Jobs need Status Ailments, Buffs and Debuffs back!

[Wind-Krysvein]

Anyone remember FFXI?

*message content cut due to game budget issues*

It's the players playstyle that killed job individuality. SE is just trying to not have a repeat of FFXI problems.

I hear ya. Your argument is valid, but what you need to understand is that they've been doing this ever since the start of ARR. Some would argue it began as soon as Yoshi-P took over 1.X.

The problem isn't what they're trying to do: it's that they've taken it way too far. I followed 1.X with keen interest and started playing on the launch date of 2.0, so I've seen this slippery slope in action for years now. Personally, I think they hit the sweet spot right away with ARR: some sacrifices were made to balance things out, such as getting rid of the elemental wheel, but overall the experience still felt genuine.

Barring some exceptions, most of the stuff they've done to the battle system post-ARR have only served to slowly simplify things to the point where things just don't feel like FF anymore:
● Meaningful-feeling buffs? Dispelled.
● Debuffs? Crippled.
● STR/VIT/INT/etc enhancing Materia? Discarded.
● Elemental Ward potions? Warded off.
● Actual aggro control? Trivialized.

When the game gets to a point where every job feels practically the same (because that's apparently "something everyone can enjoy" as Yoshi-P seems so fond of saying these days) it all just becomes too lukewarm to enjoy because none of it has any soul. Not wanting to repeat FFXI's mistakes does not have to include pre-digesting everything so that all you have left is DPS. And that's more or freaking less where we're now at.

When the current PvP versions of job actions (used exclusively in one small game mode) have way more interesting mechanics to them than the primary PvE actions you gain as you level up, you know something's gone horribly wrong with the game.

[redheadturk]

Bring-back-SMN-dots! Put tridisaster on a 30 second CD so you don't have to manually refresh dots, but keep the legos.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

● STR/VIT/INT/etc enhancing Materia? Discarded.
● Elemental Ward potions? Warded off.

To be fair, these systems were dead on arrival in ARR, removing them was just Square mercy killing people's ability to grief their party by ever using these systems.

Elemental resist provided such a microscopic damage reduction on their corresponding elemental damage that it would take stacking a crazy amount to see any visible change - stats that would have served infinitely more use in literally anything else. Hence why the ward potions just got dusted, they served no purpose when the mitigation they gave was so bad when killing an enemy 1 GCD earlier with offensive materia melds/potions gave better damage mit than the elemental materia/potions.

Main stat materia was pointless outside extremely niche scenarios. Every job only cared about 2 of the materia in question - their main attack stat's, and VIT. Every other main stat materia for that job was dead. Even then, VIT was the only ever useful one, since your gear naturally capped your offensive stat on HQ Green/Blue/Purple gear, meaning that attack stat materia was pointless to meld. Leaving only VIT as a fringe meld when doing extreme low gear savage/ultimate progression. Only tanks saw any sort of actual depth to main stat materia, and even then that was debatable when it was just 'meld STR all the time on accessories'.

[IdowhatIwant]

With your system, some jobs are meant to play together (consider dragoon and bard in 3.x times). People eventually will adhere to this standard, cause who doesn't like faster kill time. Even with today's buffing system, just look at how many non-raid-buff jobs are in speed run. I'm talking about you - MACHINIST

How many people participate in speed run kills though?

I am willing to bet it's about the same or less than the number of people that participated in Mythic Raids in WoW.

[Wind-Krysvein]

snip

Very true. However, what's important was that those concepts were there. Just because they weren't viable at the offset doesn't mean they couldn't have served an important purpose later on: instead of "mercykilling" a seemingly useless feature, perhaps the better idea would have been to, I dunno, readjust its parameters so that it's no longer useless/bullying material?

They could've had Wind Ward Potions be 100% necessary to survive Bismark EX's raidwides. Or made the tank use a crafted Slashing Resistance belt so that he wouldn't get killed by some crazy tankbuster by Ravana. These things aren't technically that special, but they would have added a tried-and-true, interesting layer to the meta of player preparation and gear/ability intrigue. Both of which the game is currently very lacking in.

I could go on with this, but it's probably not even necessary as you didn't really disagree with any of my main arguments. You brought up a good point, and I'm happy I could give you my thoughts on it.

[anhaato]

With your system, some jobs are meant to play together (consider dragoon and bard in 3.x times). People eventually will adhere to this standard, cause who doesn't like faster kill time. Even with today's buffing system, just look at how many non-raid-buff jobs are in speed run. I'm talking about you - MACHINIST

Is that really a problem? If jobs can synergize based on crit or piercing or whatever, why shouldn't they? What if we could have the good ol' drg-brd-sch party back while also getting something like, idk, gnb-mch-sge gun party meta with projectile resistance or whatever? Or make elemental resistance a real thing so you can then get a smn-blm-rdm triple caster meme party comp because of fire elemental resistance? Smn-rdm-whm for wind or earth? Add lightning dmg to drg and pair it with blm? The options are endless! Stuff like this could add so much flavor but they just won't do it, because then people might get picky about the jobs they enjoy playing with, like that's so awful! But they wouldn't, though, because getting picky about your open spots only makes them fill up slower and most people just want to fill up the party and clear asap.

As long as status effects are still a thing I believe there should be a handful of bottom line effects that can encompass a large number of jobs so you're still getting some benefit from them, but if people want to optimize off of a particular comp then that should be 100% allowed. And let's not pretend that hasn't always been a thing, even as recent as last pack the "meta" comp involved dnc-sam because they just synergized so well. And that's FINE! Content can still be cleared without the "meta" but if people want to chase a meta then let them!