"Players who already like the way things are can feel at ease..."

[Shistar]

My concern is a scenario where by some miracle SE delivers on this 8.0 job design rework and they're all fun and unique again, but then the community has a series of meltdowns about differences in DPS, "it's too hard," not having X ability from Y job so their job is "literally useless" etc etc until we're right back here again in short order.

That's what I worry about too... As long as every combination can clear I don't think it's a problem, but many will think it is because their preferred job is not at the top.
I'd also like to add that it'd be nice if the "meta" rotated relatively often (could easily be based on the fight if an entire tier feels too long. EX is a good place to test this) to prevent some jobs from always being at the top or bottom of the ladder. Maybe BLM is stronger one tier, but the next may favor what PCT can bring to the table, but next tier may have need for RDM's utility.

I think the focus needs to be on ensuring every job combination (within reason, obviously we're not talking about 8 bards lmao) has enough DPS, healing and utility to clear current content. I'd also like to see a comeback of role actions being needed (or at least give an advantage over not having them) to encourage that flex DPS being a different role every tier.

Of course, this won't make everyone happy at the same time, but at least we can take turns being happy (or consider learning a new job! Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.)

[ty_taurus]

Increase the amount of metrics in combat content tenfold. While people still love making tier lists and discuss the viability of jobs in pvp, there is a reason some top players like Brian will tell you that they're always reluctant to make definitive tier and meta lists because there is way too many metrics and comp configurations (and maps) for it to make a lot of sense. The more metrics there is, the more drawbacks, strengths and weaknesses will be drowned out by the amount of possibilities.

Back to the OP though, I do find interesting that Yoshida would say something like that. Where was he when they decided to completely change the jobs multiple times in the past? Nobody to tell us that for the people that like it the way it is, they shouldn't worry? There is only two explanations for why:
- He didn't think it would be a problem back then and learned from it.
- They actually knew people would have to worry when they butchered MCH, SMN, and every healer in ShB. Which means that if they're saying that players shouldn't worry today for 8.0, that incidentally the changes are going to be microscopic in comparison and the direction is going to remain the same.

There’s also the possibility that he’s actually referring to something else, and not specifically the job kits themselves. I’m not particularly a fan of Mr.Happy, but I saw that he interpreted the statement immediately as Yoshi P saying players shouldn’t worry that the combat system is suddenly going to pivot toward action combat. And yeah, that’s also a logical interpretation of the article’s quote, meaning he might not be referring to job design at all there.

But that’s the problem with how Yoshi P speaks. It seems almost tactical how open to interpretation his words are to the point where he may as well say nothing at all. I’m not holding out hope anyway, but regardless of what he’s actually referring to I still find the statement very tart as someone who’s been done dirty by the continued job lobotomization paradigm.

[RedLolly]

That's what I worry about too... As long as every combination can clear I don't think it's a problem, but many will think it is because their preferred job is not at the top.
I'd also like to add that it'd be nice if the "meta" rotated relatively often (could easily be based on the fight if an entire tier feels too long. EX is a good place to test this) to prevent some jobs from always being at the top or bottom of the ladder. Maybe BLM is stronger one tier, but the next may favor what PCT can bring to the table, but next tier may have need for RDM's utility.

I think the focus needs to be on ensuring every job combination (within reason, obviously we're not talking about 8 bards lmao) has enough DPS, healing and utility to clear current content. I'd also like to see a comeback of role actions being needed (or at least give an advantage over not having them) to encourage that flex DPS being a different role every tier.

Of course, this won't make everyone happy at the same time, but at least we can take turns being happy (or consider learning a new job! Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.)

This was the initial design, and it was always possible to clear with any combination of jobs. And the meltdowns that occurred then are why we have the homogenized 2 minute meta because variety and jobs fitting better for certain situations was not good enough.
Dawntrail feels like the devs tried to make combat design make up some of that difference, but upping the ante across all new content has also had a lot of issues (too flashy, not consistent, too fast for slower internet players to react).

Basically they can't make everyone happy and need to just accept that and go all in on one or the other to make it fun.... but money.

