Challenging Jobs + Easier content > Easy Jobs + Harder Content.

[Renathras]

"?Por que no los dos?"
Why not some of both?

Very much agree with this, though:

Leave us some easy and accessible options so that everyone is able to break into harder content if they choose. WHM can still be an easy healer. MCH or SMN can be simpler DPS. WAR can be a beginner friendly tank. But for the rest, consider creating a wider spectrum of difficulty that players can choose to engage with.

We really need more of a spectrum across the Jobs and roles. The only role that I think does this well right now is Caster. You have SMN on one end, BLM on the other, and RDM as a happy medium in-between. Each also feels very distinct from the other two to play, no matter the content. I really like that and think there should be more like that across all Jobs. Some people like straightforward (I'm one of them), others like complex, still others like a balance. No matter what content there is, this will always be true. So having a straightforward Job in each role, a complex one in each role, and the others on the spectrum between is just a good idea. Further, having them all play different gives people more of a chance to find one that clicks with them, even if the others do not.

I do think it's a more extensive thing - for example, open world content is...well...we all know it's not fantastic (sad because then you have stuff like Eureka and Bozja which is basically just a modification to the open world that, even without the special Logos/Lost Actions are still more engaging somehow than the regular open world), so there's another issue itself, and of course encounter design. But on the Job side of things, I do agree with you.

WAR, WHM, SMN, MCH (or DNC?), and ??? (RPR, maybe? None of the Melees are really super straghtforward, but it's probably the most...) as a baseline, everything else a spectrum from there to the complex end of GNB, AST, BLM, BRD, MNK(?) of each role seems like a good design goal.

EDIT:

Easy Job design doesn't really appeal to anyone,

This is...very likely not true. There are people that like everything, even easy Jobs.

Even setting aside the Savage/Ultimate raiders that pick the "easy" Jobs but insist they don't like them and are only doing for the clear because of "greater consistency of the Job's performance" (read: easier), just looking at the rest of the playerbase, the easier Jobs are almost always the most played or second most played in every role, sometimes both.

Per the Lucky Bancho numbers, imperfect but the best statistics we have, the most played Tank is WAR, and while that is partly due to their kit, prior to 6.3 and the buffs, WAR was low in damage and Bloodwhetting is OP in 4 man dungeon trash packs, less so in Savage raids with just the single boss. Yet it was still the most played everywhere else in the game. That was BEFORE the buffs that made it OP.

WHM has long been the most played healer, and long been the easiest. And lest you try to say "well, that's just because it's iconic", SGE was introduced as basically the second easiest (most people consider it an easier to play SCH), it's the second most played in every region other than JP, where it's a close third.

RDM was the most played Caster in ShB, where it was also the easiest. With EW making SMN the easiest, SMN is now the most played Caster, with RDM somewhat behind it. BLM is pretty much always a distant third. Even when it comes to hard content, BLM isn't generally the most played until content is on farm. When it actually matters, one of the others is more played than it. And in the general playerbase, despite being praised by people that love complex things on the forums, BLM is the least played, and one of the least played Jobs in the game.

DNC is generally regarded as the easiest to play Ranged, and it's also the most played. And before you say "That's just because people like the buffing allies support role", BRD has that and is the least played...and also the most complex of the three.

Among the Melees, SAM is considered easy to pick up and do very well with, and RPR the easiest overall. They are also the most played. The least played? MNK. Even after the rework, which by all accounts went over well and people loved, but it's the most complex Melee and it's the least played, generally.

.

What is clear is that easy/simple/straightforward Jobs not only DO appeal "to anyone", they appeal to a lot of anyones. It's pretty clear easy Jobs appeal to more people than hard Jobs appeal to, in terms of ratios.

What's less clear is how each compare to people that like things in-between, or what flavors of in-between people find appealing. But what is certain is that having at least some of each category is probably for the best, as that way you cover your bases and ensure everyone has something they can enjoy playing on.

[Rithy255]

This is...very likely not true. There are people that like everything, even easy Jobs.

