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

[Commander_Justitia]

Going to be harsh here but if we’re taking these extremely minor differences between abilities as evidence that they’re each unique and interesting things and not effectively the same thing with a different coat of paint, we really deserve everything we’re getting from the devs right now.

Yep.

I mean, the real question from that is, if they can have different animations per job for a role skill, couldn’t they have different particle effects per job to match with visuals anyway?

Ehm, I think they were like that in the beginning. If you look at the old skill sets for tanks. Let us look at Darkknight - it had a skill called Shadowwall, which was a cool DRK specific animation for a 20% mitigation buff, so alike Rampart which was Paladin Specific. Warrior had Inner Beast on demand depending on gauge for a much shorter duration, but could be used more often. So all tanks had their own animation, their own skill, with slightly difference cooldowns and effects tied to it. They could have expanded on that. But instead, all 3 tanks have Rampart now. Arguably the most ugly 20% animation of all of 3 I guess.

If you want to go down a road of memory lane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXMTLM19JZw Darkknights removed abilities. Some effects and motions are so cool like PowerSlash or SoleSurvivor or BloodPrice, it makes me sad they are gone over something else what we have now.

[Carighan]

Yeah they should do a lot more with shared functions but unique implementations, and I don't just mean having the skill look different and have changed secondary effects like the minor CDs, I mean that you achieve the same result but in a very different way.

Say one tank builds procced charges from autoattacks and expends those to use a scaling self-buff that reduces damage, 4% per charge used, but you can use it whenever you have 1+ charges. It just so happens that you need ~120s to acquire 10 charges on average if you're always autoattacking. Also mess with the percentages, make the engine able to "push" 5PPM, if you get unlucky chance marginally goes up until rate is restabilized (and vice versa) but there will still be minutes where you only have 32% or 36% DR and others where you have 44/48 or so.

And likewise for a lot of things. Find mechanically unique implementations, Paladins cast a spell where a Dark Knight summons a shade (that comes with the usual delay but then works on its own) where a Gunbreaker needs cartridges as ammo where a Warrior... is just angry, I suppose. Dunno.

[Carighan]

It's like saying that two different car models are indentical just because they share the same frame : that's stupid and wrong.

And yet that argument is constantly brought up in car reviews since so many cards genuinely share the entire inner workings as for economical reasons the car makers (who are all owned by a handful of groups) share all those components, the difference being entirely in the bodywork, the visual design and what level of premiumness they are willing to sell you in specs (usually you intentionally want to not compete with one another, but sometimes you actually do!).

So yeah... that's actually a good example of the same type of homogenization we have here, yes!

[Carighan]

Wait, if VPR is a variant of RPR, and RPR is a melee variant of MCH, does this mean VPR is a melee variant of MCH? Oshi-

Yeah but it gets super weird because it's a variant of a version of MCH that no longer exists if we're being pedantic.

[Supersnow845]

snip

See this is kinda a microcosm of the problem

“The jobs aren’t identical, sure they have all these things that are the same but that’s fight design/balance/whatever. But they aren’t identical”

If your encounter design is forcing every job into the same hole (it goes in the square hole) then the encounter design isn’t an excuse it’s just one half of the problem alongside the jobs

[Valence]

You have two courses of action, my friend. Look up what "severe" and "detrimental" mean. Then reflect on why you're wasting time antagonizing people online over a topic you evidentially believe will be addressed in the natural course of time.

You probably missed the post where I told someone else that tactile feeling isn't the alpha and omega of job design, pal.

[jonimated]

As of this writing there's currently a post in r/ffxivdiscussion titled "Since pct is overperforming in FRU due to the fact it can actually do stuff in downtime segments, should all jobs be given something similar?"

This is why we have homogenization. Because people literally ask for it. Damage numbers for Picto need to be tuned for sure, but can we just let unique mechanics be unique? It's totally fine that we have a job who can take advantage of full downtime better than other jobs. It's not something that comes up in all content. Viper has one of the best (if not THE best) disengage tools among melee job, and I remember seeing people talk about how other melee jobs should have something similar. No, they shouldn't. We need more unique mechanics, not fewer. Viper has zero full downtime tools and buffs which need to be re-applied when they fall off during downtime. It's fine that it can do something better in certain situations to compensate.

What is homogenization? It's every job being tied to the exact same rotational standard. Large burst every 2 minutes, minor burst every odd minute, boring filler in between. That's how they all play. We need more variable gameplay. Abolish the 2-minute window. Unique buffs and utility skills. Variable cooldowns and resource generation. Reactionary mechanics. Fewer party buffs in general between all jobs.

[Carighan]

Yeah that's my take, too. People are discussing in the other thread how to properly nerf Picto given this unique aspect, and I'm all "No! Don't pay attention to that! Just nerf it by X%, and let it be marginally stronger if there's lots of downtime - and weaker if there isn't!". Unique elements are good. Jobs need to feel weak at X to make feeling strong at Y be meaningful!

[Valence]

This conundrum will never be solved within the current system. People should look at the bigger picture and actually start wondering whether they're okay with the whole package.

[Lyth]

As of this writing there's currently a post in r/ffxivdiscussion titled "Since pct is overperforming in FRU due to the fact it can actually do stuff in downtime segments, should all jobs be given something similar?"

'Don't nerf PCT, it's well-designed. Buff the other jobs into equivalent performance.' -> 'Don't homogenize other jobs to be like PCT.' -> 'Don't nerf PCT, it's well-designed. Buff the other jobs into equivalent performance.'

This is the standard infinite loop of obstructive non-solutions put forward by every overpowered job in the history of this game.