Concerns Regarding DPS Balance: Physical Ranged, Red Mage, and Summoner

[Valence]

That sounds like a terminology issue. True homogenization is when you create identical copies of the same action. It's balanced, but boring. Partial homogenization is when you create similar copies of the same action, but one of them is objectively superior to the rest. In other words, literally what you said here:



Most people try to frame this discussion as a trade-off between 'balance vs. identity', when such a trade-off doesn't have to exist in the first place. You don't need PCT to be locked in as the preferred Caster pick just so that it can have an 'identity'. The ideal is where every job brings something unique to the table that cannot be compared mathematically. I've provided several examples of these in my earlier posts in this thread. The main thing to avoid is partial homogenization, which isn't about 'identity' at all and is simply about players preserving their own self-interest.

On the subject of 'damage' vs. 'utility', I don't think you will get a consensus in this. It's worth remembering that you are, unfortunately, playing a damage role. Any support functionality that you provide will always be secondary to doing more damage to kill the boss faster. That creates a selection pressure that makes all jobs more DPS focused over time. You can retain some support functionality, but I think if it comes at the expense of damage output then you will find yourself phased out in favor of jobs that provide more raw damage. And if you think that's just an optimization issue on speed runs, then that's simply incorrect. Even people who never touch raid content have an awareness of DPS balance. Community biases around about what jobs are 'powerful' and what jobs are 'ineffective' rapidly propagate top downwards to all levels of play.

I think this has always been a longstanding issue with physical ranged as it has transformed over time from being a 'support job in a DPS slot' to being a DPS job. But with the advent of PCT, things have finally come to a head. You have a 'support-orientated' DPS role that offers less damage and less support functionality than a chart-topping 'damage caster'. Is it any surprise that people are questioning why physical ranged even exists in its current form?

There's probably more space to expand out support functionality as a unique selling point of support jobs, however.

On partial homogenization: it is possible I misunderstood what you meant with this. If SiO does universal but weaker and some tanks have specialized but stronger (like dark missionary), then it's fine in my book, but according to you this isn't what you call partial homogenization then. What you call partial homogenization is what we have right now with SiO just being outright superior on every point. I don't think anybody is even trying to argue that this is good for the game. But the first model? Sounds great to me to bring variations on abilities sharing similar core functions to a role. This is also what I find incredibly depressing thinking back when we had a different Troubadour to Dismantle: Troubadour was the answer to Dismantle that MCH got in HW and that BRD truly lacked. Both had completely different tools to fill that purpose, and now they shoved everything behind the same umbrella with a different paintjob per job (which is even more than what some other roles can pretend to have). There is zero reason to simplify things like this but to homogenize, and it doesn't even affect party DPS. Now all rphys jobs must share the exact same mechanical party wide that pretends not to be a role action when in reality it is. Role actions are some of the worst things that ever happened to job identity. So much especially at the tank level for their core tanking functions is found in there and it plays a huge part into why they all feel identical to play from each other (beyond the basic rotational structure as well).

Damage/Utility: we played a damage role before ShB that was only crippled without a DRG in party. It was dumb, but at least by combining both it was competitive on damage, AND offered way better party support than anything we can claim to do right now. In ARR/HW, like casters bringing raise, we brought mandatory raid resource support, yet our damage was competitive. We can call this a secondary support function or whatever, but it was valuable, like raise, and yet we weren't taxed out of it (provided we had a DRG). Even without that DRG, rphys would have been comparable to today's RDM/SMN with a tax on actually useful support (mandatory for most raids actually, esp before SB). We used to have more metrics, and they were not perfect, nor on a completely different level, but they were enough to play around them more and justify more axes of purpose. This is literally why I'm saying that the current battle system is a pitiful shallow husk that will never provide any solid foundational base for more than just damage, and as such, then yes, rphys as it currently stands must stops being rphys because it doesn't work in a framework that doesn't support anything but uptime and DDR. We're going back to the same diametrically opposed solutions that have been a debate since forever: some want to keep the current battle system because they don't give a fuck about what a rphys is supposed to do and described to do (on the official job guide no less) which has to come at the cost of making rphys either a melee or a caster, and some want to change or expand the battle system enough to accommodate for more depth and variables worthy of consideration beyond damage and uptime. Obviously, I'm not exactly on copium for SE to listen to MY version, because they've made pretty clear into what direction they want their game to go, but I'll still continue to voice my disagreement with it, because I hate it and it pushes me away from their game.

