Evolution Of Final Fantasy 14 Combat Each Expansion

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Boring

I want a poison damage evasion tank Dragoon.

Now.

[Shurrikhan]

I want a poison damage evasion tank Dragoon.

Which will have all of... what... difference in gameplay?

Look, I agree with you that gameplay has devolved over recent expansions. I'll agree it never had much depth to begin with. I agree that it should be capable of more. But let's not pretend that a bizarre on-paper descriptor actually comes through in gameplay.

Having elements "matter" in 1.x just meant that you picked between 6 different identical actions each based on the enemy type, meaning that it took 12 buttons just to support the simple filler + single DoT gameplay that healers have now.

The extent of having elements "matter" at the very start of ARR just meant that Bard could not interact with SMN or SCH, meaning that in a quarter of all compositions, Foe Requiem was useless, and in three-quarters of composition it was half-useless.

Unless you specifically add mechanics to differentiate it, "poison" is just a DoT. Unless you specifically add mechanics to compliment it, "evasion" is just passive RNG-based mitigation.

"Differentiation" on paper does not necessarily, or even typically, cause difference in practice/gameplay.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Which will have all of... what... difference in gameplay?

All my combo rotation would be completely diferent. Completely diferent traits and skills.
My gearing proceses would be diferent from those silly Fire Damage Wyvern Pet Dragoons.

The numbers would be green, tons of DoT.
Mechanically in most fights i wouldn't be jumping too much, and i wouldn't have any positionals compared to other dragoons, instead i would probably having to handle aggro.

I would be useless against bosses with DoT or poison, piercing damage, a bummer.

I would go as my Dark Damage HP Stealing Dark Knight, not much of a tank, more of a debuffer-self sustain DPS that one. But i love its DDR-Like rotation, you never know what cool debuff you will land next, sad part is there is no paralyzis nor confusion on demand, i'ts random.. Oh well. Ill just put more points into status effects in my Chaotic Fending Armor.


We have the classes.
Now they need to look like GW2 ones.

Where everyone can tank, heal, dps, support or do all four or any combination as you see fit. The meta will be meta with balance or no. Let people have fun.

I wanna do millions of damage to marine enemies, fuck i hate The Tempest.

[Shurrikhan]

All my combo rotation would be completely diferent. Completely diferent traits and skills.

Okay. What are you willing to sacrifice for it? If all of its traits and skills are different, you are effectively asking for a different job. And that's for one build.

Unless you mean to get only what your particular, idiosyncratic desire (your "poison damage evasion tank Dragoon") rather than allowing similar options to others, how many more builds that have almost nothing in common with each other ("completely diferent traits and skills") must therefore be developed?

We get 2 jobs per expansion. The expenditure on job quests becomes increasingly little, leaving most of the expense among the job's actions' and traits' mechanics, names, icons, and visuals (which you want to be "completely diferent" from their base jobs). At best, that means you'd get one additional build per expansion across 2 or 3 jobs, in place of having any new jobs for the remainder of the game. Nevermind also that these new builds, to provide the worldbuilding that altogether new jobs provide, would then need to take up those otherwise skipped expenses, too.

I would be useless against bosses with DoT or poison, piercing damage, a bummer.

And that design scheme means that you specifically rotate which jobs are allowed into a given fight. A and B are effectively barred, and C is obligatory in its role.

That is unless, of course, you make it so...

everyone can tank, heal, dps, support or do all four or any combination as you see fit

...in which case, you may well make it so players just stack the advantaged job and all other jobs are effectively barred.

The meta will be meta with balance or no.

No. The width/breadth of a meta, i.e., the freedom to be able to play most/all content with many and varied jobs, is dependent on balance. Completely lacking balance means that only one job is permitted in any content with any meaningful difficulty.

Being able to play a multitude of builds as more than mere role-play in a field or hallway sprint simulators (if even that) is because of balance, not despite it.

I wanna do millions of damage to marine enemies, fuck i hate The Tempest.

I don't even...

____________

Edit: I, similarly, would like to see more jobs-first, rather than roles-first, design. I'd like to see the jobs each have a bit more versatility in their own ways. But designing for that is a huge task, and it needs to be efficient to be at all feasible. You can have large gameplay differences in practice even from few or subtle differences on paper, so focus on what's actually efficient.

A high-SkS Monk, for instance, has tended to feel quite different from a low-SkS (i.e., Crit-focused) Monk due to its different rotational options unlocked by that SkS and its slight deemphasis of certain other (usually, more rigidly constrained) actions. But many other on-paper differences result in either no change to gameplay (merely being obliged or disallowed in this encounter or that one nonetheless while doing the exact same actions), very little relative to their costs, or even outright harm gameplay by effectively just pruning actions through upgrades to the remaining kit (to the point of overwhelming everything else).

If you want expanded thematic and gameplay options for the existing jobs, you'll want to decide on a small but potent set of additional undermechanics that can be easily and intuitively affected to significant gameplay effect. Which, no, is not easy. But that's the only way it ends up doable.