[Shistar]

This was the initial design, and it was always possible to clear with any combination of jobs. And the meltdowns that occurred then are why we have the homogenized 2 minute meta because variety and jobs fitting better for certain situations was not good enough.

I joined in late ShB and only reached endgame right before EW released, so obviously I don't know how it was back then... it was my understanding that some jobs were pretty busted all around, in all fights, while others consistently did well or were OP in all fights.
If you were around the time you're talking about, could you please confirm if this is true or not? Were people consistently moving away from certain jobs like we do now? (example: when choosing a phys range, the overwhelming majority will go for DNC, specially moving away from MCH due to its current state)


My point would be that different fights favor different jobs. An EX could favor bringing two ranges to make use of all 4 available interrupts throughout a fight to prevent certain mechanics, like a very heavy bleed, which in this example would force healers to drop all damage and dump all their heals and mits for it.

It would be up to the party to choose if they want to place a bigger burden on the healers and potentially get more damage from a melee or a mage (which could also depend on how much the boss may force downtime on the melees) or if they'd rather allow the healers to contribute to damage along with the ranges, basically letting them tweak the difficulty to a certain extent.


The raid tier could either favor certain role compositions for the entire tier or for specific fights, not sure about this one since it could get chaotic but potentially it could be variation within the same role.

Example: one of the fights has a stricter damage check, making bringing a MCH more worth it than a BRD (assuming in this example each role already has the tools and stats to work in their supposed job identity, MCH being the higher damage dealer and BRD offering more utility) or, another example, a fight that makes the party rely more heavily on mitigation, making AST a safer choice than WHM for the regen healer, to share the burden more easily with the shield healer. Stuff like that?

I always hear people saying how SB fight design was so much better. I wish I got to try the game back then to see if it was truly the way people paint it.


EDIT Follow-up question: Was this because the "meta" was static for long periods of time? Could switching up the ideal job composition for each fight, or at least twice withing the tier alleviate the issue a little bit? I personally would like to see them try to give every job their chance to shine. As they add more jobs, this will become more difficult of course.

[Supersnow845]

Pre ShB the meta of the game revolved around debuffs that certain classes could apply to the boss that other classes could selectively take advantage of. Piercing, slashing and blunt were the 3 main ones. And what was “meta” mostly revolved around which classes could synchronise with each other the strongest

Using an example the only class that could broadly take advantage of blunt debuff was monk whereas BRD DRG and MCH could broadly take advantage of piercing as a comparison. So a class that could debuff piercing on the boss could theoretically provide more damage because more classes could use it. This led to meta forming around stuffing your party with piercing and slashing classes leaving both the classes that relied on blunt (such as MNK) as well as classes that weren’t as effective at applying piercing or slashing (the casters) at a distinct disadvantage compared to classes that could

This was However more a problem of the devs design around assuming that these debuffs were critical to “group interplay” like the way support buffs were designed (such as healers relying on phys ranged refresh for mana or BRD being able to channel mana with mages Ballard).

There were downsides to SB’s and HW’s design but most was created from the devs own limitations that could easily be fixed. Like for example as a really simple example if a tank that struggled to apply a useful debuff like slashing or piercing (PLD was a victim of this) could provide a magic debuff then suddenly you have both a reason to use PLD and to use the casters. It was always a system that was only slightly flawed and for some reason they decided to tear it down rather than try to tweak it. The meta that people cry about from that time (which wasn’t as fixed as people act like it was nor was immutable in the design of the jobs then, the devs even acknowledged that PLD as an example did way less damage but it’s because they believed it was compensated for its internal block system even though that was useless against magic at the time) could have always been fixed but they decided to just remove everything instead

[Aravell]

I joined in late ShB and only reached endgame right before EW released, so obviously I don't know how it was back then... it was my understanding that some jobs were pretty busted all around, in all fights, while others consistently did well or were OP in all fights.

The only jobs that were consistently broken back then were SCH and NIN due to the way their kits synergised.

Were people consistently moving away from certain jobs like we do now?

The only time people moved away from a certain job that I can remember is when the Alexander tier had a lot of magic damage and PLD was seen as too weak because their blocking mechanic couldn't block magic.

