Quote Originally Posted by dezzmont View Post
snip
FF14 has a bunch of classes to get used too. Having some niche classes isn´t a bad thing. That there are actually niche classes at all IS because we´ve a wide selection even with the homogenization of subclasses. The "perfect" BLM is a niche class too, so how if it´s so perfect designed?!


First of all, ppl who don´t even play a class properly shouldn´t come up like "pls change". The experience is not existend. It´s not like positionals are part of the game since its beginning and nothing SE experiments with since yesterday. MNK in its design isn´t that poor, it´s just not completely standard as SAM is for example. The loss of GL just made this job an off gcd button smasher.

And while we´re at this point:

SAM - It´s a standard melee class. Long buff durations, 123 combo and a burst skill. The only thing which makes it even feeling like playing a SAM is Midare. The rest is just "pew pew" and could be any class with a sword, spear, whatever. Midare at this point might be even the biggest reason why it´s a popular class. The damage output is top tier and the feedback is real. But does SAM has a real soul or unique class aspect? It doesn´t in my eyes.

BLM - Still niche but "perfect"? It doesn´t fit, does it? Why shouldn´t BLM be changed, when it´s the least played class next to MNK? What´s the point?
Away from the fact, that BLM is probably the only class with different spells / rotations each expansion. It just fits the vision of a badass caster. SMN on the other hand shouldn´t even be called a mage and RDM, hmm... don´t know what it is?

Just because ppl see a design issue by themself, doesn´t mean that there is an issue. A lot of class changes, GL, Tanks, MCH, AST or whatever have been made to simplify the game, not because everything was a real issue. It´s just how ppl got used to it, got bored, were too lazy to learn a class completely or had content given troubles like the good old "range advantage" or "losing GL in a dumb cutszene we´ve to watch over and over again". And there we even see the biggest advantage of a BLM. It can be played in any content properly. It´s not always 123 with off gcd´s and you´re getting highly rewarded for playing well. This difference got pretty much eliminated on a lot of classes. MNK is the only melee left where positionals make up more than some little percentages.

And again, we all have different tastes and there is no reason to "kill" classes with that amount of selection. At any time were ppl who liked class X like it was at patch X while others disliked it for some reason.


About the themes / aesthetics...

The game should´ve a theme yeah and it has one. Classes on the other hand should be unique, different from each other and fun to play. Just have a look at DRG. Is there anybody who don´t likes to be that badass dragonrider out there? I guess not. But is the gameplay real fun? It´s imo the most boring combo class and the jumps cause more issues than anything else in different boss fights. Pressing a button to get animation stucked or to die isn´t a great design and it doesn´t even represent it well to be like Estinien or whoever.

Another thing is when you start the game. You choose a class you don´t know really much about, not the themes, not the aesthetics, nothing. Until level X there is like a 1-3 button gameplay. It´s far away from being fun or engaging and hold a lot of players away from this game too.
Man we could talk all day long about all the flaws in the gameplay design.


It just doesn´t make sense to change classes to cater 3 more players who won´t main the job anyway or who just run aoe spamming dungeons. Especially OP doesn´t know anything real about MNK based on his claims / questions in other threads. I for myself could even go into any other thread about RDM, SMN, BRD or whatever and write down the same.
And given to the standard examples we could even argue like "Why is MNK not like SAM?", "Why is SMN not a BLM?" etc... Why do even classes exist, which are a totally mess in their core? Because there are still 3% of all gamers who enjoy it as it is and this is surely a number we can agree on any class with. Everything above probably change classes based on the meta or mind anyway.

(Classes are no mess just because the same 100 ppl claim it day per day, when the game has millions of players.)