Honest question: If every player/class/job is equal,who is unique? (Gameplay topic)

[Pantz]

And that's a bad thing? And it also boils down to situations and preference as well. So what if someone prefers the WAR to the PLD for one type of fight? There are plenty of other battles that they can bring they're PLD into that they'll be of use for. In a game where grinding to level 50 is as easy as breathing, I hardly find it that bad to give classes a more unique skill set that makes them more useful in one fight to another class. If the player can't take about 1 hour out of each day to grind about 5-10 levels for the job they wanna run the place in, then that's their fault, not the player's or the game's design.

Yes.That is a bad thing. Not everyone wants to play all classes. There is no reason to punish them by creating situations where the class they love to play is left out of an instance. Giving a player a choice and forcing them is two different things.

You don't punish players for not playing all classes. You reward them for playing all classes.

You don't punish new players for not having all classes maxed with great gear. You reward those that played long enough to max all classes and have great gear on all of them.

And also, not everyone has the time to play the game every single day. By the time they can grind out each class, they are already going to miss out on a lot of content.

[LineageRazor]

For example your PLD and WAR suggestion. In a fight with a powerful aoe that is hard to heal, people will want PLDs only. In a fight that needs more dps, people will want WARs only. Having skills that are too unique and powerful will cause a mindset where certain classes are left out of fights altogether.

Actually, one of the things I find nice about this game are the ways that they've added synergy between jobs. Bringing two WHMs or two SCHs is almost always inferior to bringing one of each: the SCH's shields mitigate damage, and the WHM's power heals quickly patch up after the attacks that manage to get through those shields.

WAR and PLD have similar synergy - for example, Rage of Halone's STR down effect assists WAR tanks as much as it does PLD tanks.

For DD jobs, BRDs benefit from DRG's Disembowel. SMNs and BLMs (and DDing WHMs and SCHs, for that matter) benefit from BRD's Foe Requiem. It's pretty rare in the game that there's any instance where "throw as many as possible of Job X at it" is the best solution. No 17-BLM Divine Might fight in this game (FFXI reference for one particularly infamous abuse of this type)! I'm not saying that it never, ever happens, but it's pretty rare. The classes are pretty well-balanced.

[Pantz]

Besides, almost every single post here disagrees with you. They bring up the same points I do and disagree with your opinion that the classes are too similar.

I think you're somewhat ignoring the differences that do exist between the jobs and only pointing out the similarities.

That said, the issue with making a job too distinct is there will inevitably be classes that are much better suited to certain fights than others which could lead to jobs being ostracized (very common in FFXI). The way the jobs are tuned now, for better or worse, is much more balanced in that you can essentially do any fight with any combination of jobs. Their are some that are stronger in certain fights than others but never enough, in most cases, to lead to some being excluded.

Just as I said about making classes too distinct.

There is an innate uniqueness to the classes, some of which you have stated. The trouble with "depth" is that it comes at a cost. Paladins have less HP than Warriors but their mitigation is far superior to make up for this. Warriors have nearly double the HP (depending on gear and buffs) but mitigation is lackluster and they hit harder.

I use those as examples and I could delve into Dps, but there is no need. Monks are different than Dragoons, Black Mages than Summoners. You as a player make them unique too. And while options to do so are limited you can play outside the box

What I said about classes already having a lot of difference.

Summoner and Bard abilities do not chain into each other.
Monk does not work the way you describe either, each skill you use after does not always do more damage than the previous, and works with stance changes, not combos. BLM does not either.
Only Dragoon works that way.
I do agree that jobs can be repetitive, since you usually use the same abilities when playing a certain job, and that does not change per fight, but each job does play differently from one another.
Scholar and WHM do play differently as well.

Same thing.

I'll start with Tanks. While they may seem similar they are much much different in practice. Warrior while having a few skills to lower incoming damage, is a reactive tank. Its all about taking the hit then healing it up after with a much larger pool of hp. Paladin on the other hand is a proactive tank, that has much higher damage reducing cool downs that are easily stacked to reduce incoming damage. This allows the tank to ease the brunt of the damage the healer has to heal. They also generate hate and go about dealing damage in different ways. Paladin has the Halone Combo, Flash, and its AOE DoT skill. Warrior has its Butcher's Block combo, Flash, Overpower, and Steel Cyclone; while not being a hate skill itself Steel Cyclone ignores the stance dmg reduction penalty and its shock damage is nice for grabbing threat. I find Paladin to be the safer option when tanking (especially on single targets,) but that with its alternate combos Warrior to be more damaging and able to hold AOE threat better (but also much harder on the healer than Paladin.)


