Physical Ranged (Also SMN) "Freedom of Movement" Tax

[Valence]

Just looking for some actual reason as to why the development team is insistent on
physical ranged being the most underwhelming part of every party

Have extra movement has been a meme ever since the skill of the player base has increased along with bosses not having any sort of forced downtime at all unless you just aren't good at the game.

This will be the first expansion since Stormblood in which you can run not only Double Melee but Double Caster without losing damage. However if you try to run double physical ranged you are accepting the fact that your damage is going to be severely hindered. This only makes it harder for statics and party finders to form and there is no beneficial reasoning behind making physical ranged so weak in comparison.

The 1% party bonus is literally not implement to encourage party diversity... It actually discourages it since you don't have complete freedom over what DPS you want to play in a specific group.

1% Party bonus and ranged tax is a band-aid fix to a problem that has not actually existed for the last few of expansions.

DNC and BRD should receive significantly higher personal damage to bring them closer to the melee so that they can carry the load without relying so much on their team and then WHEN their raid buffs come into play they are within 1-1.5% of them at the very least.

MCH should be at bare minimum the 4th highest personal damage class behind SAM, BLM, and VPR and be within 1-1.5% of these jobs. MCH doing over 12% less than SAM in personal damage is ridiculous and has been since Shadowbringers.

Stop balancing the game around people having egos over the fact that their job is 'Harder' to them and let people play the job that they enjoy playing without feeling bad or lowering their clear chances just because the balance team decides that they should.

DPS jobs should not have more than a 2% difference between them if possible.

It's not the first expansion. It has been the case in early ShB and in early EW. 10% discrepancies isn't unheard of, actually it went above that back then.

The only reason people didn't do it was because of the 1% party bonus "muh parses" and a slightly lowered vitality for the whole party.

I do agree that without extremely specific mechanics directly targeted at the role, it will remain in limbo, since you can't either buff it on par with melees/BLM/PCT else nobody would play melee anymore. It's not a solvable conundrum.

[Corwin_Sunchaser]

I do agree that without extremely specific mechanics directly targeted at the role, it will remain in limbo, since you can't either buff it on par with melees/BLM/PCT else nobody would play melee anymore. It's not a solvable conundrum.

Maybe they should add a % party buff to force groups to have melees in their ranks? Wait a minute...

All jobs should have a similar dps output within their role (Tank, DPS, Healer) so playstyle would be the main reason you choose to play a job.

Also, at what point the damage output of the rphys + % party buff become less impactful than taking another melee or PCT/BLM? I'd say we are not that far...

[Valence]

Maybe they should add a % party buff to force groups to have melees in their ranks? Wait a minute...

All jobs should have a similar dps output within their role (Tank, DPS, Healer) so playstyle would be the main reason you choose to play a job.

Also, at what point the damage output of the rphys + % party buff become less impactful than taking another melee or PCT/BLM? I'd say we are not that far...

I mean you're preaching to the choir, I'm a literally job commie when it comes to skill floor and ceilings for everybody and damage output for everybody.

But as soon as you mention flattening the damage output all across the board, casters and melees start to freak out real bad somehow.

No one playing melee anymore because of physical ranged doing damage is just not true at all. People will always play melee as long as they aren't significantly behind in damage like physical ranged is currently in due to them having 6 different fun options with somewhat unique gameplay.

Not only that but my main point is that the difference has just been simply laughable, anything more than a few percentage ahead is awful balancing.

Majority of the player base will not play a job they simply don't enjoy. Players are just being punished currently because their favorite job happens to be a physical ranged or caster that isn't PCT or soon to be BLM when they inevitably get major buffs.

I was mostly referring to challenging content, savage/ultimate in particular. You'd still see melees, but a lot of groups could just go for 1 melee and 3 ranged because they wouldn't have to bother with melee positions. Is it a bad thing by necessity or just more freedom though, idk?

[Corwin_Sunchaser]

But as soon as you mention flattening the damage output all across the board, casters and melees start to freak out real bad somehow.

Should we care? I mean, I've been refected from PF groups by green parsers BeCAUse McH Iz NoT CoMPetiTiVe!!!...

[CaedemSanguis]

well melee have to greed in ex1 and ex2, they also have positionals, while casters have casts, I dont thnk we should remove the freedom of movement tax, maybe reduce it a bit ?

[CrystalAurora]

It's not the first expansion. It has been the case in early ShB and in early EW. 10% discrepancies isn't unheard of, actually it went above that back then.

The only reason people didn't do it was because of the 1% party bonus "muh parses" and a slightly lowered vitality for the whole party.

I do agree that without extremely specific mechanics directly targeted at the role, it will remain in limbo, since you can't either buff it on par with melees/BLM/PCT else nobody would play melee anymore. It's not a solvable conundrum.

No one playing melee anymore because of physical ranged doing damage is just not true at all. People will always play melee as long as they aren't significantly behind in damage like physical ranged is currently in due to them having 6 different fun options with somewhat unique gameplay.

Not only that but my main point is that the difference has just been simply laughable, anything more than a few percentage ahead is awful balancing.

Majority of the player base will not play a job they simply don't enjoy. Players are just being punished currently because their favorite job happens to be a physical ranged or caster that isn't PCT or soon to be BLM when they inevitably get major buffs.