The problem with jobs?

[Vyrerus]

To be absolutely fair.. i don't remember it very well because at the time I wasn't super committed to any sort of build or keeping track of an actual rotation (I was very much just playing through the story and watching stuff in wonder), but I don't think it was like player pushback, the devs just noticed that people started to gravitate towards certain comps and "builds" VERY heavily and that's not what they wanted.

It had been in the game since 2.0, but during 2.0 there weren't as many jobs, so only one job or another would get left out of a full party with all different things.

Come the addition of Ninja, groups started to shun weaker jobs like DRG even more heavily than they had in the past, since there was more choice.

Come 3.0 a true, "Meta" developed after a few tweaks to the Heavensward jobs, resulting in the mathematically highest DPS composition being a WAR, DRK, NIN, DRG, MCH, BRD, AST, and SCH. This was due to WAR bringing slashing debuff, increasing its, the DRK's, and the NIN's DPS. The NIN brought Trick Attack increasing everyone's DPS. The MCH brought Hypercharge, same thing as Trick Attack back then. BRD brought Battle Voice and Foe's Requiem, increasing the Healer's DPS as well as NIN's Ninjutsu damage. DRG brought Disembowl, originally the piercing debuff, increasing its damage as well as BRD's, along with Battle Litany, which was originally a group wide +20% crit rate. SCH brought Selene who originally increased Spell Speed/Skill Speed for the whole party, providing a very small increase to overall raid DPS, allowing everyone to fit one more GCD into burst windows. AST brought Spread Balance, increasing everyone's DPS. DRK brought higher DPS than PLD, and it allowed the comp to shun MNK, since original Delirium did the same INT down, reducing magical raidwides, that Dragon Kick used to do.

Combining these jobs allowed for exceedingly powerful burst windows, allowing fights to be cleared far more quickly than any other composition. It carried on into 4.0, largely unchanged except PLD > DRK(and WAR too, but slashing debuff) now, until they buffed SMN's Devotion buff, causing it to actually replace MCH in the comp a patch or so after they added UCoB iirc.

This was what lead to all content creators for XIV talking about, "The Meta" for the better part of 2016/2017, and that discussion didn't die down until one of the World First groups beat UCoB with a DRK in the comp instead of a WAR. Note that the rest of that meta group was unchanged, merely resulting in infinitesimally lower DPS for the NIN, while everyone else in the party's DPS remained largely at meta levels. However, public perception swayed to, "Meta doesn't matter, see!" so the Devs moved towards making meta comp less pivotal.

A meta comp will always still exist given inherent imbalance for rotational design differences, but it's less important now than ever before.

[Krotoan]

Leaning heavily toward certain comps is effectively player pushback even if it's through actions as opposed to words. A lot of times what we think we want isn't really what we're looking for in practice.

I'd consider pushback to be complaints and resistance, not just user data. Like the players weren't resisting the change, they were just doing what the conditions dictated to be optimal and the Developers looked at the data showing that only certain jobs were running the endgame content and went.. "hmm.. that's not what we want." BUT.. again.. maybe there was actual resistance on the forum and in social media, but at the time those things mattered I wasn't very active in those circles.

[Fyrebrand]

I don't really see how this would make jobs more "interesting" or add any element of strategy. It seems like it would just be the game telling you what jobs to play for what content. Imagine queuing in Duty Finder for a roulette, and you find out all your damage is resisted by the boss. Okay...? There's nothing you can do about that, so how does that change your strategy at all? You just play the same way, but get punished with a slower fight. Or conversely, if you lucked out and picked the "right" job, you get arbitrarily rewarded for nothing. Not to mention, the risk of the "wrong" DPS getting kicked from the group.

Even that idea you described, where a magical DPS can apply a buff to a physical fighter and mitigate the penalty... so, they do that, and then what? They just do the fight as normal? Seems like we didn't really add anything of substance. Help me out if I am missing something or not understanding what is being asked for.

[VippidyP]

Imo I'd prefer a less balanced game than a more stale one.

If they were more willing to design encounters in unique ways it's not too hard to imagine a world where different jobs are good at different things, which the "all on one character" system lends itself perfectly too...

[Seraphor]

They do this in Bozja though.
Eureka had elemental wheel, Bozja has Magic/Physical dichotomy.

[Juzjuzz]

They do this in Bozja though.
Eureka had elemental wheel, Bozja has Magic/Physical dichotomy.

But in eureka everyone had the same elemental wheel. It didn't change how you played depending in witch jobs are here. Same with bozja, i think there is a lost action to deal with the magic/physical dmg. It's not like it changed your rotation or anything. In stormblood brds were happy with a drg (if i'm not wrong) because of piercing dmg, anything else was worse and it's not like the drg had a suddent change of playstyle.

But having to know what your opponent instead of just doing your rotation and dodging AOEs is less boring, i agree with that.

The biggest problem with making certain job "worse" against certain type ennemies is the illusion of choice. If playing drg is better than playing nin against a dragon, the only choice added is "you want better dmg or worse dmg ?" add the fact that the player doesn't like drg and it becomes frustrating. The normal response to this is "i want bigger dmg" after all.

[StriderShinryu]

While I can understand the desire for jobs to be a little more different from each other, the proof is in the pudding right here on the forums without even having to go into the game. We have many, many threads where players already complain that others don't play optimally and efficiently, even in casual content, so it's not hard to see that it wouldn't go over particularly well if there actually was a true meta established again where there legitimately were clearly best jobs or comps for certain things.

[Payadopa]

Imo I'd prefer a less balanced game than a more stale one.

If they were more willing to design encounters in unique ways it's not too hard to imagine a world where different jobs are good at different things, which the "all on one character" system lends itself perfectly too...

Exactly. It's not like you can't switch on the fly anyway. And in my group we all play what we feel like anyway. Nobody cares about the meta.

[kaynide]

It’s all just a vestige of FF11 and 1.0 roots..and to a lesser extent, Dungeons and Dragons.

Such a system requires extensive balancing and robustness to be useful, otherwise people just meta it to choose limited “best” options (see Guildwars 2), which makes it simply illusion of choice.

At the end of the day, simple but elegant is best when development time is limited. No need to make more work for yourself for little profit, right?

[Asari5]

i dont really get why you think its bad to habe the same raiddmg from every job. isnt that the maingoal in balamcimg jobs? differences in playstyle? yes an absolute must.... but differences in overall raiddmg? its a no go