What happened to job inter-play? Was it any good?

[Local_Custard]

A week ago I was speaking with a friend about ffxiv's past. Given that I joined during endwalker, my scope of knowledge of this game's history is admittedly limited. This is why I like listening to my friends when they speak of their experiences with this game.
Anyways, I was talking to one of my friends and I have been informed DPS used to have much more interplay. Ninjas could lower enmity of jobs like blackmages for example. I have forgotten some of the other examples that were brought up so do bare with me. I really like the idea if dps having support capabilities I could activily think of and when I know what I am doing take full advantage. But now I barely see that. We do have some of it left. Every DPS has some form of mit whether it be self-mit, enemy mit, or party-mit. Though, it sounds like a far cry from what I have heard about.
What happened to much of the team interplay? Is there any more info + opinions I could hear about it? Was it fun? Did your main job have more interplay in the past and what did it look like?

[OgruMogru]

BLM used to be able to grant an ally magic defence [Apocatastasis] and also had an ability that gave mana to an ally [Manashift]

There was also interplay between party compositions as certain jobs would give certain buffs -slashing, piercing etc etc the problem was there was a very clear advantage to certain comps. BRD/DRg was pretty much mandatory and instead of reworking the idea of these party interactions they just removed them all. Just like they deleted the aggro system and most jobs utility outside of very basic dmg reduction mits. It's been very frustrating to see all these interesting but flawed systems get completely removed instead of iterated and improved. I feel like if we had these extra things to consider still in the game then the simplified jobs wouldn't feel *as* bad although...not by much >.>

[Rekh]

Tanks had to actually balance things like self healing doing more damage/getting more enmity. They had 2 paths for the 123 combo and they weren't a copy paste between the 3 tanks; war was like damage + enmity and the other 123 was buff and healing. With Drk it was enmity path and the other one was damage path (iirc), and paladin was the mess it's always been haha.

[Emitans]

I miss when Bard and MCH could regen MP and TP for the party

[Jeeqbit]

I have been informed DPS used to have much more interplay. Ninjas could lower enmity of jobs like blackmages for example.

In Stormblood, it was "manage eachother's MP like crazy". Bards/Machinists could regenerate the MP of other players, allowing for example, a Paladin to spam Holy Spirit (which had to be nerfed into the ground as a result), and to generate more MP for healers to heal and resurrect with.

Astrologians could also regenerate MP in a similar way. Most of the time this wasn't useful, but in situations like needing to rez a lot or PLD it could be. It was discouraged on BLM because they managed their own MP and it didn't affect DRK. I don't think it mattered on SMN or RDM (unless they needed to rez) so the MP wasn't that useful overall.

There was also an ability on casters to "Mana Shift". It allowed you to transfer your MP to another and was often used to transfer Mana to a healer, allowing them to rez. This was especially helpful if the healer had just died and had no MP, and could significantly turn around the run where it would otherwise wipe due to lack of healer MP.

But there was argument to be made that MP buffs altering PLD's attacks so significantly, and being capable of affecting others so drastically, that it could have undesirable balance effects, so I suppose SE changed it so everyone just manages their own MP to keep it simple.

Meanwhile, we had TP, which was a physical version of MP for physical attacks. Most of the time, you didn't notice that it existed so it was pointless, but if DPS was low during trash pulls, you would notice it and need to use your TP restore abilities. At this point, Astrologians could apply a TP buff (depending on card RNG), while melee DPS could apply Goad to regen TP on a party member. Again this was useful only if the DPS was low really. It was a flat out annoying mechanic the rare times it mattered, so it's little wonder TP just got removed.

Tanks used to generate enmity in two ways: turning on tank stance and attacking (but this also reduced their incoming and outgoing damage), and doing a special enmity combo. So typically you would turn on tank stance, do your enmity combo while in stance to generate enough enmity, then exit tank stance and do your highest damage combos.

However, the amount of time required to stay in tank stance, if any, depended a lot on the DPS and enmity generation of the party. If they were not very good players, you wouldn't even need tank stance to hold the boss. If the healer spammed heals, they might rip the boss from you. If the DPS were really good, they might rip the boss from you as well. This could be prevented by doing the enmity combo 3 times in tank stance usually, but the party could reduce the need for this by using their enmity reduction abilities such as Lucid Dreaming, Diversion and Refresh. This became extremely common to see in Expert roulette, but as you didn't really know if the players would do it, you couldn't always count on it anyway.

