I don't know what can honestly be done for Final Fantasy XIV at this point.

[Xelanar]

1. Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel all jobs play the same. They are all based around a 2 minute burst window, but I cannot agree on a Samurai playing or feeling the same as a Monk or a Dragoon. Dancer, Bard and Machinist also feel quite different to me. The same goes for magic DPS. I believe tanks suffer most from this issue. And healers too, but only their DPS related stuff. So I do see problems in those two roles, but even then, in my opinion they still feel different enough.

2. Custom building sadly is an ideal that will never really exist in a game where performance is measurable in numbers. There will always be a best build for a specific situation. I'd rather they removed the little customization there is(materia), because "use xy skill speed/spell speed or your rotation is busted" does not add any fun in my eyes. Now if you're talking about stuff like... alternative skill animations or colors? Or even entire alternative skillsets that function the same, but look different? THAT I would be into.

3. Outdoor monsters are HP sponges existing for specific side quests or to prevent the world from feeling empty. I too wish they would be mechanically more challenging and engaging, but I guess their focus has never been to be dangerous. They are supposed to make the world feel more alive. And it shows xD.

4. They might have gone overboard by redesigning crafting jobs THIS much. The HW system did have flaws though. i.E requiring you to level up ALL crafting jobs, because they had cross-class skills gated behind specific jobs that were basically mandatory.

5. Those blue gear options are necessary, because not everyone wants to buy crafted gear from the market board or craft it themselves. Also not everyone wishes to pentameld. Blue gear from normal raids is supposed to be an alternative, and it does this quite well. It also offers its glamour for those who do not do savage. Unless it's only the coloring you are refering to? Because that IS kind of weirdly color-coded in the crafting section. The issue being that NQ Crafted gear is inferior to the raid gear equivalent, so the color is actually correct. But the HQ version is better / equal, so it makes no sense. I believe rarity color cannot be different between NQ and HQ. Maybe that's why they went with color-coding it like that.

6. Side quests are... uhm... yeah. They exist xD. Some of them are pretty good. But most of them are filler or meant to show daily life issues. They make sense the way they are. They're just not very engaging.

7. FATEs. Well... yeah. They are blunt and every expansion I hate myself for grinding through every single zone, because I want full access to all the FATE vendors -.-.

8. I honestly don't mind they quit this part of the game. I never liked it. Squadrons are fine for what they are, but I'm glad they are not opting to gate content behind those - which they would have to, if new ranks were introduced.

9. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I like it when games have stuff just because it makes sense for it to be there. Not everything has to have a purpose. Because if it did, zones could start feeling like unnatural, stale ubisoft open worlds, where verything exists for the sole purpose of being interactible by the player in some form. But I DO wish there were incentives to visit some zones more often, or to explore them more thoroughly.

10. I don't pvp, so I have no opinion on that section >.<.


All in all - I do see wasted potential and areas the game could improve upon. But bottom line I still like the game and what it offers, and I do not feel like it's being neglected or treated poorly. I can see a lot of effort and attention to detail going into it, and I appreciate it.

[WeissTuna]

1. Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel all jobs play the same. They are all based around a 2 minute burst window, but I cannot agree on a Samurai playing or feeling the same as a Monk or a Dragoon. Dancer, Bard and Machinist also feel quite different to me. The same goes for magic DPS. I believe tanks suffer most from this issue. And healers too, but only their DPS related stuff. So I do see problems in those two roles, but even then, in my opinion they still feel different enough.

When people say that the jobs all play the same, they're taking all of that into account. Sure, all jobs have their niche and their spices that are different than the others, but they all work around that same 2 minute rotation. It's not hard to figure out what the optimal rotation is when you get a new job to 90 because its all centered around 1-2-(niche gauge builder)-(2minute cooldown) then blowing your biggest potencies and GCDs within that window and repeat when the 2 minute comes back.

The game has been shoved into a balance hole. Where fun goes to die. I'd much rather have classes be fun over them being tightly balanced and I say that as a raider.

[Jojoya]

The game has been shoved into a balance hole. Where fun goes to die. I'd much rather have classes be fun over them being tightly balanced and I say that as a raider.

I agree with the first statement since it's pretty much where classes/jobs in all MMORPGs end up.

The problem comes from the last.

How many players would end up happy that their class/job is fun to play if it also meant they were being excluded from content because it performed poorly compared to the rest?

Very few would if they play content where performance matters. Thus the balance hole gets dug.

[Shinkuno]

How many players would end up happy that their class/job is fun to play if it also meant they were being excluded from content because it performed poorly compared to the rest?
.

This already happens. This is what people like you dont get. IT ALREADY HAPPENS, we have this fucked up homogenized mess and they still cant balance their game.

[hunkygladiator]

I agree with the first statement since it's pretty much where classes/jobs in all MMORPGs end up.

The problem comes from the last.

How many players would end up happy that their class/job is fun to play if it also meant they were being excluded from content because it performed poorly compared to the rest?

Very few would if they play content where performance matters. Thus the balance hole gets dug.

lmao literally who cares when you can easily play any single job in this game at max level

opinions from one-trick ponies should be massively discounted

this isn't like lost ark where you have to cough up real money to level another job to raid ready level

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

lmao literally who cares when you can easily play any single job in this game at max level

opinions from one-trick ponies should be massively discounted

this isn't like lost ark where you have to cough up real money to level another job to raid ready level

Well, in that case your opinion is massively discounted because your one trick is being a forum troll. Maybe two tricks since your other is obviously an rmt bot.

[Avoidy]

lmao literally who cares when you can easily play any single job in this game at max level

opinions from one-trick ponies should be massively discounted

this isn't like lost ark where you have to cough up real money to level another job to raid ready level

For the "just play all the jobs" idea to even work, we'd need (to start, at the very least) a gear progression setup that wasn't timegated and cockblocked by the devs nonstop. The moment you try and get anything better than crafted gear or dungeon gear (lol) the game starts timegating you like crazy at pretty much every level, even for the stuff that isn't BiS. Want raid gear? Once a week at best. Want the good tome gear? Weekly cap on how many tomes you can earn. There's also the time investment of leveling a job to cap, the sheer chore-factor of it, and the matter of personal preference. Saying this as someone with every combat job at 90; I'm not touching SMN in its current form, no matter how "optimal" it becomes in the content I enjoy, because I don't enjoy it and I'm not about to spend weeks gearing a job I hate. It's that simple. I'd literally rather take a nap IRL than deal with that. The selling point of the job system is that you can play every job in the game, not that you have to. And that message is seen in every job progression system in the game. A lot of things would have to change for us to feasibly reach the sort of "screw balance, just play everything" goal you're talking about here, unless your only goal is buying 610 crafted gear and chilling in content where balance doesn't matter.

Bit of a pipe dream now, but I wish we had actual teams dedicated to each job. And those teams talked to each other, and to the raid teams, to create an actual holistic team based experience. Instead it's really obvious that they have like 4 guys responsible for every job in the game, so we get ez homogenization design choices and imbalance issues that make people question whether or not the jobs were even playtested.