For Healers its pretty much the same thing. They work great in tandem but are specified to a certain niche. White Mage is about reactive healing dropping large amount of hp on others after they've taken damage, while Scholars are proactive healers who try to lessen the damage with shields. While it amounts to the same HPS overall, the play style is quite different. Scholar also has the added benefit of being able to split their attention between more than one player due to the fairy.

Same thing.

Having not played all Jobs to their fullest (You only have four (SCH/PLD/SMN/MNK) of the nine jobs capped,) I really don't think you are one to say how they are different or not. A level 30 job/class plays quite a bit different than a level 50 one. Gear changes play style as well as overall abilities gained. You should perhaps cap the other jobs, and explore more how they are different in mechanics and play style before making anymore decisions there-in.

Same thing.


Sorry, but while giving classes new abilities would be fun, I don't agree on the premise of giving them too much uniqueness (with the reasons I stated before). I also don't agree that the classes are very similar right now, as does almost everyone else in this thread.

[Aegis]

Those differences already make a huge difference in playstyle. I don't know why you see more similarities than differences but I have to change my mindset and playstyle by a lot when I play each class. I see a lot more difference than similarities.

Because a proactive meat shield and a reactive meat shield are both meat shields. They both have access to an ability that puts you top of the hate list instantly. They both generate threat through a hate rotation, they both have damage reducing abilities, they both have an "oh-shi..." temporary 'invulnerability'. Evasion or debuff tanks are very different animals.

There are no support classes.
There are no gambler classes.
No pure crowd control classes.

Yes, it will mean certain classes are left out for certain content. The trick to dealing with it is a) level more than one class. b) not have one type of content provide the out-and-out BIS equipment.

[Meshico]

[QUOTE=Aegis;2461651]Because a proactive meat shield and a reactive meat shield are both meat shields. Evasion or debuff tanks are very different animals.

There are no support classes.
There are no gambler classes.
No pure crowd control classes.

This is what I think the OP meant by making things a tad different.

And I do look forward to a different type of tank, but since I know (I really don't) Samurai will be our next tank, it will be very very similar to what we already have.

I will look forward to the tank after that crosses fingers for Evasion tank

-Tari

[WellGramarye]

Having not played all Jobs to their fullest (You only have four (SCH/PLD/SMN/MNK) of the nine jobs capped,) I really don't think you are one to say how they are different or not. A level 30 job/class plays quite a bit different than a level 50 one. Gear changes play style as well as overall abilities gained. You should perhaps cap the other jobs, and explore more how they are different in mechanics and play style before making anymore decisions there-in.

[Fyce]

@OP: It depends of the amount of details and precision you want.
I can ask you what sets apart a cat from a dog and debate with you by saying that they are both fluffy animals with 4 paws and a tail, therefore they are the same.
If, for you, a ranged DPS is ultimately the same thing as a melee DPS, I can say that typing on a forum is the same thing as playing a video game on PC since you press buttons on your keyboard to do both.

[Lux_Rayna]

There are too few differences. Just as you say that I'm ignoring the differences, you seem to be ignoring the similarities. There are more similarities than differences. I'm not trying to start a fight here but that's what it looks like to me.

I'll be honest and say you lack experience. Lvl 50 jobs all play very very differently from each other. The only similarity among all the dps classes is that they do dmg. But they all do damage in very different ways, with concentration on different stats. It is all entirely different, from positioning to role in a party.

As far as crafted gear goes, the point of crafted gear is to give you options to customize. You have to look at crafted gear together with materia. Combining them gives you a lot of options in terms of customizing your stats.

[EorzeasNTM]

As some one already said, our tanks and healers are unique due to their proactive and reactive abilities.

As for our damage dealers, i think they should be the same in regards to how much damage they do over the course of a battle when played at max capacity by a player. The unique-ness comes from how this is done, weapon type, speeds of attacks, ways combos are done, spells casted, etc. For example, say every 5 minutes all DD should clock in at 5000 damage one way or another. It's the play style thats unique. For monks, they attack fast with fists for small damage. Dragoons attack slower for bigger damage. And add in all the combos and debuffs and class mechanics in between. All do the same damage, but play style is unique.

But most importantly what makes us all unique is us! ^^ let your personality shine!

...though i did love GW2's way of making a class unique with different skill sets per weapon. But this is ffxiv ne? Lol

[Destain]

Hmm... I feel like you don't play all the jobs and are making a large generalization based on a 2nd hand perception. you dont seem to have played all of or... Any of these jobs in end game.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/2233242/