Potential Solution to Job Balance?

[Duskane]

I don't think this is a solution when problem really lies with the developers adding,another DPS category would not solve them neglecting jobs,strange design choices or unnecessary buffs/changes.

when they double down on grouping up jobs it never works out.

[UkcsAlias]

I don't think this is a solution when problem really lies with the developers adding,another DPS category would not solve them neglecting jobs,strange design choices or unnecessary buffs/changes.

The problem is mostly with the healer job, because it has a lot of conflicts within the desired balance. But at least some issues can be resolved with this:
- No reliable fallback, which means a dead healer can often result in a wipe (unless you have a dps with a resurect). Having a support group with a revive here can cover this part making sure there are always 2 roles available for a revive (the healer on that can be the one using it more often)
- As the healer is supposed to heal. It often means reduced damage, this damage reduction is enforced to avoid healers deliberately missing a healing GCD in favor of damage. As healer damage now doesnt exist, they are forced to heal again. But again, if a support can cover some of this, this GCD balancing on a healer can become viable again, which allows higher damage as a result.
- This can be used as a finetuning aspect in 8man duties in which it will always ensure at least 1, but keeps the rest flexible. If for whatever reason such support job is needed then, you can be sure there is one. It allows balancing towards the existance of them (and scale damage/healing/mitigation requirements with it).

But it has flaws.
- By having 4 categories, it can be used as a balance factor in 4man duties. This however has a downside that some categories can get even longer queue times. Since support roles are usualy less liked than pure dps. Even if they effectively do the same in damage, the name 'support' is an issue. I think a diffirent category could be better here. Idealy one that doesnt relate towards support or buffing. But I know the term flex is quite popular in moba's, so maybe some sort of term like this works by simply making it sound more elite like (if it sounds cool, its more likely to be popular after all). Plain support however is unlikely to truly work as that just sounds like a healer.
- Once its a category, its often demanded that all jobs within the role end up with similar capabilities. This could remove the variety we have now.
- As most damage in the game is delivered in a quite static way, variety in these classes and synergies (which normaly can make things interesting) is generaly not going to work well. Its often down to raw output in certain aspects. Even with this new role, synergies are a very dangerous aspect to show up, and a support role is even more likely to cause these issues, since its now no longer 1 class facing this potential issue, but 2.

[XiroGear]

the name 'support' is an issue. I think a diffirent category could be better here. Idealy one that doesnt relate towards support or buffing. But I know the term flex is quite popular in moba's, so maybe some sort of term like this works by simply making it sound more elite like (if it sounds cool, its more likely to be popular after all). Plain support however is unlikely to truly work as that just sounds like a healer.

As for a name for the role, I'd pull from FFXIII and name it 'Synergist' As the name implies Synergy with the rest of the party.

[ForsakenRoe]

As for a name for the role, I'd pull from FFXIII and name it 'Synergist' As the name implies Synergy with the rest of the party.

I think Support is fine as a role name. I used to play DOTA so what I see as Support duties includes:

-Pulling the neutrals into the creep wave, to disrupt the meeting point of the creeps to get it closer to our tower (safer for our carry)
-Harassing the enemy offlaner to stop them getting XP
-Setting up kills on either the offlaner or rotating Mid to help Mid secure a kill on enemy Mid
-Setting up Wards to give vision to the allied team
-Stacking creep camps by pulling neutrals out of the camp at the minute mark, tricking the game into thinking the camp is 'cleared'. This allows for big fast farm for the carry when they're strong enough to kill stacked camps
-Warding ENEMY territory to give vision of where the enemy is
-Buying items that help support the team, such as CC items (Rod of Atos, Scythe of Vyse if you're rich, Aghanim's Scepter if it's got a good effect), and consumables such as Smoke of Deceit or Dust of Appearance to counter invis boys

And finally, yes, some of the supports do have skills that heal, like Omniknight or Oracle. But those heals are absolutely not the focus of being a support in that game. Apex Legends has a 'support' role, and only ONE of those supports can heal (Lifeline). Support means a lot more than just 'is the heal bitch' and anyone who plays Supports like they are 'the heal bitch' is not playing them to their full potential. What are you doing in League as a Support, standing in lane and not attacking the enemy? Leeching XP from your Carry?

[XiroGear]

I think Support is fine as a role name. I used to play DOTA so what I see as Support duties includes:

-Pulling the neutrals into the creep wave, to disrupt the meeting point of the creeps to get it closer to our tower (safer for our carry)
-Harassing the enemy offlaner to stop them getting XP
-Setting up kills on either the offlaner or rotating Mid to help Mid secure a kill on enemy Mid
-Setting up Wards to give vision to the allied team
-Stacking creep camps by pulling neutrals out of the camp at the minute mark, tricking the game into thinking the camp is 'cleared'. This allows for big fast farm for the carry when they're strong enough to kill stacked camps
-Warding ENEMY territory to give vision of where the enemy is
-Buying items that help support the team, such as CC items (Rod of Atos, Scythe of Vyse if you're rich, Aghanim's Scepter if it's got a good effect), and consumables such as Smoke of Deceit or Dust of Appearance to counter invis boys

And finally, yes, some of the supports do have skills that heal, like Omniknight or Oracle. But those heals are absolutely not the focus of being a support in that game. Apex Legends has a 'support' role, and only ONE of those supports can heal (Lifeline). Support means a lot more than just 'is the heal bitch' and anyone who plays Supports like they are 'the heal bitch' is not playing them to their full potential. What are you doing in League as a Support, standing in lane and not attacking the enemy? Leeching XP from your Carry?