Outside of that, people still played whatever they liked. Even MNK which only synergised with itself and no other job could still clear content.

Was this because the "meta" was static for long periods of time? Could switching up the ideal job composition for each fight, or at least twice withing the tier alleviate the issue a little bit? I personally would like to see them try to give every job their chance to shine.

The "meta" that people constantly complain about as supposedly dominating HW and SB was irrelevant in any party that wasn't a parse party, because that comp only synergised for maximum damage output, not because it worked better for some fights.

Although it is true that BRD and MCH tended to greatly favour parties which locked a DRG over ones that didn't, because their damage output greatly suffered without a DRG.

[Supersnow845]

It’s why people joke about SCH being the strongest class in the game

Because it’s literally never not been meta

[Valence]

The game wasn't that much imbalanced back then. Some jobs were more "meta" than others, as of today. Even jobs like MNK or casters that didn't benefit from specific party synergized debuffs were balanced accordingly to have an output that made up for it (and picking one actually made you feel a lot less bad when your party didn't have the debuff provider for your class, unless you literally picked a class like DRG, NIN or WAR that could apply their own debuff). If anything compared to today, jobs were still balanced around difficulty of play, yet didn't show the clear discrepancy found today between the top group (melees and BLM/PCT) and the second rate jobs (rphys and SMN/RDM), it was a bit more uniform.

I think back then the two biggest outliers were DRG and NIN because they provided the party with piercing and slashing respectively. NIN also provided crazy utility like Trick Attack that informed literally every raid damage buff synergy and alignment every 60s and made it a damage cornerstone to every party on top of providing the slashing debuff (preventing the party having to necessarily take a WAR for it), but also stuff like Smoke Screen and Shadewalker which negated aggro generation enough for tanks to not have to rely much if at all on their aggro combo. If anything as Supersnow said above it was more of an inability of unwillingness of the devs to recognize that such tools were beyond S tier in the meta so much that every raiding group HAD to have a NIN, and would generally want a DRG as well unless they decided to get rid of rphys jobs completely (and manasong / TPsong with it), where they could perfectly have offered variants or alternatives to other jobs or roles instead of keeping them exclusive to a single job.

It’s why people joke about SCH being the strongest class in the game

Because it’s literally never not been meta

Even in pvp as far as I can remember. Always been S tier or outright broken.

Like, people always joke about WAR, but they always forget that SCH is a thing.

[Volkien]

Somebody floated around the idea of a "paths" system for jobs. Like going for a full burst huge damage every 2-minutes RPR, versus a RPR that focussed on a life-steal aspect, less bursty, but consistent damage over the course of the fight with better sustain/utility. I argued that it would ultimately come down to whatever path is more optimal, and 90% of players would opt to do that. But upon further reflection, would it not be prudent to have a kind of "loadout" system. Where depending on the fight/prog point, you could swap between what path to play as. Maybe a fight could be more susceptible to magic or physical, so you'd pick the PLD path that focussed on those respective aspects.

We already do this somewhat with the idea of taking in a Red Mage/Summoner for prog, due to their ability to res, and then swapping to a higher DPS job for clears/reclears. Maybe you pick the life-steal RPR for prog, and the 2-minute burst RPR for clears?

[Shistar]

Thank you to all who kindly answered my questions.

Somebody floated around the idea of a "paths" system for jobs. Like going for a full burst huge damage every 2-minutes RPR, versus a RPR that focussed on a life-steal aspect, less bursty, but consistent damage over the course of the fight with better sustain/utility. I argued that it would ultimately come down to whatever path is more optimal, and 90% of players would opt to do that. But upon further reflection, would it not be prudent to have a kind of "loadout" system. Where depending on the fight/prog point, you could swap between what path to play as. Maybe a fight could be more susceptible to magic or physical, so you'd pick the PLD path that focussed on those respective aspects.

We already do this somewhat with the idea of taking in a Red Mage/Pictomancer for prog, due to their ability to res, and then swapping to a higher DPS job for clears/reclears. Maybe you pick the life-steal RPR for prog, and the 2-minute burst RPR for clears?

I like this idea! I think at some point they will run out of jobs to add, but they could add different paths instead.