Wesk Alber's poll on Jobs

[ty_taurus]

Very.

Consider the fact that a lot of players don't like current Healers. Yet they rated current Healers, giving them artificially low marks. A lot of players who do not play SMN hate current SMN. It is the single lowest rated Job in your poll, despite possibly being the most played DPS and second or third most played Job in the game. And while I KNOW you want to say "people play it but don't like it" - I play it and love it.

What is the context of Summoner's population? Why does it have higher numbers than Black Mage? Sure, there are people who do play the job, but how many of that population leveled it for the purposes of clearing the caster role quest? how many leveled it for the purposes of soloing Deep Dungeons? Summoner is very strong for Heaven on High, for example. How many leveled it simply to try it? How many leveled it because they play Scholar and have Summoner leveled as a consequence? How many people have leveled it for the convenience of having it?

More importantly, if FFXIV were like WoW in that you could not swap jobs. You picked one job and that was your only job. How popular would Summoner actually be? It's very likely that Black Mage's numbers probably wouldn't change drastically, because the people that play it have leveled it because they played it, but I don't think that's true for Summoner. I think a major chunk of its population have it leveled because it's convenient. You get 2 jobs for the cost of 1. You can use it to clear your role quests. You can use it to solo easily if you normally main tank or healer and want something faster. There are many reasons to level and have Summoner in your back pocket regardless of whether or not you actively play and/or enjoy the job, and leveling it does not inherently mean you do enjoy it.

I've said before, I count on the census for every job in the game. I have every job at 90, and I have every Manderville weapon. Of those, I actively use 2-3. I may not be the norm, but it's considerably easier for someone who has 5 jobs leveled, one for each role, to stay on top of having a decent weapon now more than ever and count for the census regardless of whether they actively play all 5 of those, or they just play 1 and use the other 4 as needed. Of the casters, Summoner is undoubtedly the most convenient to use for those purposes. The census doesn't tell you who mains what. It just tells you who has what.

I also think it's fair that if people are voting on their favorite, they PROBABLY like it.

My favorite tank is Gunbreaker. I've never set foot in a single instance as Gunbreaker, never want to play Gunbreaker, and have a negative amount of interest in playing as a tank at all. Does Gunbreaker being my favorite tank matter, in that case? Would you say I "like" Gunbreaker? Or is it my favorite because I don't actually play that role, and of the options, it's the one I think is the coolest in concept? And that my general lack of familiarity with tanks means what I like says absolutely nothing about the job's design?

I'm not saying that's every player. But if everyone is required to pick their favorite of each role, any votes for jobs in a role that someone doesn't actually play aren't helpful and don't provide any meaningful information other than "I guess people like the style of this job" which is probably why Astro rated slightly higher than Scholar. People think Astro looks cool, so many players who have never even touched healers may have voted for it simply due to aesthetic. And that's also my guess as to why Sage is the highest. White Mage and Sage are higher than Scholar and Astro because Scholar and Astro suffer from pain points--pet mechanics and a kit that fights with itself for Scholar, and constant single-target shuffling and double weaving for Astro.

All that the healer data tells me is that of the healers, Astro and Sage look the coolest, but Sage is the one without a pain point and thus doesn't take a score hit due to actual healer players rating Astro lower as a result of its pain points.