But again, there were issues with stances. Many of the "raider" tanks would use DPS stance as close to 100% of the time as they could, while non-raider types would "believe" that "tanks" should use "tank stance" 100% of the time because it reduced incoming damage. But it also reduced outgoing damage, and that's hard for a lot of MMORPG players to accept so many of them will try to get away without it if they can!

You would even get a tank that would spam their lower-damage enmity combo in stance, when they could mostly get away with using their damage combo in stance at least, if they were going to remain in stance. So SE just did away with stance dancing and enmity combos, and made incoming/outgoing damage adjustments a trait you can't remove (so tanks will always have reduced damage as a trait now). And tank stance got massively buffed to make up for enmity combo removal and just playing a tank like a DPS makes enemies attack you now. So there was no use for enmity control actions on other jobs now.

I really like the idea if dps having support capabilities I could activily think of and when I know what I am doing take full advantage.

I like the idea of them but they were also not used that often by people tbh. We had Erase to do a small heal and remove DoTs on people. We had Apocatastasis to reduce magic damage on a party member and Palisade to reduce physical damage on a party member. Drain on casters to heal them whilst also attacking (this is basically Blue Mage's Blood Drain, virtually only used for soloing). If people used them, you knew they were trying to be good and that was nice to see, but just was rare to see in this game full of casual players so I guess they couldn't justify keeping them.

Did your main job have more interplay in the past and what did it look like?

Arguably, tanks have more interplay than in the past in the sense of being able to apply things to other players, such as: Nascent Flash, The Blackest Night, Intervention, Aurora, Heart of Corundum. They also didn't used to all have raid-wide mitigation like Shake It Off and Dark Missionary. Reprisal used to exist in the form of specific damage downs (STR down or INT down) as part of the tank combos, but it's more versatile as an ability that can work on all damage types. So overall, I actually find tanks have more interplay than before.

Although we had Apocatastasis and Palisade to reduce magic and physical damage as DPS, we have Addle/Feint/general damage reduction on physical ranged DPS instead. Although we had drain, SMN gets a good heal with Phoenix now, RDM can heal themselves and BLM is just hardmode like usual but has a powerful shield.

[Shurrikhan]

In this game, by the ways usually pointed out? No. No it wasn't very good. 90% of the time, you hit unengaging CDs on CD or just prior to raid damage as pre-scheduled. Outside of Rescue, the few that could be more than that were sadly never given any real time to shine.

Could interplay have been quite good? Certainly, but that would have come through people using their mostly typical actions deliberately differently rather than adding on especially uninteresting or inconsequential bonus actions atop unaltered 'solo' play.

[Valence]

A week ago I was speaking with a friend about ffxiv's past. Given that I joined during endwalker, my scope of knowledge of this game's history is admittedly limited. This is why I like listening to my friends when they speak of their experiences with this game.
Anyways, I was talking to one of my friends and I have been informed DPS used to have much more interplay. Ninjas could lower enmity of jobs like blackmages for example. I have forgotten some of the other examples that were brought up so do bare with me. I really like the idea if dps having support capabilities I could activily think of and when I know what I am doing take full advantage. But now I barely see that. We do have some of it left. Every DPS has some form of mit whether it be self-mit, enemy mit, or party-mit. Though, it sounds like a far cry from what I have heard about.
What happened to much of the team interplay? Is there any more info + opinions I could hear about it? Was it fun? Did your main job have more interplay in the past and what did it look like?

My rough take on it

[Local_Custard]

BLM used to be able to grant an ally magic defence [Apocatastasis] and also had an ability that gave mana to an ally [Manashift]

There was also interplay between party compositions as certain jobs would give certain buffs -slashing, piercing etc etc the problem was there was a very clear advantage to certain comps. BRD/DRg was pretty much mandatory and instead of reworking the idea of these party interactions they just removed them all. Just like they deleted the aggro system and most jobs utility outside of very basic dmg reduction mits. It's been very frustrating to see all these interesting but flawed systems get completely removed instead of iterated and improved. I feel like if we had these extra things to consider still in the game then the simplified jobs wouldn't feel *as* bad although...not by much >.>

That's a shame. I love doing little and big things to support the parties I'm in- it is why I play AST a lot. Does makes me wonder what these systems may have looked like if they stayed up into Endwalker

Tanks had to actually balance things like self healing doing more damage/getting more enmity. They had 2 paths for the 123 combo and they weren't a copy paste between the 3 tanks; war was like damage + enmity and the other 123 was buff and healing. With Drk it was enmity path and the other one was damage path (iirc), and paladin was the mess it's always been haha.

