that the playerbase isn't a monolithic single mind completely in agreement with itself. Even if you picked "a meta combo" you'd still get harassed by people with different views of the meta.

[Stanelis]

Which comes with its own set of issues. Why invite a SAM to a DRG fight? Why invite a BRD to a RDM fight?

In a well designed game the party size would allow you to bring both. And you could even imagine bosses designed so well all potential classes would have their use, and not only based on the DPS output. You could also imagine a game where it would be easy to switch jobs without having to grind everything from the beginning.

You could also imagine a game in which there would be several viable equivalents strategies to reach the same result, only with different classes and optimizations. It is how Genshin Impact is designed.

When that happens we just get fights were certain jobs aren't welcome, we've been here before, many many times. SE's philosophy is to make sure every job can do every fight, probably because 75 FFXI was such an utter mess in this regard. It brings us back to the original post, it's pitched as balance vs sub jobs. Having played a game with sub jobs for over a decade I'd chose balance, because choice is but an illusion anyway with sub jobs.

We ve been there on poorly designed games. Also I ll add the issue still remains on FFXIV even with how blands jobs and classes are.

Also, no, there was genuine choice in FFXI pertaiing to subjobs, with often several options that all had their strengths and weaknesses. I m not saying subjobs should come to FFXIV but the "choice is an illusion" or "but it will be unbalanced" excuses are merely excuses told by game companies that can't be bothered to design deep games. It is indeed cheaper to make everything be the same but with different skins than to make a true game.

[TarynH]

Yeah, I get that.
But you were talking about people not having time/patience to really play with the system, that they'd just follow guides. You waste much more time in 11 if you try something new and it fails because of how long it can take to accrue the gear to even try your idea out.

People have even less time and patience now, unfortunately. So I'd still wager the majority of people would find that BiS route to subjobs, and stick to it, in even less time. While you're off experimenting, there would already be 3-4 Youtube videos and a subreddit about what you should be doing. The second you stepped into content with your experiment, you'd be told to go find a guide, and promptly vote-kicked.

I have a feeling if they ever added some kind of subjob system to this game, it would be pre-determined subjobs. You wouldn't be able to stray far. Even when you were experimenting on FFXI, you learned not to get too far out of the box. BRD could Charm, but that didn't make BRD/BST a fantastic combo.

[Payadopa]

Unless variety gives multiple valid options, it's unnecessary complications.

Also, variety for the sake of variety results in annoyances like differences between how tank "invulnerability ability" works with each tank.

I'd rather take the same skill (preferably paladin's, though warrior's is fine too) with different visual effects than what we have now.

I completely disagree. Fun trumps everything else and your 'valid options' are highly subjective in the first place. What is valid? Being able to clear? Then all jobs were since 2.0, yet with 5.0 healers and tanks especially were gutted. So it's not that.

And 'unnecessary complications'? What does that even mean? Everything but a click-here-to-win-button is a complication. It's called playing a game. I don't compute.

And your last point about the same skill but with different effects? I honestly don't even know where to begin with this one. Everything is subjective, but dear Lord... Might as well rename classes to Healer 1&2 and Tank 1&2.
If that were to happen I'd honestly just play the MSQ once every two years and unsubscribe for the rest as I find that laughably bad design.

[linayar]

That goes into the realm of motivation and intrinsic vs extrinsic... Whether you do the challenge for the challenge its self. (Intrinsic) or for the rewards at the end (extrinsic) or even a cmbination of both. it makes no real difference in the grand scheme of things. both forms of motivation are perfectly fine.

Many players don't care for what other people have. What they care about is what a reward or trophy represents or signifies. i.e the challenge that was overcome to earn it..

Many wouldn't care less if literally 100% of players had the same reward IF they beat the same challenge to get it..

It's like the Olympics. A gold medal should be earnt by winning... If they started handing them out to everyone just for turning up then a gold medal essentially becomes meaningless.
That's essentially what they do with in game rewards. Just dish em out to everyone and destroy everything they represent and signify.

It's not about how many people have x it's about what x represents to many people.. Just take a look back at the white ravens fiasco and the uproar that caused. Totally destroying what an item represents is bad.

And back then many people would have been happy if the items being dished out freely were simply called replicas.. as the original items would have maintained there meaning.. the difference is small but still important to a lot of people.

That's just it. The reason why game rewards/olympic gold medals become meaningless if they started handing them out to anyone is if those rewards have no intrinsic value of themselves. Thus, they require validation from others to have any meaning, which often is done by making them exclusive by some measure.