On PCT: everybody knows it's broken, even SE said so. I don't know what else there is to add on the matter of that particular job and it's hard to use it as anything else than a proof of inconsistencies in balancing, but other cases haven't exactly waited for it to show up to be nonsensical: MNK or RPR with defensive support without any tax over it (I guess RPR got a slight one), SMN not being doubly taxed for healing better than a freaking DNC AND raising to boot, etc.

[Carighan]

Having 13 way DPS parity also doesn’t work because it forcibly homogenises their utility offered or you just end up partially homogenised by another axis using that logic

Exactly this.

At some point of increasing class diversity, the devs have to solve a problem that everyone always assumes can somehow magically be avoided but has never once actually been solved: Imbalance.

You cannot keep balancing a rising number of DPS incarnations. Everyone keeps discussing how to do it, but history has not shown a single instance when that was actually successfully done, not even in games with far more time to attempt this like WoW, EQ1 or DAoC.

So instead of discussing how it can be done, it's more important what to do instead, no? How would you like your specific favorite job to look if "balanced in DPS but a unique job" is off the table? The options would more or less be:

* Accept imbalance and design fights so that numerical balance is not an important aspect of perceived fight performance. (this is what I meant above)
* Reduce the number of jobs. Essentially this means stricter homogenization to the point where jobs are visually divergent but mechanically identical.
* Find a non-numerical design element that jobs can be balanced around and be desired for.gi Whatever it might be.
* Remove the similarities in the combat system between jobs, essentially splitting say the DPS jobs into 2+ roles so there is only internal comparability. (this is essentially what they did for healers, although only in a very mild manner)

[fulminating]

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that viper is at least as bad as picto. It rivals ew smn in terms of optimisation yet brings comical damage, feeds into burst windows and with up to three stacks of the ranged attack uncoiled fury allowing for 10.5s of extra uptime should it be desired. Pct and vpr being designed as burst jobs isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just that bursting as a concept is way too strong in its current implementation. Without as many raid buffs or even just removing the ability for them to compound, I don’t think it would be nearly as noticeable.

They are new jobs though, it’s very obvious why they’d err on the side of generosity.

Addendum: play rate and user perception are never going to be metrics used to generate perfectly balanced jobs. Best that can be hoped for is enjoyable gameplay.

[Carighan]

Yeah and Viper also has deep conceptual issues IMO. Nothing about it feels "vipery", basically. It's just a showcase for the superiority of autocombos, and while it does perform that job (amiably so, and far better than Picto which for some reason doesn't combo motif->muse), PvP is still a far far better showcase for it due ot the sheer diversity in implementations there.

[Supersnow845]

Yeah and Viper also has deep conceptual issues IMO. Nothing about it feels "vipery", basically. It's just a showcase for the superiority of autocombos, and while it does perform that job (amiably so, and far better than Picto which for some reason doesn't combo motif->muse), PvP is still a far far better showcase for it due ot the sheer diversity in implementations there.

Motif into muse doesn’t combo so you can still see the CD of the motif beneath it

So like if I have fangs painted I know how long I have to cast it till creature motif caps again. Or if I cast landscape motif far in advance (I usually cast landscale again the second my burst ends) I know when I can cast starry muse again

[Aco505]

VPR is not good at buff feeding compared to other jobs.

The main issue of VPR is that it seems like it wasn't developed with enough time, considering the devs were already thinking of removing Noxious Gnash from the start.