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

[axemtitanium]

You have 3 classes at 50, none of which are in the same side of the Holy Trinity. If you had some first-hand experience with all 9 jobs, you'd know exactly how different they play and how different you have to think about what your current and next actions are in a changing fight situation.

TANK

WAR mindset: big hit's coming up, how do I get an Inner Beast ready? Shit, didn't get to 5 stacks in time, gotta pop a buff

vs.

PLD mindset: bit hit's coming up, I'll just press 1 button and call it a day.

(alternatively)

WAR mindset: Overpower, overpower, overpower, aoe tanking all day erryday

vs.

PLD mindset: Flash, flash, flash, shit lost hate to Flare whatdoidohelp

HEALING

WHM mindset: aoe heals, top everyone up with regen, might throw some stone and aero out but gotta watch my mana

vs.

SCH mindset: tra-la-la dps for days, mana for days, don't even need to leave cleric stance to lustrate, let the WHM worry about stomps

DAMAGE

MNK mindset: boss is about to jump, how do I keep GL3 up through the jump? idgaf if the boss turns, my combos will still hit

DRG mindset: Heavy Thrust/Impulse Drive missed because the boss turned to do fireball/landslide/fffffffffff

BLM mindset: when's the best time to pop manawall/ward so I can keep casting without moving? Nice, got a Firestarter proc, I can reposition again finally

SMN mindset: dots for days. Had to cancel a Ruin cast? I ain't even mad

BRD mindset: Wait is this game supposed to be hard?

[Bixby]

Just had a thought on another contributing factor.

The rotations in this game, for the most part, are invariant on their own. There are a few exceptions (BRD and BLM have meaningful procs that spice up their rotations, for example), but for the most part, each job's rotation is locked in. The next button you push is usually determined by some kind of timer. BRD feels very different to me just because that's not the case: I don't know for sure which button I'm pushing next until it's almost time to push it. With every melee class, I don't just know the next button, I know the order I'm pushing them in basically indefinitely, barring encounter mechanics.

For most jobs, the only way moment-to-moment skill decisions are varied is by encounter mechanics, not anything within the job itself.

[Kuroyasha]

The next button you push is usually determined by some kind of timer. BRD feels very different to me just because that's not the case: I don't know for sure which button I'm pushing next until it's almost time to push it.

Bard is full of timers. Wind+Venom Bite, keeping straight shot up, pairing barrage with a buff, keeping flaming arrow on CD, keeping other buffs on cd. That's all timers mixed with a bloodletter proc. Even with the proc, bards still know what button they're going to push well b4hand b/c they pay attention to timers/cds on top of having played it so long (at a high level) that they can "feel" when it's time to restart whatever it is they need to restart. Just with a weaved bloodletter in between. It's not that different from other classes imo.

[Bixby]

Bard is full of timers. Wind+Venom Bite, keeping straight shot up, pairing barrage with a buff, keeping flaming arrow on CD, keeping other buffs on cd. That's all timers mixed with a bloodletter proc. Even with the proc, bards still know what button they're going to push well b4hand b/c they pay attention to timers/cds on top of having played it so long (at a high level) that they can "feel" when it's time to restart whatever it is they need to restart. Just with a weaved bloodletter in between. It's not that different from other classes imo.

Fair enough. I haven't been BRDing long enough for it to feel quite that rote yet. BRD's got just two measly procs, and right now, that makes it feel refreshingly different. But assuming I eventually get there, it sort of furthers the point; there's very, very little variation in rotation. Not a huge thing on its own, but it compounds with all the other little areas of predictability and sameness.

[BreathlessTao]

An interesting topic for sure...

Something similar I've been wondering myself since day 0. Not so much one job being almost a carbon copy of the other, but rather the customisation (...lack thereof) of the individual jobs. Summoner 1 is always going to go through the same rotations as Summoner 2. WHM 1 will always try to conserve mana and be careful about Medica II just as WHM 2. MNK 1 will always going through the same combos in the same order as MNK 2. And so on. Get the picture? Some minor differences, maybe, but that can (and will) be usually chalked up to a botched rotation - lack of skill ("you're such a noob!") or a mistakenly pressed button. From what I can remember, in 1.0 CON sure could have a little custom flavour to it with the elemental adjustments at least. It was nice, imo.

As for crafters...they are useless. Save for 50+ gear (also crafter/gatherer, because dungeon loot is unquestionably better for DoW/DoM), which then is the flipside of the coin, requiring ridiculous materia overmelds for each and every piece, which in turn requires ridiculous amount of investment to get there. And some glamour gear and furniture which again require ridiculously overmelded gear to craft. Kinda meh. :/

[Prototype909]

Only jobs with true difference in terms of role while in party content are Scholar and White Mage (One cannot effectively do what the other one does, Scholar will never be as good as AoE healing/Party Health management as White Mage. White Mage will never be as good as single target health management as Scholar.). Everything else fulfills the same role + one or two things that happen differently which lead to the same result. Even Black Mage which is supposed to be "The AoE job" has arguably some of the best if not, the best single target DPS in the game since the buffs went through and before that was the worst in that category.

The only other time we even had a situation close to the current difference between Scholar and White Mage was 2.0 release Warrior vs. Paladin where Warrior was basically excluded from content because SE's vision for it failed to pass their own content design in the eyes of many players (Also you needed Silences for ADS which Paladin had).

Ultimately I think a lot of the 'sameness' debate could be alleviated if SE had just added support classes from the get go, the holy trinity feels passable now because there are so few jobs but I think that as more jobs are added we may see more discontented posts such as this. I hope that once the amount of jobs added expands SE realizes that the addition of support roles could do a lot to spice things up.

