Can anyone clearly explain "job homogenization" in this game?

[HikariKurosawa]

You're clearly not interested in arguing in good faith, but the question is still worth answering for other readers.

I'm not interested in arguing about this period. This thread is for you to explain to me and state your case about homogenization. I personally do not believe this game has homogenization, I am just interested in actually understanding where the people who believe it does are coming from.

It's also good for you to put it into clear words so it's out there in an organized thread.

[Carighan]

I personally do not believe this game has homogenization

Just like with many things IRL like whether the earth is flat or not, reality could not possibly care any less about what you believe. This is not a believe-based thing, it's an empirical science, you can look at something and check whether it has homogenization (not a single MMORPG currently on the market does not have homogenization) and if yes, which types and to what degree.

You can believe in a lot of things. You can believe in Santa Claus. You can believe you need another coffee. But you can just look to see how much homogenization is in a class design setup. Like, with your eyes and stuff.

[HikariKurosawa]

Just like with many things IRL like whether the earth is flat or not, reality could not possibly care any less about what you believe. This is not a believe-based thing, it's an empirical science, you can look at something and check whether it has homogenization (not a single MMORPG currently on the market does not have homogenization) and if yes, which types and to what degree.

You can believe in a lot of things. You can believe in Santa Claus. You can believe you need another coffee. But you can just look to see how much homogenization is in a class design setup. Like, with your eyes and stuff.

That's funny how you put it like that. I agree, saying there is any meaningful amount of job homogenization in this game is like being a flat earther.

[Carighan]

I agree, saying there is any meaningful amount of job homogenization in this game is like being a flat earther.

/shrug

I mean, sure. Depending on just how limited your experience with MMORPGs at large or FFXIV over its lifetime is (and I started in ShB, so I missed the worst homogenization-steps), sure, yeah, you'd not see a lot of it.

Alternatively if you never attempted to see the similarities between different jobs or how the vast majority can have equivalent hotbar setups, you might not have ever realized just how homogenized things are, although some structural steps such as the 120s burst focus of course remain.

Matter of perspective I imagine. Compared to DAoC in its early most-PvP-centric days, this game was extremely homogenized at launch, nevermind now which is just luducrious. Compared to the effectively inexistent variety in combat handling in something like say, Diablo IV (not an MMO but just to prove a point), yeah sure there's a lot of diversity here.

You're still going to have a very hard time convincing anybody that this excessive homogenization is not the central flaw in FFXIV's combat design right now, though. More power to you if you flat out cannot see it - makes the design less annoying - but it's still there. Again, it really does not care what you believe or don't believe, it just... is.

[OliviaLugria]

They aren't exactly willing to concede anything at all.

They argued that healers having a filler and a 30 second dot was not homogenization.

They'd probably argue sch indom isn't the same as sage indom because sages restores your mp.

[OliviaLugria]

Like... samba, tactician, and troubadour are reskins of the exact same ability and don't stack, but look different so not homogenization.

Rampart is a tank role action but the job does a slightly different animation so not homogenization

[HikariKurosawa]

Like... samba, tactician, and troubadour are reskins of the exact same ability and don't stack, but look different so not homogenization.

Rampart is a tank role action but the job does a slightly different animation so not homogenization

True they should remove role actions because it's homogenization.

I agree that there is "homogenization" in the game, I do not believe it is worth speaking about because it makes the game more balanced and viable. When people talk about it, they act like every job is becoming the same, when that's clearly not the case. It comes across as very disingenuous and it's good to know where people are coming from. I didn't make this thread to argue, I just wanted to understand what people meant when they said this game has a homogenization problem or jobs are becoming more and more similar.

I think a lot of the posts in this forums are just blizzard shills trying to criticize FFXIV for not being more like WoW.