Looking back on it maybe I was misspeaking here. I think easyness can play a part in what people pick up especially for raids when they don't really have a "main"
I think that easy job design is more or less very popular in endgame raids because of how hard the fight is already, Taking a black mage in a harder fight rather then a summoner is just not worth the effort. I'm unsure about non-savage raid numbers but yeah popular jobs tend to be the more easier ones or the more Meta ones. I think a big reason why summoner is also popular is because it's more Meta, Warriors popularity spiked with buffs. I don't think Job's difficulty plays a big part in what people choose to main, some people tend to not main anything in general though and will just play what's easier/meta as they rather play for fight design and don't really care for job design (which is fine).

I still think that Jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master would be a better approach to this, but what I actually want is some jobs to be easier some jobs to be harder. I'm fine with more easier Job designs I should have made that more clear and I don't think I did a good job of stating my opinion correctly here, I think what the game needs is actual difficulty Varity instead of making harder jobs more like the easier ones.

I think what people actually look for in a job is what is fun and flashy or what looks cooler, I think White mages Popularity is more that it fits the "classic healer" look, I don't even think white mage is much easier then other healers. (Astro seems to be viewed as clunky and not what it used to, so i can see why popularity is less in that case) Warrior I mean yeah it's easy but it's also just the best tank at everything with really good damage values now, Summoner is clearly the best caster for a raid group as they dont have to think about positioning often unlike other casters, it also has big summon animations. I think Samurai is a easy job but it's also actually one of the few easy jobs I genuinely enjoy.

I feel what plays the most part in a Jobs popularity is fun, iconic-ness, design/looks, Meta. More In depth jobs can/should exist along with some easy to pickup jobs, I just don't like how jobs are being forced into being easier jobs (such as Paladin) for the sake of appealing to other tank players for example, I think all jobs can have different playerbases.

[Aravell]

I still think that Jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master would be a better approach to this, but what I actually want is some jobs to be easier some jobs to be harder. I'm fine with more easier Job designs I should have made that more clear and I don't think I did a good job of stating my opinion correctly here, I think what the game needs is actual difficulty Varity instead of making harder jobs more like the easier ones.

While I would prefer jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master, there's also nothing inherently wrong with jobs being simple, with one condition. Take RPR and SAM for example, both are very simple jobs with very easy core loops, however, both have optional optimisations to eke out an advantage over people who aren't as well-versed in the job. While simple jobs are fine, I firmly believe that every job should have optional things they can do to eke out an advantage should the player choose to engage in that, if such an option does not exist, it would mean players have nothing to master and it never feels nice to be forced off a job you enjoyed learning because there's no ceiling to reach for after you've gotten comfortable.

[Rithy255]

While I would prefer jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master, there's also nothing inherently wrong with jobs being simple, with one condition. Take RPR and SAM for example, both are very simple jobs with very easy core loops, however, both have optional optimisations to eke out an advantage over people who aren't as well-versed in the job. While simple jobs are fine, I firmly believe that every job should have optional things they can do to eke out an advantage should the player choose to engage in that, if such an option does not exist, it would mean players have nothing to master and it never feels nice to be forced off a job you enjoyed learning because there's no ceiling to reach for after you've gotten comfortable.

I that jobs should have a celling to a extent, I agree that there needs to be more of a higher celling if you want to maximise your job. Samurai I think in particular does this really well, I love how even third eye feels as a way to squeeze out more when you know the fight well, while I think summoner sort of misses for me (I guess more because it's not because the jobs "easy" it just doesn't feel like a caster to me, I want cast times on magic jobs).

I think you can have fun jobs that are easy to play but hard to master, you can also have harder jobs that are harder to play in more serious content at a decent level like Black mage, you can have harder to learn from a starting point jobs. I think the key is good mix of starting difficulty and a high celling. Most DPS also don't need to be good to get through most basic content, So room for difficult rotations is something I think we should have.

[Renathras]

While I would prefer jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master, there's also nothing inherently wrong with jobs being simple, with one condition. Take RPR and SAM for example, both are very simple jobs with very easy core loops, however, both have optional optimisations to eke out an advantage over people who aren't as well-versed in the job. While simple jobs are fine, I firmly believe that every job should have optional things they can do to eke out an advantage should the player choose to engage in that, if such an option does not exist, it would mean players have nothing to master and it never feels nice to be forced off a job you enjoyed learning because there's no ceiling to reach for after you've gotten comfortable.

