Evolution Of Final Fantasy 14 Combat Each Expansion

[Shurrikhan]

The current and very boring classes of XIV have nothing going for them.

I would agree that each class has room to improve and that some are in desperate need of such. Additional customization, let alone to the point of being able to make a "poison DRG evasion tank" is not likely required in order do that, however.

Everyone gears the same

Nearly, but not quite. Certain jobs have changed their gameplay in ways almost as significant as the differences between the GCD rotational flow of a given job and its nearest analog just through increased Haste (Spell Speed or, especially, Skill Speed).

It's worth noting here also what areas of customization have made no difference whatsoever to gameplay (such as, essentially... all of the other stats).

[Everyone] plays the same.

That depends on what you mean by this.

• Does each player of a given job play the same as each other player of that same job?
  No, not really, if only because some play well and some play poorly, with notable differences in their actions.
  
  
• Does each player have the same methods and degree of optimization available to them as any other player of that job?
  Yes, apart from the aforementioned variations resulting from Haste.
  
  
• Does each job play like any other job?
  No, not particularly -- and certainly no more than would also be true under your system.
  
  
• Does each job play like any other job in its role?
  Somewhat. For Tanks and Healers, arguably yes. For DPS, not particularly.

Boring.

I'd concur / come to the same conclusion for different reasons, but I suspect you'll find little actual agreement with your argument so long as the only criteria you've brought to this so far to make a job not "boring" are...

• whether each job would have a variety of builds to it (which is of virtually no gameplay difference from simply having as many more jobs as that same amount of development work could produce), and
• whether it would have fights it's specifically advantaged on (would deal "millions of damage" per attack) and fights it's disadvantaged ("useless") on.

Bring back status effects, effective on bosses,

To be clear, since all buffs and debuffs are "status effects", do you mean specifically the likes of Stun, Silence, Pacify, Heavy, Slow, and Bind?

I could see ways that could help, but also ways that just devolves into exactly what little use Esuna and Interject carry right now, effectively arriving at button-bloat for having no range of use case.

A mechanic that deals damage can be dealt with in myriad ways that give room for synergies within and between job kits. A mechanic that wipes the raid unless silenced is simply "I see mechanic X; I hit button X", with no room for nuance.

elemental resistances damage

Again, if you want to involve elements, elemental resistances are about the worst way you could possibly do so, as they exist only to remove elements from gameplay by barring whatever elements/builds are thereby negatively affected. This is even worse when an element is empowered against a specific mob, as, unless restricted by cooldowns, it bars all other elements.

If you want element-based gameplay, a better bet is to create undermechanics for each element that can behave synergetically with each other and can have varying contextual value (and not just based on the victim of those elemental attacks).

several trait lines to chose in every single class, at least 7 trait lines for each class, pick up 3, change your class trait profile on the fly just as you change class.

Now we're getting somewhere. I could easily get behind this, so long as the traits expand and tweak gameplay, rather than merely what content one can be taken for.

That said, at an average of pick-3-of-7 traits, you're effectively producing 35 times the number of jobs (or now "builds"). Worse, because their strengths each depend on that of 34 other jobs/builds, the development costs for that gameplay complexity will be quite a bit higher.

Visual and story assets are done by different talent, so it's not as if you'd be stealing away job quests and relic gear and new visuals, but that also means there's nowhere from which to take the development time you would need to develop your desired ~714 additional jobs.

You could have your meta efficient build.

Your system will not avoid meta builds; it will more likely exacerbate the sense that choice is "an illusion".

In fact, because you've removed the opportunity costs in gearing and leveling from customization, people will be less encouraged to be understanding of jobs which typically provide less value (for the amount of effort typically put in by a player of the given content level).

That's not to say it's hopeless --after all, we already play more than one job per sub-role-- it's just that your idea will not remotely solve that "issue".*

*(Which is not so much an issue, anyways, as simply a natural consequence of a game's design being what it is, with low quality-control surrounding our choices meaning low diversity in the choices actually taken.)

And then some of us could actually have fun instead of repeating the same rotation for years on end.

To be fair, you have the same choice now unless you are utterly unwilling to multi-class. At which point, the same issue would apply to those who, in your system, would not be willing to "multi-build".

"Poison Evasion DRG or bust" is going to see the same rotational stagnancy as anyone playing just "DRG or bust".

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Tl;dr:

The only real difference between your system and the current one is that yours effectively askes the dev team to lay off a portion of their artists and writers (e.g., those responsible for relic armor, new weapon types, new class lore, new jobs' quests, etc.) for more talent working only with mechanics and balance of the existing jobs' kits (assuming they could even be hired, trained, and retained), since you'll simply have replaced new jobs with new build options of existing jobs.

To get to even your minimum desires (at least 7 new trait paths, with 3 choices that can be simultaneously taken), we'd have to, effectively, provide 735 different job-builds. While, in your design, each build would only be able to do a portion of content, that's still a lot to balance against each other, let alone create gameplay diversity from/among. Those development costs will not come out of thin air.