I keep hearing paladin was particularly messy back then, can you tell me a bit of how paladin was messy under that system?

I miss when Bard and MCH could regen MP and TP for the party

I would have enjoyed a bard and machinist with more supportive skills added to their existing kit. given tht TP no longer exists, I'm contemplating what it would maybe be instead

In Stormblood, it was "manage eachother's MP like crazy". Bards/Machinists could regenerate the MP of other players, allowing for example, a Paladin to spam Holy Spirit (which had to be nerfed into the ground as a result), and to generate more MP for healers to heal and resurrect with.

thank you for taking the time to write this long response! I may not respond to my threads as often anymore (mostly bc I have energy problems) but I do like when people give me info like this.
what did Holy Spirit look like before the nerf?

Astrologians could also regenerate MP in a similar way. Most of the time this wasn't useful, but in situations like needing to rez a lot or PLD it could be. It was discouraged on BLM because they managed their own MP and it didn't affect DRK. I don't think it mattered on SMN or RDM (unless they needed to rez) so the MP wasn't that useful overall.

probably. It is something small that could be done back then though I wasn't around so I'll trust your judgement.

There was also an ability on casters to "Mana Shift". It allowed you to transfer your MP to another and was often used to transfer Mana to a healer, allowing them to rez. This was especially helpful if the healer had just died and had no MP, and could significantly turn around the run where it would otherwise wipe due to lack of healer MP.

Oh that's an interesting angle for MP management to take- I think I like that. how often was this used?

But there was argument to be made that MP buffs altering PLD's attacks so significantly, and being capable of affecting others so drastically, that it could have undesirable balance effects, so I suppose SE changed it so everyone just manages their own MP to keep it simple.

Meanwhile, we had TP, which was a physical version of MP for physical attacks. Most of the time, you didn't notice that it existed so it was pointless, but if DPS was low during trash pulls, you would notice it and need to use your TP restore abilities. At this point, Astrologians could apply a TP buff (depending on card RNG), while melee DPS could apply Goad to regen TP on a party member. Again this was useful only if the DPS was low really. It was a flat out annoying mechanic the rare times it mattered, so it's little wonder TP just got removed.

in what situations would dps run low on TP? Do you think anyone would have changed if TP could run out in more ways?

Tanks used to generate enmity in two ways: turning on tank stance and attacking (but this also reduced their incoming and outgoing damage), and doing a special enmity combo. So typically you would turn on tank stance, do your enmity combo while in stance to generate enough enmity, then exit tank stance and do your highest damage combos.

However, the amount of time required to stay in tank stance, if any, depended a lot on the DPS and enmity generation of the party. If they were not very good players, you wouldn't even need tank stance to hold the boss. If the healer spammed heals, they might rip the boss from you. If the DPS were really good, they might rip the boss from you as well. This could be prevented by doing the enmity combo 3 times in tank stance usually, but the party could reduce the need for this by using their enmity reduction abilities such as Lucid Dreaming, Diversion and Refresh. This became extremely common to see in Expert roulette, but as you didn't really know if the players would do it, you couldn't always count on it anyway.

Reminds me of how sometimes as astrologian I will wait a small amount of time during a raid when I was paired woth another astrologian just in case they would use their divination first so that I could plan around not overwriting their's or having mine overwritten for maximum usefulness.
So this kind of problem of party uncertainty seems to have existed since the beginning. kinda interesting for me to think of.

But again, there were issues with stances. Many of the "raider" tanks would use DPS stance as close to 100% of the time as they could, while non-raider types would "believe" that "tanks" should use "tank stance" 100% of the time because it reduced incoming damage. But it also reduced outgoing damage, and that's hard for a lot of MMORPG players to accept so many of them will try to get away without it if they can!

What was the optimal tank stance strat? How were players intended to use their stance dancing?
I know the first question can seem kind of vague depending on what you are measuring. I think for this question measure for a balance of emnity generation + damage.
How well would tank dancing work into the current version of ffxiv?