Yeah, but what do you define that as?

SMN has that:

Optimal SMN play is to use Titan in burst (every 2 min it should come right after Bahamut), and to use Energy Drain but NOT Festers under Pheonix, instead saving the festers so at the 2 min burst you can use 2 Festers, then Energy Drain, then 2 more Festers to maximize damage under raid buffs.

These are very much points of optimization, and something that people less well-versed in the Job wouldn't be aware of. Most casual adopters of the Job tend to use Ifrit at the earliest convenience of not having to move a lot so that they "get it out of the way", when the ideal is to use Titan after Bahamut every time if possible, many people don't save Festers for 2 minute bursts only, many people don't use Swiftcast as a normal part of their burst, nor do a lot of people seem to realize you can use Ruin 4 for movement during Ifrit (as well as Ruin 3 if you need a second GCD's worth of movement and can slidecast it), which gives you a LOT of flexibility to use Ifrit even during times that might seem less optimal.

SMN itself, despite being panned as braindead, already has "optional things (you) can do to eke out an advantage should (you) choose to engage in that".

WHM, likewise, is an easy Job that has some minor avenues of optimization, such as making sure to place Misery in raid buffs as well as snapshotting your DoTs under them.

So even the simple Jobs in the game already meet that requirement as specified...

[Volgia]

Yeah, but what do you define that as?

SMN has that:

Optimal SMN play is to use Titan in burst (every 2 min it should come right after Bahamut), and to use Energy Drain but NOT Festers under Pheonix, instead saving the festers so at the 2 min burst you can use 2 Festers, then Energy Drain, then 2 more Festers to maximize damage under raid buffs.

These are very much points of optimization, and something that people less well-versed in the Job wouldn't be aware of. Most casual adopters of the Job tend to use Ifrit at the earliest convenience of not having to move a lot so that they "get it out of the way", when the ideal is to use Titan after Bahamut every time if possible, many people don't save Festers for 2 minute bursts only, many people don't use Swiftcast as a normal part of their burst, nor do a lot of people seem to realize you can use Ruin 4 for movement during Ifrit (as well as Ruin 3 if you need a second GCD's worth of movement and can slidecast it), which gives you a LOT of flexibility to use Ifrit even during times that might seem less optimal.

SMN itself, despite being panned as braindead, already has "optional things (you) can do to eke out an advantage should (you) choose to engage in that".

WHM, likewise, is an easy Job that has some minor avenues of optimization, such as making sure to place Misery in raid buffs as well as snapshotting your DoTs under them.

So even the simple Jobs in the game already meet that requirement as specified...

Figuring out those buffs and raid aligments is what makes high levels of play fun. Optimizing a RDM can be just like that too, how many melee combos can I do during a raid buff aligment considering it's so RNG heavy and the such? It's pretty cool.

[Colt47]

[...]I think that easy job design is more or less very popular in endgame raids because of how hard the fight is already, Taking a black mage in a harder fight rather then a summoner is just not worth the effort.[...]

This is the major reason jobs are being simplified. A lot of designers are adhering to a tight form of gameplay design that has less flexibility in order to have higher control of difficulty, and this mindset is also taken into account for PvP. There is a balance on the number of different mechanics needed to make sure it is still interesting as symmetrical games tend to be boring, but regardless, the number values are generally pretty tight, to the point that a small gain can become extremely exaggerated in the actual results it produces.

Some people want to have MOBA style tightness in combat and places where they can flex and show off skill, but these contests do not necessarily reward people for thinking about situations and how to resolve them in other ways. BG3 for example, is a game that completely goes against everything that FFXIV and MOBAs are about. It has tons of cheap ways to resolve situations and even has methods that do not involve direct combat to solve problems. While there is something to be said about simplicity in direction, there also is a lot that gets lost in such a pursuit, and FFXIV tends to come off a bit too much like it wants to become an e-sport MMO hybrid with the direction it is going right now. I stated in another thread that FFXIV can easily exist without having hardcore savage fights because originally it was built around having multiple ways to handle different situations. This was the case as well with classic WoW, though they didn't really think too much about it outside of PvP interactions (you couldn't snare a gnoll under water and have it drown, but you could always do it to that dumb night elf player).

