Your Opinion on the Current State of Job Identity/Balance in 6.4?

[Absurdity]

Even were the game to turn into the likes of GW2, though, how would simply removing 4 jobs in a tantrum, DPS or otherwise, be healthier for the game than revamping those 4 jobs to better fit that context?

Funny thing about that, GW2 back-pedaled quite a bit on that whole "no trinity" design.

And even more funny things, GW2, the mmo that didn't have any healers initially, has vastly more interesting healer gameplay now than XIV does. I'd play Quickness Heal Herald over any of the XIV healers any day.

Exactly because they're not designed to just mindlessly fill health bars, you're primarily a support. You provide damage reduction, attack speed, cooldown reduction, crit chance, attack power and your weapon skills provide even more support on top of dealing damage.

Personally it's also about how little the combat has changed/evolved for the majority of classes from SHB to EW.

That's the big thing people tend to forget, it wasn't Endwalker that brought us this incredibly boring job design, Endwalker just continued what Shadowbringers had started. Endwalker's biggest sin is simply doubling down on it.

[Shurrikhan]

Funny thing about that, GW2 back-pedaled quite a bit on that whole "no trinity" design.

And even more funny things, GW2, the mmo that didn't have any healers initially, has vastly more interesting healer gameplay now than XIV does. I'd play Quickness Heal Herald over any of the XIV healers any day.

Exactly because they're not designed to just mindlessly fill health bars, you're primarily a support. You provide damage reduction, attack speed, cooldown reduction, crit chance, attack power and your weapon skills provide even more support on top of dealing damage.

Aye. But I chose that particular reference because it still comes from a pretty generalist/non-trinity-intensive place/intent... and still manages more integral support play. >.>

Like, if that is the terror at the end of the slippery slope that abandons those healers 'who just want to heal' (or, want nothing more complex offensively than Glare spam)...

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Funny thing about that, GW2 back-pedaled quite a bit on that whole "no trinity" design.

And even more funny things, GW2, the mmo that didn't have any healers initially, has vastly more interesting healer gameplay now than XIV does. I'd play Quickness Heal Herald over any of the XIV healers any day.

Exactly because they're not designed to just mindlessly fill health bars, you're primarily a support. You provide damage reduction, attack speed, cooldown reduction, crit chance, attack power and your weapon skills provide even more support on top of dealing damage.



That's the big thing people tend to forget, it wasn't Endwalker that brought us this incredibly boring job design, Endwalker just continued what Shadowbringers had started. Endwalker's biggest sin is simply doubling down on it.

I mean, if it's so great and free... Why aren't more playing GW2?

[Shougun]

I mean, if it's so great and free... Why aren't more playing GW2?

I don't have a great answer, and could probably write a very long guess but, I would say that GW2 has a surprisingly large amount of really fun systems. I think my greatest annoyance is how delayed mounts were (which they fixed semi recently). Maybe most generically they don't tie and clean up things as well such that progression can be confusing.. I mean like must read a guide in order to make even half decent choices for many different things. Some of their shops are bewildering as a new player, with so many different currencies and items to do who knows what. Some items with INSANE ROI and then some with insanely terrible ROI lol. There are a few cash shop items that are huge reasons to why I had access to a lot of fun... unfortunately.

The combat visuals are meh but the feeling and building is pretty good, some of the jobs are insanely fun and feel like FFXIV's pvp but with build and customization mechanics. Mounts destroy other mmos in gameplay. FATEs / events are way better. The horizontal gearing is easy to catch up but has a lot of long term value- it is however insanely convoluted as a new player where you should do what. A lot of really nice QoL is cash shopped too though, and also convoluted. The seasonal events are also awesome. Account wide systems. Much better open world encouragement. Insane zone scale. Zone sync also makes it so you don't have a boring kit in early content.

Somethings off the top of my head.. I still prefer FFXIV for other reasons but if we somehow stole from GW2.. probably would be nice. For the next mmo it would be cool if they can take the best of FFXIV, GW2, ESO for some sort of action very rpg mmo. As FFXII (12) was used for some testing bed of the next mmo I hope FFXVII will be as too. Also helpful to be such so that FFXIV can exist without the next one taking too much space (entirely different combat style is a big difference).

[Absurdity]

I mean, if it's so great and free... Why aren't more playing GW2?

I don't know if this is supposed to be some kind of gotcha, but that is exactly what I'm doing when I want to have a fun open world or play interesting classes.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

I don't know if this is supposed to be some kind of gotcha, but that is exactly what I'm doing when I want to have a fun open world or play interesting classes.

Nah, it's an honest question. I see GW2 praised every so often, yet despite being free and supposedly so good... Not a lot play it nowadays.

I'm surprised that they didn't already make a GW3. Would have made a lot of sense since WoW's star is dying (thanks to Blizzard and a dated game that takes forever for basic QoL changes).

[Deo14]

Nah, it's an honest question. I see GW2 praised every so often, yet despite being free and supposedly so good... Not a lot play it nowadays.

I'm surprised that they didn't already make a GW3. Would have made a lot of sense since WoW's star is dying (thanks to Blizzard and a dated game that takes forever for basic QoL changes).

"Not a lot play it nowadays" based on what data, if I may ask? There is no official data, but average consensus seems to be that GW2 has half the daily playercount of FFXIV in droughts, and 1/3rd of FFXIV when patch drops. GW2 compared to FFXIV has very steady playerbase, unlike FFXIV's cycles of droughts.

All of that with virtually no marketing and without having "Final Fantasy" in their name. You remember that Sia song for Endwalker? 10/10 CGI trailers? I bet that did cost more than total marketing of GW2 per expansion. Considering all of this, and that GW2 has much more customer friendly business model and is made by much smaller company, I would say that game is doing incredible.

Thinking that MMORPG should just make a sequel is deranged from reality. Why do you think that WoW 2 isn't a thing? FF11 and FF14 are not sequel, they're very different at the core, same as GW1 and GW2. MMORPGs are about long run, nobody wants to lose all of their progress just to switch to sequel which just iterates on prequel. And if you make sequel different, then original players will be against the changes, which is exactly what happened with GW2. Either way, players will be mad.

[Raikai]

I mean, if it's so great and free... Why aren't more playing GW2?

To me is a combination of loving the FF IP and knowing that XIV is highly referential to other titles, plus GW2 player graphics aren't very... good to my taste. They look kinda plastic-y and lifeless - not even mentioning how most of the cool armor sets are store bought and 1-piece ensembles. And somehow GW2 as a game system is even more unfriendly to roleplaying than XIV, which heavies a lot as well.