Do away with the Job Roles

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

See now this is the problem, its because other MMOs have tried other things, but no one seems to like it after awhile.

So we got a problem.

What system ACTUALLY WORKS? Because I have not read or heard anyone say that other MMO's Battle System was any good.

I mean, the system we have works pretty damn well. It just needs a few tweaks.



Asking for them to rework the combat and encounter design to fit an entirely new job design is basically asking for a new game. It's not happening

[Len_]

I remember when THM specialized in enfeebling magic and also had the best healing spell in the game. Was probably the last time I really had fun in this game due to a job itself. But the devs made the game this way because it's how they want it to be. If you're gonna suggest a change it should be within the framework of what the game actually is. They will never break away from the guiding principle of homogenization.

[Azureskies01]

I was about say something snarky, but you could just ignore the topic.

If only you could do this to all the people posting crazy new good ideas that will so totally not backfire at all. It would be like 99% of these forums

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I remember when THM specialized in enfeebling magic and also had the best healing spell in the game. Was probably the last time I really had fun in this game due to a job itself. But the devs made the game this way because it's how they want it to be. If you're gonna suggest a change it should be within the framework of what the game actually is. They will never break away from the guiding principle of homogenization.

If that last time you had fun with this game is like, 14 years ago, why are you still here....

[KisaiTenshi]

I've been somewhat following the kind of hilarious drama going on with the Jobs right now, but I wanted to offer a solution if you all think it might be a good idea or not:

No, because games that start this way and went in the other direction (towards classes) got their players so extremely upset that the developers had to dial it back to simply being buffs. Games this way rely on power creep and are essentially solo play. No skill whatsoever.

But to humor you...

Let's say we reset the clock back to 1.0, instead of you arriving in X after having a minor fight with a boss-tier monster only to be saved by the scions, you instead are defeated because your "Base class" is just "adventurer/onion knight" (a la FF3) or "adventurer" in FF5. If you recall, it had separate character and job experience levels.

So you instead wake up in the inn at your destination and mildly berated for "getting into a fight without any knowledge of fighting" and that's when you get encouraged to learn how to defend yourself. At that point you are told to check out (name of a DPS guild in the starting cities) and instead of being asked if you want to join the guild you get a prompt on what weapon they would like to use. From this point forward, all "DPS" of the same type, work the same. So all melee fights are 1-2-3-4-5 , all ranged are 1-2-3-X, all casters are 1-2-X, and all heavy(tank)'s are 1-2-3. (X in this case are just "reload" mechanics)

Before you get to the first dungeon, you get that little story outside Sastasha about "groups matter". Queuing for the first dungeon can be done with any role. A "role vote" starts the dungeon. You can click "DPS", "Tank", or "Healer", if you have been to the Tank and Healer guilds, otherwise it will not be available. If everyone selects DPS, then the two highest rolls get to play DPS. The game then allows the player to freely switch between their DPS roles as long as they are of the level required to enter the dungeon. Whoever gets the "tank" role gets to tank, and whoever gets the "healer" role gets to heal. The game removes the buttons from the bar that aren't their role.

From this point forward the game will enforce the "trinity" by having the players choose the role after the dungeon starts the instance, rather than before. The game will cross-off jobs that do not meet the minimum requirements to complete the dungeon. So there might be dungeons that you're not allowed to use melee at all, there might be dungeons like the FF6 Cultist tower that only permits casters (only DRK, BLM, RDM, SMN, AST, WHM, SGE, and SCH.) If you entered a dungeon that you have no role for, or you lose the roll for by not having a role job, it will instead give you the "onion knight" role, which lets you have one of each DPS attack (melee, ranged, caster-healer, tank), one heal button, and one tank button, at the minimum ilevel of the dungeon with whatever button's you don't need for the role disabled.

Continuing to use the "Onion Knight" role opens up a skill tree separate from how the other jobs work (See the Chocobo.) So if you keep going into dungeons without leveling any of your jobs, and keep losing the rolls, you will keep leveling the "Onion Knight" mode. If players do not roll after entering the dungeon, they get "onion knight" assigned to DPS, Tank or Healer. Any weapon you have equipped when you enter the dungeon is used, including crafting gear for the onion knight, but the stats for playing the onion knight are set based on which role the roll selects. This is the only condition where you could enter with the healer gear but play a tank via Onion Knight.

Onion Knight the first time would just have "1 button, single target" type of combat, and if it was ranked to 10, might have 8 buttons total. Same with Tanking and Healing. If a dungeon only calls for casters, then only the caster buttons will be available.

The problem, is that this style of play is just not very interesting. It's the kind of thing you do in a single player game. Other MMO games that basically let players choose-your-own-build tend to have no interesting combat mechanics. You enter the dungeon, you bee line to the boss, and use your nuclear DPS button, die, repeat until defeated. You can even do that if you're 10 levels below the suggested level. If you're even one level above the suggested level, the trash mobs don't even hurt.

Those games, don't have healers, because the power creep never requires one. You buy 999 pots, and just spam pots the entire time. If you're under geared, you burn through your healing items, if you're over-geared and over-leveled, you never end up using them. This is why free-to-play games "like" this style of play because they can put the healing items in the cash shop so impatient people spend money, and the difficulty ramp up is steep.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Asking for them to rework the combat and encounter design to fit an entirely new job design is basically asking for a new game. It's not happening

Also this would be a huge bait and switch for subscribers after 10/11 years to just abandon the core design of the game. This would be a flat out disaster.

[Len_]

If that last time you had fun with this game is like, 14 years ago, why are you still here....

I dunno, why'd you quote and reply to my post apparently without reading it? It's called prerogative.

[Valence]

I agree. Bozja and to a lesser extent, pvp proves this can work. DRS in particular is the pinnacle of raid design and we need more of that.

Is DRS like normal mode with the 3 arbitrary strikes and you die? I hate this. Encounters were actually fun, but the 3 strikes really ruined it for me. I didn't like it because it pushes failure away from the battle system and focuses everything into the encounter mechanics.

[DPZ2]

In order to make this really work, characters in game should only be able to take one job.

The example of Paladin is a good one. Holy Paladin heals. Retribution Paladin does DPS. Protection Paladin tanks.

So, let's force players to create a new character to play Black Mage (and won't a Tanking Black Mage be something, eh?)


Oh. And let's acknowledge that Roles still have an effect in games that actually do things that way.

[Vatom]

This is what happens when other jobs step on the jobs toes. It’s been like this why complain now I ask (non condescendingly)