Thus, it is merely two sides of the same coin whether you complain about others getting what you don't get or about others getting what you do get. In both cases, it's about caring for extrinsic rewards rather than the intrinsic reward of the achievement/accomplishment itself.

In a well designed game the party size would allow you to bring both.

Realistically, people would just stack on the jobs that are useful for a fight rather than bringing other jobs that are less or not useful at all.

And you could even imagine bosses designed so well all potential classes would have their use, and not only based on the DPS output. You could also imagine a game where it would be easy to switch jobs without having to grind everything from the beginning.

You could also imagine a game in which there would be several viable equivalents strategies to reach the same result, only with different classes and optimizations. It is how Genshin Impact is designed.

You could imagine all of that, but implementing is another. If the devs could do it, more power to them, but until I see any indication that it can be done well, I don't really feel like the idea of taking a risk that would mess with this game that I already like as is.

I completely disagree. Fun trumps everything else and your 'valid options' are highly subjective in the first place. What is valid? Being able to clear? Then all jobs were since 2.0, yet with 5.0 healers and tanks especially were gutted. So it's not that.

And 'unnecessary complications'? What does that even mean? Everything but a click-here-to-win-button is a complication. It's called playing a game. I don't compute.

And your last point about the same skill but with different effects? I honestly don't even know where to begin with this one. Everything is subjective, but dear Lord... Might as well rename classes to Healer 1&2 and Tank 1&2.
If that were to happen I'd honestly just play the MSQ once every two years and unsubscribe for the rest as I find that laughably bad design.

Indeed, as a video game, fun does trump everything else. And this idea of subjob (or anything like it like talent system, specialization, etc.) does not seem fun to me.

You don't compute "unnecessary?" We have a working job system that works with the game. Thus, subjob is an unnecessary complication.

Not everything is subjective, but I agree that many are, and if you want to laugh at what you subjectively consider "bad design," then you are free to do so. I think it makes sense for a type of ability that mainly serves the same purpose across all jobs within a role to work the same, if not already the same ability.

Tank 1 and Tank 2 is less cool than Warrior and Paladin, in my opinion, but you still want two tanks for normal full composition either way.

[MaxwellPower]

I'd love it if they added subjobs and allowed blu to join the duty finder with jobs that have subjobs(and blu wouldn't be able to be or have a subjob).

They could just limit savage to no subjobs or blu. Does balance really matter in other content?

[MikkoAkure]

What would sub-jobs even accomplish? OP just says that they miss sub-jobs from XI and that they bring more customization. But to what end? If Yoshi-P added sub-jobs, how in any way does that make the game more fun? If you are suddenly able to use the abilities of say a monk half your level, how would that benefit you in any way, shape, or form? It's not even about balance or The Meta, you would just be adding unnecessary clunk for the sake of "customization". In order for sub-jobs to begin to make sense, you would first need to strip away the combo system the game has, and then readjust all content around that and then end result won't be FFXIV anymore.

Another thing is that more customization and creativity doesn't necessarily mean more fun. Guild Wars 2 tried to get rid of the "holy trinity" of tank, healer, DPS. While leveling up to cap was the most fun leveling experience I've had in an MMO, when I got to the dungeons it just felt like a free-for-all. There was no strategy. I quit shortly after that, especially since FFXIV came back after the wait in between 1.0 and 2.0, so I don't know if it got better, but the experience showed me that ideas don't necessarily end up end up as good as they sounded on paper.

[StormyFae]

What would sub-jobs even accomplish? OP just says that they miss sub-jobs from XI and that they bring more customization. But to what end? If Yoshi-P added sub-jobs, how in any way does that make the game more fun? If you are suddenly able to use the abilities of say a monk half your level, how would that benefit you in any way, shape, or form? It's not even about balance or The Meta, you would just be adding unnecessary clunk for the sake of "customization". In order for sub-jobs to begin to make sense, you would first need to strip away the combo system the game has, and then readjust all content around that and then end result won't be FFXIV anymore.

Another thing is that more customization and creativity doesn't necessarily mean more fun. Guild Wars 2 tried to get rid of the "holy trinity" of tank, healer, DPS. While leveling up to cap was the most fun leveling experience I've had in an MMO, when I got to the dungeons it just felt like a free-for-all. There was no strategy. I quit shortly after that, especially since FFXIV came back after the wait in between 1.0 and 2.0, so I don't know if it got better, but the experience showed me that ideas don't necessarily end up end up as good as they sounded on paper.

Guild wars 2 is a shitty space type game with aline races lol

But incorrect customization and creativity defines fun in games

There a reason y d2 is still the best game and its cuz the customization lets you design how you play.. Requiring brains for alot of builds and thought

Poe is also extremely fun/godly bevause of it