[Exstal]

ｔｌ；ｄｒ　OP can't tell the difference between classes so they need to be changed

[Aegis]

Tanks with low threat, but high survivability - The game is presently centered around aggro being generated at a very specific, pre-designed level where holding it should never really be in question. If you're suggesting that the tank be forced to do something akin to FF XI's Paladin aggro rotations which were ability centric rather than weapon skill centric then you're playing a very cautious game of cooperation with your DPS where you're going to be entering periods of lull where you may not be generating any aggro at all relative to your DPS in certain periods of time (I also have to question how effective your cooldowns/abilities would really be if they're being used to gain aggro rather than survive hits). Though you could mitigate this by actually making your weapon skills be what generates your defensive cooldowns rather than abilities. I dunno I'm skeptical about this.

What I had in mind was more a tank with very little in the way of enmity generatign skills but with, say, a passive -60% damage taken trait (or abilities to that effect). The challenge isn't reducing damage, it's staying ahead of the DPS. This would involve the DPS helping by deliberately reducing their outgoing DPS. This would be hugely problematic in burn phases, which is part of the challenge. This could be made easier by the introduction of:

DPS that can transfer hate - Due to the way aggro skills work (Or Paladin's entire rotation basically which consists of only 3 abilities) this class is basically wholly unnecessary, aggro is not a problem in 99% of encounters because it's not particularly designed to be one. In FF XI you could actually challenge your tank's "aggro rotation" by doing Beastly DPS and seeing if they could hold on, not really the case in this game because holding aggro isn't designed to be a "test". The only way this job works if you create other specialized roles for it to work with, which is sort've against the design philosophy of the game which is very much "Insert round shape into round hole, insert square shape into square hole, etc."

I Think we're both thinking the same thing, but coming at it from the opposite sides. I believe the design philosophy needs to change so we can have these. You (seem to) believe that these things can't be introduced because the design philosophy will not change.

Melee DPS with cast times that root them in place - Given the fact that so many AoEs in this game originate or exclusively target around the boss/enemies and people already die in swarms while Dragoon Jumping this could be potentially disastrous, but it also could be fine since we already sort've have the precedent in Dragoon (Though the combination of lots dodging PLUS cast times might destroy their DPS in some encounters whereas something like Turn 8 might make them godly)

This doesn't sound like a problem to me. I want there to be instances where classes aren't wanted and instances where they are in high demand. I want this because this is what makes your job feel different.

Pet job where the player does very little damage and their pet will die to a couple of hits, but does massive damage - Goes against SE's philosophy of "It's hard so we won't do it". Other than that it's fine

Same thing. I want them to change their philosophy.

Pure Support Class - No complaints

Pure Debuff Class - No complaints but basically impossible to implement for the reason you brought up.

Again, I want them to change it back to how it used to be! No resistance to debuffs, or at least much less of it and only on special mobs.

Evasion Tanks - Break the game when they're strong (ie can dodge a lot), are worthless when they're weak (when they don't dodge). The best mitigation in the game is not taking damage which is what dodging is.

Agreed, but I have faith in their balancing skills, kinda.

Debuff Tanks - We sort've already have this? Kinda.

I mean tanks that mitigate damage by blinds, slows, paralyzes, stops. Think Time Mage tank.

Drain Tanks - They already sort've tried this with 2.0 Warrior and failed really bad before reworking it to resemble Paladin. Not sure how round 2 would go or differentiate itself from current Warrior. Drain tanks are strong in prolonged battles because they get their HP back over time and can recover from small sustained damage on their own. The problem is in this game 100% of the time when you die it's because you didn't properly mitigate the one big hit, Landslide, Death Sentence, Ravensbeak are all examples of this. The Drain tank has to not only recover after the big hit, they need to find a way to actually survive through it to begin with.

I think the ability to drain over your own HP (Think XI DRK's Drain II) for a limited time might do this.

DPS that does more damage the more enmity they have - See my comments on Tanks with low threat, but high survivability and DPS that can transfer hate.

Jobs like these worked in older MMOs like FF XI because the game wasn't designed around the "Square shape into Square hole" mentality. I don't see how most of them could work in the game's current approach without some global mechanic changes which is unlikely.

Agreed. The plus side is, I've seen at least three fundamental changes of the global mechanisms in this game (probably up to about 10 depending how picky you are about the definition). So I do still hold out some hope.


Like I mentioned, I think we both have more or less the same viewpoint on these classes (which I was just spitballing, not putting any real thought into). They're interesting in theory, but would require changes to fundamental game rules.

The difference is I want those changes.

ｔｌ；ｄｒ　OP can't tell the difference between classes so they need to be changed

To be fair, if someone playing the game can't tell the difference, perhaps they need to be made more different?

[Exstal]

To be fair, if someone playing the game can't tell the difference, perhaps they need to be made more different?

It only means they are unable to see what others can see.　That's not a problem of the classes, it's a problem with the observer (OP).

For relevance;

[Brine_Gildchaff]

This doesn't sound like a problem to me. I want there to be instances where classes aren't wanted and instances where they are in high demand. I want this because this is what makes your job feel different.

No, this is what makes you feel like your job is useless and makes you feel like "that dumbass n00b who doesn't even know how to play this game rite". We have already seen this on at least two separate occasions in the history just of 2.xx. We know from empirical evidence that the XIV fanbase WILL act this way and WILL ostracize gamers who want to play an "unpopular" class. If this is what you want then you are in the wrong game.