You would even get a tank that would spam their lower-damage enmity combo in stance, when they could mostly get away with using their damage combo in stance at least, if they were going to remain in stance. So SE just did away with stance dancing and enmity combos, and made incoming/outgoing damage adjustments a trait you can't remove (so tanks will always have reduced damage as a trait now). And tank stance got massively buffed to make up for enmity combo removal and just playing a tank like a DPS makes enemies attack you now. So there was no use for enmity control actions on other jobs now.

Ah. I cannot say if I feel disappointment or not- I really wish there was a way to play with old systems so that I could form opinions on this properly.

I like the idea of them but they were also not used that often by people tbh. We had Erase to do a small heal and remove DoTs on people. We had Apocatastasis to reduce magic damage on a party member and Palisade to reduce physical damage on a party member. Drain on casters to heal them whilst also attacking (this is basically Blue Mage's Blood Drain, virtually only used for soloing). If people used them, you knew they were trying to be good and that was nice to see, but just was rare to see in this game full of casual players so I guess they couldn't justify keeping them.

Has Esuna replaced Erase? Drain sounds a bit like energy drain for some reason.

You mention the large population of casual players and I am curious if that has always been a fact of this game or has the proportions of casual to less causal players has shifted over time?

Arguably, tanks have more interplay than in the past in the sense of being able to apply things to other players, such as: Nascent Flash, The Blackest Night, Intervention, Aurora, Heart of Corundum. They also didn't used to all have raid-wide mitigation like Shake It Off and Dark Missionary. Reprisal used to exist in the form of specific damage downs (STR down or INT down) as part of the tank combos, but it's more versatile as an ability that can work on all damage types. So overall, I actually find tanks have more interplay than before.

How do interplay abilities for tanks stack up now (numbers for each tank) compared to before?

Although we had Apocatastasis and Palisade to reduce magic and physical damage as DPS, we have Addle/Feint/general damage reduction on physical ranged DPS instead. Although we had drain, SMN gets a good heal with Phoenix now, RDM can heal themselves and BLM is just hardmode like usual but has a powerful shield.

I do enjoy my blm shield. I like to press it when I feel threatened and unsure if the healer will get to me

In this game, by the ways usually pointed out? No. No it wasn't very good. 90% of the time, you hit unengaging CDs on CD or just prior to raid damage as pre-scheduled. Outside of Rescue, the few that could be more than that were sadly never given any real time to shine.

Could interplay have been quite good? Certainly, but that would have come through people using their mostly typical actions deliberately differently rather than adding on especially uninteresting or inconsequential bonus actions atop unaltered 'solo' play.

What was your favorite interplay interaction that existed back then (and may or may not still exist today)?

[Local_Custard]

My rough take on it

read your post just now. I find the better I get at the game the more I enjoy unexpected chaos. This is why I enjoy alliance raids, especially ones full of people who do not remember anything from it but I know the raid well (I should really practice alliance raids I suck at minus that one that has quick math. I for the life of me cannot do quick math in my head and will undoubtedly fail at the mechanic. I could get 1 answer right, sometimes 2, though I rarely get them all right. I do enjoy math sometimes tho, just not when asked to perform it in the heat of battle with a short timer without something to write on). I have gotten into MINE content recently (Minimum ilvl, no echo) because older content has mechanics that are sometimes skipped over due to the sheer amount of damage output from potency increases and increases to stats that make things far less punishing when they hit. The entire party may end up on the floor but man, nothing beats a tram that would go again and again. I also like MINE content because it has been giving me a small taste test on what some harder fights look like when not outdone by item level.

I think I agree with much of of your post though I don't have all my thoughts gathered. I do wonder what a balance of collectivistic and individualistic design would look like in the game. Maybe interplay can be a fail state but also not always (maybe it makes life easier which could be enough) what causes it. Could be some fights ask for it more than other fights. I'm not experienced with anything outside of casual content so maybe this already exists to an extent (or in decent amounts) in harder content.

[CaptainLagbeard]

In ARR and HW, there used to be these things generally called cross Class skills (officially titled Additional Actions), where every one of the base classes had a few skills that could be used on other classes/jobs as well. Every Job required a secondary class to 15 alongside their own base class, and they also had a third class they could pull from.

Some of the skills are no longer even in the game and some became role skills, but I found this https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Additional_action