Alright so how would you translate that to FFXIV?

[Shurrikhan]

Alright so how would you translate that to FFXIV?

Giving supports more to do and fights more to care about than just enrage -> clear time and the very rare oGCD heal saved briefly for a particular mechanic?

I don't think it'd come to anyone's surprise that XIV's lackluster healing is largely just a symptom of overall shallow encounter design, low meaningful content variety, and wonky tuning.

[XiroGear]

Giving supports more to do and fights more to care about than just enrage -> clear time and the very rare oGCD heal saved briefly for a particular mechanic?

I don't think it'd come to anyone's surprise that XIV's lackluster healing is largely just a symptom of overall shallow encounter design, low meaningful content variety, and wonky tuning.

I won't argue with that. though while I would have no issues with seeing that, given how they've removed Support abilities from DPS and Healer Jobs, I'm not going to hold my breath for this...

[ForsakenRoe]

Alright so how would you translate that to FFXIV?

a lot of these things, while specific to MOBA design, boil down to 'help allies' or 'hinder enemies' in some way. In order, the closest I'd imagine in FFXIV terms would be:

-apply buffs of some kind to the team to make it safer (probably mit)
-Debuff enemy to make them do less damage
-Set up burst windows with allied damage buffs (we already have this with chain strat/div, maybe lean more into buffing and less into 'spam glare')
-Warding is just to make stuff more safe so I guess it'd be like 'put up mit' again, maybe a healer designed around making 'warded zones' could be interesting
-Buff allies to make them stronger, perhaps a design for AST where you set up the burst window as you do your rotation, then 'activate' all the cards at once with Div to reduce APM issues during 2min windows
-Again, debuff enemies in some way so they can't do as much damage to you, perhaps even having a new 'dispel' action that healers have to use to remove enemy buffs?
-Just the usual 'supports support the team', forgot to mention Mekansm, an item that does in fact give an AOE heal to everyone, and Guardian Greaves which heal and restore mana. Maybe some kind of buffing system where healers directly influence job gauges? would be hell to balance though (oh the healer extended the DRG's Life window and now they get a 4th Nastrond)

The point wasn't so much 'look how much stuff happens in this game that FFXIV should copy', it was moreso 'this is what supports do in this game, why is FFXIV 'support' or 'healer' or whatever you want to call it, so barebones on responsibilities by comparison'. At the rate we're going, they'll remove Chain Strat from SCH because it requires targetting the enemy

Those reductions, though, were primarily made because either

I'm like 99% sure the reason they removed the stuff they did like Shadewalker, Smokescreen, mits from healers like Disable or Virus, was because people didnt bother to use them. Outside of Savage, where people wiped and were asked 'did you use Disable', I assume a lot of the casual base just didn't press it. Tanks in casual content would run tankstance 100% so Smokescreen/Shadewalker/Diversion were not needed. So when SHB design time came, the devs likely looked at the data and went 'well if people dont use this stuff, they wont miss it, lets make tankstance give insane threat gen, remove the damage penalty so they dont complain about being nerfed, then we dont need these aggro tools anymore. Also, we can retune the damage of raids around the nonexistence of these healer mits, they wont miss them, they'll be cheering about how cool the Lily System looks, now that it's actually functional!'

[Shurrikhan]

I'm like 99% sure the reason they removed the stuff they did like Shadewalker, Smokescreen, mits from healers like Disable or Virus, was because people didnt bother to use them. Outside of Savage, where people wiped and were asked 'did you use Disable', I assume a lot of the casual base just didn't press it. Tanks in casual content would run tankstance 100% so Smokescreen/Shadewalker/Diversion were not needed. So when SHB design time came, the devs likely looked at the data and went 'well if people dont use this stuff, they wont miss it, lets make tankstance give insane threat gen, remove the damage penalty so they dont complain about being nerfed, then we dont need these aggro tools anymore. Also, we can retune the damage of raids around the nonexistence of these healer mits, they wont miss them, they'll be cheering about how cool the Lily System looks, now that it's actually functional!'

Disuse was certainly a factor, but I think another large part has been a matter of "button bloat", and, more interestingly, how 'satisfying' a given button felt to press due to its contexts (encounter opportunities, and considerations it perhaps uniquely forces you to engage with, etc.).

Given how few add grabs were required that the tank couldn't just be prepared for, Shadewalker felt less like a unique tool (Enmity transfer) and more like just a +rDPS button for a given tank, due to needing less time in tank stance. Smokescreen was never of any real interest, as it was redundant with Diversion / Quelling Strikes and, unless you had a single melee carry who'd otherwise be forced to use ME/Purification, it wasn't enough to increase tank rDPS anyways.

Disable and Virus, as with Addle and Feint now, were too insignificant in most content to be of much interest, while any actual unique impact offered by either would cause our rather finnicky playerbase to cry imbalance (even if others could differently produce equal increased eHP by which to counter the given attack). I don't think that's necessarily a great reason to get rid of it, but I haven't much been sad it's gone or turned into a Role Action.

My big point of contention is simply "Okay, so... if Shadewalker became irrelevant and tank stances were bloat, etc., why then aren't there more sudden add spawns, and why aren't there more tools by which to deal with them? Why not simply revise Disable and Virus to be more interesting, potent, and satisfying to press?" I get why they did it, given the shift in context; I just don't get why they allowed the context to be so shallow.

/shrug