Some examples of interactions the old game had with content: There was a choice between using a stun, a snare, or a slow effect. Stunning a target was a short duration interruption, but you could hit the target without breaking it and could also change position around it in order to inflict more damage or apply another debuff. Snaring a target was longer duration, but hitting the target generally would free it so you had to hold back and obviously it could still hit you if you went into melee. And then slowing the targets movement had the longest duration, but since it could still move it was meant more for buying time to do something, like casting a spell such as a heal.

They annexed this kind of choice from the later versions of FFXIV, or limited it to legacy content where it is irrelevant. If someone can tank all the hits there is no real point to stunning, slowing, or snaring. If attacks are assured to hit everyone if they go off, the only option of the three that makes sense is a stun. Since they wanted the design to be about interrupting key attacks while keeping battle flow the same, they removed stuns and replaced them with interrupts, and also made mitigation a primary mechanic since it doesn't interrupt battle flow and just cuts damage. In the designers mind, these are more controllable than the old stun, snare, and slow mechanics. They also changed it so tanks always have aggro no matter what and many bosses always face a certain direction when recentering, so directional attacks are much easier to land and become part of a rotation instead of an optional attack.

IMO I feel like end game as we see it was a self manifesting destiny of design choices, since someone decided they wanted to introduce hardmode end game bosses and realized that the loose system that was far more flexible made it a nightmare for them. Someone could easily cheat a boss dead or they make some boss completely nightmarish without realizing it because of some choice in the arena.

[KenZentra]

IMO I feel like end game as we see it was a self manifesting destiny of design choices, since someone decided they wanted to introduce hardmode end game bosses and realized that the loose system that was far more flexible made it a nightmare for them. Someone could easily cheat a boss dead or they make some boss completely nightmarish without realizing it because of some choice in the arena.

Omg all of this, and especially the quoted section here. I've talked a bit on a different thread, but it goes exactly like this.

A Gladiator/Paladin has the ability Shield Swipe. After you block an attack, you deal 100 potency of damage and pacify (prevents weaponskills) the target for 6 seconds.

Paladins use the ability every chance they get cause it locks down a enemy from a lot of actions, such as the poison dragon from Brayflox Longstop, almost being like a psuedo-stun, but doesn't stop spells.
The devs design a trial or raid encounter, lets say Ifrit Extreme. After designing the fight, they realize that Shield Swipe can either throw off the timings of his attacks or completely prevent them from coming out, such as his flame breath cleave. Preventing the cleave from coming out trivializes the tank swap mechanic by not getting the stacking suppuration debuff from the cleave. Going forward the devs will not allow pacification to be applied to high end encounters.
Sometime later, Shield swipe's pacification is only being used on trash mobs and older bosses from the start of ARR, its not even able to be applied to new dungeon bosses anymore.
The devs question why PLDs even have the ability since it doesnt really do anything.
Shield Swipe is removed.

There are so many systems and abilities lost this way, it drives me crazy. I'd be surprised we still have Esuna if it wasn't for its necessity from so much older content.

[Colt47]

Omg all of this, and especially the quoted section here. I've talked a bit on a different thread, but it goes exactly like this.

A Gladiator/Paladin has the ability Shield Swipe. After you block an attack, you deal 100 potency of damage and pacify (prevents weaponskills) the target for 6 seconds.

Paladins use the ability every chance they get cause it locks down a enemy from a lot of actions, such as the poison dragon from Brayflox Longstop, almost being like a psuedo-stun, but doesn't stop spells.
The devs design a trial or raid encounter, lets say Ifrit Extreme. After designing the fight, they realize that Shield Swipe can either throw off the timings of his attacks or completely prevent them from coming out, such as his flame breath cleave. Preventing the cleave from coming out trivializes the tank swap mechanic by not getting the stacking suppuration debuff from the cleave. Going forward the devs will not allow pacification to be applied to high end encounters.
Sometime later, Shield swipe's pacification is only being used on trash mobs and older bosses from the start of ARR, its not even able to be applied to new dungeon bosses anymore.
The devs question why PLDs even have the ability since it doesnt really do anything.
Shield Swipe is removed.

There are so many systems and abilities lost this way, it drives me crazy. I'd be surprised we still have Esuna if it wasn't for its necessity from so much older content.

Again, nothing wrong with wanting a MOBA, but the hardest concept for some designers is the idea of "play". Creating a tight set of mechanics for a competitive game is only one type of direction someone can take and often comes at the cost of making the game enjoyable for less aggressive playstyles. Savage fights and tight mechanical systems in general force people to overcome a challenge in often the least effective and bullish way possible, completely negating all other aspects or advantages people are able to leverage in a situation. Then it is supposed to be amazing or some crazy breakthrough when a side character comes up with an idea like dropping a cage on a boss instead of fighting it, only because the game never even bothers to let us interact or have the option to analyze a situation and solve it organically.

Perfect example of a situation like this: Athena opens her chest and has the orb start floating into the air. How do I interpret the situation? What happens if we had someone teleport, grab the orb, and throw it into the abyss? At the points where the ultima angels are preparing to fire lasers, what exactly is preventing us from throwing our lalafel companion at one of them, having him grab the darn thing at the little ear wings, and force the crazy thing to shoot the laser at Athena? It pretends to lock us in place, but that's a cop out as she doesn't really do anything in that scene, it was done for pure cinematic purposes. My friend: when there is a cinematic moment in a DnD game, it is when the players aren't within striking distance, viewing remotely, or don't have a reason to attack instantly. Athena literally is trying to kill everyone and there is no reason to even try to talk to her during the transition.

[Renathras]

current SMN shouldn't exist

Potato salad shouldn't exist.

Yet, we live in a world where it does. (Sadly.)

IMO I feel like end game as we see it was a self manifesting destiny of design choices, since someone decided they wanted to introduce hardmode end game bosses and realized that the loose system that was far more flexible made it a nightmare for them. Someone could easily cheat a boss dead or they make some boss completely nightmarish without realizing it because of some choice in the arena.

Agreed. Where you can see this most is PotD. Stuns, Snares, even Roots (though not sure many Jobs have those anymore...maybe NIN with ice release?) work there. So does Sleep/Repose, and even ROG/NIN's hide/stealth. So do items to cure various status effects. Come to think of it, so do those status effects (things like Pacify, Silence, and Frog). Further, if you watch the people that really know their stuff, they practice arcane arts like...enemy spinning, where you rotate the enemy around and around to interrupt its attacks, or even...*gasp*...Line of Sighting, where you can run behind a corner to gather enemies or interrupt their casts and moves (like the beetle charge and ram thing or various spells that must be targeted which you can cause to fizzle if you can run around a corner from the enemy breaking line of sight).

Different agro types (sight, sound [RP walk prevents agro], proximity, HP damage/"blood", and magic [casting any "Spell" type ability causes agro - mostly seen on Sprites in Eureka]) exist both in Deep Dungeons and in Eureka (and I think Bozja, though less pronounced than Eureka, I remember the undead/ashkin in the northeast corner of the middle segment of the first zone having blood agro causing long chains of pulls if you weren't careful), and Eureka and Bozja play around with status effects a bit. So does a lot of BLU exclusive content, and I still go back to 3rd Turn of 1st Coils when I want to test if an attack type is piercing/etc or not (the minibosses there throw up various debuffs, so you can test if attacks are various types by seeing if the damage is reduced when they have the buff against those damage types: Fun fact, Fleche and Contre Sixte on RDM are still Piercing attacks!). BLU lists the attack types in their spellbook and some are useful for BLU Carnivale (especially going for the achievements/bonuses), but other Jobs still have slashing, piercing, blunt, fire, earth, etc damage types, even though enemy weaknesses/strengths against them have long been removed, as have player elemental resistances or abilities that increase piercing/slashing/etc damage. While meaningless in most modern content, the abilities still are flagged to their various damage types. One reason RDM is good in PotD is one of the bosses (floor 70 or 80?) summons adds that are REALLY weak to air type damage, making Veraero useful for making short work of them.

ALL of this stuff still exists in the game code, and is still active in various parts of the game.

It just isn't used in general content because...it would make it harder to balance and stuff and allow for cheese strats, is my best guess. Imagine if you could still sneak through dungeons avoiding trash packs entirely, like sections of Arum Vale and Longstop.